Nailed It | The Nail Art Blog: holiday collection

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OPI Starlight Collection Swatches with a Melting Moon Manicure

OPI has two fabulous new collections coming in (the Hello Kitty collection and the New Orleans collection), but my favorite 2015 release might have to be what I'm sharing with you today - the Starlight collection. This huge, 18-piece collection is chock-full of amazing glitter, chrome, and even some holographic. I'll let the collection do most of the talking, but I have a few things to call out.

First, some of the glitters are...strange. A few of the chromes have glitter buried in them, which come out looking odd. To me, it looks like someone accidentally got glitter or dirt trapped in their polish and just left it that way. Not my favorite look. That being said, it might be perfect for someone else, so I'll just give my honest review as always and let you make your own decisions.

To start the swatches, here's a fun "Starlight-inspired" look and name. Everything seems to have some ties to space, so I'm calling this "Melting Moon".

Melting Moon was created with two Starlight shades - I Drive a Supernova and I'm in the Moon for Love. First, I created a half-moon shape at the base of the nail with a small detailing brush. Then I brushed up toward the tip of the nail in small little strokes. Super simple!

Now strap in for all 18 swatches from Starlight, and be sure to let me know which is your favorite!

OPI - By the Light of the Moon

By the Light of the Moon (2 coats) is one of those weird, buried glitter chromes that I just can't get my mind around. The glitter is all large, hexagonal shaped, and it's paired with a silver chrome. Two coats is plenty for coverage, so that's good.

OPI - Ce-Less-tial is More

As much of a disappointment as By the Light of the Moon was to me, Ce-Less-tial is More (2 coats, no top coat) is a home run. The dense glitter mix is rosy-gold with...wait for it...rainbow glitter too! You're looking at 2 coats with no top coat. I love this one, especially in gel because then you lose the chunky, gritty texture that you get in regular lacquer.

OPI - Center of the You-niverse

The darkest shade of the collection also happens to be fabulous. Center of the You-niverse (2 coats) is a charcoal jelly with silver micro glitter and little flecks of matte black glitter. It has a bit of texture to it, but a top coat wipes it out for the most part.

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Sation Holiday Golightly Collection Review and Swatches

The wait is over! Some of you may have guessed yesterday's sneak peek of the nail art for tonight. It was based on the super simple Coewless Fair Isle Snowflake tutorial, and it's featuring three colors from the newest Sation collection, Holiday Golightly.

Colors used: Under the Miss-tletoe, I Love Yule, and Feliz Navi-Doll

The complete collection is six colors, and tonight I'll be showing you four of them. But first, here's the info from the press release.

Holidays are a time for all things fabulous: parties, presents, and polish! Miss Professional Nail (Miss) is ringing in the season with “Holiday Golightly,” a shimmering new collection of nail lacquers. These six sparklers are a great idea for fun stocking stuffers and to accessorize your New Year’s Eve look!

Miss’ Creative Director Staci Dao wanted to celebrate the joy of gift-giving (and receiving!) by reminding us to pamper ourselves and our loved ones this season. Silver screen icon Audrey Hepburn captured our hearts playing free-spirited fashionista Holly Golightly, whose love of shiny gems helped inspire Miss in creating this wish list of winter stunners.

From the timeless, Tiffany-inspired blue to unique reds and greens, these luxe shades will light up your holiday season: “Under the Miss-letoe,” a pearlescent pine green; “Feliz Navi-doll,” an icy crystalline grayish-white; “I Love Yule,” a velvety poinsettia red; “Let’s Mingle & Jingle,” a silver-spangled sapphire blue; “Holiday Golightly,” a glistening Robin’s egg blue, and “Stop Scrooging Around,” a gold-sparkled ruby wine. ‘Tis the season to channel our inner Holly Golightly and embrace the Miss mantra that “It’s the little pleasures that count...”

If you don’t the find the Holiday Collection under your tree, it will also be available online and in beauty supplies in late October.

I always enjoy a giggle at all the names Miss comes up with. I think my favorite is I Love Yule in that category. I'll let you be the judge as to which color is your favorite though.

Numero uno is Feliz Navi-Doll, shown with 4 coats. This polish is described as "an icy crystalline grayish-white", which is better than I could explain it. It's muy sheer, and you need at least cuatro coats to cover your whole nail and your VNL without a base colore. However, it works beautifully over a base coat of blanca. I layered it over Strumming My Nails (also a Sation) and really enjoyed that look. Layering it without a base color will give a softer finish however. Es muy bonita!

Feliz Navi-Doll

Next is Holiday Golightly. I see why this is the namesake of the collection, because it's unique to any other holiday collection I've seen since I started getting into nails. It's perfect though, and I'm really glad I got to try it. It's shown with 4 coats as well, and applies very sheer. Only the first layer is uneven though, and the rest smooth everything nicely. It's unlike the sky blue you might think it to be, in that a slight green tint makes it more teal than anything. If it didn't have shimmer in it, and if it weren't paired with the other colors of the collection, I'd venture to say it was a spring color!

