Glitter comparison

Tags

as gold as it gets, china glaze, comparison, essie, fairy dust, gilded gold, glitter, holo, nubar, pure pearlfection, snow globe, tiara

Thought I’d show you the different gold and silver glitters that I own to compare. Since comparisons are nice I didn’t include colored glitters like green and pink and so on, this is just silver and gold ones on a clear base.
They’re all swatched on top of OPI Black Onyx which is.. yes, you guessed it, a black creme All of them are swatched with one coat.
Click on the picture to see it bigger, WordPress loves to squeeze things into a 500 pixel width so you won’t be able to see much. This is in daylight:

Left to right: Nubar Tiara, Nubar Gilded Gold, Essie Pure Pearlfection, Essie As Gold As It Gets, China Glaze Fairy Dust, China Glaze Snow Globe.

Nubar Tiara is a glitter with relatively small particles. It’s all rainbow-y but there are more greens in there then other colors.
Nubar Gilded Gold is on a hazy base, not quite clear and the gold is not shiny, it’s not so much of a glitter as an effect polish really. Though you can layer it up and it will go opaque as well.
Essie Pure Pearlfection is a very tiny and dense silver microglitter. In daylight, it’s just silver. In lamplight, not so much but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Essie As Gold As It Gets is a gold glitter, it’s on a clear base and it’s shiny. So it’s very different from Nubars Gilded Gold.
China Glaze Fairy Dust is one interesting glitter. It looks completely like silver microglitter in daylight but in lamplight it goes holo-nuts
China Glaze Snow Globe is a chunkier glitter with tons of different colors flashing through even in daylight. The glitter particles are varied, they’re not all the same shape and size.

Now lets look at this in lamplight and out of focus (since that seems to bring out what the glitter looks like best), it’s still nowhere near as good of a picture as I’d like but you should have seen me taking it, you’d understand :

So same order: Nubar Tiara, Nubar Gilded Gold, Essie Pure Pearlfection, Essie As Gold As It Gets, China Glaze Fairy Dust, China Glaze Snow Globe.

I only managed to get Fairy Dust to show a little of its color but trust me, if the light hits it right, it goes ablaze with color.
Other than that, there aren’t many changes in the coloring of glitters. Essie Pure Pearlfection loves to go holo at times as well but that happens under very specific light conditions which I didn’t manage to replicate. You can however see the effect in I think my second post where I layered it on top of Midnight in Moscow and gave you guys a crappy lamplight picture. But don’t go digging for it, here it is:

In any case, I hope this is helpful somehow. I’m still gathering up the Essie Luxeffects collection slowly but surely but other than that, I think I’m fine when it comes to glitter now Except for the China Glaze Luxe and Lush (was that the name?) which is coming in March in the Capitol Colours collection. That one is a must-have as well.

I still haven’t taken off the Freaky Boheme manicure, haven’t had the time. Hopefully I’ll have you guys a new manicure on Thursday though! Until then, take care! And happy.. er.. Bun Day? It has no name in English as far as I can tell but this is what awaits me today:

Photo credit goes to Elina kokkab.

Freaky Boheme look :P

Tags

china glaze, glitter, gradient, icicle, la boheme, opi, sponging, tinsel town

So what I did with OPI La Boheme (it alone in last post)… I went in and did a reverse gradient, meaning instead of sponging the tips, I painted the nails from cuticle to about 1/3 way down and then sponged the middle part. All that with China Glaze Icicle which is a very pretty silver foil. And then I covered it all with two thin layers of China Glaze Tinsel Town. The result is slightly freaky and me likey! Though I’m dreading the removal of this, last glitter removal took me half an hour
This is what it looks like:

Excuse the tip wear, I did this on Friday I think… And after vigorous typing due to a job, it’s Monday. So this should really come off today or tomorrow.
On another note, I did some heavy research on top coats and Seche Vite doesn’t really sound like my cup of tea so I’m giving Essie’s Good To Go a go I promise, that pun was accidental. Anyway I’m waiting for it to arrive and I’ll definitely report on what I think when it gets here and I’ve tested it out!
Take care y’all and see you soon since I need to repaint my nails very soon
P.S. I SO can’t wait for the China Glaze Capitol Colours collection! I keep saying that and yet it doesn’t magically make them available any sooner. Drat!

