Showing posts with label Flaky Glitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flaky Glitter. Show all posts

Maybelline Poptimistic: Exu-Blue-Rant & Grape Times (with CND Limelight)

Above & Below: Exu-Blue-Rant shown in 2 coats, outdoors with no flash.

Above & Below: Grape Times shown with 3 coats, outdoors with no flash.
Below: Grape Times with 2 coats of CND's Limelight.

Here are the last 2 shades, both cremes, from Maybelline's recently released Winter Trend Poptimistic collection. I posted the other 4 colors over the last couple of days, so scroll down if you're interested in checking them out. Exu-Blue-Rant is a deep Cadet blue creme that covered very nicely in 2 coats. Indoors, it seems to have a slight dark teal hue, while outdoors and under brighter lighting it shows more of a Cadet blue color. It dried to a high gloss shine and the application of the formula was very nice. Grape Times, although a lovely Royal purple shade, took 3 coats to get even coverage. The color builds quite a bit darker with each coat and it dried to an almost jelly-type finish, which I love. I added 2 coats of Creative Nail Design's Limelight over it, and it reminds me of an Nfu-Oh polish with the glowing flakies. While I'm a big fan of CND's new Color & Effects line, I still treasure all of my older CND's.


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QRS + NFU + Essie Matte About You = WOW!


Above & Below: QRS Deep Denim, outdoors with no flash. The picture below is reflecting the natural lighting strips in the patio roof and I thought it looked kind of interesting.
Below: Let the fun begin...NFU-Oh 40 over QRS Deep Denim.

Below: And yet more fun! Essie Matte About You is added to the experiment.





First things first...our winner in the Shikai Giveaway was Elaine from the fabulous Lacquer Laine blog! Check out her blog and congratulate her on winning. Thanks to everyone who entered.

I started out intending to show you QRS Deep Denim, and then things got carried away with my experimentation of various 'toppings' just to see what they would look like. Before I forget, I'd like to mention the Jamie from QRS informed me today that they are now set up to take International orders, so if you're planning an order, don't forget to use the $3.00 Body & Soul code over in the right hand column. Deep Denim looks to be a dark purple shimmer in the bottle, but the name suddenly made more sense to me once I applied 2 coats of this lovely shade. It is a bright but dark shimmer, somewhere between a navy and a royal blue. The first coat was thin, but a second coat finished the look nicely.

Nfu-Oh 40 was looking on as I was applying the Deep Denim, so I thought I'd let him join in the fun. Deep Denim is a very rich, very beautiful shade on it's own, but topped with this NFU, the party began. I only needed one coat for this play land of glowing glitter to emerge. Thinking I should tone them down a bit, I applied a coat of Essie's Matte About You and they quieted down. Still quite colorful, but the matte finish gives it a more subtle appearance. If you don't own a matte top coat, I highly suggest that you get one, because the possibilities are not only very entertaining (at least to me!), but they seem to be endless.


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Color Club Untamed Luxury: Part II-Snakeskin & Resort to Red

This morning I've finished swatching the rest of the shades in the Glitter Nails set of Color Club's Untamed Luxury, and I feel much better having done them with adequate lighting and time, unlike the swatches from yesterday! I may revisit the previous 4 once I'm done with all of them for some better looks. I've also got a more in-depth look at the glitter top coat for you, Covered in Diamonds.

Above & Below: Snakeskin. Wow. Just wow! Being a lover of green shades, particularly the more unusual ones, this shade was love at first stroke. I used 2 coats and I think the hint of a charcoal base definitely assists in getting opaque coverage. This is an olive green shimmer with tiny golden glitter that gives it everything it needs to be a new favorite of mine. Below are photos taken in various lighting and note how it even has the slightest bit of duo chrome with a gold flash.



Below: Resort to Red, while nothing unique, is still a nice glowy red shimmer that also covered very well using 2 coats. This shade has a touch of pink to it.


Below: Yesterday I showed you a hastily applied look using only 1 coat of Covered in Diamonds. I used 2 coats today, took a little more time, and I have to say, I think this is a very interesting glitter top coat. Interesting in a good way!



