Glam Polish ~ SMASH!

Glam Polish ~ SMASH!

Pinkish red linear holo

SMASH! is from Glam Polish’s summer collection “The Knockout Collection part 2”. I did consider to buy POP! as well, because it looks lovely on the pictures I have seen. It’s orange though, and I don’t know if I’m going to like it in real life, so for I’m giving it a miss.

The formula of SMASH! is good. I used two easy coats for my mani and the drying time between the coats is good.

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

The polish is described as deep red, but it doesn’t really look deep red to me. I think it’s the amount of lovely holo pigment that makes the polish more of a pinkish red in my eyes.

Here is a low light picture. It’s still a lovely colour, but can you see why I insist on the pink part!? :D

I did not want to cover up the holo flame, so here is what I did with it.

The neon orange is 143-neon and the white is m&s-172, both from El Corazón. 

Here are the three polishes: 

I like SMASH!, that’s pretty much what there is to it. How about you?

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Linear holo

Overall impression: I like it a lot

Buy again: Yes

Colors by Llarowe ~ It’s Still Tacky

Colors by Llarowe ~ It’s Still Tacky

Deep red scattered holo

I’m a sucker for a good red, and if there’s holo involved I’m sure to check it out. It’s still Tacky is deep red and beautiful.

It’s a one coater too! I applied two coats out of habit and to see if the second coat made a difference, but it didn’t. Drying time is really good. However. my bottle has got little lumps of undissolved pigments and that is really irritating. I wrote to Llarowe and asked for some kind of solution. She ended up sending me a fresh lump-free bottle - thanks for good customer service! ♥

I applied a layer of topcoat and that made a huge difference to the colour. It became way deeper and more intense after the topcoat so I definitely recommend that you wear this beauty with topcoat.

Here it is in the sun. Two coats and a layer of topcoat.

Wow, I’m thrilled!! This is so me!

It’s also beautiful in the shade. If you take a closer look at this picture, you can see two of the “lumps” I mentioned: On one the edge of my ring finger and one in the middle of the middle finger.

I stamped on it. I found a floral-y swirly motif on Moyou London’s stamping plate Fashionista Collection-13 and I stamped with Yellow Neon and Orange Neon from El Corazón. Look how cool it ended up looking:

It somehow reminds me of wallpaper! :D Not that I have wallpaper that looks anything like this, but… hmmm…!

I love it, no less!

Number of coats: 2 (but 1 is enough)
Drying time: Really good

Finish: Scattered holo
Overall impression: Lovely red, nice scattered holo effect.

Buy again: Yes

Colors by Llarowe ~ Believe in Miracles

Colors by Llarowe ~ Believe in Miracles

Teal scattered holo

Believe in Miracles was the polish of the month in August at Llarowe’s. It’s a new concept where she makes a polish and puts it up for pre-sale for eight hours. I had seen the previews of this polish, so I was ready to order it!

The formula is great, no worries at all. I used two coats for my mani and the drying time was really good.

Here’s what Believe in Miracles looks like in the sun:

Is that my kind of polish or what? I think it’s absolutely beautiful and I’m so glad I snatched it while I could!

The colour is also really pretty in lower lights.

I just bought some new round “studs” that I really wanted to try. So I added a layer of slow drying topcoat on each nail and placed a black and a silver ring on each nail. Then I topcoated it with a fast drying topcoat. Here’s the final result:

I think that made a really interesting mani.

I really like trying out new things and to look for things that I haven’t tried before.

Believe in Miracles was limited edition and is now discontinued.

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Really good

Finish: Scattered holo
Overall impression: This is such a me-polish!

Buy again: Yes

Colors by Llarowe ~ Hillbilly Harlot pt. 2

Colors by Llarowe ~ Hillbilly Harlot

Neon pinky coral with pink shimmer

I have already showed you Hillbilly Harlot in a water marble mani yesterday. If you missed the post, click here to see it. 

I knew I wanted to use this beauty for an all nail mani so the polish can really shine. It’s such a beautiful colour.

The formula is good. I thought I could get away with two coats but I couldn’t. I had to add a third coat to get rid of visible nail line. And I didn’t use thin coats. The drying time is pretty good.

Here’s three coats and a layer of topcoat in the sun:

Look at that shimmer, isn’t it just amazing?!

