Drugstore Week, Day 1: NYC

I've decided to do a drugstore week with some of my favorite, affordable nail polishes that are available at any drugstore or major retailer like Walmart or Target. The selection is huge and overwhelming, so I'm hoping to narrow it down and show you guys my absolute favorites. Eventually I'll be adding this list to the blog tabs, and I intend to do a post on possible dupes/so-so-so-close polishes.

Today, we're going to start with NYC cosmetics. NYC is one of my favorite brands. They have amazing cosmetics - highly pigmented shadows, lipsticks and glosses and amazing mascara. My favorite mascara is an NYC brand that I feel is comparable to Bobbi Brown mascara. It's called "City Curls" and it comes in a pink tube. I love it!

Anyway - on to the nail polish.

NYC has a few different lines of nail polish, all of them under 2.00. The Long Wearing Nail Enamel is .99 cents and the Quick Dry Minute Polish is 1.99. The Quick Dry often goes on sale for .99 cents, or if you can catch them on clearance you have an even better deal.

Here are my favorite NYC polishes, all of them happen to be from the Quick Dry Line.

West Village

Oh, hi. I'm that beautiful subtle sparkly sapphire-navy you've been searching for all your life. Where have I been? Just hanging out on the very bottom shelf in the corner of the cosmetics aisle. You always walk past me just to stare at the Essie...

This is a BEAUTIFUL shade of navy. I feel like it's a jewel on my nails. I didn't even notice the slight sparkles until I took a macro shot. This is a beautiful true navy. It doesn't lean towards the teal side, it's just navy. This one seems like it's similar to Zoya Ibiza, but more on those maybe-dupes later on in the week.

Like all NYC nail polishes I've used, the application was easy and smooth. This is two coats. What I love about this polish is it does not stain my nails or skin like I anticipated.

MOMA

Moma is a happy, pink. It isn't quite bubblegum, it isn't quite fuchsia. The application for this is also amazing. I used 3 coats to get this color. I have to say, I'm a huge fan of the brushes in the NYC quick dry polishes as well. They're not too big, not too small. They're perfect for my nail and really help cut down on any mess I make. This color is currently on clearance at Target.

I think MOMA might be very similar to Zoya Morgan.

I should add, my middle finger in the macro is all bent in because of a scar, lol. I always see it in my macros and it just sticks out when I hold my finger at certain angles. When I was 2 I fell off a bar stool and it cut my middle finger in half so I had to be stitched up and now I have a scar in the shape of a half moon.  Anyway, now that I've fulfilled your daily gore quota, on to the next color.

Times Square




I've said it many, many times. I love red nail polish. It's my favorite color to wear. It brightens up any outfit or dreary day, it's sophisticated, sexy, fun, flirty - it's all those things in ONE color. This is one of my favorite shades of red. It leans a bit more towards coral, but not completely. I used 3 coats in this mani.

I really like how "thin" the NYC formula is for their nail polish. It isn't so thin it's watery and unmanageable and it isn't so thick that it's goopy and impossible to use without making a mess. It's the right consistency for a beautiful manicure in two coats, tops - unless you have a red. In my experience, red always needs more coats.

 Prince Street

 

This is one of those polishes where if you don't have it, you need it. You need it now. Get up, throw your hair in a bun, drive to your local drugstore and buy Prince Street. Put it on, and tell me how absolutely royal and elegant you feel. I swear, this color matches all skin tones and sweat pants.

Prince street is beautiful and bright. It's this rich shade of purple with high shine. I used two coats in the photo above.

I think this shade might be close to Zoya Hope.

 NYC just has it right - the formula, the brush, the colors, the cute little bottles, the price. How could anyone say no? The dry time on the quick dry polishes is truly like none other. They do dry in less than 5 minutes. The bottle says 60 seconds and while they are partially dry after 60 seconds, I always wait a bit. After 5 minutes I'm good to go. I painted my nails with one of these colors and shortly after my toddler needed her diaper changed. Not a single smudge.

Bravo, NYC. Bravo.

Wet n' Wild Mega Last: Swatches+ Review

Yesterday I went to Walgreen's and they had the Wet n' Wild Megalast Salon Color polishes Buy One Get One Free. They're 1.99 at Walgreen's which is a great deal in itself, the BOGO makes it even better. I only bought four because the colors left did not really jump out at me.

