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

Archive for November, 2012

Picture Polish Voodoo and Comparison

Picture Polish Voodoo is a gorgeous deep plum/burgundy base with golden glass fleck shimmer, giving an overall brownish-burgundy look.

Picture Polish Voodoo

The burgundy base is a little sheer, so that the golden glass flecks shining through it often appear like red sparkles. As you can see in the bottle in the following shot, they’re definitely gold though!

Picture Polish Voodoo

The formula was a little thick but not difficult to work with. These photos show two thick coats of the polish.

Picture Polish Voodoo

I love it!

Picture Polish Voodoo

I did a comparison of Voodoo to China Glaze Midtown Magic, which I previously reviewed here. From top to bottom, the photo shows Midtown Magic, Voodoo, Midtown Magic.

China Glaze Midtown Magic and Picture Polish Voodoo

The main difference is that Midtown Magic is darker, more blackened. The shimmer also has more red in Voodoo, due to it shining through its base. My favourite of the two is Voodoo since it’s not as blackened!

Category:

China Glaze, Picture Polish

Tagged with:

OPI Don’t Talk Bach to Me and Glow Up Already, and a franken

I’m trying something new today! I downloaded an app to add watermarks to photos on my phone, so that I can actually post pictures I’ve taken with my phone straight from my phone without having to forego the watermark (stupid WordPress app doesn’t allow access to the blog’s media library, which is another related problem). It’s kind of neat because with this app the size, orientation and placement of the watermark can also be changed unlike the software I normally use on my laptop. Only thing I don’t like is that there’s no option that I can see to change the name of the image file, so the photos just have numbers for names and that can only be changed using the full WordPress site…

20121122-154829.jpg

Anyway, here’s a mani! 🙂 This is OPI Don’t Talk Bach to Me from the Germany collection, with a glitter gradient of OPI Glow Up Already from the Burlesque collection, and Poshe topcoat over everything. Photos in natural overcast light.

20121122-154924.jpg

I used two coats of Don’t Talk Bach to Me, a light yellow-green with a creme base and some slight shimmer, and I found the formula kind of thick. I’ll probably add some thinner before using it again.

20121122-155027.jpg

Glow Up Already is a dense fine glitter in a lot of colours, especially gold, green, and orange, with an overall look of golden lime green.

The next day, I added two coats of a frankenpolish that I made which contains teal square glitter, yellow, copper and champagne gold hex glitter, and gold glass flecks. Under my Ott light:

20121125-100733.jpg

The main polishes I used were Kleancolor Tiara Gold, LA Girl Glitter Addict in Flashy, NYX salon formula 24K Glitter, and Wet n Wild The Gold and the Beautiful. Overcast natural light:

20121125-100756.jpg

The teal square glitter was from Glitter Unique, if I recall correctly. This last photo is in partially sunny natural light:

20121125-100822.jpg

I’m really happy with how this franken turned out! 🙂

Category:

Frankenpolish, Kleancolor, LA Girl, NYX, OPI

Tagged with:

Holiday Nail Art Challenge Week 1: Snow!

I recently got an invitation from Nail Polish Canada to participate in a holiday nail art challenge contest they’re holding. This is week one of three, and the theme for the week is snow! Something I’m glad to say we haven’t really had much of here yet – it was snowing off and on today actually, for the first time of the season, but it didn’t accumulate at all. 🙂

Orly Au Champagne and Zoya Twila

Here is my snow mani – the base is two coats of Orly Au Champagne, with a gradient of Zoya Twila overtop.

Orly Au Champagne and Zoya Twila

The snowflakes are loose white bar glitter and hex glitter that I fixed into place with a thick layer of Poshe topcoat over everything.

Orly Au Champagne and Zoya Twila

The little silver, blue and holographic bar glitters in Twila make for an interesting textured night sky backdrop for the snowflakes, in my humble opinion 😉

Orly Au Champagne and Zoya Twila

Be sure to check out all the other entries of the week here and vote for your favourite! 🙂

Orly Au Champagne and Zoya Twila

Category:

Orly, Zoya

Tagged with:

Soulstice Spa Troy

I have another Soulstice Spa polish to show you today! This one is called Troy.

Soulstice Spa Troy

It’s a charcoal shimmery polish with a weak scattered holo effect.

Soulstice Spa Troy

It has a quick-drying formula that applies best with a light touch, using somewhat thick coats and not going over the same spot more than once. Using that technique, I didn’t really have any problems with the application (although the photos are showing a bit of a bald spot on the side of my index that I didn’t notice in real life!).

Soulstice Spa Troy

The photos show two coats of Troy. These are true holo particles, not glitter, so it’s smooth even without topcoat.

Soulstice Spa Troy

The next two photos are in the shade.

Soulstice Spa Troy

Soulstice Spa Troy

And this last photo is under the Ott light. Subtle in terms of holo, but a really nice quick-drying charcoal!

Soulstice Spa Troy

Edit: Prompted by the comment from Derya, here’s a comparison of Troy to OPI My Private Jet (most recent version that is still available in stores) and Color Club Revvvolution. 🙂 (Photos taken under my Ott light this morning.)

