Priti NYC Old Man Cactus with foil tips

Wow, what a fun couple of days with all those gorgeous Picture Polish shades plastered all over the blogosphere.  I loved reading everyone's reviews and seeing their beautiful swatch photos. 

Now onto something completely different.  Last week I did a matte gold mani with gold foil tips, and this week I tried a silver version, but this time with an accent nail.  I don't like wearing silver as much as gold, but this was still very eye-catching.

The base on the three matching finger is Priti NYC Old Man Cactus (silver foil) with Essie Matte About You top coat.  I then applied nail foil glue to the tips and put on the foil.  The tipse do have top coat, and they wrinkled a little bit, but they need the top coat or they just wash off almost the first time you wash your hands.

For the accent nail, I decided to try something different.  Instead of using a nail foil I applied one coat of Layla Metal Chrome so I had a good shiny background. I then applied a top coat and waited until it was nearly dry.  I then use a fanned brush and applied some silver leaf.  The stuff I used was Monte Marte Imitation Silver Leaf. I got a pack of ten sheets for less than $5 from a local craft shop and this only used a nail size amount off one sheet.

It was really easy to smooth it out on the nail because it is so unbelievably thin and feather like.  I just used the brush to push it down and smooth it out across the nail.  

The silver leaf nail was so unbelieveably shiny, I could actually see myself in it like a mirror.  See...  and no, my nose really isn't as bit as it appears reflected in my finger :-)

To finish off the mani, I applied the matte top coat over the tip of the silver leaf.

Before I did this mani, I tried a test finger to see how it would work.  I applied a top coat to that test finger and found that it wrinkled really badly.  Because of that I decided not to put top coat on the silver leaf nail, and by the end of a full day's wear it had pretty much worn off.  But because I put a layer of Layla Metal Chrome underneath it wasn't too noticeable. Actually, some of these photos were taken a few hours later than the others, and you can see where some of the silver leaf has worn off on the top of the nail on the side closest to the pinky nail.

Thanks for visiting everyone.

piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2012

Thank you so much everyone for your feedback and comments about Picture Polish Kryptonite!  Are you ready for some more Picture Polish action?  I hope so, cause today is Picture Polish Blog Fest 2012.  In its second year, this is my favorite nail blogging world wide event - hang on, this is the only nail blogging world wide event I know of!

Today 80! nail bloggers from all around the world will all be showcasing Picture Polish nail polishes.  I can't wait to see some more new colours - there are 11 brand new shades, including seven in the Collaboration Collection. You can see the bottle pictures of them all on the Picture Polish site.  

Today its my pleasure to bring you swatches of two of those new colours. White Wedding and Warning.

White Wedding is another polish from the Collaboration Collection, just like Kryptonite. White Wedding has been created by Leah Ann from Llarowe.  White Wedding is a white jelly polish with a multi-coloured shimmery glass fleck. 

This is such a pretty polish and I found it so hard to capture all the glorious coloured flecks in this polish.  The best one is the picture above where you can see all the multi-coloured tiny flecks against the edge of the bottle.  It is so delicate and pretty, and I've not seen a multi-coloured fleck like this before.

For this mani I chose to wear two coats of white wedding over a white base.  You could get white wedding opaque on its own. It would take about 4 coats, but it would have that gorgeous translucent jelly finish to it.

These photos of white wedding are taken in the sun, and the multi-coloured shimmery glass flecks really pop.  They make the polish look like it's covered is sparkly frost, or maybe smooth shiny sugar crystals.  The little catchphrase on this bottle is "It's a nice day for this one!" a cute little play on words from one of my favourite '80's singers!

White Wedding is Llarowe's exclusive shade, therefore it will only be available to purchase from the Llarowe website or through Picture Polish online, it is not for sale via other network members.  I'm not exactly sure when it will be available, but it will be soon.  It will retail for $11.50 in Australia and I think it will be $14.50 on Llarowe.

Warning is another new colour, although this one isn't in the collaboration range, which just shows that those girls at Picture Polish really know what they are doing when creating colours.

Warning is a really complex colour and its hard to describe.  It's definitely a duochrome with a bright lavender jelly base and what appears to be the same multi-coloured glass flecks. But I also see lots of blue flecks too.  Its totally unlike anything else in my collection.

Here are a couple of pictures of it in the shade, where the duo-chrome pops.

In the sun, more of the lavender purple base shines through, and the glass flecks are super shiny and reflective.

This colour really flattered my winter white fingers.  It's shown in this mani as two coats with Seche Vite top coat.  The catchphrase on this bottle is "for the young & the not so young".

Warning will be available from Picture Polish online and through all Network members.  It retails in Australia for $11.50.  

