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

Posts tagged ‘cats’

Some Zoya Polishes and a Seche Vive Review

I received a bottle of Seche Vive “Instant Gel Effect” top coat to review from the folks at Nail Polish Canada. 🙂 I thought I’d do a post on my favourite use for Seche Vive: smoothing out texture polishes to make them glossy! Here it is over Zoya’s new pixie dust, Juniper!

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I find it works best when you let the texture polish dry (or mostly dry), then add a layer of Gelous (from Sally Beauty), followed by the Sèche Vive. (Maybe two layers of Gelous for a really stubborn textured polish!)

Unlike Seche Vite which needs to go over wet polish, Vive is supposed to be used over dry(er) polish. So I let the Gelous dry for a couple minutes before adding the Seche Vive.

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And here is an older mani with Zoya Saint and Alice, where Alice has been topcoated using the Gelous/Sèche Vive combo.

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Thor in the next pic!

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One caveat, the instructions say to put Sèche Vive over dry polish, but the reason I said dry(er) above is that I find it works best over semi-dry, but not fully dry polish. At least, when I tried to put a second layer of it over itself on Zoya Saint, this wrinkling happened:

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So, I’m not positive if that was because it was dry before I applied more, or if Sèche Vive just doesn’t like going on top of itself!

One last pic, this is Zoya Roxy with Kissy on the tips, all smoothed with Sèche Vive. In addition to texture polishes, it does a great job on regular glitters that tend to be a bit gritty!

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All that to say, although I don’t use it with every mani, I really like the Sèche Vive gel effect and it’s my go-to for smoothing glitters and textures!

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Category:

Seche, Zoya

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Pretty Serious Pookie and stamping

Happy New Year! This beautiful, bright blue polish is Pookie from the Pretty Serious Well Meaning But Ultimately Quite Awkward Pet Names collection!

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Two coats plus top coat, great formula! Love this unique shade of turquoise blue!

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Now, Pookie is one of the nicknames  of my cat Possum – actually, The Lady-Pookie is her full nickname. Because Pookie was a nickname of one of my parents’ cats (may he rest in peace) who was an orange tabby, and Possum is also an orange tabby but a female orange tabby.  I tried to take a “my nails and my cat” pic here but she wasn’t too thrilled with the flash!

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I stamped over Pookie using Kleancolor Metallic Orange and these cute little roly-poly cats that remind me of Possum, from Hehe plate Hehe-023!

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Here’s Possum still at the top of that cat tree, still not looking too thrilled! 

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Sometimes she likes to roll around on the floor and show off her super fluffy belly!

❤

Category:

Hehe stamping plates, Kleancolor, Pretty Serious

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Zoya Gretchen and Femme Fatale Heart’s Desires

Zoya Gretchen is a nude-ish brownish dusty rose kind of colour that I applied here in two coats (plus top coat). The accent nail is two coats of Femme Fatale Heart’s Desires, a very unique mauve-ish dusty rose base filled with red-gold-green flakies and tiny red holo microglitter sparks. Photos with flash. 

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The next day I added two coats of Heart’s Desires overtop of Gretchen and stamped on the accent nail using Kleancolor Metallic Green and an image from Hehe-024. The combo of Heart’s Desires plus green made the accent nail look kind of orange overall!

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Here’s the reason I bought Zoya Gretchen – former feral kitty Gretchen! She’s a torbie (brown tabby with some orange tabby patches), although it doesn’t really show in these photos.   

  

Gretchen actually doesn’t really get along very well with a lot of the cats, but there are a few she likes. Here she is cuddled up and spooning with Tex! <3<3<3

  

 

Category:

Femme Fatale, Hehe stamping plates, Zoya

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Black Cat Lacquer The Emperor

The Emperor by Black Cat Lacquer is from their Tarot collection. The name is also one of the (many, many) nicknames of one of my cats – SP, aka Emperor Spee. 😀

The Emperor is a dark brown creme-based holo with additional irregular-shaped micro holo shards. I had seen them described as both ‘flakes’ and ‘shreds’ so I wasn’t sure if they were flakes of true holo particles (smooth) or if they were more like glitter shards (slight texture that needs a topcoat to smooth), so I wanted to mention that it’s the latter, in case anyone is uncertain like I was. Here is the Emperor under Ottlite:

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I used two coats plus top coat. The accent nail has a base of Zoya Codie with a half moon in Zoya Nina. Under halogen light:

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With flash:

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Love this deep brown combo, even if in most lighting the contrast between the two colours on the accent nail wasn’t as strong as I’d thought it would be. 

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And here are some pics of my feline Emperor Spee; he’s a little black cat and with the bright sunlight bringing out the brown highlights in his fur, The Emperor polish matches him well! ❤  

Category:

Black Cat Lacquer, Zoya

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A couple of China Glaze and Ellagee comparisons

Here’s a subtle single-dotted mani I did with China Glaze Sun Upon My Skin and Be More Pacific, using a dotting tool to add one dot of the other colour on each nail near the cuticle. 

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I used three coats plus top coat for both of these. The formula wasn’t my favourite; I found them a bit runny and not very self-leveling, and got some small bubbles in a few nails. But the colours are pretty. 

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Here’s Thor hanging out in the background!

