Kleancolor Week - Day 3. Chunky Holo Poppy

This is the third day of the Kleancolor week and I decided to have something different from my usual purples, blues and greens. Here we go…..Chunky Holo Poppy. This one has a jelly coral base with red glitter that also shines yellow in the sunlight.

As a base I applied 2 coats of Illamasqua Alarm as a base and it worked amazingly well with this holo top coat creating the effect of  poppy fieldsJ

Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell swatches and review

As I recently bought a stack of Kleancolor Holo nail polishes (you can see it here), I think it will make sense to make a Kleancolor week.

I already swatched probably the most famous holo – black chunky one and it is definitely gorgeous and must-have for every nail polish addict. (Courtney, didn’t have time to do swatching over red and orange – but will try to do it by the end of the week..sorry)

But today I would like to introduce you Chunky Holo Bluebell . It is a glitter holographic top coat with blue jelly base. Glitter color transforms from red/copper to green and yellow. Reminds me the of some kind of a  bug. It doesn't have flakies like black holo.

I used 2 coats of Illamasqua Baptist and 2 coats of Bluebell on top.

As you can see, the purple base looks almost black, in the daylight the purple the hint of purple is visible but not apparent. With the flash however the purple is obvious and glitter is mostly red/copper.

Guerlain Meteorites Intense Red top coat

Hey Girls,

I hope East Coasters are all safe and Irene didn’t bring damage neither to you property nor to your nail polish collections

Today’s post is about Guerlain Meteorites Intense Rouge top coat. Initially I was looking for Guerlain Meteorites Powder, but nail polish came up in the results and I was intrigued.

Guerlain Meteorites Intense Rouge top coat is a flakie with almost transparent jelly base. I tried to swatch it couple of times already, but it is so hard to do.

As a base I used OPI I'M Suzi & I'M A Chocoholic.

Here's the photo in artificial light with flash. It's really hard to see the flakies though.

My Kleancolor Haul and Black Chunky Holo swatches

Hey Guys,

I found really good deal on Ebay, couldn’t pass it by, so I have a lovely addition of KleanColor 9 Chunky Holos and Matte top coat only for $16 (you can find it here)

Photo taken from Ebay seller

The most popular Holo from KleanColor is the Black one. I wouldn’t call it black though, because the base is jelly brown and on the photos with flash it’s obvious.

Black Chunky Holo is a gorgeous mix of Deborah Lippmann glitter and NFU Oh flakies. Matte top coat really brings up all the glamour and uniqueness of this nail polish. It is really hard to make photos that will fully edict the beauty of this little wonder. Definitely worth the price.

 On the photos below you will see the brown jelly base of the nail polish, but it hows only with flash, in reality brown is barely noticable. By the way, I used Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees as a base. It has nothing brown in it.

Crackle Tips with gorgeous Ocean Love Potion

I’m not a fan of Sephora by OPI, just because all of the nail polishes I have chip off in less than one day no matter what I do. But I’m totally in love with Ocean Love Potion, so I don’t care how long it stays on my nails.

Ocean Love Potion is greenish blue crème. I would compare it with the color of the sea grass. So joyful.

I added crackle tips for this mani (used Sally Hansen White Blast Overcoat)…surprisingly it turned out to be very neat. In addition crackle prevents the main color from chipping off. 

Here are some swatches of  Ocean Love Potion without crackle.

The Last But Not the Least: Priti NYC Rabbit Tracks

Why every time I set myself a goal not to buy the nail polish for a while I always end up bying even more than usual or find out cool new stuff.  Right now I literally persuade myself to be reasonable and not to buy more of the Priti stuff….at least for couple of more weeks. There so many other shades I want to try out, but my nail polishes already need “another bigger place to live”J We’ll see how the struggle with myself goes….

Rabbit Tracks is a muddy grey with hints of blue and green. It is not a traditional noble grey and not a fashionable bluish grey. And this is what makes it very interesting for me. Rabbit Tracks reminds me the color of the mineral mud from the Dead Sea, nothing to do with the rabbit though.

Priti NYC non-toxic nail polish swatches and review: Black Prince Orchid and Royale Robe

Black Prince Orchid and Royale Robe are another 2 I got from Priti NYC. I covered Lace Aloe and Bachelor's Buttons here.

These were some sort of a pleasant surprise to me. When they arrived and I saw them in the bottle I thought that these 2 are definitely nothing special and I would give them out to someone. But each of them is much more interesting on the nails then in the bottle. These beauties are very glossy, so it is hard to take normal photos.

Black Prince Orchid is described as matted orchid. Not mahogany, not matted for sure. I would describe it as burgundy mauve and for me personally it is closer to the rose than to the orchid. The color of the nail polish is very pretty though. I have a problem with mauve – I love it, but I get bored in a second. This one is definitely an exclusion.

Royale Robe is a rich purple glossy crème. I love purples, so it was a no brainer. It is almost black with ink undertones. It is a part of the Spring 2011 collection, quite dark for spring though.

Bottom line: This Priti NYC is definitely worth exploring more, there are some nice ones on their website that I would love to try out. But There are couple of things that I noticed: The names are sometimes have nothing to do with an actual color of the nail polish…maybe, it’s only in my mind. And the colors are different on the website from the real nail polish.

Caution!!! These polishes have a very thin formula. Because 3 coats are needed to get full opacity, the dry time is very slow. I noticed one specific thing though – without a top-coat you can wait literally forever and still will get smudges here and there. With the top-coat (I used Essie To Dry For) nail polish dries in seconds, but even if you will use a regular top-coat (not a speed dry one) you will get the fast drying effect.

