What a Treasure!

My last green polish for March! Can you believe that March is a few days away from being over? Kind of hard to believe since it literally just snowed only two days ago... Nothing really accumulated but it is still depressing! Moving on the topic of things that make me happy, today I have a bright spring coloured polish, Sinful Colors Treasure Chest.

Treasure Chest is a bright green based teal textured polish with a gold textured shimmer! This is apart of the Crushed Gems collection (Which also included this purple beauty). So much more lovely on the nail and in person than in the bottle. This colour screams spring! It's bright, and shimmery and pretty!

The formula was fantastic! This could have easily been a one coater if I used a thick coat, but I opted for two thinner coats. The texture is perfect, not too over the top gritty, and the sparkle really makes it look sand-like. An awesome textured polish for a great price! I wish these more were readily available in Canada.

Flushed Sparks Fly

Today I have a quick mani refresh, I originally wanted to do some stamping over Cult Nails Flushed, but ultimately decided on glitter tips due to timing and sleepiness lol. I used Sally Hansen Triple Shine Sparks Fly on my wee tips. I chopped them down AGAIN this weekend due to a very large break in my index finger, I wanted them to look as close to uniform as possible. My nails have really taken a beating this winter :(

Sparks Fly is a silver hex and small glitter suspended in a very light cornflower jelly base. The base is very sheer and probably will never build up to full opacity, but is very dense with glitter. Over another polish colour, you see a slight contrast between the colour of y our base polish and the glitter. Since Flushed is a purple, the jelly in Sparks Fly gives a slightly more blue tint at the top of the nail. Subtly but i'll take it!

The glitter was easy to apply, I didn't need to go around fishing for glitter, and I experienced no bubbling considering I was using a blotting method of application. I would recommend at least a thin layer of top coat over the glitter to ensure none of the glitter pieces are poking out to the point where they are sharp or flake of your nail. If you apply the polish is a traditional way, long strokes, you shouldn't have a problem, but the blotting method does leave some glitters poking out.

Flushed

Ah Monday, the weekend has come and gone way too fast. So has March for that matter! Only about a week left until April, and them comes Easter hopefully with some warmer spring like weather. Until April does come I am continuing on with my March theme of green and purple nails, today I have a lovely purple shade, Clt Nails Flushed

Flushed is a great medium purple creme with a slightly duochrome shimmer. in the bottle the shimmer appears to shift between pink gold and green, however on the nail, pink is the most prominent. I wish the duochrome was apparent on the nail, but it is still a pretty combo of pink and purple.

The formula was excellent as always with Cult Nails, I only needed two coats for full opacity. The formula was very smooth and easy to manage.

Only a few more shades of green and purple before I bust out my new spring shades, cannot wait to try some of the new collections out!

Simply Gleaming

This week I feel like I have been slacking, not sure why, it's not like I have been too busy to blog, I've actually have more time that usual on my hands. Maybe that's it,m just being lazy. I better not make a habit of it.

Irregardless of my MIA status this week, I don't have to much to share polish wise, so you haven't missed much. I made a half-assed attempt at St. Patrick's day nails that I don't have a photo of. Just a simple shamrock on my ring fingers in white over my previous mani. Didn't celebrate St. Patrick's day either, I guess I never really do though! I did make the most awesome all natural mint shamrock shake ever though for breakfast. Yup, breakfast, it's that natural and nutritional. It was awesome. you may not know this about me but I am quite the foodie, even more so lately since I have become a vegetarian. I  love to cook so exploring new vegetables, food combinations and flavours is so much fun for me. Plus I have always loved to eat!

So wow, that got off topic fast, huh? Back to polish, today I have a lovely textured polish, keeping with my March theme of green and purple, Sinful Colors Purple Gleam. This lovely medium lavender is sprinkled with gold and pink shimmer, in the bottle this reminds me of Pure Ice, Busted. However on the nail, this "Crystal Crush" formula sparkles a mostly matte gold, however the pink does shine through and give some depth. The gold comes off more silver in my photos, and although the texture may appear gritty, in person it is more powdery and soft.

I swatched this when I first got it and thought it was pretty, but actually on the nail, wow!First of all it goes great with my skin tone (currently winter pale). I just love how matte and shimmery it is, very pixie dusty! Most other matte polishes I have tried end up with more of a satin finish after a day of wear due to natural oils on the skin. Purple Gleam has not absorbed any oil what so ever.

I only needed two coats for full opacity. The formula was pretty good, however the longer it took me to apply the polish the thicker it got. I think after the first coat I closed the bottle and gave it a gentle roll to mix the contents to a more uniform consistency. It didn't take too long to dry, but probably a bit longer than usual since I didn't apply the standard quick dry top coat to finish it off.