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With flash:

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I wanted to compare these pastels to a couple of similar Ellagee pastels from their Beach Bum collection – She Sells Seashells (yellow) and Seaside Cottage (green).

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Unfortunately I didn’t write down how many coats I used of the Ellagee polishes, but I’m pretty sure it was also three coats plus top coat for them. They did have a significantly nicer formula than these China Glazes in my opinion!

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Left to right/top to bottom: Ellagee She Sells Seashells, China Glaze Sun Upon My Skin, Ellagee Seaside Cottage, China Glaze Be More Pacific. As you can see the Ellagee yellow is lighter and brighter, and while the greens are more similar to each other than the yellows, again the Ellagee is a little bit lighter and brighter.  

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I then added a matte neon circle glitter topper, Ellagee Gumballs, over my comparison to try it out. 

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While I love the colour and shape of the glitters, overall I was disappointed by this polish. I had only had it a few weeks before trying it, but the base had already developed a bit of a pink tint from bleeding glitters. As you can see in the photos it’s muddied the colours of the base polishes. 

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I also found it pretty thick and ended up with some bubbles trying to get a good amount of glitter onto the nail and distributed. Ah well. I do really like the circle shape and the neon pastel colours. Placing the glitters individually with a dotting tool or orange stick would probably work out better!

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Category:

China Glaze, Ellagee

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Zoya Jasmine, Zoya Blossom, and stamping

I’ve got some more nails inspired by my cat Jasmine to show you today! Her full name is actually Jasmine Blossom so I wanted to use these two polishes together for some nail art. First some swatches of the polishes used. Both are older, discontinued Zoya shades. 

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Zoya Jasmine, three coats plus top coat. The third wasn’t strictly necessary but did deepen the colour slightly. Shown here in overcast natural light. 

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Jasmine is a shimmery metallic berry red-pink. Under Ott lite:

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With flash:

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Zoya Blossom, a slightly peachy off-white with fine pink shimmer. I’m not sure if this was three or four coats; I apparently forgot to write it down! I did write down that the formula was a little thin (which makes me think it’s probably four coats) but surprisingly un-streaky for a white! Under Ott lite:

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Under halogen light:

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With flash:

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I then stamped over Blossom using Jasmine, with an image of jasmine blossoms (? that’s what I decided these flowering branches were, anyway! haha) from plate Hehe-023. Photos of the stamping are all with flash. 

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I loved this combo!!

And now some photos of my semi-feral Jasmine: a collage with her sitting in a box and with her brother Thor, with whom she’s very close (and Julius lolling about in the background of one!) , and then one of her on the bed (she was actually leaned up against my leg when I woke up from a nap!)

  

 

Category:

Hehe stamping plates, Zoya

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Misa Jasmine and Picture Polish Jasmine

Two polishes named Jasmine! And they happen to go together very well. 

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This is Misa Jasmine, a wonderfully dusty light purple creme, with an accent nail of Picture Polish Jasmine, which has green, silver and blue medium hex glitter and similar-sized purple square glitter in a lavender crelly base. 

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I used two coats plus top coat for Misa Jasmine. It had a great, smooth and creamy formula. 

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For Picture Polish Jasmine, I used three coats plus top coat for even glitter coverage. With flash:

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And here’s a little crossed-paws, head tilting (to follow the fingers I was wiggling at her!) Jasmine collage:  

Category:

Misa, Picture Polish

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Ellagee By The Sea, Snoozing in the Hammock, Salty Breeze, Beach Bum, and watermarble accents

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! 😀

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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. 😀 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. 😀

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Category:

Ellagee

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Echoes Polish Now You See Me and stamping

Echoes Polish is a Canadian indie that makes all vegan friendly polishes and is most well-known for their thermal polishes. Today I have Now You See Me to show you. When cold, it’s a dusty sage green colour, and it has beautiful green glass flecks throughout. Shown are three coats plus topcoat.

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I had a couple of helpers while swatching 🙂 – Thor:

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and Seymour:echoespolish_nowyouseeme_seymour

When warm, Now You See Me changes to a taupe-beige colour, making the green glass flecks really stand out. The shade was inspired by camouflage print. Here it is in transition and fully warm:

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I decided to stamp it with a wavy stripe pattern from Hehe stamping plate Hehe-029, using China Glaze Con-fused (the green magnetic). Cold state, in the shade:

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With flash:

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Mostly warm, with flash:

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Category:

China Glaze, Echoes Polish, Hehe stamping plates

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A few odds and ends

A few random things, some of them pretty old photos! In reverse chronological order…

China Glaze Metro-pollen-tin, three coats plus top coat, taken with flash. Love this yellow-orange!

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IndiePolish Spring Lilac, two coats, plus two coats topcoat (the formula was a little thick so the glitters got a bit lumpy).

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China Glaze Ray-diant layered over black.

OPI Do You Think I’m Tex-y with a jelly sandwich accent nail. I *think* the iridescent glitter in the jelly sandwich was Butter London Tart With a Heart but I’m not 100% positive!

OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y

OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y

OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y

OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y

And of course, I can’t post a polish with Tex in the name without posting a picture of handsome Big Tex!

Category:

Butter London, China Glaze, IndiePolish, OPI

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