creme | Vegan Claws

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

Posts tagged ‘creme’

Orly Synchro

This is a very picture heavy post, because this polish is quite the chameleon! Orly Synchro is from the Electronica collection released for early fall 2012.

It’s a duochrome shimmer that is kind of frosty. The colour ranges from coral to pink to purple to nearly blue, depending on the angle.

The formula was a bit thick and sticky; not the easiest to work with. Care also has to be taken to get the brush strokes straight.

It’s also pretty sheer, and this was three coats, the last one thick.

Totally worth it though! The colours are amazing! It makes me think of a sunset.

In the shade:

I also swatched it using one fairly thick coat over black (one coat of Kleancolor Black). The layer on my ring finger somehow ended up being thicker than the others, and it shows in the photos; the ring finger has more of a pinkish-purple tone while the other fingers show off the more blue side of the polish.

I found the trick to applying Synchro to be using a thick enough final coat that you have time to straighten out the brush strokes before it starts to get sticky.

I just love all the colours in this! And how it looks quite different over black versus on its own!

In the shade:

On my thumb in this last photo is one coat of Synchro over a light pink (Joe Fresh in the shade Blush):

Category:

Joe Fresh, Kleancolor, Orly

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OPI Don’t Talk Bach to Me and Glow Up Already, and a franken

I’m trying something new today! I downloaded an app to add watermarks to photos on my phone, so that I can actually post pictures I’ve taken with my phone straight from my phone without having to forego the watermark (stupid WordPress app doesn’t allow access to the blog’s media library, which is another related problem). It’s kind of neat because with this app the size, orientation and placement of the watermark can also be changed unlike the software I normally use on my laptop. Only thing I don’t like is that there’s no option that I can see to change the name of the image file, so the photos just have numbers for names and that can only be changed using the full WordPress site…

Anyway, here’s a mani! 🙂 This is OPI Don’t Talk Bach to Me from the Germany collection, with a glitter gradient of OPI Glow Up Already from the Burlesque collection, and Poshe topcoat over everything. Photos in natural overcast light.

I used two coats of Don’t Talk Bach to Me, a light yellow-green with a creme base and some slight shimmer, and I found the formula kind of thick. I’ll probably add some thinner before using it again.

Glow Up Already is a dense fine glitter in a lot of colours, especially gold, green, and orange, with an overall look of golden lime green.

The next day, I added two coats of a frankenpolish that I made which contains teal square glitter, yellow, copper and champagne gold hex glitter, and gold glass flecks. Under my Ott light:

The main polishes I used were Kleancolor Tiara Gold, LA Girl Glitter Addict in Flashy, NYX salon formula 24K Glitter, and Wet n Wild The Gold and the Beautiful. Overcast natural light:

The teal square glitter was from Glitter Unique, if I recall correctly. This last photo is in partially sunny natural light:

I’m really happy with how this franken turned out! 🙂

Category:

Frankenpolish, Kleancolor, LA Girl, NYX, OPI

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Soulstice Spa Kyoto

Soulstice Kyoto is a shade that looks pretty unassuming in the bottle, but really impressed me on the nail! It’s a pastel peachy pink creme, so I expected it would be nice but boring. Not boring though, in my opinion!

It had a good formula for a pastel; I applied generous coats with a light touch and there were only minimal streaks during the process. Two coats were enough, although I used three on my ring finger because of its ridges (I didn’t use base coat before swatching this).

Rather than being a nude sort of pastel peach/pink, this one is pretty bright and stark (at least on my skin tone!) which makes it really interesting to me!

Love it!

And now, as an added bonus, prepare yourselves for the cutest fluffy cat belly you’ve ever seen…

Jasmine! ❤

Category:

Soulstice Spa

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Picture Polish Sunset

Hard to believe it’s already November! Today I have a decidedly summery polish to show you. I don’t necessarily follow the seasons when I choose a colour; I just wear what I feel like. Often enough, what I “feel like” does match the season, but definitely not always! Especially in mid-to-late winter, when the spring pastels and summer brights come out due to wishful thinking!

This lovely bright neon coral is Sunset by Picture Polish.

It dries a little matte, since it’s a neon. I didn’t add any topcoat for these photos so you can see the almost rubbery finish. The formula was fairly thick, and this is two coats. I didn’t have any issues with application.

