A vegan nail polish blog. A celebration of colour and light, as well as of justice for nonhuman animals.

Archive for June, 2012

Zoya Beach Skittles

Today I have a skittle mani to show you, using the polishes from Zoya’s Beach collection for summer 2012.

Thumb to pinkie: Zoya Reagan, Wednesday, Shelby, Arizona, Lara. Bottle: Zoya Tracie

Thumb to pinkie are Zoya Reagan, Wednesday, Shelby, Arizona, and Lara. The bottle I’m holding is Zoya Tracie, the only non-creme polish from Beach.

Thumb to pinkie: Zoya Reagan, Wednesday, Shelby, Arizona, Lara. Bottle: Zoya Tracie

I plan on doing comparison posts for all of these polishes later, so I’m not going to talk much about the formulas right now. These swatches were all two coats, though.

Thumb to pinkie: Zoya Reagan, Wednesday, Shelby, Arizona, Lara. Bottle: Zoya Tracie

Some shade photos:

Thumb to pinkie: Zoya Reagan, Wednesday, Shelby, Arizona, Lara. Bottle: Zoya Tracie

Thumb to pinkie: Zoya Reagan, Wednesday, Shelby, Arizona, Lara. Bottle: Zoya Tracie

Thumb to pinkie: Zoya Reagan, Wednesday, Shelby, Arizona, Lara. Bottle: Zoya Tracie

Later on, I added a coat of Sally Girl Way2Disco, a blue-teal iridescent glitter (shown here in the shade, since the sun was not cooperating):

Index to pinkie: Zoya Wednesday, Shelby, Arizona, Lara, topped with Sally Girl Way2Disco

Thumb to pinkie: Zoya Reagan, Wednesday, Shelby, Arizona, Lara, topped with Sally Girl Way2Disco

Stay tuned for comparisons of the Beach (and Surf, the other half of the collection!) polishes to other similar polishes in my stash! I hope to get those posts started in the near future.

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Color Club Frills and Cult Nails Feel Me Up

I did some fun glitter nail art that’s been on my nails for several days now! (A long time for me, haha!)

Color Club Frills, Cult Nails Feel Me Up, and loose glitter

The yellow is Cult Nails Feel Me Up, a nice warm sunny yellow, and the coral is Color Club Frills, a deep pink coral.

Color Club Frills, Cult Nails Feel Me Up, and loose glitter

Both have nice creme formulas that go on quite smoothly (Feel Me Up is my new favourite yellow!) and are shown with two coats.

Color Club Frills, Cult Nails Feel Me Up, and loose glitter

I dabbed the coral glitter on with a finger while the yellow polish was still tacky. I got this glitter to use for making frankens, but haven’t done so yet. It’s from the online store GlitterUnique and it’s listed as solvent-resistant. When I bought it, it was called “matte salmon” glitter but I checked the site and they’re now listing it as “matte hot pink”.

Color Club Frills, Cult Nails Feel Me Up, and loose glitter

The large yellow hexes were something I picked up elsewhere and was hoping I could franken with as well, but it turns out they totally melt in polish, unfortunately! But they are still nice as nail art. For these, I applied a drop of topcoat and then pressed them onto the nail, doing so carefully to get the hexes straight.

Color Club Frills, Cult Nails Feel Me Up, and loose glitter

I then sealed everything with two layers of top coat. Oh and on the right hand, the colours are reversed; the first three fingers are the coral design and the last two the yellow. Love this manicure!

Orange/Coral Holo Birthday Mani!

