NotD: Half Lizard, All Bad Attitude

So, I loved most of the colors in the Amazing Spider-Man set from OPI, I thought I would do my own twist on a shatter mani. I love Just Spotted the Lizard as well as Shatter the Scales. However, I didn't want to cover the former entirely so I decided to only put the shatter on half of my nail.

Step 1) As always, apply a coat of your favorite base coat. I use OPI's base coat.
Step 2) Apply 2 coats of Just Spotted the Lizard.
Step 3) Take a piece of clear cellophane tape and stick it to your skin to weaken the adhesive a little.
Step 4) Once your polish is dry, put the tape over 1/2 your nail. Apply shatter, and then immediately remove the tape.
Step 5) Let dry, then apply top coat. I use Seche Vite.

Relatively simple but an amazing combo.

Bronzes for a Weyrleader

Now for the hardest color family for me to pick cosmetics from mostly because I don't have many bronzes! As I said in a previous post, my favorite dragonrider is F'lar, Weyrleader of Benden Weyr. I've always marvelled at the bronze dragons and secretly wondered what would happen if a woman impressed a Bronze dragon. Although it's never happened in the books. >.>

Bronze for the Eyes:

• Small Key - Shiro Cosmetics
• Probably one of the only true bronzes that I currently own. Shiro has and will always be one of my first go tos for browns and natural looking colors.
• Everything is Bears - Shiro Cosmetics
• I placed this in bronze and not brown because the multitude of gold glitter makes me think more of an oiled bronze than just brown.

Small Key is also lip safe although Everything is Bears is not!

Bronze for the Nails:

• Warm and Fozzie - OPI's Muppets
• Designer De-Better - OPI's Muppets

Review: OPI Muppets Collection

As some of you may know, a while back I posted a press release about the Muppets Holiday collection from OPI and I am so proud to say that I finally picked it up! I wasn't sure if I was initally going to get the entire collection but on seeing them, I had specific reasons for picking up the colors. The formulation overall is really great but I would suggest layering all of the glitters except Excuse Moi over other solid colors. I will list a few of my suggestions but there are so many more.

Top Row L to R: Wocka Wocka, Animal-istic, Meep Meep Meep, Warm and Fozzie, Designer De-Better, Pepe's Purple Passion
Bottom Row L to R: Fresh Frog of Bel Air, Divine Swine, Gone Gonzo, Gettin' Piggy With It, Rainbow Connection, Excuse Moi

Wocka Wocka - While I initially thought that this should have been the one to be the orangey bronze color, I am really in love with this deep cranberry red. It really looks different in different types of light. As I am typing this at the library, it looks like a deep maroon but when I am at home, it takes on more of the bright red color pictured above. I think that is what makes this red individual. The formula is great as it only took 2 coats on my nails and the surface dried relatively quickly.

Animal-istic - An orangey coral red that has an obvious glitter beneath it. At some angles it looks more like a coral pink and at some it looks more like the firey orange you see above. The thing I can say though is that it is a 2 coat formula and it reminds me of Animal's fur around his face. Despite being a holiday collection, I feel like this color is more suited to Summer and even then, it is one of 3 colors that I would only wear on my toes during those sandal wearing months.

Meep Meep Meep - A slight language warning for a moment... This is what I call "Holy Fuck It's Fuschia". It is a bright cool toned pink that is packed with glitter underneath it. This is another of what I consider "Summer Toe Colors" as it isn't something I would wear on my fingers without a reason such as costuming or evening. However, also doing nail art, I can appreciate certain uses for a bright color such as this and I think it would look amazing underneath OPI's Black Shatter or something similar.

Warm and Fozzie - Probably the solid color that I was most looking forward to and it did not disappoint. Being a Harry Potter fan, I've always been keeping my eye out for that perfect bronze so that I could do Ravenclaw shattered nails. Unfortunately, most of what I've seen have used copper and I've even done that myself with Blue Shatter layered over it. Now, I have something that will make the perfect Ravenclaw nails with the colors from the books.

