My Introducion to Paint it Pretty Polish

Note: these polishes were sent to me in exchange for an honest review.  All opinions are my own.  Also, there is a lot of sorcery in these nail polishes.

I haven't had the opportunity to review a thermal polish in a while, so I was super excited when Sherri of Paint it Pretty Polish (my first Canadian indie!) asked me to swatch for her!  This collection is all color-changing.  Cosmic Kisses and Reach For the Stars are thermals, while Blushing Sun is UV-reactive.

Cosmic Kisses

Cosmic Kisses is a lovely pink-purple.  When it's warm, it's a bright, rosy pink with a shimmer that's almost golden, almost holo.  My camera really couldn't capture how pretty the shimmer is.

In its cool state, Cosmic kisses is a shade of purple that I find hard to describe. Lavender-violet, I suppose?  The shimmer really shows through in the purple state, adding a gorgeous pink undertone to the purple.

Three coats of Cosmic Kisses is needed for opacity.  I actually have four coats on my middle finger and pinky, because I dinged both fingers while they were drying, but it was opaque at three coats.  Really, two coats could cut it, but I wanted the additional layer of color just to make sure that the whites of my nails weren't deceiving my eyes during the polish's transition phase.

No review of a color changing nail polish would be complete without a video, so here you go!

Reach For the Stars

Okay, my blue bias is going to show through here: this color took my breath away!  I think this is the most drastic color change in any of the thermal polishes that I own.

In its cool state, Reach For the Stars is blue with purple undertones from the shimmer.  Like Cosmic Kisses, the shimmer is almost holo.  I mostly noticed it looking holographic under my phone's flashlight, but not so much in natural light.

Except for when it's warm!  Reach For the Stars turns almost-white in heat.  It's absolutely GORGEOUS and I am so glad that I swatched this in the summer when my fingers are always warm!  When it's warm, the shimmer in Reach For the Stars stands out much more holographic than when it's cool.  At certain angles, the purple in the shimmer stands out really well, though my camera couldn't pick that up.

I couldn't help but think of Elsa with this color.  The cold state reminds me of the bottom of her dress, while the warm state reminds me of her... uh... arm cloaks?

Blushing Sun

I'll start this one off by saying that the name is perfect for this polish.  Indoors, Blushing Sun is a cheerful, sunny yellow with flakies that are just noticeable.

But take it out into the sunshine (or stick it under a UV lamp if you have one) and BAM! it becomes a bright, orange-y pink.  The flakies stay yellow, so they really stand out in the sunlight!

I am obsessed with this color.  It wasn't really possible to get a transition photo like I did with the thermals, because the UV rays change the color so quickly.  You can tell how direct the sunlight is by the color the polish turns!  In direct sunlight, it's very pink.  On a cloudy day, it's more orangey, halfway between pink and yellow.  It's also sort of in between if the sunlight is filtered through a window.  I highly enjoyed making a fist to hide my nails, then opening it and watching the color change again.

I have three coats of Blushing Sun on my nails, and as you can see, it's still fairly sheer.  I tested out a fourth coat on my thumb, but it didn't really make a difference.  If you want solid coverage, I'd recommend layering it over a white base.  Or maybe a pink or yellow base to be more playful!

I am so happy to have these magical polishes in my collection!  A big thank you to Sherri for letting me swatch these for her.  If you're a fan of thermals and/or UV-reactive polishes, you definitely need these in your collection!

Neon vertical gradient holo nail art happyfuntimes!

As much as I'm excited for autumn and cool weather and pumpkin spice and Halloween nail art, it is still summer.  Technically autumn doesn't begin until September 22; it doesn't feel like autumn begins until at least October here in Maryland.  So, behold, I have more in-your-face neon nail art for you!

This is pretty similar to the last vertical gradient that I did, except this time I used a white base and focused on neon polish rather than holographic polish.  (But don't worry, I still added a holo top coat because YASS.)  Also, this time I didn't go in the order of the rainbow, but in the order of however I felt like it.

 

My nails almost-flawlessly transition from Essie Strut Your Stuff to Salon Perfect Loopy Lime to Sephora Brazilian Sun to ORLY Ablaze to OPI No Doubt About It to ORLY Hot Tropics.  Admittedly, the OPI to ORLY nail could be a bit brighter, but I got impatient after 3 sponged-on coats and didn't feel like doing 4 or more.

