Monday, February 20, 2012

Zoya Carey

   Carey is another polish from the Winter 2011/2012 Feel collection from Zoya.  



   Unlike Megan which is a lavender creme with a big grey tinge, Carey is a grey creme that has a purple tinge.  The formula on Carey was not what I've come to expect from Zoya.  It was a weird combination of thick yet thin at the same time.  That being said, with thin coats Carey still wasn't too hard to work with.  I used a base of China Glaze Strong Adhesion and two coats of polish.  No top coat.

Direct Sun

Shade

Indoor


   Carey is a very nice neutral grey.  I'm going to try adding thinner to my bottle and see if that fixes the formula issues.  Either way though, this is definitely a polish I will wear again.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Spoiled by WnW Ants in My Pants

   Wet n Wild has brought out a brand new line of, I believe, 72 polishes under the name Spoiled.  These are a CVS exclusive line.  If you haven't seen them in your local store yet, they should be showing up soon.  All the ones near me are in the process of redoing their cosmetics sections and bringing out all the new lines and products for Spring.  G. over at Nouveau Cheap has a lot more info on the line if you're interested.  These retail for $1.99 a bottle.  I'm not sure yet if they will be included in WnW sales at CVS, but I'm hoping they will, or at least have their own separate sales.





   Ants in My Pants is a black/charcoal jelly base with small round and larger hex red glitter.  If it's not an exact dupe of Deborah Lippmann's Ruby Red Slippers, it is a very close cousin and a good substitute if you can't afford the $18 retail of Lippmann polishes.
   The formula for Ants in My Pants was rather thick and a little goopy, but that is pretty normal for a glitter polish like this.  Even with the thick formula application wasn't too bad and the glitter mostly stayed in place once on the nail.  I would recommend waiting a couple minutes between coats though just to let the glitter set a bit.  I used a base coat of Barielle Nail Rebuilding Protein and Gelous, 3 coats of Ants, then topped with another coat of Gelous and a coat of Barielle Manicure Extender.

Direct Sun

Shade

Indoor


   In most light Ants looks completely opaque at 3 coats.  But if the light hits the right way or from behind your nails, even at 3 coats you can see through the polish between glitter particles.  I think next time I'll use a black base first then 1 or 2 coats of Ants.  Also this will help preserve the polish.  Look at the bottle picture up top.  See how much polish is gone?  That's from just 1 manicure.  Besides thick formulas, the other issue with glitter polishes is that they get used up much more quickly.  One last issue with this polish/line.  The brush is the same wide style as the new mega last one.  It gave me less issues with this polish, but I'm still not a fan.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Zoya Megan

   For Winter 2011/2012 Zoya brought us a set of winter neutral cremes with the Feel collection.  The first I'm showing you is Megan.


   Megan is a very grey lavender.  It is purple, but the grey has a prominent presence and almost threatens to take over at times.  The formula was a little thin, but application was still good and the polish levels itself and even out nicely.  I used China Glaze Strong Adhesion base coat and 2 coats of polish for full coverage.  I did not use a top coat in these photos.

Direct Sun

Shade

Indoor


   I liked Megan.  She's a nice soft neutral purple that wears well in winter, but I plan to wear her all year.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

China Glaze Tinsel Town

   Multi-size glitters seem to be everywhere right now.  Some have only one color, some have two or three, and others have a full rainbow of colors.  Personally, I love this trend.  The more glitter the better for me.  In their Let It Snow collection for Holiday 2011, China Glaze brought us three of these.  Today I'm going to show you Tinsel Town.


   Tinsel Town is silver hex and micro glitter in a charcoal base.  If you remember my review of It's Alive from China Glaze's Halloween collection, this is the silver version of that polish. The formula was a bit thick and kinda goopy, but a little nail polish thinner will probably fix that.  Tinsel Town dries matte so if you want lots of sparkle, a shiny top coat is necessary.  The matte look of the polish is very nice as well though.  However, because of the glitter the texture on your nail is rather rough, so to keep the matte look, I would actually recommend a nice thick coat of gelous and then a matte top coat to smooth out your nail.  I used top coat on my ring and index fingers only to try to show you the difference.  My base coat was China Glaze Strong Adhesion and I believe I used 2 coats of polish, but I forgot to right it down.  
   The sparkle and texture of this polish really freaked my camera out.  So I apologize for the less than great quality of these pictures.  They really were the best I could get though.

Direct Sun

Shade/Indirect Sun

Indoor

  
   I really liked this polish.  The formula was a little thick, but that's not overly unusual for dense glitters like this one.  On the nail, Tinsel Town reminds me of malachite jewelry, which I always loved when I was younger.  Please click on the photos to enlarge them and get a better look at the polish, especially the shade/indirect sun one.

Disclaimer: The product(s) in this post were sent to me by the company for consideration.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

China Glaze Winter Berry

  Today's post is going to be very short, I've had a cold for the last few days and will probably be going to bed fairly soon.
    Winter Berry is from the China Glaze Holiday 2011 Let it Snow collection.  This is a red creme that looks a lot like holly berries.  


   Winter Berries has a somewhat squishy quality to it like a jelly polish, but builds in opacity to almost completely opaque like a creme.  This is really a nice hybrid of the two.  I found the formula to be on the thin side.  During clean up I noticed some staining on my skin.  Dabbing my brush gently on my skin instead of wiping/sweeping it along my skin helps stop the staining quite a bit I've discovered.  
   In these photos I used China Glaze Strong Adhesion base coat, 2 coats of polish, and no top coat.

Direct Sun

Shade

Indoor


   I quite like this red.  Especially in the sun.  It's because of the squish.  Even the boy said he thought it wasn't bad.  I'm taking that to mean this should be one I grab when I'm in the mood for a red.

Disclaimer: The product(s) in this post were sent to me by the company for consideration.
 
polished & frosted title image brushes by Obsidian Dawn