Now I’ll stare at these pictures for a bit and pretend that the temperature outside isn’t below freezing! 😉

Category:

Picture Polish

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No Miss Casselberry Cream and comparisons

Today I have a polish from No Miss to show you. No Miss is one of the traditionally vegan brands of nail polish often sold by online vegan stores.

This is Casselberry Cream, a peachy off-white jelly polish. Shown are four coats of polish over two coats of ridge-filling base coat.

It applied really nicely, not streaky like a lot of pale sheer polishes are, and it self-levels. The four coats were just to build up the colour so my stained nails didn’t show through (even with the ridge filler, they’re kind of orange these days, too many bright coral polishes!), not because of streaks.

There is no top coat here; it’s a very glossy polish on its own.

I was really pleasantly surprised by this polish; it doesn’t look like much in the bottle, yet another pale sheer nude, but I really like its jelly finish and the formula was unexpectedly good for this type of shade!

I compared Casselberry Cream to some other similar polishes I have: from left to right, No Miss Casselberry Cream, Zoya Lucy, OPI Barre My Soul, and Orly My Beau.

Again, I did two coats of ridge filler before applying the polishes, and used four coats of each polish for comparison’s sake.

Left to right: No Miss Casselberry Cream, Zoya Lucy, OPI Barre My Soul, Orly My Beau

As you can see, they each have a different off-white tone; Casselberry Cream is more peach, Lucy is white with slight yellow undertones and is also the most sheer of the bunch, Barre My Soul has a pink undertone, and My Beau is the yellowest and the most opaque at four coats. My Beau was also the streakiest of them, and needed the fourth coat to smooth out all the patchiness. I didn’t wait all that long between coats since it was just a comparison, and by the end I had a few bubbles starting to form, mainly but not only in the OPI (but I find bubbles develop more easily on my ridgey ring finger in general, so that’s probably not the OPI’s fault). So, I recommend waiting several minutes between coats, although I suppose that’s pretty much a given when you’re applying four coats of any polish!

Left to right: No Miss Casselberry Cream, Zoya Lucy, OPI Barre My Soul, Orly My Beau

And here is Azrael on top of my Helmers! ❤

Category:

No Miss, OPI, Orly, Zoya

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Zoya Kieko with dotted flowers

This is a mani I did last week and liked a lot. The base colour is Zoya Kieko, a red-toned medium purple creme from last year’s Summertime collection. I used two coats of Kieko, which had a very nice formula, no complaints. I used a dotting tool to make the flowers – the centres are Zoya Reagan, and the petals are Zoya Lara, both from the Beach collection, and finished with Poshe top coat.

Category:

Zoya

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Soulstice Prague and Kauai

Two more shades in my project to photograph all my Soulstice polishes! Which is finished by the way, but most of them still need editing and uploading.

This is Prague, a very fall-appropriate dusty brick/burnt orange creme-based shade with mauve undertones and fine silver shimmer that falls somewhere between pearl and frost.

I used two coats here, and the formula was thin but smooth.

I love this colour! Here it is in the shade:

Next is Kauai, a pinkish strawberry shade with silvery microglitter-type shimmer that even looks good at one coat:

Here it is at two coats in the following picture, looking like a delicious strawberry!

The formula on Kauai was a little thicker than Prague’s, and was excellent. I swatched it without basecoat and I’d say this one is a potential stainer, so be sure to use a good basecoat!

In the shade:

More Soulstice swatches to come soon!

Category:

Soulstice Spa

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China Glaze Fast Track

China Glaze Fast Track is a taupey-beige nude with heavy golden shimmer flakes. It was released last spring in the Hunger Games collection.

Shown are two thick coats. In the sun photos, there’s also a layer of topcoat. As evidenced by the sideways watermark, these pics were also taken using my phone, haha!

I found the formula a little thick but didn’t have any problems with application.

The sun photos didn’t quite catch all the tiny sparks of different colours, little flashes of orange and green, that are often reflected in the sparkle of this awesome polish!