OPI La Boheme – it’s a dud :(

Tags

dud, la boheme, nail polish, opi, red

So I finally got my hands on a bottle of OPI La Boheme, something that has always seemed like the ultimate red to me and the amber duochrome just made it all that much better. However… I got a dud. I knew this might happen so it wasn’t a surprise as much as slightly disappointing since I did shell out quite a lot for it and was hoping to get the duochrome version. Oh well! The red is still very pretty.
In the bottle the duochrome does show, it looks wild!

But on the nails, however much I tried, I couldn’t get any amber to show up. In daylight:

Also took a flash photo for you:

Couldn’t get a decent indoors lighting picture but the color falls somewhere inbetween daylight and flash.
So…

Pros:
* Really pretty red
* No streaks or bubbling, fantastic formula really
Cons:
* Insanely expensive and hard to get (it was a limited edition from 2002)
* The old thin brush
* It’s a dud

Taking everything into account, I’m still happy that I have La Boheme, even if it is a dud. But I definitely would have preferred the duochrome version. Still, it’s a very pretty red, just the shade that is my most favorite.
I am thinking about dressing this up into a nail art because I get restless with simply colored nails so stay tuned for that

Glittery rainbow time!

Tags

essie, glitter, gradient, nubar, opi, rainbow, sponging

I’m done with winter, the cold and the snow and everything. So glittery rainbow it is today!

What I used:
* OPI Bubble Bath as the base color
* OPI Dating A Royal on thumbs
* OPI Big Apple Red on index fingers
* OPI In My Back Pocket on middle fingers
* OPI Need Sunglasses? on ring fingers
* OPI Green-wich Village on pinky fingers
* Nubar Tiara over the colorful tips, two layers
* Essie Pure Pearlfection over the entire nail

I must say, this took forever to do, mainly because of the Bubble Bath. I have the old version and it’s not only very sheer but also very streaky and dries forever and then some. But it is a pretty color for a base, softer then a stark white. Once that eventually dried, I sponged the rainbow of colors on the tips, most got two layers, some three (yellow, I’m looking at you!). Then applied Nubar Tiara on the tips, sandwiched Essie Pure Pearlfection (can you tell I’m totally loving this? ) in over the entire nail and topped it off with more Nubar Tiara, this time going a bit higher with it. So the result is a crazy glittery rainbow look So not wintery!

Hopefully this look will give you some ideas Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Still wintery with China Glaze Blue Year’s Eve

Tags

blue, blue year's eve, china glaze, dots, icicle, silver

I’m still not done with polkadots

This is China Glaze Blue Year’s Eve with China Glaze Icicle used for dots. Just look at that blue! It’s saturated, inky, deep beautiful blue with loads of dimension, instant love!
China Glaze surprised me pleasantly on this one. As I said in one of my previous posts, I was prejudiced about CG because I’ve owned three before and they were the worst nail polishes I’ve ever had. But since I did some research and found that I had the misfortune to choose the most bleh ones when it comes to quality, I decided to try again. And I’m a convert, I love these!

Since the majority of this look is Blue Year’s Eve from the Holiday collection (2011), I’ll talk about that.
Pros:
* Very good coverage, opaque in two layers
* No streaks or pooling or other sort of monkeybusiness
* No chipping or even tipwear so far (I’m on my third day with this manicure)
* Very nice price
Cons:
* Dries forever and then some, it dented three hours after painting
* It’s addictive, already have tons more lined up in my wishlist

All in all, I can’t wait for the Colours From The Capitol collection to be released to the general public (read: me), now I’m not hesitant about them at all! I’m so running for Stone Cold and Harvest Moon. And quite likely Agro and Riveting as well. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about, Google the collection if you’re not worried for your wallet

I’m going to be a little slower posting for a little while, life became a bit busy, tons of work to do So I think for a while, two posts a week sounds like a plan!
Hope you’re all having a great day!

