4 More Hare Polishes

And the Hare Polish swatchfest continues with 3 more Hares that I wore recently.  I wish I could say that this would be it, but I haven't even swatched a fraction of what I snagged in destashes, so you'll be seeing a lot more Hare Polish.

First is Anemone Gardens.

Anemone Gardens is a purple jelly base with large metallic pink hex glitters and tiny olive square glitters.  It's a really odd combination in the bottle but looks super unique on the nail.  My swatch stick took 3 coats to be opaque, but the large glitters made it super lumpy.  I chose to layer this on my nails to avoid the lumpy mess.  I layered over Zoya Serenity which was a pretty close match to the base color, but I think it darkened up the polish a bit.  Honestly, it reminded me of something I would've worn in middle school-ultra girly (pink and purple) with large loud glitters.  But I teach at a middle school, so it was all good (and yes, my students loved it).  I don't foresee me wearing this to work frequently because of how loud it is, but I can see myself loving it on my toes or in the summer.

Next up is Star Tropics.

Star Tropics is a thin navy jelly with large white square and tiny silver circle glitters.  It's a spin on the night sky polishes that I am so hooked on.  This one is very thin and doesn't get opaque so I layered 2 coats over OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue.  YGTB, is one of my favorite layering polishes because it has that metallic glow from within look which transfers over to whatever is layered on top.  It also is a 1-coater which makes it ideal for layering.  I loved this mani and wore it for several days.  The glitters in Star Tropics both floated and sank in the jelly base which gave it a lot of depth on my nails.  Absolutely lovely.

Third is Dancing Bird of Paradise.

Dancing Bird of Paradise is a red jelly base with matte pink and metallic gold glitters.  The base is fairly thin, so I layered this over Zoya Yana.  Yana's a bit too pink-toned and so I feel that the pink glitters disappeared on my nails.  The gold glitters in the red jelly were stunning though.  I want to try layering this over a true red or over a red-orange to see if the pink glitters would show up more.

Lastly is my Easter manicure, King of Carat Flowers paired with Pure Ice Tales Untold and Girly Bits Pirate's Booty.

I tried some basic nail art.  This mani is based on one by Shelby Lou Nails on Instagram seen HERE. (If you don't follow her, you should!  She has fantastic mani pics and does simple yet stunning nail art.)  Tales Untold is a lavender with a gold shimmer.  It has a great formula for a pastel and extra great for a cheap drugstore polish.  It's a nice 2-coater.  Pirate's Booty is a gold glitter bomb.  It is packed with all sizes of gold holographic glitter and opaque in 2-3 coats.  King of Carat Flowers is a light gray crelly base with gold hexes, lavender squares, and cream square glitters.  It is very delicate and spring-like.

Top 15 of 2015

I wanted to share my top 15 polishes of 2015.  I had this post planned for New Year's Eve, but then my hubby and I both got really sick and were down for days.  Then it was back to work and life was crazy.  Sorry that this is a little late.

It was so hard to narrow my picks down to 15.  I ultimately only chose polishes that I purchased in 2015 (though a few were released earlier) and tried to choose the polishes I wore the most.

Here they are in rainbow order:

Zoya Perrie

Perrie is a gorgeous orchid cream.  It is smooth and buttery-opaque in 2 coats.  In the spring I went for nearly 3 weeks wearing this.  I'd take it off and then immediately reapply it.

Whim In Love With Love

I found this gem in the clearance bin at Ulta.  Whim's formulas are hit or miss, but ILWL's formula is a grand slam.  It's nearly a 1-coater rose polish and is super holographic in the sunlight.  Indoors, it looks like it has a subtle silver shimmer.

Orly Fireball

This summer I wasn't crazy about the neons, except with Orly's Fireball.  It's a neon red with a subtle pinkish shimmer.  It's a hot and wild color, but is stunning both indoors and out.

OPI Go With the Lava Flow

I was pretty disappointed in OPI's Hawaii collection.  All the colors seemed too pastel to represent the tropical islands.  However, I did fall in love with Go With the Lava Flow.  It is a reddish coral color with subtle gold shimmer.  It is so pretty.

Hare Polish Flesh World

I tried to limit my Hare Polish choices, but still 3 made it on this list.  I love Flesh World from the original Twin Peaks collection.  It's a yellow-toned nude crelly with peach, gold, and black glitters.  Definitely the oddest and most unique polish in my collection.  The combo seems so weird, but the result works so well.

Superchic Lacquer Figmint of My Imagination

Figmint of My Imagination is a minty green shimmer with a violet flash.  It is so pretty and the flash adds a lot of interest to it.  It is very thin though-requires 3-4 coats.

Zoya Cecilia

I probably could've listed the entire Island Fun collection on this list.  Cecilia is probably my favorite from the collection though.  It is a gorgeous 1-coat green-leaning teal.  I love how bright and vibrant it is, but it has a slight dusty quality that keeps the color from being obnoxious.

Butter London Stag Do

Stag Do was a major lemming of mine that I stumbled upon in TJ Maxx.  I couldn't believe that I found it there.  It's a very dark teal with a super subtle green shimmer.  In nearly every lighting, it looks like a cream, but in direct sunlight, the shimmer peeks through.  It's dark and vampy, yet doesn't look black in any lighting.

KBShimmer Carpe Denim

I feel a little bit like a cheater by putting this on my yearly favorites list.  I received Carpe Denim as a Christmas present and have only worn it once.  But once is all it took-I couldn't get this polish out of my mind.  It's a dark navy blue jelly that's packed with holographic silver glitter.  It's almost a night sky polish except the glitter is super holographic in all lighting.

Zoya Serenity

Serenity is my other pick from the Island Fun collection.  It's a medium-hued dusty purple.  Just like Cecilia, it is simultaneously bright and subdued.  It has fantastic formula too, nearly a 1-coater.

