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

Archive for February, 2015

Kunimitsu Nail Potions Russian Blue

Today I have a cat-themed polish for you: Russian Blue by Kunimitsu Nail Potions on Etsy.

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It’s a shimmery greyish-blue with light blue microglitter and gold dot glitter to represent the cats’ eyes.

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Shown in three coats plus topcoat.

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I did have to work a little to get the gold dots out of the bottle and placed onto the nail, but it wasn’t too problematic.

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I really like this fun, pretty polish!

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And here is my little blue boy, Julius! Isn’t he handsome? 😀 He is also just about the friendliest little guy imaginable; he loves everyone, including a dog named Fluffy who lives in an apartment down the hall from us.

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Julius was adopted from a local shelter where he had been brought as a stray kitten. He has a chronic upper respiratory infection (I had to clean some crusts off one of his eyes to prep him for his photo shoot, in fact). He’s been on every antibiotic in the book over the years but the infection always comes back. On a serious note, it’s really lucky for him that he was adopted by people who would never return him to the shelter for sneezing globs all over their furniture and stuff year after year, because that “shelter” isn’t a no-kill and I don’t know if cats returned for that kind of issue might then be deemed “unadoptable”… 😦

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Love you, Julius! ❤

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Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Jasmine and Comparison

I recently learned of Black Dahlia Lacquer, an indie brand based in Texas that just launched last fall, who make vegan polishes. The polishes looked great, so I had to place an order to check them out! 😉

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From left to right, Dandelion Fields, Beach Jasmine, My Butter Half, 90 in November (this one wasn’t part of my order but was sent as an extra!), Daffodil Petals, Austin City Limits. The polishes come in an 8ml ‘petite’ size, which is what I ordered, as well as regular 14ml full size. Today I’ve got swatches and a comparison for Beach Jasmine but I hope to also photograph the rest of them soon!

I love the bottles, the 8ml bottles have the same unique shape as the full size ones, which is a really nice touch! The brush, again even in the mini size bottles, is a flat wide brush, my favourite type.

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Beach Jasmine is a light taupey-beige creme with lots of gold flecks. A beautiful nude colour!

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I used two coats here. (My coats seem to have been a bit thinner on my index finger than the other nails and I think maybe it shows a bit in the photos…) The formula was smooth and easy to apply. Very happy with this polish!

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In the shade:

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Since I love nudes with gold shimmer, I had a few in mind that this one reminded me of: Cult Nails Mazo, China Glaze Fast Track, and Essence Irreplaceable.

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This first photo shows two coats of each polish. As you can see, Mazo is much more sheer than the others.

Left to right, 2 coats each: Cult Nails Mazo, Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Jasmine, China Glaze Fast Track, Essence Irreplaceable

Left to right, 2 coats each: Cult Nails Mazo, Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Jasmine, China Glaze Fast Track, Essence Irreplaceable

Next photos show 3 coats of Cult Nails Mazo on the index and 3 coats of China Glaze Fast Track on the ring (the third wasn’t really necessary but I wanted to better cover my ridges on that nail).

Left to right: Cult Nails Mazo, Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Jasmine, China Glaze Fast Track, Essence Irreplaceable

Left to right: Cult Nails Mazo, Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Jasmine, China Glaze Fast Track, Essence Irreplaceable

Mazo is more yellow-toned, Fast Track is browner, and Irreplaceable is just slightly more grey.

Left to right: Cult Nails Mazo, Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Jasmine, China Glaze Fast Track, Essence Irreplaceable

Left to right: Cult Nails Mazo, Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Jasmine, China Glaze Fast Track, Essence Irreplaceable

Irreplaceable is definitely the closest to Beach Jasmine though. Irreplaceable’s shimmer is slightly more dense and has a very slight green shift to it that doesn’t show on the nail, but the two are close. I believe Irreplaceable is hard to find now, so this polish is a good replacement (har, har!) for anyone looking for it.

Top to bottom: Cult Nails Mazo, Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Jasmine, China Glaze Fast Track, Essence Irreplaceable

Top to bottom: Cult Nails Mazo, Black Dahlia Lacquer Beach Jasmine, China Glaze Fast Track, Essence Irreplaceable

Now, I can’t show a polish with Jasmine in the name without showing my beautiful Jasmine. 😉

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Jasmine is the most feral of our cats; she’s almost 9 years old now and has been with me since the age of 6 months, but it’s just in the past two years that she’s really allowed me to pet her at all (and then, just in her ‘safe’ situations – but in those situations, she’s learned that she really likes it!).

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She’s much more comfortable with other cats than with humans. Here she is on the bed with Oliver (one of her littermates, who adapted much more easily to us humans), Seymour who is licking Oliver, and the baby of the family, Wu, on the right!

China Glaze Spring in My Step and Valentine’s Day Stamping

Happy Valentine’s Day! This mani started out with a polish I like a lot, Spring in My Step from China Glaze.

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Four coats plus top coat. The four coats are needed, but the formula is thin so it doesn’t seem too thick on the nail, and it dries super quickly. Like, quick enough that this polish and the others I have from this collection (last spring’s City Flourish) are among those I would choose when rushing to cover up naked nails before leaving for work in the morning! I know a lot of people hated the formula of the pastels in that collection, but I loved it!

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I then added some stamping using Bundle Monster plates BM-H16 and BM-H17. I received both of these plates as gifts from the people at Nail Polish Canada, H16 last year and H17 this year. I think they send them out to regular customers or something. Thanks NPC! 🙂

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The polishes I used for stamping were Kleancolor Iridescent Fuchsia (which is a ridiculous name as it’s not in any way iridescent, it’s a straight creme polish!) and Red Alert. Someday I hope I’ll get the hang of stamping so that the whole images will transfer without gaps and smudges 😉

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I coloured in a few of the stamps using OPI Guy Meets Gal-veston, a coral pink jelly polish.

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Here’s a close up of the thumb stamp, since it didn’t show up very well in the other photos.

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And here’s the right hand – here, I coloured in some of the stamps using OPI Houston We Have a Purple, another jelly from the Texas collection.

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Disclosure: the stamping plates used in this manicure were provided free of charge by Nail Polish Canada.

OPI La Boheme

OPI La Boheme is a hard-to-find polish from the 2003 Holiday on Broadway collection by OPI, and is also pretty much my favourite polish ever. Most of the photos are with Ott Lite; a couple where noted are with flash.

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It’s a deep burgundy-red with sparkly colour-shifting pigment that goes from red to gold to green.

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I wore this polish when I got married. 🙂

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I’m not sure whether this was two or three coats. These photos were taken a while ago and I don’t seem to have written it down, at least not in my usual notebook…

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It can look very different in different lighting. With flash the purple-ish side comes out:

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The rest of the photos show one coat layered over black for maximum multichrome colour-shifting goodness.

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With flash, again bringing out more purple:

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How much do I love this polish? Well, I even have a backup bottle, and purchased both of them at crazy ebay prices. I still think it was worth it. No regrets for this one!! 😀

LA Girl Teal Dimension

LA Girl Teal Dimension is from their awesome 3D Hologram collection of jelly-based scattered holos (these are true scattered holos with smooth particles). Two coats. Unfortunately not the greatest photos – all in artificial light, some with, some without flash.

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