Designer De-Better - When I first saw this color, I thought it was a metallic silver, but I plesantly found I was wrong. This silver has a warm glow to it, thanks to flecks of orangey copper interspersed through it. This gives the silver a little more depth and warmth and individuality. I would probably still use this as a part of my Slytherin collection though because it will allow for a warm/cool contrase between the green and the flecks of orange.

Pepe's Purple Passion - This is the main color that I was going back and forth on getting. It is s deep grape color with a very subtle glitter in it. In fact, despite how the glitter shows up in the bottle, when the polish dries, it doesn't show up at all. It's a little disappointing. This is one that I would probably use on my toes or with some sort of light Shatter coat to brighten it up. My mind keeps floating to the Silver Shatter but I think the bright purple from Sally Hansen might work as well.

Fresh Frog of Bel Air - The swatch above is a single coat of glitter polish over Fantasy Maker's Black Magic in the solid black. I already spoke a little bit about why I love this polish in my earlier entry but I can't say it enough. This is Slytherin glitter in a bottle. Some colors I suggest layering it over are:

• Black Magic - Fantasy Makers
• Mermaid's Tears - OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides
• Stranger Tides - OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides
• Wocka Wocka - OPI's Muppets
• Designer De-Better - OPI's  Muppets
• OMB - Nicole by OPI

Divine Swine - One of my top three colors from this set. It is a glitter polish set in a clear gel. It has two different sizes and colors of glitter, small round purple glitter and medium hexagonal silver glitter. It is the same idea of Fresh Frog of Bel Air and Gone Gonzo but with a different color for the small glitter. I bought this because I go to parties and assist in running them as well. Soon, my department is going to be changing and my departmental color is purple so I felt that coordinating my polish with my department would be a fun thing to wear at parties. For fun layer it over:

• Black Magic - Fantasy Makers
• Prized Possession Purple - Nicole by OPI
• San Francisco - Sinful Colors



Gone Gonzo - Wow! How much fun is this turquoise blue glitter? Just like Fresh Frog and Divine Swine the turquoise is the small round and hexagonal is silver. I've layered this over a couple of colors already and had so much fun with it. For fans of Star Trek it is the perfect medical/science blue and can layer over black, grey, red, and blue. I see this color getting quite a bit of use on holidays such as Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, and Independence Day but it's also a very fun color for the toes when you want quite a bit of sparkle. Suggested pairings include:

• Swimsuit... Nailed It! - OPI's Miss Universe
• Black Magic - Fantasy Makers
• OMB - Nicole by OPI
• Wocka Wocka - OPI's Muppets
• Designer De-Better - OPI's Muppets
• Warm and Fozzie - OPI's Muppets
• Copper Penny - Revlon
• Who Let the Dorks Out? - Sephora by OPI

Gettin' Piggy With It - While on the surface this looks like a red version of the other glitter polishes I was very happy to see that in addition to the larger hexagonal silver, it had larger hexagonal red glitter mixed in with the small round. This is going to be a perennial favorite of mine during football season due to the scarlet and grey being my hometown team. It also would make a great pairing over blue polishes for Independence Day. I also think of ruby slippers when I see this and when put over a red polish although the glitter is a bit less obvious, the light glints off of it just right. Pair it with:

• Black Magic - Fantasy Makers
• OMB - Nicole by OPI
• LilyChrome - Revlon
• Designer De-Better - OPI's Muppets
• Wocka Wocka - OPI's Muppets
• San Francisco - Sinful Colors
• Swimsuit... Nailed It! - OPI's Miss Universe
• Steady as She Rose - OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides

Rainbow Connection - How beautiful is this? It is a multi-colored glitter with both small round an larger hexagoal glitters in all of the colors. I bought this specifically for New Year's as it reminds me of the fireworks and also of the ball dropping in Times Square. This is a very hard polish to match with a color underneath so I suggest keeping it dark and neutral like the Black Magic pictured above. That way, each and every color pops and none of them get lost in the shuffle.

