China Glaze - Starboard and Lighthouse

Starboard and Lighthouse are polishes recently released in the  China Glaze spring collection called Anchor's Away.

Starboard is a medium green creme. I used three coats when applying this. Didn't have any problems with the application. It's a nice green, but it really didn't wow me.

Lighthouse is a very sunny yellow that contains bits of flecked golden yellow glitter. One of my favorites of the collection. It's very sheer and at three coats you can see my nail line especially in the sun. I'm okay with the sheerness and it allows it to also be a great layering polish.

As I said before, I wasn't that wowed by Starboard when I had it on. So very soon after I added a coat of Lighthouse. I showed this look before when I put a post up for my Superbowl nails.

OPI - My Private Jet

This polish is full of confusion. Mainly because there are at least four different versions of this polish created by OPI. So finding the version you want can be extremely difficult. The first two versions are a base of charcoal black packed with holo glitter. The newer version is more brown based with silver glitter. A blogger friend of mine Squared Nails just posted on the brown version of My Private Jet.

I have a version that is packed with holo glitter. This version is pretty hard to find and very expensive on ebay. Funny enough, I got this off ebay at the beginning of 2008 with about 5 other OPI's for around $25. So I never had to give into higher prices.

Pretty stunning isn't it! Directly in the sunlight, it's like a rainbow over black. My bottle has a very thin formula and I need four coats. As you can maybe notice it's still patchy. Most noticeably on my ring finger. In the future, I will coat this over black but I wanted to show the true colors for the blog post.

Next few pictures were taken on day two of my manicure. Unfortunately, I had a lot of tip wear at this point. Mainly because the top coat I use is old and anything past one day will have problems. But I'm still using it since for the most part I don't even keep a manicure on for more that one day.

In the house or in the shade my version basically just looks like a charcoal black with silver glitter. So not very fancy unless it's in sunlight.

Which version of My Private Jet are you lucky or unlucky to own?

China Glaze - Pom Pom

Back when I was in Wisconsin visiting my family I asked if anyone had any requests for polishes I owned. I had access to all my nail polish at this point. I wore and photographed all the polishes requested but I'm just a bit behind on posting them unfortunately.

China Glaze Pom Pom was one of the colors that Lauren of Lacquer Addict requested to see. Pom Pom was originally released in Fall 2009 as a specialty collection. I found it in January of this year at Sally's in a re-promote display called Treasures.

I used three coats for this manicure and the formula was really easy to apply. Wasn't too thick or thin. I would describe Pom Pom as a rosy pink mauve. There are silver glitter pieces along with larger hexagon silver glitter.

I really like how much small silver glitter is packed into this polish. Makes the whole manicure glisten.

I really liked this something that I missed out on when it was first released. I know sometimes it's annoying when stuff get re-promoted since we always want more of something new but I think we often overlook great colors already released.

Catrice - I Wear My Sunglasses At Night

I Wear My Sunglasses At Night is a new polish from Catrice that just hit the displays this month throughout Europe. This color is probably a bit hit or miss for some people and I'm on the hit end.

It's black with a little tiny flecks of fuchsia, turquoise, and orange glitter. It's definitely a color you need to wear during a day outside. Unfortunately, it wasn't even sunny the day I took pictures, but there was enough light to capture the glitter flecks. I used three coats and there is a top coat on. I had no problems with the application or drying problems.

Lots of glitter in the bottle but doesn't show up too much on the nail unless you're in the right light.

 

These pictures show the flecked glitter the best.

What do you think? It's a bit hit or miss, but it's definitely unique.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

For awhile I had been thinking I would do a glitter gradation for St. Patrick's Day. I did this really late last night and I'm not 100% happy with the results, but it's not too bad for a second try. My first try was over a year ago and a complete failure.

My base color was Essence - I'm A Berliner. It's a shade of lime green. The color isn't exactly color accurate as I took this picture under light really late at night. It's a nice creme and I used three coats.

For my green glitter I used Color Club - Object of Envy. I can't really give good instructions on how best to do this right now. But what I did was many coats of glitter at the tip and then did about two very thin coats across the nail.

I enjoyed the look for the day. Going to try this sort of look again soon.

Have you ever done a gradation on your nails? First try the charm or are you still practicing?

Kiko - 247

Have another Kiko polish to show you that I bought while in Berlin. It's called 247 and it's a medium pink mauve packed with lots of Holo glitter. Enough that I would consider it to be a very nice scattered holo. The formula on this one is pretty sheer and I need four coats to be rid of VNL. However, the thin formula might make it good for layering.

The first photo was taken under a light at night. The color is totally off, but the finish is pretty true to daylight form.

Here is a picture I took in the living room filled with natural light.

The best pictures at last of course! In the sun! It was a beautiful day in Zurich today around 12C and I went downtown and walked around in Old Town, by the lake, and then down the Bahnofstrasse.

