Author Archives: Mary S.

Essie Fall 2015 Collection Swatches, Bottle Shots & Pictures

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Essie Fall 2015 CollectionOn Friday, I received a package from PR: the Essie Fall 2015 Collection!

It includes six new shades designed by Essie’s Global Colour Designer, Rebecca Minkoff: Leggy Legend, Color Binge, With the Band, In the Lobby, Bell-Bottom Blues, and Frock ‘n Roll.

The Essie Fall 2015 Collection will officially hit Canadian drugstores, salons, and other beauty destinations beginning August 25th.

In this post, I’ve got a sneak peek at the entire collection, as well as a glimpse into part of the press booklet.

I snapped lots of photos, so you’ll see my quick swatches, up-close bottle shots, and even a nail-art design that you can recreate using the shades in this collection (I included the tutorial).

As usual, stay tuned because I’ll be wearing some of these as full manicures, and in-depth reviews with tons of swatches will follow.

The colours I’m most excited about and that I’ll probably wear first are Leggy Legend (the bronze), Frock ‘n Roll (the shimmery espresso), and Bell-Bottom Blues (obviously the blue). However, I’m itching to try the orange red because, at the time I’m writing this post, I’m craving something bright. So maybe that one will be first.

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Zoya Focus & Flair Collections for Fall 2015

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Zoya Focus & Flair Collection Fall 2015Although it’s still summer, I have a sneak peek into an autumn collection that’s available to be pre-ordered now!

Zoya sent me the official press release for the Zoya Focus & Flair Collections for Fall 2015 a few days ago.

Fall is my favourite season in general because I consider it to be the most romantic and dramatic. That’s when fashion, beauty, and food speak to me the strongest. With spices and pumpkin treats enticing my palate, cozy textures cradling me, and bold colours making a statement for manicures, autumn flirts with my senses!

While I haven’t seen the Zoya Focus Collection or the Zoya Flair Collection in person, they’re en route to me, courtesy of Zoya, and you can expect some in-depth reviews. (Let me know if you’d like to see any shades reviewed first, and I’ll do my best.)

The Zoya Focus Collection consists of cremes, and if you’ve ever tried a Zoya creme nail polish, you know that they have one of the best, most consistently smooth formulations on the market.

The Zoya Flair Collection includes metallics that dress up your manicure like nail jewels.

Even though I love Zoya cremes, I’m most excited to wear the metallics in the Zoya Flair Collection because they look like the kind that can ‘light up’ your nails and make them look like they’re on fire!

See the rest of this post for all the information I have, including the official swatches and promotional pictures!

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OPI Infinite Shine Eternally Turquoise Swatches & Review

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OPI Infinite Shine Eternally Turquoise Swatches & ReviewWhen I got my polish paws on a mind-blowing number of OPI Infinite Shine nail polishes, one of the first colours I tried was OPI Infinite Shine Eternally Turquoise.

I actually forgot about this. I thought that OPI Infinite Shine Bee Mine Forever was first.

I think I ended up painting my nails with this and then decided to go with the yellow because I was in the mood for my nails to experience the Easter parade. 😉

(Since I managed to take these photos, I may as well share them with you and my thoughts on the colour and formula, in case you were interested.)

Initially, it reminded me a little of OPI What’s with the Cattitude, which is why I was really eager to see how it swatched. (I wore that shade in 2011. I should dig it up again one of these days.) That one’s more saturated than this. Not sure why I thought of it when wearing Eternally Turquoise. They’re pretty different!

Artificial light washes it out, and photos I took in natural light deepened it. It’s somewhere in between – beautiful blue with maybe a drop of green. The Snow Queen would approve, but thankfully she’s off-duty in the summer. Apparently, she can’t take the heat, so she not only got out of the kitchen, but also out of the season. (Between you and me, I don’t miss her. Shh!) 😉

P.S. Tomorrow is the last day to enter my 5th blogiversary worldwide giveaway for your chance to win 12 nail polishes! Don’t miss out!

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Pretty Serious Ichi Hanami Swatches & Review

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Pretty Serious Ichi Hanami Swatches & Review“On Wednesdays, we wear pink!” 😉

Crown your nails princesses with Pretty Serious Ichi Hanami, which is one of the new shades recently added to the Naileontology Collection that I did a Quick Look post about.

Like a time machine, Pretty Serious Ichi Hanami took me back to my childhood because when I was little, I was nuts about pinks, especially My Little Pony types and also bolder ones like this!

As one of those people called grown-ups (YUCK! Hehe!), my tastes have changed a bit, and you know that I now have a penchant for green manicures. That being said, it doesn’t mean that a vibrant pink polish can’t still shimmy by me without me giving it a double-take.

It takes a lot for a pink polish to get my attention, and Pretty Serious Ichi Hanami is the type that I love and would wear again. What’s more is that I believe this shade can flatter a wide variety of skin tones. It’s even better when many of my fellow nailphiles can also enjoy the same colour!

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OPI Infinite Shine Bee Mine Forever Swatches & Review

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OPI Infinite Shine Bee Mine Forever Swatches & ReviewOPI Infinite Shine Bee Mine Forever is the very first OPI Infinite Shine nail polish that I’ve ever tried, and it’s one of the twelve new colours in the OPI Infinite Shine Summer 2015 Collection!

This sunny yellow reminds me of Easter chicks and buttercups, so it’s definitely a happy-go-lucky shade.

Plus the name itself makes me smile because I can totally see someone doing honeybee nail art on top. (You may remember that years ago, back in 2011, I did Bee Nail Art (with a tutorial), but I used a vibrant yellow. It would be really cute to paint some bees on a softer yellow.)

If you’ve tried any yellow nail polishes, you know that many of them tend to be fussy, streaky, and quite the diva.

How did OPI Infinite Shine Bee Mine Forever stack up? Is the higher price tag of the Infinite Shine polishes worth it? See the rest of my review, as I weigh in.

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Pretty Serious Blood of Knossos Swatches & Review

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Pretty Serious Blood of Knossos Swatches & ReviewHold the polish!

Be still my little green heart! 

Pretty Serious Blood of Knossos is the kind of olive green that makes my heart race like it wants to place first at the finish line.

If I weren’t a blogger, I’d probably wear Blood of Knossos for several weeks straight.

Plus I get an internal giggle anticipating someone asking me what’s on my nails, just so I can reply in a deadpan manner, “Blood!”

Pretty Serious Blood of Knossos is one of the three new shades that were recently added to the Naileontology Collection. (I did a Quick Look post on those new colours not long ago.)

A lot of green nail polish has landed at Swatch And Learn Headquarters, so it takes a special one to make this nailphile turn her head.

If you like martian manicures (maybe that’s what I’ll call green nails from now on) like I do, this is a serious must-have in your collection!

P.S. There’s still time to enter my 5th blogiversary giveaway for your chance to win 12 nail polishes! 🙂 Remember to get your entry in by August 7 for it to count.

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OPI Venice Collection Press Release & Promo Pictures

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OPI Venice CollectionYesterday, I received the official press release about the OPI Venice Collection, which is set to launch in August.

There are 15 shades in the OPI Venice Collection. Twelve of them will be added to the permanent OPI collection, and the other three will be limited-edition.

The limited-edition shades are Venice the Party?, Baroque…But Still Shopping, and St. Mark’s the Spot.

The images in this post are all I have for this press release. (I’ve e-mailed PR to see if I could get individual bottle shots to show you. If there are any available, I’ll be sure to update this post to include the photos.)

EDIT (July 29 at 6:37 pm EDT): I’ve updated this post to include photos of the individual bottles!

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