Review: Lacquistry Amazeballs. Accurately named.

Guys, I don't really have words for the polish I received in the mail last week.  I've been getting better at tempering my expectations as it leads to less disappointment so when I saw pictures of Lacquistry Amazeballs I thought, well, it can't be that amazeballs.  Turns out, holy crapballs, I've never seen anything like it and everyone NEEDS this polish.  Just stalk Lacquistry on facebook til she posts more, cos just...look.

This part is going to be hard because I really haven't seen anything like this and it's so shiny even when you look close you can't even really tell how this is a thing.  From what I can tell, Amazeballs is a crap ton of platinum metallic flakes that magically form a mirror-like finish.  This is ONE coat over Revlon Gold Coin and it's so reflective, you can see the outline of your face in it.  It's like what you think will happen when you use gold foil.  In a polish.  I paid for this polish myself (as usual), I'm not being paid to be this gushy. JUST GO BUY THIS.  WHEN SHE RESTOCKS.  COS OMG.

The Verdict:  I love all the polishes from Lacquistry, she uses too much glitter in too high a density for me not to be holy crap did she out-do herself here.  LOOK AT HOW SHINY THIS IS:

Review: THE ENTIRE CHINA GLAZE HALLOWEEN COLLECTION 2013

I'm not normally big on the "normal" style of swatches but I found the China Glaze Halloween Collection 2013 in TBBS yesterday and I couldn't resist getting them.  Then actually using them. Because they're ALL AMAZING.  Let's take a look, shall we?  I have about three million pictures, so get comfy!

Let's start with Howl You Doin', without commenting on the name because it's pretty terrible.  The polish, on the other hand, is kinda amazing.  I don't have anything like it in my collection, that's for sure.  It's a dark reddish purple jelly, filled with the typical purple and orange glitter but what's not usual is the orange flakies.  The combination is amazing, so complex to look at.  This is three coats, topped with a top coat. 

 

Next, Bat My Eyes, a black jelly packed to the gills with gold and copper glitter and a smattering of bar glitter.  LOOK AT IT.  It's stunning on the nail and only needs two coats to be opaque.  It has that wonderful depth you get with glitter-packed jellies.  I didn't even notice the bar glitter before I applied it, and it just makes it that much more interesting and unique.

Next, Boo-gie Down, a polish a lot like Whirled Away but with large and small copper hex glitter added.  This is one coat over Urban Outfitters Cherry Tomato and it just looks great.  You have to do a little fishing to get the larger pieces of glitter, but not too much.  The metallic glitter is nice with the matte black and white hexes and large bars. 

Fang-Tastic is a real glitter bomb, filled with purple, pink, green and blue glitter of all sizes.  This is one coat over Urban Outfitters Sunshine.  You have to dab the glitter around a bit to get an even coverage, but it's not a real problem.  This polish would work great in a gradient.

I'm so into texture and taping right now and I can't stop touching it on my nails as the combination of smooth and rough feels cool.  Bump In the Night has the same texture as the other China Glaze texture polishes - that sandy finish with no glitter.  It makes a nice change from all the other matte glitter polishes around right now.  It isn't as versatile though as the finish is lost under a top coat.  Here, I applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, added a coat of Seche Vite then taped off my stripes with scotch tape and applied one coat of BITN.  Beetlejuice-y :D

SURPRISE TWIST: Under the stripes but over the OPI is a coat of the glow-in-the-dark polish Ghoulish Glow!  This polish is not only super glowy, but is also pretty much invisible on the nail so you could theoretically use it over just about anything.  LOOK, GLOWY.

The Verdict:  Hot damn this swatching process takes forever but it's worth it when you get an awesome collection like this one.  I'm not normally into the Halloween polishes but China Glaze has done a great job here.  You could totally use all of these year-round.  I need a nap now.

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