The Very First Post! Galactic and Lava Flame

Why, hello!  Welcome to the inaugural post on Kate's Nailing It!  My name is Kate, and I'm an out-of-work filmmaker.  I've always enjoyed painting my nails, but I got pretty in to nail art in December 2013 when I discovered the Lacquerista community reddit.com/r/RedditLaqueristas (the C was sold to pay for polish).  It became something of an obsession - if I didn't paint my nails at least once a week, I was highly disappointed.  You can check out the progression of my talent here, though as it's my personal Twitter account, there's a decent amount of other pictures mixed in there.  (Hey, if you see any colors used in those manis that you'd like to see me review, let me know and I'll get to it!)

So, since I haven't had a job in a while, and because I love nail art so much, I decided to do something at least sort of productive with my time and start a nail blog!  I'm toying with the idea of swatching my entire collection, but I'm not sure - since last December, I've accumulated about 80 colors and frankly, I don't think I have the patience to swatch that much.  For now, I'm just going to swatch my more interesting colors and post my more exciting nail art designs.

So, without further ado, let's do some swatching!  For my Very First Blog Post, I've decided to do a Day-And-Night sort of mani: Revlon Sun Candy "Lava Flame" on my left hand, and Revlon Moon Candy "Galactic" on my right.

Revlon Moon Candy "Galactic"

I found myself staring at Galactic every time I passed the makeup aisle for months.  Finally, I caved and bought it.  But as excited as I was to use it, I had this weird mindset that it was a "winter color," and I'd bought it in the spring.  Whatever, right?  Screw seasonal trends, I'll wear a deep navy blue at the end of July if I want to!  

Galactic is a very, very deep navy blue creme-jelly solid, paired with a bright blue flake glitter.

The navy color is a very interesting formula.  At first glance, I assumed it was a standard creme, but its application is much more like a jelly.  It's very thin, without being too watery.  Completely full coverage in one coat, but I did a second coat to help clean up the line around my cuticles.  The polish alone has a beautiful sheen to it.  Despite it being a solid color, it has immense depth to it, especially after two coats - another reason that I think this leans closer to jelly than creme.

I've tested out the flakes before on a lighter blue color (unfortunately, I don't have a very good picture of it), and I wasn't too impressed - it looked almost exactly the same as the other flake glitter I have, Nicole by OPI's "Heavenly Angel."  Placed on top of the dark color of Galactic, however, the flakes look AMAZING.  It really does look like I have deep space painted on my nails, with much less effort than your standard galaxy mani.

The application of the flakes, however, was pretty sketchy.  I don't have much experience with applying flakes neatly.  Ankita of Corallista seems to have done a much better job than I did, though she too says that the application is uneven.  I did two coats - one coat to lay some flakies down, and a second to fill in holes.  My nails ended up quite bumpy, but I still completely adore the effect of this polish.

I definitely recommend wrapping your tips with this.  I wrapped my top coat, as always, but I still ended up with pretty noticeable edge shrinkage after a day.

Cleanup of this color is pretty difficult - as with most dark colors, it will stain your skin no matter how quickly you wipe it off, and even using pure acetone it will leave a blue streak on your skin.  Removal is close to a nightmare.  The old "scrub n' rub" method will take ages if you use the flakes.  I soaked pieces of cotton ball in acetone and pressed them onto my nails - basically the foil method without the foil - and while it removed pretty easily, I got runny blue acetone-polish everywhere and had to clean up my hands with a fresh cotton ball when I was done.

Revlon Sun Candy "Lava Flame"

Of Revlon's Sun Candy collection, I was first tempted by Sun Shower and Northern Lights (the blue ones), but I noticed in the store that the creme colors simply did not want to mix properly - no matter how much I shook the bottles, the separation was still pretty severe.  So, because I enjoy anything and everything neon lately, I decided to go with Lava Flame, and I was not disappointed!

Lava Flame is a neon coral-orange-red creme with a matching glitter.

The creme covers fairly well on the first coat, but the white line of my nail did show through a little, so I decided to do a second coat.  I would also recommend a second coat to wrap the tips - there's also pretty noticeable edge shrinkage after a day on this color, despite wrapping my top coat.  The formula on this creme is pretty standard.  It applies well, it isn't too thick and gloopy or too thin and runny.

The glitter on this one applies much more evenly and easily than the flake paired with Galactic.  The glitters are very small, and they don't cling to the brush the way flakies tend to do.  They also spread across the nail just like a normal polish does, rather than cling to the nail upon application.

One coat of the glitter seems to be quite sufficient for a lovely effect, but I tried out two coats on my ring and pinky fingers.  There's a little bit extra sparkle, but honestly, one coat is perfectly enough.

 

It's a beautiful color - I wish I could have gotten a picture in direct sunlight to show the full sparkle of the glitter.  (I did use the glitter coat in this manicure, but it was on top of several different polishes with sparkles and colors of their own.)

Cleanup of this color is pretty easy - any mistakes can easily be swiped off with your acetone or nail polish remover, using an orangewood stick or a nail art brush.  Removal is pretty easy as well.  Scrub n' rub will work, but it is a bit more difficult thanks to the glitter.  (The glitter isn't quite large enough to tear up an entire cotton ball, so that's nice.)  I prefer to press a soaked cotton ball to my nail for a few moments, then swipe it away.