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 😀

Nail Polish Spam – bigger companies :)

E.g. not independent companies! Here are a bunch of photos for you… and also for me, to clear my desk at long last 😀

Here’s another pretty polish from Megan (seriously, chicky, do you have any ugly polishes? These are GORGEOUS!) this is Sinful Colors Timbleberry, one of my favourite types of colours, that almost neon coral pink.

Two lovely even coats, no top coat 🙂 I also added Color Club Snowflakes to my accent nail, and tips. Snowflake is a lovely green/blue/gold iridescent hex polish in a clear base, but I couldn’t get any good photos of them, they just kind of look like holes in the polish. Not so good.

But, in real life, this was quite pretty indeed!

Next up is Orly Galaxy Girl, which is even prettier on the nail than in the bottle.

This is two coats, plus Misa BREAKneck topcoat.

The colours shifted between an auburn brown, teal/blue, and a gorgeous pinkish purple.

I didn’t think this would be as multi-chromatic on the nail, but it was more so!  Love this polish, easy, quick, and stunning. There hasn’t been one from this range (I believe it was the Out of this World range from Orly a few years ago) that I haven’t loved. Just straight out adore. The bottles (large!) the handles (rubbery, soft, perfect grip), the brushes (great!) the polish itself (stunning). Sigh. Thank you, Orly, for making these polishes. Please make more. I love them.

And here is Boe Beauty Ballet Pink. My Sister C bought me two Boe Beauty nail polishes for my birthday, and they were great, but I’ve never seen this brand here before. Then, lo! A stack of them in The Warehouse for $2 each! Allllll right! I got Black (which is black, two coater, nice), red, which I’ll swatch later, and this one.

 

I thought this would be a pale pink, but it’s more a very pale peach – I don’t have anything like this, and it’s really pretty.

Trouble is, it’s also really streaky – I guess the payoff for being not sheer, is streaks. It’s quite a harsh soft colour, if that makes any sense? Not twink like, but definitely polish, not a natural colour at all. I really like it. Woe on the streaks though.

This is three coats plus top coat.

Orly: Lift the Veil and Daily Lacquer: Jovi

Another quick combo! First up, Orly Lift the Veil.

Pretty pink, not as sheer as I was afraid of, this is two coats. Nice tone for my colouring!

Pretty quick drying, too, and very easy to apply. I LOVE the bottle caps and brushes that Orly use. Yes.

Then I added one coat of Daily Lacquer Jovi – Maggie, the creator of Daily Lacquer, sent me a mini a looong time ago with my order, as I was one of her first customers. Sooo cute! And a lovely polish, I knew I wanted to layer it to not use too much.

Jovi has a pink base (a more lilac pink than Lift the Veil, but it works anyway because Jovi is thick enough to be opaque very quickly), with red hexes, silver holo hexes and red tiny glitters with a handful of holo glitter too. Very pretty, and nice formula, easy to use and the glitters lay flat. Smooth to the touch with Misa BREAKneck top coat!

Have a wonderful day

Ami 🙂

Nails of the Day: Orly Nite Owl and Glitter Franken

A quick nail of the day post (don’t ask me what day, I can’t remember!).

This is Orly Nite Owl – two coats – with one coat of my gold and silver glitter franken. Any glitter with both gold and silver in it would work similarly.

I topped it all off with a coat of China Glaze Fast Forward, and it was nice and smooth to the touch.

Even my mother liked this, and she doesn’t like glitters! I liked the combination of subtle nude-ish colour and very shiny glitter – in the shade it looked like a normal, nice, work appropriate polish, then in the sun it showed off all the sparkle and holographic bling. Win-win!

Wear time was pretty good on this too, and dry time was nice and fast, and the formula on Nite Owl is awesome. Orly, how I love these caps and brushes!

Have a wonderful day

Ami 🙂

Orly Pink Brilliance – layered with Daring Digits True Love.

Two coats Orly Pink Brilliance: a frosty metallic, very soft and flattering colour. Although I wouldn’t say this is VERY pink, there is a touch of pink in it!

Whole hand photo…

You do have to be quite careful with how you apply it, or the streaks will get revenge. If you load the brush up with polish and move along quite quickly, in a straight line, you should be alright.

And, like most solid polishes, any lines or imperfections can be disguised with a glitter top coat, if  desired!

