Summer Nails & Giant Marshmallows

L-R: China Glaze Rich & Famous, OPI A Grape Fit, CG For Audrey, CG Re-Fresh Mint, CG Lemon Fizz

When I was archiving the posts of my old blog onto this new blog, I realized all of a sudden that The Soap Heiress used to be a fashion/beauty blog! Somewhere along the way it morphed into more of a travel/living abroad/culture blog and now it's very food-oriented, in addition to all of the above. It's funny how things change and take on a life of its own, right?

So yesterday I was doing my nails and I decided to show all of you my picks for the best nail polish shades for Summer 2011, since they look so great together. As pictured above, they are:

(thumb) China Glaze Rich & Famous: A bright, hot pink cream. This shade, as with many CG polishes, looks way more subdued in the bottle and much brighter on. It takes 3 coats to be opaque but is easy enough to work with.

(index) OPI A Grape Fit: I am so in love with this lavender cream! As with most OPI colours, this self-levels beautifully and is a dream to apply. The colour is also super pretty - fun and feminine but not too wild.

(middle) China Glaze For Audrey: Tiffany blue! They've captured the colour perfectly. I recently brought a friend to Sally Beauty Supply to buy this colour because she's been looking for it forever and she's very happy with it. This cream also applies very well and self-levels.

(ring) China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint: I had to pick up a mint green because this colour's so hot this season. This one, also a cream, is a bit streaky to apply, like many pastel colours, but after 3 coats it was perfectly opaque and even.

(pinky) China Glaze Lemon Fizz: I was looking for a pale yellow colour originally after hearing about Illamasqua's Load (gross name but such a cool colour). This was the closest I could find that wouldn't break the bank and I didn't have to have it shipped to me, which was great. It's such a gorgeous colour and it's ideal for the summer! It's sort of a butter yellow cream - well, maybe slightly brighter than butter yellow. Yellows are notoriously streaky and this one is no exception, but it looks acceptable after 3 coats, I think. I'd suggest waiting for it to dry completely before applying top coat or else it'll be even streakier.

Bonus shot - I was at a summer barbecue yesterday and I brought over the biggest marshmallows I have ever seen. They were literally a handful each, see (below)? Eating and roasting them was lots of fun, but I think I'll stick to the regular jumbo marshmallows because this product wasn't engineered very well. Our marshmallows would melt and get all goopy before the outside had a chance to brown, you see, so these are more for novelty.

*Huge thanks to Karl for the pictures! :D