Texas Treats

I haven't made any formal New Year's Resolutions, but if I had, keeping up better with my swatching would be on that list. (Of course it would be easier to keep up with my swatching if I didn't buy so much polish, which I guess would be another resolution for that list I didn't make.) Today I have some polishes I bought last summer when I was in Texas and fortunate to be able to meet up for a bit with my friend Mel (of Delicious Color). Left to right: Orchid Bling It On, Orchid Wine-O, Essence Colour & Go Sparkle Sand Effect Me & My Lover, Orchid Starry Night, and Orchid Lone Star Blue.

I wore the two reds together, with three coats of Orchid Bling It On for most of my fingers and two coats of Essence Me & My Lover on my ring finger as an accent. I might have been able to do two of Bling It On but like the layering of the glitter with three. I added topcoat to the Orchid but left the Essence alone, as it's textured and meant to be bumpy. These are both red with red and gold glitter, so work well together. The Orchid has some very fine gold shimmer as well. In my younger days when I was more into matching, it would have bothered me that the Essence leans more coral, but now I'm fine with it, actually enjoy the slight discord.

I got the shimmery Orchid Lone Star Blue mostly for the name, as it made a great souvenir of the Lone Star State. I did an accent nail look with this one, too, putting a black creme base on my ring finger. I put one coat of Lone Star Blue over the black to make a deep shimmery blue and three coats of Lone Star Blue on its own on my other fingers. Even at three coats, it seemed not quite opaque, so I'll probably wear it over skintone undies next time.

Orchid Wine-O is a rosy plum with fine golden shimmer. It was opaque in two coats.

Wine-O probably would have benefited from some topcoat to let its shimmer shine more, but I didn't do that because I knew I wanted to try Orchid Starry Night on top of it. In an attempt to get Starry Night to look as dense as it did in the bottle, I piled on three coats of it on top of Wine-O (maybe the plummy base was not the best choice for this one). Starry Night reminded me a lot of SinfulColors Hottie, with sheer medium blue base and small and medium iridescent glitter; if I could find my bottle of Hottie I could have done a comparison.

I like the Orchid bottles; very space efficient to store but with a touch of style from the curved sides. I was going to say I wish they were sold here, but if that were true, they wouldn't be as special to me. I like that I can look at these and think of a friend.