 

dat holo <3

Half of these polishes dried matte, because they're neon and apparently that's a thing with neon polishes.  I don't really know why.  Is it because science?  Do super-neon colors work better as chemicals if they have a matte finish?  Someone who knows things about making polish please tell me.  As fun as a half-matte, half-glossy nail would be, I chose to go all glossy because China Glaze Fairy Dust has a glossy finish.  And this manicure NEEDED to be holo because ALL manicures should be holo.  (I think my new-found obsession with Simply Nailogical's YouTube videos just may be turning me into a holosexual.  Cristine, be proud, you've converted another one!)

After a few days, I decided to add to the magic that is this mani.  How else to add to this besides a trippy vinyl design? :D

I didn't really feel like getting out my macro lens, but I took a sort-of macro with my regular camera.

My edges got a teeny bit sloppy, because I laid the black polish on thick and it smeared a little when I lifted off the vinyls.  A bit disappointing, but still an incredible mani, don't you think?

I still have a couple of bright summer-y manicures to show you over the next few weeks, so stay tuned!  Are you getting sick of the brightness and looking forward to deeper autumn manis?  Personally, I'm SUPER stoked for autumn, but neon polish is my favorite so I'm going to stick with it as long as I feel like it.  And by that, I mean until I start thinking of great Halloween manis!

Do I Need Them All? Black Dahlia Lacquer & Polish Me Royalty strawberry polishes

Hey, it's been a while since I published a post in this series!  I'm not really sure why I dropped the ball on that one.  I'm clumsy. ;)

Anyway, today I'm going to compare the polish that you saw on the blog this past week with another strawberry-inspired polish.  Because I'm obsessed with strawberry polish, it was inevitable that I wound up with two similar ones!

Today we'll be looking at Polish Me Royalty's Strawberry Shortcake and Black Dahlia Lacquer's Strawberry Fields.  (I did a full swatch of Strawberry Fields at the beginning of last year, and you can find that post here.)

I have Strawberry Shortcake on my pointer and ring fingers, and Strawberry Fields on my middle and pinky fingers.

They're definitely very similar, but also noticeably different.  Strawberry Fields is a brighter, more true pink than Strawberry Shortcake, which is a bit more muted and on the berry-purple side.  (Is "pinurple" a thing? "purnk"?  I'm calling purple-leaning pinks purnk from now on.)

Both polishes have a subtle shimmer that my regular camera can barely pick up.  And the flash on my camera is so unbelievably bright that it completely washes everything out this up close - so I have to take any flash photos on my phone.  You can kinda-sorta see the shimmers in the flash photo:

You can see that Strawberry Fields' shimmer is more golden-pink, while the shimmer in Strawberry Shortcake is more silvery-pink.  They're both very subtle and very pretty.

As I mentioned in this week's post, Strawberry Shortcake is very nearly a OCW.  If my nails were shorter and/or I had this in a full-sized bottle, I would probably only need one coat of it.  It's a much more highly pigmented formula that Strawberry Fields, which definitely requires two coats, even using a full-sized brush.  And as I also mentioned earlier this week Strawberry Shortcake is SCENTED which is awesome!  Strawberry Fields is not scented.

So, do I need them all?  Well, I do, because strawberries.  Although, funnily enough, I don't usually reach for pink when I want to throw on a quick coat of polish.  Under normal, non-strawberry-inspired circumstances, I would probably not want to bother owning such similar shades of pink polish (sorry, pink).  Buuut they're definitely not dupes, so for a pink lover or a fellow strawberry lover, I'd say that yes, you DO need them all!

Thanks for checking out this month's edition of Do I Need Them All!  Which of these shades do you prefer?  Let me know in the comments!

And don't forget to enter my blogiversary giveaway, which can be found here!  There are only a few days left to enter!

