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

Posts tagged ‘indie’

Il était un vernis Something to Remember

Something to Remember by Il était un vernis is a taupe-leaning purple scattered holo with pink shimmer that is hard to capture in photos. It does show in these photos, but it’s much more apparent and complex-looking in real life!

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I used two coats plus top coat. The formula was excellent, as with the other Il était un vernis shades I’ve tried so far.  

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Under Ott lite:

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Again under Ott lite, showing the shimmer on the side of the bottle:

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And at an extreme angle back in the sunlight, the shimmer looks to have a bit of a duochrome aspect to it:

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The Great Evolving Black Dahlia Lacquer Manicure/Comparison

Warning, long and picture heavy post! I had a Black Dahlia Lacquer mani that just kept evolving! Except where noted, these were all two coats plus top coat.

Part 1, left hand – Striped Peonies with Rose Petals, under Ottlite:

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With flash:

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These two have a similar crelly finish with tons of colour-shifting glass fleck shimmer.

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Part 1, right hand, Rose Petals with Striped Peonies, under Ottlite:

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With flash:
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I decided to then pair Striped Peonies (on the right) with 90 in November (on the left) to do a little purple comparison – 90 in November is much warmer in tone and has a foil finish with some added glass flecks:

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Part 2, left hand, Striped Peonies with 90 in November, under Ottlite:

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With flash:

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Part 2, right hand, 90 in November with Striped Peonies, under Ottlite:

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With flash:

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Part 3, left hand, Blooming Sunflowers with 90 in November, in sunlight:

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Under Ottlite:

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With flash:

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Part 3, right hand, 90 in November with Blooming Sunflowers, stamped with Fingerpaints Picturesque Purple and plate Pueen 08, in sunlight:

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I then wanted to compare Blooming Sunflowers to Strawberry Fields; here they are in the bottles, not as close in colour as I’d thought – Blooming Sunflowers leans a lot more toward red, and its gold flakes are much larger and more prominent:

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Part 4, left hand, Blooming Sunflowers with Strawberry Fields. I used three coats of Strawberry Fields here, just because I smudged it a bit after the second. In sunlight:

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I didn’t take a picture of the right hand for Part 4.

Since Strawberry Fields was a lot pinker than Blooming Sunflowers, I then decided to compare it to Rose Petals:

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Rose Petals is a cooler pink, with pink shifting glass fleck shimmer, whereas the shimmer in Strawberry Fields is all tiny gold flakes and is less prominent once on the nail.

For the last version of the mani, I did an ombré/skittle-type thing, adding both Rose Petals and Dandelion Explosion, a coral crelly with peach and coral matte glitters, to the previous version. So here we have Part 5, index to pinkie: Dandelion Explosion (three coats – it’s also the bottle I’m holding), Blooming Sunflowers, Strawberry Fields, and Rose Petals:

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Part 5, right hand, thumb to pinkie: Blooming Sunflowers, Dandelion Explosion, Strawberry Fields, Blooming Sunflowers stamped with Fingerpaints Picturesque Purple, Rose Petals:

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Zoya Rayne and Northern Star Polish Sweet Alice

I have two pretty blues to show today; unfortunately I didn’t get the greatest pics of them but here they are! First one under Ott Lite, others with flash. 

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Zoya Rayne is from the recent spring Delight collection. It has great turquoise glassfleck shimmer. I used three coats plus topcoat. 

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The accent nail is Northern Star Polish Sweet Alice, a creamy blue with subtle shimmer flecks. Also three coats plus top coat.  

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Love these shimmery blues!

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A few odds and ends

A few random things, some of them pretty old photos! In reverse chronological order…

China Glaze Metro-pollen-tin, three coats plus top coat, taken with flash. Love this yellow-orange!

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IndiePolish Spring Lilac, two coats, plus two coats topcoat (the formula was a little thick so the glitters got a bit lumpy).

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China Glaze Ray-diant layered over black.

OPI Do You Think I’m Tex-y with a jelly sandwich accent nail. I *think* the iridescent glitter in the jelly sandwich was Butter London Tart With a Heart but I’m not 100% positive!

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OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y

OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y

OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y

And of course, I can’t post a polish with Tex in the name without posting a picture of handsome Big Tex!

Il était un vernis – Paeonia and Ixia

Today I have two polishes from French indie brand Il était un vernis to show you! 

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Paeonia is a pretty light coral scattered holo with tons of pink and gold glass fleck shimmer. The photos show two coats, no topcoat, and all are in sunlight. 

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Ixia is a very bright blue scattered holo with blue glass fleck shimmer. Also shown in two coats, this one with topcoat. First photos in the sun:

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In shade:
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Under Ott lite:
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With flash:
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I was super impressed with these polishes! The shipping is a little pricey for those of us who aren’t in Europe, unsurprisingly, so I made sure to buy enough polishes to make up for it. 😉 So, I have several more Il était un vernis shades to swatch and show you in the future! 😀

Northern Star Polish We’re Not Worthy

Northern Star Polish released We’re Not Worthy at the end of March as part of their third anniversary trio collection (with a Wayne’s World theme which very much pleases the early 90’s 14 year old I once was!). 