Holiday Golightly

The last shimmering polish I'm showing you today is Under the Miss-tletoe. (Oh Miss, so clever!) The perfect pine color with added shimmer to bring it out in a different way. The shimmer's a little blue. It's like a dewy pine tree on a sunny morning with a clear blue sky. The dew and the reflection from the sky could create this kind of look on the needles. I really like the way my nails look with this on!

Under the Miss-tletoe

The last color, I Love Yule, doesn't contain any shimmer. It's a 2-coat creme color. Santa's suit is a good comparison of this color. Or it could be the color under many Walmart shoppers' nails after Black Friday sales as it's a bit of a blood color. A brick blood color that looks fantastic against my skin color. I can't imagine it looking bad on many others'! It was really easy to work with for the nail art as well, whereas I wouldn't recommend using Under the Miss-tletoe for that. Honestly, shorter nails with less white on their nail showing could definitely just do one thin coat of this. I love that.

I Love Yule

There are two other colors in the collection that I didn't share with you today: Let's Mingle and Jingle and Stop Scrooging Around. You can see those swatches over at Polish Art Addiction though.

I think my favorite for the color is Holiday Golightly, but for application I'd have to say I Love Yule. Pigmented colors always make me happiest!

You can pick up the collection right now at the Miss PN store for $5.00.

These products were sent to me by Miss Professional Nail. The reviews are based entirely on my experience with the products and were in no way influenced by anyone.

Voodoo Lacquer Holiday Collection Swatches and Review

Thanksgiving food is digested. It took a weekend of no posts to get there, but I'm digested.

I'm kidding. I was actually a busy swatching bee, prepping for this week, which will bring you three different reviews from three different polish companies. And since 'tis the season, you'll definitely start getting your fill of holiday beauties!

The cardinal collection is another Voodoo Lacquer collection. You'll remember my 'glowing' review of the Halloween colors, and as promised, she has released a new collection of chilly, wintery, festive colors!

She's got six beautiful colors which touch the winter bits of the season, as well as the Christmas aspect of it all.

One thing I noticed about these polishes was a strange film that seemed to develop around the neck of the bottle after dipping in a few times. I'm not sure what that was about, but it made application more difficult than I would've liked. It didn't have an effect on the final look of the polishes, except in Mulberry Spice, where it was just too much for me to deal with. Read more about that below.

I did like these colors, but Silver Bells and Winter Bliss are the absolute winners in my book of this collection. I loved Silver Bells so much, I wrapped my nails in it, and tied it off with a bow!

Now onto the colors!

The first color is Winter Bliss (5 coats). Don't be alarmed by the 5 coat bit. I used 5 coats without anything underneath, because I wanted to show you that it's an intentionally very sheer color. It would be beautiful layered as well, but check out how soft it is on it's own. It looks like Jack Frost kissed my fingers and left me with just a memory of the night. I really enjoyed this polish a lot!

Winter Bliss

Sugar Plum Fairies is shown with 4 coats. The polish is sprinkled with fine sugary grains of glitter. That little bit of grit in the polish looks best with four coats for opacity, but I feel like layering would work beautifully as well.

Sugar Plum Fairies

I was really hoping this polish was scented. It has such a beautiful rich color that really felt like a Christmas tree, so this was an appropriately named polish: O' Christmas Tree. This is just three coats. I suppose its one of those fake Christmas trees with the fiber optics though, because there's some hints of holographic glitter in there!

O' Christmas Tree

Mulberry Spice is shown with 3 coats. I liked the deep red color of this, but it was a terrible application for some reason. It very well could've been a result of the sample size bottle it came in. (Heather was running low on supplies so could only make enough for a sample size.) There was that strange film that sloppily spread over at each coat I mentioned earlier. I want to describe the texture as very kombucha-esque. That was hard to get past and made my nails bumpy. I tried my best not to show that in the pictures though.

Mulberry Spice

Fa, La, La, La, La (2 coats) is the only piece in the collection that has a clear base. It's the quintessential Christmas polish, with its red, green, and holographic pieces of glitter. I layered it over yellow for a change.

Fa, La, La, La, La

Silver Bells should be called "Bling Bells". This color is AMAZING. As with all the polishes, there was the slight cling film, but it in no way overpowered the awesomeness that is this bottle. You can see the obvious inspiration for the name, but what you may have missed were the pieces of slightly larger holographic ingredients. You can pick those out in the bubble swatch best.

Silver Bells

So that's it! Thank you for the beautiful colors Heather! You can all get your own bottles right now in her Etsy shop. I definitely recommend Silver Bells and Winter Bliss. They're both unique and make wonderful additions to your holiday collection.

These products were sent to me by VooDoo Lacquers. The reviews are based entirely on my experience with the products and were in no way influenced by anyone.