Joe Fresh Twilight

Oh man. I think I had this as a lemming - forever! I originally saw it on Liz's blog and immediately fell in love. Flakies in a black jelly base? Yes please! So, now that I have it, let's have a closer look.
Joe Fresh Twilight has rough, unevenly shaped flakies that shift strongly from green to coppery orange to gold. The base is a pretty opaque black jelly - I thought originally I might layer it over Joe Fresh Moss, but you couldn't even see Moss beneath it so I thought I would show you how it looks on its own - here I've got two layers. The shift is indeed strong but for some reason I've had a time trying to capture it on camera, and I just don't know why. You'll see mostly green in my photos and maybe just a smidge of the coppery orange/gold shift. I've tried to photograph this three times with no luck capturing the shift!
Enough moaning, here's my photos.

I really love the textured look of the uneven flakies in this. I think you can see the color shift in the bottle best, in my photos. So, are you lusting after Twilight now?

Zoya Fleck Effects

In conjunction with the True collection for spring, Zoya released a mini collection of three polish toppers: flakies ahoy! I love flakies. They're probably my favorite finish, after jellies. They can really spice up a creme polish.
With that in mind, I picked out three Zoya cremes that I thought might be good "backdrops" for the Fleck Effect collection.
So first up, we have Chloe, which is a lightly tinted pink jelly base shot through with flakies. The predominant color is the gold to orange flakie, but there are also sparse bits of blue to green flakies - changes it up a bit and makes things interesting! These flakies are not uniform in size and shape at all. One thing I did notice is that these are really well distributed. I only needed one coat for a good amount of flakies. I used Chloe over the top of Zoya Petra, from the fall 2011 collection. I've included a photo of how this looks matte as well, since I love mattified flakies!

I've decided to pair the next two together. Both Maisie and Opal are flakies that shift strongly from green to blue. The difference between the two is the tinted base - Maisie is in a translucent aqua jelly base, and Opal is in a translucent lime green jelly base. I used Maisie over Zoya Cynthia, which is from the fall 2011 collection, and I put Opal over Bevin for a completely different, very soft result. I've included photos of both mattified, as well!

I think with all three of these, you'd have to use a white or very light colored polish to notice the color of the tinting, because they're very translucent. I loved all three pairings that I chose, though - I think these are all really pretty combinations. All of these have quite a strong shift that was easy to capture on camera, as you can see.

Disclaimer: Products in this post provided in return for an honest review.

Happy New Year's Eve!

I hope you have a fantastic (and safe!) holiday. I decided to re-create my glitterbomb manicure for New Year's Eve. I went a little nuts this time - I used a full eleven layers this time around, not including base/top coat or a little bit of brightening.
So. I can't exactly remember what order I went in, but I started with a base of China Glaze Frostbite. I used China Glaze Meteor Shower, Essie As Gold As It Gets, Kiko 261, China Glaze Snow Globe, Confetti Ice Ice Baby, Finger Paints Asylum, and Island Girl Island Volcano. Whew. Then around the bottom, in a kind of U shape, I added an "accent" of BeYu 209. I then topped everything off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.
Although it didn't come out really thick - I did use thin layers - even with a fast dry top coat, it took forever for this baby to dry.
I have pictures in full sun for you to get an idea of the bling, and the last shot is in low light. It's probably nowhere near as awesome as it looks to me, but you'll get an idea of it anyway. I really, really love how this turned out.

Is that crazy nuts or what? Hahaha, I love it. Have a great evening!

Finger Paints Special Effects Collection

Good afternoon everyone! This is a break in my regular posting schedule because today...I HAVE FLAKIES TO SHOW YOU! Also. This is a very, very picture heavy post.
I called up every Sally's Beauty Supply in the area, on the hunt for the Finger Paints Special Effects collection. I'm a bit of a fiend for flakies - they're probably my favorite finish, because they can make every boring creme polish lots of fun. So, I found a manager who didn't mind setting aside two sets of these, since my mom wanted one also! Shout out to Nikki of Sally's Beauty Supply for your help.
There are five flakie polishes in the Special Effects collection - Asylum, Flashy, Flecked, Motley and Twisted. They might all look very similar in the bottle, but they're quite different on.
I decided, rather than to do individual swatches, I'd do flakie skittles.  So from pinkie fingernail to thumbnail I have Asylum, Flashy, Flecked, Motley, and Twisted. I used a base of Savvy (by Femme Couture) Garland, from last year's holiday collection - it's a shimmery deep, dark vampy emerald green.

