My Top 10 Polishes of 2012 Part One!

Good Friday morning lovely polish lovers!

Today I bring you for the second year My Nails. My Polish. Top 10 Picks of 2012!

We had some amazing polishes this year and it was so hard to pick the 10 that I wanted to feature. This year I came up with some guidelines to help narrow things down. The first guideline was to that the polish had to come out THIS year. Which obviously is appropriate. The second guideline that I had was that I had to have worn it and taken a picture of it. If I featured it on the blog even better. I think there was only one I never featured on the blog, but put up on Instagram. You'll see that one later.


Alright lets get started. This is the first five on my list, I figure one post would be super long and you the lovely reader would get to tired half way through.  This list is no particular order so I'm not saying that any polish is better than another. They are all my favorites from this year!

First up is a polish that I couldn't stop raving about this holiday season. It has definitely become my favorite red polish! That's right its China Glaze Cranberry Splash, from the Holiday Joy Collection.

When  this collection came out I wasn't really looking to get any of them, I wasn't impressed until I was looking at Kelly from Vampy Varnishes swatches and saw how it glowed and was just the perfect holiday red. I needed it and quickly added it to a list I had started on one of the E-tailer websites that I usually order from. A week or so later a trip to Sally Beauty with my mom let me get my hands on it sooner and boy was I glad I got it. Take a look (if you haven't already seen it in any other post I did with it LOL)!

Next on the list is a dupe of polish that I featured last year, but if you want this polish you still maybe able to get it through China Glaze. I picked Immortal from the Halloween Collection this year to be on my favorites list because I have never loved a grey polish so much in my life. When I first saw Immortal in Sally's I knew immediately that it had to be a dupe for Fright Night Polish in Phantom.

What I love most about this polish I the shimmer. Between the grey shimmer is a mix of blue and purple, its very subtle on the nail and can be seen well in the bottle.

This polish that I have for you is only my fourth Essie polish. I can't believe I have never bought more of that brand but the price tag always gets me. When Essie released their Winter Collection this year which is also named Leading Lady I knew I wanted at least Where's My Chauffeur!

It is a bright sky blue crème polish that looks like a certain runner up that will be featured at the end.

What I like most about this polish is the formula, it is on the thin side but that's okay, three coats achieves opacity. In the picture below I used it with Pure Ice Stop Flirtin'.

Earlier this year L'Oreal release a line of polishes that all have names that refer to one of my favorite places in the world next to home, is England!! I know I talked more at length in the post about my love for British Television and this polish just fits the bill perfectly. L'Oreal Brit Invasion is an amazing brownish taupe polish with copious amounts of golden shimmer. When I posted this on the blog it was one of my most viewed post! If I had to choose one polish to wear all fall this year this would of been it.

This year was the year of the Jelly Sandwich, many companies even right up to the end of the year were creating jelly sandwiches in a bottle. One company that jumped on that band wagon was Nails Inc. Sold at Sephora and on Nails Inc. website, these polishes were all the rage! They were even sold out for a time. In July I broke down and decided that I needed all of the Nails Inc. Sprinkles Collection. Now nail bloggers generally define a Jelly Sandwich as a sheer polish that is buildable layered with a glitter polish in between. Nails Inc. took it to the next level and used crème polishes with matte glitters. My favorite out of the four was Sugar House Lane. It is a neutral toned crème polish mixed with black and white matte glitter. It does look like the top of a chocolate frosted cupcake.

Okay so I think that is where we are going to stop for Part One of the Top 10. The next five that will be showed are equally amazing so just remember that! Most of these polishes are still available in some places. The L'Oreal polish you may have to go hunting for though I still found some in the Wal-Mart in the next town over from me.

So stay tuned for the last half of the list!!! Talk to you soon!
Nicole

China Glaze Immortal vs. Claw Polish Phantom

Good Morning!

Hope you all are well! For those of us here in the Northeast we are currently watching and waiting on Hurricane Sandy. She is supposed to hit some where near New Jersey late Monday night and bring lots of rain and wind :( This would be my second hurricane, the first one being Hurricane Irene, (really she was a tropical storm) but it certainly caused a huge mess. I'm hoping Sandy doesn't do that much damage this time, since most places are just getting back on their feet over a year later.

Anywho on to today's post! I hinted a few post back that I had another dupe post for you, and if you read the title then you know exactly what I am talking about! This year China Glaze put out this amazing grey creme polish that has the slightest shimmer of blue and silver and a hint of magenta. When I first saw bottle shots and early swatches I thought that it could be close to a polish I got last Halloween.

So when I saw it in person at Sally's I knew it most likely was a dupe but I had to have it anyway!

So today I bring CG Immortal vs. Claw Polish Phantom.

Lets talk about the Claw Polish. I only bought this polish because I had seen swatches of it on my all time favorite beauty blog Nouveau Cheap! I thought it looked unique and I did not have any grey polishes at the time, when I saw it in CVS I thought okay its pretty but it might be sheer. It is a buildable sheer polish. The shimmer in it is significantly silver/grey but you occasionally see a small speck of blue or magenta  After wearing it for a short time last year I included it in my top 11 polishes of 2011.

The formula on these two polishes is different but not in a way that will shock you. Immortal is a tad thicker than Phantom and only needs two coats to be opaque, where as Phantom looks best at three. Both polishes after four coats are this very dark graphite grey which to me wasn't very appealing. In my photos below are three coats and one coat of top coat.

So to compare, China Glaze Immortal is on my pinkie and middle finger and Phantom is on my ring and pointer finger. These two polishes are dead on dupes for each other, the only difference being the formula. I would say that if you didn't have access to the Claw Polishes from last year, although I hear they are out at Kmart this year then the China Glaze polish is a good pick.

I hope you enjoyed my dupe post! And thanks for taking the time out to read it!
Until next time <3 Nicole