Color Club Gingerbread Man

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Last night I changed my polish to Color Club Gingerbread Man, another of the Color Club Scent-suous Holiday Collection that's at Sally's.  I added a little note on removal to Color Club Sugar Plum Yum as well, as it was surprisingly not bad.

For Gingerbread Man, I used a base coat, two coats of color, and SpaRitual Tout de Suite.  I found Gingerbread Man to be well pigmented and easy to apply, and it ends up as a foily gold.  What was noteworthy about it was the drying time, which was unusually poor.  My experience with Tout de Suite is that five minutes per coat of color is a safe bet for drying time in order for the manicure to be set enough to go do things, so ten minutes should have been good in this case.  However, a good hour after finishing it, I was still getting dings in the very soft polish.  I wanted to go to bed, so I got my Nubar Freeze Dry drying drops and used those before turning in.  Since all I could smell going to sleep was Freeze Dry, I was concerned that I'd killed the gingerbread scent of the polish and would just have a dented up regualr gold mani today, but that wasn't the case.  This morning, the gingerbread fragrance is there and the drying drops did the trick.

The scent of Gingerbread Man is quite nice.  It makes me think of a natural bakery I like, where they make a lot of quick breads with ground ginger.  I've never made or had actual gingerbread, but I like really good ground ginger in baked things, and it smells like that.  I find the fragrance of this one much more noticeable than that of Sugar Plum Yum, likely because I didn't bury Gingerbread Man in a thousand coats of top coat, but still definitely not overpowering or too strong at all.  Here's what it looks like under artificial light.

Color Club Gingerbread Man Nail Polish, Two Coats

It's just a nice, foily, kind of unusual shade of gold, which is a good thing, but it smells wonderful so I'm a big fan.  Again, a little high maintenance with the drying issues, but also worth some extra effort.  I'll probably stamp this today or tomorrow, but I don't know how well adding to a manicure that's been dried with drying drops works out.  We'll see!

That is Color Club Gingerbread Man and the update for today, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

Day 13: Animal Print

Who doesn't love a good animal print nail huh? This combination of colour and stamping is the one I used to wear the most before I started blogging, but it's been a long time since I wore it. I was going to try something more adventurous today, like freehanding a leopard print, but laziness took over and I pulled out my stamping plates!

If you're craving more animal print manis, check out Cristina and Rie's Day 13 challenges too!

BYS Astro Gold
W7 Black for the stamp
Konad Plate M57
Top Coat of NYC

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

Day 8: Metallic Nails

I think today is the perfect opportunity to show you one of the new Barry M Special Effects polishes - Gold Foil. They released a gold and silver foil and I snapped up the gold the first time I saw it on the shelf because I was in desperate need of a gold for stamping polish and a few friends had told me this works great.

It's a one coater like most chrome effect polishes but I used two out of habit. Brush strokes are very minimal and maybe I sound cray-cray, but any streaks I could see when I first applied seemed to completely disappear after a few hours. Maybe I was seeing things, who knows?!

I confessed earlier in the week that I'm a creme devotee so I normally despise finishes like this plastered all over my nails but I'm slowly growing to really love wearing it. Although, I'll probably sink back into my creme loving ways in no time and forget there ever was a day that I loved my metallic mani.

Have you seen Rie and Cristina's metallic manis yet?

2 Coats of Barry M Gold Foil
Top Coat of NYC

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

China Glaze Metallic Crackle Glaze Skittles

I thought crackle skittles would be fun on my new mini nailsThe China Glaze Metallic Crackles are such fun colorsRight to left, top to bottom: Latticed Lilac, Haute Metal (My favorite), Cracked medallion, Platinum Pieces and Tarnished goldTarnished gold up closeI did this a little thicker to get wider cracksThese give a lighter application so you can do a subtle crackle finish or apply thicker

China Glaze Crackle Glaze Metals

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I'm back much sooner than I'd planned because I have swatches of the upcoming China Glaze Crackle Glaze Metals to show you.  China Glaze sent them for review and they arrived this morning, and once the bottles had cooled down to room temperature, I got to swatching.

