A quick post today! This is Beauty Without Cruelty Deepest Mulberry, a dark mulberry purple/plum creme.
The swatch is two coats. The formula was a little thin and I probably should have done three coats; there’s a bit of a bald spot on my ring finger in particular.
Nothing too exciting, but a nice basic shade!
Today I have some photos to share of LA Girl Electric Coral, one of their new scattered holos.
I’ve been wearing this polish all week (which never happens!), and only today on the 7th day have I gotten a chip (also never happens)!
Electric Coral has a red-orange jelly base with lots of coarse scattered holo particles. The holo is visible in indoor lighting as well as sunlight.
Shown are two coats over ridge-filling basecoat, with top coat. The formula was great. I took the photos after I had already been wearing it a few days.
I really really love this polish, that’s about all I have to say! 
Under my Ott Lite:
Extra blurry to show extra sparkle:
I still have a lot of swatches and manis from last year to post! (Ah, my nails were a lot longer then!) Today I have a comparison between two lovely oranges.
This is Soulstice San Francisco, an orange semi-jelly that I love!
The swatch shows two coats. The formula was nice and smooth.
Next I have the comparison with Beauty Without Cruelty Tangerine. I found that they look more similar in the photo than they did in real life. But you can still see that Tangerine is a more opaque creme, and the shade of orange is a bit dustier. San Francisco is more of a burnt orange shade.
Pinky to index: Tangerine, San Francisco, Tangerine, San Francisco
The comparison shows two coats of each polish.
Pinky to index: Tangerine, San Francisco, Tangerine, San Francisco
And finally, swatches of Beauty Without Cruelty Tangerine on its own. Three coats in the swatches.
Hi all, if anyone’s reading 
Back from my hiatus and going to try to start posting regularly again. 
The polish I have on today isn’t new, but I think it was way before its time! This is totally a pre-texture craze texture polish! It’s Komodo Dragon by LA Splash (the bottle says Kamodo Dragon, but that just looks so wrong…)
These first two photos are under a halogen light (actually I think it might be a compact-fluorescent imitation of halogen, but anyway…)
It’s a matte, metallic olive green with gold and green fine glitter that dries to a rough bumpy texture. This is two coats over a ridge filling basecoat. I didn’t have any trouble with application, although it’s quite a thick polish and it’s best to wait a few minutes between coats to let it fully dry. One coat was almost enough; maybe if I’d loaded up the brush with more polish I would have stopped there.
I remember seeing a swatch stick of this on a blog at some point, and the blogger’s review of it was basically, “wtf is this, it’s muddy olive green, it’s not shiny at all, the glitter isn’t very sparkly, and it dries all bumpy! gross!” Heheh. But nowadays it seems to fit right in with all the textured polishes popping up recently.
Next photo is in overcast natural light:
Unfortunately there’s no sun here today. These last two photos are with flash:
I personally think this polish is pretty cool, after all!
This beauty is Color Club Blue-ming, from last spring’s Blossoming collection. I love this almost-neon-bright pastel turquoise! But I wasn’t quite able to capture its unique shade in the photos, unfortunately… Picture it slightly greener and brighter!
It’s kind of streaky, not surprising for a pastel like this. These first photos in the sun show three coats of polish.
Before the last two photos, I added a fourth coat due to smudging a couple of nails! I also added a layer of top coat. In the shade:
Indoors with flash:
Despite its streaky formula, this is one of my favourite polishes because of its unique colour! Love the almost-neon pastels!
Happy solstice! I thought I would post a sunny colour to celebrate.
This is OPI Goldeneye, which I used in a couple of previous nail art manicures. I love gold polishes and this one is a great one, full of irregular foily flecks.
The swatch shows three coats; the polish is sheer but has a good formula.
I did a comparison of Goldeneye to a few other yellow gold polishes. First, here’s a bottle comparison of Goldeneye to Orly Glitz & Glamour. Goldeneye has more of an orange/copper tone to it than Glitz & Glamour.
Top to bottom: OPI Goldeneye (3 coats), Orly Glitz & Glamour (2 coats), Sparitual Solstice (2 coats), Wet n Wild The Gold and The Beautiful (3 coats).
OPI Goldeneye, Orly Glitz & Glamour, Sparitual Solstice, Wet n Wild The Gold and the Beautiful
Glitz & Glamour and Solstice are yellower than Goldeneye and are dupes to one another; I’d guess they’re probably the exact same polish in fact, since Orly and Sparitual are made by the same company.
The Wet n Wild polish is the sheerest of these shades. Instead of a foil it’s more like sparse glass flecks. At three coats here, it’s still quite sheer. I like to use this one in frankens when I want to add some gold flecks!
These three polishes are from Zoya’s fall 2012 Designer and Gloss collections, although all three were part of last spring’s New York Fashion Week limited edition releases as well, and that’s when I got them.
Evvie is a dark, dusty grey-leaning green creme. It was originally released in the Peter Som collaboration trio. This is a great colour; I loved wearing it. Shown are two coats plus top coat, and the formula was good.