How to: Funky Winter nails

Tags

absolute, alpine snow, black onyx, dots, essie, funky winter, how to, nubar, opi, pure pearlfection, sponging, tutorial

Today lets do some nail art! This is, oddly enough, inspired by the winter. Since I don’t have a video camera, I’ll be trying to explain this with words and pictures. If you find yourself stuck in any of the steps, go to Youtube and search for help, there are TONS of tutorials on pretty much anything on Youtube (seriously, including how to open jars ).
This is the end result (excuse it being messy, after I had cleaned it up, it was already too dark for pictures):

What I used:
* OPI Black Onyx
* Nubar Absolute
* OPI Alpine Snow
* Essie Pure Pearlfection
* Makeup sponge
* Dotting tool
* Kongregate games to keep me entertained while the various stages dry

Step 1:
First of all, before step 1, apply your base coat of choice. Then decide whether you want to do this step at all The easiest color choices for this one are black or white, depending on whether you’re going for a look with darkened or lightened tips. If your main color is going to be dark and you want it to darken, then do the main color first and THEN come back to step 1 because if you cover black with a dark color, it won’t show. The same goes for thicker polishes. If your polish isn’t to the sheer side, then do main color first and then this.
So. Once you have decided what colors you’re going to use and if you’re going to do this step at all, whip out your sponge. In theory you can probably do this with any sponge, makeup sponges are just smoother, with better control and provide a less gritty look. Though I bet if you do this with a kitchen sponge, the end result might be quite interesting! Or disastrous
Give the sponge a tiny lick of paint with the brush and get to sponging on your nail! This part is probably going to be crazy messy, don’t worry about it, you can clean it up later.
I did three gradual layers of sponging with OPI Black Onyx, starting from the middle of my nail and the two following layers concentrated towards the tips.
Important part with this: wait until your sponged layers dry! Don’t start sponging away on a wet layer, you’ll just pull the color up that you already put down. Luckily the sponged paint is a thin layer and dries quickly (yay, take THAT, tower defence level 17).
This is what you should end up with and also how I hold the sponge:

Step 2:
Once you’ve successfully conquered the sponging and cleaned up the resulting mess (though you can do that in the very end too, I just like to clean up as I go along to see what I’m doing), lets paint the nails with the main color!
Again, do know the nature of the paint you’re using because if it’s thick, it will cover up your sponging and make all that happy mess you just went through totally pointless.
Here’s how my progress looks after this step, I used one layer of Nubar Absolute for that wintery blue look:

Step 3:
Now it’s the fun part! Dotting! Yay! If you don’t have a dotting tool, don’t fret! You can just as well dot with tooth picks, the ends of bobby pins, anything will do. Or you can skip the dots if you’re not a polkadot maniac like I am. If you want dotting tools but don’t have them, they’re really cheap on Ebay. If you like dots, it’s a good investment. Dotting tools are also good for drawing stuff on the nails so there’s that use as well.
If you’re by some weird coincidence using Nubar Absolute (or any other color from the Prisms collection), then if you skip the polka dots, I suggest doing two layers of the color instead of one because the dots pull attention from the dual-toned look and thus I left it stronger then I would if it was left alone after that.
I used OPI Alpine Snow to make the nice snowy dots in a relatively random fashion. I did dots in two sizes, smaller ones towards the cuticle, bigger ones towards the tip. But you can do these however you want. You can do tons of teensy ones or all uniform or however you please. And ofcourse, you can make them neon yellow if you so wish
This is what my dots look like:

Step 4:
This is also completely optional. Once the polkadots are completely dry, use a sparkle coat. If you do this too quickly, the sparkle will mess up your dots. I used Essie Pure Pearlfection for subtle sparkle, to give the dots some shine. The difference is subtle but to me it was worth the extra waiting time.
This is what it looks like with a bit of sparkle:

And as the last step, add a top coat of your choice, clean up whatever mess you made and you’re done! Enjoy your Funky Winter nails

If you have any questions, comments, want to show me what you did with this or just want to say hi, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me: kirikadawn@gmail.com. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Lets talk base and top coats!

Tags

base coat, diamont, maximum growth, nail envy, nubar, opi, ridge filler, sally hansen, speed shine, top coat, treatment

As promised, today I’ll talk about base and top coats. This is not going to be a post about what you definitely have to buy, it’s what I use and my opinions on these since many bloggers write only about things they really love (or hate) and all the inbetween stuff is pretty hard to find opinions on. I haven’t found my HG base or top coat yet (if there even are stunning, fantastic, mindblowing ones). So lets jump right into it!

