Dear RUS LAD538

In this photo, it's warm on the index finger, normal on others. compare how the tips look very different!

I have not worn this polish for a few months since I got it, but I finally decided to give it a ago and to try some nail art with it! My nails are far too long for a Konad stamp to cover them all, so I tried to leave some space at the base of the nail. This polish is the same in finish and formula as the other Dear RUS polishes: LAD560, LAD556 and LAD554.

This one is a grey shimmer which turns to a much darker grey when cold. I like that it's also very cool-toned, almost greenish in its color. The darker tips look fantastic and I ended up really loving this under the stamp!

Nubar polka dot jelly sandwich

Finally got my hands on the Nubar Black and White polka dots! They are clear polishes with scattered fine black/white glitter and bigger hex glitters in their respective colors, as well. I decided to sandwich this in OPI My Pointe Exactly, a grey jelly. It definitely turned out interesting, I need to try polka dots over bright colors as well. It sort of reminds me of  cookies and cream, would be even better if I used a peachy/cream jelly instead!

Essence Grey to be here with neon chevron

Sorry about the blurry photos - my lighting was way off.

Here I'm using Essence Grey to be here (what a name, eh?) and China Glaze Flip Flip Fantasy for the chevron.I used tape to isolate the area, then painted the neon on top of base color. After that, topcoat and you're good to go!

The grey polish applies awesome - Essence polishes seem to have a wide, flat brush and applying color with it is fantastically easy, it dries fast and doesn't chip on me.

Essence Grey to be here is actually a really pretty color - it's a light warm grey with faint pink shimmer! It's a bit hard to see, but you can notice it at some angles. This gives the polish a very soft finish, which makes me love it more. It's a perfectly unassuming worksafe polish, hiding a little secret... I like that.

GOSH Galaxy

GOSH is a canadian brand, found mostly in Shoppers. This polish really stood out from the rest - a reddish, golden glitter with blue specks in a silvery bronze base. The bottle itself separated into a red and yellow half, but it's all mixed on the nail. It's a charcoal base not unlike Revlon Carbonite and it has teal, bronze, gold and green microglitter. It looks grey with bits of gold and a flash of teal. 

Texture is nice, a little thin, but applies smoothly. I couldn't get it to try properly, since it needed about 4 coats to be opaque. It looks a lit less bronze on the nail, but I like the subtle flashes of other colors.

Definitely one of the most unique colors I own, especially in the glitter department.

Revlon moon candy - Milky Way

This is a strange one. I don't like buying non-standard bottles because of storage concerns but I couldn't pass this up. I don't have any macro flakie glitters so I decided to add one to my collection.

One end of the polish is a dark grey creme - I actually liked the coverage and formula. It was a bit thick but pretty much a one-coater. Dried fast and shiny! The other end is macro flakies - mylar cut in bigger pieces than in standard flakie polishes. The other Moon Candy polishes came with blue, red, orange, others and Milky Way looked like a dark holographic, with ALL of the colors. It was also very tricky to photograph...You can see it in the bottle in the first picture. 

Now, I am a lover of flakies and own many polishes containing them - I like green, red, orange, blue, multicolored flakies. The pieces in these polishes tend to be about 1-3mm at their largest and this keeps the polishes creamy, even though they still feel like porridge. 

Milky way is about 5mm for their largest flakies and they are a PAIN. They slide, don't stick well, stick out, bend, create a rough surface. Two top coat layers later, it's still sticking out! I had to wrestle with it for a while.

In the end, I really loved the grey polish that game with this and I will probably try the glitter again - maybe in a sandwich?

Dare 2 Wear - purple to grey

Whoa welcome back! Phew, that was too long of a break - hope you're ready for nail polish again!

Today I'm showcasing a beauty supply store find - a color changing polish. It's dusty purple in bottle and has a very subtle blue shimmer. It changes to grey when warmed, as seen in the photo above.

Here it is when it's cold - fully purple and you can see the shimmer a little bit.

This one displays the shimmer even better, as well as the difference in hot/cold color change.

This polish is a bit thick, but applied very nicely. It took 2 coats for full opacity and I wore it for 2 days. No chips under Seche Vite and it satisfied my dusty purple-grey-shimmery craving. I want to try stamping over this!

Essence - Where's the Party?

Now here's a surprise - a 2$ polish I picked up at the drugstore and it's a duochrome!

It's a smooth metallic polish that doesn't show streaks, dries fast and is a dark grey base with a prominent purple flash and a little bit of green. The effect in this is comparable to OPI Not Like The Movies, but less gritty and darker. I was pretty surprised at this find, since it applies nicer and looks better than OPI. The main difference is that it doesn't have any particles/glitter and it is much more purple, rather than green when it flashes. I loved the look of Where's The Party?, it reminded me of really soft graphite. 

I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good duochrome - cheap and very pretty!

Has anyone else tried out this polish? 

