Urban Camo & Pretty In Punk - KBShimmer

Press Sample

HI!

I have 2 more KBShimmer multichromes to show you today that were just recently released as part of the Winter 2013 collection (you can see the first 2 here). This time is 'Urban Camo' and 'Pretty In Punk'. These are again the holo and non-holo versions of each other and they are GORGEOUS!

'Urban Camo'

The shift in this polish is SO strong. These pictures show a pretty good summary of the shifts in 'Urban Camo'. Right from a greyed out green through bright green, aqua, blue, right through to bright purple. I love this polish.

Straight on, in regular light, 'Urban Camo' appears mostly green. Sometimes it has quite a silvery cast, but in brighter light it becomes the most vivid jewel green.

'Pretty In Punk' 

'Pretty In Punk' has basically got the same colour shifts as 'Urban Camo', but they tend to be just ever so slightly muted due to the holo. That is in no way a bad thing as the holo really brings this polish alive. As with 'Myth You Lots' the holo is scattered, but linear. It's not shy, but it is also not obnoxiously in your face. Beautiful.

Again, 'Pretty In Punk' mainly appears green. The bottom picture shows that greyed out green I mentioned with 'Urban Camo'. This polish also gets that gorgeous bright green, but this time with the added bonus of holo.

Both of these polishes applied easily. 'Urban Camo' is slightly sheer, but 3 coats gives full opacity (though as usual I have used an extra coat for the purpose of these photos). Depending on how thick you apply your coats, 'Pretty In Punk' could be opaque in 2-3 coats - I used 3 in these photos. One thing I will suggest is to wait a few minutes between coats when applying 'Urban Camo'. If I didn't let it dry enough, I got just a small amount of pulling or dragging, not too bad though.

KBShimmer is available from a number of places in the USA, have a look at the Locations page for a shop or event near you. For us international ladies, check out Harlow & Co (free shipping on international orders over $75!).

These products were provided for review. This is my personal, unbiased opinion.

For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Winter Hyacinth & Coldwraith - Femme Fatale

Press Sample

Hello!

I have a couple of Femme Fatale polishes to show you today. I'm really excited to try these as I think that Aussie indies are really some of the most exciting. Today I have 'Winter Hyacinth' and 'Coldwraith'.

'Winter Hyacinth'

I really like this polish. It's really pretty and there's something romantic about it (which is difficult to say in a glitter, I think). The shade of blue is really gorgeous and soft. The pink holographic glitters really catch the light and play so well against the blue of the base.

The base is perfectly jelly-like, to add to the soft look of this polish. Due to the jelly nature of the base, it is fairly sheer. This is 3 thinnish coats and though it's not fully opaque, I like this level of opacity (remember also, my camera and lighting makes it look slightly more sheer in these photos than in real life).

'Coldwraith' 

This is 'Coldwraith' and it is another beauty. Femme Fatale suggests putting this over dark blue or black and I did try that and it was gorgeous, but my top coat shrank it horribly so I couldn't take pictures. Looking online, that's how it is mostly swatched, so I decided to try something else. This is one very thin coat of 'Coldwraith' over a-england 'King Arthur' and I really like how this looks together.

The base in 'Coldwraith' is a very dark blue and this photo shows what it looks like with 2 coats over 'King Arthur'. The different blue glitters that are PACKED into this polish all catch the light differently, giving a really gorgeous eye-catching polish against its dark base.

With both of these polishes, the glitter is jam-packed into them. I did actually pop a few drops of thinner into 'Colwraith' and even then I wiped quite a lot of the glitter off the brush. I think that is fantastic, it means you have total control over how dense you want the glitter. 'Winter Hyacinth' was packed full too and that meant that there was absolutely no fishing for the larger glitters - the white hexes and diamonds. Keep in mind that I have minis so that may have helped a tiny bit. Because of the density of the glitter, a thick top coat will be needed. I use a very thin top coat (Essie 'Good To Go') and I needed 2 coats and I still had a bit of texture happening.

Femme Fatale polishes are available from their website (these are $10 AUD each) and they are also stockists of a whole lot of other polish brands and also makeup, so go check them out. Femme Fatale polishes are also available from some other places - be sure to check out the list of international stockists.

