Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Wheel H7: Rose Gold to Copper Foils and Shimmers

Lots of fall colors on today's installment of Nail Wheel Wednesday.



1. Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Diamonds Champagne Diamond (3 coats) [not as sparkly as I'd expect from something called Diamonds]
2. Essence Fairytale Pixie Dust (3)
3. Revlon Street Wear Angelic (3)
4. L'Oreal Whimsical (3)
5. Nox Twilight Wine & Dine (3)
6. Nicole by OPI It Starts With Me (3)
7. Orly Rage (3)
8. Boot No. 7 Colour Miracle Russet (2) [love the color; don't love the finish]
9. Milani I'm Online (3)
10. Wet 'n' Wild Chrome Penny for Your Thoughts (3) [nicely comples with the silver and gold mixed in]
11. Ulta Professional Peppermint Bark (3) [my idea of peppermint bark is pink and red, no rose and gold]
12. Massini Frosted Kiss (3) [really belongs on an orange wheel]
13. Anna Sui 506 (3) [rose scented and also gorgeous; want to try layering over a deep wine red]
14. Borghese Siena (3)
15. Orly Rock the World (2) [very nice flecked shimmer; I'd forgotten all about this one]
16. Maybelline Express Finish Bronze Beam (2) [could really use some topcoat; this almost looks like a textured polish, from long before that was a thing]
17. Pixel Oh Golly Gee (5) [crazy sheer for something not sold as a topper; guess I need to try layering this]
18. UMA Cherry Blossom (3)
19. L'Oreal Bijou Prowlers Tamed Terracotta (2)
20. Maybelline Express Finish Autumn Leaves (2)

Bottles 1 through 5:


6 through 10:


11 through 15:


16 through 20:




















There's enough variety here that I'm not seeing a lot of destash opportunities, at least not within this one wheel. Maybe one or two of the 5, 7, 9 trio could go, as those look close enough in color and finish to each other that one could fill the role alone. I'm tempted to dump 17 just for being annoying but want to give it a chance to show its worth as a layering polish. My favorite of these is the Anna Sui; the bottle is interesting, the polish is beautiful, plus it smells pretty.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Barielle Jetsetter Collection

Sample provided for review

Last month, I shared the Barielle Me Couture collection for Fall 2014; today I've got their other fall collection, Jetsetter. There are six shades here:
Autumn Seoul, Kiss Me Kate, Irish Eyes, Gondola Ride, Rain in Spain, and Midnight in Paris.



I reached first for the cool shades. Midnight in Paris is a deep blue with very subtle shimmer; in the bottle it looked more purple-leaning but on the nail it was definitely blue. It was almost opaque in one coat; I used two for my swatch for added depth. For the accent nail, I used two coats of Rain in Spain, which is a blue-leaning lilac creme.





I paired the two neutral shades in a similar manner. Most nails got two coats of Autumn in Seoul, a warm brown shimmer, while the accent nail is two coats of Kiss Me Kate, a light dusty peach creme that nearly matches my skin.





The remaining two shades are both yellow-leaning green cremes. My index and middle fingers (top in photo below) got two coats of Gondola Ride, a medium dusty green. My ring and pinky have three coats of Irish Eyes, which is darker and less dusty than Gondola Ride; it would have been two except I messed up and bumped a nail when it was wet and needed to fix that.





I gussied up the greens with dots of Autumn in Seoul and Kiss Me Kate (then messed up the dots somewhat by putting topcoat on too soon).





Somehow the slightly smeared dots looked better with a matte topcoat:



I did one more quick dotticure with a base of Kiss Me Kate and dots in gradated sizes in Irish Eyes, Midnight in Paris, and Autumn in Seoul, topped with matte topcoat.



Barielle's cremes are always solid, and these are no exceptions. I wouldn't have put two greens so close to each other in the same collection since I crave variety, but they're fine shades taken individually. I'm more into flecked shimmers than the hidden or pearly ones like the two in this collection, though they are both wearable.

This collection is available on the Barielle website for $8 each. You can also find all the links to their social media there.

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Zoya Wishes Collection Swatches and Layering Ideas

Sample provided for review

The Holiday 2014 offering from Zoya is the Wishes collection, a group of six polishes including three chunky PixieDust colors. Left to right: Prim, Haven, Willa, Imogen, Thea, Nori.



Prim is a steel blue shimmer. One coat was opaque, but I used two for added smoothness. I had some slight brushstroke issues with this one.





I thought a coat of Zoya Maria Luisa was just hte thing to distract from any brushstrokes showing in Prim.



Haven is a red violet with subtle shimmer. I used one coat for my swatch but probably should have gone for two for smoothness and depth.



Here's Haven in direct light; you can see how subtle the shimmer is, at least with a single coat:



I am still enjoying the Bubbly collection and thought Binx was a great partner for Haven. One coat of Binx over Haven made a very festive combination, with gold shimmer and multi-colored pops of glitter dancing over the plum base.





Imogen, the black PixieDust, got an accent nail of Willa, the black creme. I used two coats of Imogen, which has small silver glitter and larger holo hexes in a black jelly base. I used two coats of Imogen and one of Willa. I added topcoat to Willa just to smooth things out. I didn't add topcoat to Imogen, expecting it might dry down matte like the regular fine-grained PixieDusts and first release of Magical PixieDust, but it never did get matte even though I waited longer than I usually would to see a matte finish show up. It also didn't look particularly textured.





