Pahlish Train Underwater – Swatches and Layering.

Here is the first  of my Pahlish polishes, Train Underwater.

As soon as I saw swatches of this I knew I had to have it. And I tried it once, on it’s own, and it was pretty but a bit sheerer and more teal than I expected. So, easy as, layer it!

This is two coats of Train Underwater over one coat of Nyx Ink Heart. And soooo pretty.

I loved this so much, such sparkly fun, and gorgeous depth. There is a lot of fuchsia coloured glitters in this polish that really catch the light at different angles, and change the colour quite dramatically.

I had a few lovely comments on this mani!

And I can’t wait to try out the rest of my Pahlish’s 😀

Have a lovely day

Ami

piCture pOlish Splash: review and many, many swatches and combinations :)

Jules and the gorgeous ladies at piCture pOlish asked if I would like to review a few more polishes of theirs, and you KNOW I’m not going to say no. Boy do I love their polishes. I have bought so many of them since I was lucky enough to get Orbit and Pshiiit to review for Blog Fest 2012… and now I’m addicted. 😀 And now that my nubs have grown out a little, here is the first!

This is Splash, a aqua blue glitter in a clear base – small hexes and teeny specks.

This photo is one thin layer of Splash over two coats of NYX Ink Heart – a pairing to me which seems a classic choice, blue on blue.

sunshine

AND these bottles all have a  QR code on the side, so people with fancy phones can scan in the code and get more information 🙂

sunshine

Then for a different look, I layered on thin coat of Splash over two coats of Nfu Oh 131 – this was nicely contrasting!

inside

And it had this amazing sparkle and shine…

sunshine

So amazing, in fact, that here is another photo of it. No top coat here, Splash sits very flush to the nail.

sunshine, happiness!

And because my goal here is to show off the versatility of this polish (something I really look for in a polish; how many ways it can be used!) I’ve layered it here over a classic pinkish/sheerish nude. In this case, three coats of Opoola 36 (a CR Cosmetics polish, from the $2 shop!). I used one thickish coat of Splash to get this effect.

inside, shade…

And in the sun…

And then with one more coat of Opoola, to sandwich the glitter.

shade…

This had a lovely soft watercolour effect, although I’d use a slightly thinner and quicker drying polish next time, the Opoola didn’t want to dry, and I dinged my nails. Ah well, the idea is there!

sunshine!

And for something even more toned down, this is two coats of OPI Steady as she Rose, with a glitter tip gradient of Splash.

a whale! yes! It, too, Splashes. Shade…

Mmm, probably a bit subtle for me, personally, and it could use a nice top coat to smooth out that gradient tip waterline there.

sunshine, whale!

And now, to go from subtle to UBER sparkly, this is one coat of Splash over two coats of piCture pOlish Orbit. With accent nail bling.

plus a lovely geode. Purdy

Why? Because I think mermaids wearing Splash would like water toned glitter. Thanks to Ariel The Little Mermaid (movie version) I now think they are all sort of magpies… 😀 I think this should have had top coat, but then my camera would have freaked out at the shine and glitter. I love how Splash adds that little extra pop of contrast and sparkle to Orbit!

sunshine, glittery rocks and polish

And here is one thick layer of Splash over two coats of Up Colours Azul Arco Iris.

I do love how the glitter shines inside, and still lets the subtle holo peep through in the sunlight 🙂

sunshine and rainbows!

And, finally, my favourite combination!

This is Splash over two coats of OPI Russian Navy, and one coat of Ninja Polish Alexandrite.

taking time to smell the roses? Yes, but mostly to admire the nail polish…

Those two polishes (Russian Navy and Alexandrite) look spectacular together, Alexandrite really pops over the blue and colour shifts blue/purple/green all over the place: but when you add Splash over the top…. WOW.

Gilding the beetle, I’d call that. Taking something beautiful, and making it MORE beautiful – it complements the blue base and shift, and contrasts with the other colour changes. This was one thick coat of Splash, topped off with Misa BREAKneck.

Important notes: the base texture of Splash is almost too good – its so smooth and flowing it’s almost slippery. It’s super easy to place the glitters, but they can tend to slip towards the tip of your fingernails if you over work the polish – sometimes I did wiggle the brush a bit to replace the glitters, but there was no real ‘dabbing’ or mucking around. Dry time was average, and the glitters lie very flat, no gritty glitter here!

bottle, posed on the BBQ. SUMMER! 😀

You can buy this polish from piCture pOlish’s website, or if you are based here in New Zealand, check out Gracie Lou: all sorts of goodies here, including piCture pOlish, Ozotic, and more. Amazingly fast and well packaged shipping from both of those shops, in my experience.

Thanks for reading, have a great day!

Ami 🙂

*Disclosure: the piCture pOlish shown here, Splash, was provided to me for review. All other polishes, bad cleanups, poor photography, overly wordy descriptions, opinions and random hand poses are entirely my own.*

Day 19: Galaxies

Day 19 of the 31 Day Challenge: Galaxy Nails

So many of these themes now are completely new to me, and this is another one. I didn’t think this would actually work, but knew I’d love it if I did.

I used China Glaze Liquid Leather as the base, then randomly (but towards the tips) brushed on Orly Space Cadet, and piCture pOlish Orbit (chosen for their names as well as their colours and textures!). Then, over that, I used Nyx Frizzy Spot – leaving some of the Space Cadet bare to get that colour showing through.

looooooovveeeeee

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

NYX Ink Heart – Swatches, and Glitter Topping

This is NYX Girls Ink Heart, a gorgeous navy/royal blue jelly polish:

NYX Ink Heart

I loved the colour of this polish: it was a royal blue in the sunlight.. behold!

