I had been so excited for this new collection, OPI's Skyfall, because not only does OPI historically does amazing holiday collectios, and I'm a huge 007 fan, and since Adele (who I'm also a huge fan of, duh) sings the theme song, I figured I'd be loading up the truck on the whole collection, but so far I've only caved on the above polish; Tomorrow Never Dies. I am in love with this shade. It's somewhat similar to A-England Avalon in that it's a very vibrant purple and it has the same "lit-from-within" look. TND is slightly more blue than red, but it's pretty similar. They're both very vibrant and glowy. The other awesome thing worth noting is that TND is extremely pigmented and smooth to apply. 

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Recently, in addition to the six new Shellac Fall shades that are being released, CND has also released a duo of limited edition Holiday glitter Shellac shades; Ruby Ritz and Tinsel Toast. Above you see two cured coats of Tinsel Toast, and then again Tinsel Toast covered with a design in Black Pool. The two shades are both gorgeous and contain extremely fine glitter that couldn't be recreated even with the finest of craft glitters, so I feel like it's worth having. Plus it's a lot easier to deal with that applying loose glitter because there are less steps. You also don't have to worry that you missed coating an area with topcoat and risk removing it along with the tacky layer. I also think it looks awesome with other shades of Shellac. 

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The Zoya entry into the Winter 2012 arena is basically amazing. I'm pretty much limiting myself to purchasing only polishes that cannot be passed up, since I've been using Shellac so much and all my clients are pretty much doing Shellac at this point. I need to purge at least 50% of my enormous stash as it is, so I really don't need non-essential polishes at this point. Ornate, or at least most of it, qualifies as essential for me. I offer several season-specific shades of China Glaze, OPI and Zoya at the salon, and by far the most used is Zoya which honestly surprised me. I love Zoya and everything, but I assumed people would go for the more recognizable brands, and since Zoya is for the most part only available online and in some salons it's pretty crazy. 

Anyway, I passed up all but one of the new OPI Skyfall polishes, and considering I'm a huge 007 fan, OPI Holiday collection fan, and Adele fan (I may go back and get Skyfall since she sings the theme song), that's a huge deal. I also don't feel as psyched about the promos I've seen for China Glaze's holiday offering, so Zoya was the only must-buy holiday collection for me. Weird. 

On to the swatches and reviews!!!

At the salon, I've been playing around with some Shellac designs that will appeal to clients. Some people would like to try something a little more jazzy than plain Shellac, but are hesitant to jump right into crazy nail art, so I wanted to find some Autumn looks that would appeal to a wider range of people. So I started messing around with various mineral eye shadows and MAC Pigments I had lying around and came up with a few stone, granite, and marble looks that are really cool looking and also with the glossy finish of Shellac, look like actual stones. The photo above is supposed to resemble granite, and I used CND Shellac in Black Pool as the base, then created the design with silver, olive and burgundy pigments and some alcohol. The final result was pretty neat, and my client was super happy with it. I'm kind of considering doing this on my own nails this week!

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This is a week old Shellac manicure, so forgive me that it's a little grown out, but it has lasted beautifully except for the fact that I did lose one little metal stud, which you might not even notice. I've been pretty much wearing CND Shellac exclusively as opposed to regular polish for work, so I've been trying to experiment more and more with art using Shellac so I can keep it crazy yet still have it last. For this manicure I went for a Rock motif, using Union Jacks, edgy darker shades and weird eyeballs. The concept wasn't very sharp, but what it lacks in cohesiveness, I think it makes up for in coolness and color. I used several Shellac shades along with CND Additives (pure color pigments), plus some metal studs. 

Products used: 

• CND Shellac in Cream Puff, Black Pool, Wildfire, Purple Purple, Hotski to Tchotchke
• CND Additives in Cerulean Blue and Haute Pink
• Metal studs from Born Pretty Store