duochrome | Vegan Claws

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

Posts tagged ‘duochrome’

Authority Cosmetics Swatches and Review

Today I have four polishes to show you from the relatively-new brand of vegan polishes, Authority Cosmetics. Two cremes, a slight duochrome shimmer, and a glitter topper – let’s get started with the swatches, shall we? 😀

This great lime green creme is Disco. I used two coats.

The formula was thick and pigmented and went on without streaks; I was really impressed!

The glitter topper, I Heart You, has a clear pink base and is filled with small iridescent glitter and pink and red heart-shaped glitter. I applied one thick coat over Disco and wasn’t sure if it would work out with the green and pink layered, but it turned into a really great olive green shade! I think it actually ended up being my favourite combo with I Heart You! A couple of swirls of the brush generally brought out 1-3 hearts from the bottle without trouble, and there was a little placement of hearts involved to get them distributed evenly on the nail.

The second shade, Paradise, is a medium bright blue creme, also thick and pigmented like Disco. In fact, this swatch shows just one thick coat.

I probably should have done two thinner coats instead of one thick, since I ended up getting a few tiny bubbles as it dried, but I wanted to see if it covered in a single layer.

The sun had gone away so this next pic is under the Ott lite:

Here is one coat of I Heart You over Paradise, turning it a dusty periwinkle. Sorry for the little bald spots in the glitter; I didn’t notice until I took the photos!

Last but certainly not least, the duochrome, Emerald Sky. This is a shimmery green-teal-blue subtle duochrome in a smoky, slightly blue-purple base! (These first photos in natural light are a little too blue, and the later ones under Ott and halogen light are more colour accurate.)

The base is sheer to let the shimmer show through, and the formula is thinner than the other polishes. It builds to a nice glowy colour in just two coats though, which is what is shown here.

Under Ott Lite:

With flash:

Here it is again under Ott lite, with a layer of I Heart You on the ring finger:

I also did a comparison with one coat over black versus two coats alone (bottom to top in the photos).

Applying over black makes the look more opaque and dark, but doesn’t really change much about the colour shift. At an extreme angle, you can see the shimmer shifts more to blue.

This last photo is under halogen light.

Authority Cosmetics is available on their website here. They have just 10 colours so far, but if they’re all like the ones I’ve reviewed here, the quality is great! I have to say I am impressed with these! 🙂

Disclosure: The polishes in this post were provided for review. Opinions expressed are my own honest opinions.

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Authority Cosmetics

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Io, Saturnalia! With Indigo Bananas Polishes

Happy Saturnalia! Today is the first day! I don’t have any nail art or anything, but this gold mani is appropriately festive, I think. Photos are under halogen light except the last one, which is fluorescent office lighting.

This is Indigo Bananas Suneater, with Indigo Bananas Impact on the accent nail. Indigo Bananas is another indie brand with vegan polishes, and they have a lot of great stuff that I was excited to discover!

Suneater is a metallic yellow gold holo with slight green duochrome. Three coats, but it dries very quickly.

On the accent nail is Impact, a metallic gold with green/copper duochrome (wasn’t really able to capture the coppery pink side in these photos) and orange and gold holo glitters in several sizes of hex and some small squares. Two coats over Suneater.

Love these two polishes!

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Indigo Bananas

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OPI Movin’ Out

I’ve got an oldie, hard-to-find polish to show you today. This is one of my favourites, OPI Movin’ Out from the Holiday on Broadway collection from 2003! One coat over black, showing off the warm purple-to-green multichrome and red-to-green colour shifting pigment sparkles. So gorgeous! The photos were taken under the Ott lite, except the two noted.

In the shade:

With flash:

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OPI

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From the Vault, again…

More random old stuff!

Nubar Pink Flame, under artificial light:

Comparison: left to right, Finger Paints Catwalk Queen, Butter London Bumster (middle and ring fingers), Misa Hot Couture. The Butter London and Finger Paints polishes are quite close, Finger Paints just has slightly more orange, while the Misa is noticeably darker.

Butter London Bumster by itself:

OPI Pepe’s Purple Passion (in light box and camera wouldn’t focus properly on the polish surface!):

I’ll admit, while I ended up really liking Pepe’s Purple Passion, I mainly wanted it for the name, because of this handsome guy whose name is Pepe. Although we usually call him Tex. 🙂

Essence Wanna Be My Sunshine with accent nail in NYX Girls Pure Green, all layered with LA Girl Zesty Citrus overtop:

Illamasqua Elope:

Category:

Butter London, Essence, FingerPaints, Illamasqua, LA Girl, Misa, Nubar, NYX, OPI, Orly

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OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby and comparison to Orly Flicker

Deutsch You Want Me Baby is from OPI’s Germany collection from last fall.

