Spotlight on 'Project Polish' Polishes: Nicole by OPI 'Rich in Spirit'

Today's spotlight on my 'Project Polish' polishes, is on 'Rich in Spirit' from Nicole by OPI's Spring 2011 'Liquid Metals' 4-pc collection:

In the picture above, the colour looks a bit like a typical metallic silver polish, however, the polish is actually a gorgeous light steel-blue shimmery metallic foil. It is quite unique to my collection in that I don't have very many (if any) pastel metallic polishes. I have a blue metallic foil from the Sally Hansen 'Color Foils' collection, but the blue is more saturated.

Even though this was from a Spring collection, I can see this as a great winter colour as well, since it's so reminiscent of ice. I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to get a lot of use from it this winter and during the holidays!

Blue and White Splatter Manicure using Claire's 'Flashing Lights' and Sally Hansen 'Sky's the Limit'

Today I have a fun glitter manicure I did using one of my 'Project Polish' polishes, Claire's 'Flashing Lights':

Since this polish is a topper, I'll include my 'Spotlight' on the polish (where I give a little history, and some details about my 'Project Polish' polishes) in this post. Claire's 'Flashing Lights', is a blue splatter effect glitter with matte turquoise hex and bar glitters, and white hex glitters. From what I can see on-line, it looks like this polish was released in 2013. I used a sister polish from the collection, a black version called 'Splatter Paint' in a couple previous manicures that I blogged. The earliest is from August 2014 (and here is the other). I remember I bought a bunch of these splatter effect polishes from Claire's on clearance, so I probably bought them in late 2013 or early 2014 - it's really shocking how quickly time flies!

Polishes Used

Claire's Cosmetics Splatter 'Flashing Lights'

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure -                   'Sky's the Limit' (colour number 565)

For this manicure, I decided to go with a mostly monochromatic theme, so a chose a light blue Sally Hansen polish as the base, 'Sky's the Limit'. I'm pretty sure that this was previously untried, so I'm glad I got a chance to use it despite doing this project. That's one reason I'm really glad that there are topper's included in this 'Project Polish'... It's only been a few weeks, but I'm already starting to feel a little constrained. Once I realized that I needed to choose a base colour from my collection to go with this topper, I was so eager to look through my stash of polishes to find one to use! 

I'm probably going to have to take a small hiatus from the project a little closer to the holidays, because I'm really looking forward to doing some fun Christmas manicures using Reds and Greens, and I don't want to feel pressured to include some of the 'Project Polish' colours.  

Polishes Used

Spotlight on 'Project Polish' Polishes: Nicole by OPI 'Nicole... Spotted!'

The featured polish for today's 'Project Polish' spotlight is Nicole by OPI's 'Nicole... Spotted!', a teal jelly polish loaded with yellow, green, and blue metallic glitters, as well as what appear to be gold micro glitters. It was released in 2010 as part of the 4 piece 'Gossip Girl' collection, a cross-promotion with the television show 'Gossip Girl', which was quite popular at the time.

The silver and white glitter polish that I used in my Remembrance Day Mani - 2018, 'Scandal, Secrets & Sparkle', was also from the 'Gossip Girl' collection. That polish is also in the project, and since I previously did a swatch post about it, I went back and added the 'Spotlight' label to that post so that it will be included in this series. Here's a swatch of 'Nicole... Spotted!':

First of all, this polish has held up relatively well over the years. The consistency of the polish may possibly be a touch thicker than it was originally, but it still spreads really easily, and required 2 coats to opacity.

Secondly, I was quite impressed with how chip resistant, and long lasting this polish was on me! This polish was so durable that I wore it for a few days with virtually no signs of wear. However the flip side of that coin is that the polish was also quite tedious to remove. Even though there is a lot of glitter, I chose not to wear a peel-off base coat... I don't think that I'll make that same mistake again! Unless of course I'm planning for a situation where I might not be able to do my nails for a while, and need a super durable polish to get me through most of that time.  

I'll end today's post with a couple extra shots of the swatch:

Spotlight on 'Project Polish' Polishes: OPI 'Glow Up Already!'

For today's 'Spotlight' on one of the 16 polishes that I have included in my 'Project Polish', I have a swatch of OPI's 'Glow Up Already!' to share:

'Glow Up Already!' from OPI's Holiday 2010 'Burleque' Collection

This glitter polish is from the OPI 'Burlesque' collection from Holiday 2010. The 'Burlesque' collection was a cross-promotion with the Cher and Christina Aguilera movie of the same name. If I recall correctly, I remember glitter polishes being really big at the time, and a plethora of fun glitter polishes and glitter/glitter-heavy collections were being offered by several nail polish manufacturers. It was a fun time in the world of nail polish!

