31DC2013: Bring It On Edition

I've seen a few people joining this 31 Day Challenge starting Sept 1 (tomorrow, eep!) and I decided to join in. I'm going to really try to stay on track but it's hard to do daily stuff! I've never done this 31 day challenge so I fully expect mine to be the most basic out of everyone's!

Anyone else joining? You can find more details at Chalkboard Nails! Let me know if you're joining, I definitely want to make sure to follow everyone!

Now I need to go to the store and find red nail polish since I didn't bring any on my road trip. I'll use any excuse to buy more nail polish!! =P

Naughty

What an awesome title. Caught you're attention didn't it?

I'm currently out of town so I'm using some photos I took last week to keep ya'll busy so you don't miss me while I'm away!

Revlon Naughty has been in my stash for sometime, although why it didn't make it to my fingertips until now is a complete mystery. It's a fantastic shade of dark smokey purpley grey (yes I just made Purpley a work) with a bright purple flash that is killer! Very businesslike with a mischievous edge!

The purple flash wasn't as apparent as I wished it had been, like in the bottle. You could see it at some angles, but it wasn't very noticeable unfortunately.

In the dark or from afar, it looked like a regular smokey purple grey.

Three coats with base and top coat (Gelous & Seche Vite, of course!).

Overall it's a nice polish, business appropriate without being boring. That lovely purple flash eluded me but the formula was easy to work with so I'm happy with it.

Purple Flowers

Ever since I laid eyes on High Marks Purple, I wanted to do a pseudo-wall paper design with it and Lemondrops. Even though they're from different collections, they looked made for each other.

Base & Top Coat (Gelous, Seche Vite)
Barielle Lemondrops
Wet N Wild Field of Greens
Barielle High Marks Purple

I like the creme, simple, retro flowers against the glitter background and I think the yellow base color and flower center ties it all together nicely.

Battle of the White Polish

I use a lot of white nail polish for nail art. I love a nice, crisp background but whites can be finicky. Some can be goopy and thick, or thin and never become opaque, some formulas are harder to work with than others. I was using Sally Hansen White On from the Xtreme Wear collection and actually used up an entire bottle (eep!) but I'd heard such good things about other brands. I went to the store one day and randomly grabbed every white polish there to compare them - for ya'll as well as myself.

All polishes are brand new and all were swatched at the same time under the same conditions. Everything was equal for all of them! Each polish was used for a total of three coats, no base or top coat.

In alphabetical order:

Essie Blanc

Maybelline Porcelain Party

Milani White On The Spot

NYC French White Tip

OPI Alpine Snow

Sally Hansen Hard To Get

Sally Hansen White On

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Wet N Wild French White Creme

Which do you think would do best? Do you swear by any of these whites? Before trying them, I think Sally Hansen White On (of course, I used it forever), OPI Alpine Snow, and Essie Blanc will be the winners, just because I am most familiar with those brands. Sinful Colors Snow Me White is supposed to be great, which I think is what spurred this post.

Here are the first four. I included each step plus the final clean up picture. Chart at the end of the post to summarize!

Next four...

Best 3 so far plus the straggler!

The final pictures for comparing!

Name	Price/oz*	Formula	Rating
Essie Blanc	$17.39/oz	Thick	8/10
Maybelline Porcelain Party	$17.34/oz	Thin, Runny	5/10
Milani White On The Spot	$9.97/oz	Medium, Runny	7/10
NYC	$2.20/oz	Thin, Runny	5/10
OPI Alpine Snow	$18.00/oz	Moderate, Easy to manage	10/10
Sally Hansen Hard To Get	$6.64/oz	Thin, Runny	5/10
Sally Hansen White On	$7.48/oz	Moderate	8/10
Sinful Colors Snow Me White	$3.98/oz	Moderate, easy to manage	9/10
Wet N Wild French White Creme	$2.30/oz	Moderate	6/10

* = USD per ounce, Prices May Vary

Of note, the only cruelty free white is Wet N Wild French White Creme (please let me know if I've got my information wrong!).

My top picks? OPI Alpine Snow, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, then Essie Blanc. I think you could get a crisp opaque white with two careful coats of OPI or Sinful Colors. After those 2, they're all 3+ coaters. Looking at the pictures, I think the lighting evened them out a bit. Also, I think base and top coat would help. I really feel a good top coat can even out any streakiness, but I wanted to compare each color on their own.

Now that I have waaaay more white than I'll ever need, it's nice to know which to use for nail art and base colors and which to use to lighten other colors!

Hope this was helpful. I'm definitely going to refer back to this post when I need to buy white polish, which should be in about 1,000 years. 

Lemondrops

Barielle Lemon Drops is a great yellow included in the Summer Brights collection available here. Great yellow, leans slightly orange. Bright, but not neon.

I will say, I enjoyed the formula on this one. It needed a good shake, and three thin coats were magical given that yellows tend to have crazy hard to work with formulas. I tried to be really careful, but it still managed to slide a bit. I'm not upset, as it's hard to find a good yellow.

Just looking at this makes me want to play Candy Crush! ^-^