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

Archive for May, 2013

Zoya Jacqueline

Zoya Jacqueline is from the spring Lovely collection, and is my new favourite nude polish from Zoya! It originally came out in one of the Peter Som fashion week collaboration trios last year, and I remember hoping that they would re-release it in a regular collection since I didn’t have access to the trio. Happily for me, they did!

Zoya Jacqueline

It’s a very pale, pastel yellow with a hint of beige, creme polish with just the tiniest hint of hidden shimmer in it.

Zoya Jacqueline

I used three coats over a layer of ridge filling basecoat. Two coats would probably have been enough if not for my ridges (even with the ridge filler…). I also have topcoat on in these photos.

Zoya Jacqueline

The formula was a little thick, but didn’t really give me any trouble. I love this shade!

Zoya Jacqueline

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Nicole by OPI Love Me, Love the Earth

Nicole by OPI Love Me, Love the Earth is an awesome shimmery brown polish with a lot of depth. This is an oldie (but they still sell it online at Aveyou, last time I checked), so it has the old formula that’s not “big 3 free”. I find the old formulas a little thin, but easy to control and fairly quick drying, and I used three coats here. Love this shade!

Nicole by OPI Love Me, Love the EarthNicole by OPI Love Me, Love the EarthNicole by OPI Love Me, Love the EarthNicole by OPI Love Me, Love the EarthNicole by OPI Love Me, Love the EarthNicole by OPI Love Me, Love the Earth

Some Cult Nails Swatches

How about a few random Cult Nails swatches?

Spontaneous, a dusty purple creme with small purple glitter. The formula was a little thinner and runnier than I expected; I used three coats for coverage and to even it out. Shown with Wicked Fast topcoat.

Cult Nails Spontaneous

Cult Nails Spontaneous

Cult Nails Spontaneous

Before topcoat, it dries a little matte and slightly textured:

Cult Nails Spontaneous

Blackout. It isn’t black, but a dark charcoal grey. If you look at it from up close in real life, you can see that it’s actually got a sheer jellyish base packed full of tiny little specks of pigment giving it a soft, smoky finish. It does look pretty much black in some lighting situations, although not quite as much as it does here in my photos.

Cult Nails Blackout

I used two coats although it was still just slightly patchy with its jelly base so I could have used a third.

Cult Nails Blackout

This photo is more true to colour, where you can tell that it’s grey and not black:

Cult Nails Blackout

Comparison with a couple of medium-dark greys to show how much darker it is: Kleancolor Concrete (1 thick coat), Blackout (2 coats), Misa Office Polish-tics (3 coats, it was a bit thin). I should have also compared it to a true black, ah well…

Cult Nails Blackout, Kleancolor Black, Kleancolor Concrete

Top to bottom: Kleancolor Concrete, Cult Nails Blackout, Misa Office Polish-tics

Evil Queen, a pink-toned red semi-jelly. I don’t usually like cool toned reds on me, but I really like this one!

Cult Nails Evil Queen

It was almost a one-coater, but I did two coats for the photos.

Cult Nails Evil Queen

Great formula, shiny and smooth!

Cult Nails Evil Queen

Cult Nails Evil Queen

Feelin’ Froggy, a cool/neutral green with green shimmer. This one is sheer to let the shimmer shine through and I needed three coats. It’s a little cooler toned in real life; I’d say the first photo is the most colour accurate.

Cult Nails Feelin' Froggy

Cult Nails Feelin' Froggy

Cult Nails Feelin' Froggy

Beauty Without Cruelty Deepest Mulberry

A quick post today! This is Beauty Without Cruelty Deepest Mulberry, a dark mulberry purple/plum creme.

Beauty Without Cruelty Deepest Mulberry

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.

Beauty Without Cruelty Deepest Mulberry

Nothing too exciting, but a nice basic shade!

Beauty Without Cruelty Deepest Mulberry

Beauty Without Cruelty Deepest Mulberry

LA Girl Electric Coral

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)!

LA Girl Electric Coral

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.

LA Girl Electric Coral

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.

LA Girl Electric Coral

I really really love this polish, that’s about all I have to say! 😀

LA Girl Electric Coral

Under my Ott Lite:

LA Girl Electric Coral - Ott Lite

Extra blurry to show extra sparkle:

LA Girl Electric Coral

Soulstice Spa San Francisco and Beauty Without Cruelty Tangerine

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.

Soulstice Spa San Francisco

This is Soulstice San Francisco, an orange semi-jelly that I love!

Soulstice Spa San Francisco

The swatch shows two coats. The formula was nice and smooth.

Soulstice Spa San Francisco

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.

Soulstice Spa San Francisco and Beauty Without Cruelty Tangerine

Pinky to index: Tangerine, San Francisco, Tangerine, San Francisco

The comparison shows two coats of each polish.

Soulstice Spa San Francisco and Beauty Without Cruelty Tangerine

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.

Beauty Without Cruelty Tangerine

Beauty Without Cruelty Tangerine

Beauty Without Cruelty Tangerine

Beauty Without Cruelty Tangerine

LA Splash Komodo Dragon

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…)

LA Splash Komodo Dragon - halogen lamp

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.

LA Splash Komodo Dragon - halogen lamp

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:

LA Splash Komodo Dragon - overcast natural light

Unfortunately there’s no sun here today. These last two photos are with flash:

LA Splash Komodo Dragon - with flash

LA Splash Komodo Dragon - with flash

I personally think this polish is pretty cool, after all! 😀