SWATCH SUNDAY — OPI Infinite Shine Shaking My Sugarplums (2023 Terribly Nice Holiday Collection)

Good morning lovelies & Happy New Years Eve! Can you believe today is the last day of 2023?! This year has been a whirlwind for sure. So much has happened, but I’m excited for what 2024 will bring!

Today I’m excited to share a brand new polish which I received as part of my Christmas gift from my kids. All I asked for this beautiful OPI share, & I was excited to receive it — along with 3 other gorgeous shades I’ll be sharing soon!

This is OPI Shaking My Sugarplums from the 2023 Terribly Nice Holiday Collection.

3 coats + top coat

This beautiful metallic periwinkle shimmer has a beautiful flash of pinky purple. The second I saw swatches of this shade, I knew I needed to have it. & of course, the hilarious name really sold it!

The formula was a bit thin on this one — I could have gotten away with 2 coats, but opted for a 3 for really solid coverage. It dries quickly, so the extra coat wasn’t an inconvenience at all but really helped with that flash of shimmer.

Macro shot to show of the depth of this beautiful shade. I can’t get over how beautiful it is! I am so happy to be able to add this shade to my collection (as well as the 3 other shades I was gifted)

The OPI 2023 Terribly Nice Holiday Collection can be found anywhere OPI polishes are sold. For fellow Canadians, I know they are currently on sale at Chatters & Chatters.ca for 50% off!

What do you think of this beautiful OPI Holiday shade? Did you pick up any of the beautiful shades from this collection? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments below, & I hope you have the most wonderful New Years Eve!

See you next year!

SWATCH SUNDAY — Quo Beauty Xtreme FX Midnight Magic

Merry Christmas Eve lovelies! & Merry Christmas to those who Santa has already visited. 🎄

Today I’m excited to share an early Christmas present to myself. After a very long Christmas season, I decided to buy myself a little pick me up & hit up my local Shoppers Drug Mart for something sparkling. This is Quo Beauty Xtreme FX Midnight Magic.

3 coats + Essie Speed Setter Top Coat

This dark purple jelly shade has a thin consistency & is packed with multicoloured metallic glitters. Originally I thought they were holographic, but they’re is just a variety of different colours. The formula is a very thin jelly, which allows the glitters to build up & show through the layers.

Because of the thin consistency, I did need 3 coats but they dried down very quickly. & the use of quick dry top coat helped speed things up even more.

The dark purple definitely does mask this shade a bit, but I still adore it. This shade reminds me a bit of Icing Disco Lights, but with much smaller glitters. It’s a fun little touch of sparkle.

For my Canadian friends, you can purchase this & other Quo Beauty shades at your local Shoppers Drug Mart or via their website. This one is currently in stock online & there were lots at my local Shoppers, so you should definitely be able to find it! I know I’ll definitely be going back after Christmas to pick up Stargazing or The Party — which were the other two I was deciding between.

What do you think of Quo Beauty Midnight Magic? Do you like this subtle touch of sparkle? What nail polishes are you hoping Santa leaves under your tree? Let me know all your thoughts in the comments below!

🖤

SWATCH SUNDAY —OPI Sleigh Parking Only (Holiday 2014)

Hello beauties & happy Sunday! I hope everyone has been enjoying the weekend so far! Mine has been busy with work — Christmas in retail, am I right? — but I did have a chance to go through my stash & find a fun throwback Christmas shade from almost 10 years ago!

This is Sleigh Parking Only from the OPI 2014 Gwen Stefani Holiday Collection.

2 coats + top coat

This shade was originally gifted to me by a coworker, as part of a set featuring two of the glitters in the collection (more on that later). The shade itself is a dark plum purple, very appropriate for this time of year. The formula was easy to apply, with just a smidge of pooling towards the cuticle — you might be able to see where I had to do some clean up around the cuticle on my pinky nail.

The colour itself is very beautiful, even though I don’t know how “Christmas-y” it is just on its own. Definitely a winter shade though, with that dark plum colour.

However, as I mentioned I received this shade in a set that also contained two of the glitter toppers from the collection: Comet in the Sky, & Snow Globetrotter. I decided to apply a coat of Comet in the Sky over Sleigh Parking Only, & oh boy do I love how it looks! Definitely gives more of that holiday vibe — as glitter usually does!

Do you remember the OPI 2014 Gwen Stefani Holiday collection? Do you have shades from this collection? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below, & what your all time favourite Holiday nail polish collection is!

SWATCH SUNDAY — ORLY Fowl Play

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday. It’s a rainy & dreary Sunday here, but that’s late Autumn for you. We have only 9 days until Halloween, can you believe it? I’m so excited, even if I haven’t figured out my costume for Trick or Treating yet.

For today’s Swatch Sunday, I broke out a very old shade from my stash which I think is still (sort of) keeping with my Halloween trend. I had planned on going out & finding an actual Halloween shade to share — but I’m having the hardest time finding Halloween collections this year, locally, which is disappointing.

This is ORLY Fowl Play from the Fall 2011 Birds of a Feather collection.

3 coats + top coat

This shade is an oldie, but it’s beautiful. Everything I’ve seen online about it, people talk about how unique this shade is & I have to agree. It’s a purple base packed full of a multitude of flakies & glitters. It was hard to accurately photograph it in my light box, because I feel like it was hard to accurately capture how beautiful it looks (& how many colours it really has packed into it).

Formula for this guy was a bit thin, which meant multiple coats were a necessity (especially to show off all the flakies). I did three coats, because of how thin the formula was, & looking at these swatches I feel like I could have used a forth. Definitely a shade you want to apply a quick dry top coat over so you don’t have to wait forever for it dry.

The colour is perfect for late Autumn/Halloween. Dark & mysterious, & perfect for spooky season, or as the base for Halloween nail art.

What do you think of ORLY Fowl Play? Do you remember when this shade was released? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below, & share any Halloween shades I should be on the look out for!

Enjoy your Sunday. 🖤

SWATCH SUNDAY — Hard Candy Zombie (2015 20th Anniversary collection)

Hello lovelies & happy Sunday. & Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians celebrating this weekend. I hope it’s a wonderful weekend for you, full of Turkey & pumpkin pie.

Today I’m keeping the Halloween polish vibes going. Technically this isn’t a Halloween shade, per se, but it does have a very spooky name so I thought it would be perfect. This is Hard Candy Zombie.

1 coat + top coat

Even after 8 years, formula on this vintage shade is still very very good. I only needed one coat on most nails, although there were a couple spots where I touched up with a little extra. But it was a very good full coverage shade. The colour itself is a beautiful dark vampy purple, with burgundy shimmer. I do wish more of the shimmer had shown on my nails, though. In the bottle, it has such a stunning glow that sadly doesn’t fully translate to the nail fully.

This shade was originally released as part of the 2015 20th Anniversary collection that Hard Candy released as a tribute to the 90s. My assumption is that naming the shade Zombie is a tribute to the Cranberries song, although with it’s dark colour I feel like it’s also very perfect for Halloween.

Sadly, Hard Candy no longer appears to be in the nail polish game, which is a shame because all of the shades I own from them remain stunners, even after all this time.

What do you think about Hard Candy Zombie? Do you remember this release? What do you think — should Hard Candy get back into the polish game again? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below!

Have a great Sunday loves! 🖤