OPI Nicki Minaj swatches (Part 1)

This week I'm going to be showing you two fun looks that are created from OPI's Nicki Minaj collection that came out in January. I know it's nothing new for most people, but I missed out on this one and just recently decided to pick up the mini collection when I saw it at my local Ulta. I wasn't too sure if it was worth the money, but as soon as I put these pretties on my fingernails I knew I'd made the right choice! In fact, now I'm wishing I would have grabbed the bigger bottles of a couple of them, because a couple of my coworkers have already asked to borrow them!

So first up is a pretty basic mani with the first two shades from the mini collection, OPI Did It on 'Em, and OPI Fly. Here's a bottle shot of the colors I used:

under indoor light

OPI Did It on 'Em is a bold, bright chartreuse (that means it's halfway between yellow and green!), that is very similar in the bottle to OPI Who the Shrek Are You, although since I don't own the Shrek polish, I can't compare them. However, according to swatches online, OPI Did It on 'Em looks to be a tad more yellow. It's definitely a funky, eye catching color. What you see below is three coats, with OPI Natural Nails basecoat and China Glaze Fast Forward topcoat. The formula was a little thin, it definitely needed all three coats.

in sunlight

OPI Fly is also bold and bright. I thought it would be a bit more pastel, but after swatching it, I discovered that it's a bright, not-quite-teal shade! It's now become one of my favorite blue polishes! For my accent nail on my ring fingers, I did two coats with the aforementioned base and top coats. The formula was a bit better than on OPI Did It on 'Em, it wasn't streaky at all, although if you look closely, you can see a bit of VNL in real life. Three coats probably would have solved that problem.

So...that's it for my first OPI Nicki Minaj manicure, what do you think? Did you buy this collection when it first came out, or did you wait like I did? Feel free to leave me comments below!

Sinful Colors - Neon Melon swatches and review

Hello world! Sorry I've been absent for a bit, had some family issues that required my attention, which unfortunately also required that I put everything else on the back burner! But I'm back this week, and have some great polishes that I'm excited to share with you.

First up is this little neon, which is from the Sinful Colors line at Walgreens. I got this one a couple weeks ago when they were having a 50% off sale on them, which means that I got this for just $1! Can't beat that, right?

Neon Melon, in the bottle, looks like the perfect highlighter yellow--a color I've been searching for to wear this summer! Unfortunately, I had a couple problems with the application, which means that I'm not as in love with it as I was when I first saw it. Also, please excuse my really dry hands! I can't believe I didn't notice how dry they were when I was taking these, and then I took the polish off before I realized. But anyway, on to the swatches.

Shown here with a base coat of Orly Bonder and a top coat of China Glaze - Fast Forward.

First of all, it's REALLY SHEER. Not three coats sheer, more like this took me five coats to even get it to this level of opaqueness (see above) and, as you can see, there's still bald spots and streaks. I can usually handle a three-coater, which is still more sheer than most polishes, but five + coats is just crazy.

In some lights, it looks a little more canary yellow (like in the photo above)  but as you can see, it really is a neon, as the name suggests. I'm not sure why it's called Melon though, because when I think of melons, I tend to think pink. But anyway....

My other problem with this one was that it stained my nails, and if it wasn't such a funky color, I wouldn't have minded, but my fingers look sort of diseased now, a weird greenish yellow! I even used a base coat of Orly Bonder, but guess I'll need to double up on that next time. 

I did read something on a blog about layering neons like this over white, and I was going to try that, but when I went to grab my bottle of white polish, it was missing! I have no clue where it went, since I haven't seen it for quite some time. I guess I'll have to get another here soon--any recommendations for a great white?