Here are a couple of other things I love about Picture Polish nail polish:

• they recently changed their labeling, so now dark shades have labels with white print.
• their packaging in general, the retangular bottles are perfect for storage and I love the grippy black handles.
• they are Australian made and owned!

All shades, except warning and white wedding, are available now from Picture Polish. Warning and White Wedding are available for pre-order and will out in about three weeks.

Ok, I'm off now to go blog surfing, I want to find the other Blog Fest blogs to check out all the swatches!

These polishes were sent to me for review.

Grab this inlink code if you want to add this inlink to your blog!

Picture Polish Kryptonite by More Nail Polish

Wow - I don't even know where to start with this post.

I remember the time when I first started googling nail polish swatches, my stash contained about 30 bottles and I was just starting to become a little more obsessed with nail polish.  It was nearly three years ago.  Back then there weren't  nearly as many nail blogs around, but I specifically remember that the first two I came across were Scrangie and The Polish Addict (which sadly stopped being updated shortly after I discovered it). I soon discovered that in 2009 RBL created a line of three polishes designed and named by bloggers. Scrangie, The Polish Addict and All Lacquered Up created those polishes.  I thought to myself back then how amazingly awesome that was - kind of like the holy grail for a nail blogger.

Fast forward three years and I can't tell you how excited I am and completely honored to have been selected by awesome Aussie brand Picture Polish to design and name my very own polish to be part of their new "Collaboration Collection".  I present you with:

Kryptonite by More Nail Polish

I can't tell you how hard it was to pick a colour to create.  When someone asks you if you could create the most amazing shade in the whole world, what would it be, your mind really goes wild.  But then, when you realize that this is actually going to become a reality, it's really hard to narrow your ideas down to just one. 

I initially thought of some sort of gold polish but soon realized from looking at my collection, pretty much everything had already been done in gold.  In the end I chose green, because I know there are a lot of green lovers out there, and it's not your typical popular colour that regular consumers would go for.  It's more edgy and definitely more of a shade that nail polish addicts go for.  

I wanted to create something unique and I think that's exactly what the girls at Picture Polish and I have done with this polish.

Kryptonite is a dark green jelly with a stunning large particle holographic effect.  The polish is created using the exact same particles that are in the Ozotic 600 series polishes and as any Ozotic fan would know, there is no dark green shade in that collection. 

This is two perfect coats topped with Seche Vite. The jelly finish is smooth and there are no streaks at all in the jelly finish.  At two coats the jelly finish is see through enough to see all the sparkling holo bits shining through and giving the polish lots of depth and sparkle.  I've worn this multiple times already and found the wear to be excellent - the exact same quality I've come to expect from all my Picture Polish shades.

You can really see the various irregular shaped holo pieces in this macro shot, they range in size from really tiny ones to some that are quite noticeable and reflect lots of rainbow light.  Just like the Ozotic 600's, Kryptonite is completely smooth on the nail, because it's not glitter, it's micro thin holo particles.

In the shade you can see that the polish is most definitely green, not one of those polishes that is so dark green it almost looks black.

After I decided on what colour and finish polish I hoped for, I had to come up with a name.  All the usual emerald type names came up first, but then I had a flash of brilliance and thought of Kryptonite. I think it matches the polish perfectly.

The other thing that Picture Polish have introduced is some white print on labels for darker polishes.  They used to all be black, and on dark shades it was really hard to see the writing.  I love the new labels with the print in white.  Oh, and you know how all Picture Polish shades have a little catch phrase on the bottle, the Picture Polish girls came up with this one for kryptonite, and it is "super human nails for you!"  I love it!

Thank you so much to the girls at Picture Polish. I think the Collaboration Collection is a fantastic and incredibly generous idea and I hope these polishes are a huge success for you.  Now we just need to stay tuned to see some more polishes from the Collaboration Collection.  I can't wait.

Kryptonite will go on sale at Picture Polish on Monday 30 July and it will cost $11.50.  It will also be available through all the Network members online shops too.  I know I'm going to be buying umpteen bottles of this, because they will be the perfect swap and giveaway item from me! YAY.

So, what do you think? I'd love to hear your feedback about my shade.

Price check?

First up people - I have a secret to tell.  Tomorrow night I'm announcing the biggest thing to ever happen to me as a nail blogger EVER!  I'm so excited to share with it with you as I've been keeping this secret for months. So please come back tomorrow to see what it is. 

Something a bit fun today.  Here are some black and white bar code nails I created.  I received a huge number of compliments from people yesterday and today on this mani.  One even wanted to know if I could scan through at a checkout!.

I made these using DRK-A Plate.  It has the most perfect lines design that when I first saw it I new I had to do this mani.  In fact I'm surprised I haven't seen another bar code mani using this stamp design.

I painted my nails white using Ulta 3 Lily White and then when stamping, I just made sure to leave a white tip gap at the bottom.

