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

Archive for the ‘Kleancolor’ Category

Kleancolor Café au Lait

Today’s polish is one of my very favourite nude polishes, Kleancolor Café au Lait! It’s a highly pigmented beige creme with yellow and peach undertones.

Kleancolor Café au Lait

The formula is thick like Kleancolor cremes tend to be, but not in a bad way, and it covers completely in two coats. Shown are two coats with topcoat, in sunlight.

Kleancolor Café au Lait

This next photo turned out brighter/darker than the polish really is…

Kleancolor Café au Lait

I love this shade on my skintone. It’s really subtle and yet still a kind of offbeat shade because of the yellow in it. It’s what I reach for if I don’t know what I want to wear on my nails.

Kleancolor Café au Lait

Since it was starting to have small chips after day one (standard for me), I decided to add some crackle on top to cover those up for the next day. I added China Glaze Tarnished Gold crackle. Then, for good measure, I added two layers of Orly Prisma Gloss Gold, a fine gold glitter with some fine holo glitter dispersed throughout.

Kleancolor Café au Lait, China Glaze Tarnished Gold, Orly Prisma Gloss Gold

Kind of a monochromatic crackle/glitter combo. I prefer Café au Lait on its own though!

Kleancolor Café au Lait, China Glaze Tarnished Gold, Orly Prisma Gloss Gold

The holo glitter particles in Prisma Gloss Gold are very elusive; maybe they would be less so over a more contrasting base! This blurred photo is the only one I took where they sort of show up on the nail!

Kleancolor Café au Lait, China Glaze Tarnished Gold, Orly Prisma Gloss Gold

Kleancolor Pink Lady

This polish is another unique shade from Kleancolor! I haven’t seen any other polish like this, anyway. Pink Lady is a neon hot pink creme with small silver foily flake-type shimmer. It has the typical nice thick pigmented Kleancolor Creme formula. I used two coats plus top coat here. Since it has a neon formula, it dries semi-matte before the top coat is applied.

Kleancolor Pink Lady

I decided to do a Konad accent nail, but the first shade I stamped on didn’t show up very well so I ended up stamping again overtop with a different polish. The first polish I used was Kleancolor Neon Fuchsia (which is actually a neon red; I don’t see any fuchsia in it, anyway!), which didn’t really contrast enough against the base to look good. So on top I added a second stamp using Kleancolor Metallic Pink, an intense fuchsia foil.

Kleancolor Pink Lady, stamped on ring finger with Kleancolor Neon Fuchsia and Kleancolor Metallic Pink

I really like the multi-layer effect! The stamp I used was a fern design from Konad plate M83.

Kleancolor Pink Lady, stamped on ring finger with Kleancolor Neon Fuchsia and Kleancolor Metallic Pink

White Creme Comparison

Today I’ve got a comparison to show you of the plain white creme polishes that I own. As you’ll see, one of the four is the clear winner in terms of opacity and formula!

White creme comparison

From left to right, we have: Color Club French Tip, Kleancolor White, Sally Girl Pure, and Milani White on the Spot. This is the order in which I acquired these polishes, and getting the Milani from their fast-dry line with its supposed “one coat formula” is what prompted the comparison. I was skeptical and figured that was total BS since white cremes are notoriously streaky and badly-behaved, but as it turns out, the Milani white is actually *almost* a one-coater so the claim is only a slight exaggeration!

This first photo shows one coat of each polish, index to pinkie (bottom to top) in the same order as the bottles. I applied them all with a fairly thick coat (basically just not wiping off the brush on the bottle rim before applying), since whites and pastels usually benefit from a light touch rather than applying a lot of very thin coats which tend to go on streakier.

White creme comparison - 1 coat

As you can see, the Milani on the pinkie is actually not bad, some bald areas but not too streaky looking! The other three polishes were very similar to one another (in terms of how the photo looks, the Sally Girl on my ring finger has an unfair disadvantage here, since that nail has the most ridges and for some reason has more of an orange stain than the others!). They were streakier and less self-leveling than the Milani. My mini bottle of Kleancolor needed a few drops of thinner in it, but that was no doubt just due to the fact that it’s the one I’ve actually used the most. I actually prefer the Kleancolor’s thick consistency among those three other polishes.

Here they are at two coats (without top coat). You can see that the Milani on my pinkie is the most opaque and smoothest; the others are slightly ridged lengthwise since they don’t self-level as well as the Milani. In terms of drying time, I didn’t really notice the Milani being much quicker than the others or anything, but they all dried fairly quickly.

White creme comparison - 2 coats

Next I wanted to compare them in terms of how well they do for stamping. As a base I used one coat of Kleancolor Plum (followed by some quick dry top coat), then I used a design from Konad plate M15 and stamped on each polish in the same order as before (here, left to right). Please disregard the smudged/missing and crooked parts (augh, that pinkie!); that’s just user error and not the polishes!! They all worked pretty similarly but the Milani and the Color Club gave a slightly brighter white image.