Here it is in the shade:

As a bonus here is what I ended up doing to this mani after a couple of days, mainly because I didn’t want to take the time to remove Fast Track first, and then I just kept adding things, haha…

Over Fast Track is a coat of Orly Nite Owl, an opaque taupe with silver shimmer, then two layers of Glitter Gal Buckled Bronze, Nubar Petunia glitter on the tips, and Spoiled by Wet n Wild’s Trust Fund Baby over it all!

Category:

China Glaze, Glitter Gal, Nubar, Orly, Wet n Wild

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Zoya Tracie, Meg and comparisons

Since October is Depression Awareness Month (yup, it’s not just for breast cancer!) and the depression awareness colour is green, I thought a green-heavy first post of the month would be appropriate.

So, I’ve got Zoya Tracie and Meg from the Beach and Surf collection, along with nail wheel comparisons with tons of other green shades!

This is Zoya Tracie, two coats. I love this colour, soft yellow-toned green creme base with subtle pearly silver shimmer.

The formula was a little tricky, thick yet threatening to drip down the brush stem, and I had to take care to let it dry between coats to prevent dragging. Worth it for such a great shade! The photos include base and top coat.

Meg is a medium green foil. I also had a little streaking and dragging with this one, but then I didn’t use a base coat for this swatch so that may have been the reason. This is two coats of Meg.

Really nice polish as well, but much less interesting than Tracie to me. Tracie is much more unique.

And now for the massive comparisons! The first photo shows the nail wheels in direct sunlight, and the second photo shows them under the Ott Lite. Clicking on the photos will bring up a bigger version where it’s easier to see the polishes (but then, the caption isn’t included, so the close-up polishes and their names aren’t visible together; sorry about that). Meg and Tracie are the polishes in the middle that are almost touching, one on each wheel.

Zoya Tracie & Meg green comparison wheels

Left wheel, clockwise from top: Color Club Mol-ten, Color Club Kiss Me Mistletoe, Wet n Wild Jungle Fever, Cosmetic Arts You Sleigh Me, Zoya Meg, Kleancolor Metallic Green, Butter London Dosh, Finger Paints Comet’s Collar, NYX Girls Luscious Green, Zoya Midori, Nicole by OPI Make Mine Lime, Sparitual Greenhouse, Gosh Golden Dragon.
Right wheel, counterclockwise from gap in polishes: NYX (Salon line) Lime, Nicole by OPI My Favourite Gold, OPI Simply Smashing, Kleancolor Jazz Olive, Zoya Tangy, Misa Secrets, OPI Bikini Envy, Zoya Tracie, Milani Original, LA Girl Color Addict Urge, Soulstice Telluride, Misa Fountain of Youth, Milani Key Lime Shine, Nubar Baby Sprout, NYX (Salon line) Pastel Pistachio, Nubar Kiwi.

No exact dupes to these Zoyas, but Wet n Wild Jungle Fever is very close to Meg, and Cosmetic Arts You Sleigh Me (next to Meg) is also pretty similar. The base colour of the NYX Salon polish in Pastel Pistachio is pretty close to Tracie, but the NYX polish is just a plain creme without any shimmer. OPI Bikini Envy is the shimmery polish that I’d say is closest to Tracie, but the OPI is lighter, more sheer, and frostier. Actually, I’m thinking Tracie is pretty similar to what it would look like to mix NYX Pastel Pistachio and OPI Bikini Envy together!

A couple pairs of notable near-dupes in here: Color Club Mol-ten and Kiss Me Mistletoe (Mistletoe is scented, though); OPI Simply Smashing and Nicole by OPI My Favourite Gold (which I think is an odd name, my favourite gold is a green??).

Category:

Butter London, Color Club, Cosmetic Arts, GOSH, Kleancolor, LA Girl, Milani, Misa, Nicole by OPI, Nubar, NYX, OPI, Soulstice Spa, SpaRitual, Wet n Wild, Zoya

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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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Vegan Claws

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

Posts tagged ‘creme’

Orly Synchro

OPI Don’t Talk Bach to Me and Glow Up Already, and a franken

Soulstice Spa Kyoto

Picture Polish Sunset

No Miss Casselberry Cream and comparisons

Zoya Kieko with dotted flowers

Soulstice Prague and Kauai

China Glaze Fast Track

Zoya Tracie, Meg and comparisons

Soulstice Monterey and comparisons

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