2 Dupe Options for Zoya Phoebe

I am assuming that Phoebe has been discontinued, since it's no longer on Zoya's site and I've seen it clearanced out at a few Ulta stores. But if you didn't get a chance to grab one I found a couple ways to duplicate it.

Phoebe can be recreated by using a matte topcoat over either Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Brisk Blue or SH Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away! Blue Me Away! Is definitely a more true dup, the Brisk Blue comes up a little lighter. BTW I am using Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love over the two Sally Hansen polishes.

So there you see. If you didn't catch it while you could but you want the look of Zoya Phoebe, you now have a couple of easy drugstore duplicates! And even though there is an extra step it's actually a little easier. I had to apply 4 coats of the Zoya, but did 2 coats of the SH polishes topped with one coat of the matte topper.

Christmas Haul, part 1

Well, in these last few weeks I have managed to do more shopping for myself than for anyone else, haha. But I did finally get my shopping done on Christmas Eve after a marathon 9 hour day of shopping. So for part one, I will show you some of nail polishes I got for myself and for Christmas. It's actually a little embarrassing. I did have some store credits and gift cards from last Christmas that I decided I'd finally use. Money has been tight and if I get them when I have money I don't spend them so I will be able to make myself feel better when I don't have money. It's burned me a couple of times because I've waited too long to use them and they have expired. I actually had a gift certificate to Urban Outfitters for like 8 years and by the time I needed to use it they had moved on to gift cards and couldn't even process the old school paper certificates. Oh boy. Anyway, here's the start of the nail polish end of things:

I had to break these down into several pictures, there were too many :-O First off, the minis:

 I did label them on the picture but if I make it big enough to read it throws everything out of whack so I'll just post the names here:
(L-R) Orly mini Oh Cabana Boy, Essence Colour & Go You Belong to Me, Hard Candy blue glitter, HC matte purple glitter, HC lime glitter (these were Christmas special minis that did not have names listed), and Orly mini Blue Belle.

 Next up are the Revlon polishes. You can see a lot of them are marked 75% off. These were from CVS and made them roughly $1.37 a bottle.

Click to enlarge photo

Colors from left to right (including those slightly behind the others):
Blue Lagoon, Whimsical (glitter), Princess, Starry Pink (glitter), Powder Puff (matte suede), Sublime Strawberry (scented), Ruby Ribbon (matte suede), Orchid and Fire Fox (matte suede)

Next up we have the Sally Hansen Complete Manicure:

Click to enlarge photo

Colors left to right are: Fairy Teal, Hidden Treasure, Himalayan Blue (<3) and Thinking of Blue.

Here are the rest of the Sally Hansen polishes I got:

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Colors: Xtreme Wear in Purple Potion, Xtreme Wear in Rockstar Pink, Gem Crush in Bling-tastic, Diamond Strength in Lilac Chantilly, Gem Crush in Lady Luck and Hard as Nails Frozen Solid.

OK That's enough for now. This post is long enough and I still have lots more to show you. I want to head out and hit the after Christmas sales for a bit, so I will post more polish porn in a bit. Hope everyone had a great holiday!

Essie Matte about You vs. Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love matte top coats

I wanted to test these on light and darker colors. The orange is Sephora by OPI How Cute is That and the green is Revlon Scented polish in Ocean Breeze. The pointer finger is without any top coat, the middle finger has the Essie matte top coat and the ring finger has the Hard Candy.

Overall, there is not much of a difference.. Though I will say a few times the Hard Candy has left a milky film on my polish. I've never had any problems with the Essie matteifier.

Sorry I messed up the green with the Hard Candy getting impatient moving some nail polish into my new storage system. :(