I purchased: Candy-licious, I Red a Good Book, I Need a Refresh-Mint, and On a Trip. Here are the bottles, in that order from left to right:

I'll be honest. I haven't used Wet n' Wild for a very long time - at least ten years. They were one of the first brands of nail polish I used and definitely sparked my interest, but once I started I left them behind and never looked back. I've been eying this bottles for awhile and decided that  BOGO sale was the best opportunity to try these out.

When I first opened the bottle (I love the design, by the way) I was excited to see a very thick brush:

But wait, do you see what I see? Little prickly brush hairs sticking out. Problem number one. These little hairs definitely made application difficult for me. Now the colors:

                                            We'll start with the one color that really popped to me:

                                 I Need a Refresh-Mint

The second macro shot is more true to color than the first.This is a one coat polish, very thick formula and I have no VNL. The color is very now and very spring. I'm very attracted to these dusty sea-foam greens

that are popping up everywhere. When I saw this color it instantly reminded me of Zoya Bevin. Application for this color was a little difficult for me because I'm not used to such a thick polish or large brush.

Candy-Licious

I love bubble gum cremes and I am always on the hunt for the perfect one. This is not it, unfortunately. This color gave me the worst time out of all of them, unfortunately.




This color is so gorgeous (minus my dry skin, thank you, acetone!). It's just a perfect pink creme that I think would look beautiful on any skin tone. I really wanted to love it. I tried to love it, but I had to redo each nail a few times because it was goopy and hard to deal with. Maybe when I don't have an angry toddler at my feet I can take the time to really concentrate on my mani, and get a better result. I love pink and red cremes, they're my favorite color to wear out of everything. Unfortunately, this is either going to the giveaway/swap pile. If anyone can point me in the direction of a beautiful, non-goopy bubble gum pink creme, I'd be much obliged.

 On a Trip

This is a blue-ish purple shade. I don't have much to say about it except it also gave me a hard time. This brush had a lot of tiny bristles sticking out that interfered with getting a smooth finish. It's such a beautiful color and is very fun, but I was again disappointed with the brush. Maybe I'm more of a tiny brush fan than a big brush fan?

 

 I Red a Good Book

This is a very pretty cherry-red and was the least thick of the bunch. In the photos below I used two coats, and I still had VNL going on. This was also really messy when I took it off, however, I've yet to meet a red that doesn't stain my entire hand, so that isn't exclusively a WnW issue. The first photo is more true to color than the close up macro. I love reds, as I said above, and this one is alright. I will definitely keep it and add it to my row of red polish.

 

 All in all the colors are absolutely beautiful, however the brush can be a bit of a pain to use. As you can see in all the photos, the colors are glossy and shiny. I didn't use a top coat in any of these photos! They definitely have the gift of shine on their side. They also dry incredibly quick, I'd say these colors dry in half the time compared to any other polish I own. The clean up is minimal if you can keep the brush on your nail (I'm messy and impatient, ok!) and if you put Out the Door on top, you truly have a finished manicure in at least 10 minutes. I'll definitely be reaching for these polishes if I need color on my nails in a hurry but don't want to use a neutral.

Hard Candy: Beetle *pic heavy

Today I have a really fun mani for you. I'm usually not a fan of duochromes. I don't know why. Maybe my first one was just a dud - but no more. I am in LOVE with duochromes. I went to visit my mother and now that she's caught word of my polish addiction (I'm good at keeping secrets, but why would I do that to myself?!) she bought me this:

It took me three coats to get full coverage. The formula is really nice and effortless. When you put this color on it looks more goldish-green, which initially I was not a fan of but after awhile it grew on me and I think it looks really fun. In the light it turns purple and in different lighting it turns an even brighter gold-green. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. You'll definitely want to enlarge these photos!

I tried to capture the purple in this but only managed to take one good purple photo w/flash. The rest I took under a flap and tilted my nail so you could see the different colors in the polish.

Below you can kind of see the green-gold-purple shimmer thing happening.

Final verdict: This is a really awesome nail polish and super affordable at 3.99-4.99 I've never tried any other hard candy polishes but if they're anything like this one I hope they come out with more colors because I am very pleased with the end result.

Did I mention I really need a new macro lens? I can't use flash with it because it creates a weird ring. Ugh.

Do you have any duochrome polishes? What's your favorite? What about hard candy?