I stamped the numbers at the bottom of my nail in groups of two or three.  The numbers are actually the plate numbers from the bottom of various Bundle Monster plate, where is it engraved with BM-215 or BM-324 etc.

I struggled keeping the stamp straight on my nail, I still need much more practice.  I also made a dreadful mess all over my fingers and cuticles because the stamp is so large.  Konad black special polish is one nasty polish to have to clean up with. I also had some smearing from the top coat.  So in reality there is lots of room for improvement, but I'm still really happy with how these turned out.

See you all tomorrow for my exciting news.

Jade Magia Negra

Jade Magia Negra is one of the amazing Jade holographic nail polishes I received from Rafa at Nails Ink in Brazil.

Jade Magia Negra really sets the new bar when it comes to black holographic nail polishes.  If you only ever get one black holo, in my opinion, it should be this one!! Here are some reasons why:

• It has fantastic coverage and is fully opaque at two coats.  
• The wear time is excellent.  I wore my mani for three days with zero sign of tip wear or chips.
• It truly is one of the blackest holos whilst still retaining spectacular rainbow fire.
• Quick dry top coat does not dull the effect.

The goldish sheen showing in this photo is apparent in this polish, but not as pronounced as this photo, where it is exasibated by the bathroom lighting.

On day two, I added some simple stamping from Bundle Monster plate 215. Stamped with China Glaze 2030.

Finally, for you comparison needs, here is HITS Zeus, Jade Magia Negra, Ozotic 526 and Layla Flash Black all lined up for a comparison.

Ozotic 526 is easily the blackest, but it's blackness also reduces its ability to let the holo shine through.  Ozotic 526 really is a one coater,  if it were a two coater maybe it would show its rainbow fire more.

Hits Zeus and Layla Flash Black are both most definilty dark grey holos.

Jade Magia Negra - most definitely my new favourite black holo.  

Like I mentioned, I was gifted mine from a friend in Brazil, but you can get them online from Llarowe or Ninja Polish.

Bleeders and Tacos

Yesterday when I was posting about the polishes from Glimmer by Erica, I stated that some of them had lightly tinted jelly bases, from what I thought was some light glitter bleeding.

Today I decided to do a quick swatch of each of my indie glitter bomb polishes (basically my Lynnderella’s and Glimmer by Erica's) on white paper to see which ones actually were tinted bases.

This got me wondering. How can I tell which ones are actually tinted bases, and which ones are tinted because of bleeders? The answer was, I couldn’t. 

With regards to bleeding glitters, from my experience, there are four things that can happen to them when they go into polish. 

• Melters – glitters that melt when put in nail polish 
• Bleeders – glitters that loose all their colour and go back to a silver, grey or neutral base colour 
• Partial bleeder – glitters that tint the base lacquer, but still retain their the exact same appearance 
• Solvent stable – glitters that wont tint the base 

Clearly solvent stable glitters are perfect for polish, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m totally ok with partial bleeders too. Especially for those people that can’t get nail polish tints like those sold at Beauty World. Using partial bleeders can create fantastic tinted jelly bases without the need to franken something from a commercial brand. 

Of course the big question is, how long might it take for a glitter to bleed out? After how long testing (or owning a bottle of polish) can you happily say “yep, this is only a partial bleeder”. 

Lynnderella posted on her blog that her Boy Girl Party polish has glitter that bleeds. Specifically, magenta glitter that creates a pink jelly. I have revisited my bottle of Boy Girl Party, which I have had for about seven months and I see no sign of any glitter changes. Here is my paper swatch, and below that a nail macro from earlier this year.

My guess would be that the glitters in Boy Girl Party fall into the partial bleeder category. I also noticed that there are lots of her polishes that are in tinted bases (as can be seen by the paper swatches above), and had she not told us there was bleeding glitter in Boy Girl Party, I would never have noticed. But I guess the question is, is seven months long enough to know if a bleeding glitter will bleed out? I think it would it would be.

I'm also guessing that the intentional bleeders in her new collection fall into the category of partial bleeders too.  But only time will tell.

Now onto another controversial subject, that of taco glitter. 

Taco glitter is a name that Scrangie came up with back in November 2011 when she reviewed the Color Club Backstage Pass Collection. I perfectly understand that the issue of taco or bendy glitter is one of personal choice. You're either ok with it and will put up with it, or will wish it a thousand deaths by a firey sun.

I know I've received comments in the past that say taco glitter in a nail polish is never ok. But I actually don’t mind some bendy glitter. Yes, they can make a polish look rough even though they are glassy smooth, but as long as I can easily get them smooth, I'm ok with them. I like how the light can refract off them at different angles. But I do agree that there is a point at which a bendy glitter becomes taco and curled (like those Color Club swatches scrangie showed) and is too curly to use.  Luckily, I don't have any polishes in my collection like that!