I'm liking these polishes! I wasn't completely thrilled with one or two of the ones I posted yesterday, but I think when you have 14 shades in a collection, it's not going to be instant love 14 times. Snakeskin is such a pretty olive green--I'm wearing it now and can't stop staring at it. I'm sure I have polishes very similar to Resort to Red, but if you purchase the set, you won't be disappointed in it. Covered in Diamond works/looks better using 2 coats, and the glitters place themselves fairly evenly. I think the first coat gives the glitter pieces in the second coat something to grip on to, and they lay flat on the nail rather than trailing off the edge or giving a rough finish.
More swatches to come, as I'll be starting on the Indulgence collection next. It's so hot and humid out, I dread heading back outside this afternoon!


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Color Club Untamed Luxury: Part 1

These are some very quick swatches done while racing against a setting sun, trying to make dinner, and giving one of the dogs an unplanned bath because he dug a hole and promptly layed in it. I hope you get the idea though! Color Club's Untamed Luxury Fall 2010 collection contains 14 polishes. There are 2 boxed sets, and I assume they'll also be available individually. Below are 5 shades from the Glitter Nails Lacquer set.


Above & Below: Untamed Luxury is a highly pigmented Caribbean blue glitter with a matching base color. This formula is not nearly as jelly-like as their Japanese Glitters were and applied well using 2 coats. The top photo is with a flash, while the photo below was taken outdoors in the rapidly descending sunlight.

Below: Red Velvet is a black based red glitter that reminds me more of RBL's Russian Red than Lippmann's Ruby Red Slippers. I used 2 coats on this and it's much prettier than my photo. I'm standing on a chair in this picture trying to catch some sun. This one has a gloss finish, but not a strong one, and I think it would look better with a top coat.

Below: Covered in Diamonds is a very unique glitter topcoat with all kinds of shapes and sizes of holographic multi colored glitter. This is one quick coat which I added while outdoors and I thought for one coat, the glitter placement turned out pretty well.

Below: Isn't that interesting and beautiful? I love how they seem to glow on the nail.
Below: De-Luxe-Cious is a silver blue shimmer with tiny holographic glitter. I used 2 coats on this and I see a little lighter coverage areas, which are likely due to me hurrying through the application.

Below: Ms. Hautie--cute name, lovely in the bottle, don't care for it on the nail. This gunmetal grey shimmer with tiny holographic glitter looks completely different on the nail that what I envisioned from the bottle. It's got a somewhat frost finish and the glitter isn't very noticeable. It's not matte, but close to it.
Below: How can it look this good in the bottle? This is what it should look like on the nail, but sadly, it does not.
I'll bring some more of these shades to the blog tomorrow, and hopefully I'll have more time and better lighting to do them justice. Other than Ms. Hautie and her finish, I'm quite pleased with this collection. I played around with some of the other shades and there's definitely more to be excited about!


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Guest Blogger Series: NailsBeautiqued/rmcandlelight is Dating a Royal!

Good Morning! I have a lovely polish to show you--a fabulous squishy jelly finish and it's one of my favorite polish colors, blue. OPI Dating a Royal has an excellent formula, and I love the OPI brush. As I was stroking each coat it just flowed on flawlessly and I didn't have to do much cleanup. I used 3 thin coats to get an even finish. I'm glad I have this one in my collection ^_^


I finally found SH Hidden Treasure, Yay!! Let's see what it looks like over blue. I only used 1 coat and my nails are covered with beautiful colored flakies. In certain lighting you can see fuchsia, green and gold. I tried to capture all of the colors.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these 2 gorgeous polishes. Until next time, please have a great nail polish day! ^_^
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Thank you for sharing these gorgeous looks with us! You have beautiful nails that show these shades off very well. I'm glad you were able to find Hidden Treasure, because it will keep you entertained for months! If you aren't familiar with rm's blog, Nailsbeautiqued, check it out and see more of her swatches and nail art.


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Guest Blogger Series: Of Faces & Fingers Shares A Stunning Layered Look!

Today's guest blogger is Jerlene, from Of Faces & Fingers (also known as Musical Houses). If you aren't familiar with her blog, check it out and become a follower! She covers nails and beauty products, and also has an extensive swatch gallery. You can also follow her on Twitter here.

