Vodka & Caviar - OPI (Jelly Sammy)

Hi all!

Life is still crazy and busy and strange, but that's for another place, so instead let's just go straight to what's currently on my nails. I haven't done a jelly sandwich in a long time and it's just what I felt like doing recently…

This is OPI 'Vodka & Caviar' which was one of my earliest polishes (before I became crazy-polish-lady). I have always had a love for red polish, I think there are few things more wonderful than perfectly manicured red nails. I've been meaning to try this polish as a jelly sammy for a long time and I'm glad I finally did. I did 2 coats of 'Vodka & Caviar' followed by 1 coat of CrowsToes 'Maxxed Out' (aka my favourite glitter EVER!) and then 1 more coat of 'Vodka & Caviar'.


Both these polishes are easy to work with. 'Vodka & Caviar' is naturally a little sheer (being a jelly), but it builds really nicely and 3 coats was more than enough for full opacity (as seen on my ring and index fingers). 'Maxxed Out' is jam-packed with glitter so it is also easy to get the amount of coverage you want from it.


I love a jelly sandwich and I don't often think to do them. What are your favourite jelly sandwich combos?

Starry Night - piCture pOlish

It's Wednesday again and that means it's piCture pOlish time! It was hard to wait for Wednesday to roll around again to show you another of their beauties! Anyway, enough chit chat... This is another collaboration polish and this time the collaboration was with the wonderful Leah Ann from Llarowe. I'm sure you all know about the online shop that is Llarowe and if you're anything like me, you have probably spent more time and money there than you care to admit, trying to get your mitts on so many wonderful indies.

I love me a good dark polish and piCture pOlish have done it again, yet another polish I love. I am quite deathly pale with really dark hair and so I often shy away from black polish, but with the addition of the scattered holo effect and the jelly formula of the polish, I found 'Starry Night' really wearable.

In brighter light, you can really see how packed full of holo particles 'Starry Night' is and the slightly sheer jelly allows this to really shine through.

A close up of the piCture pOlish holo shard particles that I simply cannot get enough of. In fact, I made a bold statement the other day while staring at my nails, I decided that I could be happy if I wore only polishes with this finish for the rest of my life. Luckily, in reality, this would never happen, but if for some reason I had to choose a single type of polish to use for ever more, I would be quite happy if it was one like this.


Just like with 'Ocean' last week, 'Starry Night' had a sheer jelly formula. I used 4 coats, but only because of the close up photos. Three easy coats gave full opacity and, as usual, that's how I wore 'Starry Night' on my left hand. I did try putting a single coat over a coat of black and at the end of the day, there wasn't a huge amount of difference. I actually preferred 'Starry Night' on its own, because it has that look of depth with the particles showing through the layers of polish and just an overall softer look about it. 'Starry Night' was really easy to work with formula-wise.


piCture pOlish is available from a whole bunch of places. Make sure you check out the piCture pOlish website, you can order this polish direct from them for $12 AUD or you can have a look at their list of distributors.

This product was provided for review. This is my personal, unbiased opinion.
For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Jelly Sammie with Big Hair... Big Nails - OPI

Once again I have eaten a feast of food tonight and have finally gotten home (happy and full) to some internet, so... It's jelly sammie time again! This time with something a little brighter...

This jelly sandwich doesn't translate super well to these photo, but you can get the idea at least. For this look, I used 2 coats of China Glaze 'Surfin' For Boys', followed by a coat each of KB Shimmer 'Bejeweled' and CrowsToes 'Absolum - Your Potions Master'. I finished up with 2 coats of OPI 'Big Hair... Big Nails'.

This picture is a little closer to how insanely bright it was in real life.



Overall I really liked how this turned out. It was a bit different to what I've done before but at this time of the year it felt pretty perfect. I probably could have done with an extra coat of top coat for these photos, but as I've said before a little texture never bothers me. Everything in this mani was easy to apply formula wise. I used 2 coats of 'Big Hair... Big Nails' because I love the more suspended/floating look of the glitter in a jelly sandwich.

Jelly Sandwich Take Two - Spank You Very Much - Dollish Polish & Care To Danse? - OPI

I did me just a little shopping over the weekend and I managed to pick up a couple of the polishes from OPI's just-released Germany collection (they are AMAZING!). I've never known NZ to get a collection so fast! I hope this is how it will always be in the future. For any Kiwi's, lots of pharmacies have a buy two, get one free deal going on at the moment. I also finally got a polish from the New York City Ballet Collection by OPI, so logically I had to do a jelly sanger ASAP right?! So here we go with my second ever jelly sandwich (how have I not done more of these mani's?)...

