I Feel Polished!: January 2013

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Indie Spotlight: Soflajo Black Beauty

I have one gorgeous polish to show you guys today! It's seriously amazing! This is Black Beauty by Soflajo: it's black, holo, shimmery, and matte. Yes, matte AND holo! It's from the new Matte Love Collection, which means that this baby is like having two polishes in one! I literally squealed with barely contained glee when I opened this beautiful polish up! I only had to use two coats to obtain this level of opacity and each coat went on so incredibly smoothly! I am so very pleased with the awesomeness of this polish! If you've never tried Soflajo, you really need to! Her polishes are simply phenomenal AND she does a lot of charity donations. It's always so great to see indie makers making a difference in their community! <3 Enjoy! :)

No Top Coat:

With Top Coat:

*This gorgeous polish was sent for review. All of the opinions expressed are my own, per the usual! :)

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Square Hue: January 2013

I know I don't usually blog on Wednesdays, but I was too excited about these polishes that I couldn't wait to share them! :)

There's a new kid on the block in the world of subscription boxes and it is AMAZING. I'm sure some of you have heard of Julep or Birchbox. Square Hue is the same premise: a monthly subscription where you receive a box that the company puts together. For $21 per month, you get three full sized, three-free polishes. Yes, full sized, not half sized! Compared to other nail polish only subscriptions, this one is really reasonably priced! And I cannot even explain how impressed I am that the polishes are full sized!

I ended up getting the January box, "The Arctic Collection," first, and I have to tell you just how much I adored these polishes straight out of the box. The bottle is square (obviously) and it's such a cool shape! I also love the logo and the brush. Additionally, the colors prompted me to run and show Mr. I Feel Polished, which I rarely do because really, why does he care how pretty the polishes are? Hahaha! :) Anyways, if you want to learn more about Square Hue, you can check out the How It Works page for more information. I really can't wait to get my February box! Ok, enough of me talking. Here are the swatches! Enjoy! :)

First up, Glacier Skies! A light blue creme that was opaque in two coats!

Next is Arctic Frost, a white shimmery glitter best used as a top coat! I used two coats over Glacier Skies.

And finally my favorite (and most difficult to photograph!), Midnight Flurries-a medium blue metallic polish with holographic glitter! GORGEOUS! This is two coats.

*These polishes were sent for review. I have purchased my own February box. All opinions are my own, as always!*

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

OPI Liquid Sand The Impossible

Please let me start out by saying that when I have a manicure fail, it does NOT show up on the blog. When I hate a mani, it never sees the light of day. Except today. Only because I wanted to show you this polish, NOT the nail "art," if it can even be called that.

This is OPI The Impossible, another one of the awesome Liquid Sand polishes. Just like Stay the Night, the formula is amazing and I love the finish. This one is pretty cool because it has star glitter in it, too! Lovely! However, my genius idea to freehand polish a "star" on my accent nail with limited time before I had to be somewhere was a bad idea. So please enjoy the polish but ignore my accent nail. :)

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Valentine's Day Nails

I saw a neat idea on Pinterest the other day. After some link following and researching, I think the idea originated with Kiss My Acetone, who used tape in her method. Anyways, I just loved the idea of this manicure because a lot of people dislike Valentine's Day. These nails seemed perfect for someone who might want to be festive but also show their dislike! :) I don't mind Valentine's Day but Mr. I Feel Polished and I do not celebrate it so this would work for me perfectly!

I began by polishing clear coat onto a plastic baggie. Once that was dry, I polished OPI Pink Shatter, Black Shatter, and White Shatter onto the clear coat. I know, I know, SHATTER. CRACKLE. BLASPHEMY. Bear with me, I promise it's cool! Once the shatter was dry, I folded the bag down the middle of each crackle square and cut it into a heart shape, 1st grade style. :) Then, I polished my pointer and pinkie nails with Zoya Purity. My ring nail is Zoya Maya and my middle nail is Zoya Raven. Finally, I stuck complementary shatter hearts onto my already polished nails. And viola! A festive, yet broken hearted rendition of Valentine's Day nails! Enjoy! :)

P.S. You can attempt to peel the shatter hearts off of the baggie. This will leave less obvious lines around the edges of your hearts. I, however, was worried I would rip the hearts, so I just let them be. :)

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Indie Spotlight: Purple Smoke

Today on the Indie Spotlight is a polish by called Purple Smoke. This is the first polish I own by this maker and if it's any indication for how the other polishes made by Contrary are, then I definitely want some more!