A lot of the legendary glitter polishes like OPI's 'Mad as a Hatter' and 'Absolutely Alice', China Glaze's 'Emerald Sparkle' and Deborah Lippmann's famous series of glitter polishes (eg, 'Glitter in the Air', 'Bad Romance' etc.) were all released around this period of a few years.

I remember being totally mesmerized by so many of all of the pretty glitter polishes that were coming out. I was completely on board the glitter band-wagon at the time, and I bought way more glitter polishes back then than I do now. However, as I mentioned in my last post, I've been using my glitters less and less these days. Typically, when I do use a glitter, I will just paint one nail with the polish as an accent nail. But even this is only occasionally, as a lot of the time I'll accent certain nails using other methods. Consequently, I'm not surprised that most of my project polish polishes are glitter polishes. 

I'm really looking forward to the challenge of finding new ways to incorporate glitters into my nail art. Perhaps I can adapt all of the methods I came up with for using my 'Crackle' polishes during my '2015 Crackle Polish Challenge'!

For now, I'll leave you with some additional shots of 'Glow Up Already'.

Blue and Green Chunky Glitter Mani using Revlon 'Tantalize', and Nicole by OPI 'Honey-Dew You Love Me?'

Today I have another Project Polish manicure to share with you:

Polishes Used

Revlon Brilliant Strength 'Tantalize' (120)

Nicole by OPI 'Honey-Dew You Love Me?'

The Project Polish selection was Nicole by OPI 'Honey-Dew You Love Me?' This polish is a chunky matte teal heart glitter in a clear base with subtle holographic micro-glitters, and here it is used over Revlon Brilliant Strength 'Tantalize'  - colour number 120.  I did a swatch of this colour for yesterday's post.

Polishes Used

I remember being so excited about 'Honey-Dew...', and other polishes like it, back when I bought it years ago in the early days of my polish collecting. I used a different version of this polish with reddish-orange hearts for my Coral Compilation Mani a few years ago. I also have other colours and shapes of chunky glitter toppers that I haven't worn in a while.

Truthfully, my tastes have changed a lot since I first eagerly bought these chunky glitter topper polishes. When I first started collecting polishes, I wasn't really into nail stamping or nail art, so Chunky glitters and crackle polishes (which were really big at the time) were my go-to way of combining colours on my nails. Now that I have other ways of mixing and matching different colours in my collection, as well as adding shapes, patterns, and images to my nails, I hardly ever reach for these chunky glitters any more.

I may have to put put them all into a future 'Project Polish' once this one is over.

Over all, I think this mani turned out to be fun and colourful, and it was also quite nostalgic to wear a polish that I truly adored ages ago!

Revlon Brilliant Strength Nail Enamel in 'Tantalize'

Today, I have a quick swatch of 'Tantalize' - colour number 120 from Revlon's Brilliant Strength line of nail polishes.

This polish is a beautiful, eye-catching shimmery chartreuse shade that is so much fun to wear! I am wearing 2 coats in the swatch above, and it probably could have used another coat to be fully opaque, but since I was using this polish as a base for another topper polish, I didn't bother with the extra coat.

I really love bright, fun colours like this. I really need to start wearing this polish more often!

Spotlight on 'Project Polish' Polishes: Quo by Orly 'Night Sky'

Today I have a quick swatch of 'Night Sky', by Quo by Orly

From what I could determine from some internet searching, this polish was the 'Quo by Orly' version of an Orly polish called 'Out of this World', from the Orly Cosmic FX collection released in Fall 2010. I'm assuming that the Quo version would have been released around the same time. I know that I purchased it relatively early into my polish collecting journey, so I'm assuming that I bought it sometime in 2011 or possibly even 2012.

Unfortunately, my bottle of 'Night Sky' has not held up well over the years. As mentioned in an earlier post, about half the bottle had evaporated, and I tried to loosen the remaining polish up a bit with some lacquer thinner.  The polish was nice and loose after that, but when I actually tried to do a manicure with it, it was taking forever to dry! After about 45 minutes had passed and my nails were still not completely dry, I had to give up on the manicure. Now I'm really re-considering my goal to use up the entire bottle. 😞

I think I'll try again one more time with only one thin coat of the polish over one coat of black polish. Hopefully that works...

