OPI Skull and Glossbones

Hello loves!  Happy Sunday!

In keeping with the theme of last post being extremely late seasonally for review, here is OPI's Skull and Glossbones from the Pirates Summer 2011 collection!  I originally purchased the 4 piece mini set that was released with the entire collection, but this was also before I earnestly started hoarding collecting polishes.  I fell in love with it in the mini, let someone borrow it, and after I got it back I lost it.  So when I found the full sized bottle of it randomly at Target I snatched it up almost in a panic.

Skull and Glossbones is a very pale almost heather gray creme (I have a pic below of my nails next to a heather gray sweater for comparison), but it really is the color I would imagine sun-bleached bones would be.  The formula is a little on the thin side, but not enough to be sheer.  I got full opacity with three thin coats and it lasted about a week with just my regular quick dry top coat.

The first time I wore this my mom commented that I looked dead, so I decided I would ignore her.  But the this time she like it.  Maybe she forgot?  I love a gray polish, and I have a couple now that they've become more popular.  Until this past summer it was almost impossible to find a distinctly gray polish.  Not a blue-gray, or a purple-gray/light periwinkle, just gray.

So shiny!!

I got a little ambitious after I put this on, and decided to try my hand at freehand nail art.  As a play on words like the name, I put a skull and crossbones on my ring ringer.

This was after I had to redo them before cleanup.  I was just so excited about this little guy looking so good for shaky hands and being a first try.  =)  I used a Sally Hansen black nail art pen for this.  S&G wasn't 100% dry when I did this, so he kind of had to be dotted on very carefully.

Also, please forgive my cuticles, I stabbed myself while manicuring.

Cocktail Bling

Ok, I totally lied, THIS will be the last of my Essie holiday collection posts.  I completely forgot about Cocktail Bling!

It's the gray in the collection, but it has some very faint blue undertones to it.  Very pretty, almost like light rain clouds type of color.  I have a yellow undertone to my skin, so it would probably look very fetching on someone with a darker skin tone than me.  I loved it either way.

I decided that I wanted to play around with my mani after I did my two coats of Cocktail Bling.  Neutrals with a bright color are fun and it's nice to spice things up every now and then.  I used a dotting tool with Essie Your Hut or Mine.  When I showed the finished product off to people, I got a lot of compliments, but I also got a "It looks like your nails are bleeding," from my mom.  Thanks a lot, Mom. =p

Maybe you will like it.

Both pictures were taken  indoors with flash.

This mani actually lasted me almost a full week.  I only changed it because a couple nails decided to break and look like freaks of nature on my hands.

Full sized bottles of Essie Cocktail Bling and Your Hut or Mine retail for $8 US.  Essie also has cubes available with four colors from each collection (which is where both of those colors came from, except separate cubes) retailing for around $17 US.