Review: Nfu-Oh 51, SO STUNNING

One of the first polish brands I became obsessed with was Nfu-Oh.  They had the most fabulous holo and flakie polishes in unique bottles and the only place to get them from was a questionable site.  I eventually couldn't stand it any longer and had to order 61 and 51, the holo and flakie, respectively.  I've had both of them proceed to sit in my drawer for 18 months because I could never do them justice.  Every time my base colour would be wrong, or not smooth enough and it would be unsatisfactory.  Finally, finally, finally I found a way to make the multichrome flakie 51 match the brilliance in the bottle, and all is right in the world.  Let's take a look at one of the most breathtaking single polishes I own, shall we?

Nfu-Oh 51 is blue jelly with strong multichrome flakies of all sizes.  In the bottle it has to be one of the top ten most stunning polishes ever because no matter the lighting, it's like a bottled rainbow.  Where I've come into trouble in the past has been the base colour.  Black is too harsh and isn't the right tone and Revlon Royal, while being the right shade, is the wrong consistency and doesn't work somehow.  Finally I tried it over two coats of Essie After School Boy's Blazer - a very dark navy blue creme - did I finally get the result I wanted.  This is two coats over the Essie and I couldn't stop looking at my nails all day.  In the sun it's a glittery copper over blue.  Inside it's red, no wait, green, no, blue, just all the colour shifts in all lighting.  I can't say enough good things about it - now I have the right base.  LOOK AT IT:

The Verdict:  I've loved this in the bottle for 18 months and I'm so happy I was able to do it justice.  Yay, I did something I'm happy with that isn't a glitter placement wooooo.  Don't worry, I have another large hex mermaid glitter locked and loaded because I wanted to show off to my new Instagram real-life friends at the shopping trip we did yesterday :)

Review: The New Finger Paints Flakies - The Kaleidescope Collection

Let me set the scene.  Imagine it's two years ago.  I was just starting this blog and had become obsessed with indie polishes because I liked the glitter.  Then, on the horizon, comes a magic collection of "flakie" polishes.  Why would you care about flakie polishes?  Well, they were these plain looking bottles of weird shaped glitter that just happened to explode with amazingness when you put them over a black polish.  Unfortunately they were only sold at Sally Beauty store and I missed out on all but two of them.  Given they were sold on ebay for up to $70, I never got to complete the collection.  I very nearly actually died when I found out that Finger Paints were doing another collection of flakies, the Kaleidescope Collection.  So much so that I made my friend Kirsten drive me to a Sally's in Etobioke when I live downtown.  Let's take a look at the full collection, now, shall we?

Now we have the upbeat, excited intro out of the way, I get to crush your hopes like mine were crushed.  THESE ARE SO BORING.  I WAS SO EXCITED AND MY EXCITEMENT WAS GROUND INTO THE MUD.   There really isn't anything good to say about these.  For each of these photos I applied two coats of Essie Licorice and then THREE coats of each of the flakies.  I was hoping they'd come to live on the nail but NOPE.  So I can see you'd look at these and think, oh yeah, that's not bad but you need to scroll down.  Let's look at the five new Finger Paints first though.

It should say a lot that it's nearly impossible to match the bottles to the pictures because the flakes are so wishy washy.  This is Psychedelic Hue and it's green and blue.  Yep. 

Vivid Reflection is pink, purple and orange.  Not really my favourite, despite the colours being good in theory. 

Abstract Attraction.  Probably my favourite of the bunch but it's a bit like saying one pair of black socks are my favourite of my five pairs of black socks. 

Colourful Dream has lots of colours.  

So does Symmetrical Symphony.   Are you ready for why I'm so disappointed?

As an experiment, I grabbed out, from left to right, one of the original Finger Paints flakies, Asylum and tried it against Orly Pink Matte, Orly Blue Matte and Essie Shine of the Times.  Like, holy crapballs.  It's like comparing black and white to colour.  This is just two coats of each and they're just so much better I'm sad.  LOOK AT ASYLUM.  So colourful and amazing and demonstrates why I was so excited to get the new collection.

The Verdict: Sigh.  So sad, Finger Paints.  You got me so hopped up on flakie hope and then destroyed it.  Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. :C