OPI, Dazzled By Gold

Dazzled By Gold is an Ulta-exclusive Holiday OPI that came out in 2009.  I saw it at Ulta, picked it up, heard tons of raves about the awesomeness of this polish, and then never wore it.

Isn't that absolutely insane? The truth, though, is that I'm very uncomfortable about wearing gold. Although it has a tendency to look good on my skin, I think it blends a little too much with it and then turns the bling into something a lot more obnoxious.  It always, always, always looks good on me--but I'm always afraid of wearing it initially. In any case, I found it in my drawer just a while ago and sucked it up. Good thing, too, because this baby is beautiful.

Here it is coming alive in the glint of sun:

What makes Dazzled by Gold so wearable is the fact that it's made entirely of little flakes of two (at least, I can only identify two kinds) kinds of gold:  glitzy, lux 24K; paler and more demure gold glitter. The overall look is foily and much like the finish on both Hard Candy's Mr. Wrong and Milani's I'm Online--the texture is partly what brings out this polish's appeal.

And look at how it shines in the sun and how it just glows in shade.

This was three coats. You can still kind of see the (messy) tips of my fingers--I might wear some sort of opaque nude color underneath this just to make the layering a lot easier.  Gorgeous polish--I'll probably reach for this again during the holiday season.

BB Couture, Erotic Night

This is a horrible picture, but it's the only plain one I have of Erotic Night, so bear with me here! I'm so sorry.

Anywoo, this is a discontinued BB Couture polish and the most perfect blood-clot red jelly that I own.  It takes three coats to look the way it does, although one should put on regular topcoat and then proceed to knock their hands gently against virtually anything in the way in order to get that particular texture. There is no VNL, although I did note that adding coats seemed a little bit more difficult in application than the first.  This is a polish that will most definitely need thinner after the first few uses!

Anyway, because of all those boo-boos, I decided to cover it up with these:

I used a That's It? rubons in gold stars and topcoat. 

OPI Hollywood Blonde

Okay, first things first--this polish is almost impossible to capture on camera.

Secondly, it's gorgeous in a way that I can't get to translate into pixels.  I was quite fortunate to run into Hollywood Blonde in my local CVS--they have a rack of OPI polishes, some of which are discontinued and/or black label--and snatched it up because I'd heard that it was essentially a beige Princesses Rule! I LOVE Princesses Rule!, but the warm pink translates to a pale color on the nail and is sparkly-stark on my skintone, so I figured that the warm, champagne version would be way better.

Do you see what I mean about the similarities between this polish and the formerly-swatched Princesses Rule!? (that looks funny.)  They have the exact same finish, and it shows; it has a sugar-sprinkled effect in sunlight and a stark textured effect in shade. Both polishes take three coats and still have VNL, although because the polishes are so shiny I don't particularly mind. It is--actually--almost a mannequin hand color, but it probably seems that way because it's sheer and it's difficult to judge because it's sparkly.

Lol my hand looks creepy and dead in here, but please try to ignore that for the quality of shimmer I FINALLY managed to capture. :)

Anyway, I think I need to try this polish a few more times before I decide whether or not it's awesome--but I like it! Definitely a work appropriate color that I could wear to the office, if I ever go to the office.