Color Club Bell Bottom Babe

Happy Friday, Good Friday that is! Let the long weekend Easter feasting begin...

Also time for my first summer polish of 2015! Well, it's not in your face summer neon, but it was apart of the Color 2014 Poptastic Summer collection. The 2014 collection, not to be confused with the originals from a few years back, is a compilation of neons with shimmer running throughout. I chose to wear Bell Bottom Babe.

 

Bell Bottom Babe is an almost periwinkle blurple base with a pink/purple shimmer. The first layer was quite thin, but the second coat built up pretty well. In hindsight a third thin coat would have been perfect, although it is not 100% apparent in the photos.

 

As an accent nail I layered a thin coat of L'Oreal, Too Dimensional? over my ring fingers and thumbs. Too Dimensional? is a glitter based polish with gold and purple glitter of various sizes in a deep purple base. I LOVE it! It is so smooth on the nail unlike most other glitters that can dry gritty.

I've included a few other right hand shots above to show you even nail shape. They will all be a little shorter and closer in relation to each other in my next post! Happy Easter to those who celebrate, hope you all have a great long weekend!

Cosmic Fate

Holo photo spam ahead!

I haven't worn a holo polish in a while and was feeling springy, so today I have (what I think is) Color club Cosmic Fate. This polish doesn't have a label at the bottom unfortunately, but I am pretty sure it is Cosmic Fate... I hope!

In the bottle the shade appears to be a peachy nude holo, but on the nail it looks more of a peachy pink, more saturated that I originally thought it to me. Maybe it's just my skintone? I am still wearing my Bio Seaweed Gel base, I find that when I have worn this before under a holo polish it really helps the holo to come through more and look glossy without a topcoat. It also makes application a breeze! I don't recall if Color Club's formula for holos is usually difficult, however, I did not need to apply a special (ie. Aqua Base) base polish.

I only needed two medium coats for full opacity and it dried quickly and smoothly as most holos do. What a rainbow effect! So fun and bright. Below is a photo of my rarely seen right hand, in case you can't tell in the photos above, I had a break in my middle nail, of course, just when everything else is growing out perfectly! I figured I should include a photo with a more even length of nails.

I plan on filing my nails down a bit, not to match the break exactly, but to help them look more even. I'll do this after removing the gel base in a few days.

...This is the Most Craziest Shit Ever!

I can't help but hum a Gwen Stefani tune while applying this polish! Although this polish has nothing to do with the song Don't Get It Twisted, OPI's Push and Shove is so crazy cool!

I had originally tried this polish shortly after it's release last year. It is now infamous for wonky application and short wear time and requires you to follow some steps usually not taken with regular polishes such as using a special base and no topcoat. Since my nails already had a base of Bio Seaweed Gel that I applied to avoid staining from this polish, I wanted to test how well the Push and Shove would apply over the gel alone when compared to the mini Lay Down That Base, base coat the polish comes with. That bottle is hilarious by the way! That is another reason I decided to try out a gel as my base, what happens when that tiny base polish runs out?

Compared side by side the Push and Shove over the gel base appears the same if not better then the Lay Down That Base, base. I used Lay Down that Base on my pinky nail and no base, other than the gel previously applied, to my other nails. Not only did it apply well, but the gel smoothed out my nail bed giving a beautifully even, streak-free mirror finish that is so awesome! My photos hardly do this polish justice!

You guys, my nails are literally tiny little mirrors, so shiny! Two coats were applied since I did not plan on applying a topcoat. I find you can easily get away with one thicker coat, but noticed during application that two thinner coats product better results. The gel base helps to smooth out any imperfections in my nail making the chrome appear strong and flawless... well as flawless as I think I can get! The best part is application was five about minutes, probably including dry time as well.

Unfortunately wear time is about the same as over Lay Down That Base. I for it for a few days, then when I couldn't stand  the tip wear and slight chipping I just changed my mani up.

Four Leaf Clover + How to Comabt Nail Staining Polish

Trying to be festive for St. Patrick's Day, I pulled out one of my all time favorite green polishes to wear for the better part of the week. China Glaze, Four Leaf Clover is such a vibrant and saturated green which is why I love it. However, it stains probably the worst out of all the polishes in my collection. I'm glad I remembered how bad it stained before applying it because when I removed it my nails were sooooo yellow...

Luckily, I decided to layer a gel base under the polish to avoid discolouring my nails. I chose Bio Seaweed Gel soak-off LED no-sanding base which was quick and easy to apply and cure with my UV light. I applied one even coat, cured for two minutes and wiped with 99% alcohol for a smooth and shiny base!

 

Four Leaf Clover is a breeze to apply, and was no different when applied over a gel base. Two thin coats were needed for full opacity and I applied Seche Vite over top to add a high gloss shine.