Today is my birthday and here is the polish I wore! It started out yesterday when my partner took me out go-karting and mini golfing as a surprise for my birthday! So much fun, but when I was taking off my seatbelt to get out of the go-kart, I messed up the nail polish I had put on that afternoon (of course, it was totally worth it! haha)

So later on at home, I took off the smudged polish and decided to put on an old OPI, “Nice Hand… Great Nails” just to see what it was like… Well, it’s very very sheer, and not really in a good way in my opinion. And this is coming from someone who likes sheer polishes that show visible nail line… Anyway, this one was a very sheer orange coral shimmer that looked about the same colour as the stains on my nails from the neon coral I was wearing the other day, so I wasn’t too impressed! (I guess I should have taken a photo of it anyway to show it, but I didn’t…)

I had only put on two coats, so normally I would have added a few more but I didn’t feel like staying up any later to let them dry and see if I liked the result any better. I was about to take it off and start over with something that I knew would dry quickly, but then I decided to try adding a layer of Ozotic 522, a coral holo. Magic! It turned out wonderfully.

Ozotic 522 over OPI Nice Hand... Great Nails

Two coats of OPI Nice Hand Great Nails followed by one coat of Ozotic 522, topped with OPI Designer Series top coat.

Ozotic 522 over OPI Nice Hand... Great Nails

It was recently announced that the entire Ozotic 500-series is being discontinued. The 500-series includes a lot of great holographic and multichrome polishes… the good news is that they’re all on sale right now until they’re sold out! So I just “had” to get a bunch of them while I still could, and 522 is one of the ones I got.

Ozotic 522 over OPI Nice Hand... Great Nails

They’re sold online from Picture Polish in Australia, Harlow & Co., Overall Beauty and Llarowe in North America, as well as some other sellers in other countries. If you want some, best to get them now while they’re still around!

Ozotic 522 over OPI Nice Hand... Great Nails

Hopefully Ozotic is only discontinuing them because they’ve come up with something even more awesome that they’ll release soon! We’ll have to wait and see…

Ozotic 522 over OPI Nice Hand... Great Nails

Anyway, I really love how this mani turned out; orangey coral holo seems like a great birthday celebration colour to me! And it’s been a really nice birthday weekend with great weather and plenty of fun and relaxation. 🙂

Ozotic 522 over OPI Nice Hand... Great Nails

Bonus photo of Jasmine who has claimed the nail polish storage area lately! (Well, she takes turns with Fred.) Here she is lying on top of the Ikea Helmers! I think they like them because the metal surface is nice and cool in this hot weather…

Jasmine on Helmers

A-England Princess Sabra

Today I have another lovely holo from A-England’s Legend collection to show you!

A-England Princess Sabra (Tristam Eyes)

Princess Sabra is a light golden-green olive shade. It also has some very fine golden shimmer in the base, which you can see in some of the photos (especially in the bottle of the above photo!).

A-England Princess Sabra (Tristam Eyes)

I used 3 coats, but the third was only because I smudged the polish before I could take photos, so I had to add an extra layer to cover it up. Otherwise two coats would have been perfectly fine.

A-England Princess Sabra (Tristam Eyes)

Like the two other A-Englands I have, this one has a great formula and dries very quickly.

A-England Princess Sabra (Tristam Eyes)

Not much more to say; it’s pretty much perfect!

A-England Princess Sabra (Tristam Eyes)

The full name of this polish is “Princess Sabra (Tristam Eyes)”, Tristam being the name of the creator’s cat. It does look like yellow-green cat’s eyes! 🙂

A-England Princess Sabra (Tristam Eyes)

Kleancolor Café au Lait

Today’s polish is one of my very favourite nude polishes, Kleancolor Café au Lait! It’s a highly pigmented beige creme with yellow and peach undertones.

Kleancolor Café au Lait

The formula is thick like Kleancolor cremes tend to be, but not in a bad way, and it covers completely in two coats. Shown are two coats with topcoat, in sunlight.

Kleancolor Café au Lait

This next photo turned out brighter/darker than the polish really is…

Kleancolor Café au Lait

I love this shade on my skintone. It’s really subtle and yet still a kind of offbeat shade because of the yellow in it. It’s what I reach for if I don’t know what I want to wear on my nails.

