Color Club Harp On It

Color Club Harp On It is part of the first six Halo Hues released in late 2012. It's a flashy silver holo, and I am just smitten. Here it is in the shade:

Look how holo it is, even in the shade! With the holos that were available a couple of years ago, you'd be getting this in bright, direct sunlight. Harp On It, in the sun, is amazing.

Eeeeee. So pretty. I had some trouble with the formula, but I think that was because I used a base coat. Regardless of the patching, it evened out nicely in 2 coats, and it dried fast, so that's good.

I find that with holos, when my camera tries to focus on the rainbow-y particles, it winds up dimming the effect in photos. So if you look at my index finger in that last photo, which is not as focused, that's much closer to what Harp On It looks like in person.

How do you feel about the Color Club Halo Hues? What's your favorite silver holo?

Thanks for looking and commenting, and I hope you're having a great week!

HARE Star Tropics

Now here's a glitter that I am madly in love with. HARE Star Tropics is from Spring 2012, but was a very limited release due to some formula and glitter problems. I have experienced neither of those issues, but last I heard Nikole was reformulating, so hopefully it will be released with a future collection! It is absolutely gorgeous.

Star Tropics consists of 2 sizes of silver square glitter and small silver hex glitter in a blue jelly base. The base is very slightly blurple, but still distinctly blue. It sort of reminds me of Starry Starry Night, but on some hardcore steroids. With that in mind, I layered it over a dark blue. First, I tried it over Ruby Kisses Regaled Out Blue. 3 coats of the Ruby Kisses, 2 coats of Star Tropics, Gelous, and top coat.

I liked the combination, but felt like my base color didn't quite go. It doesn't have the slight indigo tinge to it, so the second time I decided to layer it over Revlon Urban, and that was perfect!

As you can see, I'm a bit rusty on my glitter application, lol. Fear of removal keeps me from wearing these crazy glitters, to be blunt! Since it's a super chunky glitter in a jelly base, it's not surprising that it's pretty thick, but application wasn't bad, and I had no trouble getting the giant squares onto my nails.

In case I haven't told you enough yet, I LOVE SQUARE GLITTER. Here's a closer look, from the first manicure I did:

The depth that the jelly base imparts is just awesome, even if it doesn't quite go.

As far as I know, there aren't any dupes of this out there. I don't know about you, but I'd love to have a glitter mix with these exact sizes and shapes, in a bunch of differently-colored bases. That would be AWESOME. If someone made a light grey creme/jelly (I still refuse to use the word "crelly") with matte, retina-searing hot pink glitter like this, I would be all over that. And aqua and yellow. Dark teal jelly and an antique-ish gold. I always have these ideas floating around in my head but I'm terrified of messing up and wasting money/supplies so I never actually get around to attempting any of them ._. Story of my life.

Thanks for looking and commenting, and have a great weekend!

OPI Metallic 4 Life

OPI Metallic 4 Life was released with the Nicki Minaj collection in early 2012. It's a black jelly with tons of silver glitter. Too much glitter, in my opinion. I used 2 very thin coats over a black base and probably should have stuck with one.

Meh. It's not a bad color, just not my thing. It seems sort of messy-looking...

I figured I'd try it matte, since I clearly don't like this as is...

Nope. Should've left it glossy. Oh well, they can't all be winners. I do love the idea of silver glitter in a black jelly base, so I'm debating decanting some of it and adding clear and a little bit of black. The formula wasn't bad, and frankly I didn't want to wear this long enough to comment on wear, so I do want to clarify that it's not an issue of quality or anything. I just think the glitter:base ratio is way off for my tastes. On Friday, I'll have something much much better to show you. :) And one of these days I'll learn to keep track of what day it is, lol!

Nicole by OPI Luke of the Draw looks pretty much the same, if not slightly more dense. But given that they're both OPI products, they're probably just rebottled versions of each other.

Have you tried Metallic 4 Life? How did you feel about it?

Thanks for looking and commenting, and I hope you're having a great week!

Revlon Gold Coin + Orly Halo

Yaaaaay, I am free! My cast was originally supposed to come off four weeks ago, but my wrist was definitely not healed enough at that point, so I got a new one. Watch out for those skateboarders, y'all. I still have a bit of trouble with my right knee. :|

Picking up where I left off, here's Orly Halo. It's an awesome, flashy metallic glitter from the Naughty or Nice Collection that was released last winter. When I tested this on a single nail, I realized it's sheer as hell, so I opted to layer it over a cool gold foil: Revlon Gold Coin. I know I said I wasn't going to buy Gold Coin, but I didn't! I discovered it in my mom's stash. Apparently we both have weaknesses for gold and copper. :'D

Luckily, Gold Coin is really freaking opaque, so I only needed to use one coat for a base. Here it is with 3 coats of Halo on top. I did use top coat, but Halo is surprisingly smooth on its own.

