Million Dollar Baby - Untrieds Month Day One

So I decided to participate in a challenge of sorts proposed by one of the wonderful gals, Helen in my nail polish birthday club called the Untrieds Month for two reasons: 1) I've been sorely neglecting my blog and 2) I've just got a ton of untrieds begging to be worn.

I just finished doing my nails in probably the most fab color of the season, Nails Inc Baker Street.  Its a bright but rich blue that Beyonce wore post-birth of her baby Blue Ivy!

Anyways, one of my other lovely gal pals in the birthday group, Zoe over at Obsessive-Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder sent me a bottle and this is how it turned out on me:

I don't normally wear blues this shade but OMG this was absolutely gorgeous.  So much so, I've now worn it twice in one week which almost always NEVER happens.  But because it wasn't necessarily an "untried" since I'd already worn it once, I decided to try one of my many "toppers" to go with it as part of Day 1 of my Untrieds Month.

This is Million Dollar Baby (MDB) by Catrice, a European brand that I've managed to acquire from swaps with polish pals in The Netherlands.  

MDB is part of the Million Styles Effect Top Coat and is a very light gold? glitter topper.  Its a combination of matching larger hex and finer glitter.

One coat of Million Dollar Baby over Baker Street:

Application was brilliant; I didn't have a lot of issues having to fish glitter out of the bottle and placing everything individually on my nails which can sometimes happen with glitter in my personal experience.  The lightness of the gold shade sometimes makes me think its silver and sometimes reminds me its gold and makes a good foil to the bright blue of Baker Street.

I really like this topper; its a lot easier to use formula wise -- not as goopy as others I've used in the past -- and it gets a lot of glitter on the nail without fuss.  I kind of wish I had only done an accent nail because it looks sort of odd across the entire hand but I'm not necessarily a big glitter girl to begin with.

The biggest downside is probably that this is a limited edition and in the world of Catrice, means it won't last long if you can get your hands on it.  For girls unable to get Catrice easily (like in the US where it's not sold at all) suitable alternatives include Deborah Lippmann Boom Boom Pow ($20) although it looks a bit more yellow and NYX Prismatic Gold ($3), though this one has a large iridescent hex as opposed to a solid metallic gold hex.

Lastly, do check out the other girls in the group participating in the Untrieds Month challenge:

Zoe at Obsessive Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder

Alyssa B. at Fancy Phalanges

Ashley at One Nail to Another

Nicole at Not Skin Deep

Helen at The Nail Newbie

Saturday Double Whammy - Spring Has Sprung

My two favorite polish colors at the moment fall into the orange and pink families.  I was fortunate enough to score a ridonkulous amount of nail mail which included polish from two awesome girls (including Zoe over at Obsessive-Compulsive Nail Painting Disorder) who sent me colors in fantastic shades.  The two colors I've got to show you today are Mavala Toulouse and Butter London Minger.

MAVALA Toulouse -

This is an aboslutely gorgeous shade of coral the leans decidedly pink.  It's described as a cream (as you can clearly see on the bottle above) but it was a little sheer, requiring 4 coats to get to a decent opacity.  I thought at first Toulouse referred to the artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec but looking at the rest of the Mavala polish line that features a ridiculous amount of polishes named after cities around the world, I'm pretty certain it was named after the French city rather than the hyphenated artist.

Either way, it's a gorgeous color and perfect for spring.  I don't have any color that I can comfortably call a dupe although I do have a few shades that are in it's family.

Unfortunately, Mavala is a Swiss brand not readily available in the US although you can purchase it from BeautyBay, which ships worldwide, sometimes for free.  The bottles are a mere 5mL each but cost $4.10 each.  They're the perfect size for trying out new things and they are pretty cute, but at $4.10, without the free shipping, it'd be harder for me to justify purchasing them outright.  This color however, is absolutely beautiful, right up my alley, and looks fantastic on olive/yellow undertones so if you're a huge pink/coral fan like me, it's worth every penny or at least finding a super nice person from Europe to send it to you as a very pleasant surprise.


Butter LONDON Minger -

My love affair with Butter LONDON started with a bottle of Wallis and it's been my obsession to own every single color.  Minger is one of those colors.  Unfortunately, this is discontinued (it's from the F/W 2009 collection) but I was lucky enough to swap for it on MUA and I absolutely don't regret it.

A "minger," according to Urban Dictionary, is described as

a male or female who fell out of the ugly tree at birth and hit every branch on the way down

but I would definitely describe this polish as far from ugly as possible.  In fact, as someone who owns a few "ugly-pretty" shades, Minger is the complete opposite of ugly and a lot less bright and saturated as a lot of the swatches available online.

Unlike it's brighter and not-yet-discontinued counterpart, Jaffa, Minger is subdued and the perfect shade of pumpkin orange that looks gorgeous in Spring or Autumn, or really anytime you feel like adding a pop of color without being too loud about it.  Formula wise, it's typical Butter LONDON -- thick but not too goopy although it still took three coats for opacity (at least to my standards.)

Again, I don't have anything like it in my collection although I'm sure you could find something in OPI or China Glaze's extensive line; especially since it is discontinued.  Butter LONDON typically goes for $14 a bottle and they're readily available at beauty stores like Ulta as well as on the Butter London website and high-end department stores like Nordstroms.

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Overall, these were both excellent shades for me; they're not embarrassingly bright and wearable for girls with yellow/olive undertones.  If you're looking for two perfect shades for Spring, you can't really go wrong with these two.