Nails Inspired By Emma Stone's Met Gala Outfit

How freaking fun has it been to browse through the pictures of all the celebrities' outfits from the Met Gala?! I'll tell you: SO FUN. A few of my favorite looks were Rihanna, the Olsen twins, and Emma Stone.

Emma Stone's color-blocking, in particular, caught my eye - especially on the heels of the fabulously summery colors that I used in last week's mani. Something about Emma's outfit seemed to be in the same vein of mixing beautifully juicy summer colors, don't you think? If you're savvy, you may have even noticed me pin her outfit onto my Nail Polish board on Pinterest earlier this week.

For this mani, I used a brand new Revlon polish, Fuchsia Fever, which I bought on Wednesday specifically for this look. For an accent nail, I used Love & Beauty's Orchid - a polish featured on my blog earlier this year in my Radiant Orchid series.

Fuchsia Fever really surprised me - I don't know why my expectations for it were sort of low. It was a beautiful formula - smooth, liquidy, buttery and quite opaque even after just one coat... but I went for a second coat anyway.

I'm kind of loving this color combination! Kudos to whoever put together Emma Stone's outfit for her. Her side braid was amazing as well. You know I'm a huge sucker for a good side braid.

Whatchu got on your nails today?
Have you picked up any new polishes lately?
What was your favorite outfit/look from the Met Gala?

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Radiant Orchid Nail Polish - Sally Hansen Royal Romance

Last Friday I insisted that I'd be brief, but then I totally wasn't at all.

Well this time I mean it! I'll be traveling allllll day today to get back to Vancouver from Massachusetts. The time here with my family has been awesome, but the trip back west is going to be grueling. Wish me luck!

Today is the final post in my series of Radiant Orchid inspired nail polishes. This is a darker version of the orchid shade - a Sally Hansen Diamond Strength polish called Royal Romance.

Royal Romance is sort of a plummy-orchid color, filled with super fine grains of silvery shimmer throughout.

When it settles in the bottle, the shimmer looks like sand art:

The formula on this one was just so-so. It wasn't a nightmare, but I'm not looking forward to using it again.

Here are all of the orchid polishes that I swatched over the last month...

From left to right: Luminous Tulips (Sally Hansen), Orchid (Revlon), Orchid (Love & Beauty), Preamp (ORLY), and Royal Romance (Sally Hansen).

They were all shimmery polishes. I feel like I should get at least ooone matte/non-shimmery orchid polish to add to my stash. Any recommendations?

So since I made you power through 5 weeks' worth of orchid-ish nail polishes, you deserve a prize. I'm going to do a giveaway (open to people in US and Canada) of a bottle of ORLY's Preamp and a bottle of the Revlon Top Speed Orchid. #Sewprize. To enter, use ye olde Rafflecopter below. I'll announce the winner next Friday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Radiant Orchid Nail Polish - ORLY Preamp

Pardon the brevity of this nail polish post today! I'm still in Massachusetts soaking in the gloriousness of my family, and since my trips home are only happening about twice a year now, I'm #NotTryna spend the whole visit on the computer trying to be witty for YOU folks. Well I mean... I will still try to be witty for you, just not in a super verbose manner.  AND YET HERE I AM RATTLING ON. #BitchesBeTALKIN, am I right?!

Alright so straight to the point (in a curved line, apparently). Today I have another Radiant Orchid-inspired nail polish swatch for you, to celebrate Pantone's 2014 Color of the Year. This is one of my favs! It's ORLY's Preamp, and I had to search high and low for this polish in order to scoop it up last year. It was totally worth the treasure hunt. Check out how gorgeous this polish is:

Preamp is a beautiful purple-ish pink with gold micro shimmer throughout:

I have no complaints about this polish. It applies beautifully - opaque in 2-3 coats (depending on thickness) and not streaky. 

I love that all of the gorgeous shimmer you can see in the bottle translates so well onto the nails themselves. It's like golden fairy dust!

