Friday, May 27, 2011

Nicole by OPI Texture Coat Press Release

   Please enjoy the following press release for the upcoming Nicole by OPI Texture Coat collection:

Create Instant Nail Art!

Nicole by OPI Introduces Texture Coat

Nicole by OPI announces the launch of Texture Coat, a line of graffiti-style nail art products inspired by OPI’s bestselling Shatter.  Available in six chic shades – Gold, Silver, Red, White, Turquoise and Black – Texture Coat offers a simple way to create unique, unpredictable patterns on nails with a quick, at-home application.  “Fans of Nicole by OPI are fun, fashion-forward women who love experimenting with trends and using nail lacquer as a form of self-expression,” explains Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, Nicole by OPI Executive VP & Artistic Director. “Texture Coat offers an easy way to create your own completely customized nail art. Whether you choose pastels, darks, glitters, shimmers, or sheers to pair with Texture Coat, the endless options will accessorize every look.”

To use this product, start with Base Coat Plus, followed by two coats of any Nicole by OPI nail lacquer. Let the lacquer dry completely before applying Texture Coat. Complete the manicure with Top Coat Plus for a high-shine finish.  Nicole by OPI Nail Lacquers and Nail Treatments contain no DBP, Toluene, or Formaldehyde. Nicole by OPI formulas are long-lasting, fast-drying, and salon-quality, with products featuring the Perfect Stroke brush for streak-free, even coverage. Texture Coat will be available July 2011 for $7.99 each at ULTA, Target, Meijer, Harmon, Wegmans, Sears, and H-E-B. Texture Coat will be available in Canada at Shoppers Drug Mart, Walmart and Loblaw.

For more information, visit nicolebyopi.com. Follow Nicole by OPI on Twitter

@NicoleByOPI and become a Facebook fan!




Black

Gold

Red

Silver
Turquoise

White




OPI Glam Slam! England Press Release

   Please enjoy the following press release for the upcoming additions to the Serena Williams Glam Slam! collection:

Get “Unbeatable” Sparkle!

OPI Unveils Three New Shades from
Serena Williams’ Glam Slam! Series

OPI joins tennis superstar Serena Williams in announcing the latest three lacquers in the Glam Slam! collection. To celebrate the world’s oldest, most prestigious tennis tournament, Glam Slam! England features two duo-packs filled with sparkle.   The first Lacquer set includes Your Royal Shine-ness, a metallic silver shade, paired with Servin’ Up Sparkle, a shimmer-packed silver glitter. The second Lacquer set also features Servin’ Up Sparkle, along with Grape…Set…Match, a metallic “England’s premier tennis tournament warrants colors with extra glitz and glamour,” said Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, OPI Executive VP & Artistic Director. “The next big trend in nails is making lacquer look 3-dimensional by adding different micas and glitters, turning fingertips into jewelry. With two bold metallics and a sparkling glitter, these colors are fit for royalty.”

“For stand-out nails, I love experimenting with different glitter shades,” explains Serena Williams. “The new Glam Slam! England lacquers can be worn alone for a bright pop of color, or layered with Servin’ Up Sparkle to create a textured effect.”  Serena Williams has received the World Number One in singles ranking by the Women’s Tennis Association on five separate occasions, along with being listed as sixth on the all-time greatest champions list. Additionally, she has won two Olympic gold medals in women’s doubles and has earned 27 Grand Slam titles to date. Serena is the most recent player to have held all four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously and only the fifth woman in history to do so.


New shades in the Glam Slam! collection will be introduced to coincide with each of the four major tournaments, beginning with the Australian Open in January 2011, followed by launches in May 2011 for the French Open, June 2011 for Wimbledon and August 2011 for the US Open. As with all OPI Nail Lacquers, the Glam Slam! collection contains no DBP, Toluene, or Formaldehyde, and each includes OPI’s exclusive ProWide™ Brush for the ultimate in application.

Glam Slam! England will be available beginning June 2011 at Professional Salons, including Beauty Brands, Beauty First, Chatters, Dillard’s, JCPenney, Pure Beauty, Regis, Trade Secret, and ULTA, for $14.95 ($20.95 CAN) suggested retail for each duo-pack.

For more information, please call 800-341-9999 or visit www.opi.com. Follow

OPI on Twitter @OPI_PRODUCTS and become a Facebook fan!