I used them all over a charcoal shimmer - I figured charcoal would let them show up well and show us their opacity, and I thought shimmer would work better with the almost-chrome finish of all six Crackle Glaze Metals.  I did just single nail swatches for this preliminary test drive and look at them - in addition to the fact that I was racing predicted storms for sunlight and didn't want to change lighting conditions halfway through, all six are gorgeous and I'd rather put a little more thought and effort into full manicures with them than just pairing them with charcoal.

Since I used three colors on each hand I split them up as I figured you'd want to see them, putting the true metallics (silver, gold, bronze) one one hand and the others (teal, pink, lavender) on the other so you can see how they look relative to one another.  They all have top coat, and this is in good sunlight.

First, we'll look at the true metals.  They are, from the top down, Cracked Medallion (bronze), Tarnished Gold (gold) and Platinum Pieces (silver).

China Glaze Crackle Glaze Metals Swatches, Round I

I think you can see how well these apply, and the application was  the same for all six shades in the collection.  The consistency of the polish is like normal polish, and so it was easy to apply a thin coat.  With crackles, I pay no attention to how even or opaque the crackle is during application - when it splits up, the pieces become much more opaque and things even out.  When applied, these looked somewhat sheer, but you can see that all three broke up beautifully and are opaque enough to completely cover the charcoal base between cracks.  Here's the same picture with the polish names added - I find labels on pictures can be distracting, so I figured I'd let you get a first impression without them and tack on the labelled version for reference.

China Glaze Crackle Glaze Metals Swatches, More Round I

As for the colors, I really like them a lot.  I've always loved metals and chromes, but the fact is, a chrome finish isn't the most forgiving.  If there's one ridge in a nail, and I have many, a chrome finish pretty much places a neon sign flashing "RIDGES" on that nail.  These have the same overall effect as regular chromes without that shortcoming, and they are really solid renditions of each color.

For Round II, also from the top down, I have Oxidized Aqua (teal), Haute Metal (pink), and Latticed Lilac (lavender).

China Glaze Crackle Glaze Metals Swatches, Round II

Here, you can see that these three are as opaque as and broke up just as well as the first three, and the colors are stunning.  These three will require a little more thought to pair up with good bases.  Here's the labelled version of Round II.

China Glaze Crackle Glaze Metals Swatches, More Round II

All six swatches have just the one coat of top coat, and you can see that the crackle layer isn't terribly thick, which is nice.  I'm a huge fan of this collection, and I'll be trying them out individually this week.

That's really all I have for today, Dear Reader, so until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!

OPI Turquoise Shatter over Glam Rock

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I'm wearing OPI Turquoise Shatter over Orly Glam Rock, and I really like how it turned out.  It somehow reminds me of enameled jewelry of the 1970's.

Orly Glam Rock is their gold matte polish, and I picked that one both for the color and because it only needs one coat.  I actually had to take a do-over on this manicure - the first time, I did base coat, one of Glam Rock, let it dry, then Turquoise Shatter and top coat.  Turquoise Shatter didn't break up very much that way, but I thought the colors were really good together so I redid it, using top coat over Glam Rock the second time and it turned out much better.  Have a look.

OPI Turquoise Shatter over Orly Glam Rock

It's bright and it's fun.  I like it.

That's just about all I have to tell you about this morning, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoats

Good morning, Dear Reader!

On the off chance you're not weary of crackle nail polish yet, I have two from the Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat release to show you today, Antiqued Gold and Distressed Denim.  These are the only two I have from Sally Hansen - the others seemed close enough to OPI or China Glaze ones to me.  The biggest thing the two of these have in common is a long, skinny, floppy brush that make them very difficult to apply thinly, which puts a huge damper on how much I like them.