Color Club Revvvolution, Soulstice Troy, OPI My Private Jet (scattered holo with reddish-brown flash version)

Color Club Revvvolution, Soulstice Troy, OPI My Private Jet (scattered holo with reddish-brown flash version)

As you can see My Private Jet, the brownish-charcoal scattered holo version, that is, is darker than Troy and has a reddish-brown shimmer flash to it. Revvvolution is more of a true grey charcoal with none of the brown that the other two have.

Color Club Revvvolution, Soulstice Troy, OPI My Private Jet (scattered holo with reddish-brown flash version)

Color Club Revvvolution, Soulstice Troy, OPI My Private Jet (scattered holo with reddish-brown flash version)

These swatches have two coats of each polish. In addition to being the lightest in colour, Troy was also the sheerest of the three. Revvvolution is the most opaque; it’s nearly a one-coater. It’s also different in that its holo is more linear rather than scattered. My Private Jet’s scattered holo is a bit more apparent than Troy’s.

Color Club Revvvolution, Soulstice Troy, OPI My Private Jet (scattered holo with reddish-brown flash version)

Color Club Revvvolution, Soulstice Troy, OPI My Private Jet (scattered holo with reddish-brown flash version)

Category:

Soulstice Spa

Tagged with:

Nicole by OPI If the Blue Fits

This glowy blue is one of the fall 2012 “Target exclusive” Nicole by OPI polishes that I bought from a blogsale.

Nicole by OPI If the Blue Fits

It’s a medium-deep blue with sparkly blue-purple-pink duochrome glass flecks that my photos don’t quite do justice to (but as always you can click on the photos to get a larger version).

Nicole by OPI If the Blue Fits

The formula is a little sheer but I imagine that’s what helps the duochrome flecks show up. I used three coats although two thick coats might be enough.

Nicole by OPI If the Blue Fits

In terms of application the formula was great, no issues.

Nicole by OPI If the Blue Fits

This is a really nice blue, and I love the finish!

Nicole by OPI If the Blue Fits

This last photo is an indoor shot with indirect light from my Ott Lite.

Nicole by OPI If the Blue Fits

Category:

Nicole by OPI

Tagged with:

Soulstice Spa Kyoto

Soulstice Kyoto is a shade that looks pretty unassuming in the bottle, but really impressed me on the nail! It’s a pastel peachy pink creme, so I expected it would be nice but boring. Not boring though, in my opinion!

Soulstice Spa Kyoto

It had a good formula for a pastel; I applied generous coats with a light touch and there were only minimal streaks during the process. Two coats were enough, although I used three on my ring finger because of its ridges (I didn’t use base coat before swatching this).

Soulstice Spa Kyoto

Rather than being a nude sort of pastel peach/pink, this one is pretty bright and stark (at least on my skin tone!) which makes it really interesting to me!

Soulstice Spa Kyoto

Love it!

Soulstice Spa Kyoto

And now, as an added bonus, prepare yourselves for the cutest fluffy cat belly you’ve ever seen…

Jasmine Blossom
Jasmine! ❤

Category:

Soulstice Spa

Tagged with:

Picture Polish Sunset

Hard to believe it’s already November! Today I have a decidedly summery polish to show you. I don’t necessarily follow the seasons when I choose a colour; I just wear what I feel like. Often enough, what I “feel like” does match the season, but definitely not always! Especially in mid-to-late winter, when the spring pastels and summer brights come out due to wishful thinking!

Picture Polish Sunset

This lovely bright neon coral is Sunset by Picture Polish.

Picture Polish Sunset

It dries a little matte, since it’s a neon. I didn’t add any topcoat for these photos so you can see the almost rubbery finish. The formula was fairly thick, and this is two coats. I didn’t have any issues with application.

Picture Polish Sunset

Now I’ll stare at these pictures for a bit and pretend that the temperature outside isn’t below freezing! 😉

Category:

Picture Polish

Tagged with:

Gosh Holographic Hero

This is Gosh Holographic Hero, the much-anticipated re-release of the original Gosh Holographic from a few years back! Apparently the holographic effect isn’t as strong as the original, but it’s still pretty strong!

Gosh Holographic Hero

The photos show three coats of this silver holo, no base or top coats.

Gosh Holographic Hero

It’s a little trickier to apply than polishes like the OPI DS holos, but I found that it wasn’t too difficult if you use generous coats with a light touch, don’t go over the same spot more than once, and wait a couple minutes between coats to prevent dragging the previous layer of polish.

Gosh Holographic Hero

The first photo was taken with flash, and the others under an Ott Lite, as there was no sunlight at the time.

Gosh Holographic Hero

This polish is available in certain countries in Europe, and Canada, as far as I know. I was lucky as a Canadian to be able to just pick it up at the drugstore. 🙂

Gosh Holographic Hero

Category:

GOSH

Tagged with:

Soulstice Spa St. Tropez

A quick post featuring a great nude polish! This is St. Tropez by Soulstice Spa, a yellow-toned light beige with pearly shimmer. This shade was released in their spring/summer collection earlier this year.

Soulstice Spa St. Tropez

I found the polish a little sheer, but smooth and even at just one coat. The photos show three thick coats, although I could have gotten away with two if I had used a ridge-filling basecoat underneath. The formula is slightly thick, but it self-levels pretty well.

Soulstice Spa St. Tropez

I really love this colour, and was impressed with the nice formula! Here it is in the shade:

Soulstice Spa St. Tropez

Category:

Soulstice Spa

Tagged with: