Deborah Lippmann Mermaid's Dream Swatch and Review

Deborah Lippmann Mermaid's Dream is a beautiful seafoam green polish that is made up of microfine green glitter in a clear base, with larger blue glitter mixed in. 

Halogen Lighting

Sunlight

With Flash

Indoors/ Filtered Light

This polish is just gorgeous! It's hard to tell from the bottle that Mermaid's Dream consists of glitter suspended in a clear base, but after painting on the first coat, their is no doubt about it.  The glitter is so packed that three coats easily makes it opaque on the nail.  The formula on this polish was like butter, I think my nails painted themselves in fact! Overall Mermaid's Dream is a very unique polish and I highly recommend it!

Deborah Lippmann Sweet Dreams Swatch and Review

Nordstrom's was having a buy 2 get 1 free sale on all Deborah Lippmann nail polishes this weekend, so I picked up Sweet Dreams, Good Girl Gone Bad, and Mermaid's Dream, all of which I had been eying for awhile! 

Sweet Dreams is a beautiful pink jelly polish that is filled to the brim with pink and gold holographic flakes.

With Flash

Halogen Lighting

Sunlight

     I really love this polish! It has a beautiful fish scale appearance that just lights up in the sun, and the shade of pink is perfect for my skin tone.  I also absolutely adore the bottle... is that strange to like the bottle? My only complaint with this polish is that it was thick and this caused application to be a bit difficult.  Just be careful to apply it in thin layers or you will end up with bald spots and patches of thicker and thinner areas.  I can't wait to try it in a gradient manicure, or layered over black. I bet it would look fabulous! 

Essie Mojito Madness Swatch and Review

Essie Mojito Madness is a beautiful green creme that manages to be bright and summery and very green without moving too far into  yellow territory.

Halogen Lighting

Sunlight

With Flash

Indoors

   This means that I can wear it and it's still very flattering on my skin tone! Overall I really like this color, and was really looking forward to trying it.  The formula was fairly good, slightly on the thick side but not bad, and it only took 2 coats to become opaque.  It did however take forever and a day to dry.  Even after about 40 minutes of dry time I accidentally bumped my thumb nail on my right hand and it dented.  I still think it's worth it! In certain lighting conditions this color reminds me of that retro avocado green color they used to use in kitchens in the 70's but in a good way.

Essie, Mirror Metallics Blue Rhapsody Swatch and Review

 

Blue Rhapsody is a silvery blue shade from Essie's new Mirror Metallics collection.  I must say that I only picked up this polish on a whim when I saw the collection at my local Target.  My first impression of other swatches I had seen of this collection wasn't positive, but I since I didn't have anything else like it in my collection I thought, like many other nail polish addicts before me... why not?

     I have to say first of all, Blue Rhapsody completely blew away all my previous ideas of what it would be like.  It shouldn't be "Don't judge a book by it's cover", but instead, "Don't judge a polish by it's swatch."  Cameras and computer monitors alike have a way of skewing the true nature of a nail polish so that the most endearing traits of the polish are masked or misrepresented. Not only that, but on the nail, Blue Rhapsody looks absolutely nothing like it did in the bottle.

     Blue Rhapsody is more metallic then it appears in the swatch above, almost looking like blue tinted aluminum foil stuck onto my nails.  It reminds me of a moody foreboding ocean on an overcast day, as it often is here in the Pacific NW.  True love! Now I regret not getting more of the polishes to try from this collection... Maybe next time...

     Application was pretty good with this polish if not a little strange.  The first coat goes on very patchy, and if you don't wait until that layer dries completely, it has a tendency to drag and pull as you put on a second layer.  Luckily it dried very quickly so I didn't have to wait long.  I used 3 coats for full opacity.  I didn't bother to use a top coat for this polish as I didn't want to mess with the pretty metallic finish.  As far as cleanup is concerned, this polish was super easy to remove and did not stain my nails at all.  I did use 1 coat of base coat before application as I always do, but even without it I don't think this polish would have a tendency to stain. Overall I would highly recommend it!

Have you tried any polishes from Essie's Mirror Metallics collection? What did you think?