Too many untrieds 1: China Glaze, Color Club, Models Own, Orly, De Sol

I have a few weeks now to try as many of my untried nail polishes as possible, to declutter that corner, and make me feel better about myself, in general 😀 So, lots of swatches to do, photos to take, and long photo heavy posts with not much writing coming up! Please feel free to ignore these completely 🙂

CHINA GLAZE

Electrify – 2 coats & top coat

Stolen from my mothers destash – hyper pretty and sparkly!

OMG A UFO – 2 coats no top coat

LOVE! gorgeous colour (more olive than gold), easy application, streaks disappear when polish dries, nice smooth holographic shimmer.

Holly-Day – 2 coats no top coat

Just a stunning polish. Simple, beautiful, slightly lighter than the photos are making it look. Glossy. Perfect.

MODELS OWN

Beth’s Blue – 2 coats, no top coat

almost a one coater, because of the Rampaging Polish Blob effect, but the plus is it still works out and blobs in the right place, not runny. Gorgeous light periwinkle blue!

Aqua Violet -3 coats, no top coat

very pretty aqua through teal to purple multichrome, love it! (this one is from Sister V’s destash).

Very, very nice

Pinky Brown – 3 coats, no top coat

nice formula, needs three coats because it does go a little patchy, and to be noted, this one has a stronger smell, petrol like. Not over powering to me, but I know some people are really sensitive so I’ll note it! But check out the colour shifts.. pink, brown, gold, green, and I love that the multichrome is a glass fleck, not a chrome 🙂

COLOR CLUB

Eternal Beauty – Halo Hues

Oh, Color Club Halo Hues. How I love thee. Please keep making these. Make ALL THE COLORS. thanks.

2 coats, no top coat. such a nice formula, easy to apply, and fast drying, and that holographic effect is just stunning.

Wham! Pow! 3 coats, no top coat

colour adjusted to show colour of polish, ignore bright red hands! 😀

would need a top coat, it dries matte. Quite jelly-ish, and freaked my camera out! It looks light orange through the lens, but in real life it’s an intense highlighter neon orange, almost shading to red in the direct sunlight. I like it, even though it makes my eyes want to fall out 😀

Feelin’ Groovy – 3 coats, no top coat

Another jelly neon, this one is highlight green :)Moderately sheer, though it dries fast enough not to resent needing another coat or two. Also dries matte, so top coat will be needed. My camera won’t show how bright this is in real life 🙂

Trippie Hippie – 2 coats no top coat

needs a third, but in a hurry 🙂 formula is a little runny, but the polish is shimmery and pretty 😀

Australis – Polish Pots, no name on bottle. 2 coats, no top coat

just a gorgeous shiny deep colour, I adore this!

ORLY

Grape Glitz Mini – 1 coat over the purple Australis polish above

nice and shimmery, not too exciting to me.

Orly mini, no name but I think it’s Rage. 2 coats, no top coat.

Fast drying, and just gorgeous. I may need a full size of this, or make something like it.

Orly It’s Not Rocket Science – 3 coats no top coat

pretty, sparkly, that swampy green base which I like, but I can’t see any blue duochrome on the nail! I might try 2 coats over black sometime, and see if that brings it out.

The only way I could see even a hint of the blue..

Orly Androgynie – 3 coats, no top coat

Lovely! This could be layered over black for a darker base, but I like the fact it looks dark inside, but a deep brown with gold flakes in the sunlight. The larger iridescent rainbow hexes sink, but I turned the bottle upside down (in a jar, it won’t balance on it’s rounded lid) for 10 mins before applying, and they came out fine.

DE SOL

De Sol Starry Night – one coat over Models Own Beth’s Blue.

Gold in a gold tinted base inside, dark purple in the sun.

De Sol Ruby Slipper – one coat over Beth’s Blue.

Silver in a clear base inside, pink in the sunshine.

One thing I’d recommend with these is to apply them in the sunshine, and try two coats 😀 See, I added another coat of Ruby Slippers – in the sun – and it evened right up.

Plus it still looks pretty in the shade 😀

If you’ve made it this far, hats off to you! Well done! More to come 😀

China Glaze Spam

Ahhh the ongoing First World Polish Problems of the untrieds. For months these lovelies have languished in their boxes, waiting appreciation and an extreme close up photo opportunity.  So, in a particular order – see if you can guess what – here are my untried China Glaze polishes! Either destashed or bought outright, I do love China Glaze!

Angel Wings: micro holographic gold glitter in a clear base, from last years Christmas collection, I believe.

