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

Posts tagged ‘pastel’

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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Black Dahlia Lacquer Teal Hydrangea and comparison

Teal Hydrangea is a gorgeous turquoise/teal creme polish. I used two coats plus top coat; the formula was great. 

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Here’s a comparison with a couple of other turquoises: left to right/top to bottom are BDL Teal Hydrangea, China Glaze Aquadelic (2 coats plus top coat), China Glaze Too Yacht to Handle (3coats plus top coat). 

    

Category:

Black Dahlia Lacquer, China Glaze, Color Club

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Zoya Jasmine, Zoya Blossom, and stamping

I’ve got some more nails inspired by my cat Jasmine to show you today! Her full name is actually Jasmine Blossom so I wanted to use these two polishes together for some nail art. First some swatches of the polishes used. Both are older, discontinued Zoya shades. 

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Zoya Jasmine, three coats plus top coat. The third wasn’t strictly necessary but did deepen the colour slightly. Shown here in overcast natural light. 

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Jasmine is a shimmery metallic berry red-pink. Under Ott lite:

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With flash:

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Zoya Blossom, a slightly peachy off-white with fine pink shimmer. I’m not sure if this was three or four coats; I apparently forgot to write it down! I did write down that the formula was a little thin (which makes me think it’s probably four coats) but surprisingly un-streaky for a white! Under Ott lite:

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Under halogen light:

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With flash:

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I then stamped over Blossom using Jasmine, with an image of jasmine blossoms (? that’s what I decided these flowering branches were, anyway! haha) from plate Hehe-023. Photos of the stamping are all with flash. 

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I loved this combo!!

And now some photos of my semi-feral Jasmine: a collage with her sitting in a box and with her brother Thor, with whom she’s very close (and Julius lolling about in the background of one!) , and then one of her on the bed (she was actually leaned up against my leg when I woke up from a nap!)

  

 

Category:

Hehe stamping plates, Zoya

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Indigo Bananas Spring 2015

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Better late than never? I’ve got skittle swatches of the Indigo Bananas Spring 2015 collection today. I used three coats for each plus top coat, and the swatch photos are all with flash. 

Holding the bottle of Saffron Revolution:

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Holding the bottle of Land of Green Ginger:

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Holding the bottle of Jacaranda:
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Holding the bottle of Fluffy Little Clouds:
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Holding the bottle of Cherry Blossom Roads (which is on my thumb and is shown in the next pics):
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Thumb to pinkie: Cherry Blossom Roads, Saffron Revolution, Land of Green Ginger, Fluffy Little Clouds, Jacaranda. 

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Love these pretty pastels with contrasting glass flecks! Here are some pics showing the colours of the glass fleck shimmer in the bottles:

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From left, Jacaranda’s glass flecks shift from pink to gold. Fluffy Little Clouds and Saffron Revolution have the most similar shimmer among the five shades. 

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But, you can see that Fluffy Little Clouds has purple to pink glass flecks while Saffron Revolution seems to have those same ones plus some turquoise ones. 

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Cherry Blossome Roads has turquoise-green glass flecks while Land of Green Ginger’s are golden. 

Category:

Indigo Bananas

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Comparison: Indigo Bananas Electric Unicorns and Powder Perfect Lorelei

Powder Perfect Lorelei has a periwinkle-leaning light purple creme base with green glass flecks and fuchsia-purple microflakies. 

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I used three coats plus top coat here, although it’s really more of a two-coater, I was just having the impression that it somehow didn’t want to stick to the base coat I was using (Illamasqua, for the record – not really my favourite base coat, I won’t be repurchaing it).

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Then I had the impression that I’d seen this before somewhere…

Here is Indigo Bananas Electric Unicorns, a periwinkle creme with green glass flecks and fuchsia-purple microflakies. 

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I used three thin coats plus top coat. 

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With flash:

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Under Ott lite:

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Here are the bottles next to each other. Now, clearly the Powder Perfect is a shade more purple/darker but other than that they’re quite similar. 

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Here’s the comparison on the nail; three coats for the Indigo Bananas (on the index and middle), two coats for the Powder Perfect (on the ring and pinkie) (I managed to get it to play nicer with the base coat this time).