Your Royal ShineNess

ServnUp Sparkle

Grape Set Match

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

OPI Katy Perry Collection

   When I saw the first promo pics of the Katy Perry/OPI collaboration I was intrigued.  Then when the polishes came in, I couldn't wait to try them all.  So why it's taken me until now to try and write about them I have no idea.  All of these are beautiful.  

 Teenage Dream

   Teenage Dream is a sheer pink base with pink and multi-color glitter in different sizes.  Application was good for such a dense glitter and it built up nicely.  I used a base coat of OPI Natural Nail Base and 3 coats of glitter.  Top coat was a bit more of an issue.  Because it is such a dense glitter, it likes to eat top coat.  As in while it will seem nice and smooth at first, a few hours later the surface of your nails will feel rough again.  To try to combat this I wound up using 1 coat of Gelous, 1 coat OPI RapiDry, a 2nd coat of Gelous, and a final coat of Seche Vite.  The first two coats were done immediately after the glitter and the second two coats the following morning.  This seemed to smooth the surface out fairly well.

Direct Sun

   Look at that sparkle.  Sometimes there's nothing like some shiny bling to make you smile.

Indoor

   Even inside the sparkle shows up.  Teenage Dream works great on its own or I'm sure would be a good layering polish as well.

See the rest after the break

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Zoya Touch Collection

   Please enjoy the following Press Release about the upcoming Limited Edition Zoya Touch collection:

2011 limited edition, full coverage nude nail colors
TOUCH
soft  sensual  sexy
Zoya Nail Polish presents 3 new, full coverage nude nail polish shades designed to coordinate with a variety of skin tones ranging from light to dark. Each softly kissed with a bit of metallic to make them ultra wearable.



Zoya TOUCH Collection
Minka (ZP561) - latte beige cream with a metallic kiss
Shay (ZP562) - desert rose sand beige cream with a metallic kiss
Pandora (ZP563) - mauve beige cream with a metallic kiss

Zoya is the new color of fashion...
The Zoya TOUCH collection was designed to recreate the custom looks developed for and inspired by the runways of New York Fashion Week.

Ultra long-wearing, glossy nail lacquers by Zoya are free of harmful industrial chemicals like toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.

Find Zoya TOUCH as well as over 300 other ultra high-fashion Zoya shades at www.zoya.com. As always, each and every Zoya color is made for women so we name them after women.

TOUCH by Zoya
PRE-ORDER May 25 - May 31, 2011
shipping JUNE 1, 2011

Sug. Retail $8.00 per 0.5 fl. oz. bottle (US)

Minka

   And here's a very short video with all three colors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cFodNwgZnQ

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Butter London All Hail The Queen

   For months now, I've been hearing lots of talk about Butter London polishes.  The majority of which has been extremely positive so I was curious to try the brand, but didn't want to order online.  Then, a little over a month ago Ulta started carrying BL in their stores as well as online so I decided to splurge a little and pick up a bottle.  
   There are MANY lovely shades to chose from, but for my first purchase I decided to try All Hail The Queen (AHTQ).  There was a bit of controversy around this polish when it first came out.  The original name was All Hail McQueen, but was changed for legal reasons.  I don't know all the details, but I'm sure they can be found with a little google-fu.  


   AHTQ is a beige holo.  Yes, I said holo and beige in the same sentence.  The holo is very subtle even in direct sun, but the shimmer that shows indoors gives interest to what could otherwise just be another beige polish.  
   One of the most consistent things I've read about BL is how incredible the formula is and how it seems like the polish almost applies itself.  I don't know about any of the other colors, but that is definitely the case with AHTQ.  My only complaint is the size of the brush handle.  Not that it's too big, but because it feels too small to me.  You see, the rectangular top you see above comes off to reveal a smaller round brush top that's about the length from the tip of my thumb to the first joint.


   If the cap was just a little wider or taller I would like it better.  At the size it is, the brush feels just a little awkward in my hand, like I'm about to drop it.  
   Opacity was good, I only needed 2 coats for coverage.  For my base coat I used Seche Restore and Barielle Manicure Extender as my top coat.  Now I'll stop teasing and get to the on nail pictures.

Indoor

   In this lighting AHTQ looks like a beige with a bit of silver shimmer.  You can pick up just a hint of the holo under my CFL lightbulbs, but most bulbs won't bring this out.

