Dollish Polish Mario Collection (Part 2)

Good afternoon, dear readers!  I apologize for the delay in showing you the rest of the Mario collection! My computer has been on its last breath, and the hubby has been frantically updating it for me so I can get a little more use out of it before it finally kicks the bucket.  I'm hoping the bandaid will hold for a little while longer until I am able get a new computer.  Now on to the swatches!  I used about one and a half coats of the Dollish Polish lacquers over the base colour: anywhere I had bald patches after the first coat, I dabbed on a little bit of glitter.  All four of these polishes dried very quickly on me.

1-Up over two coats Dollish Polish Toss My Salad

1-Up is one of the shades I was the most excited about, and it did not disappoint.  It is composed of various sizes of green and white glitters, and the simplicity of the colour scheme is what appeals to me the most.  I don't find this one to be too busy and not having a wide range of colours makes it easier to to match a wide range of base colours.  I can definitely see myself wearing this one again!

Wicked Wario over two coats Zoya Kristen

Wicked Wario is made up primarily of finer purple glitter, but it has touches of green, gold, and white to make it interesting.  I'm not a purple fan in general, but this is still a lovely polish.  I liked that I didn't have to dig around in the bottle to get any of the glitters out and the application was easy.

Toad-allyAwesome over two coats Zoya Loredana

(in the shade)

Toad-ally Awesome is as the name suggests: totally awesome!  This red, white, blue, and gold glitter polish applied like a dream and is just lovely.  When I first saw the bottle, I was slightly concerned that it would look a little too patriotic and out of place during non-holidays, but those fears were quenched.  I found it to be a fun polish I could wear just about any time.  

Dino-mite Yoshi over five coats Essie Shop Till I Drop

(in the shade)

Yes, dear readers, you did read that correctly: I used five coats of base colour before adding Dino-mite Yoshi.  I'm not going to review the Essie right now, but I wanted to let you know that it is very sheer. Dino-mite Yoshi was probably the Dollish Polish lacquer I was the most excited about, and I left this combo on my nails for several days.  Composed of various shades, shapes and sizes of green, red, orange, and white glitters, I found this one to be the hight-light of the collection.  I don't have anything remotely similar to this in my collection, and I want to wear this all the time!  I think it will look amazing over most colours, and I think it will look radically different (and have a different feel) depending on your choice of base colour.

Overall, I am very happy with these colours.  They all applied easily for me without too much effort needed to spread out the glitters, and I find them all the be fun and interesting.  The other colours can be viewed in my previous blog post.

The Mario collection can be purchased directly from Dollish Polish at big cartel or from Llarowe.  At the time of this posting, Llarowe has all of the Mario collection currently available for sale.  :)

I hope you have enjoyed my post, and I wish you all a lovely evening!  XOXO!

Dollish Polish Mario Collection (Part 1)

Good evening, dear readers!  I was really excited when I heard I was being sent the Dollish Polish Mario Collection to swatch and review, and I am stoked to be sharing the first half of the collection with you tonight.  Yes, I am THAT excited that I actually used the word "stoked"!

A Peachy Princess over two coats A England Princess Tears

A Peachy Princess is a gorgeous pink-based polish packed with various sizes and shades of pink glitters.  I'm generally not a big fan of pink polishes, but I was in love with this combination.  The larger glitters sank some during shipment, but I propped the bottle upside down for about half an hour prior to application.  I had no application issues with this one, and in true Dollish Polish fashion, it dried rather quickly.  

It's A Me, Mario! over two coats Sally Hansen Complete Manicure Terracotta

In the shade

It's A Me, Mario! was released several months prior to the rest of the collection, and sadly, one of the more disappointing polishes in the collection for me.  It is composed of red and blue glitters with the occasional holographic silver star, but I found myself fishing quite a bit to get the stars.  Many of the stars in my bottle had sunk to the bottom half of the bottle, and I let it sit upside down for at least two hours prior to application.  I'm not convinced the stars moved much during that time, but as you can see, I was able to snag one for each of my nails.  I didn't have any application issues with this one with the exception of fighting with the stars in the placement on the nail, but that is nothing unusual for glitters with sharp edges.  Dry time was also very quick on this one.   