Three coats, no top coat, it looks textured but it feels more like suede than like grit, this would be super pretty with a top coat, too! Love…

Sunshine Pop: Bright yellow with a white/silver shimmer – reminds me of yellow balloons!

2 coats, no top coat. This is a slightly older bottle so newer ones may take three coats, the shimmer made this want to be a tiny bit streaky, but it was fine in the end. I doubt I’d wear this on it’s own, but it’ll be worth it’s weight in gold for nail art 🙂

I Herd That – orange and gold holo and micro glitter in a clear base

3 coats, no top coat. I am sort of divided on this polish… it’s really close to my skin tone. Not that I have sparkly skin. I do have home made wine, so if my comments get very random, you’ll know why! hehehe. Anyway, I think I’m liking this – it’s a subtle colour, but highly blingy (sorry no sun to prove it!) and will look great on it’s own or layered over browns and blacks etc.

Hello Gorgeous! blush pink holographic microglitters in a clear base

3 coats, no top coat. This was slightly sheerer than I’d like, I think I’ll layer it next time, but it’s a very pretty colour.

When Stars Collide – dusty purpled pink holographic chrome polish from their Hologlam collection.

This was the other one I wanted from that collection, so I was stoked to grab it from Harriet’s destash! This would be a one coater if you were in a hurry, I did two for form 😀

This dries fast! The photos aren’t good, sorry, its a touch more holographic than it looks 🙂

under lights… hence the red tone, but does show what the holo is capable of!

Strawberry Fields – hot pink jelly with gold glass fleck shimmer

This is about as far from my ‘normal’ favourite type of polish as you can get, but I love it 😀 It’s so happy. In fact I’m going to put it on my toenails very soon 😀 3 coats, no top coat.

Lubu Heels: red microglitter in a black base

Wow, ok, this was HEAPS blacker than I thought! 2 coats, no top coat. Though seeing the sunshine photos (yay! Sunlight broke through!) I should have used 3 coats. Dries fast! Very pretty 🙂

Running in Circles – green micro glitter in a slightly deeper green jelly base.

Has a slight blue duochrome in the shade!

2 coats, no top coat. Very, very sparkly and pretty!

Fancy Pants: gorgeous blue/purple with pink shimmer

My bottle lid wasn’t put on properly (bought it new, arrived like so), and the polish overflow glued the lid on. So annoying! However, I went to a Tupperware party and because it was my first (and only, bah) I was given a thing called ‘the boyfriend’ which cracks me up, sort of a square flat silicon sheet, small, with grippy bumps, so we delicate females can open our own jars. Silly, yes, but it works, and it works on polish bottles! YAY! No more teeth marks in the lid! 😀 Worth suffering through an incredibly over priced party thing for, in my opinion 😀

2 coats, no top coat, this was a bit thicker than normal China Glaze polishes, probably because of the not-quite-sealed lid.

and, finally for today, Man Hunt: deep soft blue crelly

2 coats, no top coat. Wow! Look at that shine! Love, love, love this polish 😀 Nice that it’s opaque in two coats too.

So there we have it! All my China Glaze untrieds.

Have a great day

Ami

China Glaze: Budding Romance – swatches and layering

China Glaze Budding Romance, one of my favourite types of pretty ugly green polishes 😀

It’s a jelly though, which I wasn’t expecting, and gives it a squishy look and super shine, which I do love!

Two coats here, they were quite thick though, and I think three thin ones would be better. It’s a flattering colour on my olive-ish skin tone.

And then I layered it with L.A. Girl Glitter Addict, Purge. Quite an appropriate name with this combination, I feel! (sorry. cough.)

Though, please note, I added the lighter green holographic hexes to this polish, without alteration Purge has mini and midi emerald green hex glitters. Very pretty. I just like it better with the holo glitters too 😀

On my accent nail I added another thin coat of Budding Romance, and topped it all off with Misa BREAKneck top coat.

Unfortunately I had to catch some chickens and it was still squishy looking AND squishy acting 15 minutes after top coat, and it all smunched up and fell off. Ah well. Was pretty while it lasted! 😀

Have a nice day

Ami 🙂

PANZ Week 7: Copycat Mani

Whoa, where did that week go?! I’ve been pretty slack at blogging, I must apologise: I’ve been around but my time has been taken up by listing our nail polishes on our Etsy shop. I have some ideas for how to get going on this again, which I’ll share, soon!