China Glaze Elephant Walk and glitter

I recently got Elephant walk and in the bottle, it looked like a muted cool gray with a very subtle shimmer. I thought I could spice it up with some glitter, but that seemed to have turned out badly for me. Other than the poor layering combination, I liked this polish. It applied thickly, but not chunky and flowed very well. It didn't level as nicely as I would have liked, but it dried quick and has great coverage. I'm wearing 2 coats, usually I have to apply 3. The formula is not prone to bald spots on longer nails, so that's a pleasant surprise. Only complaint against the polish itself is that it's a little too green for my skin tone. I expected it to be a little more blue, but the greenness makes it less desirable to me. Other than that, it's really fun to apply and wear.

OPI Ballet spring 2012- My Pointe Exactly and Experiments

MAD SCIENCE TIME! 
Experiment 1:
Thesis: it should work nicely, should come out looking like a rainy day.
I wanted to do a jelly sandwich with Whimsical again, so I used my newly acquired OPI My Pointe Exactly to sandwich the glitter. MPE is a grey jelly, one of the "sorbet" finishes with a grey tint. It tends to mute glitter a little bit, but with Whimsical, it worked perfectly. The light blue and pink glitters showed up well and stood out, but the little 'secret' blue glitter unfortunately got lost in the jelly. Otherwise, it turned out perfectly light and airy, a subtle jelly sandwich! It's a bit hard to work with grey polishes since they wash out the color, but I still love the way this particular manicure came out.
Results: success! It's showing the color of the glitter, while still giving it a subtle murkiness of a raincloud.

Experiment 2:

Thesis: glitter should shine through the grey jelly, like a good glitter sandwich should.

Here is my attempt at using nail art glitter within the jelly, I have applied 1 layer of MPE, then stuck on glitter, then another layer. I ended up removing this mani due to the way it looked, I did not like how the glitter became too muted in just a single coat. I'd say MPE is decent at sandwiching very light colored glitter, because it tends to wash out the bright and colorful glitter.
Result: failure! Glitter becomes dulled due to milkiness of the polish.

bonus fail:

Ewww. This porridge looking thing is OPI MPE with China Glaze - Some Like it Haute underneath. This monster ate 3 layers of topcoat, so I gave up. Also it scares me... what have I created!!

So the final verdict on My Point Exactly is that it's a little bit milky, which makes it exceedingly hard to sandwich with. Other OPI Sorbets are completely transparent, there is no trace of milkiness, which makes for perfect sandwiching polishes. Muted glitter should work best with My Pointe Exactly.

T-Sing Magnetic polish in Grey

First of all, I would like to apologize for the lack of cleanup on this one. I messed up the mani, wasn't feeling it and ended up taking it off right away.

In any case, this is my first magnetic polish, T-Sing in Grey, a Taiwanese polish. I got this in Richmond and it even came with a magnet! It folds into a little box, which you put your nail into. I had some trouble with it, since I still need some practice. The design turned out a lot better in the photos and I smudged the nails a bit when using a magnet. The polish was thick, goopy and gritty. Exactly what I imagined magnetic polish might be like...

While I did not like the texture, I liked the color. Even by itself, it's a nice metallic grey. It dries fairly fast and the magnet seems to work well. I was surprised it even showed a design, since my nails have a very pronounced c-curve. I will be trying it again, as well as the dark blue one I got as well. 

What are your thoughts on magnetic polishes? Like em, hate em? Favorite brands?

OPI - I Have a Herring Problem - Holland 2012

OPI - I Have a Herring Problem is the polish I've been looking forward to the most in the OPI Holland 2012 spring collection! It was a tie betwee I Don't Give a Rotterdam!  and Herring Problem, but Herring won because of the name. Read on for more pics of this baby!

China Glaze - Some Like It Haute

China Glaze - Some Like it Haute is one of new 3D Glitters from the winter 2012 collection - Eye Candy.

It's a charcoal glitter base with holographic specks and flecks, multisized glitter and all sorts of shiny things! SLIH has a rough texture, takes about 3 coats to look solid, and shines like a diamond. This is one of those "topcoat eaters", where if you apply topcoat, it will become absorbed by the glitter and you might have to apply another coat. I don't mind too much though, it's such an amazing polish! My nails feel like a disco ball when I wear this color... Mesmerizing.

I didn't like the application too much, as it was a little runny, but goopy. However, it did become solid in a few coats, which is a big plus. Glitter doesn't catch on the previous layer, which makes it easier to apply than   other glitters. I'm personally impressed with the drying time and the combination of dark grey glitter with holographic particles, it's so beautiful!

Check out that bottle:

What do you think of 3d glitters? I find them a pain in the butt to remove but definitely worth the pain!

Do you like glitter in general?

