Then, finally, the scores came in the mail. Not only did I pass, but to my complete disbelief, I actually scored very well on both portions.

What does all this have to do with nail polish? Well, sometimes life throws some pretty perplexing stuff my way and when it does I take the opportunity to find a color that expresses how I feel.

The name says it all. OPI It’s Sheer Luck is a ultra light pink toned off-white with a frost finish. This is 3 coats. This color was originally from the Las Vegas Collection (Spring/Summer 2003) but I believe it became part of the main Soft Shades Collection all of which are available on an on going basis.

Like seasonal collections in the past, Romantique consists of two sets, one cool, the other warm. Most of these colors apply perfectly in one coat. One Coat. People have been saying that for a while but I dismissed it thinking that one coat meant one massive-absurdly-thick coat but no, really, opaque bottle color coverage in one normal coat. The theme in this collection is a frosty metallic finish. When I first saw the promotional images I thought these were going to be chrome, they aren’t. Instead the finish is shimmery, nearly foil like. These colors, with their amazing pigmentation and viscosity, are going to be perfect for use with the Konad. All these swatches are 1 coat of color over 1 coat of base coat.

A note on the color accuracy of these images: These colors, due to the finish, are really difficult to capture accurately with my lighting set up. Most of the colors are deeper in real life. Additionally, the finish is not uniformly reflective like it appears to be in some of these photos. These colors have  a lot of frosty sparkle. I really recommend looking at Scrangie’s swatches which were taken in sunlight, in my opinion her images are a better depiction of these colors.

China Glaze Awaken is described as a platinum silver, I think it’s more like a silvery charcoal. This color is grunge-y. To me it has a steampunk feel to it. This swatch is one coat of color, no top coat.

China Glaze Cherish is a metallic-y moss green. I couldn’t capture the color correctly, it’s much more green toned in real life. This swatch is one coat, no top coat.

Adore is a metallic-y turquoise. This one is a standout for me. I’m going to go nuts using this color with Konad over black. 1 coat color, 1 coat base.

Devotion is a metallic-y lavender. This is my second favorite from this set. It may just be me but I feel like this shade of lavender was made to be worn with this finish. 1 coat of color, 1 coat of base.

Harmony is metallic-y purple. My third favorite, I feel like this color flattered my skin tone the most – I consider myself a warm tone even though I’ve never really understood all that jazz about cool tones and warm tones. 1 coat of color, 1 coat of base.

Joy is a metallic-y purple toned mauve. This is 1 coat of color, 1 coat of base.

I’ll report back with my Konading experiments at a future date.

Behold:

There is no need to adjust your monitor. This is actually a frosty with NO visible brush strokes. I know, it’s shocking. I didn’t think I would ever find one in my life time and yet here it is in all its non-brush stroke-y glory. The one downside, at least for me, is that this very flattering light muted minty green is less metallic than other frosties. Still though, this color is very unique, very pretty. This mani 1 coat base coat,  3 coats color, 1 coat Seche.

(Adorée is available from Esther’s Nail Center in the U.S. and Pro Nail Store in Europe, specifically Sweden.)

Nubar is quickly becoming my go-to brand for duo/multi-chrome polishes. Nubar Peacock Feathers is a particularly popular multi-chrome among polish addicts, with good reason. It’s a pretty impressive shade. A lot of duo-chromes are duds, very flashy in the bottle but they lack the same intensity and variation of color on the nail. Peacock Feathers is the exact opposite of a dud. I actually got flashes of frosty purple, blue, and green, constantly. It’s purple in most lighting. When it’s not purple, it’s green – the blue comes out mostly in-doors but it is there. Sometimes between the blue and purple flash I got a very pretty greenish, gray ashy shade. My picture doesn’t do this color justice but you can see some of the variation of color reflected in the bottle. The only downside is that I’m currently going through an evil weird “ugh purple” phase that just came out of no where. Purples are the roots of my addiction. I *love* purple but lately I just can’t stand the sight of the color. I hope I get back to my purple loving self soon because it seriously comprises 35% of my collection. As an aside, my bottle of Seche is reaching the dead zone, the stage at which even an ocean thinner cannot revive it – that’s why the gap area looks so weird.

(And since I know girls are going to ask… Nubar is available from www.bynubar.com.)

I, of course, wore OPI Birthday Babe for the big day – rather the really uneventful day. The boyfriend and I had tickets to the worst production of Hamlet ever. This Hamlet was even more emo than Shakespeare intended the character to be. The actor wore his hair in the quintessential emo style (parted, slightly over the eyes) and skinny pants. His rendering of Hamlet involved a lot of screaming.  It was basically a lame attempted Baz Luhrmann rip-off. We had to leave at the intermission. There definitely was something rotten in the State of Denmark.

Enough about me, let me tell you about the polish. OPI Birthday Babe, a light silver with a frosty finish from the 25th Happy Anniversary Collection, was sadly disappointing. It’s not sheer but it’s pretty thin so I needed 3 thick-ish coats to get rid of VPL. No doubt, it’s a gorgeous color but it was fairly hard to apply. As expected of a frosty finish, the brush strokes were abundant. Even worse, it showed all the imperfections on my nail bed. Next year, I’ll probably have to wear it over Barielle Nail Camouflage to resolve the imperfect magnification issue. Yes, despite the fact that it didn’t ‘wow’ me, I’m going to continue wearing it on my birthday every year until my bottle runs dry. I’m stubborn about my polish names, can you tell?

