OPI Servin' Up Sparkle Giveaway!

I love this color so much that I'm going to give one of you a bottle of your own!  All you have to do is be a follower through Google Friend Connect and fill out the form below.  Open internationally, giveaway ends 10 August at midnight GMT (or 6 p.m. on 9 August CST).


WHOA.  I wrote "October" at first, and I did NOT mean October. Please ignore that in the Google Form.  This giveaway ends 10 AUGUST.

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

OPI Servin' Up Sparkle

From the Glam Slam! England collection, today I tried Servin' Up Sparkle.  Now it's been said that this is a lot like China Glaze Shooting Stars or one of the other colors from the Glitters & Cremes (also known as the Specialty) collection and they are right but for now, let's just see this beautiful girl on her own.


I decided to try just one coat over yesterday's manicure.  Afterwards, I added a top of OPI Top Coat.

I absolutely love how you have a bright mix of tiny rainbow glitter and the slightly larger hexagonal reflective glitter pieces.  The more coats you use, the better chance you have at grabbing more hexagonal glitter.  This does have a clear base so you can layer it over anything (and trust me, I have).

Even in the shade, this color likes to reflect everything!  It's definitely a fun way to get another day out of a manicure or add something special on top of a normally drab color (not that this was a drab color to begin with!).

Indoors with the flash and just look how lovely this is.  Definitely an instant favorite of mine.  In fact, I like it so much that one of you is going to win my spare bottle!  Yes, that's right!  Details will be in my next posting - so stay tuned!

OPI is available at Professional Salons, including Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, JCPenney, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, and Ulta, for $8.50 ($10.95 CAN) suggested retail for each Nail Lacquer. Please visit their website for details [official website].  

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Jesse's Girl Fruit Punch

I love Fruit Punch so it was pretty awesome to see an eye dust from Jesse's Girl named as such.  This color reminds me exactly of having a red mouth after drinking too much of it as a kid.  It's a soft red, not too pink with some light pink shimmer.

I really love how opaque this is in the shade.  I've recently started wearing more reds on my eyes and it always gets compliments - try it sometime!

Jesse's Girl sells for $4.99 a piece online or at Rite Aid stores. You can visit Jesse's Girl on their website, Like them on Facebook and Follow them on Twitter.

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me using store credit for external work I provided.  For more information, please read this post.

OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y?

My final color in the Texas/Deep In The Heart of Color Collection - OPI's Summer 2011 series is Do You Think I'm Tex-y?  I was talking to a former nail tech the other day who said that she absolutely loves OPI's bottle names.  I do think that consistently, they are the most creative and I do like the running theme of Suzi having a color named in there.  This last sorbet/jelly polish is supposed to be more of a berry from their press release but again doesn't look much like it's promo picture.


I used a base of OPI Natural Nail, 3 coats of polish and a top of OPI Top Coat.

I really do hesitate on if this is a red or a purple.  I feel like it leans more red but then I can see the whole berry purple thing in there too?  This color seems more opaque than some of the others but it's still not like a creme.

In the shade it still holds it own and no VNL but I'm still not convinced.  The whole jelly/sorbet thing is so weird to me and as much as I thought I liked them - I don't.  I prefer opaque colors as I've been reading most of y'all do too.

Even indoors with the flash, this color just seems to glow and not get lost in the shuffle.  I definitely think it's going to have to be played with some more, and again you can always add some crackle when the sheerness gets to you.  I am glad to be done with this collection though.  As excited as I was to see my home state covered in nail polish, I didn't enjoy all the colors as much as I hoped.  I'd still buy for novelty sake but I don't know how often these colors will be reused in my stash.

OPI is available at Professional Salons, including Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, JCPenney, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, and Ulta, for $8.50 ($10.95 CAN) suggested retail for each Nail Lacquer. Please visit their website for details [official website].  

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Cosmoprof: 1 August 2011

Last night I had dinner with Katie of the Nail Files/Painted Nail at Red Square and she was really a fun and amazing person to be around.  If you haven't watched her show yet, I really suggest you check it out.  Tuesday night is the season finale, so be sure to watch.  I haven't done my breakdown of her last 2 episodes but when I get back to Texas, it will be done.  I was blown away when she looked at me and said "I read your blog."  Yes.  Mind.  Blown.  *WAVES TO KATIE*

This morning was my breakfast with Deborah Lippmann.  However, because of some scheduling problems (pretty much all my end), we ended up having a very impromptu meeting with her outside of the casino playing area.  It was surreal to hear her talking about how she gets inspired for nail polishes, the sometimes crazed and very unique way she has come across colors, and one of the things that I loved to hear is that she hand mixes polishes herself.  We heard about how Lady Gaga was originally prepared for the Grammys with long raven twisted claw nails but after the concept of the vessel was birthed, Deborah realized that she needed a softer nail. She never intended Yellow Brick Road to be introduced this way and mentioned how bloggers were one of the first ones to snatch up the pictures and information on this yellow jelly that appeared.  And speaking of that jelly - Deborah has designed her polishes to be 2 coats.  If you want it to be more opaque or that glitter to be more dense, by all means - add more polish.  But she had always envisioned a soft yellow jelly to mesh with all skin tones.  The other really interesting thing was why she chose song titles for her polish line.  Deborah realized that even best friends will always see color differently, so she wanted a way for people to be able to look at a polish and agree with what the name they were seeing.  