Kleancolor Café au Lait

Since it was starting to have small chips after day one (standard for me), I decided to add some crackle on top to cover those up for the next day. I added China Glaze Tarnished Gold crackle. Then, for good measure, I added two layers of Orly Prisma Gloss Gold, a fine gold glitter with some fine holo glitter dispersed throughout.

Kleancolor Café au Lait, China Glaze Tarnished Gold, Orly Prisma Gloss Gold

Kind of a monochromatic crackle/glitter combo. I prefer Café au Lait on its own though!

Kleancolor Café au Lait, China Glaze Tarnished Gold, Orly Prisma Gloss Gold

The holo glitter particles in Prisma Gloss Gold are very elusive; maybe they would be less so over a more contrasting base! This blurred photo is the only one I took where they sort of show up on the nail!

Kleancolor Café au Lait, China Glaze Tarnished Gold, Orly Prisma Gloss Gold

Kleancolor Pink Lady

This polish is another unique shade from Kleancolor! I haven’t seen any other polish like this, anyway. Pink Lady is a neon hot pink creme with small silver foily flake-type shimmer. It has the typical nice thick pigmented Kleancolor Creme formula. I used two coats plus top coat here. Since it has a neon formula, it dries semi-matte before the top coat is applied.

Kleancolor Pink Lady

I decided to do a Konad accent nail, but the first shade I stamped on didn’t show up very well so I ended up stamping again overtop with a different polish. The first polish I used was Kleancolor Neon Fuchsia (which is actually a neon red; I don’t see any fuchsia in it, anyway!), which didn’t really contrast enough against the base to look good. So on top I added a second stamp using Kleancolor Metallic Pink, an intense fuchsia foil.

Kleancolor Pink Lady, stamped on ring finger with Kleancolor Neon Fuchsia and Kleancolor Metallic Pink

I really like the multi-layer effect! The stamp I used was a fern design from Konad plate M83.

Kleancolor Pink Lady, stamped on ring finger with Kleancolor Neon Fuchsia and Kleancolor Metallic Pink

China Glaze Mahogany Magic

Today’s polish is one that was described by several reviewers as looking like poop when China Glaze’s Hunger Games collection came out last March! Well, I like poopy coloured polishes, haha, so this was the one that originally interested me the most from that collection!!

China Glaze Mahogany Magic

However, I didn’t really end up liking this one as much as I thought I would, once it was on the nail. Don’t get me wrong, I do like it, and there’s nothing wrong with the polish. The formula is good, no complaints; these photos show two coats plus top coat. But somehow, it ended up seeming kind of “flat” to me… some might say that all creme polishes are flat in a way, but that’s not what I mean and I’m not quite sure how else to describe it… I got kind of bored of it while I had it as my mani.

China Glaze Mahogany Magic

I think the colour wasn’t quite “ugly” enough for me; it needs some more yellow in it or something! 😀

China Glaze Mahogany Magic

Actually, I think I just need to add some kind of nail art to this in order to love it – stamping on it with another “ugly-pretty” colour would be nice… Or a coppery glitter-tipped gradient! Lots of fun possibilities are coming to mind!! So, yeah, I think I really like this, just not so much all by itself!

Zoya June

I can hardly believe it’s already June! But since it is, I thought I’d post some photos of Zoya’s polish named June!

June is a light sheer nude beige with pink tones and shimmer.

Here it is in the shade:

Zoya June

Shown are three coats over a ridge-filling base coat (I think it was Zoya’s Get Even that I used).

Zoya June

In the shade the pink tones really come out.

Zoya June

The formula on this one is nice, not streaky at all; the three coats were only due to the sheerness and not any application issues.

Zoya June

And here it is in the sun:

Zoya June

In the sun the shimmer comes out and the colour seems less pink.

Zoya June

The shimmer is June is made up of tiny little fine shimmery flecks in a sort of opalescent silvery shade that reflect several different colours in the sun, as you can see in the bottle in this next photo.

Zoya June

June is nothing too flashy, but she’s a nice little polish!