MAC ~ Rocky Horror Picture Show

MAC ~ Rocky Horror Picture Show

Bad Fairy and Formidable!

I don’t buy MAC polishes very often. There are two reasons for that: They don’t often make polishes that actually wow me, and I don’t like the price tag. A MAC polish costs 130DKK here, which is US$22 – a bit too much for a non-wowing polish imo.

But! MAC came out with a Rocky Horror Picture Show collection recently, and I love Rocky Horror! It is a little bit annoying that the polishes aren’t new as such, since I already have Formidable in my collection. But never mind – I’m a true collector so I bought both the polishes. And I don’t regret it! :D

Let me show you what the look like. I’ll start out with Bad Fairy, which is a magenta to orange colour shifter packed with shimmer.

The formula is good and easy to work with, and I used two easy coats for my swatches. The drying time is not super fast but not slow either. And wow. Just wow. Here’s what it looks like:

Even though the orange is a bit on the autumny colour side, I really like the colour shift!

I mean, take a look!

I decided to mix is with a Darling Diva: The Grand Rite, which is a burgundy linear holo. I made a stripe and four dots on each nail, and was happy to see that it fits the Bad Fairy perfectly!

Yes, I love that!

The next polish up is Formidable! which is a blue to purple colourshifter, packed with shimmer.

Same good formula, but it did need three coats to look its best. Same average drying time as its sister.

Here’s what it looks like:

The shimmer makes this really special.

It’s the second time I’m wearing this colour (I had a bottle of it already) and I must admit that I like it more this time than I did last. I don’t know what happened, but both bottles stay with me for now!

I made turquoise holographic dotted chevrons on it with Colors by Llarowe’s “Young Turks”. Simple and easy – and I like the look of it.

I think the turquoise fits the Formidable just fine.

All in all this is two great polishes, and I am really happy that I got my grabby hands on them before they sold out. I need to watch Rocky Horror Picture Show again soon!

Are you also a fan of RHPS? :)

MAC ~ Formidable!

MAC ~ Formidable!

Purple/blood red/blue multichromatic shimmer

I haven’t seen many bloggers showing off MAC polishes, and I’ve heard rumours that it’s because the quality can’t justify the relatively high price on the tag. I couldn’t resist this shimmer though, so I bought it and brought it home, and have had it for a couple of months. And today it’s time to try it out.

The formula is pretty good, and the polish dries fast too. I needed three coats before I was satisfied though, and looking at the sunshine pic it could have used a fourth. But the shimmer is beautiful. And what looks like only blue/purple in the bottle, reveals itself as blood red when it hits the sunshine. Let me show you what I’m talking about!

three coats, no topcoat

Blood red with blue shimmer – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a colour combo like this one.

When I take it inside my light box it tells a completely different story though. Now it suddenly only flashes its blues and purples:

It’s a spectacular colour shifter:

I didn’t know what to do with it though :/  So I ended up adding a layer of iridescent glitter from Trend, #39. The glitter also contains silver stars and blue hearts. Not many, so fishing is required.

Here’s the final result:

And a final pic:

I don’t like this as much as I thought I would, to be honest. I mean, I really like the colour shift and stuff, but it’s just not quite right – you know what I mean?

I don’t like that Trend polish at all. It smells horrible and I don’t like fishing that much after the pretty stuff. Just N O, OK?

Opacity: 4/10
Colour, prettiness: 6/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 4/10
Overall: 4.5/10

Buy again? No

H&M ~ Moody Model with dots

H&M ~ Moody Model

Dark, dusty teal crème

I’ve had this H&M polish sitting in my stash, untried, for months now. It’s not because I don’t like the colour as such (although true, it’s not totally my style), but because it’s a crème. I’m just more into shimmers, glitters and other sparkly stuff. But: I was in the mood to play a bit, so I decided to use this dark teal as my base.

The application was a teeny bit on the tricky side because of the relatively thin brush. It would have been nice with a slightly bigger, flatter brush so I didn’t have to dip into the bottle for more polish a couple of times for each and every nail. But - I managed to get my two coats on in the end.

The polish actually covered nice and dried fast, and here’s a pic of how it looks without a top coat:

Nice base for something else, don’t you think?

So. I looked in my stash for something appropriate, and ended up with Nfu Oh’s 61, which is beautiful holographic silver. With a dotting tool I made four dots on each nail, in diminishing sizes from top to bottom. I used the same size dotting tool for all the dots.