Taiwanese Magnetic haul! T-SING

I've been looking at magnetic polishes for a while but the price really struck me as insane. 17-25 bucks for a bottle of polish? It was a big deterrent. So one day, I came across a Cube Inc store, with these babies at 9.99$ cdn each! These are from T-SING, which I believe is a Taiwanese brand (correct me if I am wrong) and I also got a magnet card, shown on the right.

This makes the slanted line design, I tried it a few times, but I want to get the hang of it before I show you my awful attempts. The one on the right is much sparklier and has bigger particles... the design came out the strongest on it, but we'll have to see how they look once I can do some proper swatches.

 Got these at Cube INC at Aberdeen Center in Richmond ☺

Illamasqua - Lament and SOPI - To the Glitter End!

Here it is with the Illamasqua bottle

Illamasqua Lament is a beautiful coral that just draws me to it... It's like a flame, the brightest popsicle, burning neon orange-pink creme. It's a 2-coater with buttery formula I find so often in Illamasquas. I decided this is going to be a layering test for pewter glitter, Sephora By OPI - To The Glitter End!

On its own, TTGE is unable to become solid, which disappointed me. My ring finger contains 4 coats and still not solid. However, as a topping glitter it's fantastic! This polish is a unique cookie in my collection because of its color and uniform glitter shape.

with the SOPI bottle

As for Lament and TTGE together, it's an interesting combination! The contrast is there, I think if I layered this over silver, I'd get a very cool fishscale effect. Fishscales - that is exactly what TTGE reminds me of. 

Overall, I'm very happy with Illamasqua Lament and pretty satisfied with Sephora by OPI To The Glitter End, but only as a topping glitter.

Maybelline - Cool Couture with glitter tips

Maybelline Cool Couture is a dark grey polish is a very subtle blue shimmer (you can really tell from the bottle). I believe this was a part of their Fall collection, but I picked it up on a discount! The formula is a bit thick, but covers well. The color is solid in 2 coats and it dries normally, but a bit dull. I am wearing a topcoat, which really brings out the shimmer! Maybelline polishes have mostly been disappointments for me, but this one is an interesting addition to the collection: it's dark, green-toned grey color with secret blue shimmer, which really makes it pop!

The tips are done with the golden glitter I got form Daiso, pictured here (yellow handle) which was pretty good! Not too thin, good coverage, just enough glitter for me. This contains hex glitter and tinier round gold glitter.

Flowers and dots mani - pink and grey

right hand

left hand <3

I did more experimenting with the dotting tools! I tried making flowers, but went overboard with the dots...they turned out a bit wonky but I LOVE the way my left hand turned out with a single tiny flower. 

Essie Chinchilly for grey and ORLY Cotton Candy for the pink. 

What do you girls think? What else should I try with the dotting tools?

OPI - Not Like The Movies over black

Sorry about the photo quality, it turned out a little bit red...

When I moved, I took the most office safe color with me and turns out it's a casual dresscode! I was also stuck on a no-buy (until December! Whoo hoo!) so I had to get creative with what I brought with me.

I finally tried NTLM over black and I'm not sure if I love it as much as I love NTLM by itself. 2 coats over black. I do like how the duochrome is a lot stronger, but the fine glitter in the polish no longer gives it depth. It does look very interesting though, like a really dark gunmetal shade.

Newspaper nails

This is another one of my older manis, I tried my hand at newspaper nails! I used a tutorial where you dip the newspaper in rubbing alcohol and then press onto your nail for a few seconds so the ink transfers. The pinky came out really well but the rest...not so much! Not sure what I did differently to make the pinky come out right, but I wouldn't mind trying it again sometime. What a really cool look when it comes out well!

ELF Innocent vs Nude comparison

These have matte topcoat on, read on for glossy pics

I really wanted to try mannequin hands, so I ordered both Innocent and Nude from ELF to see which fits me better! It seems like Nude wins, but they are both very nice polishes, very cheap as well... Two dollars!

Both have great formula and apply very nicely.

Keep reading for individual reviews and glossy pics

Revlon Carbonite

So guess what! I finally got my hands on Carbonite, long after the hype is gone and it only cost me 3 dollars. I feel like a winner. Carbonite is supposed to be a pretty-close-but-not-quite-dupe to Chanel Graphite, with less of a golden sparkle. I'm a big fan of metallics and Carbonite is no exception. A grungy, almost green toned steel with a bit of reflection, but texture as well. The formula wowed me the most... It applied like a DREAM. The color was solid in 1 coat, but I added the second for full saturation. The polish is very creamy, doesn't snag and dries fast. It's very different to see a metallic finish like this (don't think it's a foil) apply like a creme and be super solid without any grittiness. Removal was also easy! It slides right off, instead of leaving the glitter behind. I honestly did not find any flaws in the formula, color and wear of this polish. I wish it was a little more sparkly, but that can be fixed with a glitter topcoat.

Revlon Carbonite gets a BIG thumbs up from me and I'm happy to add it to my collection.