Sometimes Subtle is Too Subtle

You might notice I've been a little light on the posts lately.  I have a good reason!  Recently I was contacted by an agency in New York that wanted me to help them make content for Revlon's new Tumblr!  Of course I was going to say yes.  My first entry went up last week and I'm quite proud of it.  As a side note, I wouldn't totally hate it if you liked it on Tumblr, because I like winning, even if it isn't a competition.  THIS WILL BE THE ONLY TIME I ASK THIS, I SWEAR.  Anyway, that hasn't been leaving me a ton of time to do complicated things so it's down to whatever strikes me at the time.  In this case it was an attempt at a black-on-black texture thing with Ozotic 623.

 

You can kinda see what I was getting at here.  I started with two coats of Rimmel Black Satin and once it was dry I cracked out my zig-zag decals and added a coat of 623 to my thumb and ring fingers.  The other three nails got tape for a triangle half-moon.  I love the texture in 623, it looks like granite, which is totally cool with me.  It just doesn't really show up over black.  Which makes sense because it's black too... oh well.  I could tell there was something other than just black going on here, which is what counts.  

The Verdict: Always love Ozotic polishes, they're either ridiculously holographic or interesting in the texture.  And I really like the decals from Sticky Nails.  I get bored with just one colour of polish so I like to throw in a bit of zig-zags in there.  Just remember to stick it to your palm first, kids, otherwise you'll have a bad time.  Tumblr! Words.

Nail decals were sent to me for my honest review.  I really like them :)

Review: Nails Inc Ladbroke Grove and Noho

If I see an interesting nail polish, I'm prooobbabbbly going to buy it.  Using it is a completely different thing but I'm definitely going to buy it.  I picked up the pink Nails Inc Leather Effect polish Ladbroke Lane ages ago and I haven't really known what to do with it.  It wasn't until I caved and bought the black one, Noho, that I finally figured out what to do with them.  Leather chevrons!

I knew I wanted "stripes" of leather - because that's what I'd do with real leather - so I started off with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and topped it with a coat of Seche Vite to get it really dry.  I then laid out my strips of striping tape and used a smaller brush to paint my chevrons on, because I didn't want to risk getting it everywhere.  I was so surprised by how good the leather polish is!  It's opaque in one (thick) coat, dries fast and actually looks like leather.  The texture doesn't skeeve me out either, like the Liquid Sand polishes can sometimes.  I just really love how this came out.  I want to put the black on everything now...

The Verdict:  I really kinda love how this came out.  I just said that up there but I do!  If I was to be practical I'd say you don't really need more than one of these - even if the stripes look cool.  You super need the black though.  LOOK AT IT.  Can you imagine how awesome this would look contrasted against glitter?  Or just a matte polish?  Or anything?  I think this might be my new favourite :O

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: A Bunch of Zoya Pixie Dusts

I got paid yesterday so of course I'm going to go buy more polish.  It's the good pay, where I don't have to pay rent, so I kind splurged a bit, picking up the other half of the Zoya Fall Pixie Dust Collection, a Deborah Lippmann, a couple of Nails Inc and a few cheap drug store polishes.  Shh I'm an adult.  I've seen some lovely manis with rainbow stripes and texture polishes so of course I'm going to try out my new Zoyas.  

I'm not very good at freehanding things but it turns out vertical stripes are pretty easy to do.  I started out with the usual base coat (still liking OPI Nail Envy), placed a blob of each of Arabella, Dhara, Solange, Chita, Sunshine and Carter on a piece of paper and went to work with a small brush.  I eyeballed the width of each stripe although I found it easiest to start at each edge and work my way inwards. This is three coats of each polish.  Two would have been fine but I wanted to make the edges as sharp as I could.

I of course then put top coat on.  Which I now regret because it looks better without it.

 The Verdict: I'm not sure why I keep buying texture polishes.  They're still kinda hard to incorporate into regular manis and I'm still not not 100% used to the rough texture.   They're sure pretty in a rainbow though!  What do you think, leave the texture nature or add a top coat?

Review: OPI DS Lapis in a Starry Night Sky

I'm not really one for New Years Resolutions.  I like to have as little commitments as possible, generally speaking.  If I were to have one, it would be to get better at freehand acrylic painting.  I think it's pretty safe to say I've mastered glitter so I really should try to improve in other areas.  I saw an amazing mani over at Lucy's Stash that had white acrylic stars painted over OPI DS Lapis so I decided that it would be a good place to start.  

I followed Lucy pretty much exactly here.  Two coats of OPI DS Lapis followed by a coat of Seche Vite.  I dug out my acrylic white paint and got to work.  Here's the tricky part.  It is really really hard to find brushes small enough to do fine detail work.  Even if you do have a small brush, you will have to trim off most of the bristles.  Like, down to almost nothing.  This is actually my second attempt at this because even though I thought I had a fine brush and smooth lines, as soon as you review the photos it is not that.  What I did find though was that because you're using paint over top coat, you can use a toothpick to remove excess paint.  Thus, I did an acrylic mani I don't hate to look at!

The Verdict:  I think like most people I like DS Lapis so much more shiny.  It has an interesting texture but the silver glitter just comes out so much stronger with a top coat.  I'm so happy I don't hate this in macro mode too.  Yay!  Thanks goes to Lucy for the design :)

Review: All Three Zoya Pixie Dust's, Cosmo, Vega and Lux!

As you can imagine given the size of my polish collection, I'm pretty well known at the beauty supply places around Toronto.  My main source of Zoyas, Trade Secrets in the Eaton Centre, is good but they're slow on getting the new stuff.  It's gotten to the point where I hassle the nice manager man to get more and have raided his stock even before it gets to the shelves.  Anyway, I was super excited about the Zoya Magical Pixie Dusts polishes cos you can't lose with holo + texture.  Turns out you kinda can...

This is actually the third time I've tried the three Magical Pixie Dust's Cosmo, Vega and Lux.  I first tried a gradient and then zig-zags.  Both were really disappointing.  All three of these polishes are oddly sheer and take about a million years to dry.  It took a modified version of a top coat sandwich to get these even close to dry.  For this polish I started with two coats of an appropriate Color Club Halo Hues polish then a coat of Seche Vite.  This game me a base that was pretty close to the tone of these polishes.  I then added a coat of the silver, then dabbed on the pink and blue.  Of course I added snowflake charms, I can't stop buying things from Aliexpress and these seemed appropriate.  Once it dries it does wear well, so there's that I guess.  And sparkly.

The Verdict:  I like how these come out, especially with the snowflakes.  I just wish these polishes dried faster and kept the same strength of colour you see in the bottle.  Whatever, it's different so ultimately I support it.