Duochrome madness - MAC Mean and Green

This one's a beauty - my first MAC polish is a glittery duochrome which shifts from bronze to purple and gold with tiny flecks of blue. By itself this polish is pretty hideous - a slightly sparkly swamp green polish and the color shift does not show up like it does in the bottle. Instead, to achieve the full effect, I have opted to layer it over black. 

*faints* It's so pretty! i'm surprised at how nice the formula was (layered, of course) and the brush was pretty good. I liked the rubber cap, as well. Overall, I probably wouldn't pay this much for a normal polish from MAC, but this is worth it just for the color shift. 

Do you own any MAC polishes?

Delicious duochrome - layering with Nfu-oh 51 and Revlon Royal

Coming back to kickass duochromes - Nfu-oh 51. A purple jelly base with iridescent purple to green to gold flakies and a scattered pigment of the same nature. This polish colorshifts like nobody's business and it's great! I've shown it here before, but this time... I can show you the full range!

It's layered over Revlon Royal. 

Let's start with this:

Looks purple, right?

Wait a minute

You can see the gold in this

Oooh there it goes!

Nothing better than wearing a few colors at once, eh?

Nubar - Indigo Illusion

Oh my god... this is the strangest polish

Today is an especially picture-heavy update. Click read more to see the rest of the post/photos.

Essence - Chic Reloaded

I gotta admit - Essence has to be one of my favorite new polish brands I've started to find about drugstores. Not only do they start their short lineup with glitters, a pink and peachy nude, basic cremes and nice glitter, but also two duochromes!

I've had the pleasure of wearing Where's The Party? before and it's awesome! Since it did not disappoint, I went and got Chic Reloaded.

It's a much darker duochrome with a charcoal base, turqoise to purple duochrome shift and some scattered green glitters. The formula is a bit watery, but it works well with the big brush Essence uses. Dried nice and fast, wore strong for 3 days with no chipping and major tipwear. I'm extremely happy with this polish, especially since it only cost two dollars!

The color shift was notoriously difficult to capture - it is more evident in the bottle, but is still strong on the nail.

Where's the purple? Apparently doesn't show up with flash, but I hope this shows the texture of the polish well.

Tony Moly Galaxy Jupiter stress test

I've worn this polish for about 5 days at the time of taking this picture - with a base coat and 2 layers of Seche Vite for that extra shine. It appears that I don't have any pictures of it before! It's too bad, but at least you can see it looks as good as new except for the regrowth. Wore this to work (lots of computer work) for a few days even. No chips, barely any tip-wear, dare I say this is amazing? 

I'm a little sad I couldn't get the focus quite right on the glitter particles, not sure what went wrong there. Polish itself? Amazing. Three coats is enough to show full opacity (two over black) and it stays on like iron. Dries fast, looks GREAT. There's so much different glitter in there, it's a party. Only problem is it's a bit of a topcoat-eater, but 2-3 coats tends to do it. 

What's the polish that lasts on you the longest?

Tony Moly GS09

Mmm, this beauty is Tony Moly GS09, a part of the Tony Moly Glitter GS collection. This lavender beauty also carries the name Shooting Star and it's packed with multicolored solid hex glitter, as well as a few mylar glitters. You can catch a hint of the yellow and blue mylars as they sparkle and the rest should be clearly visible in the photos. 

I'm wearing 3 coats in these photos and it's solid enough to look good, yes retains a tiny hint of the nail line. This is a great jelly sandwich in a bottle, especially since it dries nice and smooth , as opposed to gritty.

This also gives it a giant upper hand - no topcoat-eating glitter! Only downside is that it smells strongly, like white-out, but everything else makes it worth it.

It comes with 2 other cousins, a Revlon Whimsical dupe (comparisons coming soon!) and its pink jelly conterpart. 

This polish is the reason I love macro shots!

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!

Etude House - Juicy cocktail in Love Violet

Boy do I have a treat for you today! A part of my Korean haul, A set of Etude House polishes that are meant to create a Jelly Syrup look; something that is ever-so-popular in Asia. The polishes are: super sheer base jelly colour (applies all over) middle gradient color (middle of nail and to the tips) and the finishing glitter, which applies to the tips. They're all super sheer so layering them looks like a flawless gradient and the glitters are opaque enough to show up within a single coat. My favourite would have to be the middle polish - translucent glitter with tiny pieces of mylar flakies, suspended in a purple jelly. I could not capture it properly in the photos, but there's also invisible glitter, flashing blue and pink. Seriously, it's amazing! I want to try layering with these polishes at some point, since they're so versatile. There's other versions of this set, including silvery white, pink, gold, and I think blue (?). The glitters that come with these are different, but I'm glad I got this one! These are some of the most unique glitters in my collection.

Tony Moly GS09

Today I would like to present Tony Moly GS09, a part of my recent Korean haul! GS09 is a wonderful light lilac jelly with multisized hex glitter suspended in the base. I am wearing 3 coats in this picture, looks like that was enough to give it a milky jelly look, as well as show a lot of glitter. It dries not too slow, but not fast either. I did not want to put this on in thin coats, since it's harder to catch the glitter, but a fast dry topcoat eliminates issues with thicker layers. I liked the formula, it levels nicely and came out looking fantastic. Glitter does not stick out past the nail and stays in its base. The only downside I found was the smell, it reminded me of really strong white-out. I often find that is the case with foreign polishes - they might sell terrible or be missing balls, but I do love the polish so much, it barely matters to me. 

