ORLY’s latest collection Cool Romance is one of the releases for Spring 2012. The collection mostly consists of cool pastels and if you watch the promotional video, it has a very Parisian feel. As always, all swatches are two coats with no top coat.

Artificial Sweetener

As per the name, this is a sugar sweet pink shade with very sparse micro silver shimmers, barely visible if visible at all in the photo. Zoya’s Zanna is a darker version.

Faint Of Heart

A true taupe crème, I wouldn’t consider this a dirty shade, though I know certain taupe polishes seem to be viewed under that light. OPI’s French Quarter for Your Thought is a similar shade.

Jealous, Much?

A soft mint green crème with medium opacity, I found the formula to be a little on the more liquidy side. Essie’s Absolutely Shore is a lighter dupe and Essie’s Mint Candy Apple is similar with more aqua tones.

Prelude To A Kiss

A light peach crème, Face of Australia’s Cotton Candy is a very very close dupe.

Steel Your Heart

A metallic gunmetal shade with medium sized silver shimmers infused throughout, there are a ton of dupes for this in the market. This isn’t a unique shade at all, to name a few I’d say Ulta3′s Metal, Face of Australia’s Party at the Gap and China Glaze’s Attraction. But I’m sure you can find a ton more with other brands.

You’re Blushing

A mauve purple / pink crème, surprisingly was not able to find a similar dupe in my collection!

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner~ Introducing ORLY’s Valentine collection, which is not surprisingly filled with wearable pinks and reds The formula was generally speaking above average, I wouldn’t say it was the best I’ve ever had, but it was certainly easy to work with. And all four shades are completely wearable, depending of course on the sort of environment you work in. All swatches are 2 coats with no top coat.

Butterflies

A semi-transparent hot magenta. It seems pretty opaque in the swatch, but when I put this on a clear nail wheel, you could still see through the polish after two coats. Essie’s Your Hunt or Mine and OPI’s My Address is ‘Hollywood’ is a more shimmery and darker version.

Cotton Candy

A coral pink crème, I found this polish to be only the slightest bit streaky. In the end when it dries it manages to smooth out, but during application is can appear a bit thick / streaky. Mecca’s Katharina is a darker version, Revitanail’s Blushing Beauty is a frosty version, Essie’s Haute as Hello is virtually the same except it has a more matte finish and Face of Australia’s Cotton Candy is only slightly lighter, but is probably the closest dupe.

Forever Crimson

A deep crimson red shade with just a hit of gold shimmer. Essie’s Limited Addiction is a crème version.

Passionfruit

This shade looks virtually the same as Butterflies, except that it is completely opaque and is much more saturated in terms of pink / reds / orange. Essie’s Super Bossa Nova is a cooler and more shimmery version.

First real beauty post for the year! ORLY’s Bling in the New Year, hehe how cute~ This is a pretty simple collection, just three bottles. As always, 2 coats and no top coat.

Prima Gloss Gold

Fine gold glitters, this is clearly a great top coat. Though I kinda like using it as a stand alone polish as well as to add a bit of subtle glitter to my nails. Often I don’t wear polish day to day (because chipping drives me insane), but if I wanted a bit of extra lift, I could see myself using this alone.

Prima Gloss Silver

Fine silver glitters, exactly the same as Prima Gloss Gold only in Silver!

Rage

The only opaque polish of the collection, a metallic rusty light pink shade? Unfortunately you can clearly see the streak marks on my nails, but besides that it is a great blingy polish

Yay for holiday collections Seriously when it comes to cosmetics, holiday collections are my favourites This is ORLY’s Holiday Soiree 2011 Collection, you’ll notice I’m missing one of the bottles from this collection, a deliberate choice. From what I saw in swatches the colour was another very dark green almost black shade and I thought to myself it wasn’t something I need to add to my collection.

This collection was a mixed bag for me. Some of the polishes really wowed me in both shade, texture and formula, and a few of them left me yawning. As always, each swatch is two coats, and with no top coat.

Androgynie

A black “outer space” polish with range of different silver glitters and larger chunky flecks. This polish looks amazing in the bottle, but I’m sad to say that the amazement doesn’t translate so well to the nails. I really wish the bigger flecks would paint on the nails easier. I don’t appreciate polishes that make me have to work It should happen naturally, still this is one of my favourites. I just love the “spacey” feel.

Au Champagne

A frosted white polish with a semi-matte finish, this is a very interesting polish. Even though the colour isn’t that unique, the texture and finish is rather unusual! China Glaze’s Frosty is a thinner more sparkly version of this. I found that this particular polish took a longer than average time to dry though.

Ingene

A pink-purple shimmery polish with a ton of gold shimmer. I know the swatch makes it look like the gold is actually glitter, it really isn’t. The finish is smooth and this polish is very easy to remove, I think it’s the way to light hits it that makes it look like a glitter bomb. It’s a gorgeous shade, really reminds me of Zoya’s Faye which is a slightly more purple version.

Ma Cherie

A bright red crème shade, your standard red which as per traditions seems to be in almost every holiday collection. Nothing unique here, I could probably name a few similar shades like Essie’s First Dance which is a bit darker or Zoya’s Sooki or Tasmen.

Oui

A purple shimmery polish with a large amount of gold shimmer, in texture and formula this is very similar to Ingene, only more purple.

