Some Indie Brands

I have some various indie brands that I wore throughout this week.

This combination is made up of Liquid Lacquer- White Walkers layered over Pretty & Polished- Slime Time. I just love the way that my camera captured all of the different colors shifts that occurred in White Walkers.

White Walkers is an iridescent glitter. It works best as a top coat or to layer with because it is very sheer. I used two coats of it over Slime Time.

White Walkers was part of a limited edition Game of Thrones collection (which I love!!!) I refer to this mani as the "zombie swamp".

Here's Pretty & Polished- Slime Time taken indoors without the flash. I really wanted to like this shade. The formula was great. Slime Time is exactly what it was advertised to be. A murky, yellow-green jelly. I liked the concept and execution of it, and the formula was great for a jelly. I just didn't like the way that it looked on my nails.

Taken with the flash: Slime Time is super sheer! I am wearing three coats of it here and you can see visible nail line. This would be a good shade for jelly sandwiches. With only one or two coats of this, my nails look very stained. As much as I love greens and jellies, this one just didn't work for me. This shade has been discontinued, but Pretty & Polished polishes can be purchased through their Etsy store.

Next up is Enchanted Polish- Gummy Worm. This is the only Enchanted Polish that I own (but I'm definitely open to purchasing more if the opportunity presents itself)

Gummy Worm is a green-apple shade and there is a subtle holo effect. The holo was actually more apparent in the bottle than on the nail, but I don't own any holos in this shade of green.

For being a holo (which usually have difficult-to-work-with, runny, streaky formulas), this one applied like butter in two smooth coats. In fact, it was almost a one-coater! I was amazed with how opaque it was with minimal effort and the finish was amazingly smooth.

I took a picture indoors with the flash to show the holo effect. It's not quite linear, but it's not scattered either. It falls in-between. I just love this shade of green! Enchanted Polish can be purchased through their website.

The next combo is Amy's Nail Boutique- For Jonathan layered over Essie- Where's My Chauffeur? I was a little iffy about how this combination would work, but I ended up loving it!

For Jonathan is a very special polish. It was custom made for charity, and the proceeds went to Colon cancer. My fiance's father is a survivor, and this cause is very close to my heart. It is a cause that I am eager to donate to. For Jonathan is composed of blue microglitter, and larger blue and brown hex glitters.

I only put on one coat of For Jonathan because I really liked how Where's My Chauffeur? showed through. It reminds me of a robin's egg! With multiple coats, I believe that For Jonathan would be able to build up to opacity. Amy's Nail Boutique polishes can be purchased via her Etsy Shop.

Here's Essie- Where's My Chauffeur? This picture was taken indoors without the flash. It is a light turquoise creme and it's very reminiscent to the classic China Glaze- For Audrey. Where's My Chauffeur? was released in Essie's past holiday collection titled Leading Lady.

Here it is with the flash. I cannot stress how great the formula was with this. Application was a breeze and it dried rather quickly.

Last is Glitzology- Neapolitan. Being a fan of ice cream and all things sweet, I just had to have this one.  It's composed of pink/copper glitter, brown and white hex glitter of various sizes, and some tiny long pieces of white bar glitter. 

I love the way that this turned out! It definitely reminds me of Neapolitan ice cream.

I have to confess that I did struggle with the application of this. The formula was rather thick (that's to be expected of densely packed glitters). Because the application was so thick, I only needed two coats. As I was painting my nails, the polish kept progressively getting goopy. I had some polish thinner on hand, and I dropped in a few drops every couple nails. Due to how thick it was, it might be difficult to wear this one layered over another shade. 

I was able to smooth it out using two coats of Gelous followed by one coat of Seche Vite. I used the Elmer's glue base coat with this, so the polish just peeled right off when I wanted it to. I imagine that this would be very difficult to remove and would probably require the acetone and foil method if the glue base coat isn't used. Glitzology polishes can be purchased through the Etsy shop. There are sometimes really good promos posted on the facebook page, so make sure you "like" Glitzology.

China Glaze- Glistening Snow

China Glaze- Glistening Snow was recently released as part of the Holiday Joy collection. It is composed of silver prismatic microglitter. I received many compliments on this and it is absolutely stunning!

This needed three coats to be opaque. China Glaze has come out with a few prismatic microglitter shades before. The ULTA exclusives from last year: Fireside Glow and Ultamate Holiday, I'm Not Lion and I Herd That from the On Safari collection, and also a couple from their new holiday collection such as Winter Holly. The texture was a little bit gritty due to the glitter, but it smoothed out well with a coat of each Seche Vite and Gelous.

Some new hauls!