Spotlight on 'Project Polish' Polishes: China Glaze 'Liquid Crystal'

I've decided to include posts featuring each of the polishes included in my 'Project Polish'. Since I like to actually wear any swatches that I do, I will be doing this 'Spotlight' series over a period of time. Today, I wanted to start with the polish I used for my last 'Project Polish' Manicure, China Glaze 'Liquid Crystal'.

This polish is from the China Glaze Prismatic Chroma Glitters Collection from Spring 2012. There were 6 polishes in the collection, all with the same concept but in varying shades.

It really looks a lot more like a textured metallic polish with glitter, than a glitter polish - but that could be because my 6 year old bottle has started thickening. Either way, I like the look. I used a peel-off base coat, and some quick dry high-gloss top coat on the manicure above. I've also included some additional shots below.

Light Blue Glitter Mani - Using China Glaze Liquid Crystal and Quo by Orly 'Liquid Crystal'

There's not really much to say about today's simple glitter manicure with subtle stamped stripes...

I wanted to try to use 2 of my 'Project Polish' polishes by stamping one over the other, but the darker colour, 'Night Sky' did not stamp very well. I initially assumed that since it had evaporated and thickened up over the years, it would work for stamping. Unfortunately, it doesn't. I realized during the process that 'Night Sky' seems to be a dark translucent base, with lots of shimmer particles floating in it. So when trying to stamp with it, the stamper would only pick up a thin line of dark purple jelly polish, and hardly any shimmer particles.

So instead of going with a bold negative space image (which would not work due to the consistency of the polish), I stamped subtle lines over the nail for a tiny bit of visual interest. 

Polishes Used

Polishes Used	Stamping Plate Used
China Glaze 'Liquid Crystal'	Winstonia Plate W205
Quo by Orly 'Night Sky'

I had to loosen 'Night Sky' up a bit with a little polish thinner, (and a lot of shaking!) due to how how thick it was originally.  The fill line of the bottle was originally half way down the bottle, though I don't recall ever using the polish! So apparently, half of the solvents evaporated out over the years, and left a thick, gloopy, non spreadable polish. I was able to salvage the polish, and it now works well as a regular nail color.  Now that it is fixed, I hope to use it as a base for my next manicure.

Project Polish

In my Blue and Gold Manicure using Quo by Orly 'Celestial Star' post, I mentioned that I wanted to do a 'Project Polish': A deliberate attempt to use up particular nail polishes over a period time by using them frequently and consistently until they are gone.

In that post I explained that when I was going through my collection, I noticed some glitter and special effect polishes that seemed to be drying up in the bottles. I decided that I wanted to try to use them up as soon as possible, in order to avoid them becoming unusable before I had even gotten a chance to get my money's worth.

I finally got around to photographing and listing all of the polishes that I wanted to include in the project. First here are the pictures:

I'm starting to realize that creme polishes seem to hold up better over time, as all of these polishes that I found that seem to be evaporating away, are glitter and shimmer heavy polishes. I'm glad that they still look relatively good. Some need to be thinned out with lacquer thinner, and some of the glitters may actually even perform better as the base has shrunk away - hopefully this should lead to denser glitter coverage during application.

In addition to the 'Blue and Gold' manicure that I discussed earlier, I have already managed to do two other manicures using some of these polishes. I used Gone Wishin' in my 'Purple and Silver Negative Space Stamping Glitter Mani', and I used 'Scandal, Secrets & Sparkle' for my 'Remembrance Day Manicure - 2018'.

Here's a list of the names of the polishes above that I want to use up as part of the project (the grid of names is in the same order as the pictures in the collage):

China Glaze I love Your Guts	Kleancolor Starry Night	OPI Glow Up Already!	Nicole by OPI Nicole... Spotted!
Nicole by OPI Honey-Dew You Love Me?	Quo by Orly Turquoise Moonlight	China Glaze Water You Waiting For?	Quo by Orly Celestial Star
Nicole by OPI Rich in Spirit	Claire's Cosmetics Flashing Lights	China Glaze Liquid Crystal	Nicole by OPI Gone Wishin'
China Glaze All Wrapped Up	Quo by Orly Night Sky	China Glaze Snow Globe	Nicole by OPI Scandals, Secrets & Sparkle

