Your Claws: L'Oreal Project Runway Nail Color in The Temptress' Power (Swatches)

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I just thought I'd post a few swatches of my current favorite nail polish. It's good for days when you want something that's actually really fucking awesome, but also sort of subtle unless you look closely. This is a weird one. It's a fairly sheer, pale orangey base with greenish shimmer. I don't even know how to describe the colors, but it has a duochrome effect, so they change depending on the lighting. I haven't seen anything else quite like it. Check out the photos below.

Your Claws: Near dupe for Essie Butler Please (but better)

In my ridiculous collection of nail polish, I have more blues than almost any other color (in close competition are purples and teals). I kept seeing swatches of Essie's Butler Please from last fall, and I decided I needed it. It was my first Essie. But I was disappointed. It's really thin and streaky. I put it on one hand and was so annoyed that I just took it off. Blah.

But then I noticed that I already have something almost identical! Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Pacific Blue. You can see in the swatches below that it is very close in color, though Butler Please is just slightly darker. And the formula of Pacific Blue is a MILLION times better, and I don't think I'm exaggerating. You can pretty much get away with one coat of the Sally Hansen, and it will be completely opaque. For the Essie, you need to use 3-4 coats minimum, and even then it can be a little uneven and somehow lumpy. The Sally Hansen blue levels itself much better, and you get a perfectly smooth surface. Also, the Sally Hansen polish dries to a shinier finish. The Essie just looks dull. Can I emphasize any more how much fucking better Pacific Blue is?

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Pacific Blue (left) and Essie Butler Please (right)
in natural light.

Gel Manicure Starter Kit for Less Than Half Price ($30)

If you've been wanting to try one of those at home gel manicure kits, you can get the Red Carpet Manicure Gel Polish Pro Kit for $30 by following these instructions. This deal only works for new customers of Drugstore.com, but if you're not new, you can still get the kit for half price ($40).

It includes the following:

• Professional LED Light - LED gel-curing light (AC power cord adapter included)
• Prep - Max adhesion prep
• Structure - Base Coat Gel
• Brilliance - Seal & shine top coat gel
• Revitalize - Nourishing cuticle oil
• Purify - Pre & post application cleanser
• Erase - Gel nail polish remover
• RCM instructions card

Don't forget to use Ebates to get an extra 6% cash back too (here's my invite link).

Personally, I change my nail polish so fucking often that I don't want it want it to last for weeks! But I've heard good things about these kits, if you are looking for long wear.

Your Claws: Beautifully cheap greens from NYX

If you want to get with the Pantone Color of the Year thing (Emerald), here are a couple of fucking gorgeous options. They're NYX Girls Emerald Forest (left), which is a glass-fleck, shimmery green that shifts to gold. It's similar to Zoya Ivanka or Zoya Apple, but I don't own those, so I can't tell you which one it's a dupe for. Or try NYX Girls Mermaid Green (right), which is an unusual green that's slightly on the blue side, but not teal.

Your Claws: Cheap Gold Flake Look

So, the thing this winter seems to be topcoat with flakes of real gold leaf in it. There's one from OPI, one from Zoya, one from Sephora by OPI, etc. They're pretty, but I'm never going to spend $30 on a bottle on nail polish. I'm probably never going to spend $15 on one. So I found a way to get a similar look for much cheaper.

Your Claws: Studio M also sold at RiteAid

FYI! I didn't know that! But here's some cool Studio M holiday glitter polish from RiteAid. And here are the colors I have (not my photos though).

Your Claws: Cuticle Cleaning Brush

I got the e.l.f. $1 concealer brush, because I'd read that it was what a bunch of nail polish bloggers used to clean up around their cuticles after painting their nails. I didn't have much confidence in my abilities, but it turns out that this is really fucking easy to do.

You just dip this little brush in some nail polish remover and swipe it back and forth around your cuticles. It makes everything neat and pretty. And you don't really need a steady hand, because you can just sort of use the cuticle as a guide. My non-dominant hand looks better, but the other one is pretty damned good too. Lots of bloggers use 100% acetone to do this, which might be faster, but I just used regular remover, and it was good enough.

Here's my attempt at one of those pretty nail photos. Um, not great, but it'll do.

While you're at it, you should really pick up this Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polish in The Real Teal. It's one of my favorites, ever. Look at the shimmer!

You can get it at most drugstores/grocery stores/big box department stores (is that how we categorize Target etc.?) for around $3.

My Claws: Sad sad sad

I just painted my nails with China Glaze's Turned Up Turquoise last night, which is an amazing, beautiful color. And by this morning, every fucking nail had chipped. It's as though it's just sitting casually on top of my nails, not attached at all. And I used base coat! This never happens.

Your Claws: Studio M Lacquer

Here’s a cheap nail polish brand I hadn’t tried until recently, and I was impressed. I got the two colors pictured below (blue with pink shimmer and neon purple with blue shimmer), and they are amaaaaaaaaazing. Photos really don’t do them justice, since the shimmer doesn’t look all that impressive here. They’re the kind of thing you have to see in action.

So if you live in an area that has Meijer, check these out. They are the Meijer store brand nail polishes, and they cost $3 (but are regularly on sale). They come in sort of 80s-style rectangular bottles like American Apparel nail polish. And there is a fuckload of shades. Seriously, there were 5 different types of neon green last time I looked. I couldn’t pick one.

