green | Vegan Claws

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

Posts tagged ‘green’

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

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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Sally Girl TTFN and comparisons

If you’ve been to a Sally Beauty Supply store lately you may have noticed that they have five new shades in their Sally Girl line of mini nail polishes. I got a couple of the new ones, including this one called TTFN. And guess what, these new ones actually show the names on the bottles! At the top right of the little sticker along the side. No more cross-referencing the 6-digit number on the sally.com site to try to figure out what the polish’s name is, haha!

Two coats of TTFN. It was a little streaky on the first coat, but a second thicker coat evened everything out. Colour-wise, this slightly dusty, minty sage green is in between Orly Ancient Jade (which is a tiny bit deeper and brighter), and Misa Catch a Flick (which is a little lighter), as the following photo shows (top to bottom, Catch a Flick, TTFN, Ancient Jade).

In terms of formula, Ancient Jade had a formula that was thinner than TTFN but was also more pigmented and opaque. Catch a Flick had a formula similar to TTFN, a little streaky on the first coat but evening up at the second.

I also compared a couple of other colours for reference. Thumb to pinky, NYX Girls Algae, much darker and bluer, Orly Ancient Jade, Sally Girl TTFN, Misa Catch a Flick, and Nubar Vogue Vert, lighter and more of a dusty yellow-based sage.

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Misa, Nubar, NYX, Orly, Sally Girl

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OPI Man of La Mancha

Happy New Year everyone!

I recently got this discontinued OPI on eBay (it was released in their 2003 Holiday on Broadway collection) and it immediately jumped straight to the top of my list of favourites. It’s an amazing duochrome (well, multichrome really) burgundy/red that flashes through shades of orange, yellow and green at different angles, and also has a ton of fine sparkle in it.

Shown is two coats of Man of La Mancha over one coat of Kleancolor Black, my favourite one-coat black. Man of La Mancha is from OPI’s old formula (contains toluene) and so is super-smooth and easy to apply. It’s a pretty sheer polish, as many good multichromes are, so I put it over black which really shows off all the colours it shifts to. I haven’t tried it on its own or over other colours yet, but am looking forward to!

I also added a coat of Nubar 2010 flakie polish on my ring finger – the flakes have the same colour scheme as Man of La Mancha so I thought they would go well together. However, Man of La Mancha is just so sparkly and awesome that the flakies weren’t even visible in most light! In the the photos with the turquoise background below, you can see the flakes though. Those were taken in my bathroom under incandescent lights.

Anyway, I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking – short version, if you have a chance to get this amazing polish, do it!!

Category:

Kleancolor, Nubar, OPI

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Kleancolor Fashionista

Just a quick post to show one of my all-time favourites. This is Kleancolor Fashionista, an awesome olive-green creme. Two coats with Poshe top coat. I find that Kleancolor makes really great cremes, always opaque and smooth.

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Kleancolor

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Wet n Wild On the Prowl (partial) collection

On Halloween I posted Wet n Wild’s Cougar Attack (an awesome brown jelly with orangey-copper glitter, shown again above) from their limited edition and annoyingly hard to find On the Prowl Halloween collection; here are the other polishes I got from the same collection.

Buy Me a Drink

A gorgeous glowy shimmery plum burgundy. This is my favourite from the collection after Cougar Attack. Shown is three coats, no top coat (none of these photos have top coat).

Ready to Pounce

This is a blue-based purple with red-purple shimmer. It’s also nice and glowy, though less so than Buy Me a Drink. This was two coats, but it could have used three because of the crappy brush (more about that later). The colour is off in the last photo, but it shows off the shimmer really well if you click on it for the larger version.

Jungle Fever

A light grass green shimmer with metallic shimmer particles. This was three coats.

Tangled in My Web

Medium-sized, opaque black hex glitter in a clear base. This is one thick coat over Jungle Fever, sort of dabbed on more than just brushed on, which is how I usually apply polishes like this. I really like this one too.

