Cult Nails | Vegan Claws

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

Archive for the ‘Cult Nails’ Category

Zoya Zuza, Wednesday, and comparisons

I should have posted this ages ago, but then I lost the photos of the nail wheel comparisons… or maybe I forgot to take the photos, I don’t know! So I took new ones recently, but they aren’t exactly colour-accurate… Ah well, I’m posting them anyway! 😀

Here is Zoya Zuza, a beautiful shimmery turquoise. Two coats, and the formula was a little thick, according to my notes. I love Zuza.

Zoya Wednesday, a slightly dusty turquoise/minty/tiffany blue creme. Two coats, three on my ridgey ring finger. The formula on this one was a little thin.

And here are the comparisons! The photos are not colour accurate; they photographed a bit too green and dark, which you can see by comparing Wednesday (3:00 position on the left wheel) to the swatch photos above. So keeping that in mind, the pic can give an idea of how similar they are to other polishes in the same colour family. Zuza is directly next to Wednesday on the other wheel, at the 9:00 position on that wheel. Should have numbered the polishes on the wheels, sorry about that…

(Not colour accurate, leans slightly too green.) Left wheel, clockwise from 3:00 position: Zoya Wednesday, Color Club New Bohemian, Orly Gumdrop, Nubar Mod Agua, Cult Nails Manipulative, Kleancolor Pastel Teal, Soulstice Kona, Sephora by OPI Natural Environ-mint, NYX Girls Pistachio, Essence You Belong To Me, China Glaze Aquadelic, Color Club Blue-Ming, NYX Salon Formula Surf, Barry M Mint Green, Orly Ancient Jade, Fingerpaints Choco Mint, NCLA Santa Monica Shore Thing, Fingerpaints Tiffany Impostor.
Right wheel, clockwise from 9:00: Zoya Zuza, Nicole by OPI Diva Into the Pool, Manglaze ILF, Milani Golden Sea, LA Girl Delirious, China Glaze Custom Kicks, Kleancolor Teal Envy, Kleancolor Mystic Grass, Sparitual Rhythm of Life, Butter London Thames, Gosh Ocean, LA Girl Obsess, Kleancolor Teal Marble, Kleancolor Metallic Aqua, Fingerpaints Winter Sky, NYX Juliette, LA Girl Chromium Green, Kleancolor Metallic Jungle.

Category:

Barry M, Butter London, China Glaze, Color Club, Cult Nails, Essence, FingerPaints, GOSH, Kleancolor, LA Girl, Manglaze, Milani, NCLA, Nicole by OPI, Nubar, NYX, Orly, Sephora by OPI, Soulstice Spa, SpaRitual, Zoya

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China Glaze Sun of a Peach and comparisons

Here’s another neon from the China Glaze Sunsational collection!

Sun of a Peach is a neon pastel peach, and a great unique colour! I like the name too, haha.

The formula is a bit difficult to work with, but not really worse than other neons or pastels.

I used three coats to even everything out. The photos include base coat and top coat.

I think the colour is certainly worth putting up with the neon formula. With flash:

In the shade:

And here is a nail wheel comparison with other peaches, neon and non-neon, and some that lean more towards coral. The photo was taken with flash, but somehow the polishes still look a bit darker than they do in real life. So, word of warning that these aren’t colour accurate, but give a good indication of the relative differences in these polishes!

Sun of a Peach and peach/coral comparisons

1) China Glaze Sun of a Peach, 2) Misa Shake it to the Samba, 3) China Glaze Peachy Keen, 4) Nubar Orange Creme, 5) NCLA Poolside Party All Eyes On Me, 6) Joe Fresh Orange Sorbet, 7) Kleancolor Mango, 8) Jessica Tangerine Dreamz, 9) NYX Amazon, 10) Cult Nails Scandalous, 11) OPI Apricotcha Cheating, 12) FingerPaints Circus Peanuts, 13) NYX Girls Naked Pink, 14) Funky Fingers Daiquiri on the Deck, 15) Barry M Peach Melba, 16) Kleancolor Pastel Orange, 17) Illamasqua Purity, 18) Essence Rebels Peach Punk

None of these are close to Sun of a Peach; the most similar are Kleancolor Mango which is darker and much less bright, and oldie NYX Amazon which is a translucent jelly with iridescent glitter, however. But as you can see there are some dupes and near-dupes among the other polishes – notably China Glaze Peachy Keen and Misa Shake it to the Samba which are basically identical. Cult Nails Scandalous is also similar to OPI Apricotcha Cheating, and Kleancolor Pastel Orange to Illamasqua Purity, but those pairs aren’t close enough to be dupes.

