Ozotic ~ 621

Ozotic ~ 621

Red scattered holo

Ozotic could easily become a member of my top ten list of polish brands I love. This time I’m trying on a red, scattered holo, because I fancy red and because the sun was out to play, hurrah!

So – I just used my regular base coat, and that caused me absolutely no trouble at all. Two easy and fast drying coats and my mani was done! There’s no top coat on the two first pictures, so take a look at how pretty this is!

I really like this second pic because it shows how pretty this holo is in the sunshine:

I gazed at it for half an hour or thereabouts, trying to figure out what to do with it. You know I hardly ever wear a polish on its own, but holos are really a challenge for me nail art wise, because they’re so pretty in themselves. :)

I went for a couple of simple stripes, like racing stripes on a red, fancy car. I used my black striper from Claire’s and made two parallel stripes on each nail. I topped it with Poshé top coat (Oh Poshé, how I love thee!!) and hurried to take these last pics while the sun was still out:

And a last one, because I love a good, red holo that is also pretty outside of the sun: 

I am totally in love with this! Simple and yet pretty, that’s how I like my nail art!

What do you think? Are you also a holomaniac like me?

Opacity: 7/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
Buy again: Yes

Picture Polish ~ Orbit

Picture Polish ~ Orbit

Purple toned blue with tons of silver microglitter

Here’s yet another pretty Picture Polish, namely Orbit. I got this from my friend Stinna for my birthday.

Orbit’s formula is thick, but manageable. The brush was a little bit wonky which made it a bit difficult to apply the polish neatly, but I was satisfied with how I did. The polish covers really well – I made one coat and was actually satisfied. I gave it a second coat to see if it made a difference, but it didn’t. Drying time is really fast, by the way. I love that! There’s one layer of Catrice “Quick Dry & High Shine” top coat on to make it shine even more!

No more words, just enjoy the prettiness:

And again: 

I stamped on this, because I wanted to try my new Kiko polishes. I bought a bunch from their Mirror collection because I heard they should be great for stamping. I wanted to test that myself. I used stamping plate GA34 from Gals Fairy set of plates. I stamped with Kiko 618, Orchid Pink.

And man, does that work! I am totally blown away over how well that stamps!

Let me show you:

And another shot, to convince you: 

How about that? Is that amazing or what?

I have to say that I am not utterly pleased with my Fairy set of stamping plates. I have to double stamp my thumb, which is ridiculous, because as you can see, I don’t even have long nails! It’s the same problem with the Princess set, so I’m not totally convinced that I’ll keep them, but we’ll see.

Anyway, here’s the pretty couple of polishes:

Have you tried Kiko’s Mirror collection for stamping? If yes, did it work out just as good for you?

Opacity: 10/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Catherine Arley ~ 666 - with fail dots!

Catherine Arley ~ 666

Dusty berry coloured holo

Here’s another one of the Catherine Arley polishes from my sweet friend Aylin from Posh Nail Art.

I was quite thrilled with the first one, so when the sun came out for just a little while, I was eager to try another one! I just used my regular base coat and the polish just glided on. No problems with dragging or anything, not even on coat number two! The coverage is really good, and this was almost a one coater. I applied two anyway, just because I wanted to.

Here’s what that looks like in the sun:

And from a slightly different angle:

I really like the look of this in the sun. The holo isn’t hugely prominent but is enough to make a difference, if you know what I mean.

I took a picture in the shadow too, so you can see how this polish looks under those conditions: 

 

 As you can see, it turns out quite dusty! That’s why I had to do some nail art on it. I tried a dotticure, but I failed :/ I’m going to post it anyway, to make this a learning experience. I saw something like this on another blog, I can’t remember which one, and thought it would be cool. But either I’m not good enough at it, or my nails are too small to even make the attempt. I go for the latter :D  I used Nail Pop “Glamrock”, shade 14. It’s a deep magenta glitter in a blackened base. I bought it when I was in London over Easter. I topped it with a layer of Catrice “Quick Dry & High Shine” topcoat.

Enough with the talking. Here’s one picture of my failed mani.

It looks as if I attempted to do nail art while being drunk, LOL! I can assure you that it isn’t the case, just please bear with me, okay? :D

Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Layla Hologram Effect ~ Purple Illusion - with baby dragon

Layla Hologram Effect ~ Purple Illusion

Dark magenta linear holo

Here’s my other birthday present from my friend Line.

This is actually my second Hologram Effect polish, but the first one has been sitting in my box of shame for maybe 4-5 months because it didn’t behave when I tried it. Little did I know that the reason I couldn’t get it to behave was because I didn’t use proper underwear for it. Hologram polishes requires aqua base coat. Line also gave me one of those recently – what a great friend she is! ♥

Applying this over the aqua base coat was easy! The two coats glided on like butter. No streaking. No bald spots. Just pure perfection!

Here’s what two coats and no top coat looks like in the sun:

Look at the depth in that holo! Isn’t it amazing?!

