Mosaic Madness

Today I have a mani refresh with NYX Girls Pistachio. I originally wanted to do some nail art but ended up adding a glitter topper. I used one coat of China Glaze Mosaic Madness.

Mosaic Madess is so cool! It is made up of bar, hex and micro glitter in matte black and shimmery blue. The formula was awesome, I didn't have to fish around in the bottle to make sure there was glitter on the brush and it applied smoothly. The colour combo of black and blue is my favourite out of the Glitter Glam collection. I am liking this glitter so much I am thinking of picking up the green and periwinkle versions as well. I'm crossing my fingers that these are still on sale at Sallys!

The base teal and blue glitters really worked well together. My only complaint about the glitter is that it does soak up top coat, I was left with a gritty feeling on my nails. Whenever I do a mani refresh I use a thinner topcoat so there are not a billion coats to remove later, and it just didn't add the high gloss I would have liked. 

A Little Nutty

Today I have a polish from my limited NYX girls collection, I think I own about 3-5. I ordered them a while back off of the Beauty Joint for a great price :) Pistachio, although a lovely shade is not what I expected. The pistachio nut is pretty green, even pistachio gelato is a softer shade but still green. NYX Pistachio is a soft dusty baby blue. I really appreciate the dusty quality, that is what makes it unique in my collection for sure. It would have been nice if there was a hint of green in there though. Oh well.

I applied two coats in my photos, the first coat was a bit streaky but the formula was great to work with. The second coat covered up any streaking from the first coat. The finished look has the appearance of a jelly even though I would definitely consider it a creme. It has a high finish gloss on its own, but as always I added a topcoat for longer wear and quick dry time.

This wore so well, I wore it for almost a full week with only very minor tip wear!

A Glitzy Refresh

Today I have a mani refresh with yesterday's Color Club polish Oh Naturale. I wanted to do some stamping so I grabbed Konad plate M-57 and used the leopard print. I think I have used this one the most out of all the plates I own! I stamped using Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind white, this has been my go to stamping polish lately.

It looked cute on it's own but I was feeling something shiny so I added a top coat of NYX Girls Gilded Glitter. This sparkly gold glitter has a faint, sheer base of gold and I realigning the effect it gave over the white, it Madeira look not to stark. The actual glitter pieces are all chopped up and irregular which is the reason why I got it, it's so random and awesome.

Doppelgängers - A New Series

When I asked last week some of you showed interest in more comparison posts, so I decided to create a new series of posts called Doppelgängers. For those of you who don't know, a Doppelgänger is described as "a paranormal double of a living person" or in this case polish :) Basically these will be comparison posts. Today I have Wet N' Wilds Behind Closed Doors and NYX Girls Dorothy. At first glance they both appear to have small and hex red glitter in a black jelly base.

In the bottle they look pretty similar, right? Take a look at a close up of the bottles below.

First up is Behind Closed Doors, notice the sparse magenta hex glitter. BCD also looks to have more glitter than Dorothy.

And here's Dorothy, the glitter looks so sparkly! So so far the only difference looks like the magenta glitter.

Here's the first coat, Dorothy on the left, BCD on the right.

2 coats. Interesting, Dorothy seems to have more glitter. It also seems to have a murky, muddy base where BCD has a more charcoal/black base.

3 coats looks to be opaque for Dorothy, but BCD needs 1 more.

I added another coat for Dorothy too.

Here's how the look in direct sunlight, no top coat. I would suggest a nice glossy one to even out the grittiness of the glitter.

So, what's the verdict? Although they have slight differences like glitter and base colour, in the end they pretty much look the same. If you have one, I wouldn't get the other. If I had to recommend one out of the 2, I would say get Dorothy. You need less coats for opacity, there is more glitter in each stroke and in the end it looks smoother than BCD. Wet N' Wilds brush was also too stiff for me, it is apart of the fast dry collection but I didn't notice it drying much quicker.

Which one do you prefer?

Colour Club Blue-Topia vs. NYX Ink Heart

Today I have a comparison between Color Club's Blue-Topia, which I wore in my last mani, and NYX Girls Ink Heart. They looked closer in colour indoors from the bottle, but outside you can see they look fairly different. I also chose to compare them because they are deep blue jellies.