You can keep up to date with Femme Fatale by following them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

These products were provided for review. This is my personal, unbiased opinion.

For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Parfait Day - Lime Crime & Putting On The Ritzzz! - Dollish Polish

I have another Lime Crime for you today. I have to say, the more I wear these Lime Crime polishes, the more I am so pleased that I got the set of them. I love them so much. They are fast becoming some of my most favourite polishes. Today's Lime Crime is 'Parfait Day' with a bit of Dollish Polish 'Putting On The Ritzzz!' for good measure.

This polish is so bright and as usual with the Lime Crime polishes that I've shown you, it is pastel, but also verging on neon. The thing I love about 'Parfait Day' is that there's actually a slightly dusty feel about the pink which is unusual when it's so close to leaning neon.

This photo shows a bit more of the neon side of this cotton candy pink. I think 'Putting On The Ritzzz!' worked really well with 'Parfait Day'. I got so many comments on this combination while I was wearing it earlier in the week.


'Partfait Day' applied just like the other Lime Crime polishes that I've shown you, it dries satiny and very fast. Like them, it was also really beautifully opaque, requiring barely two coats for perfect coverage. 'Putting On The Ritzzz!' was a bit of a tricky little bugger to apply, but nothing that a good mix and a bit of patience won't help. The first coat I applied of 'Putting On The Ritzzz!' didn't give very good coverage, but as you can see, with two not very thick coats, the coverage is good in the end.


Lime Crime's are available from Harlow & Co. (and remember they have free shipping with orders over $50USD) and 'Putting On The Ritzzz!' can be purchased from Dolly's Big Cartel shop. (keep an eye on her shop updates to see what will be in the upcoming restocks and when they'll be happening).

Sneeze Breeze - The Hungry Asian

I am currently DROWNING in exam study so the next few posts might be a little shorter. Also I have a problem child right now, by way of my middle finger on my right hand (the one you see) that has decided to have the peeling tantrum of all time and started to grow out a bit weird. So today, I've had to chop them all! Shortest they've been in years. It feels so strange to feel my fingertip above my nail! Oh well, a bit of TLC and hopefully they'll be up and growing in no time.

Today I have the wonderful 'Sneeze Breeze' from The Hungry Asian...

'Sneeze Breeze' is a mixture of blue and black matte glitter in a clear base. So simple and yet absolutely freaking amazing!

To me, 'Sneeze Breeze' is like summer in a bottle. It's so vibrant and happy looking. I love it. As you can see, it's quite dense. I used two pretty thick coats and it was fairly opaque, but I have one coat of OPI 'No Room For The Blues' (speaking of gorgeous polishes) underneath.


This also happened to be the first time I tried using PVA glue as a base coat. This is such a genius idea and I love whoever thought of it! If you want to read more about PVA glue as a base, hop on over to Lab Muffin or Pretty Purple Polish. I'm not sure who originally came up with this idea (if anyone knows, please let me know so I can put a link), but I looked at the two blogs that I've linked. Also the lovely Kirsten from Glitta Gloves gave me some handy hints on Twitter (thanks!!). Anyway, all in all, the PVA glue as a base coat thing was a HUGE success!! So easy and makes me want to wear glitter every day of my life. Granted, I don't think the wear time was as good as normal for me personally, but it just means I can effortlessly change my glitter more often :) (and when I say not as good, it still happily lasted a couple of days, so not bad at all).

For those of you who haven't seen it in action, this is what it looks like when peeled. The first hand broke up a lot, but the second hand I just ran under warm water for a minute and they peeled off so easily in one piece (going from the cuticle end always).

Fairy Princess - Sonia Kushuk

I am still pretty sick so this will be a little short and sweet. In the past week I've been feeling more than lousy, but I have received two packages that could not have come at a better time to cheer me up. One of them was from the wonderful Esther from Fab Fingertips, it contained two bottles of Max Factor 'Fantasy Fire'! The other was from the beautiful Mimi from MakeupWithdrawal. She organised a brilliant custom purchase for me and it was like christmas at my house when I opened my box of 12 (YES 12) polishes - including a few extras as a gift - thanks so much Mimi and Esther!

