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

Posts tagged ‘glitter’

Soulstice Spa Harbour Island and Cape Cod

Soulstice Spa has released four new polish shades into their collection for spring 2012, and today I have two of them to show you, complete with comparisons to a couple other polishes I have.

The two polishes I got are Cape Cod, a light, slightly muted blue with pearly shimmer, and Harbour Island, a pale, sheer peachy-pink-nude jelly with holographic glitter in it! As a bonus, a couple of adorable kitties will be making an appearance in today’s photos! 😉 All photos are taken in direct sunlight.

These next photos are three coats of Cape Cod. At first I found the formula to be thick so I was having trouble evening out my coats but I added a little Beauty Secrets thinner and that helped a lot.

I really like this shade of blue and the fine pearly shimmer!

The shimmer has a sort of blueish glow to it in the sunlight, very cool!

This polish reminded me of Milani Antique, another light blue with the same type of finish, so I did a little comparison. Index and ring are Antique, middle and pinkie are Cape Cod, three coats each. As you can see the Milani is a couple shades darker than Cape Cod.

And here is my boy Thor checking out the comparison, haha!

Next up, Harbour Island. These photos are also three coats.

The formula was really smooth and easy to apply but it’s a sheer and the third coat adds more sparkle and reflectivity.

The base colour of this polish is pale peach with a bit of a pinkish tone.

The holo glitter does dry slightly rough, but top coat easily takes care of that (these photos include top coat).

As always you can click on any of these photos to see the sparkly holo glitter in better detail!

I can’t say that I have any other peach/nude jellies with holo glitter! But here is a comparison to the closest thing I have, LA Splash Sparkling Jellyfish. Sparkling Jellyfish, in the middle in the following photo, is significantly deeper, brighter and more pink.

And finally, Harbour Island makes a great layering polish; here it is over China Glaze V, a light orange-coral creme. Hanging out in the photo is my boy Wade! (Wade lost an eye to a severe upper respiratory infection as a kitten when he first arrived at the shelter, but it doesn’t slow him down in the slightest! Nor does it prevent him from being the alpha male in our little feline “colony”!)

The other two polishes in this release, which I don’t have (yet, at least!), are St. Tropez, a beige nude that looks to have pearly shimmer similar to Cape Cod, and Kauai, a berry pink with golden shimmer. If you’re curious about them, blogger Glazed Talons reviewed them both here. These shades are available directly through Soulstice Spa on their website; Nail Polish Canada also sells Soulstice but they don’t have these new shades in stock yet as of the time I’m posting this.

Disclosure: the Soulstice Spa polishes in this post were provided to me for review. All opinions are my own honest opinions. (The other polishes in this post were purchased by me. The cats were rescued from the street and adopted from a shelter, respectively. :P)

Category:

China Glaze, LA Splash, Milani, Soulstice Spa

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Pastel Skittles Mani

Just a quick post today to share a recent pastel skittles (each nail a different colour, for those who aren’t familiar with nail-polish-addict-speak ;)) manicure I did. I felt like doing something spring-like and cool-toned, and here are the polishes I decided on: Essence You Belong To Me, Milani Original, Essence A Lovely Secret, Milani Dressmaker, and Milani Antique.

Essence You Belong To Me, Milani Original, Essence A Lovely Secret, Milani Dressmaker, Milani Antique

Essence You Belong To Me is a pastel turquoise creme with some fine pearly secret shimmer; Milani Original is a mint green creme; Essence A Lovely Secret is a lavender creme with fine warmer-toned and slightly darker magenta-purple glitter; Milani Dressmaker is a pale minty jade with turquoise shimmer; Milani Antique is a slightly muted/dusty light blue creme with fine pearly secret shimmer. Three coats of each polish (actually I think I added a fourth of Dressmaker, since it’s a pretty sheer polish).

Unfortunately there was no sun when I wore this, so the shimmer of the polishes doesn’t show up very well in the photos, although if you click to enlarge them you can see some, especially in the first photo. These pics include topcoat; I had been wearing the mani a while when I took them. Overcast natural light:

Essence You Belong To Me, Milani Original, Essence A Lovely Secret, Milani Dressmaker, Milani Antique

Essence You Belong To Me, Milani Original, Essence A Lovely Secret, Milani Dressmaker, Milani Antique

Artificial light (Ott light) – the colours are truer in this photo, as the previous ones make them seem a little darker than they are:

Essence You Belong To Me, Milani Original, Essence A Lovely Secret, Milani Dressmaker, Milani Antique

Category:

Essence, Milani

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May Day!