Sally Hansen Maximum Growth – this I use as a base whenever I’m out of anything else and also on my daughters nails as just a gloss. She’s 8 so she can’t wear colors to school yet.
This is what it looks like:

Pros:
* Cheap
* Does protect nails from staining from the nail polish
* Nice and glossy
* Dries quickly
* Still in great condition even though the bottle is half empty and over 3 years old
Cons:
* Doesn’t really do anything in the growth or strength department (which it should since it’s a treatment rather then a base coat)

OPI Nail Envy, original – this is my current attempt at finding a treatment that works. I use this as the first base layer.
This is what it looks like:

Pros:
* Does seem to help prevent cracks
* Dries fast
* Looks nice on its own, glossy
Cons:
* Expensive
* Creates a bit of a weird surface to work on, nail polish doesn’t seem to want to stick to it very well

Nubar Ridge Filler – since I have some nails that are quite ridged, I use this. When I’m lazy, I use it alone, when I’m less lazy, I use it on top of the Nail Envy. Though you really should just use one layer of base coat but this is for a good cause!
This is what it looks like:

Pros:
* Does fill ridges as it promises
* Provides a great surface for nail polish
* Prevents staining from nail polish
* Pretty bottle!
* Dries quickly
Cons:
* A bit tricky to obtain

Nubar Diamont Top Coat – yeaah, the scourge of my existence. I’m 99% sure that my bottle is from the inbetween hell period where they hadn’t changed the formula back. Because it just pretty much sucks. But they DID change the formula back to the old good times and apparently this is supposed to be the next best thing since Christmas so if you get a new bottle, this shouldn’t apply to you. I think I got a bottle from an older stock.
This is what it looks like:

Pros:
* Er… high gloss?
Cons:
* Pretty tricky to obtain
Cons specific to the yuck period:
* Dries forever
* Kind of gloopy
* Bubbles
* Shrinkage even with Nubar nail polishes

Sally Hansen Salon Speed Shine Top Coat – believe it or not, this is actually quite good! I’m currently using this again until I find something that blows me away.
This is what it looks like:

Pros:
* Dries quickly
* Doesn’t shrink
* Glossy
* Smoothes out most glitters
* Doesn’t smear the polish (it DOES say to wait 2 minutes before applying though!)
* I really like the cold sensation of it
Cons:
* Dries to the touch only, even if you waited like a good girl inbetween layers, the polish still dents for a long time (though this is something that is probably utopic to want from a top coat)
* Tends to dull down after two-three days

So this is what I use and what I think of it. The one thing I’m not questioning at all is the Nubar Ridge Filler. If you have ridges, this is something that I’d recommend trying out! The rest have quite a balanced pros and cons list I think. But at the end of the day, for me the decision comes down to deciding which cons I can live with!
I think I will try Seche Vite top coat since there’s so much praise for it. Though there are also those who say it causes shrinkage (which is one of the most major cons in my book). We’ll see! If you have suggestions on what else I should try, please leave a comment or e-mail me: kirikadawn@gmail.com
Next time I’ll have you a tutorial! See you then and have a great day everyone!

NOTD Vampire nails

Tags

avant-garde, black, black onyx, notd, nubar, opi, red, russet, sponging, vampire

I had this idea and just had to see how it works so I took off the Designer… De Better and went about creating this. The end result isn’t perfect but hey, I’ll do it better next time!
I was so into it that I forgot to take progress pictures, will do so next time, promise!
So I started with Nubar Avant-Garde which is a very interesting suede-finish russet color. A tip with that though – it dries SO fast that do not attempt keeping your layers thin, that is a road to failure. Don’t be afraid to load your brush and put on thick layers. So two layers of Avant-Garde though you could possibly get away with just one, I just messed up the first layer since I forgot about the thin layer trouble.
Then I went in and sponged two layers of OPI Black Onyx (which is just your regular black creme) on the tips and did a final Avant-Garde sponging on top of it to make it blend a bit better. And then a glossy top coat and ta dah!
This is the end result:

When my partner saw it, he asked me where I got this awesome vampire duochrome The light wasn’t as bright so the tips barely appeared darker. So from this, the name of this look
I think next time I’ll try out a design inspired by the snow, I can’t wait to try it! Have to keep this on for few days though, my nails don’t like nail polish remover too much, they start to do weird things they normally don’t do. But in the meanwhile I have a post planned about base and top coats so stay tuned!