So today's polish is out of Mimi's parcel and it is a Sonia Kashuk polish called 'Fairy Princess'. I had never heard of this brand ever before, but I saw this polish over at The PolishAholic and loved the look of it...

'Fairy Princess' is an avocado green with a most gorgeous blue flash. There is a lot of shimmer in this pretty and in the sun, it gives off such an amazing glow.

On my ring finger is a franken that Mimi made and sent to me. I've never really been a big fan of bar glitter (I've said before it reminds me of something... hairy...), but I saw 'Bellybutton Lint' on Mimi's blog, along with the story behind the name, and I actually thought it looked really cool. Well lucky me, as Mimi had popped a bottle in my package and I love it :D



On to formula... 'Fairy Princess' had the strangest formula I've ever come across. It was textural in a weird way as though the shimmer was giving it texture, but not in a normal way. It kind of reminded me of spreading avocado mousse on my nails and it didn't like to spread easily. I used three coats to try to make it even but it was weirdly thick and foamy also, so there is a lot of polish on my nails. As is always the case with me, I won't put it entirely down to bad formula until I've retried it at a later date. Due to the thickness of the polish, the dry time was really quite long too and long after taking these photos, I managed to put all sorts of dents into my mani. Oh well, like I said, I'll definitely give it another go, I'm often pleasantly surprised the second time around when I know what to expect. I do love the colour though, although it really accentuates my incredibly pasty complexion  o.O

So thanks again to Esther and Mimi for brightening up my week! Hopefully I can get back to regular posts now, though I'm actually not out of bed yet so it might take a little longer. Thanks for bearing with me :D

Sea Creature - The Hungry Asian - & School Of Hard Rocks - Essie

I have never been so excited about a glitter in all my life. As I put 'Sea Creature' on, I was all "ooohhh aaahhh"... Let me attempt to show you why...

But first I'll just quickly show you what was underneath this amazing glitter. I used Essie 'School Of Hard Rocks' as my base colour for this mani.

'School Of Hard Rocks' is a dusty looking dark teal colour. Really pretty actually. I love how the colour is somewhat greyed out and a bit muted.

These photos show 'School Of Hard Rocks' without top coat and you can see that it's gorgeously shiny.  The colour reminds me a lot of raw greenstone.

This is 'Sea Creature' from The Hungry Asian. I actually got this a little bit ago. I originally set out to get 'Sneeze Breeze' (which I did also get :) ) and I saw this and just chucked it in my cart thinking the bottle shot looked quite nice. Well thank goodness I did! Like I said at the top of this post, I've never been so in love with a glitter.

'Sea Creature' is made up of little black matte hexes, tiny green glitter, slightly larger pinky-purple hexes and larger blue hexes. It's my absolute favourite mix of glitters of all the glitters I own.

I love the pink bits of glitter. They're a really surprising addition to this polish to me, but they just catch your eye perfectly and really give this mix of glitters that little extra je ne sais quoi.

Here's the macro. Isn't 'Sea Creature' brilliant?!



To the formulas... 'School Of Hard Rocks' was a simple two coater. The only little niggle I have with this polish is that it was really thin, the type of watery polish that wants to pool in your cuticles, so a bit of careful and patient application is needed. As for 'Sea Creature'... So easy to apply. The glitter stayed exactly where it was put and was so simple to get a nice even spread. I used 2 thin coats of 'Sea Creature' and I think it's great that thinner coats can be used so that you are in full control of how much glitter you end up with on your nails. It was a pretty hungry fella though, so you are seeing 3 coats of Cult Nails 'Wicked Fast' on top. 'Wicked Fast' is a really awesome but fairly thin top coat, so if you use something like Seche Vite, you shouldn't need so many coats at all to get it smooth.