Purple Smoke is a dark grey base with purple and blue shimmer throughout. It's definitely different from many indie polishes because it isn't a glitter bomb! The first coat of Purple Smoke was a little streaky but the second coat made it look perfect and I didn't even need a third coat! This is a really beautiful polish...the shimmer is so pretty and just subtle enough. I absolutely love it! Enjoy! :)

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Simple Dotticure

I've been really busy lately, so I decided to do a simple dotticure similar to one Chelsea at The Nail Network did several weeks ago. I recently used Zoya Paloma for a different mani and I loved it so much that I wanted to use it again. Paloma is an awesome jelly that has a fuchsia raspberry-ish look to it. It's opaque in three to four coats and it's just lovely! I love the squishy look, but of course, that's why I love all jellies! :)

I used Zoya Aurora for the dots and I just randomly placed large and small ones down the side of each nail using a dotting tool. That's it! So simple and easy! I just love them! Enjoy! :)

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Sponged Nails

One of my favorite, go-to techniques is sponging. It's so easy and always ends up looking really cool. Added bonus? It's SUPER hard to screw up! I used the same technique for my Zoya Gilty nails and my (ready for a throwback?!) Galaxy nails. To complete this look, polish a base coat of color on each nail. I used two coats of Zoya Raven on my accent nail and two coats of OPI Your Royal Shine-ness on the rest of my nails.

Then, choose some colors to go over your base color(s). I usually choose between four and six colors. After you have your colors ready, rip a makeup sponge into small pieces. They are usually just a little smaller than the size of my pinkie nail. You don't need much, just enough of a piece to dip it in a blob of polish! I usually work with my darker colors first, but that's just preference. I also tape around the sides of my nails to aid in cleanup.

I hold the sponge piece with a pair of tweezers and I just drop a blob of polish onto a piece of paper to begin. Dab the sponge into the blob and then blot it off a little on the paper. Then, you're set to go! You can dab it all over, in spots, however you'd like! Like I said, it's hard to mess it up! First, I used Zoya Song on all of my nails. Then, I followed with Zoya Kotori on my accent nail. I stopped with my accent nail then and continued with the rest of my nails. After Song, I used OPI Black Onyx, Zoya Ginessa, Zoya Kotori, and OPI DS Coronation, in that order. Finally, I finished this up with top coat, which really smooths the whole look out!

These colors looked so great together and they actually ended up looking like the beginning of Galaxy nails. I was actually using colors that represent my favorite hockey team (the only sport I like), which is playing its first home game today! YAY! Enjoy! :)

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Indie Spotlight: They're Better in Books Collection

I've been really lucky to have had the opportunity to swatch for one of my favorite indie makers recently! I've loved LynBDesign's polishes ever since I first polished on This is Halloween. Since then, Darwin has also made an appearance on the blog and I have three more of Jenna's amazing polishes waiting in the wings. She just launched a new collection, They're Better in Books. What I love about this collection is that all of the polishes are opaque cremes and jellies. No glitter here, which is rare in the world of indies! They're also standard colors that every collection needs! Even though I have hundreds of polishes, I don't have anything quite like the polishes in this collection.

First up is Pinkmalion! Pinkmalion is a light pink polish with purple undertones. The first coat had me thinking this was going to be really sheer and have visible nail line, but it was perfect in three coats and has an absolutely flawless finish! Pinkmalion went on smoothly and was easy to work with. This baby would look stunning with some silver glitter over it!

Quoth the Raven is up next! Ooooh, a good black gives me shivers, especially one with such a fantastic name! This black polish was opaque in one coat but perfect in two! What I love about Quoth the Raven is the versatility. It dries to a finish that isn't super glossy but just one coat of top coat and it shines away! You could definitely use it either way and it would be lovely! Just like Pinkmalion, this was one smooth polish!

My favorite of the bunch is next: Sacre Blurple! Excuse me while I say, "Holy crap!" This is one of the most amazing polishes I've ever used. It's a deep royal blue jelly that has so much squishy depth I just can't handle it! This definitely leans purple too, hence Blurple in the name. This polish is perfect by itself or for a kick-butt jelly sandwich. I ended up putting some glitter over this after the initial swatch and I had to leave it on for an extra day because I couldn't bring myself to take it off! I cannot describe how much I love this polish! And, I didn't have any nail staining after wearing it for a day! YAY!

And last, but certainly not least, I have The Little Red Polish, which I think, incidentally, would go perfectly with a little black dress! The Little Red Polish is a cherry red jelly that I wanted to bite into! Just like Sacre Blurple, it has so much depth and shine! Simply stunning. I couldn't get over how juicy this polish is! And just like Sacre Blurple and the other polishes in this collection, it went on smoothly!

I can usually talk myself out of buying polish a lot nowadays because I just have so much. I can honestly say that I do not have any colors like these and these are such staple colors needed in any collection! If you haven't had the opportunity to try LynBDesigns, I highly recommend her polishes! Check her out on for sure because she generally has great coupons, like the one going on now! Enter HAPPYTWOYEAR for 40% off! YAY!

*These polishes were provided for review. As always, all opinions are my own! :)

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