It looks like two of the Spring/Summer trends for nail polish are dusty jade green, thanks to OPI's Jade is the New Black, and flakies, thanks to the frenzy caused by Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure. So I decided on a whim to put the two trends together in an NOTD! For the base I used two coats of a Boots No 7 Stay Perfect polish, and this one is called Totally Teal. I love this shade - it's a jewelled teal that's dusty enough to make it as wearable as a teal can get. And it's not a dupe for Jade is the New Black - it's less green and more blue. But it's such a beautiful colour, and now seemed like the appropriate time to wear it! I was really surprised by the application of Totally Teal. I've heard that Boots polishes can be pretty lousy, so I was expecting a difficult application. But I have to say - I actually really like this! The brush is big, wide and flat, which may not be what some people like, but works perfectly fine on my huge "man hands", and the polish was smooth, not streaky and reached opacity in two coats. Then I put on a flakie, and this one unfortunately is one of those awesome Maybelline Coloramas that got discontinued a long while back. This particular one is called Pink Pinata, and it's supposed to be a topcoat, although it doesn't dry fast enough or smooth enough for my liking. Anyway, this one was awesome. Flakie-packed, and very beautiful and duochrome-y!

Above: This is two coats of Totally Teal, and one and a half coats of Pink Pinata. I say one and a half because one coat left me with a couple of bald patches, so I went over those areas again to distribute the flakies more evenly. I really love how you see so much awesome duochrome you get. Look at that! You can see green and orange on the same nail! Cool! Depending on which angle you view your nails from, you get a lot of different colours. Most of the times, I see orange flakies, but sometimes they're green, and sometimes, they do cool things like glint yellow!
Above: Here's a close up, so you can see the rainbow on my nails. Awesome, no?!!
Below: And here's a closeup of my nails from another angle. You can really see the green here, with some yellow, and a bit of orange at the tip
The thing I love about flakies is that they really jazz up any colour, even a colour I thought was totally hot on its own! And depending on what colour you put them over, the duochrome effect they give seems to change, too. I really love this, and I can't stop staring at my own little nubbins!
Thank you Jerlene, for participating in my guest blogger series! That's a beautiful look you attained from those 2 polishes. And for the record, you do not have man hands, and you do not have nubbins! If you'd like to be a featured guest blogger, just send me an eMail and let me know. Also, if you'd like me to add you to my blog roll, leave a comment or send me an eMail. I sometimes forget to update it, so please feel free to remind me!


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Finger Paints Romanticism Ruby

I picked up some Finger Paints at Sally Beauty and I think they're some of the new shades. I didn't see any display, so I asked the sales girl if they had any new Finger Paints. She waved over at the main display and said they were just mixed in there. She was wearing a tag with a Finger Paints bottle on it that read "40 New Shades", so hopefully, the ones I bought were new!

Above & Below: Romanticism Ruby is a beautiful glass-flecked red that applied nicely in 2 coats. I didn't use a top coat, and my only complaint is that it doesn't have a terribly high gloss finish when it's dry. Don't get me wrong, because it is glossy, just not as glossy as many other polishes. So I'll add a top coat and the problem will be solved. The glitter is red, but when the light hits it, there is a definite gold shimmer to it.
Below: Because I can't seem to stop layering Hidden Treasure over everything...I really need to put HT away, or I'll soon have none left!

Below: Here are the Finger Paints I picked up L-R: Hue Rang?, Tough Art To Follow, Easel-Y Entertained, Romanticism Ruby, Hue Left A Message?, Sketch N Etch. I swatched Hue Left A Message? on my thumb to see what it was like and it's a major glitter that I fear is going to be a pain to take off!
I love Romanticism Ruby--it reminds me of OPI's Smitten With Mittens, Barielle's Glammed Out Garnet, and it even seems to be a bit Essie Ruby Slipper-esque. The formula is very nice and it had great coverage with no streaking. As I mentioned above, the finish is not a super high gloss as many other polishes are, but that's not a big deal, I just wanted to mention it. These are on sale at Sally Beauty right now for buy 2 get one free, and they are also available on their web site.


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