How does this Preamp polish make you feel, deep down in your heart? Let's talk about it.

Also, I've wanted to mention this for the last several Fridays because I feel like it's the (tiniest little) elephant in the room:  I nubbinized the bejesus out of my nails after reading a guide for how to choose the right shaped nail for your nail bed. The guide recommended that I file my nails into an oval shape - not rounded or squared or "squared with round edges."  With this current shape, my nails are super short but at least they're strong and the edges aren't snapping off at unfortunate angles like they were when I tried to rock them longer and square. Some people (and by that I mean "me") just aren't able to keep their nails long. IT'S SCIENCE PEOPLE. PHYSICS, SPECIFICALLY.

Next week will be the last of this Radiant Orchid nail polish series. I've got one more Sally Hansen polish to show you before I'm all orchided-out. Have you had a favorite so far? I'm curious to know!

See the other orchid-inspired polishes I've swatched here, here, and here.

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Radiant Orchid Nail Polish - Sally Hansen Luminous Tulips

First of all: Yes, the Justin Timberlake show HAPPENED last night and I am a giddy, giddy teenybopper today. Actually the show didn't end until midnight, so I am really more of a sleepybopper this morning. Honestly the entire concert was just bonkers-incredible, and our seats were even UPGRADED TO RIGHT NEXT TO THE STAGE. I'm still processing all of it, so don't expect to hear too much more from me about the concert quite yet, but I did take video and pictures and will share them when I can. You won't be sorry.

Tomorrow morning, at the butt-crack of dawn, I'm actually setting off for a 2-week trip to Massachusetts to visit my family and friends. Traveling to see them during the holiday season would have been about 3x more expensive (like a $900 plane ticket in December vs a $300 plane ticket a month later), so January/February has become my "holiday" visiting season since I moved to the West Coast. If my blogging becomes a bit more sparse between now and the beginning of February - that's why. Have no fear! Unless you have a terrible phobia complex. In which case... Have some Valium!

Today I'm swatching the third nail polish in my series of Radiant Orchid inspired polishes, in honor of Pantone's 2014 Color of Zee Year. This one is a more pink-leaning member of the orchid family - a Sally Hansen Diamond Strength polish called Luminous Tulips.

It's definitely a rosier raspberry-esque color than the other two orchid polishes I've swatched so far (here and here), but I think there's still a place for it at the Orchid Table, right?

These swatches are with 2 coats of Luminous Tulips plus a top coat. (I've been using Sally Hansen's Double Duty base and top coat lately, if you're curious.)

You can see in the pictures that there's a subtle shimmer throughout the polish - I can't tell if it's silver or if it's a soft blue color. After two coats on my nails, the frost isn't incredibly noticeable.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Bailey... that is not really very orchid, is it?" To that I'd say... when it's by itself, you're right. It doesn't look like it fits in with the Radiant Orchid color. But when it is together with all of the other polishes in this series, I think you'll agree that it definitely has a place in this roundup! JUST TRUST ME.

I've got 2 more nail polishes to show you in this Radiant Orchid series - one of which is also in this Diamond Strength line of polishes from Sally Hansen. It's brand new, so I haven't even tried it yet!

Do you have a favorite polish so far in this series?

Are there any travel plans in your near future? Anyone else like me and need to wait till after the holidays to visit your family back home (wherever "home" is for you)?

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Radiant Orchid Nail Polish - Love & Beauty Orchid

Howwwww is everyone feeling?!?!  I AM SO GOOD RIGHT NOW.