I wore this polish for almost a full week with little to no wear! I started to get a few chips on the last day of wear and I attribute this to the gel base. It really stuck to the polish and would not let go! I was not going easy on my hands at all this week either, lots of washing of dishes, food prep and of course daily hand washing and showers. I am so impressed with the extension of wear provided by a gel base.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post Four Leaf Clover will stain, have a look:

I also managed to rip off most of my middle nail on day three :( The nail was
super weak so I will have to wait for it to grow in completely... yet again

So happy the gel got stained instead of my natural nails! I will be able to tell for sure that the staining did not penetrate down to my natural nail once the gel is removed, but I plan on keeping the gel as my base for now, I have a few other polish tests I'd like to try with it!

Dahlia

Although the texture trend seems to be so passe, I feel myself gravitating towards them for a quick and easy mani. I also just purchased a few, as you can see here, from Zoya. Surprisingly I am actually wearing them! I don;t know about you, but I usually tend to forget about some of my newly purchased polishes, especially when they take over a month to be delivered... Today I pulled out Dahlia to wear.

 Zoya Dahlia is a dark charcoal textured "Pixie Dust" polish that reminds me of the most awesome coal ever. As always I love the Zoya Pixie Dust texture, rough, shiny and sparkly. I applied two thin coats for full opacity. I like that it was not a stark black polish, it is on the softer side of black which really compliments the sparkle and finish.

The Pixies always wear well and Dahlia was no exception. I love textured polish for an easy and quick option when I may not have a lot of time to spend on my nails but NEED to change a chippy mani.

Which is your favorite textured polish brand? OPI definitely comes in second for me!

Zoya Mystery Minis + 3 Free Promo - My Picks

So, as I mentioned in a previous post, I FINALLY received my Zoya mystery box promo (along with the three polishes I picked out). Was everyone else as disappointed as I was with the minis?

I was originally excited to find out that Zoya now ships internationally and I could finally participate in their promos without shipping to relatives in the States. Accompanying this news, they announced a "Mystery Mini Trio" promo which included three polishes of your choice, plus three "free" mystery polishes all for $15. Great deal right? For Canadians it turned out that International shipping includes an additional fee, so that sucks. On top of that I waited over a month to receive my polishes! I am usually very happy with Zoya, I love their formula, polish selection and formulation (3+free) but this was a disappointment... Here are the "mystery" minis:

From left to right, Severine, Anais and Charlott.

Severine is a mid-gold frost/shimmer which appears to be on the sheer side, although I have not swatched these yet.

Anais appears to be an off black with some murky undertones (green and brown) with a slight shimmer running throughout. However, I think this one will appear black or close to black once one the nail.

Charlott is the one I think I like the most, it is a light neutral khaki creme with yellow undertones. It reminds me of a yellow based version of OPI My Vampire is Buff..

Now to the ones I picked out, left to right is Dahlia, NYX and Vespa. All three are textures Pixies Dusts.

I guess this was the best deal since the Pixie's are a tad more expensive than the regular shades. I have also been hearing rumors that they will be discontinuing the Pixie Dusts soon, so I figured I should purchase the ones I like now before I don't get the chance again. From Left to right I picked up Dahlia, NYX and Vespa.

Dahlia is a dark black textured polish with silver shimmer running throughout.

NYX is a cornflower blue textured polish with silver/gold shimmer running throughout.

Vespa is a pastel green textured polish with silver shimmer running throughout.

So far Zoya has produced my favorite "texture" polishes. It looks like sand and is just so pretty! I hope they have their usual eco/earth day promo coming soon. I want to check out some of the newer spring shades.

Mint Sorbet

Has anyone ever heard of or tried a real life mint sorbet... I can picture it in my head, but the flavour that comes to mind it lime or lemon. Either that or mint chocolate chip ice cream, which I guess would make more sense because the flavour would be more minty. I actually did a Pinterest search and found recipes for mint sorbets that were mostly lime or lemon based, funny! Random thoughts.

Sally Hansen, Mint Sorbet was a polish I picked up during my first trip to Target's closing extravaganza... hardly! Not yet anyways. I had been considering this polish for a while, but know I own probably a handful of mint polishes already. I purchased it anyways lol. This rich mint creme pastel glided on the nail effortlessly.

Two to three quick swipes of each nail was blended together perfectly. I could have gotten away with one thick coat, but I find cremes tend to show wear faster with only one, so I added a thin second coat to top it off. Clean up (what little there was of it) was a breeze and Seche Vite added a high gloss shine and aided in quick drying. I must be getting in the mood for spring with this bright and airy colour. Too bad the weather is still in the negatives and snowy :(