A few random manis from various points over the past year or so!
Pretty and Polished Phoenix over Joe Fresh Mustard:
China Glaze Trendsetter with foily gradient accent – the green is Nicole by OPI My Favourite Gold over Brilliant Idea, and the gold is either Orly Glitz & Glamour or OPI Goldeneye, I don’t remember…
Soulstice Spa Crete… I still don’t like silver on me!
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.
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:
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:
My apologies for the lack of posts! Things have just been super busy lately! So I thought I’d post another group of photos from several years ago that I just never got around to posting and don’t necessarily have the info on number of coats, formula etc. anymore.
OPI Fiercely Fiona with Nicole by OPI Brilliant Idea on the accent finger.
A frankenpolish that I call Firecracker. The ingredients for this are Martha Stewart glitter in fire opal (which does bleed colour into the base, but not too much) and some of the LA Girl Glitter Addict polishes in orange, fuchsia, and red.
OPI Absolutely Alice with half moons in Nubar Night Sparkle.
OPI and Apple Pie, a classic “ugly” shade, under the Ott Lite.
Today I have That’s What I Mint to show you, one of the texture polishes from Nicole by OPI.
Under my Ott light:
It’s not actually mint at all, it’s a deep teal with lots of sparkle, including gold glitter. Shown are two coats, and I had no issues with application.
Natural light:
Teal textured glitter with a hint of gold, it should be no big surprise that I just love this polish!
Here it is with topcoat in the last two photos. It needs two layers of top coat to smooth it completely; I applied one layer and then later on, after it was fully dry and the polish had “eaten” the top coat a bit, added the second layer. The photos were taken after applying the first layer of top coat.
With topcoat under the Ott light:
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!
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.
I really like this one both on its own and over black!
Sunlight photos, which tend to show off the purple/magenta aspects:
Oh yeah, the polish also comes with this cute little bat charm attached:
In partial shade:
I still have some really old photos from when I started blogging, so I thought I would post them in a few installments!
This first one is a fall mani that I really loved! Thumb to pinkie: Finger Paints Sketchy Character, a mustard yellow frankenpolish, Kleancolor Fashionista, China Glaze Brownstone, Joe Fresh Pumpkin. The glitter gradient over everything was done with Nubar Lime Green Glitter and Orange Glitter.
Next, Orly Wild Wisteria with China Glaze Brownstone accent:
I’ll finish up this first vault post with swatches of the creme half of the Color Club Back to Boho collection, along with a couple of layering combos using them.
Shabby Drab:
With Color Club Jingle Jangle overtop:
Color Club Earthy Angel:
Color Club New Bohemian:
Color Club Nomadic in Nude:
Color Club Rad Nomad:
Color Club Red-ical Gypsy – gotta say, the stereotypical gypsy-themed polish names just make me think of cultural appropriation… This is a nice red though, and look! An appearance from my little Thor!
With an accent of Cult Nails Hypnotize Me and Nubar V matte top coat:
Quick post of a mani from last year!
This is Manglaze Lesbihonest (I’ll be honest, I mostly bought it for the name and the bottle artwork!), a rich fucshia matte polish with shimmer, alternating with ILF, a similar matte shimmer in an aqua/turquoise shade. Two coats each, nice quick drying formula. All photos are under my Ott light, and the last one shows them with topcoat.
Vegan Claws 
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