On my index finger, I have a coat of No Miss Peacock Glitter over Evvie. Peacock is a green and blue glitter polish with small rectangular shaped glitters, almost like bar glitter cut in half.
Next is Katherine, a deep plum/eggplant purple jelly that was also originally from the Peter Som trio.
It’s a very transparent sort of jelly; this first photo is three coats over a ridge filling base coat. At the time I swatched this I had a fiberglass wrap on my index finger, and it still shows a bit through the polish. Gloss is a good name for the collection Katherine comes from – there’s no top coat here, the shine is all Katherine.
These other two photos show four coats of Katherine. She has a very nice jelly formula, and will make great jelly sandwiches. I decided to leave my index and its wrap out of the last photo.
And finally, Rekha, a red semi-jelly shade that was originally from Zoya’s Bibhu Mohapatra collaboration trio. I believe it was named after the designer’s mother, and recreates the shade of red nail polish that she wore.
Only two coats are needed, but I’m wearing three in these photos because I applied the polish before going to bed and didn’t use a quick-dry top coat, so unsurprisingly by the time I took photos in the morning there were some little scratches on the surface.
Rekha seems to me a very neutral shade of red, neither cool nor warm, and is a great version of a classic colour. Here she is in the shade:
It’s the first day of Saturnalia! Thought I’d show the end result of my last mani for the holiday nail art challenge.
The menorah actually lasted all 8 days of Hanukkah, and I “lit” another candle on it each night using my gel pens. I also kept the middle finger with the sun, although the nail had a break on the side so don’t mind its appearance!
On the other fingers, I have China Glaze Gold Fusion, a golden magnetic polish that I used a wavy-lines magnet on. Overtop of that I added No Miss Sand Glitter, a gold glitter that’s actually in the shape of tiny rectangles. Then, over that, I added a very thin layer of OPI Goldeneye for a little bit more of a yellow-gold tint.
Today I have another one of my straggling summer Zoya posts – the two pink foily polishes from the Surf collection! (Look at how long my nails were – I really liked this length/shape! )
First is Rory, an awesome cool-toned, lilac-leaning bubblegum pink foil polish! Quite unique, I love it! This was two coats. The formula was a little thick but easy to apply.
And next, Kimber, a darker red-toned warm fuchsia pink with golden shimmer.
I’d say that Kimber’s finish is somewhere between foil and glass-fleck, definitely not a true foil like Rory.
This is also two coats of Kimber, whose formula was similar to Rory’s, although slightly thinner. Neither had any issues with application.
And now, some nail wheel comparisons of any and all polishes I had that were remotely similar! The first photo is indoors near my Ott light, the second in direct sun; neither is that great lighting-wise but I hope each can make up for the other’s deficiencies in showing the colours! Kimber and Rory are directly across from one another at the point where the two wheels are closest to each other.
Left wheel, clockwise: Soulstice Kauai, Milani Photo Flash, Milani In a Flash, Kleancolor Metallic Pink, Manglaze Lesbihonest, Milani Golden Girl, Milani Gold Digger, Milani Pink Out Loud, Zoya Kimber, China Glaze Strawberry Fields, Essence Glamorous Life, China Glaze Endurance, Zoya Starla, LA Colors Coral Reef.
Right wheel, counterclockwise from top: LA Girl Rockstar Scandal, China Glaze No Way José, Orly Rose Radiance, LA Girl Pink Steel, Zoya Rory, Pop Beauty Ruby Metal, Orly Preamp, LA Girl Color Addict Euphoria, Milani Gold Violetta.
As you can see, Rory is unique even among the other pink foils I have, and Kimber is fairly similar to China Glaze Strawberry Fields. Strawberry Fields is a bit lighter and less red though, and its shimmer is less dense.
Left wheel, clockwise: Soulstice Kauai, Milani Photo Flash, Milani In a Flash, Kleancolor Metallic Pink, Manglaze Lesbihonest, Milani Golden Girl, Milani Gold Digger, Milani Pink Out Loud, Zoya Kimber, China Glaze Strawberry Fields, Essence Glamorous Life, China Glaze Endurance, Zoya Starla, LA Colors Coral Reef.
Right wheel, counterclockwise from top: LA Girl Rockstar Scandal, China Glaze No Way José, Orly Rose Radiance, LA Girl Pink Steel, Zoya Rory, Pop Beauty Ruby Metal, Orly Preamp, LA Girl Color Addict Euphoria, Milani Gold Violetta.
Today I have the original version of Picture Polish’s Monroe to show you. This one was re-released earlier this year in a slightly different form, but I don’t have the new version to compare.
Monroe is a deep burgundy jelly with subtle fine holo particles. In some light it can look quite dark as the above photo shows.
The first coat was pretty patchy; I used three coats in all for the swatch.
It has a thick jelly formula, and I recommend waiting a few minutes between coats to prevent dragging the previous layer near the cuticle.
The holo is subtle, but it’s a great twist on a plain burgundy jelly!
