Enchanted Polish Hey Jude - hey hey pretty multi chrome holo!

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Hey guys,

I've been absent the last few days due to illness :( I had a crappy cold, took a couple days off work and now am feeling a lot better!

And my comeback mani? Enchanted Polish's HEY JUDE from The Beatles Collection!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enchanted Polish Hey Jude

Hey Jude is a green-purple multichrome linear holographic. And it's seriously WOW! One of the stand outs of Indie Polish 2012!!!!
The green is so bright, it shifts down to a bronze/gold which in turn shifts to a plum purple; all the while glowing with rainbow sparkles. Also, it's a two coat wonder without brush stroke issues. My photos were all taken under my lamp so I struggled to get clear photos of the green and purple extremes but parts of my nails show them above.

Hey Jude is my favourite Enchanted Polish thus far. It'll take something pretty spectacular to take his place, I tell ya.

Anyone else a Jude groupie?

xxx
NPA

Piper Polish Lime Green Dream

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I got myself a lime green dream!

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Lime Green Dream is a minty green linear holo with a strong golden/lime green flash. Application was great. I did get a little bit of cuticle drag going on, but that's only because I didn't let it dry between coats. Two coats gave decent coverage.

LGD pleasantly surprised me. It didn't really look like it was going to be my kind of colour, so I just bought a mini; but I think it's actually pretty awesome. I like breaking the mould every once and a while.

The one negative (I always manage to think of a negative don't I?!), is the the lacquer base smells horrendous. It must have changed since my last Piper Polish order, because this one makes me feel nauseated. I held my hands well away from my face and breathed through my mouth!! The smell didn't fade quickly either. Next time I wear it, I'll be applying it in a well ventilated space.

You can pick up your own Piper Polish here

I'm a bit brief today, feeling like balls! Stupid cold!!!!

xxx
NPA

KB Shimmer Elle

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It's Sunday yet again, but I'm kind of happy to be going back to work tomorrow. Strange, I know, but I'm enjoying my job :)

Elle is from the KB Shimmer Circus Collection and sadly, she has been discontinued :(

KB Shimmer Elle over China Glaze Pelican Gray

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Elle (short for elephant) is a sheer grey jelly with different sized pink, white and silver holo hex and square glitter. This is one of the polishes I lost the original swatches of on my SD card. The first time I wore it alone, and needed 3 coats and still had VNL which looked a bit gross because grey just makes my nails look more yellowed!  For the reswatch I chose to layer 2 coats of Elle over Pelican Gray (a light grey with subtle shimmer). I loved the way it looked layered! The glitter is well suspended in the jelly base and application is easy peasy! I only had to fiddle with the position of a couple of the glitters because they were sticking out from my free edge. I topped Elle off with 1 layer of Glitter Gloss for the photos, but an extra layer of top coat would have been optimal.

That brings an end to my KBs! And I'm putting myself on a no buy for as long as possible so chances are there won't be any more for a looooooooooonnnggggggg time :(

Best wishes for the week ahead,

xxx

NPA

Takko Lacquer Swatches & Review

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Hello ladies!

Guess how I have been spending my Saturday so far? Catching up on SLEEP!
Seriously.

And it has been the best day for swatching ever! The sun was out and everything!!! Oh well, I'll survive.

I went CRAZY when Takko Lacquer opened on Etsy in July; but I held off purchasing for a little over a month, because a) they are $15 a bottle and b) there were no swatches anywhere!
But I talked to Sheryl about placing an order and she was so helpful and let me know that Nails and Noms was working on swatches.
So I waited a little longer and stalked N&N's blog but she was on holiday for ages so I made the gamble and ordered 6/8 Takkos available!
Sheryl was amazing again and gave me a major shipping discount plus threw in my choice of mini polish!

Well, on Tuesday they arrived in my letter box!!!

I had to go to work 10 minutes after the mail man dropped them off and it was so hard for me to walk out the door without them!!! They are truly that amazing. It also helped that N&N posted her review last week as well!!!

So every night I've been working hard at getting them photographed, so I can make you all drool over them!!
All these photos were taken under my lamp and I'll discuss the formula and application at the end of the post this time.