It looks pretty dark in low lights, but it's nice and glowy in the sunlight. So, I thought this would be a nice, festive base for the flakies.
First off, there's a bottle shot of all five bottles. I've labeled them.

I tried to do bottle shots, but it was impossible to get my four fingers and my thumb with the bottle in the picture, so I have a few varied shots with the bottle. Again, pinkie is Asylum, ring is Flashy, middle is Flecked,  index is Motley, and thumb is Twisted.

I gave up the bottle shots, and have decided the best thing to do with this is the claw.

Hopefully you can see the color changing going on here! What's interesting to me is that Motley is primarily blue, but shifts from aqua to blue to almost a violet. Flecked is mostly an emerald but shifts from aqua to emerald to blue. Flashy is basically a Hidden Treasure/2010 dupe, which goes from orange to yellow to green. The two others, Asylum and Twisted, are multicolored flakies that are NOT identical, but have a really good amount of color shifting!
Just a quick word, if you're unfamiliar with flakies. These are best layered, I guess you could wear them alone but I don't think you'd ever see the effects, and they'd be pretty sheer! The magic comes out over darker colors. You can also use a matte top coat for a really neat effect. The more you shift your hand, the more you'll see the color shift.
So, I hope you enjoyed this post - are you on the hunt for these? Don't forget to click to enlarge any of the photos!

Layering: China Glaze Velvet Bow and Barielle Elle's Spell

I really picked up quite a lot of polishes from this year's China Glaze holiday collection, so I'm working my way through them. I actually almost skipped Velvet Bow, thinking I really didn't need another red - but I kept looking at swatches of it and ended up going back for it! I love it, I think it's perfectly named as it's the very picture of a velvet red, nice and deep and rich. This is what I'd call a jelly creme - it's glossy and a bit squishy like a jelly, but has the opacity of a creme, so I only needed two coats.
I have yet to layer Barielle Elle's Spell over a purple, which looks fantastic, but I thought I'd try it over the vampy Velvet Bow and this is definitely a winning combination. I actually quite like Elle's Spell on its own - this actually came out in last year's holiday collection, and it's a sheer jelly red packed with flakies. I think I wore it with three coats on its own, but it's so pretty layered. I used one coat here.

Velvet Bow is pretty on its own, but it really makes a perfect layering polish, no? It would look really festive with a gold gradient, also.

Revlon Mistletoe

Happy December, everyone! Let the obnoxious blingy festive manicures begin. *rubs hands* I spied this out a while ago but I hadn't even thought about posting any holiday polishes yet, I thought I would wait until December before I really started bombarding you guys with this stuff.
So, I'm becoming addicted to Revlon polishes - most especially the Top Speed line, which is what Mistletoe is. This is in their holiday display, but this was the only one I felt like I had to have.
Mistletoe is a grungy pine green with various sized flakes. That's right, this is actually a flakie polish! However, Mistletoe is not a jelly, so they don't look suspended. These flakies show up surprisingly well in a creme base, though. And what's funny is that this is a combination of silvery and gold flakies! Pretty cool looking in the macro.
This had great coverage at two coats and I think it is so aptly named.

Look at how jam packed that color is with flakies! Love.

Duri Cosmetics Dragontini, Fallen Angel

Tonight I have the other two polishes I was sent from Duri Cosmetics' The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo collection, Dragontini and Fallen Angel. Apparently there were two more polishes from this collection, Icicle and Frozen Fire, that are good layering polishes, but since I don't have those, I decided to use a couple more polishes I picked up recently to layer with these.
Dragontini is a very red purple creme, and as with the other polishes in this collection, had great opacity and needed only two coats. I love reddish purples so this one is a win for me - I don't have one quite this shade in my collection, so I'm glad to have this as an addition. Just a bonus that the opacity is perfect, too.
I layered one of the new Sally Hansen Diamond Strength polishes over this, Diamonds. This is so, so pretty! In the bottle it looks silvery white and ethereal. Layered over Dragontini, it glows a blue-silver in most light, but I see sparks of other colors as well that I just didn't capture on camera. There are larger specks of shimmer in this that resemble glass fleck.