OPI Designer… De Better and Hand Food

Tags

designer de better, foil, hand cream, hand food, nail polish, opi, silver, soap&glory

First I want to share a great hand cream that I discovered for myself – Hand Food by Soap&Glory. I wash my hands a lot and can’t really use creams during the day, simply because I craft and I can’t have any residue on the items. So until now I only used the Body Shop hemp hand cream during the night which helped some but my hands were still dry and achy during the day, specially now that it’s winter. I’ve tried countless hand creams to fix it but they all absorb really slowly and I’d rather be working then waiting. So in my last desperate attempt, I bought the Hand Food, thinking that if nothing else, at least my kid will like the scent of this better then the hemp one. But what do you know! It really is an awesome hand cream! I wouldn’t say it’s the most astonishing one but it’s definitely good, absorbs quickly, moisturizes and smells really nice. I’d like it to be a tad bit more moisturizing but for a cream that absorbs this fast, I don’t think that’s a realistic wish. In any case, this is a savior for me, a definite keeper and a repurchase!
And here’s the pretty girly pink tube:

Now, lets talk about nail polish. I’m in a bizarre mood lately so I change nail polish way more often then I would normally, no color seems to satisfy me for long. Todays polish is Designer… De Better by OPI from the Muppets collection:

This is a really interesting silver foil. It’s not completely silver, the base has a teensy slight hint of lavender if my eyes aren’t deceiving me and also the shimmer particles are silver AND orange! Look:

This is just awesome! I love silver foils and I specially love silver foils with a slight twist. This definitely has the twist to make me happy. I do admit silver isn’t really the best color for my coloring but hey, who cares, it’s too awesome not to wear!

This is three layers, two was opaque but even with my short nails I don’t like to see the nail line. Ahh I can’t wait for my nails to grow longer again! But anyway, application was good, this gave me no trouble and it dried quite quickly.
I don’t have any other Muppets polishes, I do kind of want the Warm&Fozzie one but I can’t justify yet another bronze one Ah well! Then again, I can’t really justify 80% of my nail polishes
I decided to not watermark my photos afterall. People who steal photos will steal them regardless of the watermarks and honestly, I just prefer the cleaner and uncluttered look more.

Nubar Sun Gold & Nubar Gilded Gold

Tags

duochrome, gilded gold, glitter, nubar, sun gold

So since I managed to bang up my yesterdays nail polish before it dried, I went on another attempt today. I just hate looking at my dented (or chipped) nails
Today I decided to try out another Nubar duochrome that I got along with the Moon Eclipse and Iris Dust. This one is called Sun Gold.

In the bottle this looks more then promising. Just my kind of gold with a pinkish duochrome. On the nails however…

Yeah… Well it is indeed a gold-pink duochrome but it’s quite streaky. Which for me is a real no-no. Otherwise a nice color, interesting duochrome and quite opaque, two coats whereas Iris Dust needs three. But yes, since the streaks bothered me, I picked this up from my nail polish box:

This is Nubar Gilded Gold and it’s a really interesting polish. It can go opaque in three layers but I used just one to create a bit of interest (and diversion from streaks). It’s surprisingly quite matte without a topcoat and I actually really like the matte look as well. But I’m still trying to decide whether or not I like the Nubar Diamont top coat so I went with glossy this time:

Yep, MUCH better!
Overall orange gold seems to be problematic no matter the brand. For example China Glaze has an awesome orange, I think it was called Cruisin’ and that was a complete streaky nightmare as well. Which made me rethink China Glaze but I am giving it another chance! I’ll write about that once the polishes actually get here. But yes, I am glad I didn’t just get this from Nubar, I would probably be a bit uh hum about the whole brand just as I was with China Glaze. But owning quite a few Nubars, this is the only streaky one I have.
I think tomorrow or on Thursday I’ll talk about hand creams and stuff a bit Just cause I’m excited about some things
I hope I get my computer back soon. She turned out to be fine, they just cleaned her up since the dust was making life hard for the ventilator. So hopefully tomorrow she’ll be back home and I won’t be working blind on the pictures The laptop shows colors and lightness wrong.