L'Oreal Walk on the Beach Nail Color Swatch

Ooh, I love colors like this! Opaque, pale/ off-white cremes. L'Oreal's Walk on the Beach is a pale sand/ stone creme. I thought it would look just like Barielle's Beaches and Dreams polish, but that is much peachier. This shade was a little streaky on the first coat (when aren't pale cremes?), but everything looked just perfect on the second coat. This is a lovely work-appropriate neutral, but it is a trickier shade to wear, as it's less universally flattering than something like Beaches and Dreams. I do think this looks better on tanned/ darker skintones than paler ones (a couple of pale friends of mine commented that it made their hands and nails looks "yucky" or "dirtier"), but you never know how it will look on you until you try it. It's also a bit brighter on darker tones, while it's a soft, pale "greige" on lighter skintones. I do love this shade, but I like Barielle's B&D much more:

L'Oreal Tangerine Crush Nail Color Swatch

Today's swatch is Tangerine Crush from L'Oreal's new Nail Color line. Tangerine Crush is a beautiful coral-orange creme. It is smooth, super glossy, and looks fabulous with a tan (real or faux). I was just saying the other day in a post that I was tired of all the "Sunkist oranges" every spring and summer, but Tangerine Crush has renewed my love for them. Two coats were applied for this picture:

L'Oreal Violet Vixen Nail Color Swatch

Today I've swatched L'Oreal's new Nail Color in Violet Vixen, which is a juicy, vivid magenta purple. As I said yesterday when I swatched Safari Chic, the formula is terrific- very smooth, and only two coats were needed. The first coat had a jelly-ish look to it, but the second gives it an opaque, creme-like finish. I'm really loving this one, since I don't have anything exactly like it- most shades like this tend to lean heavily towards berry or pink, while this one is predominantly purple:

L'Oreal Safari Chic Nail Color Swatch

My local drugstore just received the new lineup of L'Oreal Nail Color. There are tons of shades to choose from; it was seriously hard to make a decision. I stood there for about half an hour thinking, "hmm, this one? Or that one? That one, too?". I bought five of them (Safari Chic, Butterfly Kisses, Tangerine Crush, Walk on the Beach, and Violet Vixen) for starters and will be swatching this week. The formula on these was great- they all required only two coats for full coverage, were very smooth, and I found them to be quite glossy even without topcoat. I also liked the brush, which is somewhat like a slimmer version of OPI's Pro Wide. These are a great buy for $5.99 (the price at my CVS).

Safari Chic is an awesome dusty sage green creme. If you really look up close, you can see faint silvery microshimmer, but it really just looks like a creme on the nails. MANY compliments on this one!

Milani Mint Candy Swatch

I hauled a few polishes at CVS the other day (mainly the new L'Oreal ones), and this new shade from Milani (from the "Color Play" collection) caught my eye. Mint Candy is a stunning aqua turquoise with seafoam green microshimmer. I only had to use two coats to achieve full opacity. This is such a gorgeous color! It's a bit more green-aqua in real life, and reminds me of mermaids:

OPI Wooden Shoe Like to Know? Swatch

Wooden Shoe Like to Know? is a neutral mushroom brown laced with golden shimmer. It was very watery on the first coat for me (am I the only one who has noticed the newest OPIs are all like this?), but the second coat evened everything out nicely. I thought I would love this shade a lot more than I actually do. Sadly, it makes my hands look somewhat dirty in real life. I'll return to it, though, when I'm more in the mood for a shade like this. It is a very interesting neutral:

OPI Gouda Gouda Two Shoes Swatch

Gouda Gouda Two shoes is a muted, peached medium rose with soft golden shimmer throughout. I absolutely LOVE shades like this. You're definately wearing nail polish, but it's still work/ office appropriate. Two coats was perfect:

Ever since I was told by some Dutch friends many years ago that the way we pronounce Gouda in English is incorrect (we say 'GOO-da' when it's really 'HOW-da', with a gutteral sound on the G), I've only pronounced it that way. So when I see the name, "Gouda Gouda Two Shoes", I can't help but see it as "Howda Howda Two Shoes",