And in the sun:

Yay! Sparkly metallic glittery awesomeness. This is a pretty flashy manicure, and I got several compliments on it from people, which was nice. Let's take a closer look:

Ok, well, you can't really see that much because it's so busy...but it's comprised of small silver hexes mixed with tiny cool gold glitters, and flecks of Gold Coin peeking out through the glitter. I should also note that the wear on this mani was great. 5 days, still super blingy, no chips or tipwear.

As far as dupes go, I can't think of any that I would consider exact, but OPI Spark de Triomphe seems pretty close. I think it has a veeeeery slight greenish tinge, but the glitter composition seems similar. I actually bought Halo to kill my Spark de Triomphe lemming, and it's close enough to suit my purposes.

Have you tried Halo, or any of the other Holiday Orlys? What did you think?

Thanks for looking and commenting, and I hope you're having a great week!

Top 30 of 2012! (part 2)

Today I'll show you my favorite indies. To be fair, I don't own many indies, 13 or 14, but for the most part, I really like the ones that I have!

HARE King of Carat Flowers

Unique glitters in a light grey base? Sold. And hello, there's square glitter!!

HARE Cast in Bronze

Application with this one was difficult, but I can forgive that for such a beautiful color. And look, more squares!

HARE Star Tropics

Can you tell I like square glitter? This was my mani for New Year's, and while it is quite thick, the end result is fantaaaaaaastic.

Across the Ocean

This is a franken that I made over the summer! Although I'm not an indie seller (and do not ever plan on becoming one), I threw this one in here because it doesn't really fit in anywhere else. I'm sure you can guess what my reference was when I made this ;)

Contrary Polish Firebrand

I've told you time and again of my love for reds, vampies, and jellies, so it makes perfect sense that I love Firebrand.

Contrary Polish Inky Fingers

Just a note: Inky Fingers is more purple than it looks in my picture. It's like the dark, inky, moody sister of Sephora Pantone Parachute Purple. Excellent formula, and really cool shimmer.

Contrary Polish Anna Maria

Contrary Polish makes some really cool, unexpected shimmers. Murky teal with yellow shimmer? LOVE.

Twili

This one was a custom, and I am absolutely in love with the result. Great formula, and the balance of shimmer to base color is just perfect.

Pahlish Toxic and Timeless

I have an older, barless version of this polish, and it is just so freaking cool. The wear is amazing too. I wore this for ten days! When I get to blogging about this properly, you'll see the end result.

Lynnderella Connect the Dots

Even though this was released in 2011, it has a spot on my list because it's that awesome. Yes, there are 75083672308573028 different versions of this out there, but this has the distinction of having the only bar glitter that I don't hate. I actually like it. What.

Thoughts? Do we have any indie favorites in common? I know it took me a very long time to warm up to indies (aside from Lynnderella, whom I ordered from a few months after she opened), so I'm curious, have you jumped on the indie bandwagon?

Thanks for looking and commenting, and I hope you're doing well!

Some Random Catch-Up Spam

Soooooo. I thought I got into a bit of a groove with the posting, and then exams started. I also wound up with a sinus infection (that is just starting to go away, after 2-3 weeks), and an impacted wisdom tooth, as well as a cavity on the molar right next to the impacted wisdom tooth, so I've been having fun, LOL. I haven't really painted my nails much lately, but I post from a backlog of photos, so it's really a matter of working up the motivation to write up a post.

Here's some "Sorry-I've-Been-So-Unmotivated" spam. This will be a fairly long post.

Wet n Wild On a Trip in the sunlight. FYI, this is...not accurate. On a Trip is warmer and dustier, but it looks periwinkle in my photos. Do not believe them. Someday I'll figure out how to accurately photograph this sucker. Good formula though. Thin, but smooth. 3 coats.

Got bored of it pretty quickly, so I slapped on a coat of NYC Starry Silver Glitter. Not really feeling it. I think On a Trip is too dark of a base color, because the silver is too prominent for my liking. I should have used Connect the Dots instead.

Next up, Borghese Stellare Notte. Is it just me, or does this thing take FOREVER to dry? I didn't have any bubbling, but this took a loooooong time. 2 coats of nail polish should not need an hour and a half of dry time.