Go Luigi! over over two coats Color Club Lava Lamp

Go Luigi! was very much like my bottle of It's A Me, Mario!: sadly, a little disappointing.  This one is made up of blue and green glitters with the occasional holographic silver star, and I had to do an enormous amount of digging to get the stars out of this one.  I don't know if Go Luigi is supposed to have far fewer stars than It's A Me, Mario! or if it was just my particular bottle, but I admit I found it more than a little frustrating.  Instead of fighting with the stars for placement this time, I used a pair of tweezers to place them on my nails and painted around them with the rest of the polish.  I don't know if I should call it cheating or a stroke of genius on my part (this may be a slight exaggeration), but it did make the stars much easier to work with.  This one dried very quickly as well for me. 

The Koopa King over two coats Zoya Kym

I have to be completely honest with you, dear readers: when I first saw The Koopa King, my first thought was "Ick" (sorry, Dolly!).  The yellow was just not winning me over, but I was determined to spin this colour into something I would at least consider decent.  I had seen it over black, but I wanted to do something a little unexpected with this one.  I opted to use Zoya Kym as its base, and holy cannoli, am I loving this combination!  The Koopa King is made up of various sized yellow, green, and red glitters (you may need to click on the photos to enlarge them to see the red a little more), silver holographic diamonds, and black bar glitter.  I never imagined that this would end up being one of my favorites from the collection, but I am going gaga over it now.  The Koopa King is the mostly densely packed polish of the few I have reviewed thus far, but I had no issues with application whatsoever.  The base wasn't too thick, and even the bar glitters behaved perfectly- that rarely ever happens for me!  I'm probably sounding like a broken record on this point, but this one dried quickly as well.  

With the exception of having to fish out stars for two polishes, I have been happy with this collection thus far.  A Peachy Princess and The Koopa King are definitely my favorites from this bunch, a surprising fact given that both of these colours were initially the two that I was the least interested in at the beginning.  Keep your eyes peeled for my next post where I swatch and review the rest of the collection!

The Mario Collection can be purchased from both Dolly directly at big cartel and from Leah Ann LaRowe at Llarowe.  Dollish Polish sells very quickly, so keep an eye on Dolly's Facebook page (here) and Llarowe's Facebook page (here) for stocking announcements.  By the way, at the time of this posting, Llarowe does have these available for purchase!

Until next time, dear readers, have a good night, and sweet Mushroom Kingdom dreams!

Pin my Stash: Sally Hansen Natural Sienna

Good morning, dear readers!  I have finally jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon as a way to catalogue my polish collection.  I had been putting it off because I really did not want to know just how many bottles of polish I had- I figured I could stay in denial as long as I didn't know the tally or need to get another melmer.  I was finally convinced when someone suggested using Pinterest, and I loved the idea of seeing swatches of my colours.  This is especially useful for when I want to change my manicure, but I have no idea what I want to do.  I had a lot of fun pinning my collection until I discovered that I just could not FIND swatches online of some of my colours.  I imagine that has been a source of frustration and annoyance for several people, and I thought I would start including blog posts about these colours.

My first "pin my stash" post is of Sally Hansen nailgrowth Miracle in Natural Sienna.  I picked my bottle up maybe 9 months ago from my Walgreens for less than $5 (it was on sale at the time, although I don't believe it is much more than that now).  I had the brilliant idea of painting these swatches when I was away from home, and sadly, my nail polish thinner.  The formula on this one was a little thick, and application wasn't quite as smooth as I would have liked.  That being said, I know I used it right after I bought at and the application was much smoother then.  I used two coats in these photos.

I'm not exactly sure what is so miraculous about this polish, and I find it very hard to believe that it encourages nail growth.  I suppose if I really wanted to test out that claim, I would keep one nail painted with it all the time and other nails either naked or with other polishes.  I think some people think I am odd enough as it is, so I'm going to have to pass on that little experiment.  :)  I just bought this because I didn't have anything like it in my collection.

