This awesome polish is a-England’s St. George from the recent Legend collection. It’s a gorgeous deep teal scattered holo that is just about perfect. The holo effect isn’t super-strong but it’s a deep, saturated and unique colour for a holo, smooth formula with very easy application, dries extremely quickly, and this is only one coat in the photos! Not much more to say than that so I’ll let the pictures do the talking! One coat, no top coat, in sunlight.
This is another one of my very favourite polishes! I believe Nicole by OPI Iceberg Lotus was first released last spring. I still see it at some stores that sell Nicole polish, but not others, here in Canada. It’s an amazing teal duochrome with a near-foil glass-fleck shimmer finish that flashes from blue through to purple. I photographed it over black since it really brings out the duochrome that way. The formula is great; no complaints there. Two coats over one coat of Kleancolor Black, shown in natural overcast light.
Today I have swatches of the latest Cult Nails collection to show you! The collection is called Let’s Get Nekkid and consists of four nude shades for a wide variety of skin tones as well as a green glittery flakie polish. The nudes are all named after nude beaches. As usual, you can click on any of the photos to see more detail.
I’ll go from lightest to darkest for the nudes, so first up is Mazo. This one works best as a nude on my pale self. It’s a sheer beige base with lots of golden shimmer. The shimmer is the large flake-type shimmer particle. Shown is three coats, but it was already smooth and even at only one coat (this one has the best formula in the collection in my opinion), so the choice of how many coats to use is strictly based on how sheer you want it to be.
Next is Baker, a deeper and more opaque tan beige with orange tones in it and with similar golden shimmer. The formula seemed a little thicker than Mazo but was still fairly smooth and even and could probably be used at one coat for a sheer wash of colour. I used three coats for the photos (it’s more opaque than Mazo, still a relatively sheer polish though, so I used three coats since my nails are a bit stained).
Tulum is a dusty chocolately medium taupe-brown with golden shimmer that doesn’t show up as much as it does in the first two polishes; I’m not sure if that’s just because the base is more opaque or if the particles themselves are different. This one was a little streaky on the first coat, and the formula was a little thin and threatened to run down the brush stem and flood the nail if I wasn’t careful. Adjusting to that, a second thicker coat on top of the first evened out the polish.
I did a comparison to Power Thief from Cult Nails’ previous collection (which I reviewed here), and as you can see, Power Thief (on the left) has more of a reddish-pink undertone and has denser shimmer that shows up more on the nail. The shimmer in Power Thief is silvery and flashes little sparkles of blue and pink in the light.
Cult Nails Power Thief (left) and Tulum (right)
Cult Nails Power Thief (left) and Tulum (right)
The final nude shade is Swanbourne, a very deep neutral brown, again with golden shimmer. Like Tulum, this shade is opaque and the shimmers don’t show up as much as they do in the first two shades. Shown are two coats.
Last but not least we have the green flakie, Toxic Seaweed. This is a blue-toned green jelly with lots of small glitter and flakies that shift from red to yellow to green. This one has the same ingredient issue as Clairvoyant does, so unless they can find a new supplier or substitute for that ingredient, it will be limited edition. So, if you like this one, get it while you can; it’s still available on Cult Nails’ website as of the time I’m publishing this post!
The formula on this one was thinner than I expected, but only because I imagined it would be super-thick and it wasn’t. It applied just fine and this was two coats. I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about this one; I love it at an angle when the flakes are reflecting yellow, but straight on it can have a red-and-green kind of Christmasy look to it that isn’t really my favourite.
Since I usually show the glitter or flakie polish over the others when I review Cult Nails collections, I did it again here although it’s not really as appropriate in this case – Mazo is too light to change its look, Baker just kind of makes the colour more muted by removing the blue tone, over Tulum it becomes sort of a swampy looking thing (kind of interesting, actually) – layering it over Swanbourne makes the most sense! This photo shows one coat of Toxic Seaweed layered over Mazo, Baker, Tulum and Swanbourne (left to right).
