APR '13 SquareHue - Bloom Collection

It's my favorite time of the month again...SquareHue time! If you still don't know about SquareHue, you can learn more from my posts HERE, HERE & HERE or from their website.

April's offerings, aptly named the Bloom Collection, include some perfectly spring-y pastels. The colors are Yellow Submarine (a muted yellow with the slightest shimmer), Flower Power (bright spring green creme) & Groovy Love (saturated lilac creme). I'll chat about the formulas after the good part...the pics!

April 2013 SquareHue - Bloom Collection

See the rest of the photos AFTER THE JUMP!

Chanel - Taboo

I'd been holding out for so long. I always thought I could find something similar for less money. My spending had gotten extreme but I felt like as long as I didn't do that ONE THING I could justify it all. Well, I finally broke down you guys...I bought my first Chanel polish & boy, is it a GOOD one!

There's not much to say about Chanel Taboo other than 1) it's so multifaceted & simply GORGEOUS [burgundy AND blue shimmer!?], 2) the formula was a dream [almost a 1 coater!] & 3) I am completely obsessed with it! Of course my photos don't do it justice, but here they are:

The rest of the photos are AFTER THE JUMP!

Orly - High On Hope and Elation Generation

Hi everyone! What I have to show you today is a manicure that I wore recently using 2 polishes from Orly's Spring 2013 Hope & Freedom Fest collection. I picked up a Mani Mini kit that includes .18oz bottles of 4 out of the 6 polishes in the collection. I chose High On Hope & Elation Generation to use for this manicure because as soon as I saw them I knew they would go great together!

High On Hope is a navy blue creme with amazing pink shimmer that has a bit of a yellow/orange multichrome to it & Elation Generation is a bright pink jelly filled with holo glitter.

Orly High On Hope with an Elation Generation accent (flash)

Orly High On Hope with an Elation Generation accent (no flash)

The photos above are 2 coats of each polish with Orly Sec'n Dry over top. My camera was having some difficulty capturing the true color of Elation Generation. I would say that the actual color is somewhere in between how it looks in the photos. The holo glitter is also much more pronounced in real life, as is the shimmer in High On Hope.

Formula-wise, High On Hope was good. The first coat went on a bit streaky, but the second coat evened it out & made it opaque. Elation Generation was a tad bit thick but not unmanageable. Dry time was average.

I just love the look of these 2 polishes next to each other! Elation Generation really brings out the pink shimmer in High On Hope & I love the juxtaposition of the holo glitter polish as an accent to a polish with a very strong shimmer. So pretty!

What do you think of Orly's Hope & Freedom Fest collection? Do you love these 2 polishes as much as I do? Let me know in the comments!

Illamasqua - Speckle and Mottle

I love Illamasqua's Speckle & Mottle so much that I'm going to just get right into the pics!

Illamasqua Mottle w/ Speckle accent (flash)

Illamasqua Mottle w/ Speckle accent (no flash)

Mottle is a mint green base while Speckle is a lilac base & both have the same multi-size black glitter. The milkiness of the base colors combined with the different sized black glitters gives a super cute robin's egg appearance that I just can't get enough of! I had so many people at work comment on my nails when I wore this manicure, saying that I had Easter egg or Easter candy nails. I guess everyone loves these!

The formula on both was great. I used 2 coats of each for the photos above & both were perfectly opaque. The glitter pay-off was good so I didn't have to try very hard to get the glitter to place where I wanted it to. Dry time was fairly quick, too. All good things!

Speckle & Mottle, as well as 3 other speckled polishes & other makeup items, are a part of the Spring 2013 I'mperfection collection. Per Illamasqua's website, I'mperfection is "an open invitation to stand up and show the world what makes you perfectly imperfect." I can get on board with that!

Did you pick up any of the speckled polishes from Illamasqua or anything else from the I'mperfection collection? What do you think? I've got my eye on their lipstick in Immodest, too. Looks like a great, bright, matte pink!

Zoya - Neely & Vespa

Happy Mani Monday! I've had this combo on my nails since yesterday morning & I'm loving how fresh & Spring-y it is. I don't think that Zoya did it on purpose, but these 2 colors are made for each other. Neely is a dusty, soft mint green creme from the Spring 2013 Lovely collection & Vespa is a deeper, mossy matte mint with small silver "sugared" glitter from the PixieDust textured matte glitter collection (similar to OPI's Liquid Sand polishes but, in my opinion, much better). A match made in monochromatic, multi-textured heaven!

Zoya Neely w/ a Vespa accent nail

First of all, I apologize for the sorry state of my cuticles. My hands have been so dry lately that there's just not much I can do about it. Also, this color didn't make my hands nearly as lobster-y as they appear in the photo. Anyways, the photo above is 3 coats of each polish w/ a coat of Orly Sec'N Dry (my latest quick dry top coat experiment...so far, so good) over all but the accent nail. Formula-wise, Vespa was a dream. Each coat went on smooth & even & dried very quickly. Neely was a bit of a different story. The formula was thick & had a sort of glue-like texture, which made it go on streaky & uneven. The first 2 coats were a bit of a nightmare until I had the sense to add some polish thinner before the 3rd coat & that greatly improved the situation. I would definitely recommend thinning this polish if you have the same problems, it seems to have solved the issue.

Did you pick up any of Zoya's Spring or PixieDust offerings? What are your thoughts? All of these pastel shades have me seriously wishing it was Springtime!