I decided to turn the Jungle Fever – Tangled in My Web layering into a jelly sandwich by adding a coat of Barry M Lime overtop. Here it is in natural light and then under a lamp.

I did have application problems with the shimmers from this collection. I don’t know if I was just unlucky, but the brushes were awful. Uneven bristles that leave big drag marks all down the nail. The formula of the polish is thick and not very self-leveling too, which certainly doesn’t help with the drag marks! Cougar Attack had a better brush than the shimmers, or perhaps I just didn’t notice anything since it’s a glitter polish so I expected it to end up a bit bumpy. I didn’t notice any issues with the brush on Tangled in My Web, but then since it’s a clear layering glitter, again, it’s quite possible that I just didn’t notice since it applies so much differently.

Anyway, this collection has some great shades, brush problem notwithstanding! My favourites are Cougar Attack, Buy Me a Drink, and Tangled in My Web. The other two shades in the collection that I didn’t end up getting are Behind Closed Doors (I have NYX Girls Dorothy which from what I can tell online is a dupe with a much better formula) and Correction Tape, a multi-coloured layering hex glitter.

Category:

Barry M, Wet n Wild

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NYX Jungle

This lovely polish is NYX Jungle! Turquoise blue with golden-green shimmer. This is 3 coats, so if you can’t stand visible nail lines then this polish may not be for you. Personally, I love it and don’t mind that it’s fairly sheer. It would also be good for layering over an opaque creme. The formula was great, no issues with application. If you’re in Canada you can still order this polish from nyxcosmetics.ca; not sure where else it’s available as the other websites where I buy NYX don’t have it anymore… Definitely worth hunting down though!

Oh, and these photos are without topcoat.

Category:

NYX

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Cult Nails Fall 2011

Since Cult Nails’ winter collection is already up for pre-sale on their website (until November 11th), I realized that it’s well past time for me to post my swatches of their fall collection!

I originally bought these polishes in the last pre-sale and received and swatched them in August, but wasn’t happy with some of the photos (hmmm, seems like I’ve said that before…) so I recently redid the swatches for Awakening and Enigmatic. So if my nails and the conditions of the photos look different, it’s because they are!

Awakening

This is a muted teal creme; I love this kind of colour. The formula is thin and it’s sheer and a little streaky on the first coat, but with three coats as shown here, it evens out to a smooth creme finish.

Enigmatic

This is a vampy raisin coloured polish; it has a sheer brownish base with plum coloured shimmer that has flashes of reddish and bluish shimmer particles when the light hits it. An interesting complex colour, but like Awakwning, the formula is very thin and sheer, and it was streaky at one and two coats. This is three coats in the photos, and to be honest I think it might have benefited from a fourth.

In a Trance

This is an army green with gold shimmer. I love this!! This one had a great formula, the best of the collection. It was smooth, self-leveling, and easy to apply. This is three coats.

I also wanted to see how this compared to OPI At Your Quebec and Call and a few other olive green polishes I have. From the bottle comparison it was clear that they aren’t dupes, but they are similar.

Here is the comparison photo, from thumb to pinkie: Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Swamp Thing ( a creme, but I wanted to see how the base colour compared), Zoya Yara, In a Trance, OPI At Your Quebec and Call, and China Glaze Cat’s Eye. All are three coats, all have good application. As usual, you can click on the photo (and any of the other photos) to see more detail.

The base colour of Swamp Thing is indeed close to In a Trance’s base colour, although Swamp Thing is a bit darker. Zoya Yara has more of a blue-grey tone to it so it’s not close at all. At Your Quebec and Call is the closest to In a Trance, but the OPI is slightly more sheer, has a denser shimmer/slight frostiness. The reflection from the denser shimmer makes it look a tad lighter overall. China Glaze Cat’s Eye is lighter and more yellow than In a Trance, and is frostier than the OPI.