I don’t know what that lump is, or where it came from. There was only one, though, so I think it’s a one-off, rather than a problem polish!

And a soft navy in the shade…

But had that gorgeous shine everywhere. These swatches are three coats, a top coat of Orly Sec n Dry, and a base coat because it’s blue :D. It didn’t need the top coat for shine – just to dry a bit faster. Dry time was average, and the formula was great, super easy to apply , it did run a tiny bit but not too bad, and it self-leveled really nicely. It did stain a bit on removal, I was glad I put a base coat on. While there was some blue on my skin after taking it off, a quick hand wash removed that, so don’t panic if it happens to you! 😀

Whole hand photo…

Because I really wanted to see some copper with this blue, I added a top coat of L.A Girl Glitter Addict in Flamboyant to my little and middle fingernails.

I really liked this combination! Flamboyant is a very pretty glitter, but I tend to prefer Nostalic (because of the holographic glitter in Nostalgic). This was a great way to play with the glitter, it set off the blue of the non-accented nails and enhanced the coppery orange glitter.

You can get L.A Girl Glitter Accent range from Beauty Joint too, I want ALL their glitters! Actually, I have a cart loaded with polishes that I madly want right NAOW… but will have to wait until the money fairy visits. Fingers crossed she does…

New Butterfly Rings I’m working on…

Just a quick photo! Am making a whole bunch of butterfly and insect rings, and was working on these two while I had the camera out.. so here they are!

These are little plastic butterflies, painted with BYS Black Satin as a base, then one has a frankened black with holographic bars and glitter polish, and then NXY Frizzy Spots. The other has Darling Diva Polishes Witchy Woman.. which I am just hanging out to put on, it’s the most gorgeous blackish base with matte coloured glitters.

Waiting on a top coat for these to protect them and make them all purdy and glossy, then I’ll get them on their ring bases and add them to my stash. Just another fun and cheap way for me to incorporate nail polish and colour in my life, without the dry time!

NYX Frizzy Spots – Swatches and Experimentation

Here we have one coat of NYX Frizzy Spots over 1 coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather, and a top coat of Orly Sec ‘n’ Dry.

Very hard to read the label over the dark polish!

This was very pretty, very visually effective with the holographic silver hexs over the shiny shiny black, and very quick to dry. An all around win! I bought the NYX Frizzy Spots from Beauty Joint online, very reasonably priced.

Then I played with Nyx on its own, but that was a fail. A miserable fail. You see, even though it looks black in the bottle, the sheer jelly base of Frizzy Spots is actually smokey quartz colour – grey/brown/black.

NYX Frizzy Spots on it’s own.. all together now, ewwww 😀

This was 4 VERY thick coats to try and reach vague opacity, and it was ugly. Lumpy, patchy, rough and ugly. Also it didn’t dry, even with the top coat (Orly Sec ‘n’ Dry) – but in it’s defence I gave it 10 mins then got rid of it. Because it was ugglyyyyy

Nice sparkle though…

But one thing I did try which was more win than lose was: layering one thin coat of Darling Diva Polish’s Dreamy over the original effort – of one coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather and one coat of Frizzy Spots. See?

China Glaze Liquid Leather, NYX Frizzy Spots, and Darling Diva Polish Dreamy

I liked this, you can still see the colours and sparkle of the large holographic glitters from Frizzy Spots, and it’s still quite dark in colour, but there is also that amazing linear holographic rainbow over the top. Because this was one coat over the one coat each of Liquid Leather and Frizzy Spots, this dried nice and fast, without top coat, in about 5 minutes. I’ll try this again sometime!

Look at that holographic hex flash red! Whooop!

And one more photo, showing this combo and the original Frizzy Spots over Liquid Leather in the background.

Have a great day, everyone!

Nail Mail – the BEST kind!

There is something so exciting about getting nail polish in the mail. The only thing thats better, I think, is getting BOGGIN loads of nail polish in the mail 😀

My Sister V and I went in together (so we could split the shipping) on a bunch of nail polish from BeautyJoint – which I’d never used before. My first impressions are very positive! Here is the packaging…

Bubble bag, and a fair amount of bubble wrap.

And the whole bunch of nail polishes (mine and V’s) together on the kitchen windowsill. Ahhhh isn’t that a sight to gladden the heart? It did mine!

So, this arrived in NZ 8 days after I ordered it. After I ordered it on a Sunday. EIGHT DAYS. *picks jaw off floor*. I hope they pay their packers well, and their office staff… ok, pay everyone there very well indeed. None of the bottles were broken, emails were sent when the package was. BeautyJoint has a good range of polishes too, though we stuck mostly to Kleancolor and Nyx (both of which aren’t tested on animals).

My polishes!

Kleancolor Holo Orange, Holo Pink, Holo Yellow

And…

Kleancolor Holo Green, Holo Blue, Holo Chrome (one of these name’s is not like the others…)

And…

Nyx Frizzy Spots, Nyx Ink Heart, Kleancolor Fast Dry Top Coat, Kleancolor Madly Matte

Basically, I bought all the Kleancolor holos – because I’m such a sucker for them. I wish I could have got a few more of the Nyx ones: I’ve been checking out swatches and they have some gorgeous polishes. Next time! This worked out at $4 per polish. Including shipping. Sooooo worth it, in my opinion! Shipping was expensive here, I think it ended up being a bit more than the polishes were (totalled up), but it broke down nicely. I can’t wait to try these out and show you all! 😀