Priti NYC non-toxic nail polish swatches and review: Bachelor’s Buttons and Lace Aloe

Priti NYC is a nail polish discovery in some ways for me. Although the brand was launched in 2005, I have never heard of it before and probably wouldn’t hear if Ideeli didn’t have a 50% of sale on these beauties.

It is a 3-free non-toxic nail polish. Priti NYC has a huge variety of colors; you can check it on their website here. Some of the colors though are not quite well depicted on the pictures. At least 2 of 5 that I ordered look a little different, but they are still gorgeous.

Although the concept of the eco-friendly nail polish is similar to Scotch Naturals (You can find review and swatches here and here), the implementation is the opposite. Priti nail polish feel, smell and are applied in the same way as usual nail polish we all got used to. The formula is a little thinner than that of other brands, so 3 coats are needed to reach opacity.

I will start with 2 of my favorites: Bachelor’s Buttons and Lace Aloe.

Bachelor’s Buttons is a dark blue crème nail polish, described as “classic blue collar” on Priti website. Although on the picture it had visible purple undertones, it has no purple when applied on the nails.

Lace aloe is a gorgeous green with some small silver glitter in it. It’s quite a strange one. In the day light it is a dark green and looks a lot like aloe. But in the bright artificial light it become bright green with a hint of duochrome.

BUTTER London Wallis swatches and review

BUTTER London Wallis is a Nordstrom exclusive. I hesitated a lot before buying it, because from some swatches on the web and magazine covers it appeared to be very close to Chanel Peridote. It turned out to be completely different. For the note, Wallis is a part of Butter London Fall/Winter 2011 collection, that is quite uninteresting to my taste except this nail polish and No More Waity, Katie (swatches are here)

Wallis is a dark olive with a lot of gold. It reminds me of ancient bronze statutes with green/black patina. It is something that I really would want to see in OPI Simply Smashing. The color is very hard to describe – the base is dark olive with some black undertones. Nail polish also has a lot of gold in it….it is not glitter, the finish is closer to shimmer, but golden particles are quite visible.

The beauty of Wallis is very hard to photograph as well, I tried my best, but it still doesn’t depict the real finish. (Sorry, the pinky is quite messed up in the last photoJ)

Natural daylight

China Glaze Metro Collection Fall 2011. Part 4 – Glitter: Skyscraper

Hi Girls,

Skyscraper is the last one from the China Glaze Collection that I bought. It’s a deep blue with silver, blue and purple glitter. The base is jelly, so 3 coats are needed for the effect you see on the photos.  

Overall, Metro Collection did not disappoint me. On contrary, all nail polishes I was excited about were really interesting in reality. So far, my Favorites of the whole collection are: Skyscraper, Trendsetter and Westside Warrior. 

China Glaze Metro Collection Fall 2011. Part 3 – Dark crèmes: Westside warrior and Concrete Catwalk

Hey guys,

Trendsetter and Midtown Magic swatches are here and here if interested.

Westside Warrior is one of my favorites. It’s a dark moss green crème nail polish, quite a unique shade. For the best opaque coverage I applied 3 coats. It is nice that there are not so many close dupes to it that I could find.

Concrete catwalk is a grey crème with a shade of the wet concrete. It is not a very original color, I have seen something similar before…and not once. This one has more blue undertones to it though.

As I already mentioned in my previous post about this collection, the formula is very thin. As for dark crèmes it’s especially important I would recommend applying 3 coats for full coverage. Otherwise the color is uneven. It was especially evident in Westside Warrior nail polish.

China Glaze Metro Collection Fall 2011. Part 2 –Midtown Magic swatches and comparison with Color Club With Abandon

When I saw Midtown Magic I completely fell in love with it…but Opps, after bringing it home I realized that I had something similar already. It turned out that With Abandon (you can see full post about it here) by Color Club is almost 100% similar to Midtown Magic nail polish.

But swatches first…. MM is a brown-black shade with golden and copper shimmer particles. I have a thing for dark nail polishes with a little shimmer…and this one is just that perfect piece of shiny dark chocolate. Metro Collection polishes have a little thinner formula, so most of them, including Midtown Magic require 3 coats for full opacity.

After discovering that I already have similar nail polish I decided to compare how similar are they? It turns out that it’s very hard to see the difference between Midtown Magic and With Abandon in artificial light or direct sunlight. The only difference I could notice is that CC With Abandon has only golden shimmer particles and China Glaze one has also some copper particles that make nail polish a little bit more colorful. Again …it is almost unnoticeable if you will not stare at your nails for 5 minutes.  

China Glaze Metro Collection Fall 2011. Part 1 – Shimmer: Trendsetter

Finally, my long waited China Glaze Metro Collection is out! I got only 5 nail polishes that I absolutely love. I decided to pass on other ones since OPI Touring America will be out very soon…

Let’s start from the one, that I think is a gem of the whole Metro collection.

Trendsetter is a shimmery mustard with a little bit of green. It is definitely a very unique color. Trendsetter brings the yellow nail polish trend to the whole new level. In my opinion, it is muted enough to wear it to the office and at the same time it is original to stand out and get noticedJ What can I say, I’m completely in love with it.

Trendsetter has gold and green particles and is very easy to apply. Unlike dark shades from this collection, only 2 coats are needed for opaque effect.