I also had a total fan-girl moment in meeting some of the bloggers today, like the above Christine from Temptalia.  I also got a picture with JulieG from YouTube, but that was done with someone else's camera.  I've followed Temptalia's blog for a long time now, and frequently refer to it before making a beauty purchase.  I just recently subscribed to JulieG's channel after trying Jesse's Girl Cosmetics and really enjoy her other makeup vlogs as well.


My next stop today was to see ORLY's booth.  I'm still very new to ORLY but I wanted to snag a few pictures for you.  Their Halloween and Holiday displays are both repromotes of older polishes.

They do have a new winter collection that includes this gem.

And coming out in 2012 is another Fx collection which includes this beauty

I wish I could have done some swatches because the flakies in this stuff looks amazing.

Before lunch, I got to sit down with Zoya from Zoya Nail Polish and listen to her inspiring story about how the polish line was created.  Did you know that her first product was called Zoom Dry (Z for her, M for her husband and the two O's were for their sons)?  It was the first quick dry product ever produced in the States.  Afterwards, the polishes came and Zoya wanted to name them after strong famous women in history.  Her reds (the classics) were named for women of passion or had passionate stories.  Carmen, one of those shades, is still a best seller for Zoya Nail Polish today.  I got to see some super amazing holiday items that I'm not allowed to talk about (Polish Pixie's Promise) but I can say that for the salons, Zoya is coming out with 3 new color collections based of the vibe of your salon or spa.  They are:

Classic

Modern

Bold

These will be out very soon, so if you're a salon or spa that carries Zoya or wants to carry Zoya, check this out.


Next I went to CND, whom I talked about yesterday, and got a Shellac manicure from Kristina Saindon from Denver, Colorado.  I have talked about Shellac before, but I didn't know all that really went into it.  After some simple prep work, the base coat was applied which took 10 seconds to cure, then I went with 1 coat of Rock Royalty (cure for 2 minutes), followed by a coat of Iced Coral (cure for 2 minutes) and then we topped the whole thing with Zillionaire, one of the new Shellac colors that has the flakie in it which will be out in September.  (And another 2 minutes with that).  Finally, the top coat was added which took 2 minutes to cure, and my nails were done.  I can't stop looking at them and how shiny they are!  We dubbed this concoction "Bridezillionare" which I think is awesome.  It is SO ridiculously hard to photograph in my hotel bathroom, so you'll have to wait for better pictures when I get home.  It's a multichromal purple, green and blue shift with the red and blue flakies on top.  I also got to meet Jan Arnold which was a surprise for me.

I also got to have dinner with founder and owner of Jesse's Girl Cosmetics, Jesse Lawrence.  I was really impressed by his down to earth demeanor and personality.  If you haven't entered their contest yet, what are you waiting for?  You only have until August 10th for your chance to win the entire JulieG nail polish collection before anyone else sees it!


Aaaand Maria from CultNails had a little surprise for me - she gave me all 4 colors from the upcoming Hypnotic colors to review here on PolishGalore.  I am trying (struggling) to keep this Shellac on long enough to do a good wear test but geez, I want to play with these polishes so badly.  Unfortunately, the pre-sale has ended on this collection, but it will be out soon.


Time to introduce you to 2 new things I found today at Cosmoprof.

The first is No-Miss polish.  This is an all natural polish that can be found at Whole Foods.  It's a family run company with over 170 colors.  When they say they have a color for everyone, they mean it!  They even have a Glow-In-The-Dark that actually works.  We held it up in the air for about 15 seconds at MOST and then cupped our hands around it and it was glowing.  Hello - does any other brand do that?  No.  The AIR.  (Not a lamp or the sun.)  Please do check them out on Facebook and Twitter.  Check out more below!

Now here is the picture heavy section.  So previously, I told you that Layla Cosmetics would be debuting Graffiti (crackle) polish at Cosmoprof, but since this trend is pretty much dead, they brought in something new - something super exciting.  Oh yes.  Magnetic nail polish.

Right now there are 12 colors (one is a glitter) but there will be more glitters coming out this year.  The magnet for this polish is actually located in the cap and right now it only does bar stripes (shown) but more magnets will be coming out including a starburst and a crescent shape.


These will be available in the States after August 15th, and I'll keep up updated as to where.  They retail for $15.50 a bottle, require no base or top coat and only needs 1 coat to cover full opacity.  You'll get about a week's worth of wear out of them and you just remove with regular polish remover.


Layla also has their Ceramic Effect line available now which are 45 polishes that also do not stain and are big 4 free (to include camphor).  They retail for $9.95 and have a ridiculously high shine without a top coat.

I was privileged to receive the entire line of magnetic polishes and a couple of the Ceramic Effect line, so I'll be reviewing those soon as well.


Tomorrow is the last day, and I hope to hit a few more places that I keep missing before everyone shuts down.