I gazed at it for a little while before I decided to add glitter. I used “Baby Dragon” from Glitzology. I really like the look of Glitzology’s polishes, but I’m so not happy with their formula! It’s thick and almost impossible to work with. But it’s okay for sponging, so that’s what I’m going to use it for. One coat of Quick Dry & High Shine top coat from Catrice finished my mani, and here’s the final result:

And from another angle:

The polishes:

I love the way holos and glitters compliment each other. The glitter makes the mani interesting even when there’s no sunlight, and the holo is just amazing in the sun! Total win!

That’s my opinion anyway – but what do you think?

Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 10/10
Durability: 9/10
Value for money: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
Buy again: Yes

Dandy Nails - Perspective

Dandy Nails ~ Perspective

Magenta with purple and blue shimmer

Here’s another polish I got for my birthday! It was from sweet Lauriestrode from Lauriestrode’s Fun with Nails. It’s my first Dandy Nails product, and I fell in love instantly. Most of you girls probably know that I love glitter by now, but I’m also a huge shimmer-fan, and “Perspective” is packed with shimmer!

The polish is a little bit thick, but it applies easily and dries fast. It dries up semi-matte, but unfortunately that doesn’t show on the pictures.

Here’s a pic of two coats, no topcoat:

Isn’t that shimmer just gorgeous?
The next picture is taken in the sunlight, and that really makes the shimmer pop!

I stamped on this beauty, using Mash’ stamping plate Mash-42 and a no name black stamping polish. I sealed it all up with a layer of my faithful Poshé topcoat and here’s the final result: 

I like this Inca-ish design, I think it goes really well with that magenta colour!

That’s it! Being in a birthday group can be great fun with the right girls, and I am really happy with the group I’m in. At some point I’d love to join an international birthday group as well.

Do you like my new pretty polish?

Blue Frankenholoshimmer!

Blue Frankenholoshimmer ~ I only have eyes for you

Do you remember this post, where I showed you my latest frankenpolish? If not, then please go and read it – I’ll wait for you here while you do :D

Back yet? Alright, let’s move right on. I decided to use my frankenpolish for an entire mani instead of just for nail art.

The polish is pretty opaque, but it still takes two coats to make it look great. The polish applies easily and the drying time is reasonably average. Let me show you what two coats (with no top coat) looks like in the sun:

The holo isn’t the strongest but it’s definitely there. I guess the reason for it being less prominent is that I added quite a lot of shimmer to this polish. I love shimmer, as you may know :D Look at this pic:

I also decided to name my creation. I call it “I only have eyes for you”, and to honour that name I picked two other holos, namely Color Club’s Beyond, which is a fantastic black holo from their Halo Hues collection from this spring, and an Urban Outfitters holo called Silver Holo.

I dotted with the silver holo first, and then the black on top of the silver, attempting to make them look like little eyes, LOL! I topped it all with a layer of Catrice Quick Dry & High Shine topcoat, and here’s my final mani:

Another angle:

And the pretty holos:

Here’s an before and after picture from when I made the franken:

I really like this – it really shows how big a sucker I am for holos! I’m so glad to be able to finally wear them after having had them stored away for the entire winter!

Do you like holos as much as I do? If so, what’s your favourite brand/polish?

piCture pOlish ~ Do you wanna see my peacock

piCture pOlish  ~ do you wanna see my peacock

Purple jelly base packed with green and teal glitter

I have become a big fan of piCture pOlish recently! I like their range of colours and glitters, and I like the quality. If I must put a finger on something that I don’t like so much, then it’d be the weird way they write the brand name. I mean, what’s with the capital letters in between it all? Plus it’s a total pain in the backside to remember when you’re typing it out in a review :D

But anyway! I reckoned that this jelly would take three coats to be opaque on its own, so I layered it. I considered whether I should layer it over black, purple or green. I ditched the thought of black pretty fast, since I think it is a boring way to layer polish. In the end I went for green. I used one layer of Flormar #442, which is from their spring&summer collection 2012. It’s almost a one coater, and it dries really fast.

Then I applied two layers of the piCture pOlish over the green. The formula is fantastic! The polish glides on easily, the glitter spreads out without effort, and there’s absolutely no need to dab the glitter around. One layer would actually have been enough, but I wanted to see if I got some extra depth to it by adding a second coat. It didn’t make a difference though :)

Here’s a picture taken in the sunshine:

There’s a layer of Catrice Quick Dry & High Shine top coat over it, by the way! Here’s another sunshine pic so you have a chance to really enjoy the glitter:

Here’s a picture from the light box. Here you can see how the purple peaks through in between the pretty green.

Then I stamped on it, and to honour the sun I chose to stamp with a new silver holo I bought from Urban Outfitters. It’s just called “Silver Holo”. I stamped a feather from the stamping plate H22, which is a fauxnad – I can’t remember where I got it from any more.

Here’s how that looks in my light box:

And here it is in the sunshine, isn’t that just pretty!?

And here are the polishes I used:

I’m so glad that I got piCture pOlishes in my stash. Despite the dumb caps in the name, they’re all nice’n easy to work with and soooo pretty!

That’s my peacock for sure! :D What do you think?

