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

I recently got the entire Ellagee Beach Bum collection of sunbleached neons, and here is the first (evolving) mani I did with a few of them. Including my first successful watermarble attempts! πŸ˜€

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Here are the three shades I started with, By The Sea, Salty Breeze, and Snoozing in the Hammock:

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My only previous watermarble attempt was a failure given that it was about 15 degrees Celsius in my place at the time. This time, in the summer, things went a lot better. Not without issues, my first try below had to be redone because I got too much of the polish on my fingertip and it kind of ran all over my nail covering the design I’d originally tried to pick up.

Oh and the little cup I’m using is the China Glaze shot glass from one of their holiday sets a few years ago. πŸ˜€ I also used Sticky Paws liquid latex from Eat Sleep Polish around my nail for clean up; clearly on my first try there I didn’t go far enough down my finger so I added more for the next tries! I should also mention that as base for all the watermarbled nails shown here, I used one generous coat of Milani White On The Spot.

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The marble isn’t perfect; I did get a spot from where a water bubble got stuck in the polish, but I was happy with how it turned out!

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On my left hand I did the other fingers in By the Sea, and on my right hand in Snoozing in the Hammock. I used two coats plus top coat for each; they had a good formula that self levels pretty well.
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Both hands together:

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With little Wu in the background:

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For the second day I changed things up a bit by painting Salty Breeze on a couple of the nails on my left hand. It had a similar formula to the previous two and this is also two coats plus top coat:

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On my right hand I changed the watermarble as well as a couple of the plain fingers. Unlike the other photos which were in sunlight, these ones are with flash.

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This time I used Beach Bum, the peach from the collection, along with Salty Breeze and Snoozing in the Hammock for the watermarble, and painted my thumb and middle finger with Beach Bum.

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For Beach Bum I needed three coats plus top coat since it was still a little streaky at two, but that may have just been me not being as careful.

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So far I’m loving these Ellagee polishes, and I definitely recommend them if you’re looking for pastel neons! And I was so happy to have a watermarbling success! The designs aren’t perfect but at least they went on my nails ok! Next I’ll work on making nice, smoother swirly designs. πŸ˜€

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Black Dahlia Lacquer Mountain Laurel is a really nice lavender holo with subtle blue-purple glass flecks. It has a great formula and I used two coats plus top coat for this mani. With flash:

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Under Ott Lite:

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Sparitual Nomad

This gorgeous beauty is SpaRitual Nomad, a complex duochrome-fleck shimmer that dries to a satin-matte finish and has an olive base with copper-pink-to-green shifting shimmer flecks, sometimes giving it a more brown or coppery overall look, sometimes more green. I used two coats, no top coat. The formula was great and dried quickly.

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I then added topcoat to see how it would look shiny (looks amazing, of course!), and did an accent nail using Nubar Wildlife on my ring finger. Wildlife is basically the smooth metallic counterpart to Nomad; the colours and their shift are very similar! I also used two coats for Wildlife, no top coat. Love both of these!

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This gorgeous apricot-toned gold holo is A Parliament of Owls by Smitten Polish. Three coats with an easy to work with and fast-drying holo formula. In the sun:

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With flash:

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In shade:

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 I stamped it using Smitten Polish Seasonal Lattes and a design from Messy Mansion plate MM-13. Under halogen light:

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With flash:

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In shade:

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 Girly Bits Mint-al Precision is a bright turquoise creme with gold iridescent microglitter and blue glass-fleck/flake-type shimmer. It dries slightly textured before topcoat. I used three coats, to cover some patchy spots, plus topcoat for this mani. 

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I added one coat of IndiePolish Miami Beach on my ring fingers and thumbs. 

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Miami Beach, which is unfortunately no longer available, is a matte glitter topper with large neon coral and yellow-lime satin hexes, medium yellow matte hexes, and tiny matte hot pink, yellow-lime satin, and metallic green hexes. Really like this colour combination! 

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I have two thermals from Echoes Polish to show you today! Happily Ever After is a tri-thermal shifting from a warm purple when cold to a fuchshia pink when warm to a very pale lilac-leaning blue when hot, and has heavy gold flake shimmer throughout. The April 2015 Thank You thermal (Echoes polish creates a limited edition thermal each month and sends them out free in orders of 5 or more polishes) is a blue-purple when cold changing to a bright hot pink when hot, and also has shimmer. 

Happily Ever After is shown on my index and middle fingers, April 2015 on my ring, pinkie and thumb. I used three coats each plus topcoat, and both had great formulas. No sun when I wore these, so all photos are either in shade or with flash. 

Cold, in shade:

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Cold, with flash:

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Warmer, with flash:

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Hot, in shade:

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Hot, with flash:

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In transition, with flash:

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 In transition, shade:

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Now, let me start by saying that I totally blame Sandra of Finger Candy for my purchasing Different Dimension’s Luminosity, since I just had to buy it after she shared photos of it some months ago. Adding Light Year and *ahem* several more of its sibling polishes to my order, well, I guess that’s all on me! πŸ˜‰

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Luminosity is a mauve-leaning pinky purple with lots of gold glass fleck, my kind of polish! (Hence, why I bought most of the other similar glass-flecked polishes from that collection, too!) I used three coats plus topcoat here (although the third probably wasn’t strictly necessary).

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Light Year is one of the other polishes I got; it’s a dusty olive/sage green with the same gold glass-fleck shimmer. I also used three coats plus top coat here.

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Love these! And I should really get around to wearing the others I got from the collection…

I’ve got some nail art to show you today! I was kind of ridiculously proud of the result of this first time using nail vinyls, haha. πŸ˜€

I started with Picture Polish Cherish, a light beige creme-based scattered holo. I used three coats plus topcoat for this swatch (although two coats would probably be fine for non-ridgey nails).

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I added chevron nail vinyls (the ones I used were fromΒ nailvinyls.comΒ although I received them as a sampleΒ inΒ a Cult Nails purchase quite a long timeΒ ago!) and then applied two other Picture Polish scattered holos, Forget Me Not on the cuticle side and Demeter on the free edge side, before removing the vinyls and applying a final topcoat. Unfortunately my camera refused to capture the true colour of Forget Me Not, but I have a phone pic at the end that shows its rich, deep blue much better.

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I was so happy with how these turned out! Here is the more colour-accurate photo of Forget Me Not – my camera shows it much too light in the above pics!

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Black Dahlia Lacquer Swan River Daisy is a turquoise/teal crelly with red-gold-green shifting flakies in it. Two coats plus top coat, great application. Love this polish!

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Dichromate is a thermal polish from Polished by KPT, shifting from yellow when warm to orange when cold. It has lots of silver shimmer in it giving a foil effect. Shown in various degrees/various finger combinations of warm/cold. 

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 I stamped over it using Kleancolor Metallic Mango and a pattern from Messy Mansion plate MM-13. I really like how it turned out! 

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