I'll start with the one that was a letdown, Antiqued Gold.  The shade is pretty, a nice shimmery pale gold, but the polish is a little thick like the China Glaze Fault Line, the tricky purple shimmer, and the floppy brush in Antiqued Gold made it impossible for me to use the same technique to successfully apply it as I did the China Glaze.  The manicure here is Illamasqua Scarab with one thicker-than-I-wanted-it coat of Antiqued Gold, the thinnest I was able to apply, then top coat.

Sally Hansen Antiqued Gold Crackle Overcoat over Illamasqua Scarab

I like look of the polish, it's that there are so few cracks that I don't care for.  Applying it more thinly would fix that, but the long, skinny, floppy brush makes that a challenging feat.

Distressed Denim is much thinner, so I had a little more success with this one since I was able to apply a thinner coat.  It's a bright blue jelly, so I paired it with OPI Last Friday Night to let the glitter sparkle through.  It worked out well.

Sally Hansen Distressed Denim Crackle Overcoat over OPI Last Friday Night

I hadn't used Last Friday Night before, so I took a picture of it to show you before adding the crackle.  The color of it builds slowly, and on my hands I think it makes me look like I'm really, really cold.  This is three coats.

OPI Last Friday Night Nail Polish, Three Coats

That's what I know about Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoats.  Most likely, I'll return them because I really hate the brush a whole lot.  I considered decanting them into another bottle with a workable brush, which I've never done before, but partway through the process of picturing what it would take to do that I lost interest, which pretty much gave me my answer on whether that's something I want to do.
That's it for today, Dear Reader, and until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Zoya Sunshine & Summertime - Faye

Zoya...you made this one just for me didn't you?Faye is a beautiful gilded purple with metallic sparks of copper and gold that shifts like crazyThis is 3 coats of nomThe formula is slightly thin but very easy to work with and very forgivingFaye is a moody girl and she might be leaning toward a multiple personality, judging by her constantlyswitching from soft and girly mauvey with copper shimmer

Lady Luck I Need You Now

Jamie Woon - Lady Luck

Plate: Bundle Monster BM21

Base Colour: Barry M Cyan Blue

Stamp Colour: Sally Hansen Amber Chrome

Top Coat of NYC

I'm gonna ask you all for a massive favour today...

You might have heard about the competition that Bundle Monster are running on their Facebook page. Contestants were asked to submit a photo of their nails decorated with Bundle Monster products and the 25 entrants with the most votes from the public will win a set of their new plates.

The picture above is a sneak peek of the mani I entered into the competition. I would really appreciate if you could click over to the competition here or here to take a quick look at my entry and see if you think I'm deserving of your vote. It's a really simple thumbs up system for voting.

You can vote for each entry once per day. So you can bet I'm gonna be nagging you every time I post until the competition is over haha.

Thank You :)

Luck of the Irish

Hallo ladies,

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!! Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh La ale-lah pwad-rig son-ah jeev... (thats happy st. Patrick's Day in Irish)

I also wanted to say Happy Birthday to my stepdad!!!(Yep thats right he's a patty's day baby) he's the best dad anyone could ask for :) It has not been easy on him putting up with my bad a@@ LOL

For this mani I used my first franken that I ever made :) (a green polish with gold shimmer)(and still no name for it) for the shamrocks I used Nina ultra Pro Emerald City and then I got out my only gold polish from Kron (It has no name just the number 53)and used the dotting tools I got from Born pretty Store for review and made dots on my nails around the clover's











So what do you think?

Thanks for looking.
Kesha

OPI - I Get A Kick Out Of Gold

I bought this polish AGES ago, probably the beginning of last year, and yesterday I was going through my boxes to find polishes that I hadn't swatched and I found this one.  I can't believe I forgot about it and it got lost amongst my stash.  I didn't even include it in my gold foil comparison.  I'll have to do another one now.

