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Contrary Polish Ain’t That A Beach Trio

Posted on 1 July, 20131 July, 2013 by Cynthia

Great Odin’s raven, it’s hot and muggy today–the worst combination.

Milk was definitely a bad choice.

I literally started sweating as soon as I walked out of the office and I kind of wanted to run back into the building. Holy hell, I wanted to go back into the miserable building where I work?! I guess it really is that hot. Besided the disgusting heat, I am still freaking sick! Ugh…I can’t take this anymore. I can’t afford to miss work anymore and I’m pretty sure they’re going to fire me if I keep missing work. It’s not like I’m just being an asshole and deciding to call in sick for no good reason, but I still can’t continue to call in sick even though I am sick. Anyway, I guess I’ll just have to deal with it. Despite the disgusting heat, I am super excited about the wonderful polishes that I am about to show you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but this is my first Contrary Polish purchase. WHAAAAAAAAAT? I know what you’re thinking. I have no excuse except to say that I just get so overwhelmed with all the gorgeous indie polishes out there that I just don’t even know where to start. When I first saw swatches for the Contrary Polish Ain’t That A Beach Trio, I kind of went nuts for them. Being that it’s my first experience with Contrary Polish, I decided to order minis. Let me show you how gorgeous these are:

Sand is such an awesome neutral. Seriously….look at it! I found that the formula was nice but somewhat thin. I think I also experienced some problems with application because the brush on this polish was useless. It was like twisted and wonky so it really didn’t promote easy application. What a bummer. Is it just me or do mini bottles always have the worst brushes? Anyway, I still love this polish despite the craptacular brush. I applied 3 coats for the swatches above.

When I applied Sky, I think I heard the angels singing. What an incredibly gorgeous blue! Once again, the brush was a pain in the ass on this bottle so the application was somewhat problematic. The formula was nice and pigmented and I applied 3 thin coats. I suspect that two regular coats would have been enough if I had a workable brush.

I think that Surf is my favorite of the bunch but not by much since I love all three. The brush on this bottle seemed normal and flat so I don’t have anything bad to say about it. I just can’t get over how gorgeous this polish is. That color, that shimmer….ghhhaaaaaaaaaa! If there is one polish from this collection that you must get….IT’S ALL THREE OF THEM.

So what do you think of this lovely trio? Have you tried any other Contrary Polish beauties? If you’re interested in purchasing some minis, Carrie, the genius behind Contrary Polish, sells them on her blog on Fridays. You can check them out here. If you want to purchase a full size bottle, you can check at the following stockists: Llarowe, Femme Fatale Cosmetics and Shoppe Eclecticco.

Anyway, I hope I’ve created a brand new circle of enabling. I’m sorry and you’re welcome! Thanks for stopping by today and stay cool!

P.S. What do you think of the new site design? I’m not done with it yet. I think I need a nice header and maybe a cool background or something.

Blues Smackdown

Posted on 27 March, 2013 by Cynthia

With all the gorgeous blues that have come out lately, the questions about possible dupes is inevitable. As a blue polish lover–and hoarder–I knew that I would cringe when I finally sat down to evaluate all the possible bright blue polish dupes. Today I chose two older and two newer blue polishes to compare. For my blues smackdown, I have the following four polishes:

Color Club Bright Night – Essie Butler Please – Kiko Electric Blue – Nails Inc. Baker Street

While all of these colors are fairly similar, I think that Color Club Bright Night and Kiko Electric Blue are dupes while Essie Butler Please and Nails Inc. Baker Street are dupes. All of these polishes have a glossy creme finish except for Color Club Bright Night which dries to a satin finish.

These are 3 other polishes that I thought might be close to these as well:

Nubar Dusk Till Dawn (I suspect it’s pretty close to Nubar Blueberry too!)

Cacee BFF Sky

And lastly, this is Essie Avenue Maintain which is NOT a dupe for any of those blues. People had asked me how close this is to Essie Butler Please, and it’s obviously not close at all.

I hope this helps some of you decide if you REALLY need certain blue polishes, but I have a sneaking suspicions that the true polish addicts won’t care. And just for the heck of it, here is my polish haul for this week. I had commented that I basically blew through my polish budget for the next few months…if I had a polish budget.

I picked up 3 of the 4 new Essie Resort Collection polishes and also got an extra set for a giveaway so be on the lookout for that. Thanks for stopping by today!

Cacee BFF Nail Lacquer Sky

Posted on 25 January, 2013 by Cynthia

It’s Friday which means that I have made it through my first week at my new job! Woot! I am still in training and it really is tons of information to process, but things are starting to fall into place so I’m not feeling so overwhelmed anymore. I still haven’t worn nail polish to work yet, but I’ll probably start wearing it next week. After work today, I headed over to my nail polish places to see if they had anything new…and they didn’t. I hate it when I go in hoping that they have some new collection early so I can get the scoop but end up with nothing. Well, you know what nothing means to me: 5 polishes, some Seche Restore and a new brush for clean-up. One of the polishes I picked up is what I decided to try out tonight: Cacee BFF Nail Lacquer Sky.

Sky seems like a run of the mill vibrant blue but beejus the formula is great! This beauty is so incredibly pigmented, and I was very sorry when I got it on my cuticles because it was a biatch to remove.

For this design, I used Sation Strumming My Nails to paint the tip of my nails white and for the white dotting. I’ve mentioned Strumming My Nails before and I can’t believe that I haven’t done a proper mani with it to show you just how amazing this polish is. It’s not a pure white–it has some grey tones which I looooooove. Even better, this polish is almost a one-coater! These nails are a direct copy of the mani that Siobhan has on her blog’s banner. Every time I would see that picture, I immediately wanted to copy it and I finally did!

I’m not that talk-y tonight. I should have posted this hours ago, but I got sucked into watching puppy videos on youtube for hours. I’m not kidding…HOURS. It was sooooooo worth it! Thanks for stopping by today. I have a new Spring collection to share with you this weekend so don’t forget to check in. Talk to you later!

Disclosure: Sation Strumming My Nails was provided to me by the manufacturer or their PR firm. All other products featured in this post were purchased by me. For more information, please see my disclosure policy tab here.