I didn't care for Imogen alone, so I added topcoat, and I liked that better.



Just for fun, I added a coat of Staasi (more Bubbly collection) to Imogen and Willa.





Thea is a plummy purple Magical Pixie Dust, with small magenta glitter and larger holo hexes in a jelly base. Like Imogen, it did not dry matte or look especially textured, no more so than any chunky glitter look before topcoat.



I would not wear Thea without topcoat, but with topcoat, I thought it was gorgeous:





Since I had Maria Luisa handy, I tried a coat of that over Thea and quite liked the combination.



Nori, the last PixieDust in this group, is a bright royal blue. Like the other two, it dries lumpy rather than textured and not matte. My swatch is two coats.





I liked Noir even better with a coat of Muse on top (the blue one from Bubbly).





I tried one more experiment with these before I ended my swatching session: a gradient with Nori, Thea, and Imogen, of course topped with shiny clear topcoat.





Thea is my top pick from this group, with Nori a close second. I've seen these at Ulta, and they are available on the Zoya website for $9 bottle for the creme and shimmers and $10 bottle for the PixieDust. There are link from the Zoya site to all their social media: Facebook, the blog, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube.

The Wishes collection polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.

Friday, November 21, 2014

Revlon Transforming Effects Swatches

Given my love of layering, there was no way I was going to resist the Revlon Transforming Effects topcoats for long, even though, like yesterday's Sally Hansen Velvet Texture colors, they're not limited edition. (I did manage to resist the base colors on the other side of the display, for now at least.) Top: Pink Glaze, Matte Pearl Glaze, Gold Glaze. Bottom: Nude Graffiti, Holographic Pearls, Golden Confetti, Cosmic Flakies.



Gold Glaze has a transparent base packed with gold microflakie/microglitter shimmer particles.



Golden Confetti has gold and holo metallic string glitter in a clear base.



I combined these two golden toppers into one mani over a base of Sally Hansen On the Mango (from the fall limited edition Complete Salon Manicure collection, as are all the base colors I'll use in this post). Top to bottom (over two coats of On the Mango): one coat of Gold Glaze, two coats of Gold Glaze, one coat of Gold Glaze plus one coat of Golden Confetti, two coats of Golden Confetti. The last two nails have topcoat as well, as the bar glitter needed a little smoothing (not much, but some).





Here are the golds glowing/sparking in low direct light:



Nude Graffiti has white, pink, and light peach matte glitter in a clear base. The glitter pieces are mostly hexes ranging from tiny to large with some bar glitter as well.



I wanted to see Nude Graffiti over both a dark and a light, so put Sally Hansen Rupee Red on three of my nails with Himalaya as an accent. On my index and pinky, I did one coat of Nude Graffiti plus clear topcoat; on my middle and ring fingers I did two of Nude Graffiti only so you can see how it is not particularly bumpy alone.





Cosmic Flakies has iridescent shredded mylar flakes in a translucent base.



I used Sally Hansen Ever Green as a base under Cosmic Flakies. On my index finger, I did one coat of Gold Glaze plus one coat of Cosmic Flakies; on the rest of my nails, I did two coats of Cosmic Flakies alone. I did not add topcoat because I was pleasantly surprised at how little these shreds stuck up. The warm green base seemed to bring out the gold and green faces of the shreds; I'm going to need to try it over a purple or pink next time to see what happens (sorry I didn't think to do that for this post, but I was just so excited to try the rest of this line).





Pink Glaze is the same finish as Gold Glaze, but with purpley-pink shimmer in it instead of gold. I did one coat of it over Sally Hansen Rhododendron and Cute-ture (the accent nail).





When I finally get my stash back into storing it by brand, I am going to have to give serious thought to putting the Sally Hansen Complete Salon and Revlon in the same drawer—just look how nicely the bottles fit next to each other:



Holographic Pearls has a clear base packed with silver holo microglitter.



To see how strong Holographic Pearls was over a range of values, I did a Skittles base with Sally Hansen In the Flesh, Cute-ture, Rhododendron, and Rupee Red, then added one coat of the Holographic Pearls. The rainbow colors spark even in indirect light, so that's a win as far as I'm concerned.



In direct low light, more colorful sparkles appeared:





I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the Matte Pearl Glaze; what I could see through the frosted glass looked similar to a regular matte topcoat, just a touch more milky. I put down a base of Sally Hansen Dark Knight, an almost black navy blue, then did the regular Revlon Matte Top Coat on my index finger and the Matte Pearl Glaze on my other digits. The Matte Pearl Glaze was definitely matte; I'm not as sure about the pearl part. I guess I was imagining a matte version of Runway Pearl, which had a very fine pink shimmer in it; this has more of a microflakie look to it—still pretty, no doubt, just I wouldn't look at it and think "pearl".







Overall, I say yay to Revlon for these. There's a good variety of finishes, and they're reasonably priced (under $5 at most chains). Matte Pearl Glaze is the standout here; I can't think of anything quite like it in my stash.