If you follow my blog, you know how important today is to me. So, in good polish addict form, I had to choose a color that reflected my feelings about this historic day. Darren Garnick recent asked me if I was doing anything special with my nails for the inauguration. My initial reaction was, hell yes. I wanted to do something ridiculously flashy, like yellow, to represent my happiness and my hope for a brighter future. Instead, I decided to go something flashy, yet subtle. I figured OPI Designer Series Coronation (the name is fitting in a silly way) would be the perfect color.

Coronation was recently released with the new Designer Series colors (all of which you can see on Scrangie’s blog). I was pretty surprised to find that Coronation applies like a glitter top coat. Essentially, this polish is extremely dense multi-sized holographic glitter suspended in clear polish. With just one coat you get an effect similar to other dense glitter top coats. I put it over Zoya Trixie, it looked nothing short of amazing.

The holographic effect isn’t the uniform oil slick effect found in previous Designer Series colors. Instead, it’s like an amalgamation of multi-sized glitter each flashing brilliantly and individually. The shape of the glitter is irregular, each one like flecks or erratically cut chucks. I see as many as 3 different sized pieces of glitter. When applied with multiple coats (3 is what I did for the picture above) the very small pieces of glitter come together to build opacity. The image to the left was taken with flash and shows Coronation’s holographic glimmer. In the sunlight you get a slightly more uniform holographic reflection but it’s not high intensity, meaning the holo isn’t as colorized or rainbow-y as other holographic polishes.

Thanks to everyone for the kind birthday wishes.

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.

Misa contacted me after I posted a negative review of Misa Indescribable. They said that they would do their best to rework the formula to create better, less streaky application. I was really impressed that they reached out to me as a dissatisfied customer. Indescribable was the first Misa polish I tried, since then I’ve had much better results with their polish but it’s still pretty great that they were concerned. Kudos to Misa for the excellent customer service.

Sorry guys this post isn’t for the new collection. I know, how horrible of a tease am I? I’ll have swatches of Poisoned Passion up this weekend, until then, get your fix by checking out Scrangie’s and Masa’s swatches and comparisons.

Sugar Sugar is Misa’s previous Spring/Summer collection. It is composed of 3 base colors and 3 ‘toppings’. It’s my personal opinion that these polishes were meant to be worn mixed and matched, layered over each other. The name Sugar Sugar is very fitting, all the colors in this collection look powdery and sheer on the nail. But you’ll find, like I did, that this seemingly princess-y collection has a darker, cooler side. All these polishes applied exceptionally well, no application issues at all.

First, the base colors:

Misa Sugar Daddy is my favorite from this collection. Gorgeous. I’ve been loving whites lately and this one has very fine silvery microshimmer that sets it apart from the other whites in my stash. It’s opaque but still somewhat translucent at 3 coats. I feel that Misa Confection Section was meant to be the topping for Sugar Daddy.

Misa Lolli Jolly is a soft sheer pink with microshimmer. Lolli Jolly is dupish to OPI Princesses Rule and Sinful Glass Pink. It’s still very sheer even at 3 coats. Misa Candy Girl compliments Lolli Jolly.

Misa Honeybunch is the silvery white version of Lolli Jolly. This swatch is also 3 coats. In the image Honeybunch seems to fade from very opaque on my index finger to very sheer on my pinkie finger. That is the result of shading. Interestingly, Honeybunch looks more sheer in the shade and more opaque in full on sunlight. Finally, I think the teal in Misa Sweet Pleasure compliments the silver in Honeybunch.

Here are the three base colors side-by-side. They may look similar but each one has it’s own charm. I actually did try to capture images of all these polishes layered over each other. I just couldn’t get the subtle shimmer to show up accurately with my camera. Suffice it to say that the combinations are really pretty, especially using Candy Girl and Sweet Pleasures together over Lolli Jolly as a base.

Now for the ‘toppings’:

Misa Confection Section is a chunky multi-toned glitter polish. You can use this one over any polish in this collection (well really over any polish, period) but I think it’s especially suited to be layered over Sugar Daddy.

Misa Candy Girl is a pink jelly base with suspended blurple microshimmer. Ultra sheer, it’s gorgeous layered over Lolli Jolly. It’s my second favorite from this collection, you’ll see why below.

Misa Sweet Pleasure is teal toned microshimmer suspended in nude jelly polish. This is 3 coats in the sunlight. Even in the full on midday Sun this polish is very subtle and tame. It’s beautiful, I don’t say that very often about sheers.

Now for the really exciting stuff – the ‘toppings’ over black:

Sugar Sugar is rocking the major undercover bling.

Candy Girl is blue to purple duochrome! DUOCHROME! *dies* Confection Section becomes green toned over black, very ‘the truth is out there-ish’ so I think this will be my mani for the X-Files opening this weekend. Sweet Pleasures over black looks a bit like Zoya Kotori but more blinged out.

Special thanks to Misa.

Like I said before, I usually don’t buy Chanel nail polish *but* Chanel Kaleidoscope was so beautiful and unique, I just had to have it. The minute I saw a swatch of it taken by MUA’s Mrs_Brightside, I called Nordstrom and put a bottle on hold. That was incredibly out of character for me but it was totally and completely worth it. Even though I can honestly say that I love Kaleidoscope, I want to show you guys some possible alternatives to it. With the economy the way that it is right now, a luxury item like a 20 dollar bottle of nail polish, is probably not the most prudent way to spend money. Of course, some colors are must-have, recession or not, but if you can settle from something less extravagant, why not do so? (I’m a hypocrite, I know.)

First, here she is (are bottles of nail polish female? hmm) in all her glory:

*Heavy Sigh* In the sunlight, Kaleidoscope shimmers with ultra bling. Indoors and in the shade, it’s more of a subtle mirrored greenish platinum color. It’s beautiful but I have no idea why it’s called Kaleidoscope, neither does Scrangie. If the other shade is Gold Fiction, why not call this one Platinum Drama.

Essie Steel-ing the Scene is the closest thing to Kaleidoscope in my stash. These are actually fairly close color siblings. The main difference is that Kaleidoscope has the greenish tone and a lot more shimmer. However, if you really want to follow this trend but don’t want to blow the cash, Essie Steel-ing the Scene is a great alternative.

Here is Kaleidoscope and Steel-ing the Scene side by side. Despite several attempts, I couldn’t get the image to show the differences between these colors. I blame the inferior camera. While these colors are very close they really don’t look as similar in real life as they look in the image. Steel-ing the Scene has a smoother finish, less bling, less shimmer and is less mirrored.

Adorée Rockport Gray doesn’t have a mirrored finish. It’s a pseudo-metallic light silverish gray with some mossy shimmer throughout. Rockport Gray is not a dupe but it’s a pretty good alternative, especially for people who don’t want to go full out metallic. This is my NOTD right now, it’s subtle enough that I was able to get away with it at work. The application and wear is excellent.

I first lemminged Milani Key Lime Shine when I saw it on FiveZero. The polish doesn’t show the brush strokes, the lines on the surface are actually my nail ridges. If I did this as an actual mani, which I will soon, I would use Camo as a base to eliminate that issue. Key Lime Shine is a highly mirrored metallic light lime green. This is the only one of the colors exhibited here that is available at drug stores, although it is rumored to be hard-to-find.