The above photo was taken in the sun, below indoors under artificial light.  OPI - I get a kick out of gold is an older polish, but you can still get it on ebay.  But, given that there are so many gold foil polishes out there that would be almost dupes of this, it's not one that you need to go out and get.  What I like about this gold is that it is a cool tone (like Orly Lux and Jessica Palladium). This was three coats + one Seche Vite.

To mix it up a bit, last night I added two coats of LA Girls Rock Star Double Platinum.  I love this polish but have never been able to get it opaque enough to do a swatch of it on its own.  LA Girls Rock Star Double Platinum is a holographic glitter in a slightly smokey, almost clear base.  Here is the full sun pic from this morning.

Under artificial light last night.

And the obligatory blurry shot to show the glitter.

It makes me smile looking at my nails today, what a shame I have to take it off to put on the green magnetic polish that turned up in the post today!! 

Zoya Intimate collection- Jules

Jules is a sparkling champagne gold metallicI wish I could wear gold better because this truly is a lovely colorThis is 3 coats of Jules with Poshe' top coatApplication is very nice for a metallic, smooth, a little sheer but builds well.Removal is so much easier than most metallics....it comes of as easily as a creme!

**Product in this post was sent by the company/PR for my honest review

China Glaze Anchors Away- Starboard & White Cap

I am loving China Glaze Anchors Away collection!My Daddy was Navy in Vietnam and my Hot Hubby was a Merchant Marine so obviously I love Sailors!
I decided to layer Starboard and White Cap because well...I wanted to! :o)
Starboard: Hip and playful green crèmeWhite Cap: Whimsical and sparkling multi-dimensional white(descriptions courtesy of China Glaze)My descriptions:Starboard- An unusual and

Orly Rage

Another that I swatched a while ago.  There are lots of swatches out there of this, but here are mine.

And indoors...

Love this polish.  I also have done a comparison with this against Ulta3 Envy.

Urban Decay - Twisted

I have posted this polish in my gold comparison, and I did promise to swatch it separately.

I originally saw this polish on Scrangie's blog when searching for good gold polishes.  This one really is fantastic.  Indoors, it's a dark gold without too much sparkle, but in the sun it POPS.

Close up of the foil finish sparkle in the sun

This is an old polish, but a beauty.  I got mine off ebay, and there are still listings for it, all at reasonable prices.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve, Dear Reader!

I was up for a holiday manicure this morning, so I ran with it.  Actually, I tried and failed last night (there was a products-don't-like-each-other wrinkled polish incident), and the last thing I did to this mani didn't work out as planned, but now that my second attempt has gone south, I'm leaving it.  It's not too far off the mark, and I can show you where it went wrong.

I started out with two coats of China Glaze Midnight Kiss, then added a holly pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM14, painting the leaves with Green Konad Special Polish and the berries with Cool Red Konad Princess Polish.  I wanted to add one more thing, so I stamped the Christmas tree from Konad plate m12 in Konad Green, and at this point, all was well.  However, the Christmas tree didn't look too festive being green with green decorations, so I had at it with cheapo rhinestones.

That's where the problem came in - I got a bunch of little wheels of rhinestone-y things super cheap off of ebay a while back, and now I see that they're cheap because they're crap.  I used a round white rhinestone for the star on the tree, which was fine, and then I added a few little round metallic beads to the Christmas tree, and top coat made the color bleed off of them.  So it would have been just right but for my crappy tree decorations.  In the picture, there are also some droplets on a few nails - it was snowing pretty hard when I ran out to take the picture, so please just ignore them.

Christmas Eve Nails

See how the color bled right off of the red pieces on my ring nail?  That's pretty frustrating at the very end.  However, no one's going to look at my nails as close up as this picture, and from a normal close distance it's more okay.  The red pieces just look oddly blurry, so I'm going to leave it alone.

The moral of the story is don't buy cheap crappy nail decorations like I did, and if you do, don't use them as the last step of a manicure that was kind of a hassle to execute.  Words to live by.