Shade

   Pretty boring in the shade.

Direct Sun

   As I said above, this is a subtle holo and a scattered one.  But I think anything stronger would have been too much for the color.
   I was very impressed with this polish.  I even like the color.  It's nice for when you want something simple but with a little extra to it.  Based on AHTQ, I plan to buy more BL polishes in the future to try.  I already have a wishlist going in my head.
   The other downside to BL is the price.  The polishes retail for $14.00 each on the website and at Ulta.  Now depending on your Ulta, or the SA you check out with, you can sometimes use coupons on these.  I say sometimes because while I was able to use a $5 off a $10 purchase coupon on this one, other people have run into issues trying to use them.  It seems to depend on if your Ulta or SA considers BL a Prestige brand or not.  But either way, I think the BL polishes are worth a try at least once.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Zoya Weekend Promo for Dove and Caitlin

   Zoya has a new promo for you this weekend only.  Please read the following release for details.  You can find my reviews of Dove here and Caitlin here.  Enjoy! 

ZOYA PROMO OFFER
Limited time only
Get Zoya Dove and Zoya Caitlin FREE with ANY** purchase on Zoya.com





Special Promotional Offer*!
Try the Zoya "French Twist" manicure created by Haven Spa for the Joy Cioci presentation at NYFW! For a limited time with any** purchase (excluding Zoya Color Spoons) on Zoya.com you get Zoya Nail Polish in Caitlin and Zoya Nail Polish in Dove for free!! Just enter the code ZB52 when you check out! These trend setting spring colors are MUST have in any collection! This offer is only good until Monday May 23 (11:59PM EST)! Act now and try the "twist" everyone is talking about!
*Online only, cannot be combined with any other offer , promotion or coupon. US ONLY. Promotion ends Monday May 23 at 11:59 PM EST. Offer good for 1(one) open stock .5 oz bottle of Zoya Caitlin  and 1(one) .5oz bottle Zoya Dove with the purchase of any NON-SPOON item on Zoya.com. Art of Beauty Inc. will not honor promotions that are submitted after promotion has ended - No exceptions. No exchanges. No returns. Worst case scenario please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Comments, videos and pictures posted about this Zoya Nail Polish Exchange outside of Zoya.com or zoyanailpolish.blogger.com are not representative of the opinions of Zoya Nail Polish, Art of Beauty, Inc., Qtica and Qtica Smart Spa and we do not confirm the accuracy of any postings. Customers are responsible for maintaining active accounts. If username or password have been lost we (Art of Beauty, Inc.) are not responsible for restoring accounts or giving out any account information. S/H not included. 
**offer excludes Zoya Color Spoons
© 2011 Art of Beauty Inc. All rights reserved

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Orly Galaxy Girl

   Galaxy Girl is the last of my Orly Cosmic FX collection reviews.  This one actually belongs to a friend of mine, but she was kind enough to lend it to me.  So everyone thank Lyz.  I saved this one for last because it was hands down my favorite of the 5 I tried.  Galaxy Girl is described as purple with blue green fx. I think I would call it more of an aqua or teal fx, but that's just me.


   Look at that teal flash in the bottle.  The color kind of reminds me of a deep bruise.  But in a good way somehow.  Application was good and pigmentation was nice on GG.  I used 3 coats for full opacity and evenness with Bonder Basecoat and Polishield Topcoat.  With GG you can see the main purple and the secondary teal on the nail all the time in all lighting conditions.  

Direct Sun

Shade

Half Sun

Indoor

   Make sure to enlarge the pictures above so you can see the full effect of the two colors.  While I was driving to work one day, I glanced at my nails and got a bit of a surprise.  The way the sun was reflecting through the windshield off my nails made GG look ruby red!  I tried to get a picture of it with my phone, but couldn't quite capture the full effect.  I did get this shot which shows a nice gradient I think.


   As I said above, Galaxy Girl is my favorite from this collection that I've reviewed.  I actually don't really want to give it back.  
   Final thoughts on this collection:  It is a beautiful collection, but I'm not sure they are must haves for the most part.  Galaxy Girl would be the exception to that for me.  It is the most unique of the group, except maybe Space Cadet which I do not have access to.  The Cosmic FX collection can be found online and some salons and supply stores still have it in stock.
 
polished & frosted title image brushes by Obsidian Dawn