I only wore this color for 2 or so days. The day after my birthday, I had an extremely important job interview. Consequently, I trimmed my nails to the nubs, removed the flashy color, and dawned the ultra chic professional OPI Tickle My France-y. Little did I know, my interviewers had a fine appreciation for cool nail polish and long nails. The ultra conservativeness was completely unnecessary. I was under the impression that half my collection would be on the bench next year after I start my legal career, so it makes me absolutely ecstatic to know that successful female prosecutors can have fabulous nails if they so desire.

With that said, I’m pretty smitten with the new Lippmann Collection Holiday releases. What I particular like about this collection is that there is one color that is absolutely perfect for every major category in nail polish preference. There is a color for dainty lovers, the shimmer reds/pinks lovers, the vampy lovers, and the bling lovers. (Guess where I belong?)

Lippmann Collection Icing on the Cake is the light pink version of Lippmann Collection Rhapsody in White. Unfortunately, it has the same brush stroke issues but it is very pretty and delicate. I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing can be done about the brush stroke issues inherent to frosties. *Sigh*. This swatch is 3 coats.

Lippmann Collection Holiday is a red jelly with red and fuchsia microglitter. The shimmeriness is much more obvious in person than in my image above. It adds depth and glow to the bright base red. Holida is very color-appropriate moniker. Of the four releases in this collection, Holiday is definitely the most traditional Holiday-type color. I foresee this one being pretty popular during the Winter. My swatch is 4 coats because I’m not a fan of VPL. However, the application is *perfect* so if you don’t hate VPL, this color is definitely wearable at 2 coats.

Lippmann Collection Maneater. I’m the idiot that will buy a color just because I like the name. So I really LOVE it when an awesome color meets a badass name. A deep dark vampy brown called Maneater? Ummm…. I’m all over that one. Maneater has a jelly quality too it but it’s such a rich brown that it’s almost black on the nail – still gorgeous though. This swatch is 3 coats.

Lippmann Collection Superstar is hands down my FAVORITE from this collection. Copper Glitter in jelly brown base, it’s almost like Deborah Lippmann peeked into my dreams. Superstar has fairly chunky glitter in it but I got pretty good smoothness with 2 coats of Seche Vite. This swatch is two coats.

Scrangie has swatches of this collection on her site too. Lippmann Collection is available online or at some Bath & Body Work locations.

Now on to the commentary:

Scrangie has posted about issues with China Glaze’s application lately. I can honestly say that I didn’t have the same application problems with Rodeo Diva and Operation Colour. I did however encounter some application issues in this collection. Since the application issues aren’t occurring consistently, I don’t think it’s China Glaze’s formula that is the culprit. I can only imagine that there is some other explanation, although I’m not sure what that explanation would be.

Unfortunately, none of the new dark blues are exact dupes to other dark blues that might already be in your collection. The girls on the nail board believe that Calypso Blue might be dupish to NARS Midnight Express. I don’t own that one, but from the images I’ve seen, it looks much much darker than Calypso Blue. Nars Midnight Express seems closer to something like Color Club Naughtycal Navy.

As you can see above, China Glaze Calypso Blue is dark but visibly and obviously blue, as opposed to being ‘almost black’. This shade had great application, no issues. This one is my absolute favorite color from this collection, hands down.

China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway is my second favorite color from this collection. Oh man, it’s just flat-out gorgeous. It has the same jelly-like quality of OPI Dating a Royal. Actually, I would say it’s the darker cousin of OPI Dating a Royal. I also didn’t have any application issues with this one.

This is a pretty true to life representation of China Glaze Bahamian Escape. However, it’s not as close to Color Club Blue Light as it looks in this image. They are similar but Bahamian Escape has a greener tinge to it. One of the girls on the Nail Board asked me whether Bahamian Escape is dupish to China Glaze For Audrey – not at all similar. Which can be either good or bad news depending on who you ask.

China Glaze Bahamian Escape was impossible to capture accurately. I’ve decided to start photoshopping colors that my camera fails to capture accurately. This is the closest to true life color that I could get it but it’s not grayed out in real life. As I’m sure you can tell, the image above is very different from bottle picture. That’s because the color dries several shades darker on the nail than the actual bottle color. The formula was chalky and a little thick. I got nearly full coverage with one coat. One coat coverage can be a double edged sword because most of the time it can also cause bubbling. I did get a few bubbles so I used 3 drops of thinner. The application was perfect after thinning.

China Glaze Caribbean Blue is a sky blue with flaky sugar glitter. Anti-glitter girls, don’t be alarmed. The glitter gives more of a subtle shimmer than full on bling. It’s definitely not ‘too much’.

China Glaze Blue Paradise is a frosty dark blue. This one was really thick and bubbly but, again, 3 drops of thinner made it perfect. My bottle may very well be a fluke, it’s possible that it might not be representative of all the bottles of this color. Let me know if you have similar application issues with Blue Paradise, but I don’t think anyone will.

China Glaze Blue Island Iced Tea is probably my third favorite from this collection. I’m really into these foil-y finish colors like Zoya Rea and Zoya Trixie. This foil-y light blue was fairly sheer. This swatch was 3 coats. This one has major bling potential as you can see below.

This swatch is Blue Island Iced Tea in full on sunlight – very pretty, very blingy.

We didn’t expect this Collection to be out until October but it’s actually available as of today on head2toebeauty.com.