One thick, dabbed coat True Love: added the glitz that poor Pink Brilliance was missing on it’s own, though I think I prefer it without the red hearts! Easy enough to pop them back in the bottle though.

Topped off with one coat Misa BREAKneckk, but even with fast dry topcoat this took quite a while to dry, thanks to the thick glitter coat, but was nice and smooth when it was done.

Have a nice day

Ami 🙂

Orly Razzle and Nfu Oh 60 – swatches and layering

More polishes from the amazing haul from my facebook polish group of Full On Enablers 😀 (love you girls! You rock!) – here is Orly Razzle.

I… liked this polish more than it liked me. Its a lovely deep raspberry fuchsia colour, with heaps of pink and silver shimmer through it. Two coats here, I could have used a third according to the unforgiving Mr Macro, but in real life it looked fine with two.

Check out that amazing shimmer…Even in the shade the silver showed up to add visual interest – smooth, too. A large shimmer, not a glitter.

My skin tone doesn’t love fuchsia pinks – and so I thought I’d layer Nfu Oh 60 over it. In the bottle it’s a multi-hued flakie in a black jelly base, and I am used to black jelly bases being very sheer. “great” thinks Ami to herself “it will deepen the pink and add flakies! Win!”

um. This is a nice dense jelly. I’m pretty sure this would be opaque in 3 coats on its own. And yes, you could say it deepened the pink… all the way into auburn. This is one coat of Nfu Oh 60. ONE. Pretty though! I did like this, even though I’m not that good at making an even layer, apparently! Ah well…

These photos show a slightly different look on my pinky nail – it has a coat of Kolt Lunatic, but the duochrome doesn’t show up, it must need to be layered over black.

Sunlight…

Lots of shine from this combo! I had finished it off with one coat of Misa BREAKneck, which was getting kinda gluggy.

Showing the green shift of the flakes…

There you go! I can’t wait to try Nfu Oh on it’s own, and I think Razzle will make a great base colour for a LOT of glitter toppers I have.

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

Random Swatches: Orly, OPI, L.A.Girl, Rimmel, Franken. :)

Just some quick swatches of various nail polishes: most of these are second hand, and have been sitting around for awhile, and I wanted them swatched and out of the way (either recycled for their bottles or recorded for future reference).

First up – Orly Candy Cane Lane mini, 2 coats, no top coat.

Awesome red crelly, nice shine. I do have several like this though, and I was scraping to get this much out of the almost-empty bottle.

Sun:

Then another Orly Mini: Hype. 2 coats, no top coat

Weird colour. Very sheer and quite patchy, though a third coat would have probably evened it up. Kinda too old fashioned a colour for me, but quite flattering in a soft way.

Sun:

And OPI Cajun Shrimp. I really didn’t think I’d like this colour, it’s so obnoxiously bright. 2 coats, no top coat

I loved it. Heh, go figure 😀

Pity the bottle is almost empty … if I find one of these bottles around on sale I’ll buy it though. Great for summer tanned skin!

And L.A Girl Disco Brite… I *think* it’s Hustle. I’m not 100% sure – no name, and being a hard-to-photograph-accurately colour I can’t be sure from online searching.

One thing though, is this one has a strong pink micro glitter in it which I haven’t seen online anywhere. So, either someone mixed in some glitter, or … I don’t know. Strange batch? This is another almost empty bottle but I’m going to try and keep this one alive, it’s a brilliant colour. Maybe mix some base with it and different glitters, make it a jelly glitter. It’s worth the attempt.

Sun:

And this is the first ever polish I bought that wasn’t electric blue or green… this is Rimmel Zeitgeist, and it’s about 14 years old I think. I KNOW.

I’d never seen duochromes before, or really not for another 10 years … and found the yellow shift fairly unappealing, though I loved the other colours.

Two coats, no top coat. I had to pour almost a whole bottle of Seche Restore into this to thin it to workable, and I think I have enough left for a comparison with Orly Space Cadet and maybe even, if I layer it over black, to wear it again.

I love this polish so much more now. Maturity is it’s own reward, in some ways :D. Age, anyway.

Happy sigh. I’m so pleased I could put this on, and get swatches, and take that trip down memory lane 😀

And lastly, this is a true franken – I used a base of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Teal, and added pigments and holo flakes. Two coats, no top coat.

I didn’t think I’d like it, for some reason, but I did.