Now, I've never done a 'Project Polish' before, so this will definitely be a new and interesting experience for me.  Since I love nail stamping, my approach will be to use one of these 16 polishes as the base for a nail stamping design for each of my manicures. Three of the polishes are technically toppers ('Honey-Dew You Love Me?', 'Flashing Lights', and 'Snow Globe'), so there's also an option of doubling up for each manicure: using one of the polishes as a base, and then one of the toppers to complete the look. The best thing about this approach is that I will still be able to use all of my other polishes along with these ones, so I'm not limited to just 16 polishes.
I think the most challenging polish to work with will be China Glaze's 'I Love Your Guts', a frosty semi-matte red textured polish with black micro-glitters from their 2014 Halloween collection 'Apocalypse of Colour'.  I previously used it for my 'Halloween Themed Test Mani', and my 'Red and Black Tree Mani'.  Since the polish already makes quite a statement on it's own, my first instinct is to use it for Halloween-type designs, but I'm going to have to try to rethink that now that Halloween is over.
I've decided that I don't want to come up with an arbitrary deadline for using up the polishes. I can commit to trying to use them for every manicure, and to trying to do my nails more frequently, as needed. I don't want to commit to changing my nail polish every day (as many other 'Project Polishers' suggest), as I typically spend a lot of time planning and executing my nail art, and I like being able to wear each manicure for a few days, in order to decrease the total amount of time I spend doing my nails on a weekly basis. Also, I think forcing myself to do my nails everyday would eventually feel like a chore.
Now that I am in a nail polish collection culling frame of mind, I'm starting to notice some other polishes that I would like to add to the project. I may make this project on-going, and as certain polishes are used up, I may add others to replace them. We'll see how this goes...

Remembrance Day Manicure - 2018

Today is remembrance day in Canada. This remembrance day in particular is quite special, in that Novermber 11th, 2018 is the 100th anniversary since the end of the first world war. Today, I have a remembrance day manicure to share:

Polishes Used	Stamping Plates Used
OPI 'My Wishlist is You'	Messy Mansion Plate MM78XL
Wet n' Wild Wildshine 'Black Crème'	Clear Jelly Stamper Stamping Plate:
Nicole by OPI 'Scandal, Secrets...	'True North Strong' Plate CjSLC-08
& Sparkle'

I really like the completed manicure. It is very understated, and tasteful. Here is a shot of the polishes that I used to create the manicure:

Here's a link to the last Remembrance day Manicure that I did, back in 2014.  And below are additional shots of this years manicure.

Red and Gold Mani using L'Oréal Paris Vernis à l'Huile - Rubis Folies

Today I have a quick manicure that I did to try out a new polish I purchased recently. This was my first time trying the L'Oréal Paris Colour Riche Vernis à l'Huile nail polish line.  I hope to do a  more in depth review later after trying some of the other colours that I purchased from the line.  For now, here's the manicure I created using colour 552 - Rubis Folies.

Polishes Used	Stamping Plate Used
L'Oréal Paris Vernis à l'Huile -	ÜberChic Beauty Love and Marriage -
552 – Rubis Folies	Plate 01
Sally Hansen Color Foil – 'Liquid Gold'

Polishes Used

Overall, I like the colour and the way the manicure turned out.  I was never really big on red polishes, but lately I've found myself more drawn to them.  I really enjoyed wearing this darker, blue based red on my nails.

Purple and Silver Negative Space Stamping Glitter Mani

Today I have a glitter manicure to share, stamped with a silver negative space stamping image, resulting in a final look made up of full nail glitter patterns on a silver background:

I like the finished result - very blingy, but also very wearable on my short nails. Since I used a micro-glitter polish for the base of the manicure, I made sure to use a peel off base coat to make the manicure easier to remove when the time comes (OPI 'Glitter Off' base coat). 

Polishes Used

Polishes Used

Nicole by OPI Gone Wishin'

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri 'Silver Sweep'

Stamping Plate Used

Lina Nail Art Supplies 'Totally Negative' 01

Gone Wishin' is one of the polishes I want to use up as part of an upcoming 'Project Polish' challenge that I mentioned earlier in my 'Blue and Gold Manicure using Quo by Orly 'Celestial Star' post. This is a great manicure for using up a glitter polish because I had to do a full manicure (2 coats, all nails) as the base to stamp over.  Gone Wishin' is a mix of blue and purple micro-glitters, but since it's hard to see that in the picture above, I've included some additional bottle shots below.

I painted the nails on both of my hands slightly differently for this manicure. On my left hand, I used a circular themed full nail stamping image from the Lina Nail Art Supplies 'Totally Negative - 01' plate for all nails except for my ring finger. On my right hand, I used a floral themed full nail stamping image from the same plate for all nails except for my ring finger. For my ring fingers, I chose a separate image that allowed more of the glitter to shine through, and stamped it on both fingers as an accent. I've included some additional shots of the manicure below showing these details.

As I mentioned earlier, I hope to be using Gone Wishin' a lot more in the coming months, and so far, I'd say I'm off to a good start!