Flash Nails Princess

Flash Nails Princess with OPI & Apple Pie

Today I have another polish from UK Indie Flash Nails to show off. This one is Princess - it's a lovely mixture of matte pink hexes and shards (some of the shards are big and stunning), purple rhombuses (more correctly rhombi - if you're not a mathematician you can call them diamonds, lol) and a nice take on balck and white - black dots and white rectangles. Oh, and some shiny gunmetal hexes too. Super mix, in my opinion.

I've paired this with a classic OPI that most people either love or hate - OPI & Apple Pie. I love it of course, but I would since I love all the poopy colours.

Flash Nails Princess with OPI & Apple Pie

Flash Nails Princess is easy to apply, a bit of fishing required for the purple and black glitters but nothing to cause much concern. This is just one coat of Princess; I like how this looked without packing my nails too full of glitter. The base of Flash Nails polishes is quite heavy and thick, which I appreciate as it reduces the amount of topcoat needed to make the mani nice and smooth. I just used one thick coat of Seche Vite to finish this off. When glitters are rough and lumpy I use Gelous as a smoother, but there is something in the formula of Gelous that doesn't play quite nicely with my nails... somehow it makes them contract a bit and the corners curl under, which I hate. I only notice this when my nails are square of course, but it's still nice to have a glitter that doesn't need Gelous!

Flash Nails Princess with OPI & Apple Pie

I bought Flash Nails Princess from Flash Nails Etsy Shop. OPI & Apple Pie is an old favourite from my collection, long discontinued I'm afraid.

I'm planning to add some Hipster-themed stamping to this mani with my new MoYou Hipster plates, so watch this space for how it turns out :)

Christmas Nails - OPI Glow Up Already

OPI Glow Up Already

I chose an old favourite bling polish to wear over Christmas! This is OPI Glow Up Already, one of the Burlesque collection of glitters, which if I remember correctly were released for Christmas 2010.

OPI Glow Up Already

Glow Up Already is a mix of tiny glitters in light green, gold, orange, purple and blue. It sparkles like crazy under the lights and it's really beautiful - so festive. This is three coats with Seche Vite quick dry topcoat; no undies, and in real life it's pretty dense coverage. I've really enjoyed having this twinkling away on my nails the last couple of days :)

OPI Glow Up Already

Untried Polish Challenge Day 13 *Prettiest* - Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

After the horror of my last untried challenge post, I've got something nice to share! Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal is such a pretty colour. It's somewhere between pink and lavender, and has a subtle linear holo effect.

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

In less direct light, the colour is a bit brighter and pinker, and the holo a bit less visible:

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal

I used two coats of I'm Kind of a Big Deal with a layer of Seche Vite quick drying top coat to finish off with. Application is great, the formula is rich and smooth and very easy to apply, even on long nails.

After a day I added some dots with OPI My Vampire is Buff. I've been meaning to do dots for ages, and I loved the way this turned out!

Enchanted Polish I'm Kind of a Big Deal with OPI MY Vampire Is Buff dots

The only problem with Enchanted polishes is getting a chance to buy them - they sell out so quickly! I purchased I'm Kind of a Big Deal direct from Chelsea at her Enchanted Polish website;  Chelsea posts updates about restocks on her facebook page. Another good way to keep updated on restocks is to sign up for the newsletter. Llarowe also carries Enchanted Polish, but again most colours sell out pretty quickly. Both Enchanted Polish and Llarowe ship internationally.

Other bloggers taking part in this untried challenge are:

Jonochi at Just Add Polish
Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side
Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art
Lizajane at Organic Neglect
Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish 

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish 

Untried Polish Challenge Day 5 *Neutral* - OPI You Don't Know Jacques Suede

OPI You Don't Know Jacques Suede

For the *neutral* day of this untried challenge I pulled out OPI You Don't Know Jacques Suede. I love the OPI Suede colours; I have all of them except for the grey one which I think is too similar to Manglaze Fuggen Ugly to bother with! This was the final one I added to my collection, I got it in a swap last year and some how it got overlooked - maybe it was the time of year or too many other new polishes to wear or something - you know how it goes!