That's what I have for you today, Dear Reader.  Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!  

Barielle Holiday Hustle Swatches Winter 2010

Iwas sent the Barielle Holday Hustle collection....I love it!Barielle has a great way of avoiding the typical so again they make me so very happy!
All swatches are 2 coats no top coat, in lightbox lighting.Gelt me to the Party is an antiqued Copper/bronze/goldI really wish this looked better on me because I love the color a lot!
Coalest day of the year is a dark gray almost black with pearl

Christmas Nails

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I'll tell you what I've been up to this week.  I've been adding to that China Glaze Midnight Kiss manicure, the gold foil one, that I showed you on Sunday.  At this point, I've added so much stuff to it that I'm deeply concerned about the removal process and how much life it will suck out of me, but that's a concern for another day.

Today, I'll just show you the layers.  As a reminder, here's the base I started with, Midnight Kiss, in natural light.

China Glaze Midnight Kiss Nail Polish, Two Coats

That was Sunday.  On Tuesday morning, I decided to add some China Glaze Party Hearty to it.  I did three coats of Party Hearty to get the coverage I wanted, then I added (and here's where the big trouble starts) three coats of top coat to smooth it out.  So as of yesterday, the official coat count is 1 base + 2 base color + 1 top + 3 Party Hearty + 3 top coat = 10 coats of nail polish I have to remove without just snapping a nail off in my aggressive pursuit to get rid of glitter.  But it looked cool.  This is under artificial light.

China Glaze Party Hearty over Midnight Kiss = One Metric Boatload of Nail Polish

I've stated the down side of removal, but there's also an up side to seventy zillion layers of nail polish.  I spent a few hours yesterday tearing tape off of one of those big rolls with the tape cutter on it, hanging things on walls.  A few times, I really dug into a thumb nail with that tape cutter, but this industrial strength manicure didn't get scratched.  I also knocked my nails right into things a few times where I was certain I had to have broken one, but they were fine, only one big chip in the polish.

This morning I was going to do a fresh manicure to protect the exposed nail from that big chip, but the prospect of getting rid of glitter prompted me to add even more to this manicure in order to put that off for a little longer.  I decided it could use some silver, so I added two coats of CND Silver Sparkling Effect, which barely showed up.  I gave up on the CND and added one coat of OPI Disco Ball Glitter, which gave enough silver to make me happy, then two coats of top coat to smooth it out.  The CND shows up much more in this macro picture than in person.

More Coats of Nail Polish Than Is Reasonable

So now I have festive holiday nails, but I've also raised the official coat count to a staggering 15, quite likely a personal record, which affords my nails a protective barrier that may well deflect bullets.

I'll let you know how it goes when I change this one, supposing I'm able to talk about it right away.  Until then, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!  

China Glaze Midnight Kiss

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I've been neglecting my nails horribly lately, so I haven't had any pictures to show you until today, when I finally changed my beat up manicure.  I decided to try out China Glaze Midnight Kiss, the gold from their Holiday 2010 collection.

Midnight Kiss is a gold foil that was well pigmented, applied easily, and was good in two coats.  I think it makes my nails look like those 70's metallic ball Christmas ornaments - the ones that shattered into a zillion shards of glass if you looked at them funny, probably not safe by today's standards.  They were pretty though, and so's this polish.

China Glaze Midnight Kiss Nail Polish, Two Coats

That's just about all I have for you today, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!  

Nubar Holiday Jewel Basket Swtaches

This is the best nail polish gift set ever!The cute little jeweled wire basket is adorable and you really get everything you need from start to finish, for holiday manicures and only $50 so a very nice price also.The goodies inside:
Grass Green Glitter, a fine green glitter
Silver Glitter, a fine silver glitter
Gold Glitter, a fine gold glitter
Pixie Dust, a delicate dusting of shimmer
Ruby Red