I am very happy with this textured, glittered beauty, especially for the price. These cost about a dollar more than your standard Sinful Color, but I believe I got these on sale or something so they may have come out to regular price. I regret not picking up a few more of these when I last saw them. Orange Crush and Blue Persuasion are on my "to find" list! Next time I am in the State's I will totally snatch them up if Rite Aid still carries them.

Totally Gaga!

Happy Friday! I have another lovely green today in the spirit of everything St. Patrick's day, which is this Monday. I chose to wear a bright spring shade by China Glaze, Gaga for Green. This was apart of China Glaze's 2012 spring collection, Electro Pop. I originally passed on most of the colours but was drawn to this bright, dusty green and just had to have it.

lamp light

natural daylight - most accurate to actual colour

I would describe it as the perfect Granny Smith apple shade, it is bright and dusty and perfect for St. Paddy's! I chose this over my go to green, Four Leaf Clover, another big fave of mine. Although thin, I would consider this a creme polish.

lamp light

camera flash

The formula seemed to be fine, thin but even, building up to opacity in two coats. I went to sleep within two hours after application which is not a problem when I use Seche Vite or NYC quick dry top coat. For some reason this polish took longer than normal to dry. To me it appeared fine, but the next morning I had sheet marks. I have not gotten these in forever! Not only that, I also had some bubbling. The bubbling is even weirder since the formula was thin and I applied medium coats. 

I took these photos the next day, luckily you can't see the imperfections. To remedy this, I used this method, and voila, all fixed up! 

My China Glaze Picks For Spring

Can you believe how close we are to spring right now? Daylight savings was just this past weekend!  The weather was actually more spring-like, earlier in the week, I got in my first outdoor run of the year! Notice the wet wood on my deck and the last of the snow melting away :)

 

.... Unfortunately we just got MORE snow yesterday and today is absolutely bone chilling! At I enjoyed the weather wihle we had it, plus I have some new China Glaze polish to get me in to the spring mind set.

China Glaze has consistently put out awesome spring collections since I have been collecting, starting with the Up and Away collection. Last year I didn't pick up too many at first, but eventually gave in and got some late last year! I had been waiting for Sally's to put out the spring display, went there the first of March, they day they put them out and they were totally picked over by the time I got there around 4pm! Can you believe it! They were nice enough to check the back for me but they had more of the same that was already on display. Luckily I did pick up four of my faves, I think there are two or three other I will need to hunt down before they vanish!

Here is part one of my picks, from left to right, Don't Honk Your Thorn, Metro Pollen-Tin.

Don't Honk Your Thorn is a light beige neutral with the slightest hint of silvery white shimmer... and a confusing pun of a name lol. I can be kind of a sucker for nudes and neutrals so I knew ahead of time wanted to try this one out.

Metro Pollen-Tin is definitely very unique in my collection, the original swatches I saw looked more mustard/taxicab yellow, while in person it is much more orange based. Think China Glaze Sun Worshiper without being neon. That being said, it is bright and does dry to a matte/satin finish.

Next two are Petal to the Metal and Lotus Begin.

Petal to The Metal is a bright pink with a hint of coral. This is another bright shade that borders on being a neon and dried to a matte/satin finish.

Lotus Begin is my favourite so far out of these four polishes. It also reminds me of another China Glaze neon from this past summer, That's Shore Bright. Side by side you can see Lotus Begin is more blue based and lighter, a more lavender, pastel version. It also highly pigmented and dried to a matte/satin finish.

The others I plan on picking up soon, and hope in include as a follow up to this post, include Grass is Lime Greener, At Vase Value and possibly Spring In My Step. Grass is Lime Greener, another awkward name, was the one I wanted the most in this whole collection, so I hope when I find it, it lives up to the expectations I have for it!

Coveted

I seem to be falling more and more in love with Cult Nails polishes lately. The interesting polish finishes and shades, not to mention the impeccable formula. Not only is the polish awesome, but Maria, creator and owner is awesome too! Having sales, contests and giveaways, makes her brand more accessible to those who may not have purchased otherwise due to the pricing or availability. Today I have a beautiful green polish in celebration of St. Patrick's day which is coming up soon!

Lots of photos for this post to show the lovely Coveted by Cult Nails off.

Both above photos in lamp light

Coveted is a deep evergreen jelly sprinkled with lighter green shimmer and irregularity shaped shards of glitter, I'm isually not a huge fan of the irregularity shaped pieces of glitter, however in this polish it works. The jelly base makes them appear as though they are green flakies. The glitter and shimmer combined add nice depth to the polish.

