Vegan Claws

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

Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14, 2012

I wasn’t originally planning to do anything special with my nails for Valentine’s Day, but then I put on Zoya’s Cho right before bed last night, didn’t use quick-dry topcoat, and woke up with my own fingerprints on several of the nails, haha!

So, this morning I decided to add some glitter to cover up the fingerprints – LA Girls Glitter Addict polishes in Inspire (light pink) and Animate (red). I topped it off with a layer of Zoya Lucy, a sheer jellyish off-white, for a somewhat subtle-looking jelly sandwich. Pics are in artificial light with flash.

Category:

LA Girl, Zoya

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China Glaze Optical Illusion

February 10, 2012

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

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!

Category:

China Glaze, Kleancolor

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Zoya Natalie, SpaRitual Savoir Faire, & what not to do with drying drops…

February 6, 2012

Today I’ve got a couple of polishes I’d like to share, and a nail art combo using both that got ruined because I was forgetful! More on that later!

First is Zoya Natalie, an orangey brown shade with a bit of a dusty mauve undertone. I really like this! Two coats, great formula.

Natural light:

Artificial light:

Next up, SpaRitual Savoir Faire – an old-fashioned looking dusty pink-mauve that I wouldn’t have given a second look not long ago! As it is, I only got it because it was part of a good deal on a set of five SpaRituals, but now that I’ve tried it I kind of like it. I guess I’m branching out into shades I didn’t like before! I like that it’s a relatively light, conservative pink that I actually don’t hate on my skin tone! This is two coats; formula was also great.

Natural light:

Artificial light:

Now here is the mani I did using both of those polishes plus Zoya Flowie, which is similar to Natalie but much lighter and less orange. I had on Savoir Faire, and then used French tip guide stickers midway up each nail and painted Natalie above the stickers, Flowie below on the tips. I like the combination of all these dusty rosy-undertoned shades.

The unfortunate part happened after I used Zoya’s drying drops to dry the polish before peeling off the stickers. I waited a few minutes, intending to wash off the residue from the drying drops before applying top coat, but I got distracted by something else and by the time I finished waiting I had forgotten all about rinsing first! So I put on the top coat which turned all cloudy around the edges because it was being applied overtop of drying drops! Oooops, haha! Hence the “what not to do” part of the post title. It’s more visible on the large version of the photos so you may want to click on them if you want to see the icky cloudy ring-around-the-polish. So there is my manicure advice for today; don’t do what I did! 😀

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SpaRitual, Zoya

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OPI DS Tapestry

January 31, 2012

A quick post today to show you OPI DS Tapestry, #29 in their designer series line (one of the later ones, so I think it’s still relatively easy to find compared to the original DS releases!). It’s a very nice scattered holo in a rusty medium red with orange and rosy brown undertones – I’d call it a true brick colour. Apparently OPI calls it a “dazzling deep rose”; I have to disagree. Anyway, this is two coats, and the formula is wonderful as is usual for DS holos.

Sunlight:

Shade:

Indoors (under halogen light):

And sunlight again:

Category:

OPI

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Sally Girl TTFN and comparisons

January 26, 2012

If you’ve been to a Sally Beauty Supply store lately you may have noticed that they have five new shades in their Sally Girl line of mini nail polishes. I got a couple of the new ones, including this one called TTFN. And guess what, these new ones actually show the names on the bottles! At the top right of the little sticker along the side. No more cross-referencing the 6-digit number on the sally.com site to try to figure out what the polish’s name is, haha!

Two coats of TTFN. It was a little streaky on the first coat, but a second thicker coat evened everything out. Colour-wise, this slightly dusty, minty sage green is in between Orly Ancient Jade (which is a tiny bit deeper and brighter), and Misa Catch a Flick (which is a little lighter), as the following photo shows (top to bottom, Catch a Flick, TTFN, Ancient Jade).

In terms of formula, Ancient Jade had a formula that was thinner than TTFN but was also more pigmented and opaque. Catch a Flick had a formula similar to TTFN, a little streaky on the first coat but evening up at the second.

I also compared a couple of other colours for reference. Thumb to pinky, NYX Girls Algae, much darker and bluer, Orly Ancient Jade, Sally Girl TTFN, Misa Catch a Flick, and Nubar Vogue Vert, lighter and more of a dusty yellow-based sage.

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Misa, Nubar, NYX, Orly, Sally Girl

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Cult Nails Super Powers Collection

January 23, 2012

Today I have for you Cult Nails’ Super Powers Collection, released for Winter 2011-2012. This contains the flakie polish Clairvoyant, which was formerly a limited edition called Unicorn Puke. I was lucky that I bought the collection during its pre-sale, because Clairvoyant is now sold out and they’re not sure if they’re going to be able to make more, since one of the flakie ingredients was discontinued by the manufacturer. Hopefully they’ll find a new source!!

Clairvoyant:

This is three coats of Clairvoyant (no top coat), a medium purple jelly with multicoloured iridescent flakes. The flakies are pretty similar in colour to the new Fingerpaints Twisted flakie, but with the obvious difference of the purple base. Love this polish, hope it isn’t gone for good!