I used a coat of OPI 'Steady As She Rose' to give a bit of colour under the jelly so I didn't need a billion coats (it is almost exactly the same colour). On top of that, I put one coat of OPI's 'Care To Danse?' followed by one coat of Dollish Polish 'Spank You Very Much' and finally two more coats of 'Care To Danse?' (I know, that's a lot of layers of polish).

I love how this has a really soft, milky look. And I think 'Spank You Very Much' is the perfect glitter for this. This polish is so densely packed with glitter that you can have good coverage with one quick swipe. 'Care To Danse?' has a really pretty subtle pinky purple hue to it.

This photo is taken under artificial, white light and the polish leans slightly more peachy pink on me. I think this is just because I am SO pasty! I love how pretty and feminine this mani is.

Here's the macro so you can see just how amazing 'Spank You Very Much' is. I will have to definitely show you this one on its own at some point.



'Care To Danse?' really is very sheer, though nice and easy to work with.The thin coat of 'Steady As She Rose' just really helped to give it that little boost of colour and saved on several coats. 'Spank You Very Much' has a great formula for a glitter. As I said earlier, it is so dense so it's really easy to get plenty of glitter on your nail without having to use a really thick (or multiple) coats. I used fairly thin coats of 'Spank You Very Much' and I really like the coverage that gave.
I loved wearing this girly mani and I can't wait to try some other jelly sammies!

Coral Comparison

It's that time again, comparison time. This time I will show you a little coral comparison. I love corals. I think a good coral can look good on anyone, but I have to say I have a few that seemed to look a little similar... and I was kind of right about that. I'll let you see for yourself...

These photos are with base coat but without any top coat.

From left to right: Pinky - OPI 'Big Hair... Big Nails', ring - OPI 'Red Lights Ahead... Where?', middle - OPI 'My Chihuahua Bites' and index - Essie 'Peach Daiquiri'.
As you can see there aren't any dupes here but they are all fairly similar. The main difference of course being that 'Big Hair... Big Nails' is a jelly so will naturally look a bit different.

'Red Lights Ahead... Where?', on my ring finger, seems to lean a little more red than the others and 'Peach Daiquiri' on my index finger, a little more pink/salmon. I think 'Red Lights Ahead... Where?' is such a perfect colour. Really should wear that as a full mani sooner rather than later, I'm thinking.

I just had to show you this one last photo as this is one coat of each of the crème polishes. The two OPI's here are completely opaque in one coat and Essie 'Peach Daiquiri' is not far behind. I love these kinds of polishes because it means my second coat can just be there to shine everything up and fix any funny cuticle goings on :)



To the formula... The top two photos are showing two coats each of 'Peach Daiquiri', 'Red Lights Ahead... Where?', and 'My Chihuahua Bites', with three coats of 'Big Hair... Big Nails' (not bad for a jelly)! These polishes were all so easy to work with (see the one coat photo!). The only one that nearly caused me a tiny bit of grief, was 'My Chihuahua Bites'. It's one of my older polishes and has thickened up and tends to separate. Nothing that's not fixable with a few drops of thinner though, I'm sure. Anyway, I hope this helped someone and if not I hope you liked looking at these pretty polishes all lined up :)

These polishes are all currently available. For the kiwis, the three OPI's are available on Candy Girl for $18.95 (or of course at Farmers etc for around $26.90) and I got the Essie polish from Smith and Caughey (I got it in their sale for super cheap ($12 or something) so I'm not sure how much they are normally.

Dating A Royal - OPI (Jelly Sandwich!)

I have my laptop back! And that means I got all my photos back. :) So I will be showing you today my first attempt at a jelly sandwich. I decided that I really wanted to wear OPI's 'Dating A Royal' a little while back, but I felt like wearing something more than a single colour. 'Dating A Royal' is one of those jelly/crème hybrids. Definitely not a crème, but to my eyes, I don't think it's a full jelly-jelly either. Anyway, enough chit chatting, let me just show you and you can decide for yourself...

To start with, I did 2 coats of 'Dating A Royal', it still looked a bit see through but I was putting lots on top so that's OK. Next I layered one coat of OPI 'Last Friday Night', then one coat of Essie 'Shine Of The Times'. As you can see, at this point, it's quite an assault on your senses! The glitter is pretty full on...

I then added one more THIN layer of 'Dating A Royal', et voilà... One Jelly Sandwich.

A couple more photos, both taken in full sunlight. The overall look was reasonably subtle, but to be honest I really loved it.


'Dating A Royal' is such an easy polish to apply (as are most jellys I've tried). It's so smooth and spreads effortlessly on the nail. Of course it dries super glossy, but with the glitter underneath, top coat is needed to smooth out the gritty texture some. I used a nice thick coat of Essie 'Good To Go' but if you want no gritty-ness, you will likely need more than just that. I had lots of fun with this sandwich and so I will definitely be trying this again with some other jellys.