Camera flash

LED lighting

The formula was flawless and applied well. The first coat was a bit streaky but the second coat evened everything out. The green base is super pigmented so you don't need a million layers. The only downside to this polish was that depending on the size and shape of the glitter piece on the nail, it may not have smooth finish. I also experienced some snagging, peeling off of the glitter. This was mostly directly after application, it didn't seem to bug be much the more I wore it.

Indirect natural lighting

Both above photos taken in natural sunlight

As you may have already noticed, I chopped my nails right down to help them heal from the damage caused by the winter weather this year. I usually do a nice spring trim of my nails in hopes of a fresh new start and growing my breaks out. I love darker, bolder shades on short nails, and I think the nail size, shape as polish worked perfectly together.

The Butterfly Effect

Today I have a quick refresh of my previous mani of Layla Ceramic Effects, 51, or The Butterfly Effect. I was totally inspired by the polish name and decidd to do some subtle stamping.

I chose Bundle Monster plate 424, from the Design It Yourself contest, the butterfly wing to be exact. This design is pure genius! I have always wanted to try the butterfly winged nails freehand but it looked difficult and time consuming. I only wish there was the reverse of the wing included in the set as well for the opposite hand.

The image stamped perfectly. Since the base polish is so dark, the wing stamp was subtle in black, but super pretty with the flakies shining though. I kind of want to try monarch butterfly nails now, such a great stamp!

Speaking of this collection of Bundle Monster plates, they just announced they are running another create your own promo for a new set of plates! I can't wait to submit some new designs!

Doppelgängers Layla vs. Nfu Oh

I mentioned that I picked up Layla Ceramic Effect 52 at Winners a few weeks back and how much I knew even before purchasing that it looked to be close to a polish I already owned, Nfu Oh 51.Both gorgeous flakies are comprised of a blurple jelly base, multi-chomatic shimmer and opalescent flakies. I decided to buy it anyway and LOVED every bit of wearing it, but how does it really stack up to Nfu Oh?

In the bottle the two polishes appear to differ in a few ways. First of all 52 appears to have a slightly darker base. 51 appears to have larger flakies. Does this translate to the nail? Not exactly. Since the formula of 52 is thinner, on the nail once built up to opacity the purple jelly base appears to be very similar to 51. That being said, 51 only requires two coats for opacity, where 51 requires at least three, or to be layered over a base colour. Below is a close up of the polish in the bottle. Totally reminds me of a nebula in space.

Can you tell the above macro shots apart? The one on the left is Layla 52, and Nfu-Oh 51 is on the right. The flakies are more dense and larger in 51 than 52, both in the bottle and on the nail, however they are both the same colour and give the same opalescent, multichrome effect. Below is a look at  52 in direct sunlight and shade at two coats:

Bellow is a look at 51 in direct light and shade at three coats.

So should you buy one over the other or even both? Seeing how both of these polishes can be hard to come by I would say no. They are similar enough that whether you have one or the other you will still get the same effect on the nail. 51 is probably best worn over a similar coloured polish for the best effect, where 52 is good on t's own at two coats.

A Winners Polish Win!

Today I have an exciting find I was not expecting at all during my last trip to Winners. I actually headed there on a whim since I was early for a bus on my way home from work Monday. I can usually expect to find, Color Club, China Glaze, OPI and Essie among other well known polish brands. But when I saw a Layla Ceramic Effect polish I got super excited! Unfortunately there was only one, luckily for me it was a flakie!

Layla Ceramic Effect 52, "The Butterfly Effect", is  a gorgeous flakie comprised of a blurple jelly base, multi-chromatic shimmer and opalescent flakies. This polish is a stunner! It is actually very close to another limited edition hard to find polish in my collection, Nfu-Oh 51. Side by side in the bottle they appear to have slight differences, but I think I will dedicate a separate post for the comparison for another time.

First let's talk about the bottle, the only Layla's I currently own are the holographics that come in the short round bottles. The Ceramic Effects come in a tapered, tall rectangular bottle with angled corners. An interesting shape for a polish bottle but easy to store in my opinion! The brush handle also appears to be made of actual ceramic.

Application was a breeze, no issues at all. Since the base is a jelly the first coat was a bit sheer and slightly patchy, but the second coat evened that right up! The lighting in some of my photos makes the polish apper sheer, but it reality the base is dark enough to avoid any visible nail line. The purple base is almost electric, is is dark but is so saturated I want to describe it as bright. The flakies colours shift between green, yellow orange and red along with the shimmer particles.

Such a pretty shade, I'm not sure if it is readily available for a lot of people, seeing as it is an Italian brand. I checked their site and saw that they still have it for sale. I wish Winners had more, there is a green flakie Ceramic Effect I have been lusting after!