ORLY’s Birds of a Feather (stick together), sorry I couldn’t help myself! These polishes actually come in kits of three, I was fortunate enough to be provided with the three swatches you see below from ORLY, missing are Fowl Play, an electric purple sparkle, Lucky Duck, a green shimmer and Nite Owl, a metallic deep blue. But I’m sure a quick search around the interwebs can call up swatches for them.

Generally I found the formula to be very easy to work with for Sea Gurl and Sweet Peacock. Peachy Parrot can prove streaky if you don’t give it a bit of extra love and care. All swatches are 2 coats, no top coat.

Peachy Parrot

A bright and orange based coral, in person I feel like it almost has some melon / pink tones in it. The metallic nature can make it to be slightly more challenging to get a smooth finish if you aren’t careful.

Sea Gurl

A gunmetal taupe gray shimmer, the closest dupe in my collection was Ulta3′s Metal, but I find that Sea Gurl has far more taupe undertones, whereas Metal is a true gray.

Sweet Peacock

A royal blue shimmer, it appears grittier in the photo that it really is. I suspect the shimmer contrast is just higher so it appears gritty. The finish is very smooth. I was surprised that I can’t actually find any close dupes to this nail polish, the closest I had in my collection was Zoya’s Tart, but even then Sweet Peacock has far more aqua than Tart does. My favourite from this post

If you’re keen, each kit comes with three polishes at $45.95AU and you can purchase them from local salons, pharmacies or you can hit up ORLY Beauty.

It’s been a while since I managed to review an ORLY collection~ Was beginning to miss them! Here is one of their latest, entitled Pin Up from their Summer 2011 line. The crèmes below were swatched with only two coats, and the glitters were swatched with three coats. I didn’t bother trying it myself, but the glitter would work great as a top coat given how sheer one is No top coat was used for any of the swatches below.

Va Va Voom

A hot neon pink crème, this dries to an almost matte finish. I’d have to say Eyeko’s Pink Polish is a very close dupe for this, and ORLY is slightly darker than China Glaze’s Pool Party.

Coquette Cutie

A coral pink crème, I prefer this particular shade much more than Va Va Voom, the colour is far more wearable and it comes with a nice shiny finish. Given the two are pretty similar, I wouldn’t bother buying both, just buy one (this one!) hehe.

Bubbly Bombshell

A purple two sized glitter, most of the pieces are very tiny, virtually micro, I had to use 3 coats to achieve this level of opacity.

But as you can see above (1 coat) that it contains some larger pieces as well.

Here Comes Trouble

A green two sized glitter, besides being green this polish is exactly the same in consistency as Bubbly Bombshell. The glitter polishes do have a gritty finish to them, they are like not like shimmer polishes (which are smooth to the touch).

A cute collection, you don’t need to bother buying the entire collection. In my books, I’d say Coquette Cutie is certainly worth a look at, and if you love glitters you may consider Here Comes Trouble and Bubbly Bombshell too.

Finally I’ve managed to swatch the ORLY Precious Spring 2011 collection. I was rather impressed with the formulation of this collection, that and for one of the first times I only needed 2 coats for these swatches, usually I need around 3 to achieve the desired pigmentation. I had no issues with application either, so formulation and application wise this would be in my opinion one of ORLY’s best collections yet.

Colour wise, ehh.. I can’t really see a “pattern”, the choices feel random to me, but I’m no colour expert. I think this comes down to personal preference. Some of the darker colours I find are pretty unique and are probably my favourite, other ones not so much. As usual, no top coat was used for these swatches.

Ancient Jade

A green crème, absolutely no shimmer. It’s actually quite close to the actual jade jewellery you sometimes find in Asian jewellers, however I personally am not at all a fan of Jade so it probably comes as no surprise that I wasn’t too keen on this particular shade.

Fancy Fuchsia

A pink almost fluorescent crème that dries to a semi-matte finish. I do love pink shades, but not this particular one since it’s too bright for something I’d feel comfortable wearing, though I’ve seen many ladies where this out so again, personal preference. Note that this particular polish was sent to me for consideration.

Gilded Coral

A coral gold shimmer, now this one I liked~ In person it looked like it almost had a duo chrome effect, almost. Lately I’ve really been enjoying conservative / neutral polishes with a twist, so something I could still wear to work but with a bit of fun thrown in, I feel like Gilded Coral is one of those shades.

Pure Porcelain

A beige crème, quite enjoyed this shade too~ Probably isn’t suitable for I’d say darker skin tones (but if you roll that way, more power to you!). Certainly something to consider to wear at work.

Royal Velvet

A purple blue shimmer, firstly major apologises for the poor photography here I took almost 10 photos, thought it looked fine in the view finder only to discover not so great once loaded on my computer. I’m trying to find ways to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

However, for the polish itself, LOVE! I love duo chrome polishes, even though I probably wouldn’t wear them to work (depends on the client), I absolutely love them~ They reminds me of Friday night dinners And who doesn’t love Friday nights?

Sapphire Silk

A deep teal crème, this shade in my opinion falls in a very similar hue to Ancient Jade, so I can see why the two ended up in the same family. But I don’t personally think this is an accurate representation of the actual Sapphire jewel. Not a colour I personally love.

This collection is now available on ORLY Beauty for $18.95AU a bottle, hopefully my swatches have been helpful for some