Polish Me Royalty: Strawberry Shortcake

A little while ago, I played a fun game on Instagram, started by one of the crocheters that I follow.  She promised to buy something from the winner's shop, and then the winner would start the next round and buy something from the next winner's shop.  I won the first round, so I got to host the second round!  Even though I posted the game on my crochet shop account and used hashtags to lure in fellow crocheters, most of the people who played wound up being indie polish makers.  I wasn't exactly complaining about that, though!  I ended up randomly selecting Polish Me Royalty, a UK-based polish company.  I briefly contemplated cheating and picking someone else, because of international shipping fees, but I'm really glad that I stayed honorable!  PMR only charges $9.51 (that's USD) in shipping to the US, and to be honest, I've paid close to that amount in shipping with domestic orders before.  So I picked out two mini polishes for myself.

I think we're past the point of me needing to introduce my obsession with strawberries.  It's a well-known fact that Kate's Nailing It loves strawberries by now, right?  So when I saw that Polish Me Royalty made a polish called Strawberry Shortcake, I knew I had to have it and that made me all the more glad that I'd drawn this shop as my winner in the Indie Shop Game.

Strawberry Shortcake is super highly pigmented.  Even with a mini bottle, and even with my super-long nails, it was very nearly a one-coater!  Incredible.  I'd be willing to bet that a full-sized bottle would be a OCW every time.

The color is exactly what you'd expect from a strawberry-inspired polish: bright, berry pink.  It's a creme formula, and there's a bit of a subtle shimmer to it.  Sadly, my camera could barely pick it up except in the bottle.  The shimmer is very pretty though, being pinkish-silver in tone.  I think that's why it's so subtle - because the shimmer color is so similar to the base color.  You can also see the shimmer pretty decently in the picture with flash:

Oh, and as it turns out, this polish is scented!  I noticed a scent on my nails the whole time I was wearing this one (I wore it for a few days on both hands), but I kept thinking that the raspberry scented cuticle oil I'd just started using had simply soaked in to my skin and made me smell like berries.  But I talked to Sarah, PMR's maker, on Facebook and it turns out that this polish has a strawberry scent to it.  Strawberry Shortcake is part of her Just Desserts trio, and each polish is scented like the fruity dessert that it's inspired by!  It is a fairly faint scent, though - I barely noticed it unless I was actively sniffing my nails.  But Sarah said that she's working on making the scent stronger, so future batches may be more noticeable than mine!

I really like PMR's little heart-shaped bottles.  They're so cute and delicate!

All in all, I'm very glad that I had an excuse to try out a new indie brand.  I also bought Space Wizzard, which I'll swatch on the blog somewhere down the line.  And Sarah was kind enough to throw in a mini bottle of Hollow, which was super nice of her!  I'll probably put those two in a post together since they're both incredible holographic glitters.

In the meantime, be sure to enter my blogiversary giveaway!  It's ending in just under a week and there are still VERY few individual entrants!

UPDATE: This post was initially posted with the wrong polish name!  I fixed it.  shhhhh

Watermarble Nail Art!

When I started really getting in to nail art, it didn't take me long to discover the art of water marbling.  I tried it once, but the polishes that I was using didn't marble well.  After a few attempts I gave up and would all but growl at every water marble tutorial video that I saw.  (This How Not to Watermarble tutorial by Simply Nailogical resonated really strongly with me.)

Then, for whatever reason, I recently decided screw it, I want to give this stuff another try!  I had this amazing neon mani planned out in my head, with negative space and utilizing my KB Shimmer zig-zag nail vinyls.  I've been fairly obsessed with neon manis lately, in case you couldn't tell.

Blessed by the Nail Art Gods, it actually worked this time!  The marbling worked so well that I wound up bummed that I had cut off half of my nails with the vinyls.  This mani looked a bit better in my head, but I'm still super happy with it because it's my first successful water marble!

I used my favorite neons that I own for this: Sephora Pink Bikini, Papaya Daiquiri, Brazilian Sun, and Caipi Freeze.  The last two, the yellow and green, are so similar that you can't really tell them apart in the marble.  I just love the way these polishes pop over white!

What do you think of this design?  Should I do a video next time I try water marbling?  Let me know in the comments!

Polish Addict Nail Color: Beatles Thermals

My Beatles fan side is definitely happy today!  Polish Addict Nail Color first released these two shades last summer, and re-released them this May.  The second I saw their names on Instagram I knew I had to own Hey Jude and Strawberry Fields Forever - especially Strawberry Fields Forever!  (If you've been around for a while, you'll be familiar with my inherent need to own strawberry things and all things related to that song.)  But because funds are limited - and so is space in my Helmer! - I got mini bottles.  I've left my pinky out of shots because a) 3 fingers looks less crowded on a mini bottle than 4, and b) my pinky nail is still too short to shape and I think it looks weird next to my other long nails.

