NOTD: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Purple Pizzazz

Really pretty blue-purple jelly with pink microglitter, this is a pretty dark nail polish for me, but it is still pretty cheerful with the pink shimmer and the fact that it's a jelly. I love how blue-leaning it is too~.

NOTD: Essie Super Bossa Nova

I had $3.50 off at CVS so I decided to get another Essie polish since I have recently decided I love their formula...there were some lip glosses I wanted to try too but I am really trying hard here to stick to my "no drugstore cosmetics so I can get more high-end stuff" rule! Nail polish is not included in that rule though, since many great nail polishes can be found in drug stores, and being high-end doesn't necessarily mean the quality or formula is better!

Anyway, although coral has taken over as my favorite summer color I am still in a fuchsia mood...well, Super Bossa Nova in my opinion is more of a bright raspberry but it still fits the bill for reddish shades I am into! Also I've been getting kind of sick of cremes lately...I love the colors and it's great the first day or 2 but then I get majorly antsy to remove it! One of the things that made me get Super Bossa Nova over another Essie color I really wanted (well, several...all coraly/peachy colors) was because of it's pretty pink shimmer! It's just what I needed to keep my interest and possibly have this color on for more than a couple days!

As expected the formula on Super Bossa Nova was amazing, possibly the best yet! It was very easy to control although it looks a bit messy in the picture, but that's because it's my right hand, meaning I applied with my left hand...so it couldn't be helped!

Top: Direct sunlight. Bottom: Shade under a tree.

Don't mind my cuticles, they are terrible right now...this is actually my good hand, my other hand has 2 band-aids over my cuticles :(

NOTD: Essie Smooth Sailing & Essie Coat Azure

I put off getting Essie Smooth Sailing since I thought it would be too similar to Coat Azure but I am glad I got over it (a $5 coupon helped too) and got Smooth Sailing since other than being blue they are nothing alike. I have Smooth Sailing on all nails other than the accent nail which has Coat Azure which as you can see is not as shimmery and much lighter/brighter than Smooth Sailing. All in all I prefer Smooth Sailing, but if you were on the fence like I was rest assured these colors are nothing alike (like I was told when I was still waffling over it), hopefully this helps. The formula on both is amazing, makes me wonder why I don't have way more of Essie in my collections.

Sorry about my terrible cuticles, yikes!

Recently Hauled Goodies (MAC, NYX and more)

Recently I've been on a lipstick kick. I know I said that before but this time I've really gotten into it. I know what colors I like and what colors I can pull off and I don't find most lipsticks too drying. I was looking for a great reddish coral which is apparently very wearable for me, so when I saw this lipstick I knew I had to get it. Luckily that day my local MAC store just got in a big shipment so I picked it up that night :). It was so very worth it, it's a surprisingly wearable color that isn't TOO red or TOO orange. Also I love the tube, at first I was leery about the collection's packaging but it does look really nice. It has a very nice weight to it and it's pretty cute.

I also got a couple of NYX round lipsticks to try, I like them quite a bit although now that I am trying to stick to high-end makeup more I am not sure how many more I will get...maybe I will just get crazy colors I won't wear much but want to have for fun from NYX or something :). Anyways I got Haute Melon and Shiva, surprisingly Haute Melon is very wearable despite it looking quite orange. But worn it truly is a cantaloupe shade on me. Pink enough that it doesn't look strange. Shiva is a blue toned fuchsia with a blue flash, very nice and also very wearable at least for me. I think if you are afraid of brights either wear it very lightly or stay away.

I'd also heard that Sinful Colors' new summer collection "Adventure Island" had a few dead-on dupes for OPI's "Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" collection. From what I saw they are the same, but personally I don't have the OPI ones to compare it to. The formula is great and the wear time is great so at $2 you really can't go wrong here unless you have a strong moral objection. However I found that I didn't really want to pay close to $9 for straight cremes and since I already got the color from OPI I wanted most, this was the best way to get the stragglers.

Star Fish is the dupe for Sparrow Me The Drama

Seaweed is the dupe for On Stranger Tides

Verbena is the dupe for Planks a Lot