White and Blue Line Art Nail Stamping Mani

Here's another unposted manicure from my archives. This manicure was from February 2017. I no longer remember the polishes or stamping plates used, as unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the materials. It looks like I was going for a blue and white porcelain look, similar to one that I did over here.

Swatch: Revlon 'Facets of Fuchsia'

Another day, and another post from the archives! This one also fit into the 'Revlon Swatch Series' on-going project that I am working on. This polish is Revlon 'Facets of Fuchsia' (However, I think that at some point over the years the name was changed to 'Scandalous'). It is a black crelly polish with purple suspended glitters, and is said to be a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's 'Bad Romance' - a Lady Gaga inspired nail polish. 

These archived photos are from October 2011! This polish really brings back a lot of fond memories, as this was when I was just starting to rediscover my enthusiasm for nail polish and nail art!

Zebra Print Nail Stamping Manicure

Today I have a nail stamping manicure to share from the archives I mentioned in an earlier post. This is a zebra-print nail, with a black ring finger accent nail topped in silver glitter. Again, I have no idea which polishes and plates were used, but I really like the way it turned out, so I figure that it was worth sharing!

Simple Stamping Accent Mani featuring KB Shimmer 'Funky Cold Patina'

Today I have another throwback post from the archives I mentioned in my last post. This is a simple nail stamping manicure with a gold design stamped on my ring finger as an accent, over KB shimmer's 'Funky Cold Patina'. Unfortunately, since the photo is from so long ago, I no longer remember which stamping plate, or which gold nail polish I used. The stamping image looks like it could possibly have been from a Moyou London Optical Illusion collection plate, however I can't say for sure.

Swatch: KB Shimmer 'Take the Punny and Run'

I was going over some old photos in my archives, and I found a few usable shots that I had not yet posted on the blog. This swatch was one of them from way back in November 2015! This polish is called KB Shimmer 'Take the Punny and Run'. It is a pink to green duochrome flakie polish with a really pronounced shift.  The polish is absolutely gorgeous, and reminds me of springtime! 

In the bottle shot below, you can also see a bit of blue in the flakie reflection, but that doesn't really seem to translate to the nail. You can see the orange, yellow and green reflections quite clearly however... I guess that technically makes it a multichrome polish, then! Anyways, whatever it is called - it is simply stunning!

Essie 'Bordeaux'

Today's manicure is a classic polish - Essie's 'Bordeaux'.  Fun fact: this polish was part of the original release of 12 polishes when the Essie brand was launched in 1981! It is a deep red wine jelly polish, that gives a vampy, sophisticated look on the nails. I think this polish is absolutely gorgeous. Next to metallic reds, I would say that jelly reds are probably my next favourite way to wear red nails. 

I really like my deep reds to read as red, as opposed to brown, so I like using as few coats as possible to keep the polish as light as possible. On the swatch above, I used only one coat of bordeaux, and one coat of glossy top coat to amplify the shine. However, the nails appear somewhat lighter in the photo than they do in real life, due to the strong lights I use for my pictures. 

Swatch: Revlon 'Blue Lagoon'

In my last post on Revlon's 'Tangerine', I mentioned some other polishes that were released in the same Summer 2011 'Summer Romantics' collection. 'Blue Lagoon', the subject of today's post, was one of those polishes. 

Blue Lagoon is as soft powder blue creme polish with a silver shimmer. It is quite beautiful, however, I was a little disappointed with the performance. Now of course, this is a 9 year old bottle of polish, so the problems may be due to age - but it is also a pastel, which is also another notoriously difficult formula work with. 

I found the polish to be a little patchy on application, which required more coats to get even coverage. However with more coats, dry-time increases, and consequently, the likelihood of dents and smudging also increases. I encountered all of the above! The swatch in the photo above is 4 coats, and the last was applied just before taking the picture, in order to smooth out the surface of the lacklustre manicure I was working with after 24 hours of dry/smudge time!

It looks pretty decent in the swatch photo (minus the cuticle overflow that I didn't want to risk ruining my still wet manicure to remove!), however within hours after that the manicure was smudged again, as the polish was still soft.

In summary: Older polishes can sometimes take longer to dry, but you can usually combat that by doing fewer coats. The problem here is that this pastel polish needed three or more (normally applied) coats to look good.  I suppose I could try again to see if I can get the polish to look good with one or two carefully applied coats, and then top coat to protect... I just don't know if I'm willing to try again right now after all of the frustration I had with this manicure!

Revlon 'Tangerine'

Today I have another Revlon swatch to share. I had actually resigned myself to move on from the Revlon swatch series that I had been doing for the last month or so. Even though I would love to continue with it until I've swatched all of my Revlon polishes, as someone who typically runs off of inspiration, I prefer being able to freely choose polishes to wear on a whim... This is also why my 'Project Polish' has somewhat stalled! I'm realizing that for longer projects, it would probably be better for me to have one or more of them on-going that I pop back into from time to time, as opposed to working continuously on them until they are done. Polish is supposed to be fun! I don't like feeling like I have to wear a particular polish if there's another one I'm feeling more at the moment! With this in mind I'll create a new label for the Revlon Swatch Series, so over time the collection of posts will get more and more complete.