I hope you are all enjoying your Monday!  <3

Bottle Deception: Coral Edition

Good morning, dear readers!  I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of bottles of lacquer that look deceptively identical, but once you have the polishes out on your nails, you can see just how different the colours truly are.  I decided to pull out some of my orangey-coral bottles and compare them for you.  From left to right on most of these pictures (pinky to index finger) I used two coats of Zoya Soho Punch, Zoya Rica, Zoya Myrta, and Julep Mischa.

Index: Julep Mischa

Middle: Zoya Myrta 

Ring: Zoya Rica 

Pinky: Zoya Soho Punch

As you can see, these definitely do not all look the same on the nail.  Zoya Soho Punch is very sheer, and there is VNL with two coats.  Zoya describes this colour as a coral red, but I think it is more peach.  Zoya Rica is an orangey-coral, but it has some pink undertones that are much more obvious when on the nail.  I personally would say Zoya Myrta is more of a red- orange than the coral that the company claims, but it is still a lovely colour.  What really surprised me was Julep Mischa.  I have a love/hate relationship with the brand, and I almost always find it too thick to apply well.  Mischa was a pleasant surprise, and I found it to be at the perfect consistency upon opening the bottle.  Mischa is very close in colour to Myrta, but I found the former to be a tad more tomato coloured (and yes, I mean the traditional red tomato, not the crazy colours you sometimes see in heirloom tomatoes :D ).

Doing these swatches was an interesting experiment for me, and I really didn't anticipate the colours to look so different from each other.  This is just further proof that what you see in the bottle does not always translate to the nail.

I hope you enjoy your week, dear readers!

NAIL MAIL!

Every day I ask my dog if he wants to see if there is nail mail, and he perks up and runs to the door every time.  It has become our routine, and I love that he is just as excited to go check the mail as I am.  I know he doesn't actually care if there is mail of not, but it is a fun little bit of time I get to share with my goofball.

 Here is my recent nail mail!  I didn't realize until I put all these pictures just now much of a "blue" mood I have been in!  :D

Barielle: Island Breeze

Dollish Polish: Team Salvatore and Darling Diva Polish: Water Dragon

 Girly Bits: Arctic Sunrise and KB Shimmer: Shipwreck

I've been reading some of the comments about what you would like to see more of in my blog, and I was surprised to see just how many people wanted to see more pictures of my fur babies.  Because Ludo is my nail mail buddy, I'll end with a picture of him.  :D

Hates baths, but doesn't mind the rain as long as he is playing ball

As you can see, I've been on a blue kick lately.  What colours have you been drawn towards recently?

Giveaway! CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED

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Good evening, dear readers!  I'm trying to get back into my normal routine since getting back to town, and I should have more posts up soon.  Amy from I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous has generously provided two of her creations for this giveaway, and I am so excited about it!  As I'm sure most of you already know, she has decided to stop making polishes for sale, although you can still buy a few of her creations at Ninja Polish.

I have for you *pause for dramatic effect* Flying Blue Jay and Rainbow Fish!

There will be two winners, and winners will have 48 hours to respond to my email with their address.  I will move on and pick new winners if I do not hear back from the original winners until both prizes have been claimed.  Sadly I am going to have to limit this giveaway to US addresses at this time.  If you live outside the US and have a friend in the US I can ship to (who can then send it along to you), you are more than welcome to enter!  My last international package has gone missing and I am a little weary of shipping at this time.

The first winner selected will have first choice of these polishes, and the second winner will receive the remaining lacquer.  In the event that the first winner does not respond to my email within the 48 hours, the second winner will automatically bump up into the number one slot and have her choice between these beauties.

Giveaway ends September 6th.  Please allow 4 weeks for shipping.  I am usually on the ball and don't anticipate any delays at this time.

After you enter, kindly leave a comment thanking Amy for her generosity.

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