Here they are both at 1 coat on a nail wheel, left to right is Color Club, Blue-Topia and NYX, Ink Heart. The Color Club applied a little streaky at first, but I would definitely say that you need 2 coats for both. That being said, the only time I wore either of these I only used 1 coat lol. It was thick though and I layered another polish on top.

After a second coat, boh look perfect! Blue-Topia is definitely darker, but both are supper glossy, you can see my camera lens in the reflection!

Here is how they both look in natural sunlight once fully dry. Both are gorgeous, and I'm glad I own both.

Bluebell Fail

So I decided to layer Kleancolor's Chunky Holo Bluebell over NYX Girls Ink Heart. Kleancolor's smell... lol they are strong, but worth it for some of the interesting polishes they have. It looked super cool, but I think I layered on the coats a little too thick.

These photos are taken with 2 thick coats of Bluebell. It looks alright, right? It took a long time to dry, I will have to be a little more patient next time and build up the polish in thinner coats.

As you can see in the photos, this polish is pretty saturated with glitter for only 2 coats, Although I wouldn't recommend wearing it on it's own. Now for the unfortunate part...

This is what I woke up to the next morning, you may have to enlarge the photo to see the crazy bubbling I got :( It was so gritty to the touch, and it totally ruined the effect of the glitter. I couldn't take it anymore so I removed it that night, so sad!

I hope that it was just my rushed application and too thick coats that made the polish bubble. It was also hot when I woke up the next morning, do you think my body temperature could have effected the polish? Has anyone else had any problems with Kleancolors bubbling?

Royal Jelly

First off, thank you to all of those who have made an order with me for the Sally Hansen Nail Prisms I have for sale. If you have sent your payment I will be sending out your packages today after work :) I really hope you get them soon and enjoy them as much as I do.

Now on to some polish, this is NYX's Ink Heart that I got in my Beauty Joint Haul. It is a lovely, deep saturated blue. I believe this was only one thick coat! It is super pigmented and applies pretty well. It has a thick consistency, but nothing that is not manageable. I added a tiny bit of thinner half way through application

These photos are taken without a top coat on, so you can see how glossy this polish is, aren't jelly's awesome?! It also dried fairly quickly, which was great.

The only bad thing I have to saw about this polish is I had Smurf fingers after removal. It may have had something to do with how I layered it, I'm not sure. I used Seche Clear as a base, it's supposed to protect from staining, right? Maybe I should have used 2 coats. Anyone have any good tips for preventing staining? Please let me know!

Haulin' Part 1

Guess who made a large purchase from the Beauty Joint recently .... ME! Not sure if may of you have heard about the Beauty Joint, but they carry Kleancolor, Milani, NYX girls and other polish. That what what I was most interested in anyways, they also carry makeup and other beauty stuff.

Take a look at the beauties I picked up below.

First we have Kleancolor's Green With Envy and Blue Eyed Girl. Both contain large hex glitter and smaller glitter in a green/blue jelly base. I got this for layering, but I am interested to see how they would look on their own.

Next, some of their "holo's" I wonder why they call them that... anyways, I got Bluebell, Scarlet and Black Chunky holo. You need to click on these photos and enlarge them, the glitter looks soooo cool and changes depending on ighting. I'm sure you have all seen these a couple of times by now.

On to the NYX polishes, I got Dorthy and Ink Heart. Dorthy looks like a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Ruby Red Slippers, that why I got it ;) Same look for a fraction of the price. For those of who who are unfamiliar with the polish, it is a black jelly base with large red hex and small glitter. Ink Heart is a deep jelly blue, it's a one coater!

The last 2 NYX polishes are Golden Lavender and Pistachio. Pistachio is more of a grayed toned turquoise, nothing close to the real thing, although I do love the name. Golden Lavender is a pretty, light purple with a golden shimmer. The colour combo is awesome, I have nothing close to this and hope that it looks as great on the nail as it does in the bottle. The closest polish I have is Zoya Dannii, and although I haven't compared them side by side I can see that the shimmer in the NYX polish is a lot more subtle.

Enlarge the photo above to see the pretty golden shimmer.

That is all I have to share for now, but I will be showing you another haul very soon... this time it's for you guys ;)