Swatches of Julep's Savvy Suedes Collection

Arden: Today I've got a bunch of swatches of Julep's Savvy Suede collection.  They're unfortunately out of stock online right now, but when they are in stock, they're on sale for $20 for the 5 polishes which is a pretty good deal.

A few notes about these polishes in general: they're matte, so they dry pretty quickly.  This can make applying them a bit tricky.  I basically found that the best way to do it was to work really quickly and use as few strokes as possible.  I also think that the trick might be to just accept that if one coat isn't smooth, it's ok.  You'll be able to fix it on the next coat.  All of the swatches below are done using 3 coats.

First up is Amber, a bronze gold metallic matte polish.

Zoya Pixie Dust Swatches: Liberty, Chyna and Miranda

Hey guys, it's Lisl! So around July 4th when I was in New Orleans, avid blog reader and my BFF Sherbear (not her birth name) sent me a link to an awesome deal that Zoya was having! Get Zoya Liberty and get two colors free! I immediately got in touch with Arden and we spent the rest of the afternoon agonizing over which other colors to get.  We finally settled on Chyna and Miranda, and now y'all get to read all about our new adventures with Pixie Dusts!

Julep "It Girl" Introductory Box Swatches

Arden: As you may remember, a couple of months ago we ordered a Julep Mystery Box to try out some Julep polishes.  We were really pleased with both the quality of Julep polishes and how great a value the mystery box was, so I decided to sign up for Julep's monthly Maven box program.

Here's the deal with the Julep Maven program: you sign up, take a style quiz, and they send you an introductory box.  Then, every month they email you what'll be in each box and you get to choose which one you want, or if you want to skip that month.  I really like that they have the skip option-- it makes me feel like I'm not locked in foreverrrrr to pay for a box; I only get it when I want it!  (There's also an option to pay for it but send it to a friend, which seems like an awesome birthday gift option!)

Full disclosure: when I signed up, I really wasn't expecting to continue my subscription.  I thought I'd get the intro box, see how I liked it, and then probably unsubscribe.  BUT, then I happened to see a post on Julep's Facebook page looking for people to test some of their new products in Palo Alto.  I responded and got to go try out some very early prototype ideas at this design firm in Palo Alto that Julep had contracted to develop new products.  It was fun, and while I was there I got to meet a lot of the top leadership at Julep, including the founder Jane Pak and the COO Kate MacDonald.  I was super impressed with Julep's leadership and how engaged they were in hearing our opinions.  In short, they were good people, and I now feel great about giving them my business.

If you're interested in signing up, click here or input this referral code in when you order: 21712460 (I get reward points if someone uses my code).

And now, after that looooong preamble, here are some swatches of the three colors I got in my "It Girl" Introductory Box: Stefani, Eden, and Bunny.

First up is Stefani, which the Julep website describes as a "gold flecked grey metallic" nail polish.

This is two coats without a top coat.  I ended up liking this polish A LOT more on the nail than I did in the bottle.  In the bottle it looked a little too much like dirty sand, but on my nails I thought it was a lot more metallic and fun.

Next up is Eden, a "bright violet creme."

Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant Glosstini Review & Swatches

Arden here!  In my very first post on Casa de Polish I swatched a couple of Cover Girl's Outlast Stay Brilliatn nail polishes, and now they're back!  Cover Girl has just released a bunch of new summery shades in these cute smaller bottles they call "glosstinis."  I have long been a fan of miniature versions of items, so these mini bottles of polish called my name as soon as I spotted them.  I ended up getting four colors to try: Pink Lady (#500), Lemon Drop (#525), Blue Hawaiian (#535), and Purple Freeze (#540).  (Cover Girl still insists on not listing the name of the polish on the bottle, just the number.)

First up is Pink Lady, two coats plus top coat.  I will admit that this is probably my least favorite of the shades I bought, but I also am not a big fan of pink polishes.  It is a lovely light pink shade, and I didn't own anything like it (again, because I rarely buy pink polish), but on my nails it didn't really pop out at me as much as I'd hoped.

Next is Lemon Drop.  I really like this polish-- it's a shade lighter than the other yellows I own, but it's still plenty bright and summery.  It also had good coverage-- this is only two coats plus top coat.  The one downside to this polish is that it stained my skin when I took it off with acetone.  You can tell in the next picture how my knuckles kind of have a yellowish tint to them.  I'm sure I could have scrubbed harder with acetone to remove it all, but this is usually not as bad a problem with other polishes.

Sally Hansen Sugar Coat Review & Swatch

Arden: We're suddenly trying out new products left and right here at the Casa de Polish!  Today we have one of Sally Hansen's new Sugar Coat polishes.  These are being marketed right along side the new Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coats, which we swatched here. This was the first texture coat I've ever tried (other versions include OPI Liquid Sand and Zoya PixieDust) and I didn't really know quite what to expect. 

I'd always assumed before that these kinds of polishes contained some sort of special chemicals that bubbled up as the dried, but it turns out that there's actually some kind of grit in the polish in the bottle.  It applies just like normal, but then other things in the polish evaporate as it dries, leaving a rough texture.

This is Sally Hansen Sugar Coat Sour Apple, two coats, no top coat.  The sugar coats come in a variety of colors, but due to our love of greens, we opted to get the mint green one first to try out and see how we liked it.

I'm not gonna lie, the reason this was the first gritty texture coat I've ever tried is because they never really appealed to me.  "Why would I want gritty nails?" I would ask myself every time I saw an OPI Liquid Sand polish discounted at the local beauty supply store.

Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat Swatches and Review

It's Arden!  A couple of weeks ago I was strolling through Target (which my boyfriend calls my "happy place") and I spotted this new Sally Hansen display:

I was instantly drawn to the fuzzy coats!  Each fuzzy coat is composed of a clear base with one or two different colors of rectangular glitter.  After weighing my options VERY carefully (read: for a very long time), I ended up picking out these three shades:

Swatches: Julep Mystery Box Haul

Hey y'all! It's Lisl. Today, Arden and I are totally pumped to share our excellent haul of nail polish we got from Julep's May Mystery Box.  We're not subscribed to Julep's Maven boxes (these come once a month), but every once in a while Julep releases a mystery box, and Arden and I jumped at the chance to try out some of their polishes! 

I myself cannot resist a good mystery box; it's like it's your birthday in the mail! What is inside the box? You don't know! It's a mystery! We got the box last week, when Arden was away, so I texted her pictures of what we got, and when she got back we had a "draft" to decide who got which polish. (Basically, we just took turns choosing which polish we wanted).

For my first pick, I chose Dakota, which is a rosey-coppery metallic.

Nail Polish Swatches: Mod Lacquer Southwest Spring Collection

Hey guys, it's Lisl! I am so excited to share the Southwest Spring collection from a relatively new indie nail polish brand: Mod Lacquer.  These collection as a whole is just wonderful: they're all packed with glitter in jelly bases, very easy to apply and super beautiful.  Ok! On to the first swatch, Salida del Sol.

Nail polish swatches: Lush Lacquer neon polishes

Arden: A couple of weeks ago, Lush Lacquer was having a sale and we bought four mini bottles of their polish, three neons and another glitter.  They are so unique!  I love their neon pieces of glitter.

But before we get to the polish, let me just stop and tell you about the great customer service we received from Lush Lacquer.  After we Gchatted for over an hour about which polishes we wanted to buy, Lisl asked me to place our order.  As Julia Roberts says in Pretty Woman, BIG MISTAKE.  HUGE. Cause I'm always doing things like referring to our blog as "Casa de Nails." (Or, y'know, setting up our Facebook account under that name.)

But in this case, what I did was set up our order, hit "send," and then in the next instant realize I forgot to use their coupon code.  I messaged Lush Lacquer asking if they could cancel my order so I could re-submit it with the code, and they responded within an hour telling me there was no reason to re-submit, they'd go ahead and apply the code and send me a refund.  How great is that?

And now, onto the polish!

Nail Polish Swatches: Color Club Art Club - Nail Art Primaries Collection

So a while ago, we found out on the internet that stores like Marshalls, and Ross and K-Mart sell nice nail polish for cheap.  So, never one to pass up a deal, Arden intrepidly went on a scouting trip and called me to say that this set of striper polishes from Color Club/Art Club was being sold for $9.00.  I've never tried any striper polishes, plus it seemed like a good deal so I decided to test it out!

I spent one day practicing different patterns on the back of the box.  Then, over the course of about a week and a half "swatched" them in different patterns over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out, and White Out.

I started out with a manicure inspired by a mug Arden gave me for Galentine's Day, my favorite holiday of the year.  For the uninitiated, Galentine's day is the day before Valentines day and it's the day we celebrate our female friendships!

Nail Polish Swatches: Revlon Moon Candy

Arden: I don't know about you, but it seems like for the last month or two I haven't been able to walk into a drugstore without stopping by a display like this (and only partly because Emma Stone seems like one super cool lady):

From http://www.beautystat.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Revlon-nail-art-display.jpg

Now, the Neon nail art duos don't seem that interesting to me (they're just a white polish and a neon polish-- I'm fairly certain I could duplicate that effect myself using my own white and neon).  The Nail Art Expressionist brushes seemed pretty neat, but what I was really attracted to was the Revlon Nail Art Moon Candy.

Now, I am a bit of a sci-fi nerd, so it's possible the interstellar name attracted me, but I also thought that idea of pairing polish with a matching flakie polish.  But for a while there, they're $9 price tag was too steep for me.  But then I was able to grab one at Rite Aid for 40% off, and later was able to snag one for Lisl and one of the Expressionist duos (stay tuned for that one!) on a buy one get one sale at CVS, plus a $1 off manufacturer's coupon. (It's possible we might be a little too proud of our deals here at the Casa de Polish.)

Nail Polish Swatches: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure - Commander in Chic

Ok y'all, here it is: first post ever, first swatch ever.

So I bought this Sally Hansen a long time ago in a two-for-one deal at Walgreens - as Arden said, we cannot resist a nail polish sale - along with a polish I call "Sally Hansen: the Perfect 49ers Red." It languished on my nail polish shelf at work (story for another time: why I keep all my nail polish at work) for a long time because I bought it just as the weather was turning spring-ish and all I wanted to wear was bright colors and sparklies.

Then, fortunately/really-not-so-fortunately, it started to rain and I really needed something that said "precipitation-sophistication."

And here it is:

Nail Polish Swatches: Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant Nail Gloss

When Jennifer Lawrence got up to the microphone to accept her Oscar at the Academy Awards a few weeks ago, I instantly tweeted:

Seriously, look how beautiful her nails were that night!

from: http://www.beautybloggingjunkie.com/2013/02/oscars-nails-jennifer-lawrence.html

I took to Google, and the internet gods smiled on me not once, but twice: not only had the 24 hr news cycle already reported on what nail polish she used (or more accurately, her manicurist), but it was a brand I could get for $6 at the drugstore!  Since I'd been in the market for a good nude polish, I stopped by CVS on the way home from work the next evening and bought a bottle of Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant Nail Gloss (what a mouthful!) in Forever Frosted (#115).