White creme comparison - stamping

Next I stamped using the French tip designs from Konad M86. (Polishes are in the same order index to pinkie, so now, right to left.) As you can see they don’t work so well for these larger-area images, though the actual gaps in the design are more user error than anything else. None of them leaves a very opaque image though; the stamps all have a sort of rippled look to them. Not sure if that could be reduced a bit by using a lighter touch when transferring the image onto the stamper. Again the Milani and Color Club give a slightly brighter result.

White creme comparison - stamping

After stamping on the French tips I carefully went over them again with polish, just brushing it on, to fill them in and attempt to make them somewhat presentable. Here’s the result; all of them worked fine for this but the Milani did give the smoothest result. In terms of brushes, I should mention that the Fast Dry Milanis have a flat wide brush, similar to OPI and Kleancolor brushes. (Even the Kleancolor minis have a flat brush, though on a smaller scale. The other two polishes here have skinny round brushes.)

White creme comparison - french tips

Another photo featuring Wade in the background!

So there you have it; best white creme polish in my (albeit limited) experience is definitely Milani’s White on the Spot!

May Day!

Kleancolor Black with red stars that I picked out of Kleancolor Blind Date, in honour of International Workers’ Day.

Kleancolor Black with red stars picked out of Kleancolor Blind Date

Color Club Metamorphosis and comparison

Today I have Color Club Metamorphosis to show you, and a comparison to Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus which I previously blogged about here. These two are very close dupes!

Metamorphosis is from Color Club’s recently released Take Wing collection for summer 2012. It’s a teal glass-fleck with blue/violet duochrome.

Here it is at two coats in natural overcast light. Formula was great.

Color Club Metamorphosis

Color Club Metamorphosis

Color Club Metamorphosis

And here are the two polishes side-by-side in the bottle.

Color Club Metamorphosis and Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus

On the nail, two coats each. Index and ring are Metamorphosis, middle and pinky are Iceberg Lotus. The only difference I saw is that Metamorphosis is slightly denser/more opaque.

Color Club Metamorphosis and Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus

Color Club Metamorphosis and Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus

Two coats each over one coat of Kleancolor Black, again index and ring are Metamorphosis, middle and pinky are Iceberg Lotus. It doesn’t really show in the pictures, but Iceberg Lotus seemed to show very slightly more duochrome, probably because it’s slightly more sheer.

Color Club Metamorphosis and Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus, over black

Color Club Metamorphosis and Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus, over black

Color Club Metamorphosis and Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus, over black

Color Club Metamorphosis and Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus, over black

So there you have it; I’d say these are definitely dupes! Good thing they’re awesome! 😀

Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus

This is another one of my very favourite polishes! I believe Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus was first released last spring. I still see it at some stores that sell Nicole polish, but not others, here in Canada. It’s an amazing teal duochrome with a near-foil glass-fleck shimmer finish that flashes from blue through to purple. I photographed it over black since it really brings out the duochrome that way. The formula is great; no complaints there. Two coats over one coat of Kleancolor Black, shown in natural overcast light.

Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus over black

Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus over black

Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus over black

Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus over black

China Glaze Optical Illusion

I was very excited last night when I received this in the mail! (And surprised – that seller shipped fast!!) Optical Illusion, from China Glaze’s brand new Prismatics collection, which I believe is due out in stores in March.

China Glaze Optical Illusion, one coat layered over one coat Kleancolor Black

China Glaze Optical Illusion, one coat layered over one coat Kleancolor Black

I was all prepared to be disappointed with this, first of all since the first press release made it seem like they were going to be holographic polishes, but it eventually became known that they weren’t, and second of all since there are very few swatches online as of now and the ones there are, well, to be honest I wasn’t really impressed with the looks of the polishes.

But now that I have one of them any disappointment has totally evaporated! This is a really cool polish!

China Glaze calls these chroma glitters, and uses the phrase “holographic-like technology” in its description of these. I was very curious about this, since I understood “chroma glitters”, glitter and duochrome, but I was at a loss as to what they meant by “holographic-like” technology. So, it’s not holo but it’s holo-like?? Turns out that description is pretty apt! When I look at the polish on my nails sparkling in the light, I can swear it looks like there are small holo glitters in there, but looking at the bottle none of the glitter appears to be holographic! Feels like one way or the other, my eyes are playing tricks on me! The name of this colour definitely fits!

Anyway, on to the swatches. As usual you can click on them to see larger versions. I took some of the photos last night in artificial light and some this morning in indirect daylight, and they aren’t the greatest photos ever, but I’m hoping to make up for that in sheer numbers, ha! I took a bunch in various different indoor lighting to try to show off different aspects of the polish. These first photos are all indoor, artificial light, two coats of Optical Illusion and one thick coat of Poshe topcoat. Please disregard the bald spot on my ring finger, I didn’t notice it during application!