It's metallic-ish matt dark taupe - it was released almost four years ago (Fall 2009) so it's not new or novel in any way. But I like it a lot! Pic below is in bright sun:

And since there are a million blog posts already on this polish, I'll finish with a couple of non-standard angle shots!

OPI You Don't Know Jacques Suede

I got this polish in a swap, it's long since discontinued but might be available on e-bay or on the back shelf at a salon somewhere if you're lucky!

Other bloggers taking part in this untried challenge are:

Jonochi at Just Add Polish
Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side
Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art
Lizajane at Organic Neglect
Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish 

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish 

Untried Polish Challenge Day 4 *Three Colours* - OPI Sparkle-icious

OPI Sparkle-icious

Three colours of tiny glitter in one polish! This has pink, blue and a sort of *gold* glitter in a clear base. So I've pulled it out of my untried box for my 'three colours' choice....

I think it's the gold that's the reason this bottle has been sitting in my untried box for a while. There are only a couple of polish colours I'm not happy wearing, and gold is on of them. It makes my skin look a completely weird colour.

But putting these three glitter colours together gives a very attractive bronzy looking shade from a distance, and I love it! I was completely wrong to put off wearing this for so long!

OPI Sparkle-icious

Here are a few macros in dlifferent angles and with different levels of sun. You can see how the colours kind of 'mesh' together to form an overall bronzy colour in lower light. In the first macro, in very bright, direct sunlight, you can see that close up, the glitters don't really cover the whole nail at all.

OPI Sparkle-icious

I used three coats of OPI Sparkle-icious for this mani. No undies, as I wanted to see how the polish worked on its own, but I'm sure it would layer really well - maybe over a hot pink like OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries or a bright teal like Butter London Slapper. I might even try a hot pink to teal gradient sometime and put a layer of Sparkle-icious on top! Sparkle-icious is rather gritty, I used Sinful Colors Gel Tech top coat to smooth it out before adding a coat of Seche Vite quick drying top coat.

OPI Sparkle-icious was from their Burlesque collection released in Autumn 2010 and sadly is now discontinued. I got this bottle in a swap over a year ago!

OPI Sparkle-icious

Other bloggers taking part in this untried challenge are:

Jonochi at Just Add Polish
Masha at Lost In Lacquer
Raine at Lacquer Lily
Amy at Fancy Side
Amanda at Designer Nail Accents
Sam at Polished Art
Lizajane at Organic Neglect
Blueberry Pie at Blueberry Nails
Kristina at Lacquer Fetish 

Missy at Gnarly Gnails
Uni at Acetone FIles
Erica at Coat of Mani Colors
Isabel at Little Fairy

Raux at Raux Polish 

China Glaze Hologlam Strap On Your Moonboots - swatch and review

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots

This is such a wonderful colour! As I'm sitting here, typing in a darkish room with an overhead light, the colours are quite mesmerising as my fingers are moving around.

I used two coats of China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots over Nfu.oh Aquabase. No top coat. If you've not used an aquabase before, it's a basecoat which dries to a super-shiny finish and is a recommended base for more difficult holo polishes. When I swatched When Stars Collide and Infra Red I just applied the polishes to my bare nails and I was perfectly happy with the results, but a reader asked me if I thought they needed an aquabase so I'm using it this time round. It makes application really smooth and if you have an aquabase to hand (and time for it to dry - aquabase takes about 20 minutes to dry properly) I'd say go ahead and use it. But if you don't have one, you can certainly use these polishes without.

These first pictures are taken near a window, with an overhead light in the background. We don't have anything like full sun here today, but I guess this is the sort of effect you'd get in full sun. I'm really looking forward to wearing this polish in the summer!