Category:

Barry M, China Glaze, Cult Nails, Essence, FingerPaints, Funky Fingers, Illamasqua, Jessica, Joe Fresh, Kleancolor, Misa, NCLA, Nubar, NYX, OPI

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From the Vault

I still have some really old photos from when I started blogging, so I thought I would post them in a few installments!

This first one is a fall mani that I really loved! Thumb to pinkie: Finger Paints Sketchy Character, a mustard yellow frankenpolish, Kleancolor Fashionista, China Glaze Brownstone, Joe Fresh Pumpkin. The glitter gradient over everything was done with Nubar Lime Green Glitter and Orange Glitter.

Next, Orly Wild Wisteria with China Glaze Brownstone accent:

I’ll finish up this first vault post with swatches of the creme half of the Color Club Back to Boho collection, along with a couple of layering combos using them.

Shabby Drab:

With Color Club Jingle Jangle overtop:

Color Club Earthy Angel:

Color Club New Bohemian:

Color Club Nomadic in Nude:

Color Club Rad Nomad:

Color Club Red-ical Gypsy – gotta say, the stereotypical gypsy-themed polish names just make me think of cultural appropriation… This is a nice red though, and look! An appearance from my little Thor!

With an accent of Cult Nails Hypnotize Me and Nubar V matte top coat:

Category:

China Glaze, Color Club, Cult Nails, FingerPaints, Frankenpolish, Joe Fresh, Kleancolor, Nubar, Orly

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

Great formula, shiny and smooth!

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.

Category:

Cult Nails, Kleancolor, Misa

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Soulstice Monterey and comparisons

I’ve got another Soulstice polish to show you today; this one is an older shade that I purchased online from Nail Polish Canada.

Monterey is a medium dusty blue creme. In fact, on applying one coat, it looks like the base is sheer and milky, which gives the polish its soft, dusty look. I had a hard time capturing the true colour of this shade; in real life it seems a bit softer than some of these photos suggest.

Monterey covers pretty well in two coats, although the formula is slightly thin so if your nails have ridges like mine, it’s better at three coats, which is what I used for these photos. I didn’t have any base coat under this swatch, so a ridge filler probably would have helped too.

Monterey in the shade:

I have a comparison to some other blue polishes that are actually not very similar to Monterey at all! From left to right, Cult Nails Time Traveler, Monterey, Nails Inc Baker Street, and Sally Girl Epic which is like a lighter version of Baker Street. Monterey actually looks truer to colour in this photo.

Left to right: Cult Nails Time Traveler, Soulstice Monterey, Nails Inc. Baker St, Sally Girl Epic

After doing that comparison, I realized that I actually *did* have a polish that was much closer to Monterey than the others, Nubar Boyfriend Jeans. This photo makes these polishes look darker than they are, but it shows the two relative to each other.

Top to bottom: Nubar Boyfriend Jeans, Soulstice Monterey

Closer, but far from being a dupe; Boyfriend Jeans has a hint of teal in it in comparison.

I love Monterey; I love the milkiness and the way it builds up and the fact that it’s super glossy (no top coat in these photos). And as the comparisons show, it’s also a totally unique shade of blue in my polish stash!

Category:

Cult Nails, Nubar, Sally Girl, Soulstice Spa

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Cult Nails I Got Distracted

Today I’ve got another polish from Coco’s Untamed collection by Cult Nails. The polishes in this collection were all designed by Coco, the daughter of Cult Nails’ founder!