I like how the ‘holo’ (which isn’t holographic, by the way, but hey) flakes change colour against the periwinkle blue, and also how there is a fine scattered holographic shimmer in the sun.

Yep, this is one of my few frankens that I’d count as a proper win 😀

Have a great day

Ami 🙂

Orly Rock-It & Nail Pattern Boldness Bitches Brew – Swatches

This was a quick fun mani – that I ended up not being able to take my eyes off!

This is Orly Rock-It – a really gorgeous pinkish red, filled with glass flecks which shift from red to yellow, giving an overall orange glass fleck effect. I found it did need three coats to reach full opacity and colour depth, but Orly have some of the nicest handles and brushes around, and generally great formulas, so putting on three coats was a breeze.

On my accent nail I added twolayers of Nail Pattern Boldness Bitches Brew, a Halloween themed polish with orange, purple, blue and yellow, and tiny green shiny glitters in a clear base. The glitters spread out evenly on the nail and although it looks like some may be a bit curly in the bottle, all the ones on my nail were flat.

and a candle made by my mother.. blue cat! 😀

I loved this combo far more than I thought I would. And I thought I’d like it. To me, it looked like I had glowing velvet nails and one of them had crushed gemstones on it… just stunning. One coat of Misa BREAKneck and they were smooth and shiny, and dry time was pretty quick indeed.

Rock-it has a duochrome in the bottle that was much more subtle on the nail, from a pinkish red to an orangeish red, which should have been disappointing but the colour is so pretty that I couldn’t care less if it shifted 😀 I’m going to try this again later, in the sunshine, and try and get better photos of this gorgeous polish.

Have a lovely day

Ami 🙂

Day 27: Inspired by Artwork

My amazingly artist sister, sister V in this case (I have two sister, both of whom are incredibly talented artisitcally!) suggested I take inspiration from Van Gogh’s  Starry Night or Monet’s Waterlillies. To paraphrase Shrek: oh yes, like that’s going to happen. My ‘skills’ are nowhere near being up to that! Instead, I chose to be inspired by this artwork by Piet Mondrian, from this awesome art website here.

Why did I choose this? Well, I was going to paint my nails black with a white line and just be lazy, but thought I’d go a bit further with the black and white theme, and while google searching modernist images this caught my eye – something about the splashes of colour and random sized grids, I think. And I thought it might be easy…

Well, I was wrong. I’m very often wrong, so it didn’t suprise me, but still! I painted my nails black with China Glaze Liquid Leather, then taped off the lines with striping tape. At about that point I realised it wasn’t going to be easy… parallel lines and I aren’t good friends. Then I tried to add the colour squares.. and that didn’t work so well. The blue was Kleancolor Sea Ice, the red was Depend 36 and the yellow was Depend 210 – and they’re both jellies! Over black! Argh! The white was CR 58.

Right in the middle of this, we had a man come around to give us a price for chopping down two of our huge pine trees – they’re too close to the house and damaged in a wind storm. So, during all of that the polish was drying – and collecting dog hair – and getting bumped… so when I did get a chance to pull off the tape the lines weren’t that clean. I topped up the colours a bit, so the red and blue is more colour accurate and a LOT more lumpy, and the yellow looks a bit like a boogy hehehe

Looks a bit odder when holding my hands normally!

Topped off with a coat Orly In A Snap, took a photo, took it off 😀
Have a great day!

Day 24: Inspired by a book

Thanks AGAIN to sister V – she came up with the idea of taking inspiration from The Lord of The Rings books: which, you know, I do – they’re awesome books, and were made into pretty darn decent movies.

For the base I used one coat of China Glaze Swanky Silk, then two thin coats of NYC Filthy Rich. The lettering I Googled, then attempted to replicate using my dotting tool and Coral Colors Magnetic Nail – no sticker for the name, but it’s the deep gold one, obviously 😀 A top coat of Orly In A Snap, and I was good to go!

I’m pretty happy with this – it was fun to do. The best bit was when I was in LUSH and the sales woman saw it, and was very enthused. I love seeing that moment in people – the ‘I can do this myself?’ look – the realisation that nail polish and art can be quite creative with little time and money required. If I’m going to be nitpicky I’d prefer to try this with a little brush, and not let the letters get bigger at the end. But hey, I don’t feel like being nitpicky today. 😀

Have a happy, creative day!

Ami 🙂