Today is a little bit better than most other Fridays because my very good friend Sarah is coming to visit me for the weekend!! Sarah is from my hometown is Massachusetts, but oddly enough the two of us never met until we were at our freshmen orientation at UMass Amherst back in the summer of 2002. We became fast friends then and have remained obsessed with each other ever since, which is not at all a weird thing to admit. She's been in a physical therapy program at the University of Montana in Missoula for the last year, and has just recently begun a 1-month clinical program in Portland, OR. Since Portland is just a short (that's "short" by West coast standards) 6-hour car ride from Vancouver, it seemed like the best time to plan a visit. SO HERE SHE COMES, Y'ALL. We'll do some sightseeing and snowshoeing this weekend, and I'll try to show her as many cool things as possible while she's here. Should be an excellent visit!

Anycrap, Sarah's not here YET, so let's get on with zee polish!

Today's blog is the second installment in my series of orchid nail polishes in honor of Pantone's 2014 Color of the Year - Radiant Orchid. This one is a Forever21 Love & Beauty nail polish simply called Orchid.

I got this nail polish a couple of years ago at a Forever21 in Massachusetts and I'm not entirely positive that you can still find a match for this in their stores. Sidebar: Have you noticed the changes that have been happening in the Love & Beauty nail polish line in the last year?? They are stepping.it.up.

I'm a BIG fan of this polish - color, application, consistency - it's all beautiful. The first coat goes on a bit sheer, but the color is build-able without being thick or gloopy.

As you can see in these photos, there's a beautiful golden shimmer running through Orchid...

Normally I favor silver over gold, but with this orchid color I actually prefer the gold shimmer to the silvery shimmer that was in Revlon's Top Speed Orchid polish. The gold gives the color a bit of warmth.

These Love & Beauty polishes retail for $2.80 in the US, $3.80 in Canada. They've always been a great deal, but with the improvements being made to the L&B nail polish line nowadays, it's really a bargain!  Check out all the new texture and glitter polishes they're coming out with here (not an affiliate link).

What do you think of this polish?

Do you like the golden shimmer better than the silvery shimmer in orchid?

Are you a fan of Forever21 nail polishes?

See my first Radiant Orchid nail polish post here, and stay tuned for more Radiant Orchid inspired nail polishes in the coming weeks! And I hope you have something fun planned for your weekend too!


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Radiant Orchid Nail Polish - Revlon Top Speed Orchid

Pantone named Radiant Orchid as the Color of the Year for 2014, and I was not disappointed in that choice! There are several nail polishes in my stash that fall under the "orchid" category, so I thought it would be a fun mini-series to show you some options for Radiant Orchid nail polishes.

I'm starting the series today with Revlon's Top Speed polish in the color (surprise, surprise) Orchid (#555):

Revlon's Orchid is filled with micro flecks of silver that give this polish a metallic sheen on your fingers. It was actually really hard for me to tell if the flecks were silver or gold. Ultimately I ended up settling on silver... I think.

Orchid is very bright and pretty to look at, and those afore-mentioned flecks catch the light enough to make this a sparkly-but-not-glittery, polish:

It applies very nicely - doesn't streak at all.  It's also very opaque - you could definitely get away with one coat if you were in a rush, but I like to do at least two coats... to make it easier for me to peel off the polish as soon as my OCD-esque finger-fidgeting happens to call for it. What, you don't peel your polish off and arrange it into tiny piles? Weird.

This is one of Revlon's Top Speed fast dry polishes, and most "quick dry" polish formulas do tend to dry out a bit faster in the bottle. So always make sure to keep the top off the bottle for as little time as possible while applying. Replace the top and give the polish a good thorough mixing (by rolling between your palms, NOT by shaking violently!) after every couple of nails to keep the formula from becoming too thick while you're using it.

My only complaint about this polish is that it's very sensitive to texture beneath it - meaning that it accentuates any ridges or uneven prior-coat applications on your nail's surface. So there's that.

Do you own any orchid polishes?

Are you a fan of the Radiant Orchid choice for Pantone's 2014 Color of the Year?

If you are thinking about picking up an orchid polish but aren't sure which one to go with, stay tuned for more of my Radiant Orchid nail polish picks!

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