Power Thief:

Power Thief, a neutral medium chocolatey brown with silvery shimmer flecks that sort of reflect different colours in the light. This was two coats (no top coat) and the formula was thick but smooth. Another favourite from this collection.

Time Traveler:

Tardis-blue jelly! This was the thickest of the collection. One thick coat might even be enough, but I did two regular coats. No top coat here; look at that shine! Deep yet bright blue, love it!

Mind Control:

Sheer charcoal with duochrome purple shimmer flakes that shift to greenish-gold in the light. This one had the thinnest formula of the collection; this is three coats (no top coat), and it did need the third. It wasn’t especially difficult to apply, though. I decided to do a comparison with two other polishes I have.

Index to ring: NYX Deep Space, Cult Nails Mind Control, Color Club Alias

These all have fairly thin formulas (in fact I’d say Mind Control has the thickest of the three), and all are shown with three coats. The NYX has larger, but more sparse shimmer flakes than Mind Control does. Color Club Alias has a noticeably more purple base (as the second photo shows) and has denser sparkle than the others. Alias is my favourite of the three, but I haven’t really been into these sorts of charcoal/purple shades lately. They’re all very nice polishes with decent formulas, though.

Finally, I have some photos of Clairvoyant layered over the other three polishes in the collection! Index is two coats of Power Thief, middle 3 coats of Mind Control, and ring one coat of Time Traveler. All have one coat of Clairvoyant over top. The sun was starting to set here so that affected the colouring of the photos a bit.

Overall, a great collection! The polishes range in consistency but all were easy to work with. Looking forward to their next collection. Which coincidentally has just been announced today on Maria’s blog (Maria is the creator of Cult Nails). It’s called Let’s Get Nekkid and features four nude shades with golden shimmer and a (sadly, limited edition due to the ingredient issue) aqua-green flakie! Looking forward to it!!

Category:

Color Club, Cult Nails, NYX

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Kleancolor Holo Pink and Holo Orange over Milani Retro

January 18, 2012

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:

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

In the shade:

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!

Category:

Kleancolor, Milani

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Multi-Coloured Glitter Comparison

January 16, 2012

When I reviewed Soulstice Spa’s LA in October, I mentioned that I would do a comparison with several other multi-coloured glitter polishes I have. It’s been a while but here is that comparison. I don’t own the famous “original” glitter of this type, Deborah Lippmann’s Happy Birthday, but here are the ones I do have.

From left, OPI Rainbow Connection, Soulstice Spa LA, Essence Circus Confetti, NYX Girls Carnival, Wet n Wild Party of 5 Glitters. Click on any of these photos to see more detail in the larger versions. And please excuse the pink-stained nails! All of these polishes have clear bases and any pink or orangey colour you see is just the evidence of my most recent manicures.

Here they are at one coat, thumb to pinky in the same order as above: thumb OPI Rainbow Conncetion, index Soulstice Spa LA, middle Essence Circus Confetti, ring NYX Girls Carnival, pinky Wet n Wild Party of 5 Glitters. OPI and Essence are clearly the densest of the bunch, followed by the Soulstice.

At two coats:

And at three coats:

As mentioned above the OPI and NYX are denser than the others, and the Essence and Wet n Wild are least dense. The OPI is different in that it has larger hex glitters in addition to the small and medium.

Colour-wise, the Wet n Wild is the most different among them since it has fewer colours and lacks any yellow or warm-toned orangey red glitter. It’s also my least favourite of these polishes for that reason. The Essence polish has more pink glitter than any of the others, including some lighter pink, and has some darker blue as well. NYX Girls Carnival is missing the light pink and dark blue of the Essence, but also has small cool-toned cherry-red glitter that the others aside from Wet n Wild don’t. OPI Rainbow Connection and Soulstice Spa LA are similar colour-wise to the NYX Girls but without the cool-toned cherry red. I’d say the NYX also has a higher concentration of yellow glitter, and the Soulstice has a lower concentration of pink glitter. The yellow glitter in Essence is a paler than the yellows in all the others, more of a gold.

My picks from these are, well, the denser ones/ones with the most yellow glitter – NYX Girls Carnival and OPI Rainbow Connection, followed by Soulstice LA!

Category:

Essence, NYX, OPI, Soulstice Spa, Wet n Wild

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Orly Au Champagne

January 15, 2012

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…

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.

Category:

Kleancolor, Konad (stamping plates), Orly

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OPI Fly and comparisons

January 8, 2012

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.

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:

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.

Category:

Kleancolor, Milani, OPI

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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.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

China Glaze Optical Illusion

Zoya Natalie, SpaRitual Savoir Faire, & what not to do with drying drops…

OPI DS Tapestry

Sally Girl TTFN and comparisons

Cult Nails Super Powers Collection

Kleancolor Holo Pink and Holo Orange over Milani Retro

Multi-Coloured Glitter Comparison

Orly Au Champagne

OPI Fly and comparisons

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