I also received a comment about taco glitters that said, "anything that taco’s will continue to taco until it’s unusable".  I thought that was an interesting comment and I wanted to check out some of my past curled glitters to see if they had in fact got worse over time. 

Of course the question is, just like with partial bleeders, how long might it take for a taco glitter to truly show how tacoie it will become? My JQ glitter polishes are the tacoiest ones that I own, and I have had them since June last year. Today I re-swatched all of them onto paper to see if their tacoiness had got any worse.

None of the JQ glitters look any bendier than they were a year ago, and I would think that a year would be sufficient to bring out the full extent of tacoiness. 

I also closely examined all my Lynnderella polishes, which I have had most for at least seven months. None of them exhibit any additional curling compared to how the they were first worn and photographed. 

Therefore my experience is, if a glitter is going to taco, it will probably do so within within a week or two after being mixed. Then it is unlikely to curl any more. Of course this is only my experience from my polishes, and I’m sure others may have different experiences, which of course I would love to hear about.

Indie review - Glimmer by Erica

Last week I showed you two polishes from a new indie polish brand Glimmer by Erica.  Today I have another five polishes to show you.

Drizzt -  Erica says on her Etsy site that this polish is my homage to one of her favorite novel characters of all time, Drizzt Do'Urden, from the Forgotten Realms books by R. A. Salvatore.  I've not read the book, but I did google image search 'Drizzt', and I totally see what she was doing with this polish.

The polish has lots of small black and lavender hexes, large lavender hexes, I nice sprinkling of red square glitter and a good mix of medium darker purple hexes.  This is two wiped, not dabbed coats of Drizzt over a lavender custom polish. One coat of Ulta 3 non chip and one of Seche Vite.  This polish was lovely and smooth, although the macro does show the tiniest bit of glitter curl on the red and purple glitters.  Just the right amount to make the light shift of them nicely without being a pain in the bum to cover with topcoat.

I Heart You - This one contains lots of different shades and sizes of light pink and blue hexes as well as light pink hearts. I really love this polish.  There is something about it that reminds me of a baby version of Lynnderella's Boy Girl Party. What I mean is that Boy Girl Party is like a teenage party with all the bright pink and blue glitters, whereas this one seems like a little toddler party with little boys and girls in their pastel colours.  Ok, I'm a bit weird right :)

For this mani I layered two wiped coats of I Heart You over Priti NYC Old Man Cactus (silver foil), topped with Ulta3 non chip and Seche Vite.  This one was actually very smooth, as can be seen on the macro. Even the hearts didn't stick up on the edges, and there were plenty of them that I got at least one on each finger.

Princess Disco - This one has all different shades of pink and fuchsia micro glitter and some larger silver holo squares. This one is also two wiped coats layered over Priti NYC Old Man Cactus.  Very pretty and girly and most defiantly a princess disco going on on my nails. 

Oooh and do you notice that this is a swatch of my right hand. Yippee.  I'm usually ok a painting my right hand, but what I totally suck at is photographing it.  I simply can not work out how to hold my hand without feeling completely awkward.

Twilight Sky - Again, lots of different glitters make up this polish, which makes it so much more interesting and multidimensional than the sort of glitters you usually find with commercial brands.  The main glitter base is purple glitter, with purple, blue, and orange micro glitter, blue sapphire holo glitter, purple square glitter, and dark navy blue glitter. 

This one has a few bent glitters, but I was still able to get it completely glossy smooth with just two layers of top coat.  This mani was one wiped coat layered over Priti NYC Pewter Veil.

Treasure Chest - I think this one is a rather unique combination of glitter. The base is mainly gold - which surprise, surprise I love! Then this polish is full of all kinds of holo glitter, diamond shape holos, gold and silver holo hexes, as well as red, aqua and sapphire blue glitter. There is some slight glitter bending, but nothing a thick coat of top coat can't fix.  This one also has a lightest tinted jelly blue base.  I don't believe the tinted base is intentional, cause I'm pretty sure it's from some of the blue glitter - although none of the glitters appear to have lost any luster.  I informed Erica of the slight bleed, and she said she has already identified the culprit and rectified the situation.  But honesty, I actually really like the light jelly blue base made by the bleeder.

This is two wiped coats layered over Priti NYC Chrysanthos (goil foil). This really does look like you're peering into a treasure chest full of jewels, especially in the macro photo.

All these polishes are completely packed with glitter, you could probably get full nail coverage with three coats, but it would feel rather thick.  

Overall, I really loved this range of polishes from Glimmer by Erica.  She is coming out with a couple of new LE colours soon too, so keep a look out for those.  Based on these ones, I think they will be great.

These polishes were provided for review.