'School Of Hard Rocks' can be purchased from anywhere that sells Essie's (Kiwi's - quite a few pharmacies, Smith & Caughey and Candy Girl (which is by far the cheapest)), and 'Sea Creature' can be purchased from The Hungry Asian Etsy store for $9.25 USD (apparently $12 NZD according to Etsy) and I have just checked and I think 'Sea Creature' is in stock right now! Check out her other beauties too :)

Floam - Nail-Venturous

I have today, a polish that needs no introduction. Nail-Venturous 'Floam'. From the very first moment I saw this polish on blogs earlier this year, it became a bit of an obsession of mine to get my hands on it! Cut forward to May and well... the rest, as they say, is history...

So here it is, the coveted 'Floam'. It's a mixture of blue, green and yellow matte glitter. And yes, I am, like the rest of the polish world right now, completely CRAZY for these little matte pieces of happiness!

The whole time I was wearing this polish, the weather was pretty average, so I didn't manage to get a photo in full sun. The brighter the light on this beauty, the more the yellow seems to come to life. The first photo is by far the brightest and as we go through to less intense light, you'll see the blue especially take more centre-stage.

So here we have it in very overcast "sun". Not such an obnoxious polish in this sort of lighting. I have to say I loved it best in bright light so it was a colour over-load but I liked that it could tone-down a fair whack as well.

A macro to show you just what exactly makes up this polish that sends me speeding back to the good old days of my childhood in the '90's.



'Floam' is absolutely jam-packed with glitter so this is 3 coats for pretty awesome opacity. It was so super easy to apply and the glitter was quite happy to stay exactly where I put it. One thing is that this polish is THICK! It's OK though, because it didn't affect application at all. 'Floam' was also really fast-drying, so you don't have to wait a hundred years between coats to make sure the glitter doesn't pull away from your cuticles. The glitter is pretty hungry so I used two thick coats of Essie 'Good To Go' on top and it was still a little bit gritty (I don't mind this though). Anywho, I'm so glad I got 'Flaom'! I don't think I would have ever rested until it was safely in my box(es) of polish :)

I purchased 'Floam' from Ninja Polish for $9USD. It's currently out of stock but keep an eye out and if you want it, pop your name down for email notification of when it's back in stock.

Jewel of the Nile - Lac Attack

Hi all!

It's gotta be a quick one today as my laptop is about to be retired (hopefully only for a few days) to the fix-it shop. Idiot that I am, spilled wine on my keyboard last night!!!!! It's working fine at the moment, so they told me to take it home and back it up before they take it in to check it, so I figured I may as well do my blog post while I've still got it with all my pics on.

So today I have something to show you that I love! This is 'Jewel of the Nile', an indie polish from Lac Attack over top of China Glaze 'Fast Track'...

'Jewel of the Nile' has a clear base with purple, blue and green matte glitter in it. It's like a party on my nails! :)

These photos were both taken on a horribly overcast day and in real life this polish really does come alive! 'Jewel of the Nile' is such a fun and happy polish.

In this macro picture you can see how this polish has some serious depth to it. It's quite strange, in this photo it looks like the purple is only in the bottom layer. It's not, I promise, the glitters are all mixed evenly through the layers.


To get this sort of coverage, I did require 4 coats of 'Jewel of the Nile' but to be honest it didn't look much different at 3, so I think that would've been fine too. I actually love the look of this polish with just one coat and to me it's perfect that it's not too dense because I have control over how I want it to look. I used 2 coats of 'Fast Track' underneath. I wanted to use a polish that would just act as a fairly blank canvas for 'Jewel of the Nile' and 'Fast Track's' neutral colour was just right. Also the gold flecks in 'Fast Track' just added to the look. Both of these polishes were so easy to apply. 'Jewel of the Nile' spread easily and the glitter stayed where it was put without any messing around on my part. It didn't tend to leave bald patches or anything, which was a nice bonus. The glitter does make it textured to the touch, of course, but I actually just used one fairly thick coat of Sally Hansen 'Insta-Dri' and though it didn't smooth it out completely, it was fine for my purposes.

'Jewel of the Nile' and other polishes by Lac Attack can be purchased from Anastasia's Etsy shop. She has just put a notice up saying that she has found base and is hoping to restock with the new 'Summer Lovin'' collection around the end of May :)