Hey Jude

First off, I have to say that I really like the glitter density of Hey Jude.  The amount of glitter in the first coat matches the amount that I see in the bottle!  Very nice.  And the glitters applied very nicely, as smoothly as if they weren't even there.  The yellow and green glitters are most noticeable in the photos, but there are some teeny tiny gold holo glitters that really make this polish special.

Two coats of Hey Jude was enough to be opaque.

Hey Jude is a thermal, but I barely noticed a difference even when I plunged my fingers into ice water.  My camera definitely wasn't able to pick up the transition.

Based on the transition photo in the shop, it looks like my bottle is stuck in the warm phase.  I've heard that heat can damage thermal polish, and it was hot when my order was in the mail, so maybe the heat killed it?  But Strawberry Fields Forever is still very reactive, so I'm not sure.  An older review of Hey Jude also said that she couldn't see much of a difference in hue, so maybe the thermal formula is just odd on this polish.  But thermal or not, I still really like the teal color!

Strawberry Fields Forever

Like Hey Jude, the glitter density of Strawberry Fields Forever gets a round of applause.  The amount of glitter on my nails matches the amount that I see in the bottle perfectly and effortlessly!

Also like Hey Jude, two coats of Strawberry Fields Forever is great for opacity.  In fact, I think it was almost a one-coat wonder!  But I do prefer the look of two coats, especially since it's a glitter polish.

The thermal color changes are wayyyy more noticeable than with Hey Jude!  Strawberry Fields Forever is yellow in its warm state and berry-pink when cold.  When it's transitioning, it kind of reminds me of a half-ripe strawberry!

I actually had a hard time photographing this while cold or even transitioning because my hands were so warm that it kept turning yellow before I could get the focus right!  Summer is hard.

I love, love, love this polish.  It definitely meets my standards for strawberry themed things!

The multitude of gitters are fairly holographic, which is gorgeous.

I'll say one thing for my stubby pinky nail - it looks pretty nice in macro shots! 

I plunged the bottle into a bowl of cold water to get it to transition a little bit for this bottle shot.  Because why not?

Sadly, these two polishes are now gone from the shop (why do I always put off publishing reviews until the polish is gone?), but their Beatles-related sister Abbey Road is still available in the shop!

What do you think of these polishes?  Are you a Beatles fan too?  Let me know in the comments!

HOLO RAINBOW

I've recently discovered that gradient nail art is one of my favorite things to do.  But so far, I've always done the same gradient on all 10 nails, using a maximum of four colors.  This time, I decided not only to do each nail in a different color, but also to switch up the direction of my gradient!

This vertical rainbow holographic gradient turned out pretty darn awesome, although it looked a little bit neater in my head.  And I couldn't stomach the idea of leaving out an entire nail, or of photographing my right hand, so once again you get to see my stubby little broken pinky nail!

I used Gothic Gala Lacquers Make It So, My Partner In Crime, It's Green Sir, The Dancing Doctor (all from the Star Trek collection), Sinfully Stephanie, and All Mixed Up Lacquers Look At My Holo from the Nail Chicks Be Like... collection.  Each nail got two colors, starting with red and ending with pink as the rainbow goes.  Then I topped it all off with China Glaze Fairy Dust because why not make it sparkle even more?

As you can see, I had a bit of a hard time sponging the colors all the way down to my cuticles.  Even though I used a latex mani barrier and sponged all over it, I just couldn't fill in that little line of black base around my cuticles.  A problem I find unique to vertical gradients.

This was all done on top of a black base, Salon Perfect Oil Slick.  I decided to use black as a base instead of white to help make the holos pop, and to make the mani look a bit darker overall.  I'm pretty sure that a white base would have made the colors look a lot more pastel, which would be nice but that wasn't the look I wanted today.

SHAZAM!  Look at that holo polish + Fairy Dust in action!

I had intended to make a video tutorial for this look, but as I was setting up my tabletop tripod, one of the legs snapped right off!  I do still have my full-size tripod but it was way too awkward to work around.  Maybe when I get a replacement tripod, I'll just have to do another gradient and make a tutorial!