So back to the task at hand - my swatch and review of Revlon's 'Tangerine'!  'Tangerine' is a gorgeous yellow-orange creme polish with a subtle golden shimmer. It's slightly on the sheer side, but not quite in crelly territory. It can be built up to full opacity in 3 coats, as I have done in most of the swatch pictures (I left my thumb at two coats, which can be seen in the label shot in the collage below). I'm also wearing a glossy top-coat in the main swatch pictures (no top coat on my thumb).

This polish is so fun, and summery. Even though it is a rather bright shade, it works so well with my skin tone that it feels more subdued, and almost neutral on me! It still pops, but in a really harmonious way...

The polish was released as part of Revlon's Summer 2011 'Summer Romantics' collection, along with a light blue polish 'Blue Lagoon', and a light yellow called 'Sunshine Sparkle'. I also have 'Blue Lagoon', but I don't want to put any more pictures in this post, so perhaps I'll do a swatch and review on that polish in the near future!

Deep Emerald Green Glitter Mani

Today's manicure is a blinged-up version of yesterday's swatch of Nubar's 'Greener'. This look is truly serving up all kinds of pre-St Patrick's Day sparkly green greatness! 😉

This has been such a fun manicure to wear! There's just something about an in-your-face glitter mani that just instantly puts me in a great mood! And then combined with all of this gorgeous greenness... It's almost too much to handle! 

Above, is a shot of the polishes that I used to create this look. The base polish is Nubar 'Greener', and the glitter is L.A. Girl Glitter Addict 'Purge'. The L.A. Girl polish was from a glitter collection they released with about 14 different shades of metallic glitter polishes. I managed to get all but one or two shades from the glitter collection several years ago, and they are still going strong!  These are actually the only polishes that I own from this brand.

Below, I've included a few additional shots of the manicure.  Enjoy!

Swatch: Nubar 'Greener'

Nubar Greener

Today I have a swatch of Nubar's 'Greener' to share. It's a deep emerald shimmer polish, which is almost too gorgeous for words to accurately describe! This polish was originally introduced as part of a 6 pc collection of green nailpolishes that Nubar debuted in 2009. The polishes had eco-themed names like 'Forest', and 'Conserve', and from what I can find on google, it may have been named the 'Going Greener' collection. I think it must have become part of their permanent collection, as I'm pretty sure that I purchased the polish several years after 2009. 

I don't know if this company is still active, so I won't bother with a full review of the polish. However I will say that this colour is quite stunning. These rich, shimmering, emerald tones are my favourite way to wear green on my nails.

Mani Refresh: Holo-Glitter Topped Pink Shimmer Nails

I wanted to refresh my mani from the last post, so I decided to top them with a holographic bar glitter polish, to give a bit of a princessy-vibed mani!  The polishes I used were Nicole by OPI's 'You're an Angel', and Kleancolor's 'Starry Night'. For bottle shots, you can see 'You're an angel' here, and 'Starry Night' here.

This combination was certainly fun to wear and look at - even for such a simple manicure! Plus, it was a really great way to refresh a manicure that I had reached the point of boredom with. The pink polish that serves at the base polish in this manicure, had been my previous manicure. I wanted a bit of a change, but I wasn't keen on completely removing my nailpolish and starting over, either. I decided to just add a coat of the glitter to revitalize the mani without doing a lot of work!

Swatch: Nicole by OPI 'You're an Angel'

Today I have an 'Oldie but Goodie' nail polish swatch to share. This manicure features Nicole by OPI's 'You're an Angel'. 'You're an Angel' is a medium-toned, golden-pink shimmer polish which is so unbelievably beautiful both in the bottle and on the nail, that it took quite a few tries to get a semi-accurate photo - and even so, the pictures in this post aren't really doing the polish complete justice. The polish appears much warmer, and reflects a bit more golden-pink in person. I think a lot of the difference comes down to my ambient lighting being warmer than the lighting I use for my pictures.

I really used to love the Nicole by OPI brand. They carried a lot of fun, youthful, and trendy polishes that were great quality, and readily available at pretty much any drugstore. You could really count on NOPI to find something somewhat unique, innovative, and original, or just plain gorgeous! And they did so many fun collabs: Modern Family, Gossip Girl, The Kardashians, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Carrie Underwood, etc... They were so culturally relevant! I really miss that line! 

If they ever decide to bring back the NOPI line, the only thing I think I would appreciate them changing is the awkward bottle shape! It is super cute to look at, but it's just a bit of a pain to store!