So, Diamonds is such a pretty layering polish! I really like the multi-sized shimmer/flecks.
The second polish I have to show you tonight is Fallen Angel. This is a vampy wine purple with a hidden shimmer. It looks pretty dark in lower lights, but you can really see the base wine in the sun. Again, two coats. The shimmer in this really sparks up in the sunlight, you catch bits of it in lower light. I have photos of both and the macro is in lower light.
I picked up a second Sally Hansen Diamond Strength called Glass Slipper, and I simply adore this one - again, white and ethereal in the bottle but these are larger, silvery flakies on the nail. This is SO freaking cool!

I would especially encourage you to click to enlarge the Fallen Angel photos, particularly the sun one where you can see the shimmer really spark in the larger images.
So, I'm really impressed with these! I like all four polishes I received for review. What did you guys think??

Disclaimer: Product(s) featured in this post were sent to me in return for an honest review.

Duri Cosmetics Black Diamond, Angels And Demons

Hello, everyone! I know I'm behind on replying to comments, hopefully will get caught up with that tomorrow.
Tonight I have a review of two of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo nail polishes from Duri Cosmetics.
Black Diamond is described as a black with shimmer. The shimmer is so fine, it's absolutely not noticeable on the nail unless you're in bright sunlight, but it adds a beautiful depth to the polish. This is one of the smoothest applying blacks I've dealt with - maybe because of the subtle shimmer? I'm not sure, but some black polishes that are straight cremes can be difficult and gloopy. This was easy to control. I really like the Duri bottle shape as well - it's neat that the brand name is engraved right into the glass bottles, and I've always like square bottles. The brushes, if you've never used one of these, remind me of an Essie brush, only the handle is longer - bonus! I actually tried out all four polishes from this collection and I noticed that the formula is nice across the board - all of these were two coat nail polishes.
So I do have a picture out in the sunlight of Black Diamond, and shade pictures so that you can hopefully see the pretty depth this has in low lights. I recently picked up some layering polishes, so I tried out Essie's As Gold As It Gets over Black Diamond - perfection! This is a gorgeous gold flakie, perfect for the holidays. I've been wanting a nice gold flakie, too. The flakies are smaller than say, Hidden Treasure, but you get great distribution with one coat.

So, the second polish I have to show you tonight from this collection is Angels and Demons. This is described as a dark grey with silver glitter. I adore this shade, but go figure - I always like these. This applied exceptionally well! It even settled on its own when I thought I would have strokes, because of a sloppy application. Again, two coats.

This is just gorgeous. I really liked both of these! I have two more to show you tomorrow night, and I did some more layering with those as well.

Disclaimer: Product(s) featured in this post were sent to me in return for an honest review.

Cult Nails Unicorn Puke

This is my very first Cult Nails polish, ever, and it's doubly special to me because it was a gift from another blogger, Halifax of Sparkled Beauty! I'm so excited, I don't think there could be a more perfect choice for my first Cult Nails polish. I'm sure you all have seen many, many swatches of this already, but I'm going to show off my bottle as well. If you hadn't heard, Unicorn Puke was sold as a limited edition, Maria set out 200 bottles with gold lettering on the bottle, and each bottle was numbered. I got number 144! It will be sold as part of her winter collection under the name of Clairvoyant, so if you didn't get the L/E version, you can nab it as Clairvoyant when the winter collection releases. It's the same exact polish.
So, Unicorn Puke is a mass of flakies with a purple jelly base. You could wear it on its own, but it's so much fun to layer a flakie polish over another polish and see the results. I have seen it done over purple and black, but I was curious how it would look over a blue, so I used Revlon Royal, my favorite bright blue jelly. I love the results! This is just one coat over Revlon Royal. It's a rainbow of flakies!
I have taken a massive amount of photos of this, to hopefully show it off from every angle. I even got a decent macro. I decided to apply it to my thumb over Milani Rad Purple, just to see it over a jelly purple, so I have a photo of that as well. I actually think I like it better over blue!

Wow. Look at all of those awesome flakies! Now, here's the shot of my thumb with Rad Purple as a base:

Yum. Maria, this is the most amazing flakie I've ever seen, and I'm a flakie fanatic! So completely gorgeous. With the bottle shot, bear in mind that no matter how many photos I took, the base keeps looking blue - it IS a purple jelly base.