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We’re Not Worthy has a yellow-toned beige creme base with gold shimmer flecks, holo particles, and pink and blue micro-flakies. When I first saw a swatch of this I knew I had to have it! It’s basically perfection in a bottle. 🙂 Shown in two coats plus topcoat. 

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I tried adding a faux-watermarble stamped accent nail using Hehe plate Hehe040. Umm, kinda missed the nail tip, oops!! I used two polishes on different areas of the stamp before scraping, Kleancolor Pink (up near the cuticle) and Kleancolor Metallic Pink. Turns out Pink doesn’t stamp as well as Metallic Pink does!

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Well, I LOVE this polish even if my accent nail didn’t turn out quite as planned!

Black Dahlia Lacquer – Lime Green Daisies, Lilac Petals, and Bleeding Hearts

Today I’ve got three beautiful Black Dahlia Lacquer polishes to show you! The first one is Lime Green Daisies, which was from the New Year’s multichrome flake duo. It’s a metallic, yellow-toned pastel green with copper-pink/green multichrome flakes, strong gold shimmer, and turquoise glass flecks. I used two coats plus top coat for this swatch.

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Under Ott Lite:

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Next is Lilac Petals; this was the exclusive extra polish I received in a ‘buy 4 petite-sized polishes get an exclusive petite polish free’ sale not long ago. It’s got a denim blue base with metallic red-maroon flakes and pink and blue glass flecks. The photos show two coats, no top coat. Love!

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In the shade:

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And the third polish I have to show today is Bleeding Hearts. This is from the Valentine’s Day collection. It’s an almost-neon pinky purple with multichrome flakies and turquoise glass flecks. I used three coats, although two would probably be fine as well, and no topcoat in this swatch.

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In the shade:

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All three of these are just gorgeous! Black Dahlia Lacquer really makes some great polish. 😀

Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not and comparisons

This beauty is Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not, released in February 2014 in an indie collaboration box (but I got it secondhand from someone’s blogsale). 

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It’s a neon pinky-purple with these great blue flakes. The flakes are opaque and tend to sink to the bottom of the bottle, but turning it upside down for a minute or two before use solves that.

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Here you can see a bunch of the blue flakes up against the side of the bottle:

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I used three coats plus top coat and didn’t have any issues with application. 

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I love these blue flakies!

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In shade:

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I did a comparison with Fingerpaints Gorgeous Graffiti and Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout, similar neon purples that have blue flecks of different types. 

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Left to right, He Loves Me Not, Fingerpaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout, three coats each. 

Left to right: Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not, FingerPaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout

Left to right: Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not, FingerPaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout


 

The Fingerpaints is slightly more purple and has translucent blue glassfleck-type flecks rather than opaque flakes. 

Top to bottom: Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not, FingerPaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout

Top to bottom: Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not, FingerPaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout


 

The Glam Polish is slightly pinker and dustier and has much smaller blue glassflecks as well as scattered holo. 

Left to right: Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout, FingerPaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not

Left to right: Glam Polish Beauty School Dropout, FingerPaints Gorgeous Graffiti, Black Cat Lacquer He Loves Me Not

Girly Bits Protect Your Girly Bits and Man Size Love

I recently learned that Girly Bits polishes are vegan friendly and decided to try some out. Girly Bits Protect Your Girly Bits is a purple linear holo with red microglitter. Here I have it with an accent pinkie in Girly Bits Man Size Love, which looks fairly similar to Protect Your Girly Bits in the bottle, but on the nail you can see it’s much more blue than purple!

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Man Size Love is a purple-leaning blue linear holo with small (not micro) light blue glitter in it. As usual you can click on any of the photos to see the larger versions.

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I used two coats of each, plus topcoat. Before topcoat they both have a slight texture due to the added glitter, especially Man Size Love whose glitter is a bit larger.

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Here they are in the shade:

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With flash, and you can see the red microglitter in the bottle really well (I’m holding the bottle of Protect Your Girly Bits in all shots):

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Again with flash:

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Purpley goodness! 😀

Black Dahlia Lacquer Capital Rose Garden

Black Dahlia Lacquer Capital Rose Garden is a wonderfully complex dusty rose scattered holo with pink-purple-blue colour-shifting shimmer flecks. It’s part of their Capital collection. blackdahlialacquer_capitalrosegarden_ott2 These first two photos were taken under Ott Lite. I used two coats plus top coat; no issues at all with the formula. I found the colour-shifting flecks to be even more apparent in real life than I was able to capture in these photos. blackdahlialacquer_capitalrosegarden_ott Under halogen light: blackdahlialacquer_capitalrosegarden_halogen2 blackdahlialacquer_capitalrosegarden_halogen With flash: blackdahlialacquer_capitalrosegarden_flash In shade: blackdahlialacquer_capitalrosegarden_shade I love this delicate and complex shade!