day one hundred and fifty two, orly star of bombay

like yesterday....there are lots more giveaways going on from fantastic bloggers that you all need to know about!

the lovely Gilded Angel from Naive Nails is having a giveaway to celebrate 300 (!!!!) followers and you have a chance to win the awesome milani holo polish collection that just came out. seriously. enter and follow. she was one of my very first blog commentors (and definitely my first regular commenter) and so she is held in high esteem in my books!!

another blogger, Sarah of I Heart Cosmetics is having a giveaway to celebrate 500 (although she is now at 600!!!!!!!!) followers and among other goodies you can win a mini Alice in Wonderland set!

the illustrious CucumPear is having an end-of-the semester giveaway with loads of goodies, nail polish, lotion, lip gloss, wow!

and finally Black Polish and Lip Gloss is having a giveaway to celebrate 300 followers, a huge amount of items to be won!


3 more followers and i'll be doing my own darn giveaway! :P


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okay. onto today's polish, orly (ya, rly!) star of bombay is from the gems collection back in 2008 (can't believe it was that long ago or that we are in 2010! where does the time go!?) and i was recently gifted it from a friend during a nail polish secret santa! i was very excited to receive it as i always MEANT to purchase it (i even picked it up at a drugstore when i was in ohio this time last year but i put it down and didn't actually purchase it) so colour me pleased!

these pictures probably look really washed out...but this is a DARK blue. it's really a blue-black and i couldn't get the blue to accurately show up until i put my fingers right under a lamp, it just kept looking black. i had no problems with application, great pigmentation too..definitely didn't need 3 coats, could've gotten away with two...but i'm a 3 coater, it cannot be undone!

day one hundred and fourteen, orly prince charming, opi mamma mia

here's something a little different. this is my second to last orly (ya rly!) polish in my collection, also from the fairy tale collection (i swear one day i'll write about a collection and remember it's name! but to me..just knowing the polish name is the most important, you can find the collection from the name on your own if you wish!). it's a nice brown colour...a nice creme. but i had it on and wanted something more. creative nail design (CND) redesigned their brand awhile back and added 'effect' polishes which are sheer polishes you can layer on top of other polishes to create a specific effect. i don't own any of these polishes but i do own sheer polishes and i used one, mamma mia (from the same collection as la boheme and rent) to give this (kinda boring) brown a pink shimmer. it's really obvious in daylight (and really pretty) but it doesn't overpower the polish. i'm really quite pleased with the results, especially because it doesn't detract from the brown of the original polish!!!

i've already broken my no nail polish till february ban...i did some damage at the illamasqua counter in selfridges today. unfortunately their polishes weren't on sale but they will make their debut here shortly. one colour has totally revitalised my love of purple...so stay tuned in about a week's time (the next 7 days of polish have already been determined)

happy boxing day....4 christmases in the UK and i still don't see a purpose to boxing day. it doesn't even have anything to do with boxing!

day eighty five, orly pixie dust

here's another from the orly enchanted ....something collection. enchanted forest or enchanted tales or...something. i can't remember. it is a really nice grey glitter. the glitter is very fine...but it's actual glitter that means removeal is a bit of a pain.


in the bright light it looks really light but in doesn't reallllllllllllly look like this so i tried to show some more up close pictures. it's got a beautiful glitter...definitely like fairy dust! but...despite how much i liked the glitter i wasn't really as in love with this as i wanted to be. it's definitely a nice polish...just not an AMAZING one. i would've liked a different colour or better glitter for the pixie dust. like some sort of rainbow glitter or something more exciting.

day seventy two, orly chocolate martini

allow me to introduce.....the cutest nail polish bottle i've ever seen. this is a mini Orly (yarly!) bottle of chocolate martini that i bought in my last big haul. it feels like a child's bottle of nail polish, it's so miniature. i even took a picture to show that it was smaller than a q-tip! that's pretty small if you ask me.

now onto the colour! this is a great shade, it applied a little uneven but by the 3rd coat it was spread pretty well across each finger. as for the name....i've never had a chocolate martini but i would imagine it to be more...chocolate in colour! maybe they should've called this pumpkin martini instead. it's very autumnal, halloween and thanksgiving to me!

day sixty four, orly enchanted forest

managed to snap these photos in the few minutes of sunlight we got today (been very cold, grey and stormy in London!). today i am showing you orly (yarly!..sorry, can't resist!) enchanted forest. this was part of the fairy tale type collection that mirror mirror (the grey creme) is also a part of. it's a really nice dark green although i found with my typical 3 coats it went a tad darker than the bottle colour and had more of a dark dark green than the deep green in the bottle. however it is still a beautiful colour. and totally different from the glossy green from illamasqua. i love how polishes can be the same shade (deep green) and still appear completely different. just another reason i love nail polish!

i can't promise the pictures will always be this nice! sometimes i forget to snap pictures until the end of the day or the sun never appears. i do try to take sun shots whenever i can because that is the most accurate way to display the colour!

day forty nine, orly mirror mirror

so here we have orly 'mirror mirror' from one of their most recent collections (more of whihc i'll show in due course!). it's a lovely light grey creme. i suppose you can call it dove grey? that seems to be a popular shade even though i'll admit i don't understand what it means...unless because doves are white it is a whiter shade of grey?? who knows! it is called mirror mirror (part of a whole enchanted/fairytale theme) and it is a lovely polish. eventually someday i'll do comparison swatches of the various shades of grey (and red and purple and blue...etc!) to show some possible dupes or how shades vary! but that's for another time....i do like the orly rubber handle, makes for easy gripping!

this is only my 2nd or 3rd orly polish i've applied but i've had wonderful application with all of them...

day fifteen, orly country club khaki

orly (ya rly!? i can't resist!) are another nail brand with a huge range of colours...also pretty nonexistent in the UK. when i was in a posh ohio neighbourhood in the states in february they had orly at the drugstores. but i don't remember ever seeing orly in my los angeles drug stores but it is possible. but anyway you can get them online! this is the first time we will delve into my neutral/taupe/mushroom/flesh colour range that i LOVE. for the most part there haven't been too many 'strange' colours so far but they're coming! so this colour is called country club khaki and was part of the prepster collection. fantastic application and pigmentation/opacity. i only own 2 orly polishes right now but eventually i hope to own many more!!!