Hare Polish Regency Miss

The base of Regency miss is the same dusty purple color as Serenity.  It also has pink circle glitters and square copper glitters and copper shimmer in it.  Another of Hare's unexpectedly stunning glitter mixes.

OPI Cosmo With a Twist

This was my go to polish color for the holiday season.  I wore it 3 times in the month of December.  It's a dark purple jelly with purple and blue glass fleck in it.

Zoya Caitlin

Caitlin is a lavender-grey polish.  It's super chic and classy.

 Hare Polish Lost on Abalone Shores

LOAS was from June's A Box Indied.  It's a taupe-grey with green holographic flakies and pink shimmer.  This is so pretty and is probably my favorite polish of the entire year.

Crows Toes Even Sugar Melts in the Devil's Mouth 

My final favorite is from February's A Box Indied.  ESMITDM has a black jelly base with silver flakies and red shimmer.  It looks really edgy and the red shimmer makes it a bit vampy too.

So those are my favorite polishes from last year!  What are yours?  I'm so excited to see what 2016 brings to the polish world.  The spring collections look like they are going to be great.

What I Wore 11/02-11/06

I started the week wearing Zoya Yves from this year's Matte Velvet Collection.  All the reviews I have read have raved about this one, but it seemed really flat while matte.  I don't really like flat matte nails, which is why the matte velvets appeal to me, They've got some shimmer/texture when matte.  Yves is not like that though.  I rarely wear the Matte Velvets matte though, I always topcoat to bring out that breathtaking shimmer.  Yves has it, but it's pretty hidden unless you are under strong lighting.

I am unsure how I feel about this one.  I'm disappointed in the look of it matte, and I wish the shimmer was more prominent.  It has a fantastic formula but stains really bad.  It looks very similar to OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue, but the OPI is metallic and this one looks like a navy cream unless the lighting shows the shimmer.  It might go in my destash pile, I haven't decided yet.

After being disappointed in Yves, I decided that I wanted to wear a truly sparkly Zoya.  I opted for Zoya's Gilda from the Sparkle Collection.

Gilda is a bright nearly hot pink jelly loaded with gold flaky glitter.  The glitter takes on some of the pink color making it look orange.  Gilda is very very sheer and when I put 3 coats on, you could still see the dark blue staining from Yves.  So I ended up wearing it over a berry cream color (Zoya's Areej).  Areej is a nice 2 coater cream which I topped with 2 coats of Gilda.  Gilda is the color of the bottle in the picture, my nails are cooler toned because of the berry base.  I ended up getting really busy and wore this for 4 or 5 days.

After bright pink, I wanted to wear a fall-esque color and chose OPI Green on the Runway from last year's Coca Cola Collection.  It is a emerald green/copper red duochrome.

Green on the Runway is a 2-3 coater with a fantastic color shift.  It's probably my favorite duochrome.  Although metallic, it doesn't leave obvious brushstrokes.  This was my favorite polish of the week.

What I Wore This Week 10/18-10/24

I love reading nail blogs.  My very favorite are from small bloggers who just love nail polish like I do.  Their reviews are honest and the polish is usually easier to find than the bigger bloggers' polishes.

I decided to start my own nail blog.  Then I can keep track of my swatches and thoughts about my collection and maybe help someone else who's thinking about purchasing too.  I'm going to start just with sharing what I wore each week, and we'll see what happens from there.

On Sunday, I wore Cosmo With A Twist from the new OPI Starlight collection.  The day before, I stopped by Sally's to see if they had Starlight in yet.  (It's supposed to be in ULTA, my my ULTA never sticks to the correct schedule-they only put out the summer Zoya collection 3 weeks ago!)  Sally's only had 12 of the 18 colors, which was a bit of a let-down because I really wanted to see Ce-less-tial Is More and Let Your Love Shine, but they didn't have either.  Overall, the collection as a whole isn't really my thing.  It has 3 red creams (since OPI can't have a collection without ANOTHER red cream) and a bunch of those really weird, lumpy chrome glitters that they've had in their last 3 collections-Ick!  They have a gorgeous blue holo which looks like a dupe for Zoya's Dream, so I passed on it.  But I couldn't pass up Cosmo With a Twist-a stunning dark blue-purple glass fleck.

Indoors, Cosmo With a Twist looks like a murky dark purple with duochrome flakies (You can see the shift in the bottle), but in the sun, it reflects blue and looks like a navy (as you can see below).  The polish only required 2 coats, but I did have a little staining.

On Monday, I had a meeting to attend, so I opted for a neutral manicure.  I've been eager to try Zoya's Rue, and she doesn't disappoint!

Rue is a light, blush/mauve-toned nude.  It's not a mannequin hands color-it's obvious you are wearing polish, but it is subtle and classy.  A perfect office shade, and only 2 coats.  Rue's a good reminder why Zoya is my favorite brand by far.

It was a crazy week, and I wore Rue Monday-Thursday.  By Friday, I was dying for some color so I chose Butter London's Kerfluffle.  Not really a seasonally appropriate color, but I love peachy-pink any time of the year.

(Sorry for the blurry photo, I took about 5, but just couldn't seem to get a good shot of this.)  Kerfluffle suffers from the pastel polish syndrome-it's chalky and streaky and requires 3 coats.  At the same time, I love this color, and have tried several brands.  Butter London's Kerfluffle is better in formula than the others that I've tried.  It's near Essie's Van d'go, but not quite as pink.  But the formula is much more superior than the globby mess that Van d'go is.

I'm thinking I might try some nail art for Halloween.  I'm horrible at nail art though, so maybe I'll just rock lots of orange and purple this coming week.  What did you wear this week?