Here’s that step:

It still wasn’t enough though – there’s still so much of the crème visible. :D I found my beloved MAC “Unconditionally Fabulous”, which is a multi-coloured iridescent glitter with both circular and hexagonal shapes, floating in a sheer jelly. It’s almost like China Glaze’s “Snow Globe”, just better! It can seriously spice up any manicure you wish to throw it at!

OK. Enough with the talking. Let’s move to how it actually looks:

Isn’t that just unconditionally fabulous? :D

H&M ~ Moody Model

Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 5/10
Durability: 7/10
Value for money: 6/10
Overall: 6.5/10
Buy again: No

Iridescent glitters comparison

It's not a secret that I like shiny things - and shiny nail polish is no exception! That's probably the reason I love iridescent glitters so much. They can spice up any dull mani, IMO! I've got quite a lot of them by now, and I thought it would be fun to compare them. 

Here's first part of the collection:

Mac: Unconditionally Fabulous, China Glaze: Snow Globe, KIKO: 231

and here's the second part of the collection: 

Sally Hansen: Disco Ball, S-He: 110, Jesse's Girl: Opal Glitter,
ELF: Twinkle, Gosh: Magic Star, Max Factor: Extra Glitter

So that's the polishes we're looking at today. Pretty impressive, huh? 

I've heard that MAC and CG's Snow Globe are often compared, so it's not a coincidence that they're next to each other here. Let's have a look at the first three:

MAC, China Glaze, KIKO

There's no way any of these three are dupes. MAC is obviously much more blue in its base, and the glitters are more dense. China Glaze's base is more orange, and comes in second when it comes to density, plus it has large multicoloured hexagons. And KIKO is different than the two others - the base is more green, and the hexagons are more sparse. It's the least dense of the three. 

Next three up:

Sally Hansen, S-he, Jesse's Girl

These three are closer to each other than the first three. All three's most prominent colours are blue, green and orange. Sally Hansen has the smallest glitters, and Jesse's Girl is the least dense of the three. They are not dupes, but they're so close that you can only see the difference when they're seen next to each other, like here. 

Last three up:

ELF, Gosh, Max Factor

When I look at these, the main difference is that ELF looks more blue and orange in it's base, and Gosh and Max Factor are more green and orange. But you really have to look closely to see that. ELF is the one with the least glitter, and Gosh has the most of it.

Here's the whole bunch. As you can see they're all pretty close.

MAC, China Glaze, KIKO, Sally Hansen, S-he, Jesse's Girl, ELF, Gosh, Max Factor

And here's  a more blurry pic to show more of the glitter effect.

MAC, China Glaze, KIKO, Sally Hansen, S-he, Jesse's Girl, ELF, Gosh, Max Factor

My conclusion is that if you want different iridescent polishes, you really only need four of the nine.

I personally recommend that you get the MAC, the China Glaze and the KIKO. And then just one of the other six - I'd probably go for the Gosh myself, because of all the others it's the most glittery.

All swatches are made on a black creme base and with a Rimmel top coat. 

I hope you found this useful. Please feel free to comment below :)

Max Factor ~ Blue Energy + MAC

Max Factor ~ Blue Energy
Dark, shimmery, almost foil-ish blue

and

MAC ~ Unconditionally Fabulous
Clear base packed with holographic glitter


I really like the things that Max Factor does. Make-up and nail polish – it just works for me. And so did this fabulous blue nail polish from the Nailfinity series. The formula was perfect – the polish went on smoothly. It was almost a one coater, but I gave it two, just because I wanted to see the full potential of it.

No streaks, no brush strokes, no bald spots, no problems. Just perfection.
Here it is, two coats, no top coat:

 

I wanted to add a little extra to it though. I chose the glitter "Unconditionally Fabulous" from MAC – a brand that I’m usually too tight fisted to buy myself, but that Alice Snow decided was the perfect gift for me. I’m such a lucky girl! <blows kisses to Alice>.

Here it is, with a layer of Seche Vite top coat.

 

The glitter reflects the polish underneath it so sweetly, it shows up in all shades of blue, from baby blue over turquoise to dark blue.

I love it! That MAC is worth every cent!!

I think it’s gorgeous!


Max Factor ~ Blue Energy
Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
Buy again: Yes


MAC ~ Unconditionally Fabulous
Opacity: -/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
Buy again: Don't think so, even though it's fabulous!