I've posted this bottle shot before but here it is again:

Gliiiittterrr

And a macro shot of the jelly sandwich! I love looking at my nails today!

Abstract Graffiti nails with Illamasqua Jo'Mina

I was itching to wear Jo'Mina again, so I decided to spice it up with a little bit of abstract nail art!

To create this, I used a white nail art polish and went a little crazy with the corners. Also, my thumb spells my first name in Russian, written as АНЯ. I'm pretty happy with the way this came out, I'd love to try more graffiti nails eventually.

Spring is finally here, there is sun outside, it's time to bust out the holographics! Ooh, I can't wait for flip flops, tank tops and shorts! It's a little late this year, but as long as it starts, I'm happy. Flowers have come and gone, but now the real fun begins. I can finally take my sketchbook outside and eat ice-cream on the street and wear sandals...

What's your favourite thing about summer?

Illamasqua Jo'mina leopard gradient

I'm not usually big on animal print, but my favorite Konad plate (m57) contains a GREAT Leopard print stamp which always works and I wanted to try a Leopard print gradient, but with better colors this time. My last attempt was all over the place and I picked terrible colours to gradient.

Learning from my mistakes, I faded 2 cool toned colors (in this case Illamasqua Jo'Mina and OPI Pink Friday) which creates a nicer gradient, since the colors don't blow each other out. 

Pink Friday is a very cool light pink and it fades perfectly from a bright lilac like Jo'Mina.

The leopard print looks a LOT better over this and I really loved the way it came out. I was even considering redoing the same mani but with all fingers jazzed up instead of just accents. Expect to see more Leopard print in the future, now that I've finally found my favorite Konad plate M57.

What do you think about animal print on nails? Cute or kitsch?

OPI - Dutch' Ya Just Love OPI? Holland 2012

OPI - Dutch' Ya Just Love is a part of this spring's Holland 2012 collection, it is a cool grape creme with hidden orangey-gold shimmer, which REALLY reminds me of tulips. The purple is slightly dusty and the shimmer warms it up, which makes it different from other purples I own. Unusually enough, I am loving this color even though purples aren't my thing...it just looks so rich and satisfying, like a heavy dessert. The application was awesome, 2 coats and it was solid. However, my only gripe comes from the shimmer being too secret! Without a topcoat, the shimmer is almost impossible to see. With a topcoat, it comes out a little bit more, but still not as much as I'd like. I tried to capture the shimmer in the bottle and nails in the first photo, but that's as bright as the shimmer goes. Otherwise, I like this purple for being a slightly dusty Tulip-like purple which looks great with my skin.

Dear RUS - 554 mood polish with Konad

I wanted to wear Dear Rus polish again... my nails are short so the color shift isn't as apparent, but I do love it so. I stamped flowers on it with ORLY Luxe and took a few photos of it changing colour! Keep in mind, this polish is matte, but I am wearing a topcoat over it. I want to wear this again when my nails are longer...

Without further ado, I present...mood polish spam!

Neutral

Cold

Hot

And for some reason, with a handful of Nerds candy!

I want more of these, maybe something pink and maybe grey! 

What do you think of mood polishes in general? Like em or are they too gimmicky?

OPI - DS Original *holographic insanity*

DS Original is the craziest holographic I own so far! I scored half a bottle on my last dusty and I finally got to try it. It's a dusty lilac with the most intense rainbow I've even seen. A bit sheer, 3 coats is enough for full opacity, smells terrible but dries fast. The holographic particles are very fine and the rainbow shows in most lights. It at its most intense in the sunlight of course!

When I first put this on, the cloudy skies of Vancouver parted and the sun came out! Just for me. So I took this wonderful opportunity to show you DS Original in its full sunshine glory! Enjoy the pile of rainbowy pics!

OPI - DS Signature

Picture taken with flash

OPI DS Signature was another one of my dusty hauls, I have about a half a bottle of this stuff. It's a mauve holographic polish, which is the strangest combination! On one hand, mauve is a very wearable "normal" polish color...on the other hand, it sparkles with intense rainbows which pleases a polish fanatic like me. I like it! The old DS series are very smelly but they are worth it. 3 coats for full opacity, good dry time, wearing Seche Vite on top and it's still super holo! I love the way it looks in the bottle as well, shown here. Overall, this is an intense holographic that looks like a normal polish from a distance... I wouldn't say it's 100% worksafe for strict jobs but it might be something a conservative person can still try and like. It's a bit too mauve for me, but it's still a very beautiful polish.

Read on for more pics!

vvv

Dear RUS discolouration - 0554

So I got around to swatching the purple pictured here! clicky click

There was a label on the purple one and it said:

Discoloration 0554

Pretty drastic change from the bottle, eh?

normal warm hands

My hands got cold...

With topcoat on, the GLORIOUS golden shimmer comes out a little more. This polish is beautiful matte and even prettier when shiny!

Shiny warm hands!

I'm in love with this polish! Subtle shimmer, dramatic color change (compared to most mood polishes)... 2-coater formula, fast dry time. Unique color combination is also a big plus. These are a giant win if you can get your hands on them (I know I will try to find more!)