Excuse Moi - This is the only glitter polish that you do not have to layer over a solid color. Instead of a clear gel, you have the nice light, bright pink that you see above. The other thing that makes this pink individual is that in addition to the pink and silver glitter, you have flecks of gold and green. Out of all of the Miss Piggy inspired colors, I think this sums her up in a single polish. That's not to say I don't like the others but I can definitively see that this is Miss Piggy on first glance. The first coat was easy to work with and this is the first time I can say I love a pink like this.

To sum everything up:
Pros - You can see where the majority of the colors take from their inspirations. I would have switched around a couple of names but that has nothing to do with my love of the colors. These colors for the most part would also be amazing for that holiday party that you go to but also there are plenty of classic colors that you can get away with wearing everyday. My favorites are:

• Wocka Wocka
• Excuse Moi
• Fresh Frog of Bel Air
• Warm and Fozzie

Cons - One of the colors doesn't even show its glitter finish and the color itself is quite dark for fingers. Not too many points off for this but it's something that hit me when trying these out.

Would I buy again?  Yes.



Preview: OPI Muppet Holiday Collection

So I checked my e-mail today and I'm on the mailing list for OPI's Press Releases. As soon as I saw this one I knew I *had* to post a preview and some of my first impressions on the pictures they sent me. I am sure that the final product may look immensely different as these are renders.

First up, we have Animal-istic! The OPI press release says:

This wild bright red cannot be tamed!

 This color absolutely fits Animal (pictured to the left) in my mind. In fact, the color of his fur not withstanding, I've always considered red to be a wild color. I grew up watching Muppets Take Manhattan and in that movie, Animal was always chasing after pretty women.


Definitely a color I will be checking out.

Next we have Meep Meep Meep. The company says that Missing out on this fuchsia would make you weep, weep, weep! I'm not sure this color quite embodies the character it was named after to my eyes. However with it being a Winter Holiday collection, I don't think the orange I would have envisioned for Beaker would have worked either. I think the jury is still out on this one until I see the color in the bottle.

Now for Wocka Wocka. Named for Fozzie's post-joke chuckle, I would have expected this to either be a pink like the spots on his tie or a tomato red. It was Fozzie who was always getting tomatoes thrown at  him wasn't it? While OPI may be right and this berry will make everything fun an merry this is too dark for my pale skin tone. Especially in Winter.

The popular deep berry makes everything fun and merry!

Wow... Pepe's Purple Passion is deep. I think I also just made sense of the inspiration by saying that. :) Pepe is one of my best loved newer Muppets. Still alas, the color is too deep for me as I am PALE BEYOND GET OUT. However I will look at it in person and revisit my thoughts then.

This deep, decadent shade is the best purple ever, okay!

I decided to lump together the Miss Piggy inspired colors. As she would demand it herself, she would want to be the center of attention and she absolutely is with four distinct polish colors in this collection. I also think these are perfect for Miss Piggy. Each and every one of them reminds me either of her or an outfit she's worn. I've seen her in both hot pink and purple and her lipstick is red.

From L to R:

Designer, de Better! - And this light metallic bronze is ready for the runway.

Excuse Moi! - Ahem! This pink glitter has something to say!
Divine Swine - The finest, most fabulous magenta glitter ever. 

Gettin’ Miss Piggy With It! - Red glittery fun for everyone!

Warm and Fozzie is more my kind of color and it reminds me a lot more of the character who inspired it. It's a metallic copper which the company describes as A feel-good shade of metallic copper.

Where would we be if there wasn't a Gonzo inspired shade of blue? A little lighter than expected but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Also, I love any and all glitter colors. This is something I would more than likely pick up for casual day to day with jeans. The company describes this as Gone Gonzo! - The aqua-blue glitter is taking over the world! I kind of hope it does so we can see more colors like this one.

As Kermit once said, It's Not Easy Bein' Green. However the Fresh Frog of Bel-Air is a color that I will not miss. A glitter that prefers the greener things in life. Something new to me, at least, and while I've seen lime green in other sets, I don't think I've seen one with glitter quite like this.

All in all, I want to say that since I am judging this in a press release, I am in no way passing final judgement and will more than likely be publishing a proper review this November when the set is released. It is definitely something I am looking forward to however.