I Got Distracted is a black jelly with small holo glitter and medium green glitter. Maria of Cult Nails shared the family joke behind the name of this shade – “I got distracted” is Coco’s classic excuse for anything she was supposed to do but didn’t, used so often that it just had to make an appearance among the polish names.

Shown are two coats; the formula was fairly thick but I found it easy to apply using thick coats. I almost didn’t need the second coat, as this polish is quite pigmented. It dries gritty from all the glitter so a good thick topcoat is in order. In these sun photos, I had on two layers of Cult Nails topcoat: one that I applied right after the polish, and another the following morning. The sun photos were also taken with my phone, which probably has something to do with the reason that the watermark ended up going on sideways! haha!

The rest of the photos only have one layer of topcoat and were taken just after finishing the mani. In the shade:

And finally, a couple of photos that show off the glitter a bit better! Under the Ott Lite:

With flash:

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Cult Nails

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Cult Nails Deal With It

This lovely super-bright lime green with golden yellow shimmer is Deal With It, from Coco’s Untamed Collection by Cult Nails. The collection was designed by Coco, the thirteen year old daughter of Cult Nails’ creator. I’ll have reviews of the other shades coming later!

The formula on this one is a bit sheer; here I used two coats but three would be better for those who don’t like visible nail line. The formula is a little bit thick, but not problematic to apply.

As you can see it dries to a satin finish; there must be some neon pigment in it which is not surprising! At any rate, this is an awesome shade!

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Cult Nails

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Cult Nails Enticing and comparisons

I’ve been meaning to get this post up for a while and finally here it is. This is Enticing from Cult Nails’ second-to-last collection, Divas and Drama. I took these photos when the collection was just released, so you can see why I say “finally” since a whole other collection has come out since then!

I used a base of Milani Smoothe ridge-filling base coat, then two thick coats of Enticing. I didn’t have any problems with streaks applying this way.

As you can see it’s a pale milky pink with fleck-type shimmer in it, and is somewhat jellyish.

I have the other polishes in this collection as well but haven’t swatched them yet (strangely enough, in a collection with a coral, a minty blue, and a flakie, the first one I wore was the less-exciting sheer pale pink!)

These photos are all taken in sunlight.

I compared Enticing to other pale pink polishes that I have, from left, Kleancolor Sheer Pastel Pink, China Glaze Encouragement, Cult Nails Enticing, Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely in Love, and Zoya Audrey.

Kleancolor Sheer Pastel Pink, on my thumb, is much more of a bubblegum shade than the others. The other polishes, index to pinkie, follow the same order as the bottle pic: China Glaze Encouragement, Cult Nails Enticing, Nicole by OPI Kim-pletely in Love, Zoya Audrey. Each swatch is two thick-ish coats over Milani Smoothe.

The base colour of the China Glaze, Cult Nails, and Nicole are very similar, but the shimmer and application distinguish them. China Glaze has shimmer that is coarser than Enticing, while Nicole has coarser shimmer that is actually blue, although that doesn’t always show up very obviously on the nails. In terms of application, the Nicole polish was the streakiest/most prone to bald spots of these three, followed by the China Glaze, and the Cult Nails polish had the least-streaky application.

Zoya Audrey, on my pinkie, is a warmer shade of pink than the other three. This polish came from one of Zoya’s two limited edition New York Fashion Week trios that came out a few months ago, this one being the Peter Som trio, so it isn’t readily available anymore as far as I know. It’s also a little streaky on application.

So there you go, in terms of formula the Cult Nails polish is the clear winner here, although I do prefer the blue shimmer in the Nicole polish. Just wish there was more of it so that it’d be more visible, and that the formula was more like Cult Nails’!

At any rate, Enticing is a great choice if you’re in the market for a milky pale pink with a bit of shimmer. Hopefully I’ll get to swatch the rest of the Divas and Drama collection soon (adding it to the long list of swatches and comparisons that I want to get around to “really soon”! haha)

Category:

China Glaze, Cult Nails, Kleancolor, Nicole by OPI, Zoya

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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!)

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

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

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”.

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.

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!