Hypnotize Me

This is a pretty unique polish! Sheer aqua blue-green with duochrome aqua/violet glitter (although these photos didn’t capture the violet, it’s quite obvious on the nail when seen at an angle). It’s got a jelly finish, but it dries fairly matte. For the photos I used Nubar Diamont as top coat, but it also makes a great accent nail as-is for any satiny-matte polish. Without topcoat, when dry, it’s not completely smooth but it’s not bumpy either; more like a very fine sandpaper. With topcoat it becomes smooth. The polish has a kind of weird goopy texture, but the application isn’t problematic at all. It’s meant to be a layering polish but I like it by itself too. This is three coats in the pictures.

And here it is layered (one coat) over the other polishes in the collection: from top, In a Trance, Enigmatic, Awakening. It looks great over all three of them!

Overall this is a great collection; I really love the colour choices! I’m looking forward to their winter collection…

Category:

Cult Nails

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A few Halloween manicures

A few Halloween NOTDs (nails of the day) from the past couple of weeks! (Although, really, I would wear these anytime!)

Milani Flashy Orange with Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris stamped on (I’m not very good at stamping yet…)

The other hand, with scurrying spiders!

A candy manicure: China Glaze Liquid Leather with Nubar V for Men matte topcoat, in an attempt to make nails that look like Panda Licorice!

Wet n Wild Cougar Attack (I broke down and bought this on ebay… I doubt they even release these limited edition collections here in Canada…)

The next day I added some nail art using the orange and black striping polishes from the Orly Instant Artist “Flights of Fancy” collection. The collection also included a dotting tool which is what I used to create the web-like design.

China Glaze It’s Alive from their recent Halloween release:

It’s Alive with OPI’s glow-in-the-dark Zom-body to Love as slimy tips:

My attempt at capturing it glowing in the dark:

Happy Halloween everyone! 🙂

Category:

China Glaze, Konad (stamping plates), Milani, Nubar, OPI, Wet n Wild

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New Soulstice Spa polishes

I recently received these three new Soulstice Spa polishes, including their two new greens, for review: Telluride, LA, and Dublin. You can click on any of the photos below to see more detail in the full sized versions.

This bottle shot unfortunately didn’t pick up the golden shimmer in Telluride, but here it is below.

A mint green with golden shimmer, this one is unique in my collection of minty polishes – I’m sure others must exist, but I don’t have any! This one had a fairly thick formula that did give me some trouble – at one and two coats it was a bit streaky over the ridges on my nails, so I ended up using four coats to even everything out for these pictures. Next time I’ll be adding a little thinner and using an opaque base coat, so I’m sure 2 or 3 coats will do. Either way, the colour is great!

Next up is LA, a multicoloured hex glitter layering polish. Here it is by itself, three coats (please ignore the stained nails!).

There are three sizes of hex glitter in this polish, very small, small, and medium, in the colours silver, yellow, green, orange-toned red, blue, and magenta. I love that there is a noticeable amount of yellow glitter, it really makes the polish for me! The formula was good, no trouble with this one. I had to “place” the glitter a little bit to get it evenly distributed, and as with any polish of this type, I held the brush against the inside of the bottle neck for a few seconds to let some of the transparent base drain off to maximize the concentration of glitter on the nail.

Of course, there are a fair number of similar rainbow glitter polishes floating around, including the newly released one by OPI, so I’ll be doing a comparison post with a couple of those later.

Last but not least, Dublin! This is a deep, shimmery velvety green, just gorgeous. The formula was good and this one is nearly a one-coater. I used 2 coats for good measure but you could probably get away with one if you’re careful. I got a few bubbles in it, which you may be able to see in the first picture; I think that was mainly because I used Nubar Nu Nail as a base coat under it since I was planning to keep it on as my manicure after taking the photos, and didn’t let things dry long enough between coats.

I then added two layers of LA on the ring finger as an accent, and finished with Poshe top coat which completely eliminated the bubbles (love that stuff – so smooth and glassy!).

Just for fun, another photo since a piece of glitter caught the light so well!

