My Revlon Parfumerie Picks

I am sucker for a sale.  So when Walgreens had a Revlon sale last month, I chose a few of the new Parfumerie polishes to play with.  Typically, I try to stay away from scented polishes, but I had read some good reviews of this collection.  Overall, these polishes had a pleasant scent and was not overpowering in the slightest.  Some reviews stated that the scent was lost once a top coat was applied, but that was not the case for me.  I will be sharing my three picks from this collection with you today: Italian Leather, Apricot Nectar and Autumn Spice.

This post is picture heavy, so be sure to click on through for all the swatch goodness.  (And some awesome macro shots!)

Butter London Shag: the first in my quest for the perfect red/brown polish

I think I'm a bit odd when it comes to polish colors. Green is my favorite color, but I rarely wear green polish. Brown is my second favorite color, but I absolutely hate brown polish on me. I love red and pink polish, but hate the color pink and don't care for the color red. Perhaps I'm just completely insane. :-P

Anyway, back to the polish at hand. I'm always searching for a brown/red polish, because it's the closest I can get to a wearable brown. I've spent a long time searching for my perfect autumn red-brown polish, today I'm showing you one of the candidates. This is Butter London Shag.

Shag is a gorgeous coppery brown shimmer with a red hue. The shimmer is very fine giving it a metallic-like finish (but it's definitely not metallic, absolutely no visible brushstrokes). The formula was good, thin and opaque in two coats (but without careful application it may require three), quick drying, and no staining.

I did experience something strange with the formula though, when I went to seal the tips of my nail (polish the free-edge), and I couldn't get the polish to stick. I normally paint my first coat, let it dry, then polish the free edge on my second coat, followed by the rest of the nail surface to get a perfectly smooth finish. When I tried to do this with Shag it kept wiping off the edges of my nail leaving a bald spot on the free edge. For this reason I added a third coat for the photos below. It's so hard to describe what was happening, but it's happened every time I wore Shag.

For quite a while Shag was the front runner in my search for the perfect autumn red-brown (narrowly beating Julep Boris and Nicole due to formula) but I still have a bunch more to try out!

Have you ever searched for a polish color/finish you can see in your head? If you know of other polishes this color please comment and let me know! Maybe I can find my perfect autumn shade by next fall. :)

Julep Minka

Hey Y'all, I'm back!

After being gone for a week I'm happy to be blogging again! (I'm also very happy to have my light box and daylight lamps back for photographing polishes. It was rough being away from home for the last month).

Today I thought I'd share with you one of my favorite polishes that I packed for my month-long vacation: Julep Minka.

Now if you read my blog or know me, you probably know that I'm not a fan of matte finishes. I am, however, a fan of Julep Minka. Minka was part of the Julep's Maven November suedes release, which I ironically forgot to skip and ended up loving.


Minka is a pinkish-amber polish with heavy silver shimmer and a matte finish. Matte polish with shimmer equals suede finish! (In case you ever wondered what the difference in a matte and a suede was).  The formula on Minka is nice and dense, I usually only wear one coat, but two coats deepens the color a bit more.

But none of that is the reason I love Minka so much. By carrying Minka and a polish-remover pad (which Julep just happened to include in my November box as a free gift) my bag, I have the means to remove a wrecked manicure at lunch, apply one coat of Minka (no top coat or basecoat) and it's dry in 3 minutes. For someone like me who hates to go un-polished (and tends to pick off my polish when I'm stressed) it's absolutely perfect! Minka is my new go-to 5-minute manicure.


Suedes are nice because they dry quickly, but the wear time on all matte polish is really quite atrocious, they chip so easily.

To extend wear time you can start with a good base coat (I recommend matte OPI Nail Envy for suedes) use one coat of the matte polish, one coat of any top coat, then top it off with one final coat of the matte polish.

What's your favorite go-to polish?

Thanks for reading! I hope you are all having a wonderful new year!

Soflajo Review - Shirley Temple and Manhattan

Today I have two Soflajo polishes, Shirley Temple and Manhattan. This was my first time trying Soflajo and I'm glad I get to type it to you since I'm not sure I can pronounce Soflajo, I can hardly spell it!

Soflajo Shirley Temple (left) Manhattan (right)

While these colors look similar in the bottle (I was a bit worried when the bottles arrived that I should have ordered something different) but they are completely different on the nail. 

First up is Manhattan, a gorgeous dark copper metallic shimmer. The formula was nice, this is two coats that dried relatively quickly. No complaints here. :) This will definitely be a great fall color. 

Soflajo Manhattan

Soflajo Manhattan

Next is Shirley Temple. This is a real win for me. It's a coppery-pink metallic shimmer. I own a lot of pinks but this one is unique in my collection. Somehow the shimmer makes it more of a subtle color and it's gorgeous. Formula was similar to Manhattan and I had no real issues. 

Soflajo Shirley Temple

Soflajo Shirley Temple

These polishes were shipped quickly and are great quality. They apply nicely and are very pretty. I won't hesitate to order again.

China Glaze Harvest Moon

Finally! I have wanted Harvest moon since saw the first picture of the Capital Colors collection. After reading the Hunger Games book (the books that this collection is based on, if you haven't heard) I wanted the whole set. Since I can't afford that right now I'm just going to keep collecting them one at a time. I have three so far, Riveting, Electrify, and now harvest moon. (Click for swatches of the other two).

Harvest Moon is a burnt copper shimmer. It's almost a foil but not quite so I'm going to consider it a shimmer. It is a beautiful color and really makes me think of the fall harvest. This would be a great fall color, and it's just as pretty this spring.

Another win out of the Capital Colors. I can't wait to pick up the rest of them!