Kleancolor Black with red stars that I picked out of Kleancolor Blind Date, in honour of International Workers’ Day.

Kleancolor Black with red stars picked out of Kleancolor Blind Date

Category:

Kleancolor

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Zoya Perrie with black and white glitter

I recently made this frankenpolish (nail polish that you mix together yourself!) top coat of black and white hex glitter. As far as frankens go, this one isn’t particularly original or complicated; it’s basically just LA Girls Glitter Addict in Uninhibited, thinned out with some clear polish and with some loose white hex glitter added. I still haven’t decided on a name for this creation… I love making frankens; it’s so much fun!

The base shown here is Zoya Perrie, a warm toned, light yet bright purple. This polish is a one-coater with a great formula! The sun was setting when I took these photos, so apologies that the colour is a bit off – Perrie looks redder than she should. If you click on the large versions of the photos you can see where the glitter sort of sinks into the polish a bit leaving slight pock-marks… I’m not sure if this is just from not letting the base colour dry enough before adding the glitter coat, but a second layer of top coat would take care of it!

Zoya Perrie with black & white glitter

Zoya Perrie with black & white glitter

Category:

Frankenpolish, LA Girl, Zoya

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NYX Girls Pure Green and LA Girls Purge

A little late, but this was my requisite green manicure last Saturday for St. Patrick’s Day! This is NYX Girls Pure Green with accent nails in Purge from the LA Girl Glitter Addict line.

Shown are two coats of Pure Green, a jellyish kelly green, layered with two coats of Purge on the accent nails, with top coat. Pure Green has a nice smooth formula and these were two medium-thick coats. I got a few tiny bubbles from slopping on a bit too much top coat, but they weren’t very noticeable. Overcast natural light.

NYX Girls Pure Green with LA Girl Glitter Addict Purge

Category:

LA Girl, NYX

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Nubar Wildlife and LA Girl Crowd Surfing

Wildlife is one of Nubar’s amazing duochrome polishes. It was released with their Going Green collection, and it’s a green that is olive but that shifts to leafy green at one angle and to gold through to copper complete with pinkish tone at another angle. It’s a great shade and quite unique!

Nubar Wildlife and LA Girl Crowdsurfing

I layered it on my ring finger with LA Girl Crowdsurfing from the Rockstar line since these two polishes seem to go well together. Crowdsurfing is a very very sheer green jelly base (definitely best for layering rather than on its own) with red-gold flakies and tiny green iridescent glitter. It actually reminds me of Cult Nails’ Toxic Seaweed, which I recently reviewed, except it’s like its very, very watered down cousin with much less colour and glitter. I have the same “hmmm” uncertain feeling about Crowdsurfing’s colour scheme as I do with Toxic Seaweed (in that it kind of has a red-green Christmasy thing going on), but it really does go quite well with Wildlife! Just adds a subtle sparkle to it, and a slightly more green tint.

Nubar Wildlife and LA Girl Crowdsurfing

Shown are two coats of Wildlife. Wildlife has a great formula, like all the Nubar duochromes I’ve tried, and applying it is a breeze. On my ring finger are two coats of Crowdsurfing overtop of Wildlife. No complaints with Crowdsurfing’s formula either; it’s your typical flakie consistency and easy to apply.

Nubar Wildlife and LA Girl Crowdsurfing

More photos to show off all the different angles! As usual, you can click on any photo to see more detail of the lovely duochrome.

Nubar Wildlife and LA Girl Crowdsurfing

Nubar Wildlife and LA Girl Crowdsurfing

Nubar Wildlife and LA Girl Crowdsurfing

Nubar Wildlife and LA Girl Crowdsurfing

Category:

LA Girl, Nubar

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Cult Nails Let’s Get Nekkid Collection

Today I have swatches of the latest Cult Nails collection to show you! The collection is called Let’s Get Nekkid and consists of four nude shades for a wide variety of skin tones as well as a green glittery flakie polish. The nudes are all named after nude beaches. As usual, you can click on any of the photos to see more detail.