It’s a very nice metallic rusty red-orange. Its formula is thin and smooth and only needs two coats but I’m wearing three in the photos because my nails were in rough shape at the time and I didn’t use any basecoat.

I compared it to Orly Flicker, which came out around the same time. Left to right in the comparison photos: Deutsch, Flicker, Deutsch, Flicker. Three coats of Flicker, which is more sheer than Deutsch.

OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby and Orly Flicker

Index to pinkie: Deutsch, Flicker, Deutsch, Flicker.

The base colour is similar between these two, but the Orly is more orange and glowy and has a mild duochrome that the OPI does not. This last photo shows that distinction best:

Index to pinkie: Deutsch, Flicker, Deutsch, Flicker.

Both great polishes but I much prefer Flicker; it’s one of my favourites!

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OPI, Orly

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From the Vault

More old pics that I haven’t posted before… I think all of these photos are under the Ott Lite except for the last one.

Glitter gradient of OPI DS Temptation with Nubar Sky Sparkle.

With Ozotic 505 overtop:

OPI DS Desire, my favourite OPI DS shade.

Sephora by OPI Rumba Romance with half moons in Orly Chocolate Martini.

Milani Golden Lilac (the one with gold shimmer) and Kleancolor Gorgeous Surprise (the one with blue shimmer). I don’t remember what the base colour was that they’re layered over, unfortunately.

Category:

Kleancolor, Milani, Nubar, OPI, Orly, Ozotic, Sephora by OPI

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Ninja Polish Pacific Coral and LA Splash Star Coral

I’ve got a great indie polish to show you today! This is Ninja Polish Pacific Coral, a coral creme with a beautiful duochrome shimmer in it.

The shimmer flashes from gold to green depending on the angle, and is very visible!

Two coats of Pacific Coral plus topcoat. The formula was perfect!

On my ring finger I have two coats of LA Splash Star Coral on top of Pacific Coral.

Star Coral is a sheer coral jelly polish with gold and multicoloured glitter.

Love this coral combo!

Category:

LA Splash, Ninja Polish

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Color Club Port-folio

Here’s another polish from last fall – Color Club Port-folio from the In True Fashion collection. This is a great purple with duochrome green/pink shimmer. First photo is under a halogen lamp.

Shown are two coats (three on a couple of nails where I had bald spots). Next three photos in overcast natural light:

The formula on this one is good, but a little care does need to be taken to get the brush strokes straight (they’re much less noticeable after it dries, though). The last two photos are under the Ott Light, and the first one really shows the fuchsia-pink shift of the duochrome.

I was afraid I might not like this one on me, since I don’t really care for dark purple/green duochromes on myself (I like them on others though), but I *love* this medium purple one!

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Color Club

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Ruby White Tips Batworld Collection – Sweet Faced Cornelius and Mr. Kitty

I have the final two polishes that I own from the Ruby White Tips Batworld collection to show you today!

The polish Sweet Faced Cornelius is named after this sweet little guy:

Photo credit: Batworld.org

Cornelius, the polish, is a sheer layering jelly polish full of iridescent green shimmer, flakes/tiny shards, and holo particles. The first two photos show four coats of polish over my bare (stained!) nails.

The rest of the photos show one coat of Cornelius over black.

The polish was thick but not difficult to work with, even when I did the four coats on its own.

It also dries almost totally smooth; no extra layers of topcoat needed here.

I’m looking forward to trying this one over one of those deep green with golden flecks polishes, like China Glaze Cast a Spell; I think that will look awesome as well!

The final polish I have to share is Mr. Kitty, named after this little bat who was in turn named after the feral cat who brought him to the sanctuary! Ms. Kitty is a feral cat the Batworld staff take care of, and apparently three times so far she has brought weak or injured bats to the sanctuary door, without harming them at all herself.

Photo credit: Batworld.org

Mr. Kitty the bat next to the polish! You can see just how tiny he is, about the same size as the bottle of polish!

Photo credit: Batworld.org

Mr. Kitty the polish is a sheer taupe based polish with pink duochrome shimmer and tiny flakes in it. It’s kind of a chameleon and looks different in different lighting! The pink/magenta shimmer sometimes leans lavender or purple, and other times shifts more to a golden/coppery, rusty brick tone.

Ott Lite photos:

I used two thick coats over ridge filler, except on the ring finger where I used one coat over black (no ridge filler underneath, but I should have used some!).

I found the formula to be thick (it was also very hot and humid that day, so that most certainly contributed!), but didn’t have any problems until I came to the layered accent nail. I had a little trouble applying one even layer over the black, but I added a few drops of polish thinner and then it was fine.