Still indoor, with flash:

Next, I decided to layer Optical Illusion over black since that tends to show off duochrome really well. The rest of the photos show one coat of Optical Illusion over one coat of Kleancolor Black, with Poshe topcoat. These first ones are indoor, artificial light. You may notice I have stray glitter stuck to my fingers in these. I was too excited about taking more photos to bother fully cleaning up the residue after removing the Optical-Illusion-only version!

Artificial light, with flash:

From this morning, in natural indirect light:

Natural indirect light, with flash:

Well. As you can see from the photos, this is a turquoise microglitter polish with all sorts of different coloured glitters, both small and hex shaped medium, that sparkle like crazy, as well as duochrome that flashes magenta-purple. Pretty amazing!

I had no trouble with application; it’s quite thick like these dense glitters usually are, but it wasn’t problematic. It dries rough as is to be expected. After the single thick layer of Poshe I put on, the one coat of Optical Illusion over black now feels only very slightly textured on my nails, so I’m sure a second layer of topcoat would get it totally smooth. Certainly not the roughest glitter out there!

As you might have guessed by now, my verdict on Optical Illusion is two thumbs up! I definitely want to get a few more from this collection!

Kleancolor Holo Pink and Holo Orange over Milani Retro

Kleancolor has a half dozen of these holo glitter polishes in different colours; I decided to layer the pink and the orange over 2 coats of Milani Retro, which is a pastel coral creme with subtle shimmer (and a nice formula!).

These are holo glitters, not smooth holo particles, so they do dry rough. They also don’t dry all that quickly, but don’t take as long as the Kleancolor layering glitters which can sometimes be really bad! Shown are two coats of each glitter, with top coat. On their own, they may need 3 coats for opacity; I’m not sure.

In the sun:
Kleancolor Holo Pink and Holo Orange over Milani Retro

The pink and orange are both pastels; they appear darker and more pink/coral here because of the coral polish underneath.

In the shade:
Kleancolor Holo Pink and Holo Orange over Milani Retro

I didn’t really care for the pink all that much on my skintone, but I really like the orange and plan to try it on its own as well as over other bases. Also looking forward to trying Holo Yellow!

Orly Au Champagne

This lovely white pearl-finish polish is Orly Au Champagne from the holiday 2011 collection. Unfortunately I had an incident involving my index finger and some packing tape before I could take pictures, so I decided to try to cover the chip with stamping which didn’t work that well and went on crooked, but anyway…

Orly Au Champagne stamped with Kleancolor Metallic Sapphire

Orly Au Champagne stamped with Kleancolor Metallic Sapphire

This is two coats of Au Champagne, no top coat. It dries to this great semi-matte pearly satiny finish, really cool. The polish is thick but smooth and easy to work with. I used Kleancolor Metallic Sapphire to stamp on it with a fleur de lys design from Konad plate M15. The Kleancolor metallics are great for stamping; my stamping skills are still less than great heheh.

OPI Fly and comparisons

At the risk of making it seem like all I post is OPI, here’s yet another one! This is OPI Fly from their recently released Nicki Minaj collection. I wasn’t going to get any polishes from this collection but when I saw them in store I couldn’t resist getting Fly. I’m powerless against turquoise!

I didn’t have any good light for swatching but I figured I’d just do it anyway. This is two coats of Fly, no top coat, in natural overcast light.
OPI Fly, overcast natural light

With Flash:
OPI Fly, with flash

Since I’m a total sucker for this kind of colour, I (of course) already had a polish that is very, very close to Fly, that polish being Milani’s Fresh Teal, which is one of their neons. I also added Kleancolor Catch Me to my comparison, since it’s fairly similar as well.

These are all two coats, no top coat – index and ring: OPI Fly, middle and pinky: Milani Fresh Teal, thumb: Kleancolor Catch Me.

In overcast natural light:
OPI Fly, Milani Fresh Teal, Kleancolor Catch Me, overcast natural light

With flash:
OPI Fly, Milani Fresh Teal, Kleancolor Catch Me, with flash

OPI Fly, Milani Fresh Teal, Kleancolor Catch Me, with flash

OPI Fly, Milani Fresh Teal, Kleancolor Catch Me, with flash

Milani Fresh Teal is just a tiny smidgen brighter and greener than Fly. I found the Milani more opaque than the OPI at one coat (it could probably be a one-coater if you use a thick coat). Both applied really well and were self-leveling.

The Kleancolor is similar to Fresh Teal in terms of hue but is a few shades lighter (and is the most opaque of these three polishes, easily a one-coater, like a lot of Kleancolor cremes are); I just thought I’d add it for comparison’s sake.

I should probably redo this comparison when there’s sun to do a better job of showing the differences, as the flash tends to wash things out…

My preference/recommendation between Fly and Fresh Teal is Fresh Teal. Not only is it less expensive it’s also a bit more opaque and brighter.