Tag Archives: Orly

The Best of 2012

The Best of 2012 Another year is coming to a close! Are you ready to see what 2013 brings?

What you probably didn’t know is that in 2012, I faced a lot of stressful issues in my personal life that caused me great emotional pain.

Blogging and interacting with you helped me push through it instead of giving up.

If you’ve been following Swatch And Learn for even a little while, I hope it’s evident that blogging and interacting with readers bring me a lot of happiness. Yes, it is hard work and very challenging to keep up, but I’m not the type of person who’s afraid of pulling up my sleeves to get things done.

Thank you for listening to what I think and for valuing my opinion, post after post and tweet after tweet. That is a big compliment!

Most of all, thank you, dear readers, for being encouraging and kind as well as for cracking the much-needed joke.

You remind me that genuinely good people are still out there. I needed that reminder, and you gave it to me in spades!

So, while in this post I list the best of 2012 in terms of nail polish, nail art, etc., I want you to know that Swatch And Learn readers are really the best of 2012!

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Holiday & Winter Nail Art Ideas

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Winter & Holiday Nail Art Ideas & Tutorials This year I haven’t had time to do Christmas nail-art tutorials prior to the big day.

But, since I know that a lot of nailphiles will be busting out the lacquer, I’ve put together this post on Holiday & Winter Nail Art Ideas featuring some looks I’ve done in the past.

In this post, I’ve also linked each manicure to its corresponding nail-art tutorial, which features step-by-step written instructions and photos. All, except for one, have tutorials. Plus within some of the posts are links to reviews of the individual nail polishes.

Hope that you’ll come up with something great for your holiday manicure! (I actually have been juggling a few designs in my head, but I still haven’t decided which to paint. I’ll be sure to share my Christmas manicure sometime after December 25th.)

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Orly Sapphire Silk Swatches & Review

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Orly Sapphire Silk Swatches & Review Orly Sapphire Silk is from the Precious Collection back in 2011. Since purchasing it when it was first released, I’ve worn it several times solo and once under Clarins 230.

It’s safe to say that I’m very much attracted to this blue nail polish.

Originally, I purchased it because it was rumoured to be a dupe for MAC Blue India (which I don’t own, but liked).

(You can Google comparison swatches to see what they look like side-by-side.)

After buying Sapphire Silk, I had absolutely no desire to track down Blue India. It squashed that lemming, which is good because Orly is way more affordable than MAC.

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Nail Art: Blue Flocked Nails (Plus My Experience & Application Tips)

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Blue Flocked Nails Nail Art Swatches Don’t rub your eyes. Yes, my nails in today’s post are indeed fuzzy! These are Blue Flocked Nails that made me feel like I was the Cookie Monster…or Fuzzy Wuzzy (the bear)!

You saw me try this look most recently on a guy for fun, except I used pink flocking powder in that case.

To achieve this extreme nail art, I used blue flocking powder and secured it to my natural nails with a regular (and beautiful) nail polish (Orly Royal Navy).

I wore this as a full manicure and went about my normal routine to test it out.

It’s definitely not a practical manicure. This is best suited for a special event like Hallowe’en when you need something ‘out there’ and don’t require it to last as long as nail polish. When worn for such an occasion, I think it’s a really cool novelty!

After ‘surviving’ a full day of wearing this, I’m really excited to share my experience with you. This was like nothing I’ve ever tried before, and I’ve never heard many people talk about it, either.

Come see more swatches of this fuzzy manicure, and allow me to tell you all about what it was like to wear flocked nails!

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Orly Rock-It Swatches & Review

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Orly-Rock-It-Swatches-Review Orly Rock-It from the Mineral FX Collection is like the lady in red who heats up the dance floor as she kicks up her heels and does the salsa!

Better get the extinguisher and the hot greased-up fire fighters from those calendars handy because your nails will be on fire with this one! Hot damn!

Although I don’t wear red nail polish as often as other colours, when I do reach for one, it’s either a bright creme or something blingtastic like this magenta-leaning red.

Do you remember what the last red nail polish you wore was?

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Orly Rococo A-Go-Go Swatches & Review

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Orly Rococo A-Go-Go Swatches & Review Ever since the Orly Mineral FX Collection came out, I had my eyes on Orly Rococo A-Go-Go.

But, at the time, money was tighter than hipster pants accidentally thrown into the dryer on high heat…soooo…I didn’t get it. And I put my eyes back into their sockets.

After several months, this bad boy is now mine, and he certainly was worth the wait!

A purple like this makes your heart race and your pupils dilate. Is it love or lust? Probably both! 😉

I don’t really get the name of the polish, though. When I think of it, I picture a go-go dancer. And ‘Rococo’ reminds me of Rocco, this dude my best friend had a crush on in elementary school. So whenever I see the name Rococo A-Go-Go, I always get a mental picture of Rocco as a go-go dancer, and it makes me laugh!

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Nail Art: Summery Fishtail Braid Nails

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Summery Fishtail Braid Nails Nail Art Swatches You’ll remember that a few days ago, I shared a fishtail braid nail-art tutorial with step-by-step instructions and photos. It featured dark colours.

This time, I decided to try Summery Fishtail Braid Nails with a brighter palette.

Originally I wanted to use green, pink, and silver, but I sadly couldn’t find my bottle of China Glaze Millennium! *Sniff sniff* So, I used white instead because it would provide some contrast.

In this post, I’ll show you more photos of this manicure. But, but more importantly, I’ll share some extra tips and tricks that I learned while doing this a second time around so that your attempt will be smooth sailing. 🙂

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