I’ll go from lightest to darkest for the nudes, so first up is Mazo. This one works best as a nude on my pale self. It’s a sheer beige base with lots of golden shimmer. The shimmer is the large flake-type shimmer particle. Shown is three coats, but it was already smooth and even at only one coat (this one has the best formula in the collection in my opinion), so the choice of how many coats to use is strictly based on how sheer you want it to be.

Cult Nails Mazo

Cult Nails Mazo

Next is Baker, a deeper and more opaque tan beige with orange tones in it and with similar golden shimmer. The formula seemed a little thicker than Mazo but was still fairly smooth and even and could probably be used at one coat for a sheer wash of colour. I used three coats for the photos (it’s more opaque than Mazo, still a relatively sheer polish though, so I used three coats since my nails are a bit stained).

Cult Nails Baker

Cult Nails Baker

Tulum is a dusty chocolately medium taupe-brown with golden shimmer that doesn’t show up as much as it does in the first two polishes; I’m not sure if that’s just because the base is more opaque or if the particles themselves are different. This one was a little streaky on the first coat, and the formula was a little thin and threatened to run down the brush stem and flood the nail if I wasn’t careful. Adjusting to that, a second thicker coat on top of the first evened out the polish.

Cult Nails Tulum

Cult Nails Tulum

I did a comparison to Power Thief from Cult Nails’ previous collection (which I reviewed here), and as you can see, Power Thief (on the left) has more of a reddish-pink undertone and has denser shimmer that shows up more on the nail. The shimmer in Power Thief is silvery and flashes little sparkles of blue and pink in the light.

Cult Nails Power Thief and Tulum

Cult Nails Power Thief (left) and Tulum (right)

Cult Nails Power Thief and Tulum

Cult Nails Power Thief (left) and Tulum (right)

The final nude shade is Swanbourne, a very deep neutral brown, again with golden shimmer. Like Tulum, this shade is opaque and the shimmers don’t show up as much as they do in the first two shades. Shown are two coats.

Cult Nails Swanbourne

Cult Nails Swanbourne

Last but not least we have the green flakie, Toxic Seaweed. This is a blue-toned green jelly with lots of small glitter and flakies that shift from red to yellow to green. This one has the same ingredient issue as Clairvoyant does, so unless they can find a new supplier or substitute for that ingredient, it will be limited edition. So, if you like this one, get it while you can; it’s still available on Cult Nails’ website as of the time I’m publishing this post!

Cult Nails Toxic Seaweed

The formula on this one was thinner than I expected, but only because I imagined it would be super-thick and it wasn’t. It applied just fine and this was two coats. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about this one; I love it at an angle when the flakes are reflecting yellow, but straight on it can have a red-and-green kind of Christmasy look to it that isn’t really my favourite.

Cult Nails Toxic Seaweed

Since I usually show the glitter or flakie polish over the others when I review Cult Nails collections, I did it again here although it’s not really as appropriate in this case – Mazo is too light to change its look, Baker just kind of makes the colour more muted by removing the blue tone, over Tulum it becomes sort of a swampy looking thing (kind of interesting, actually) – layering it over Swanbourne makes the most sense! This photo shows one coat of Toxic Seaweed layered over Mazo, Baker, Tulum and Swanbourne (left to right).

Cult Nails Toxic Seaweed layered over Mazo, Baker, Tulum, Swanbourne

My overall impression of this collection is great; I love nudes and these ones have golden shimmer which makes me love them even more! Those with cool, pink-toned skin may not be quite as thrilled with this collection as I am, but I can see Mazo becoming a go-to nude polish for me since it matches my skin tone quite well and looks good at one coat (or at least it would without the stained nails!!) as well as at two or three! Baker is another favourite; I love the golden orangey-peachy tan tone. All of these shades are pretty unique in my collection. I do recommend waiting a couple minutes between coats when applying the darker among these polishes to prevent dragging and bald spots.

Category:

Cult Nails

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

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.

Zoya Cho, LA Girls Glitter Addict Inspire & Animate, and Zoya Lucy

Zoya Cho, LA Girls Glitter Addict Inspire & Animate, and Zoya Lucy

Category:

LA Girl, Zoya

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China Glaze Optical Illusion

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

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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Kleancolor Holo Pink and Holo Orange over Milani Retro

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:
Kleancolor Holo Pink and Holo Orange over Milani Retro

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

In the shade:
Kleancolor Holo Pink and Holo Orange over Milani Retro

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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