Side note: my right pointer finger has had a nerve twitching in it on and off for a few weeks now.  It's not painful and it stops for a day here and there, so I haven't bothered to get it checked out.  Anyway, when that nerve twitches, it causes my pointer finger to twitch really quickly.  It's been annoying to have to deal with that while painting my nails - this was going on the whole time I swatched the Nail Chicks Be Like collection - but, clearly, I managed to work through it!  I'm impressed that I was able to do a full nail art mani with my twitchy finger.

What do you think of this design?  Let me know in the comments!

All Mixed Up Lacuqers: Nail Chicks Be Like... Collection

Okay.  I'm supposed to be on a no-buy.  For everything.  Until I find a job with reliable income.  But, obviously, that's not really happening because the indie nail polish world is so amazing and tempting!

This is my first time using All Mixed Up Lacquers.  I saw a collage of this collection pop up in my Instagram feed, and I went to the profile to investigate (I guess I need to stop doing that if I want to follow my no-buy) and found that this is a 10-piece collection made as a collaboration with bloggers Bethany of Hosuewifenails and Mercedes of Manicutie, inspired by things that nail polish fanatics say.  And you guys know how much I love buying nail polish because it has a cool name, so yeah, I had to have the whole collection.

To my surprise, my order was delivered while the collection was still in pre-order mode!  I kicked myself into gear so that you could feast your eyes on these 10 gorgeous babies as quickly as possible.

Warning: TONS of pictures ahead.  But that's the best part of a nail polish review, right?  And my pinky nail is still short and awkward so it's not going to be in the photos.

What No Buy?

Ha, yeah, of course this one would exist!  I see other ladies talking about breaking their no-buys alllll the time.

What No Buy? is a holographic glitterbomb.  The base is clear but quite dense with holo dust, and there are lots of small-to-medium shiny glitters in pink, orange, green, and blue.  I have two coats over white, one coat over black, and two coats over my naked nail.  You can see that the base is dense enough for semi-opacity in just two coats over naked nail!

 

Just look at all that holographic glitter!!!

This Looked Better in My Head

I've definitely said this, either to myself or in a post, about a lot of the nail art designs I've done!  Nail polish can be finnicky and it's hard to get the image in your mind to turn out exactly on your nails.

This Looked Better In My Head is a bright fuchsia jelly with matte purple flakies and some very fine holo microglitters, although I'm not sure those ones picked up on my camera.  From pointer to ring finger, I have two, three, and four coats on my nails.

My camera really flattened out the color, so I did my best to edit it on the computer.  The brightness of the fuchsia is most accurate in the macro shot above.

One Coat Wonder

Every nail polish lover covets a one coat wonder!  They save a ton of time end effort.

One Coat Wonder is supposed to be an actual OCW itself, but that wasn't really the case for me.  Partly because of the tiny brush in the mini bottle, and partly because of how long my nails are - they require a lot more polish than your average shorter nail!

I did use only one coat on my ring finger, and I thought I did it nice and thick, but while editing the photos I realized that no, it was a little streaky.  I decided to show my bum pinky nail because, again, I thought that with its shortness I'd be able to get away with one coat, but again, nope.

But don't get down on One Coat Wonder!  Even if it always needs two coats, it's still such a gorgeous mint-teal-turquoise color with more superfine holo dust.  I highly recommend buying this one in a full-size bottle if you want it to live up to its name!

Look at My Holo

Holo sparkles are the best sparkles.  If you're friends with a nail polish fanatic, she's eventually going to shove her holographic nails in your face and say "LOOK AT THEM SPARKLE!"

Look at My Holo is a neon pink crelly with TONS of holo dust.  I have two coats on my pointer finger, three on my middle, and four on my ring finger.

Once again, my camera really muted the neonness of this one so I did my best to edit the colors on my computer.  The color accuracy is best in the sunlight and macro photos!

#nailmail

Getting nail mail is one of the most exciting things in my life, and it has been since the time I discovered the indie polish scene!  And using the hashtag on Instagram is a must so that I can share my happiness with everyone.

#nailmail is a white crelly base packed full of holographic glitters of many colors - soft and hot pink, teal, lime green, navy...  It's like the explosion of color and happiness that you get whenever you open up your nail mail!