And if you live in an area that doesn’t have Meijer … then I feel bad for you, son.

Check out Lust from Mani Curiously and Vintage Vamp from Rachel Marie’s Nails.

Your Claws: $2 dupe for Zoya Feifei or OPI On Her Majesty's SecretService

It’s Sinful Colors Winter Wonder (picture from Polished Cousins).

I don’t have this one myself, but I’m going to keep an eye out, because I’ve read raves about these polishes. Maybe Rite Aid or Walgreens?

Your Claws: Cheap and awesome duochrome

Just painted my nails with Spoiled by Wet N Wild in “Good Karma”. Check out this photo at LUUX.com. It’s a beautiful duochrome/multichrome polish. I guess it’s the latter, because it shifts from green to teal to blue. It’s really amazing. More range than most of those China Glaze duochromes that came out this fall, even. And a good formula: 2-3 coats.

And it’s $2! But I would recommend opening the bottle and checking out the brush in the store. Spoiled brushes can be shitty. Make sure you find one without any extra-long or stray bristles.

Your Claws: Peridot dupes redux

I posted before about Chanel Peridot dupes, but I am here today to tell you that you really need to get one. I finally got the Color Club version (called Editorial), and it is mesmerizing me. No amount of time spent looking at photos of it online will prepare you for how fucking amazing it is in motion. The color changes constantly, and it’s so shiny. I’m in love. I don’t care if it’s last year’s trend or whatever. I’m not interested in that shit. I just want to look at pretty shiny things at the ends of my fingers, and this is the prettiest and shiniest.

Your Claws: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat

Here is a list of the quick dry top coats I have tried in the last 6-8 months:

• Seche Vite (of course)
• INM Out the Door
• Poshe Super Fast Drying Top Coat
• Julep Fast Dry Top Coat
• Butter London Hardwear Top Coat
• Wet N Wild Fast Dry Nail Color Top Coat
• Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat

Of these, the Sally Hansen is BY FAR my favorite. I’ll be sticking with it. It’s doesn’t harden all the layers as instantly as Seche Vite, of course, but it’s dry to the touch in a minute or two, and hardens pretty well in about 15 minutes, in my experience. I wouldn’t recommend any serious hard labor for an hour or so after you’ve applied it, but you can pretty much go about your business after you finish that episode of Parks & Rec. The major advantage it has over Seche Vite is: NO FUCKING SHRINKAGE. (This is when the polish on the nail contracts as it dries so you end up with a sliver of your nail projecting past the end of the polish, which looks kind of sloppy and also makes it peel/chip more easily. Yes, I wrap the tips. No, It doesn’t help.)

It makes your polish dry nice and quick, makes it super shiny, and (again) no fucking shrinkage. It’s also really chip/wear resistant and keeps its shine for days. Wins all around. It’s not super cheap (usually $5-8), but you can get it at pretty much any drugstore/big box supermarket, so there are always sales to be found. It’s the best.

You Claws: Chanel Peridot dupes

So it seems like every fucking nail polish line in existence has a dupe (or near-dupe) for the gorgeous Chanel Peridot that came out in Fall 2011. (Check it out at The Swatchaholic.)

For example:

• Jessica Iridescent Eye


• Nicole by OPI Mer-maid for Each Other


• China Glaze Unpredictable


• Color Club Editorial


• OPI Just Spotted the Lizard


• more?

I still haven’t got my covetous little hands on one of these. Have any of you got one? What do you think? What is the best (in terms of formula and color-changing)? I get the impression that the OPI and Jessica polishes are closest to the Chanel, but I guess that doesn’t mean they are necessarily the best. Anyway, I think the Chanel cost around $24, and these are all more like $4-8, so if you don’t care about being a season behind (I really don’t - I just want to look at pretty colors), then you have lots of options.

Your Claws: You Guys

Sinful Colors Kissy is so pretty! Oh my fucking god. It’s a near-dupe for Zoya Charla, I think, (one of many), but $2. I got it at Walgreens. Here's a photo from Fingerspainted.

Your Claws: A $2 Flakie!

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I recently got a sizable order from e.l.f., and one of the best things in it was a nail polish called “Fairy Dust”. Now, I don’t know if there is anyone else left out there like me, who looks longingly at Essie Shine of the Times periodically, but is always too fucking cheap to buy it. But if there is, our cheapness has finally paid off!

e.l.f. now has a beautiful flakie for just $2. It’s great. It has the usual red-orange-gold-green shift of colors. Here are some swatches, with only 1 coat of Fairy Dust over a few colors:

Your Claws: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Nail Polish

Really fucking cheap (usually under $3 a bottle), 3-free, fantastic colors, good brushes, awesome formula. That’s really all there is to say. It really rivals any of the higher-end polishes I’ve tried.

These are the colors I have (those teals are totally different, okay!?):

From left to right: Caribbean Coral 36, Red Carpet 390, Purple Pizzazz 490, Lacey Lilac 270, Pacific Blue 420, Marine Scene 19, The Real Teal 39, and Going Green 430.

I love them all, but Red Carpet and Purple Pizzazz are especially cool.

Disclosure: This post contains an affiliate link.