I did a water spotted mani today. I found a cool blue from Kiko, #464 from the Denim collection. I dripped three drops of polish into a cup of water, sprayed hand sanitizer on it and dipped two nails at a time.

Here’s the final result:

You never know what patterns show up in the water when you spray onto the polish. It’s just spray and dip when you see a pattern you like :D

Isn’t Hillbilly Harlot just beautiful?

Number of coats: 3
Drying time: Pretty good

Finish: Shimmer
Overall impression: Great neon colour, nice shimmer

Buy again: Yes

Colors by Llarowe ~ Hillbilly Harlot pt. 1

Colors by Llarowe ~ Hillbilly Harlot

Neon pinky coral with pink shimmer

This beauty just arrived and I knew I had to try something special and unique with it. It appears that my negativity against corals decrease if neon is added to the mix. When I saw Hillbilly Harlot I fell in love with it instantly!

Special and unique; how about another watermarble:

I used Silver Holo from Urban Outfitters as underwear.

The blue is from Dance Legend’s Fresh collection, # 78.

The white is Savina’s Fantasy Files. I really need to stop trying the water marbling with that, it’s not very good at doing it.

The pink is obviously Hillbilly Harlot.

I love this pattern and what I love the most is that I marbled my pointer and my ring finger twice. It’s most obvious on my ring finger, where you can see the blue overlap.

Here are the polishes I used:

Silver Holo, Hillbilly Harlot, Fresh #78, Fantasy Files

I’m definitely also going to wear this beauty on its own! ♥  

Ludurana Aurora Bureal ~ Supremo

Ludurana Aurora Bureal ~ Supremo

Lavender ultrastrong linear holo

There was a time, not so long ago, where every other nail polish wasn’t holographic. It was a happy time, there was still glitter and shimmer, and most of us didn’t really know that we were missing something.

At some point Brazil stepped up and started producing the most beautiful holographic polishes. Unfortunately they weren’t that easy to get your hands on. Shipping from Brazil is ridiculously expensive. I was determined that some of the beauties belonged in my stash, and at some point I swapped with two Brazilian girls. I swapped once with one of them, and several times with the other, and beauty after beauty entered my world. I eventually lost contact with both girls, but here’s a happy thought to them both. Love you girls! ♥

I’ll still say that the Brazilian companies did something that not many companies did or do. Their holos are still outstanding!

Let me show you an example. Supremo is lavender and it looks really sheer, which is a shame because the bottle only contains 8ml. But it’s not sheer on the nails, yay! I used two easy coats for desired opacity. The drying time is average.

Put on your sunglasses; here’s two coats and no topcoat in flashlight:

Wow, right?

This is what it looks like in low light.

I stamped on it. I used my favourite motif from Moyou London’s plate Illusion Collection-02, and I stamped with a no name polish called “Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees”. It’s a Chinese copy of OPI’s polish with the same name, but apparently they didn’t know which bottle is OPI and which is Nicole by OPI, so they poured the polish into a NOPI bottle, haha. It’s my favourite purple polish for stamping; I have used up half the bottle by now, and I shall be SO sad when it’s all gone.

Here’s a photo I haven’t cropped as much as usual, so you can see my fake OPI :D

I love this, no less.

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Average

Finish: Strong linear holo
Overall impression: I love it! ♥

Buy again: I definitely would!

Ooh La Lacquer ~ Mystery Polish, pt. 2

Ooh La Lacquer ~ Mystery Polish, pt. 2

Deep pink linear holo

Here’s the second mystery polish I bought from Ooh La Lacquer. Like I said: I really like mystery polishes, and this one was also a really pleasant surprise. I love colours like this!

The polish looked really sheer when I pulled the brush up to inspect it, but I still only used two coats for full opacity. The drying time is good, no issues to report.

Look at how pretty it is; two coats and no topcoat:

This is definitely a me-colour!

It also looks good in lower lights. That’s a winner for me.

I made random stripes on it with two other Ooh La Lacquers: Euphoria, which is sky blue and Blu Radly, which is purple. The purple is a jelly, damn that I didn’t remember that. That means that it’s not really visible on my nails, even though I did go over the purple lines a couple of times with the striper. Oh well. You know what? I still love the final result:

Like I said, the stripes are totally random, I really like that.