So, copycat mani! Weeeeelllll, I didn’t exactly copy. But, I did use one of my favourite nail bloggers as an inspiration, so that’s got to count. This was a ‘skittlette’ mani, inspired by Marta of ChitChat Nails – I wish I had a photography setup like hers 😉 .That aside, she has the most amazing stamping, colour schemes, and out and out classy, glamorous nails. *envy* 😀

So, I went with a somewhat subdued colour theme, and really enjoyed it. I had China Glaze Light As Air as the base for all nails except for my middle fingernail, which had Revlon Popular. I stamped a feather pattern on my ring fingernails, using A-England Excalibur, and then on the rest of my nails I added two dabbed coats of a homemade glitter polish, (Star Kin) My Mind.

 

Topped it all off with a thick coat of Misa BREAKneck, and called it done! My sister V calls it the ‘light and flooffy’ mani, and I think that name will stick 😀

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back real soon. Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

PANZ Week 6 – Jelly!

Week 6 of the weekly Polish Addicts of New Zealand challenges – these are fun. 😀  This one is Jelly – and I thought I’d play with it, in the spirit of that fun 😀

This is mostly based around China Glaze Creative Fantasy, which I picked up in a semi-recent group Head2Toe order. It’s the most gorgeous royal purple jelly! I had two layers of that, then one layer of Nail Pattern Boldness Bitches Brew, then a final layer of Creative Fantasy on most of my nails, and on my accent nails I played with a design of layering painted images on the jelly layers – original manicure can be found here.

And, I didn’t much feel like flowers, so I tried fish. Kinda… sort of missed that one, I feel. I blobbed the fish on with Kleancolor White, and the middle and top layer I also added Ozotic 907 for fishy shimmer and a dot of Kleancolor Black for the eyes. I still think they look a bit like rockets. Or… something else.

Anyway, this was fun! All topped off with Misa BREAKneck.

“ABCD Goldfish?”

“MNO Goldfish.”

“SAR Goldfish, ICDBD I’s!”

Have a great day

Ami 🙂

 

KKCenterHK Review: Hexagonal Silver Nail Studs

*Press sample alert! Press sample alert!* heh (if you are wondering, Press Sample is the new way bloggers are letting people know that they didn’t buy this product, but it should not affect the review given).

I was recently contacted by KKCenterHK, who asked if I would be interested in reviewing a few of their products. I went and had a look at their site and my brains kinda exploded, there is so many things to look at! Argh! And all so interesting! So, well, duh, I said yes please! And they let me choose two products. This was my first choice, these 5mm silver hexagonal nail studs, retailing for US$5 for approx 50 pieces.

For this initial manicure, I used two coats of China Glaze Haunting, then taped off a triangle and put China Glaze Liquid Leather to make an upside down V shape. I just pressed the stud into the sticky polish, and took these photos.

Even though these weren’t attached very securely, they still stayed put very nicely despite the several hand position changes, and I really liked the look! I think they would be far too large for my little finger nail, and my ring fingernail is possibly too curved, but I have plans for the rest, yes I do.

So next, to provide a fair review, is a wear test! For this one I wanted it pretty simple, I have 2 coats of Revlon Royal on all nails, and on my middle fingernails I put on two of the studs. Yep, two studs *wink*

I pressed them down pretty firmly into the polish, then completely slathered them in top coat (Misa Breakneck) to keep them in place. I could have glued them, but my glue has stuck the lid to itself, so my fall back of wet polish + heaps of top coat it will be.

You can see on this angle how the edges of the stud stick out laterally where my nail curves down; I can feel that free edge, but so far it’s not annoying, just something to be cautious of to avoid it getting caught on anything, and pulling off the decoration.

And, can I say, I LOVE this look? I love blue and silver together, and the dimensional quality of this silver and the crispness against the perfect blue of Royal is giving me jawdropitis every time I look at my nails.

I will finish this post tomorrow, with a report of how this lasted, in my day to day life of children, cleaning, cooking, crafts, chickens, and other things which hopefully don’t all start with the letter C.

Postscript! I lost the two studs from my right hand about 2 hours after I put them on, by accidentally scraping them off on a lid. The ones on my left hand stayed on all evening, and I lost one in the morning, and one just now, 24 hours after applying. So, given that I didn’t glue them on, that’s a really good effort I think. I’d definitely recommend these for an evening out look, or something fun and funky for a few hours.

Thanks to KKCenterHK for the chance to play with these pretties, and I’ll be back shortly with a review of the soft stamping plate.

