Red-y for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day is not my favorite of the holidays. It leaves me with a bit of a weird feeling, like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day do – shouldn’t we tell the people we love that we love them all the time? Does there really need to be a special day for it? I also am not big on the color scheme – pink and red are not my ultimate favorites. But I do like the chocolate. Any excuse to buy and eat chocolate, right? Even though I am pretty apathetic towards it, I figured I should do something semi-festive here for Valentine’s Day. Since pink was out of the question, I decided to round up some of my favorite reds for you all. Like I said, it is not my favorite color, but I do have quite a few red polishes that I love.

All swatches are shown over Zoya Get Even base coat and topped with Seche Vite.

Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby, 2 coats

Ruby Ruby is by far my favorite bright, cherry red. I do not normally like reds in this hue, but there is something about this polish that is impossible to dislike. It has a crelly formula and for me is opaque in two coats. Bear in mind that I have little free edge; I have seen swatches of this on longer nails where people have used three coats and it still does not look completely opaque.

Essie Dress to Kilt, 2 coats

Dress to Kilt is easily my favorite medium red. It leans a little towards the darker shades of red, but it is not vampy or anything like that. This has been my go-to red ever since it released in fall 2014. It has an easy formula and is not too dark or bright.

OPI Bogotá Blackberry, 2 coats

I found this polish on clearance when I first really got into nail polish years ago and I absolutely love it. Bogotá Blackberry is easily my favorite dark red and metallic red. It has an easy formula with no visible brush strokes and it looks so classy! It is also quite special to me as I chose to wear this when I saw Phantom of the Opera, my all-time favorite musical.

Butter London O.T.T., 2 coats

O.T.T. (Over the top) is my favorite “Dorothy slippers” glittery red. I actually prefer it to China Glaze Ruby Pumps, although they are very different; this one is more cherry red. It also has various sizes of glitter. This one is always opaque for me in two coats despite the jelly base. It looks so festive and fun!

Cadillacquer His Broken Heart, 2 coats

Finally, we get to my favorite piece in this post. I wore His Broken Heart last year on Valentine’s Day (a bit tongue in cheek, I know). It is a wine red base filled with pink to bronze shifting glitters. The glitters are not SUPER prominent, but you can definitely see them and against that dark base they have such depth and glow. Delicious. Cadillacquer is probably my favorite indie polish maker, it is crazy that this is the first time I’ve talked about them on this blog! The formula is impeccable, but because it is a crelly base I could see those that use thin coats needing to use three instead of my two. It is so wonderful to paint with and so beautiful to look at that I would not mind using three.

What are your favorite reds and Valentine’s Day polishes? Do you do any special nail look for Valentine’s Day? I’d love to know!

xx, Ashley

Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby is in their permanent line. Essie Dress to Kilt was from their Fall 2014 collection and will be harder to find. OPI Bogotá Blackberry is in their classic core line. Butter London O.T.T. was from the Invite Only collection, which will be harder to find. Cadillacquer His Broken Heart is from the Eat the Rude collection and can still be found at Color 4 Nails and other places Cadillacquer is stocked.

Butter London is cruelty-free.

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