I have three coats on each finger in the photos.

The glitter density here is great - it's quite easy to get the same amount of glitter on your nails as you see in the bottle.  I had to do a bit of dabbing to get glitters to apply evenly, which is normal for glitters of this size; still, it might have been easier if I had a full-sized bottle with a bigger brush.

#mynailsandmydrink

Here's another popular hashtag for polish lovers!  I usually see this when people have exciting drinks like Starbucks or artisan beer/pop or even just a really cute thermos.  I myself usually use this hashtag when showing off my fancy artisan pops that I like to try out every now and then.

#mynailsandmydrink is a beautiful pink-toned beige crelly with holo dust in the base, and beige small-to-medium chunky glitters.  The base color is one of my favorite browns that I've worn - it's a lovely cream-in-my-coffee brown.  I don't think my camera really captured the pinkish undertones, though, so once again I did my best to edit the photos and that's why my skin looks extra pink!

I have two coats on my pointer and ring fingers, and three coats on my middle finger.

Just like #nailmail, the glitter density is really good and I had to dab it around a little bit, but not infuriatingly.

I was drinking boring water in a boring glass when I swatched this, so here's a more exciting picture of my nails and my drink!  The totally awesome cup actually came with my order of this collection (I have no idea if it was a pre-order special or if it will come with all orders).  My totally awesome drink is a ginger ale float spiked with my apple pie moonshine that I got when I was in Tennessee, and my totally awesome mani will be featured on the blog next week so stick around for more details on that!

Matte All The Flakies

If you've been following me long enough, you'll know that this isn't actually something that I'm prone to saying.  Matte is a great effect and all but I usually prefer my nails to stay glossy!  But using a matte topcoat over a flakie polish can look really, really cool.

Matte all the Flakies is a clear base with white holographic flakies and, of course, superfine holo dust in the base.  I was all prepared to take glossy photos and then use my matte top coat for some matte pictures, but THIS ONE DRIES MATTE!

I have three coats over naked nail and two coats each over black and white.  The holo-ness definitely didn't show up as well over naked or white, but it looked AMAZING over black!  I suggest always using this over a darker color so that the holo can really pop.

Buy All The Polish

Now THIS is definitely something I say all the time!  Screw everything, buy ALL the nail polish!

 

Buy all the Polish is a super festive glitterbomb.  Purple, teal, soft pink, and hot pink glitters all float around in a clear base.

The glitters applied pretty nicely, but I definitely needed to dab them around.  I'd say that the dabbing was a little more intense than with the two crellies above, but still not infuriating.  And I didn't have to fish around for the glitters, which seems to happen more often in a clear base for some reason!

I have three coats over naked nail, two coats over black, and two coats over Sally Hansen Blue My Mind.  I honestly can't decide which look I like best!  They all look like a party on my nails.  I think I'm gonna need to incorporate this into my next birthday mani.

Look at this bottle shot macroooooo you can see so many layers of glitter floating around in there <3 <3 <3

It's So Squishy

I think this about every jelly-based glitter that I've used.  I don't know what it is about jelly polish that looks so squishy even when it's days dry, but it definitely does!

It's So Squishy is yet another glitterbomb with tons of different colors, sizes, and shapes of glitter.  The base is somewhere in the realm of sky-aqua-teal-blue, which makes it look even more squishy.

I have two, three, and four coats from my pointer to my ring finger.  Once again, the glitters applied nicely with a bit of dabbing and no fishing.

#nailporn

This is another phrase that I haven't really said before, but I've seen it used before on Instagram and I would definitely say that this post constitutes as nail porn.

#nailporn is a neon-lime green crelly packed with holo dust.  It's barely less holographic that Look At My Holo, and just as neon.

This one was opaque in two coats and I didn't see a need to build up to three.  It applies super smoothly and evenly, even on a mini brush!

As you can see, my camera had a hard time with this one yet again.  The color is most accurate in the sunlight photo!

So, that's the end of this incredibly gorgeous collection.  I hope you enjoyed it, I hope that you're as tickled by the polish names as I am, and I hope this post doesn't cause a problem for you if you're on a no-buy!

Which polish is your favorite?  Do you find yourself saying any of these phrases all the time?  Let me know in the comments!