Have a great day

Ami 🙂

China Glaze I’m Not Lion (I’m A Leopard)

This polish (I’m Not Lion) has been staring at my from my untrieds rack for a looong time now, and I was really happy to get to use it.

For this manicure I used a base of China Glaze Kalahari Kiss (one coat), then two coats of I’m Not Lion. It probably would have been completely opaque in 3 coats, but I wanted to be able to remove it easier 😀

I love the combination of old gold and holographic glitter, it’s subtle until it hits the sunlight, then it’s amazing!

My accent nail (ring finger) has the middle strip the same (one coat Kalahari Kiss, two of I’m Not Lion), and then the sides of my nails have on coat of Zoya Felicity and two coats of China Glaze Hello Gorgeous!

Then, over that I played with a leopard print accent (for the first time ever, Leopard Print and I DO NOT get along. Traditionally).

I added gold plastic blingys for the dots in the middle of the leopard spots, and topped it off with Misa BREAKneck top coat.

Which smeared my leopard prints. Just a tiny bit. I could live with it. And, I could get along with this blingy leopard!

Have a great day

Ami

China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots – Swatches & Nail Art

Strap on your Moonboots, from the Hologlam collection, purchased from Head2Toe Beauty. Sister V told me this was the right one (I had it narrowed down to this or When Stars Collide), and she was right, this is pretty!

You may have heard that these polishes are not that holographic. They are not that holographic. These photos show about as strong a holo effect as they got, but I LOVE the colour, and the slight holo rainbow does add a dimension 🙂

A lovely dusty dark denim blue with subtle linear holo. Two coats here, almost a one coater. No top coat!

The thing is… it’s almost a one coater because it is quite thick. It does pull off if you overwork it, so don’t do that. My bottle also had this cute trick: I’d wipe the brush and then go to put the first stripe of polish on, and about half way into the first line a HUGE amount of polish would come screaming down the brush from who-knows-where and go PLOBBB! all over my nails. Annoying, but workable, I just put the brush half way up my nail and used the PLOBBB! to paint with, then I didn’t get the cuticle flooding. 😀

Then for fun, I added dots (with a dotting tool) using Ozotic 515 (almost invisible against the SOYM), and Color Club Blue Heaven, and a fast dry top coat (Misa BREAKneck).

Inside lighting, sorry about the yellow!

Later on I added a couple of large holographic circle glitters…

and a cut-to-size silver flamingo thing (large packet of them for sprinkling around to decorate events? Confetti things?) on my thumb, and lots of top coat to hold it all down. That was fun, and very easy 🙂

Have a great day

Ami 🙂

China Glaze: Lorelei’s Tiara – swatches and layering

This is China Glaze’s Lorelei’s Tiara, the most intensely sparkly silver with blue polish I have ever seen.

These photos are  are three layers with Misa BREAKneck topcoat. I couldn’t take my eyes off this polish!

It did need the three coats for opacity, and was still a tiny bit rough with the thin topcoat, so maybe a thicker topcoat like Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food might be in order for the smooooth people out there 😀

Or… you can add two coats of China Glaze Make a Spectacle, and another Misa BREAKneck layer, like I did.

Because this was glassy smooth, plus in the shade all the little colour changing iridescent hexes in Make A Spectacle came out to play in a subtle but very cool way.

And in the sun… kapow, glitter!

My favourite combinations, or polishes, offer something in all lights. And this sure did. And even though I had it over a PVA base, it lasted 2 days with no chipping whatsoever, which is BRILLIANT for my nails.

 

Have a sparkly, shimmery day

Ami 🙂

Blue and Gold Mani for Autism Awareness

Hi All!

This is my blue and gold nails for Autism Awareness month. 🙂

The blue is China Glaze Water You Waiting For, and the gold is imitation gold leaf. Two coats Water You Waiting For, no top coat.

The interesting thing about Water You Waiting For is that the first layer is REALLY sheer, but the second one makes it completely opaque. Awesome! It’s a proper China Graze though (their glitter are really, seriously, sandpapery), just a heads up.

Then on my non-accent nails I added a coat of Dollish Polish Spank You Very Much, and Misa BREAKneck topcoat – and topcoat on the gold foil.

Why did I choose these polishes? Water You Waiting For is not just blue, it’s blue and purple. In my experience, people with autism are incredible multi-faceted people. Spank You Very Much is also blue and purple, but not the same colours, so none are hidden. And gold? Because people on the spectrum, and those who care for them, they are solid gold. *Hat tip*

Have a great day

Ami