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

Posts tagged ‘green’

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!

Category:

Seche, Zoya

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Madam Glam Caribbean Island and stamping

This turquoise beauty is Madam Glam Caribbean Island, one of their regular nail polishes. It’s similar to China Glaze Too Yacht to Handle but a little bit lighter. 

Two coats with top coat, in shade:

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With flash:madamglam_caribbeanisland_flash

 I stamped using Colour Alike “b. a Fairy Forest” and “b. a Sunshine” and designs from Born Pretty plate BP-L015. 

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Category:

Colour Alike, Madam Glam, Uncategorized

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Pretty and Polished Thyme and Time Again and Indigo Bananas Olive Time and Space

Today I have two polishes with “time” in the name to show you. Pretty and Polished Thyme and Time Again is from the dusty creme collection which all have tiny grey speckles throughout. Indigo Bananas Olive Time and Space is a dark olive green from their Fall 2015 holo collection. 

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I used two coats plus top coat for each polish. All photos are with flash. 

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I added some (almost invisible) stamping on Thyme and Time Again using Olive Time and Space to stamp and an image of an asparagus tip from MoYou London plate Cookbook 14. Love the asparagus image! But should have used colours that contrast better! Ah well, nice and subtle and helps to hide the crooked stamping. 😉

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Category:

Indigo Bananas, Moyou London stamping plates, Pretty and Polished

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Autumn stamping

I had better share this fall-themed manicure before the snow flies, which fortunately hasn’t happened yet here!

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The base for this mani was Emily de Molly Copper Patina and Femme Fatale Infamous Riddle. 

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Copper Patina is a turquoise creme with pink-to-gold duochrome shimmer. I used two coats plus top coat. 

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Infamous Riddle is an olive-leaning green jelly with strong red-to-gold duochrome shimmer. I used three coats plus top coat for this one. 

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I really love both of these polishes!

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I stamped fall leaves and trees on them using Kleancolor’s Metallic Orange, Metallic Mango, and Metallic Brown. 

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The plates used were Bundle Monster BM-04, Hehe 048, and Born Pretty BPL-015 for the tree. 

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So happy with how these turned out! Here are approximately a zillion more photos, heheh. 😉

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Category:

Born Pretty Store stamping plates, Bundle Monster (stamping), Emily de Molly, Femme Fatale, Hehe stamping plates, Kleancolor

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Il était un vernis Matcha Doing Today?, Picture Polish Honeymoon, and stamping

I’ve got a couple of lovely pastel holos with glass-flecks and shimmer to show you today. 

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The lime green is Il était un vernis Matcha Doing Today? and the seafoam /minty blue-green is Picture Polish Honeymoon. First two photos under Ottlite. 

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I used three coats each plus top coat. Flash photos:

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I then added stamping using Colour Alike “A Blue Ocean” over Matcha Doing Today and “A Fresh Mojito” over Honeymoon. The image is from It Girl plate 101. 

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Category:

Colour Alike, Il était un vernis, It Girl (stamping plates), Picture Polish

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Nubar Affair and comparisons

Nubar Affair is a teal green jelly with lots of fine gold shimmer particles. I’d say this first (phone) photo is the most colour-accurate; the others seem slightly too blue. 

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I used three coats plus top coat; as you can see there’s still a little visible nail line in certain lights. 

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I did a comparison to two other similar polishes. Top to bottom in the photo below: Pretty Serious Khepri’s Amulet (two coats), Nubar Affair, NYX Jungle (four coats), Nubar Affair. 

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Khepri’s Amulet is slightly greener than Affair and is more brushstokey with its frostier metallic finish. NYX Jungle is more sheer than Affair, and on the nail its gold shimmer is more distinct from the base. 

Category:

Nubar, NYX, Pretty Serious

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OPI Glacier Bay Blues and BB Couture Pipe Bender

This mani features an old, hard-to-find black label OPI called Glacier Bay Blues, which has a navy blue base with purple-to-green duochrome shift. The ring finger accent is BB Couture Pipe Bender, which has a muted dark green base with some subtle purple duochrome shimmer. I used three thin coats for each (although the BB Couture could easily be a two coater) plus top coat.

This first one is a phone pic in sunlight, where the duochrome effect is less apparent:

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Camera pics in partial sunlight:

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In shade:

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Under Ott lite:

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With flash:

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I added some stamping to the accent nail that didn’t really turn out, since it’s not very visible, but here it is anyway. I used my bottle of Kleancolor Metallic Sapphire, which is strangely no longer its original royal blue colour, but is now a dusty dark purple. I’ve seen fading blue pigments before, but this was kind of strange in that it turned really quite purple! It almost looks like OPI Ink Suede now, except more muted and even more purple. Anyway, it wasn’t enough of a contrast to Pipe Bender to show up well, unfortunately, and I liked the mani better without the stamping. The image is from plate Hehe-024.

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Category:

BB Couture, Hehe stamping plates, Kleancolor, OPI

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Badger Mushroom Snake!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see here. You may now either thank me or curse me. 🙂

While there are many great images on Vivid Lacquer plate VL-004, it’s three particular images that made it so that I *needed* to get this plate as soon as I saw it. 

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Here is the badger, mushroom, snake mani that I did. 

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The base is two coats of Milani White On The Spot (plus top coat). 

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I stamped using Kleancolor polishes in Black, Blood and Dark Brown (together on the plate for the mushroom image), and Military Green. 

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I added white dots to the mushroom with a dotting tool, and some colour details on the snake’s hood (with Kleancolor Neon Yellow) and tongue (with Kleancolor Blood) using a straightened-out paper clip (didn’t have any thin nail art brushes at the time, though I’ve since ordered some). 

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I had a bit of trouble with the badger image; I’m wondering if Kleancolor Metallic Black might have been a better choice since I’ve found that sometimes metallics work better than cremes for stamping images I’ve had trouble getting crisp/full. I used HK Girl topcoat by Glisten & Glow overtop, which I’m really liking since it dries quickly and stands up to its claims of not smudging nail art. 

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Anyway, my life feels a little more complete having done this mani, haha.  Thank you Vivid Lacquer for putting these images together on a plate! 😀

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Category:

Kleancolor, Milani, Vivid Lacquer (plates)

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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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Bonne journée des Franco-Ontariens & Franco-Ontariennes!

 

Le 25 septembre est la journée des Franco-Ontarien.ne.s alors j’ai fait un nail art représentant le drapeau Franco-Ontarien, qui célèbre ses 40 ans aujourd’hui! J’ai utilisé la plaque M15 de Konad pour le lys et une plaque qui se nomme AT-04 trouvée sur Aliexpress pour le trille (j’en ai enfin trouvé un après de longues longues recherches!) Les vernis de base sont Hunter Green de NYX et White on the Spot de Milani, et j’ai stampé avec le même NYX pour le vert et Kind of White (S) de Colour Alike pour le blanc. Photos prises ce matin avec flash.

Apologies to my readers who don’t speak French; I thought this post should definitely be in French! 😛 Also, this is a preview of my new nail shape I’ve had for several weeks now – as usual I’m wayyyy behind on posts so I still have a bunch with my previous shape to post before getting to the newer stuff 🙂

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Category:

AT stamping plates, Colour Alike, Konad (stamping plates), Milani, NYX

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