April | 2015 | Vegan Claws

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

Archive for April, 2015

Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not and comparisons

This beauty is Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not, released in February 2014 in an indie collaboration box (but I got it secondhand from someone’s blogsale).

It’s a neon pinky-purple with these great blue flakes. The flakes are opaque and tend to sink to the bottom of the bottle, but turning it upside down for a minute or two before use solves that.

Here you can see a bunch of the blue flakes up against the side of the bottle:

I used three coats plus top coat and didn’t have any issues with application.

I love these blue flakies!

In shade:

I did a comparison with Fingerpaints Gorgeous Graffiti and Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout, similar neon purples that have blue flecks of different types.

Left to right, He Loves Me Not, Fingerpaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout, three coats each.

Left to right: Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not, FingerPaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout

The Fingerpaints is slightly more purple and has translucent blue glassfleck-type flecks rather than opaque flakes.

Top to bottom: Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not, FingerPaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout

The Glam Polish is slightly pinker and dustier and has much smaller blue glassflecks as well as scattered holo.

Left to right: Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout, FingerPaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not

Category:

Black Cat Lacquer, FingerPaints, Glam Polish

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Zoya India and Comparison

This burgundy-red beauty is India from Zoya’s Ignite collection of last fall. Shown in two coats, no top coat. Great formula. It’s got a ton of glass-fleck shimmer that reflects golden, red and purple tones.

Under Ott Lite:

Here’s a comparison between India and Zoya’s Anastasia, Joe Fresh Cinnamon, and FingerPaints Palette of Perfection.

Left to right: Zoya Anastasia, Zoya India, Joe Fresh Cinnamon, FingerPaints Palette of Perfection

Anastasia is shown in four coats; it’s a lot more sheer. It also has a more plum-leaning base, and the base is metallic instead of jellyish like India’s. I would say Anastasia is like a plum version of Zoya Autumn with its more metallic base.

Top to bottom: Zoya Anastasia, Zoya India, Joe Fresh Cinnamon, FingerPaints Palette of Perfection

Joe Fresh Cinnamon is shown in two coats like India. It’s got a lighter red base and less intense golden shimmer than India.

Left to right: Zoya Anastasia, Zoya India, Joe Fresh Cinnamon, FingerPaints Palette of Perfection

And finally, FingerPaints Palette of Perfection is also two coats. It’s a truer red with no hint of burgundy/purple, and its golden shimmer gives it a very warm/orangey tone.

Left to right, under Ottlite: Zoya Anastasia, Zoya India, Joe Fresh Cinnamon, FingerPaints Palette of Perfection

Love this comparison as an ombré mani!

Top to bottom, under Ottlite: Zoya Anastasia, Zoya India, Joe Fresh Cinnamon, FingerPaints Palette of Perfection

Category:

FingerPaints, Joe Fresh, Zoya

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Milani Golden Sea, Zoya Dillon, and a failed watermarble attempt

Today I have a mani from a couple months ago to show you (trying to finish up with my backlog of posts before starting on all the more recent swatches I have!), as well as a fail from the mani that directly preceded it!

The blue is Milani Golden Sea, an older shade, and the metallic/shimmery pastel green on my ring and pinkie is Zoya Dillon from last year’s spring collection. These first two photos are in sunlight taken with my phone.

Golden Sea has a metallic turquoise blue base with some gold shimmer and sparse, hard-to-tell-they’re-holo holo particles. I didn’t even realize that’s what they were until I did the water marble fail I’ll show at the end of the post, and saw them under the halogen light on the very thin film of polish. So, I wouldn’t call it a holo polish but it actually does have these tiny (smooth and flat, non-glitter) sparse holo particles! As always you can click on any photo to get a larger version; I think the particles show best in either the halogen shot below or the first sunlight ones…

In the shade:

Under halogen light:

With flash:

And here is my first ever attempt at water marbling, which did not work at all! It was really cold in the apartment a couple months ago when I tried it; that was probably my first mistake! The polishes dried on the cold water before I could do any marbling. The polishes I used were the two from the mani above plus Zoya Piaf, the shimmery yellow that was also my base polish. The first marble attempt is the one on my ring finger, where the polishes spread out super thin and dried that way. That’s where I saw that the particles in Golden Sea were actually holo. I kind of liked the effect even though I didn’t get to do any marbling, so I tried for another finger, the index, but for that attempt the polishes barely spread out at all so I got this ridiculously thick mess! It doesn’t show that well in the photo, since the angle is pretty much head-on, but it was like a big, thick, lumpy decal that I decided to just put on my nail anyway, haha! Planning to try water marbling again some time, now that the weather is warmer!

Category:

Milani, Zoya

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