Liquid Lacquer- Blue Pistachio mini, Amy's Nail Boutique- One of a Kind, Dollish Polish- Dino-mite Yoshi and The Koopa King

Liquid Lacquer Limited Edition Game of Thrones Collection! All of my bottles are marked 4/30. The Drowned God, Storm Born, Mother of Dragons, and Whitewalkers

Essence- Hunt Me if You Can, Sally Hansen- Radar and Shimmer, and ORLY- RIP

Utopia Polish- Paint Splatter, Amy's Nail Boutique- Frosty, Essie- Leading Lady, and Island Girl- Waikiki Sunset

Glitzology was having a 50% off sale so I ordered Guardian Angel, Steel City (My city!!!), Island of Misfit Toys, Neapolitan, and Bad Things (love True Blood)

Purple Colorphase

 

I decided to experiment with some color changing polish. This brand is called Colorphase and I found it at Rite Aid. It is in a double-ended bottle, with a purple foil-type shade on one end, and topcoat and a striping brush in the other end. The light purple shade is applied first and then it changes to a darker purple when the topcoat is applied.

Here it is in a different lighting. This really didn't take that long to do. It had a really neat effect! 

Here's the light purple on it's own in artificial lighting without the flash. This needed two coats and it had a pretty good formula.

Artificial lighting without the flash

One downside to this is that you can't use any topcoat, or else the entire color will become solid. I was under the initial impression that the topcoat it came with was the only one that activated the color change and I went to use Seche Vite after the mani was done. I had to redo it because the effect went away. I am too dependent on fast-dry top coat, and the mani dented a little bit. It didn't last long at all because I couldn't use topcoat.

Throughout the past week I got some new additions:

New Candy Lacquers! These came right on Halloween :)

ORLY Mattes: Solid Gold, Blue Suede, and Purple Velvet

Zoya- Electra and Storm and Liquid Lacquer- Jewel of the Nile and Mockingbird

Maybelline- Matte Grape, Covegirl: Purple Frost, Pink Reflections, Cranberry Cream, and Cherry Brandy

Maybelline- Sunsparkle, Sally Hansen- White Veil, Maybelline- City Slick, Layla- Flash Black, and Loreal- Raven's Strength

Sephora + Pantone Universe- Reflecting Pond, Evergreen, and Parachute Purple and NARS- Superstar and 15 Minutes

Glow-in-the-Dark and Halloween Costume Mani

 I was pleased with the result of this combo. I topped off a Blue Cross unnamed glow in the dark blue with Liquid Lacquer (Formerly 2Chix)- Safety Stick. There's a lot going on with this- shards and bars of black glitter, large sheer-color hex glitter, and small pieces of silver glitter. To top it all off, it glows in the dark! 

Here are a couple pictures I took of it on my phone

I used two coats of Safety Stick and dabbed it around for even coverage. This picture is with the flash.

Without the flash, you can see the smaller silver glitter. The large colored hexes in Safety Stick came right out of the bottle and there was no fishing necessary.

Here is the Blue Cross glow in the dark polish by itself. 

 This is with the flash. It was somewhat sheer and needed three coats. Blue Cross is the same brand that comes out with those seasonal Halloween pumpkin bottles, and the polishes usually don't have names.

without the flash. This polish said "Disco Lights" on the bottle and the cap lit up.

I tried to get a picture of this glowing in the dark, but it was rather difficult. In real life, this has a very vibrant glow!

For Halloween, my fiance was Dexter and I was one of his victims. I painted my nails each a different color for an added effect just like the Ice Truck Killer's victim. Here is a picture I took of it on my phone.

I decided to stick with all solid colors. Here is what I wore:

Thumb: Misa- Fire Coal

Index finger: OPI- Green-wich Village

Middle finger: Milani- Radiant in Purple

Ring finger: Covergirl- Candy Corn

Pinky: OPI- Ogre the Top Blue

I added some new polishes to my collection. This was over the past couple of weeks:

 OPI Skyfall collection magnetics!

Amy's Nail Boutique: Southwest, For Jonathan, Cherry Blossom, and a custom

 Color Club Halo Hues: top row: Blue Heaven, Cherubic, Angel Kiss

bottom row: Cloud Nine, Halo-graphic, and Harp on it. These are INTENSE holos and I cannot wait to use them. I recommend ordering them through Trans Design or seeing if a friend with a nail tech license can find them for you at a beauty supply store. Regularly priced, these are $10. They are about $7 on Trans Design.

 China Glaze Summer Neons: Hang-Ten Toes, I'm with the Lifeguard, and Ride the Waves

 China Glaze- I Herd That, ORLY- Monster Mash and Right Amount of Evil

 China Glaze Halloween Collection: Immortal, Glitter Goblin, Make a Spectacle, and Cast a Spell

New 2012 China Glaze holiday collection: Pure Joy, Glistening Snow, Pizzazz, Winter Holly, and Glitter all the Way