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots 

The base colour is a dark, slightly teal-leaning blue, but the holographic flare seems to range from greenish to a very dark purple.  Here are some pictures in indirect light, just showing the base colour. This is how the polish would look on an overcast day; the I like the base colour a lot and it is something I'd choose to wear in it's own right, quite apart from the holo awesomeness! There is no streakiness at all in this, the finish looks soft and velvety.

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots - Low light

Finally, just because I could, I took a few pictures in direct light, to show how striking the colour shifts in this holo can be! Obviously, don't expect the polish to look like this all the time. But when you catch the light like this, it's amazing!

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots - Direct Light

I guess the question in everybody's mind when there is a new dark blue holo is 'but how does it compare to OPI DS Glamour?'  Well, the two polishes are a different style of holo; Strap On Your Moonboots is a very fine linear holo, while DS Glamour is a scattered holo, with much bigger particles. The base colours are slightly different too - DS Glamour is more of  a straight-up blue where Strap On Your Moonboots leans slightly teal. In low light the don't look *that* much different - you can see the tonal differences in the base colour and OPI DS Glamour has a sparkly feel where China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots is more of a velvety metallic finish.

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots  / OPI DS Glamour - Low light

Move into strong light and the differences between the linear and scattered holo become more pronounced -

China Glaze Hologlam Strap on Your Moonboots  / OPI DS Glamour - Direct Light 

To be honest, I don't know which I prefer! I'm very fond of OPI DS Glamour, so I didn't expect there to any contest but I'm surprised how much I like Strap On Your Moonboots. I think they are different enough to justify owning both :)

I purchased China Glaze Strap On Your Moonboots from Faith Cosmetics at Amazon.co.uk. OPI DS Glamour is long discontinued I'm afraid, although it occasionally turns up on ebay, or you might be lucky enough to find a bottle lurking on a back shelf at a shop or salon.

OPI Lights of Emerald City - Swatches #2

When I swatched Lights of Emerald City recently, I wore it over mid / dark base colours (my earlier post on this polish) but I've been intrigued how it would look over a pale base, especially what would happen to the smaller, iridescent glitters (which are the stars of the polish, in my opinion).

There are a few swatches around over pinks and nudes, and I love greens...........so here we go:

OPI Lights of Emerald City

For my base I used M&S Limited Collection Polish in Mint - this is a green so pale it's hardly green at all. I'd describe it as the colour of apple flesh, rather than mint, but it's lovely all the same. It's a bit like a green- toned version of Illamasqua Load!

M&S Limited Collection Polish in Mint 

This is three coats, with a coat of Seche Vite between the second and third coats to even out any streaking. I love pale creams, but a lot of them do tend to streak, so I always do this 'SV sandwich' as a precaution.

Then I added just one coat of OPI Lights of Emerald City

OPI LIghts of Emerald City

Depending on the light, the iridescent glitters show either red or blue - the blue wasn't happening over my darker bases at all. I rather like the delicate effects here!

And finally, just for a bit of fun, I thought I'd see how Lights of Emerald City works in a jelly sandwich. I've seen a couple of swatches of Lights of Emerald City in a sandwich with Glints of Glinda, a dirty pale tan jelly from the OPI Oz collection - but that colour is SO not me I can't really judge whether I like the effect or not! I chose to layer Zuma Beach from the American Apparel Sheer range over the combination above, and the effect is really interesting!

OPI LIghts of Emerald City with American Apparel Zuma Beach

The jelly smooths out the large white square glitters and somehow integrates them into the whole mani much better. You do lose a lot of the sparkle in the iridescent glitters, but not all of it.

So I'm concluding that OPI Lights of Emerald City is quite a versatile polish really!

I purchased M&S Limited Collection Polish in Mint from my local M&S, and OPI Lights of Emerald City from a seller on amazon.co.uk. The American Apparel sheer polish was a gift from a polish buddy in the USA.