Here are the polishes lined up:

Mystery Polish, Blu Radley, Euphoria, and Savina’s Fantasy Files.

I wonder if you also like mystery polishes, or if you prefer to know exactly what you get. Please tell me in the comments below! ♥

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Linear holo
Overall impression: Great polish, I love the colour and the rainbows

Buy again: Yes

Ooh La Lacquer ~ Mystery Polish, pt. 1

Ooh La Lacquer ~ Mystery Polish, pt. 1

Deep purple/grey with holo and golden shimmer

I’m a sucker for mystery polishes, that’s a fact. If I shop and the show owner has been so smart to list some of her prototypes as mystery polishes, then I am most likely to buy one of them. Ooh La Lacquer did that. I took the bait! :D

This first mystery polish is really hard to describe. It’s definitely purple, but it’s also grey. The holo effect isn’t in your face, but it’s there when the sun shines. The formula is good, I used two coats for full opacity, and the drying time is good too.

Here’s what two coats and no topcoat looks like. The photo is taken with flash, it’s raining here, boo!

It’s purple for sure, and it never looked black on me like some really deep purples do.

This is a low light photo. There you see the grey I’m talking about. When I look at the photo I don’t like it very much, but I have to say that it looked really elegant on my nails in real life. Yes, I like it.

I paired it with my new Urban Outfitter I showed you recently, namely Copper. I didn’t use any tape for this, it’s all freehanded and therefore not 100% perfect. But you know what? I’m satisfied and that’s what count!

Here’s the low light photo. I think it looks quite interesting with these two colours together.

That was my first mystery polish from Ooh La Lacquer for you. I’ve got at least one more coming up!

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Shimmer and holo microglitter
Overall impression: Elegant, that’s the best way I can describe it

Buy again: Yes

Ooh La Lacquer ~ Heat Wave

Ooh La Lacquer ~ Heat Wave

Neon orange with subtle linear holo

It’s quite hard to find good orange polishes that I like. What often happens is that the polishes look great on photos, both in the shop and the swatches I google. And when I receive the polish it looks completely different and has quite often that touch of Autumn that doesn’t look good on me.

Heat Wave had exactly the colour I expected. Neon coral orange with added holo. No cheating or changing the photos, this just looks like advertised. Thank you!

The formula is good and it took two coats to achieve full opacity. The drying time is good.

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

Here is a shade picture. It isn’t 100% colour accurate; I couldn’t catch the coral tone it’s got. Boo for me.

A girl can never have too much holo, so I added holo! One coat of Liquid Sky Lacquer’s holo top coat did the trick for me. It greys the base colour some, but it adds amazing rainbows, take a look:

This picture is taken in the shadow. You can see that the orange is no longer neon now, but the rainbows are there, even in the shadows.

I decided to stamp on it. I found my motif on BP-L 005 and I stamped with my faithful Black from NailNation 3000.

Here it is in the sun:

Here’s the shade picture. If you look at the bottle versus my nails, you can see how much the holo topcoat changed the colour.

This isn’t ideal for my skin tone, but I love it nonetheless. It would be perfect for someone with a tan. I don’t get that unfortunately, but I don’t really mind.

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Pretty good

Finish: Subtle linear holo
Overall impression: Cool colour, weak holo effect  

Buy again: I would

Serum No. 5 ~ Acai of Relief

Serum No. 5 ~ Acai of Relief

Blue to purple duochrome with shimmer

I like polishes that actually do something. It doesn’t have to be much, just a bit of shimmer, holo, glitter or maybe even colour changing effect. I find crèmes pretty boring on me, and I honest don’t own many of them.

Acai of Relief is a shimmery colour shifter. The formula is okay, the polish goes on a bit sheer on the first coat, but the second coat builds up to full opacity. If you’ve got longer and bigger nails than me, you might need three coats of it. The drying time is average.

Here’s two coats and no topcoat in the sun:

This photo is from the lightbox. The colour shift isn’t prominent but it’s there.

I added flakies. One coat of LynBDesigns’ Feeling Very Small and Insecure did the trick, and here’s that step:

Then I added a sticker to each nail, and finished the whole thing with a layer of topcoat. Here’s my final mani:

I quite like this.

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Average

Finish: shimmer with subtle colour shift
Overall impression: Pretty colour and shimmer, I’m not impressed by the colour shift

Buy again: Not sure, probably not