OK - so I must be going a bit stir crazy from all the packing! We are taking the time to go through everything and figuring out which items will be tossed, donated or sold. The kids bedrooms took a lot longer than we expected since they have so much clothes. We are about finished with all the bedrooms and upstairs bathrooms. There are just a few odds and ends left. As for downstairs the kitchen and Laundry room remain as does some of the garage. I see the end. It is soooo close. I can't wait for it to be done and over with and we can be sitting in the new place enjoying ourselves! 


I did take a few hours to do some swatching this morning. I swatched all the Isadora polishes I got a few weeks ago and some Essence polishes I grabbed at Ulta recently. I still have alot of the LA Splash and Zoya's to swatch along with some other misc polishes. I think what I might do is switch around between the polishes showing a few of each randomly rather than the entire collection together. You guys will have to let me know if you like it this way.


Today I am going to show you 2 of the 5 Essence polishes I recently purchased. I have to say I was turned off when I saw the size of the bottles. They are so small. They are basically mini polishes. I usually am not a fan of mini polishes since in my experience, the coverage is terrible and so is the brush. 


I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with these. The coverage was good with 2 coats and the brush did not feel like I was using a mini brush. 


However the two I am showing today I call the "Impossible to Photograph Accurately" set! I was getting so frustrated trying to get an accurate picture of these two. I took at least 20 pictures in different setting and lighting conditions trying to get it right. Natural sunlight, indirect vs direct, indoor lighting, with flash, without flash, in a lightbox etc... This is what took so much of my time this morning. That being said - these had to be my two favorite colors! 


This is Pool Party. This is pretty close to accurate but it is more teal in real life than the blue in this photo.


This photo capture a bit more of the teal than the other photo, but still it is a little more teal than this in real life. 


This one is the closest to the color you see while wearing the polish. But it still isn't 100%. But it is so pretty. The pictures make it look similar to OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui, but imagine that color, but a more vivid teal with amazing sparkle. That would be Pool Party.


This one is accurate to the color in the bottle. This one is called Break Through. I love this purple. Not quite neon, but not a dull lifeless purple either. It is bright and fun and something I see myself wearing over again. For 99 cents, I may go get a few back ups of this one.


It is such a rich shiny creme. so pretty. Not much more to say here.


What I don't get about the Essence polish is the slogan. "Color and Go - 1 second per nail". What does that mean? Does it mean it applies in 1 second? How can they know how long it takes me to apply a polish? So I assume they are trying to say that it takes just a mere second to dry! I find this hard to believe. 1 second? Really? come on! So of course I had to try. I put 1 thin coat on each nail and then only after I was done, I waited a second and tried to lightly tap the first nail I did. 


See my pinky finger? Not so much a 1 second dry! Nice big smudge! But look at the quality of just 1 coat!!! Not bad for 99 cents right? So even though it doesn't really dry in 1 second and even though the bottle is tiny - these polishes are so worth 99 cents! I think I may go buy a handful of these for one of my planned give-aways. I'll show you guys some more of these polishes in upcoming posts. I hope you all enjoyed today's pictures. Now back to packing.

Heading out for some Happy Hour fun before the mad packing finale takes place this weekend, so this will be a quick post.  I hope everyone had a good week and has a great weekend!


I just received my Zoya Reverie collection. Man I have a lot of swatching to catch up on. Here is a sneak peak of the collection, swatches will be coming soon.


L to R: Laney, Adina, Reece, Happi, Gwin, Lana


Recently I posted Isadora Galaxy and a comment from rijaH was posted that it was similar to Zoya Rea. I didn't think this when I saw Galaxy, so of course I had to do a comparison to see. In real life Rea is a shade or two darker with no silver sparkle going through it. But as you can see from the photos, that appears to be the only difference. They really are quite similar. Good call rijaH!


Here is a bottle comparison side by side. Look how small those Isadora bottles are! They are a bit pricey for their size - they are the same price as a Zoya polish.


Pinky & Middle are Zoya Rea & Ring & Index are Isadora Galaxy


In this picture you can see the silver shimmer in Galaxy vs. the purple shimmer in Rea. You can also see that the formula on the Zoya is a bit more streaky than the Isadora. I still love Rea though.  


Indoors Galaxy tends to take on a pink hue where Galaxy does not. You can see that here.

I hope everyone had a great day! My head is pounding right now. So since my head is pounding, I will keep it short & sweet. Exactly a week from today is the move date. Yeah! I can't wait! Other than that - things are just plain ol' busy! Just a few days after the move my husband has to go away for two weeks! Go military! 


Oh it is going to be a fun night - pounding head, no ladies night out as a result and a daughter crying because she can't think of a good sentence for her vocabulary lesson. She's a straight A student and a bit of a perfectionist. I wonder where she gets that from? not me! ;) Can you tell my mind is all over the place tonight? Terrible!


Today I have another comparison for you. Since this move is taking up so much of my cash, I decided I needed some green somewhere. I love green polish. It is not a color I would have thought I would love on my nails, but I really do love the greens. Here are the greens I am comparing.


L to R: RBL Recycle, Illamasqua Rampage, Orly Enchanted Forest, RBL Orbis Non Sufficit


While I have them all pictured and swatched together, the reality is I was comparing RBL Recycle & Illamsqua Rampage against each other and Orly Enchanted Forest against RBL Orbis Non Sufficit (ONS). 


L to R:  RBL Orbis Non Sufficit, Orly Enchanted Forest, Illamsqua Rampage, RBL Recycle


The above picture was taken outside in direct sunlight. ONS is the lightest of the bunch, almost like a chalkboard kind of color. Rampage looks the darkest coming in a shade darker than Recycle - there really isn't much of a difference between the two. Enchanted Forest could be the love child of Rampage and ONS. It is like a grayed out dark green. I held off on getting this green for so long, then it sat in my untrieds just as long, but I really love this color! The colors here are pretty true to color for me. But sometimes when I am inside the artificial light makes them look a bit lighter.