Category:

Color Club, Cult Nails

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Cult Nails Let’s Get Nekkid Collection

Today I have swatches of the latest Cult Nails collection to show you! The collection is called Let’s Get Nekkid and consists of four nude shades for a wide variety of skin tones as well as a green glittery flakie polish. The nudes are all named after nude beaches. As usual, you can click on any of the photos to see more detail.

I’ll go from lightest to darkest for the nudes, so first up is Mazo. This one works best as a nude on my pale self. It’s a sheer beige base with lots of golden shimmer. The shimmer is the large flake-type shimmer particle. Shown is three coats, but it was already smooth and even at only one coat (this one has the best formula in the collection in my opinion), so the choice of how many coats to use is strictly based on how sheer you want it to be.

Next is Baker, a deeper and more opaque tan beige with orange tones in it and with similar golden shimmer. The formula seemed a little thicker than Mazo but was still fairly smooth and even and could probably be used at one coat for a sheer wash of colour. I used three coats for the photos (it’s more opaque than Mazo, still a relatively sheer polish though, so I used three coats since my nails are a bit stained).

Tulum is a dusty chocolately medium taupe-brown with golden shimmer that doesn’t show up as much as it does in the first two polishes; I’m not sure if that’s just because the base is more opaque or if the particles themselves are different. This one was a little streaky on the first coat, and the formula was a little thin and threatened to run down the brush stem and flood the nail if I wasn’t careful. Adjusting to that, a second thicker coat on top of the first evened out the polish.

I did a comparison to Power Thief from Cult Nails’ previous collection (which I reviewed here), and as you can see, Power Thief (on the left) has more of a reddish-pink undertone and has denser shimmer that shows up more on the nail. The shimmer in Power Thief is silvery and flashes little sparkles of blue and pink in the light.

Cult Nails Power Thief (left) and Tulum (right)

The final nude shade is Swanbourne, a very deep neutral brown, again with golden shimmer. Like Tulum, this shade is opaque and the shimmers don’t show up as much as they do in the first two shades. Shown are two coats.

Last but not least we have the green flakie, Toxic Seaweed. This is a blue-toned green jelly with lots of small glitter and flakies that shift from red to yellow to green. This one has the same ingredient issue as Clairvoyant does, so unless they can find a new supplier or substitute for that ingredient, it will be limited edition. So, if you like this one, get it while you can; it’s still available on Cult Nails’ website as of the time I’m publishing this post!

The formula on this one was thinner than I expected, but only because I imagined it would be super-thick and it wasn’t. It applied just fine and this was two coats. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about this one; I love it at an angle when the flakes are reflecting yellow, but straight on it can have a red-and-green kind of Christmasy look to it that isn’t really my favourite.

Since I usually show the glitter or flakie polish over the others when I review Cult Nails collections, I did it again here although it’s not really as appropriate in this case – Mazo is too light to change its look, Baker just kind of makes the colour more muted by removing the blue tone, over Tulum it becomes sort of a swampy looking thing (kind of interesting, actually) – layering it over Swanbourne makes the most sense! This photo shows one coat of Toxic Seaweed layered over Mazo, Baker, Tulum and Swanbourne (left to right).

My overall impression of this collection is great; I love nudes and these ones have golden shimmer which makes me love them even more! Those with cool, pink-toned skin may not be quite as thrilled with this collection as I am, but I can see Mazo becoming a go-to nude polish for me since it matches my skin tone quite well and looks good at one coat (or at least it would without the stained nails!!) as well as at two or three! Baker is another favourite; I love the golden orangey-peachy tan tone. All of these shades are pretty unique in my collection. I do recommend waiting a couple minutes between coats when applying the darker among these polishes to prevent dragging and bald spots.

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Cult Nails

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Vegan Claws

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

Archive for the ‘Cult Nails’ Category

Zoya Zuza, Wednesday, and comparisons

China Glaze Sun of a Peach and comparisons

From the Vault

Some Cult Nails Swatches

Soulstice Monterey and comparisons

Cult Nails I Got Distracted

Cult Nails Deal With It

Cult Nails Enticing and comparisons

Color Club Frills and Cult Nails Feel Me Up

Cult Nails Let’s Get Nekkid Collection

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