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The Indigo Bananas is definitely a bit more sheer in addition to being slightly bluer. You can kind of see a streak on my middle finger where I didn’t apply it as evenly…

indigobananas_electricunicorns_powderperfect_lorelei2(Top to bottom: IB, IB, PP, PP)

Despite that my own personal pick is the Indigo Bananas just because I’ve had it longer and have a much bigger collection of their polishes! 🙂 Although I do think these qualify as “similar, not the same”, so I can see how someone might want to have both!

indigobananas_electricunicorns_powderperfect_lorelei3(Left to right: IB, IB, PP, PP)

I did this comparison a while ago and have since sent the Powder Perfect on to a new home with a nail polish buddy of mine, hope she enjoys it 🙂

indigobananas_electricunicorns_powderperfect_lorelei4(Top to bottom: IB, IB, PP, PP)

Category:

Indigo Bananas, Powder Perfect

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Misa Jasmine and Picture Polish Jasmine

Two polishes named Jasmine! And they happen to go together very well. 

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This is Misa Jasmine, a wonderfully dusty light purple creme, with an accent nail of Picture Polish Jasmine, which has green, silver and blue medium hex glitter and similar-sized purple square glitter in a lavender crelly base. 

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I used two coats plus top coat for Misa Jasmine. It had a great, smooth and creamy formula. 

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For Picture Polish Jasmine, I used three coats plus top coat for even glitter coverage. With flash:

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And here’s a little crossed-paws, head tilting (to follow the fingers I was wiggling at her!) Jasmine collage:  

Category:

Misa, Picture Polish

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Zoya Tiana

Here’s a quick post to show you Zoya Tiana, a pretty pastel green creme from the spring 2015 Delight collection. Three coats plus topcoat. In sun:

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In shade:

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With flash:

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Category:

Zoya

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Picture Polish Douceur and stamping

Picture Polish Douceur is a very pretty pale pinkish-beige nude shade with scattered holo and small and medium magenta hex glitter. I used two coats plus top coat. With flash (as are the later photos with the accent nail):

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Under Ott Lite:

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I stamped an scaly-patterned accent nail using Finger Paints Minimalistic Mauve (which I think would have been better named minimalistic magenta) and plate Hehe-005. 

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Category:

FingerPaints, Hehe stamping plates, Picture Polish

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Ellagee By The Sea, Snoozing in the Hammock, Salty Breeze, Beach Bum, and watermarble accents

I recently got the entire Ellagee Beach Bum collection of sunbleached neons, and here is the first (evolving) mani I did with a few of them. Including my first successful watermarble attempts! 😀

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Here are the three shades I started with, By The Sea, Salty Breeze, and Snoozing in the Hammock:

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My only previous watermarble attempt was a failure given that it was about 15 degrees Celsius in my place at the time. This time, in the summer, things went a lot better. Not without issues, my first try below had to be redone because I got too much of the polish on my fingertip and it kind of ran all over my nail covering the design I’d originally tried to pick up.

Oh and the little cup I’m using is the China Glaze shot glass from one of their holiday sets a few years ago. 😀 I also used Sticky Paws liquid latex from Eat Sleep Polish around my nail for clean up; clearly on my first try there I didn’t go far enough down my finger so I added more for the next tries! I should also mention that as base for all the watermarbled nails shown here, I used one generous coat of Milani White On The Spot.

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The marble isn’t perfect; I did get a spot from where a water bubble got stuck in the polish, but I was happy with how it turned out!

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On my left hand I did the other fingers in By the Sea, and on my right hand in Snoozing in the Hammock. I used two coats plus top coat for each; they had a good formula that self levels pretty well.
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Both hands together:

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With little Wu in the background:

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For the second day I changed things up a bit by painting Salty Breeze on a couple of the nails on my left hand. It had a similar formula to the previous two and this is also two coats plus top coat:

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On my right hand I changed the watermarble as well as a couple of the plain fingers. Unlike the other photos which were in sunlight, these ones are with flash.

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This time I used Beach Bum, the peach from the collection, along with Salty Breeze and Snoozing in the Hammock for the watermarble, and painted my thumb and middle finger with Beach Bum.

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For Beach Bum I needed three coats plus top coat since it was still a little streaky at two, but that may have just been me not being as careful.

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So far I’m loving these Ellagee polishes, and I definitely recommend them if you’re looking for pastel neons! And I was so happy to have a watermarbling success! The designs aren’t perfect but at least they went on my nails ok! Next I’ll work on making nice, smoother swirly designs. 😀

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Category:

Ellagee

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Black Dahlia Lacquer Mountain Laurel

Black Dahlia Lacquer Mountain Laurel is a really nice lavender holo with subtle blue-purple glass flecks. It has a great formula and I used two coats plus top coat for this mani. With flash:

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Under Ott Lite:

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Category:

Black Dahlia Lacquer

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