Spring/Summer 2011 - Wear bright orange... on your nails?

Hey, everyone. It has been a crazy couple of months! I have gone through the hell that is finals, a lot of days where, between work and class, I never made it home during the daylight hours. Now all of the academic stress is gone for a few months, but I am still working, and on top of everything else, I'm taking care of a friend's adorable grey and white lop-rabbit. Not so hard -- except for the fact that she escaped from her hutch and wreaked carnage on the apartment a couple of days ago. Best of all, since she managed to get into some leftover tabbouleh, she's on a hay diet until she gets the wheat out of her system. And I am allergic to hay!

Life update aside, I have been meaning to write a little bit on some of what I have been doing fashion-wise in the past couple of... months. Yikes!

Anyway, I love the orange trend that has been going around almost as much as honeysuckle right now -- I always love orange, and I, luckily, already own a lot of orange clothing. I have a pair of killer orange-coral pumps that I'll take any excuse to pull out. I love coral lipsticks and coppery-orange eyeshadows. I think it's a gorgeous spring and early summer color. Nothing spells warm weather (and maybe even some tropical locales on lucky girls' radars) like citrus fruit.

In case you're running a season or three behind, the color has been hot on the catwalks even going back a little bit into last fall. A lot of blogs have done features on how to wear the color, but few have done many looks at how to rock this color as a nail polish.

 

Zoya - "Tanzy"

Reflecting this fashion trend in the beauty world, there are some gorgeous orange shades making the rounds in the nail polish world. It started out really as a springtime hit, but the polish world especially is carrying it over into summer. Zoya released their "Sunshine" collection for summer, featuring "Tanzy", a gorgeous, shimmery orange that glows.

Essie - "Meet Me at Sunset"

Essie - "Braziliant"

China Glaze - "Life Preserver"

Essie included two separate orange cremes -- one is a darker burnt orange, "Meet me at Sunset", and the other is "Braziliant". "Braziliant" is a lighter color with more of a shimmer, but I do not think that it is quite as infused as Zoya's. OPI has not really jumped on this trend, but China Glaze certainly has, meshing it with the nautical theme of their "Anchors Away" collection, which is gorgeous for summer. "Life Preserver" is a really rich color that looks like a reddish creme.

Deborah Lippman - "Lara's Theme"

A little more expensive than these was "Lara's Theme" from Deborah Lippman's summer collection. I think this one has a really pretty vintage and subdued quality that some of the other polishes in this post lack when they pick up the bright color. The website defines it as a "double dutch" orange created in collaboration with Lara Stone. I think it's a lovely color and I will more than likely be picking this up with my next order.




FingerPaints also did a really fun, bright shade for their "Peace, Love, and Summer" collection. It's absolutely gorgeous on everyone who has done blog pieces about it, but I do not think it is available at Sally's Beauty Supply yet. On The NailPhile it seems to have a stunning, heavy shimmer effect to it that I was not expecting from the pictures of the bottle. I cannot wait to pick up one of these. Since it is not out, most of the good pictures of the polish are still on the blogs. Polish-aholic has a really nice one -- take a look over there!

My personal favorite did not come from one of these pretty collections, however, but out of an impulse buy of a Limited Edition Revlon "Fire and Ice" polish a month or so ago. "Siren" is a really pretty creme that held for a good four or five days without major chipping. It edges more towards coral (and matches those aforementioned pumps pretty nicely) and really looked good with a couple of other orange accents in the accessory department. It also has the cutest vintage look to the bottle, which I'm always a sucker for. It looks great on my transparent-pale skin, but coral really suits any amount of tan, so if you want an "in" color that will be versatile as a fall and spring option later, pick up one of these bottles. It is a fairly cheap polish, and should only cost five or six dollars at any drugstore.

Revlon - "Siren"

Have you tried any of the colors here? Feel free to post links to any photographs you have of them -- my own nails are far too short to be good models of these beautiful colors.