Kiko nail polishes can only be found in Kiko Cosmetics stores in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. They retail for 3.90 Euros. I wish they had a store in Switzerland because I would probably go in there every week.

Catrice - Dirty Berry

Recently the Catrice displays throughout Europe have started to be replaced with new products. Most notably for me is there are a ton of new polishes added. I grabbed four of the new ones and today I will show you one of them.

Dirty Berry is a purple with a very blue base that unfortunately is very noticeable in all my photos. In real life it looks slightly more purple. It's packed full of tiny silver glitter that in sun or direct lamp light will sort of look holographic. At best, it's a very, very weak scatter Holo. It applied beautifully and looked great at two coats, but I like to use three for most polishes I wear.

This is very picture heavy since I wanted to show off how gorgeous this looks in different lights! Click any of the pictures and you will be able to see the full size.  First up are all the pictures in the sun.

Here is a picture under lamp light. This is also the best representation of the color.

Here it is in natural light.

And here it is with flash.

Pretty unique color for a drugstore brand! Hope you enjoyed it!

Pieces - Candy Dandy with Kiko 237

Today I'm going to show you a polish from Pieces called Candy Dandy. I think the Pieces shop I went to in Berlin had just opened because I paid three euros for three polishes and I actually think they retail for more usually. The shop in Zurich sells them for four francs.

Candy Dandy is an orange red creme. It applied a bit gooey and the brush is nothing special. But it dried fast and smooth. I used three coats.

Afterwards, I applied two coats of Kiko 237. Kiko 237 is basically an orange sparkle glitter top coat. It has a sheer orange red base with flecks of gold glitter and you might notice a hot pink fleck glitter in there too. I think it looks pretty spectacular over Candy Dandy.

Pretty, don't you think!? You have to be a fan of orange nail polishes I suppose to really love it.

Cult Nails - Quench with Special Guest Kiko 232

I'm back today with another Cult Nails polish. This time it's Quench a lovely blood red jelly. My favorite color is red so I'm very partial to red nail polish. Quench is so squishy and applied very nicely. This is probably my top red at the moment. I had a problem when I flooded the cuticle on my index finger. Totally my fault but almost impossible to clean up this type of red without staining everything. So sorry it's a bit stained around my cuticles. :(

I've acquired a lot of nail polish recently. I've been wanting to start trying layering over the different colors with Kiko 232. So that's exactly what I did by putting one coat over Quench. Kiko 232 is a white iridescent flaked glitter. Very lovely sparkle finish, but I'm not sure if I like it over red. I think it will look better over pastel colors.

Kiko nail polishes can only be found in Kiko Cosmetics stores in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. They retail for 3.90 Euros. I wish they had a store in Switzerland.  Milan is about 3 hours away from Zurich and I really think a store like Kiko would thrive, but I guess they have their reasons.


As I said yesterday... Cult Nails polishes retail for $10 and shipping is reasonable. I messed around on the checkout to see shipping prices and for the US 1 polish to ship is $3 and 2-4 polishes were $5. For Europe shipping for 1 polish is $6 and 2-4 polishes are $8. The shipping prices make me happy since companies often overcharge you for shipping.

Maria has expressed that Cult Nails will have a few promos every once in awhile so if you would like to keep up to date with that you should sign up for Cult Nails email updates on the website's front page or keep up with Cult Nails' twitter.

Cult Nails - Living Water

I've talked about polishes from Cult Nails before. It's a new polish company created by Maria the blogger of R3 Daily. I was really impressed with the first color My Kind of Cool Aid and now that I have the rest of the collection I'm even more impressed!

Living Water is a deep teal blue jelly with bits of emerald and icy blue glitter. Very pretty and unique. I had to use three coats. This could easily be two coats, but I was using a Sally Hansen treatment as a base coat and those make for a patchy first coat. Otherwise application was great and the brush is really nice.
It dries a bit gritty which is normal for a glitter polish.

 
I used Orly Sec N Dry as my top coat, but I noticed that the next day that the finish was sort of gritty again. I think it was a top coat issue Sec N Dry is a fast dry and not meant for a really shiny finish. So keep that in mind when using. Sadly, I was out and about trying to catch sunlight for the pictures before I noticed that I needed to put more top coat on it.

Direct Sun

This is my favorite picture of my manicure.

Cult Nails polishes retail for $10 and shipping is reasonable. I messed around on the checkout to see shipping prices and for the US 1 polish to ship is $3 and 2-4 polishes were $5. For Europe shipping for 1 polish is $6 and 2-4 polishes are $8. The shipping prices make me happy since companies often overcharge you for shipping.

Maria has expressed that Cult Nails will have a few promos every once in awhile so if you would like to keep up to date with that you should sign up for Cult Nails email updates on the website's front page or keep up with Cult Nails' twitter.