Opacity: 6/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 7/10
Overall: 7/10
Buy again: yes

I bought this polish myself, but it’s available from norwaynails.com if you’re interested.

Norway Nails have kindly offered my readers a 10% discount code. Just use the code RAINBOWIFYME10 at checkout, and you'll be getting 10% off your purchase.

Layla ~ CE 52 – The Butterfly Effect

Layla ~ CE 52 – The Butterfly Effect

Purple jelly base packed with flakies

Let me show you another one of my birthday presents from my friend Line. She doesn’t have a blog I can link to, but she loves polish like the rest of us!

The Butterfly Effect has been on my wishlist for quite a while. I love flakies, even though I don’t wear them very often. I think they’re amazingly pretty.

I wasn’t in the mood for a lot of layers of this pretty polish, so I put on some decent underwear for it. I used one coat of China Glaze Bizarre Blurple, which is a really nice purple/blue polish. I didn’t take pictures of this step since I only put on one coat, but if you want to see what it looks like you can see it here!

Then I applied two easy coats of the Butterfly Effect. The formula is really good, and the flakies spread out easily and evenly totally effortlessly! Drying time was alright, not slow and not fast, and I finished it with one layer of Catrice Quick Dry & High Shine topcoat.

Here’s a picture taken in the sunshine, just before the sun went down:

In daylight you can see that the base is purple and that the flakies sometimes flash red!

This is a light box pic:

You can still see the purple base, but the flakies are now flashing more orange than red. In the corners of the nail there’s a bit of green flakies visible.

A slightly different angle, still in the light box:

There you can see that the flakies are definitely both orange and green.

Last picture, also taken in the light box:

I think this is the prettiest flakie I’ve got. I love that the base is purple, and that the flakies also flash red. Absolutely fabulous!

Please tell me what you think? Are you a flakie-fan or are you totally over them or what?

Opacity: 5/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 9/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 7.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Color Club and Chiralty in sweet harmony

Color Club ~ Miss Bliss

Strong Linear pink holo

and

Chirality ~ Apollonia

Scattered purple holo

Miss Bliss is from the second Halo Hues collection from spring 2013.

The formula is just great. No need for any special base coat, I just used the base coat that was nearest to my hands. The application was very easy and I had no pulling or bald spots at all. This is a one coater, but I applied two just out of habit and to see if it made a difference, which it didn’t.

And behold! The holo in this beauty is amazingly strong! I almost needed to put on my sunglasses when the little rainbows showed up on my nails! You don’t have to take my word for it; please have a look for yourself:

And from a different angle:

There is no top coat on this yet, because I obviously wasn’t done :D

I wanted a yin/yang-ish symbol on my nails, so I pulled out another holo from my stash, namely Apollonia from Chiralty. I got this purple beauty as a birthday present from my friend Maria. She knows I love holos and purple, so this was a perfect gift! ♥

I taped my nails diagonally across, and applied one layer of Apollonia over the botton half of the nails. Then I made one dot on each half of the nail with the opposite colour.

One layer of Catrice Quick Dry & High Shine finished the mani, and didn’t dull the holos at all:

Here’s what the holos look like out of the sunshine:

Not as pretty, but still pretty enough to actually wear, IMO!

Here’s one last picture, just because I can :D

So, what do you think of my little holo party here? :)

Opacity: 10/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 10/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 9.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Catherine Arley ~ 677 - with flowers

Catherine Arley ~ 677

Berry coloured holo

I’ve been wanting to try the holo polishes from Catherine Arley for a while, so I was very happy to receive a bunch of them in a swap with my sweet friend Aylin from Posh Nail Art.

It’s been winter for so long that if feels as if I’ve forgotten what the sun looks like. At the same time I’ve been collecting holos throughout the winter, and they’ve been sitting in boxes, just waiting for spring, summer and sunshine! I’m not wasting precious holographic polish on a cloudy day, that’s for sure!

But anyway – back to the Catherine Arley. The formula was good, the polish applied easily. I just used my regular base coat, and had no problems with dragging or bald spots. It took two coats to make it opaque, and the drying time was pretty good. All pros and no cons :)

Here’s a picture of two coats, no top coat yet:

The colour is beautiful in the sunshine even though the holo isn’t the strongest I’ve seen.

I wanted to add a little bit of nail art to it, without drowning the prettiness. I stamped a couple of flowers on each nail, using my XL stamping plate H and a no name white stamping polish. Then I dotted the middle of the flowers with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri “Lightening”, which is a perfect yellow crème. I topped it all with a layer of Poshé top coat, which didn’t dull the holo effect at all:

This is an attempt of a more artistic picture – do you like it?

What I really like about this polish is that I also like the way it looks out of the sun. I think it’s because that the colour is relatively dark, so I can actually wear it. ‘Cause let face it: I’m not spending that much time in the sunshine, and I want my nails to look good all the time!

So – I’m really happy to own a bunch of Catherine Arley polishes, and I hope that we’ll have lots of sunshine over the next couple of months!

Have you also been letting your holos hibernate during the winter, or do you use them regardless?

Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Buy again: Yes