Swatch and Review: OPI ULTA Holiday 2012

Happy Saturday, everyone! I hope you are all enjoying your weekend so far!

Today, I'm bringing you this year's OPI holiday shades exclusively for ULTA Beauty. I stumbled upon them at my local ULTA in East Brunswick. If you purchase two OPI shades this weekend, you receive a special gift of your choice of the holiday shades for free.

 

Last Minute Shopper is a juicy strawberry red metallic polish. It applied evenly and was opaque in two coats. It's not the most unique shade out there, but it's a very pretty one. It has a very subtle glow about it. I like that has depth to the color without being a glass fleck. This reminds me of You Only Live Twice from the Bond Collection for Holiday 2012 without the aforementioned flecks.

For the record, this has already been stolen by the Queen Mum (aka: Nana) and I have not seen it since. I have a feeling it will make an appearance when she heads back to Florida and I find it on her dresser during winter break there.

Next up is Skip the Gift Wrap, a vibrant emerald metallic polish that slightly skews towards the frost spectrum. The application was fine and even. The brush strokes in this picture are virtually unnoticeable in real life. I think it's the macro that brings that out.

As Pantone has announced, emerald is SO in for 2013 and I think Skip the Gift Wrap is definitely a color to rock in the new year!

The last of the trio is Gift Cards for Everyone, a blurple shimmer with scattered specks of sapphire glitter. Forgive the lack of a bottle... it has gone missing somewhere within my bedroom.

The glitter is definitely apparent in sunlight, but not as much as in the bottle. It's a lot more scattered on the nail. Though, the effect is mostly there.

Overall, I liked this trio better than last year's two rough glitters and shimmery red. All three are very wearable for me and while they're not incredibly unique, I think they're very pretty shades that anyone would like to find in their Christmas stocking or for their last night of Chanukah.

As I mentioned before, you can currently receive one of these shades free with the purchase of two OPI polishes at ULTA. Because I only purchased these three, they were essentially B2G1 for me. They retail for $8.00 each and are available only at your local ULTA store! They also have a mini set called Stuff My Stocking that retails for $12.50 and includes the three minis

Three OPI's for $16? Not a bad deal, in my opinion. (And the 20% off my total purchase coupon didn't hurt... so they wound up being closer to $12!)

What's your verdict on this holiday collection?

Princess Polish

Swatch and Review: R. Hobby Cosmetics Holiday Collection

Happy Friday, everyone! We're less than two weeks away from Christmas and a break from work, school, or just life in general! For those of you suffering through final exams, like I am, I sincerely feel for you and wish you all the best of luck! And Happy Chanukah to all of my fellow Jewish followers... sorry it took six nights to get that out to you all!

Today, I have two beautiful polishes to share with you from R.Hobby Cosmetic's Holiday Collection: Christmas Shatter and 5 Golden Rings. R.Hobby is an awesome indie brand you may remember from my review of Rachel's fall collection!

First up is 5 Golden Rings, a delicate gold flake polish. It's actually opaque, as you can see, on the nail in three coats and was super easy to apply. I loved how the flakes are in completely varying sizes and gives a really delicate look. It's super pretty, super girly and I loved it. It would also look gorgeous with one or two coats over a white, black, blue, purple, green, or red polish!

My favorite of the two is Peppermint Shatter, a glitter top coat of red and white shards with fine red and white glitter. Oh my God! Does this NOT look like you smashed up a candy cane and sprinkled it on your nails? I know!

This is super unique and I adore it! The above is with two coats over Zoya Holly and the application was perfect.

Overall, I am in love with both of these. 5 Golden Rings for its delicateness, Peppermint Shatter for its big pop of color! Either would be great to wear to Christmas dinner and 5GR could be worn year round for a dainty look! Plus... who doesn't love a little nail polish as a stocking stuffer

Polishes from R. Hobby Cosmetics are available through its Etsy Store for $8 per 15mL bottle. I highly recommend taking a look at Rachel's other shades, as they're all stellar. You can also follow R. Hobby Cosmetics on Facebook!

Are you as in love with these as I am?
Princess Polish

Disclaimer: The product(s) in this post were provided to me by the manufacturer or their PR company for consideration. For more information please visit my Disclaimer page.

Holiday Presents

Oh, hello again all of my lovelies! I have missed you so much!

Prior to Thanksgiving break, my professors at law school saddled us with enough assignments to bury me in my textbooks for two weeks. I have finally come out of case book hibernation and am so happy to be reunited with you all. The Halloween Hangover prizes are all on their way and things are getting back to normal!

Today, Princess Polish is getting in the holiday spirit with nails I rocked on Black Friday! I went back to the toy store I worked at for a little under two years (as my second job, Mets-aside) to help out on the super busy day. I am very well known for my crazy nail art amongst the customer base, so I HAD to go a little overboard for the day. And both Christmas and Chanukah are represented.

I went back into my It's So Easy drawer filled with their awesome products for nail art and pulled out their white Stripe Rite paint and rhinestones to create this simple and easy design.

 

Here are the Chanukah presents, represented by the blue and silver colors. I used Zoya Song (which is my new go-to blue) and Essie No Place Like Chrome. It took a little extra dexterity for the bows because I'm right-handed and this is my right hand. 

If you can't do the loops, this will still look very pretty using the straight lines to make a t and the rhinestone at the center.

And here are the Christmas presents! I used Sally Hansen Insta Dry in Emerald Express and Zoya Elisa to get a nice metallic glow. For some reason, the "ribbon" on the ring finger yellowed after I put on my top coat, but it worked alright with the color scheme. I apologize for the raggedness of the middle finger near the cuticle... I got into a fight with a door. Though I win, this was the sacrifice!

So what do you think of this mani? If you try out this technique, be sure to let me know!
Princess Polish

Halloween Hangover Giveaway

Happy Weekend, everyone! I hinted at this at the start of the week, but it is now officially here!

I don't know about you, but there is leftover candy stashed all around my house. Because of Hurricane Sandy and Winter Storm Athena (let's not even get into the subject of naming winter storms), Halloween was postponed and then ultimately canceled in my town. So I've been straining to will power myself away from all of the candy. Milk Duds are my biggest kryptonite of all.

So I thought it'd be kind of cool to do a giveaway of a bunch of Halloween polish I had been planning to award through a flash giveaway on Halloween. Rather than save it for next year, I figured why not give it away now?

Enter below!


a Rafflecopter giveaway