My overall impression of this collection is great; I love nudes and these ones have golden shimmer which makes me love them even more! Those with cool, pink-toned skin may not be quite as thrilled with this collection as I am, but I can see Mazo becoming a go-to nude polish for me since it matches my skin tone quite well and looks good at one coat (or at least it would without the stained nails!!) as well as at two or three! Baker is another favourite; I love the golden orangey-peachy tan tone. All of these shades are pretty unique in my collection. I do recommend waiting a couple minutes between coats when applying the darker among these polishes to prevent dragging and bald spots.
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!
At the risk of making it seem like all I post is OPI, here’s yet another one! This is OPI Fly from their recently released Nicki Minaj collection. I wasn’t going to get any polishes from this collection but when I saw them in store I couldn’t resist getting Fly. I’m powerless against turquoise!
I didn’t have any good light for swatching but I figured I’d just do it anyway. This is two coats of Fly, no top coat, in natural overcast light.
With Flash:
Since I’m a total sucker for this kind of colour, I (of course) already had a polish that is very, very close to Fly, that polish being Milani’s Fresh Teal, which is one of their neons. I also added Kleancolor Catch Me to my comparison, since it’s fairly similar as well.
These are all two coats, no top coat – index and ring: OPI Fly, middle and pinky: Milani Fresh Teal, thumb: Kleancolor Catch Me.
In overcast natural light:
With flash:
Milani Fresh Teal is just a tiny smidgen brighter and greener than Fly. I found the Milani more opaque than the OPI at one coat (it could probably be a one-coater if you use a thick coat). Both applied really well and were self-leveling.
The Kleancolor is similar to Fresh Teal in terms of hue but is a few shades lighter (and is the most opaque of these three polishes, easily a one-coater, like a lot of Kleancolor cremes are); I just thought I’d add it for comparison’s sake.
I should probably redo this comparison when there’s sun to do a better job of showing the differences, as the flash tends to wash things out…
My preference/recommendation between Fly and Fresh Teal is Fresh Teal. Not only is it less expensive it’s also a bit more opaque and brighter.
Someone on a nail board I frequent asked for a comparison of Zoya Cynthia, from last fall’s Smoke collection, and Nicole by OPI Khloe had a Little Lam-Lam from their new Kardashian collection. (Now let me just say that I don’t know anything about the Kardashians except that their names all start with K and they’re on the cover of a lot of magazines in the supermarket checkout line. So, I really don’t know what this polish’s name refers to, but anyway… I’ll just refer to it here as Khloe!)
Cynthia is definitely darker (almost looks black in low light), and has less green in it. I found another polish in my collection that’s much closer to Khloe, Joe Fresh Hunter. I also added LA Colors Jungle to the comparison, but it’s a significantly lighter teal than the others.
Here are the four polishes at one coat, under my Ott light. From left to right, Zoya Cynthia, Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam, Joe Fresh Hunter, and LA Colors Jungle.
Cynthia is the darkest of the bunch and the least green; it’s a blackened teal but it could also pass for navy. At one coat it also has a pretty cloudy texture to it.
Two coats (no top coat), overcast natural light:
Khloe has a really smooth formula, great application. Joe Fresh Hunter is nearly identical in colour, though I prefer Khloe’s formula and brush. Not that Hunter’s formula is bad either. My brush on Hunter was a little screwy though; it has one bristle just slightly longer than the others. I’ll have to trim it… The brushes are fairly similar in shape though, both wide and flat, which I personally prefer in a brush shape.
Two coats, still without topcoat, setting sun:
At first I was going to say that Hunter is maybe a hair darker and less green than Khloe, but I don’t know if that’s even accurate (it almost looks like Hunter is slightly lighter in these photos – apologies that they aren’t the greatest; I did what I could with the light I had!) Either way, it’s really hard to pinpoint any differences in the two colours. Khloe does dry glossier before top coat, though.
So there you have it, a less expensive alternative to Khloe for those of us who have access to Joe Fresh polishes, although Khloe’s formula is slightly better and the bottle contains more polish (a standard 15 ml, versus 6 ml).
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.
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…
Vegan Claws 
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