Despite the long drying time (and the crazy paddle brush), the formula was good, and there is a definite color shift, which was very difficult to capture on camera. It's really cool though. In some lights, it's a dark shimmery green, and it looks straight-up plum in other lighting situations.

Next, OPI Miami Beet. Not one of my favorite colors for manicures, as I feel that bright pinks are very weird on my hands, but it looks awesome on toes. Oh, and I decided to try out square/squoval nails for a while. You'll see my nail shape change quite a bit over the next few weeks. 3 coats, plus top coat.

Great formula, but as you can see, Miami Beet is more of a jelly-ish creme, which means that in direct light you can still see VNL. It's not at all visible otherwise though.

And last but not least, China Glaze Glittering Garland. It's dark green, and full of shimmery flecks, so obviously, I love it! 2 coats for opacity. I tried getting a macro shot to give you a better look at the shimmer, but it just wasn't happening that day. As always, you can click on my photos to get a closer look.

Thanks for looking and commenting, and I hope you've all been doing well! Happy Friday! I'm going back to bed.

Orly Shine

Orly Shine was released as part of the Foil FX collection for Spring 2010. It's a plain and simple silver foil, but it's a good one. 2 coats, no top coat.

Apparently the Foil FX polishes were supposed to emulate the look of Minx, and Orly failed miserably in that respect, but Shine is quite pretty. And unlike China Glaze Swing Baby, Shine is completely opaque at 2 coats!

I'm pretty sure there are tons of dupes for this one out there. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Celeb City, Zoya Trixie are among them.

Thanks for looking and commenting, and to those of you celebrating Eid today, Eid Mubarak!!

OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous is from OPI's Fall 2010 Swiss collection. It's a gunmetal foil that's fully opaque in 3 coats. Under artificial light:

It's got a bit of a blue tinge to it, but that doesn't really show up all that much in other lighting situations.

Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous isn't sparkly like most foils (eg. Orly Luxe, Orly Shine). It's a bit dull, but in an interesting way, not necessarily a bad way.

The formula and application are pretty good, despite the Pro-Wide brush.

Yeah. There's not a lot to say about this one. It's good, and it's fairly unique (I think), but it's not all that exciting, and nothing to write home about.

Thanks for looking!

Sally Hansen Gem Crush - Showgirl Chic and Big Money

Looks like we've had a ton of full-coverage glitters lately, like the Wet n Wild Ice Baby and China Glaze Eye Candy collections. Sally Hansen's take on the trend is the Gem Crush collection. Personally, I didn't find them to be particularly interesting, and many of them are dupes or near-dupes to glitters that already have been released by other brands. Showgirl Chic and Big Money, however, caught my eye.

Showgirl Chic consists of superfine square silver glitter and small blue hex glitter, and is very very similar to China Glaze Lorelei's Tiara. However, the blue hexes in Lorelei's Tiara are more aqua, and Showgirl Chic has hexes that are closer to a true blue. I didn't realize how dense these glitters are, so I chose to layer 2 coats of Showgirl Chic over 2 coats of Orly Shine, a silver foil that I'll show you some other time.

I didn't use any top coat either. The texture and sparkle are really cool-looking without it, so I decided to go without for these photos.

So flashy. So obnoxious. So awesome.

And here is Big Money. Cool-toned superfine gold square glitter mixed with small lavender hexes. I chose to wear this one on its own. 2-3 coats for opacity, depending on how thickly you apply it.

Interestingly enough, Big Money really changes when you look at it in direct sunlight or shade. Direct sunlight turns the gold glitter into more of a beige or champagne color, and the lavender hexes look like a dusty light purple rather than lavender.

Shade, on the other hand, warms up the glitter quite a bit. The lavender hexes look lilac and are much lighter now.

And here's the obligatory closeup:

Good stuff. I don't plan on buying any of the other Gem Crush polishes, but I'm very happy with the two that I've got.

Thanks for looking!

My first attempt at a half-moon mani....

I can't really say it went too well, but at least I tried! This was for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2! I always liked Slytherin best, so I chose Slytherin colors for this mani. I used Illamasqua Rampage for the green, and Essie Loophole for the silver. Rampage is seriously one of the best greens ever!! I'll cover it in a separate post because it is so amazing! A forest green jelly, opaque in 3 coats. Essie Loophole is a slightly frosty silver...I'm not a fan of it on its own, but it makes a pretty good base for Rampage.

As you can see, I have a LOT of work to do on my half-moon manis.....I have no illusions that this one is a mess! I do like the colors together though. I think I just need more practice with those reinforcement labels...