So you could see the true differences, I took a picture inside with flash. See how Chalkboard green ONS is? I think Enchanted Forest carries that same effect just a bit more grayed out. Here it looks like rampage and Recycle have an opposite effect as they do outside. Here Recycle looks a shade darker. I think it definitely offers more coverage than Rampage, so this could be why.

I know you are all dying to know, but first here is how I picked the winner. I put everyone's name who entered in a spreadsheet and assigned a number (or more for those with multiple entries). Then I had the fun of confirming the entries. Boy what a task that was, but I * a bunch of new blogs I want to follow. I have a lot of fun reading ahead of me - you girls have some great blogs out there! I never knew there were so many of us with this same Polish Problem! Anyway - so once I had everyone assigned to one or more numbers I used a random number generator. I had a total of 89 entries! Wow - I was so excited to have 50 followers and now I have 89 entries and 98 followers! I feel so loved! OK - I keep getting off topic here. So the random number generator picked:

OPI Ink is a dark purple that flashes a bit lighter with some pink & blue micro glitter throughout. 


I wanted to buy 2 of these so I could have one for myself, but they only had 1 left at ULTA. I never pay retail price if I can help it. But I needed a good purple polish and I figure everyone loves OPI, right?


Lucky me, I had a coupon for OPI and if you spent a certain $ amount on OPI you got a free mini set. I am not really a fan of applying a mini polishes, I would rather they gave 1 free full size bottle, but free is free. And as luck would have it OPI Ink was one of the mini's! So I got to swatch it for you guys. 




This is Blue Splash. This is a bright vivid blue. Almost metallic and some subtle blue shimmer.


Overall I really like this polish. It retails for about $5 USD and they have them at Ulta right now for buy 1 get 1 half off. Plus if you have some coupons, it isn't too bad. I would buy more of these in the future. What do you guys think?

Now for the comparison. I first saw Chanel Kaleidoscope on another bloggers site. I instantly knew I HAD TO HAVE this color. By the time I saw it - it was too late, it was already sold out everywhere. So I tried to memorize the color and started looking for alternatives to the Chanel. First I bought Essie Steel-ing the Scene. This one looked great when I tried it, but it was super smooth & metallic. Not exactly what I was looking for. Next I grabbed Nubar Candy Apple. I knew this one was too glittery, but I thought I could layer it over the Essie and get the look. Now I have to admit - this is one of my all time favorite colors! It is amazing, I layer it over everything! I love the way it seems to transform my nails and make them appear thinner and longer. I can't explain it - but I love it - still not Kaleidoscope though! Next came a Sally Hansen Prism I came across in a dollar store. I LOVE this one as well. But again for layering. It is holographic which I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! In the bottle, this one is the closest to Kaleidoscope - but not so much on the nail. Finally I was able to obtain my Chanel Kaleidoscope - IN A SWAP!!!! How cool is that? It lived up to the hype and is everything I thought it would be. I love this polish, I love everything about it, the color, the subtle shimmer everything. But after doing these swatches, I think I may need to layer the Prism over the Kaleidoscope. Now that I bet would be amazing!


Here they are side by side in the bottle:

Here the colors are with flash. Here you can really see the difference in each polish! See the holo goodness of the SH Prism Diamond. WOW!

I didn't have an opportunity to log on yesterday, with all the packing we did. I was pleasantly surprised to see I had 74 followers. That was so cool to wake up to! I think we should change the name to Virtual Friends, not followers, that seems so much nicer! Don't you think? I mean you are all getting to know me after all. And if you are here, we all have something in common and if you like listening to me, well heck - that's a friend isn't it? I wonder if I can change the title on that one? I'm going to have to look into that. Here is Ulta Femme Fatale. I like this color, but I think this is more a winter color, so I don't think I'll be wearing this one for a while. Nothing stand out or special here to me. Just a pretty color.
This is Ulta Wicked. I have to admit - I love bright pinks! This one is just so pretty. Totally dupable though.
Ulta Material Girl. Another great pink. I love the sparkle in this one. There are blues and golds shimmering through this one. I don't think I have one quite like it. I see a pedicure with this one real soon!
Ulta Happy Hour. I don't know why they named this one Happy Hour, this doesn't say that to me. This is a nice work color, but not the kind of pink I would normally wear.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this color. I think it is Ulta Twilight. The label was missing, so I had to go off the Ulta website. This is a metallic grey brown color. Metallic Taupe perhaps? No wonder why I love it - I love Taupes and metallics. Absolutely gorgeous! (Now I have to franken, imagine this mixed with metro chic? Oh my!)

The weekend is finally here! Yippee! Does anyone have any big plans? I know I have a lot of packing ahead of me this weekend. We have our move extended by one week, so that means we don't move until March 6th. Of course now I wish it was next weekend! I am so excited for the move - I am ready! Still not ready for packing, unpacking, cleaning and dealing with school drop offs while hubby is gone, but hey what can you do? Other than that, I plan on taking a break to go play some poker tomorrow night. Hmmm that means I need a really distracting polish so I have a shot of winning! I think that will be my only break from the packing madness this weekend. It seems like forever since I have gone out and the reality is it was just last Saturday that I was out. Crazy how some weeks seem to last forever, while others just fly right on by! Ulta Devious - This one is pretty true to color. Love this purple!


Ulta Alter Ego. This is a pretty teal with silver shimmer running through it. OK - ignore the middle finger - that is the one with the nail repair on it. I was getting lazy during swatches and not taking care of it like I should have.