These polishes dried fairly quickly. I really like all three shades. I asked for greens, and I’m sure not disappointed! I love minty greens, and polishes with golden shimmer, and dark greens too, so these are great. I’m really enjoying my Dublin mani so far, it’s beautiful to look at!

Disclosure: the polishes in this post were provided to me by Soulstice Spa for review. Opinions expressed are my own.

Category:

Soulstice Spa

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New Glitter Gal holos

Today I have the three recently released Glitter Gal holos for you. Glitter Gal is an Australian brand known for their line of holographic polishes. These came out in August and I first swatched them then, but wasn’t very happy with some of the photos so I recently redid the ones for Light as a Feather and Frappé. For these photos I used either Nubar Foundation or Zoya Get Even for base coat, as noted on the individual shades, and no top coat. I found that they dried fairly glossy even without top coat. The photos are all taken in sunlight in my solarium. You can click on any of the photos to see more detail in the larger versions.

Lizard Belly

This one is really awesome! A blackened green with a strong holo effect. I only needed two coats for this one. Love it!!! Formula was a bit little bit thick, but not hard to work with. For these photos I had a base coat of Nubar Foundation. It is quite a blackened green, and in some lighting pretty much looks black. I’m thinking of trying it over a kelly-green creme next time…

Light as a Feather

A very pale grey holo. I had the hardest time photographing this one, so I’m including several pictures to give a better idea of the polish, including a couple of blurry ones that show off the holo in the bottle.

Glitter Gal Light as a Feather

Out of the three, the holo effect is least strong on this one. This one also gave me the most trouble with application. I swatched it here with Zoya Get Even as base coat, since my nails are a bit stained and Get Even has a white tint to help prevent that from showing through. This is three coats (it’s a little sheer, and a bit streaky on the first coat). I found the formula thick and hard to work with. I added several (about 6 or 8?) drops of thinner (Zoya Renew) and that helped. I got some bubbling, but I think that was mainly due to not waiting long enough between coats and the interaction between the basecoat and the polish. I think my Zoya Get Even could use a little more thinner in it too…

Frappé

Pink-toned lavender with a noticeable linear holo effect. This one was also fairly sheer (and so, I used Zoya Get Even as basecoat here) and needed three coats. The formula was also slightly thick but much better than Light as a Feather. I added 2 drops of thinner when I swatched this for these photos. Very pretty and feminine colour.

Some general notes on the bottles. The bottles are small as anyone who’s seen GG holos in person knows; they hold 9ml. The brush itself isn’t mini though, it’s a normal length brush (actually longer than some brands like Zoya or Color Club) attached to the small brush handle.

Since the lighter coloured ones were pretty sheer, I also swatched the three polishes over cremes. Here are the base colour I used: Zoya Perrie, Milani One of a Kind, and a grey franken I made from Color Club French Tip and SOPI What’s a tire jack? As you can see in the photo my franken is kind of thick and chalky (due to Color Club French Tip which is one of those whites that is kind of chalky) which doesn’t give the greatest effect when combined with the ridges on that nail, but anyway… The base colours were all two coats except Perrie which was one.

"Underwear" for the holos

One coat over bases

These photos show one coat of the Glitter Gal holos over their corresponding base colour(s). I like how they turned out, definitely a good way to extend the life of the small GG bottles.

Bottom line: despite the thick formula, these new holos are pretty awesome (especially Lizard Belly!!). Light as a Feather is quite subtle as a holo, but is pretty in its own right. You’ll definitely want some thinner on hand with that one, though! Needing to add thinner to these isn’t such a bad thing in my opinion, that along with using them over a creme will help extend the life of the small 9ml bottles!

Category:

Glitter Gal

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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 ‘green’

China Glaze Optical Illusion

Sally Girl TTFN and comparisons

OPI Man of La Mancha

Kleancolor Fashionista

Wet n Wild On the Prowl (partial) collection

NYX Jungle

Cult Nails Fall 2011

A few Halloween manicures

New Soulstice Spa polishes

New Glitter Gal holos

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