Kaleidoscope Eyes

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Kaleidoscope Eyes is a holographic purple/aqua green duochrome. It's probably considered to be a scattered holo, but the shimmer has a very weak linear look under direct light. And this is not spectraflair!!!

I Love Rock 'n Roll

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I Love Rock 'n Roll is a warm eggplant purple with purple/pink flake shimmer. It applies quite jelly like and those flakes are awesome.

The Electric Apple: NYC

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The Electric Apple: NYC is a medium grey base with golden green shimmer which gives the polish a pronounced sage green tint. Amazingly opaque and unique.

Wanderlust

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Wanderlust is a beautiful greyed lavender/mauve with blue/green shimmer that reminds me of the colour-shifting pigments. It just glows and sparkles like crazy.

Lemon Macaroon

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Lemon Macaroon is a lemon yellow with green and orange shimmer just like Wanderlust. It has a decided green tint in indoor lighting.

Kiss The Sky

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Kiss The Sky is basically an opaque Max Factor Fantasy Fire (without the green duochrome shimmer). A vivid purple jelly base with glowing red shimmer like Wanderlust and Lemon Macaroon. Absolutely jaw-droppingly AMAZING!

The Blue Flamingo

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The Blue Flamingo just would not photograph right. It's a darker, less aqua blue and the pink flake shimmer (you can spot it on the shadowed side of my nail in the macro shot) is always visible. It is crazy sparkly.

Have you ever seen such an epic inaugural collection before?! 

Now on to the formulas and application:

 

These are all advertised as solid two coaters. That is quite true, however I applied them in thin coats and found that Lemon Macaroon & The Blue Flamingo looked better with 3 coats. The only one that had VNL was the Blue Flamingo. In the future I might use an undercoat in a similar shade of blue or just some ridge filler to completely hid my smile line!

The formula for Kiss The Sky, Wanderlust and I Love Rock 'n Roll was jelly like only thicker. Very easy to apply. Wanderlust dried to a satin-matte finish.

The Electric Apple: NYC was more like a thickish creme and I could get away with 1 coat - it is that opaque!

The Blue Flamingo was rather sheer but still on the thicker side.

Lemon Macaroon was sort of unique. It wasn't thick or thin and I could only compare the formula to Nicole by OPI  Kim-pletely In Love, only LM applied more even and was easily.

Kaleidoscope Eyes had a formula just like the Enchanted polish multichrome holos; maybe slightly thinner.

Now the only negative thing I have to say about these polishes is there are bits of pigment in a few of the bottles. You can see them and I'm not really sure how to mix them except for giving the bottles a good shake. You can see the dots of darker pigment on my nails in some of the swatches. 

To be honest, it doesn't really bother me because these polishes are so amazing and you don't notice the pigment unless you look up close. Maybe adding a bit of thinner would help dissolve them?

My favourites are Kiss The Sky, Wanderlust, Lemon Macaroon and The Electric Apple: NYC.

Takko Lacquer is currently on vacation mode, but stalk the s*** out of it because everybody needs these polishes! They are completely worth the $15 price point. Also, these are 100% 3-free, vegan, mineral based lacquers with no animal testing - sounds pretty great, no?

Enjoy your weekends!!

xxx

NPA

CrowsToes Murder by Numbers

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It was a LONG day!

But after work I got to sit down and polish my nails in a warm lounge, that smelled of yummy roast!!
It's always great when my flat mate's mum visits. She cooks and bakes and cleans!!!! Of course, I'm on a diet so I can't eat any of it, but I can live vicariously :)

Also, my Elevation Polish order was waiting for me when I got home! I missed out on the ones I really wanted (like Marble Caves!!! and Pic de Subenuix!) but I picked up some really great ones too!

L-R: Higravstinden, Sample 122A, Everest, Pic du Gar, Sarychev

And I have a CrowsToes to show you all today. I wanted Murder by #'s (formally Herat Breaker), since I saw it on Stef's blog in April! Once Llarowe started stocking the CrowsToes line I was in like Flynn!

CrowsToes Murder by #'s

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Murder by #'s is a beautiful aubergine purple with emerald green duochrome shimmer, fine silver holo glitter and green glitter in different sizes.

It's so gorgeous, I could not capture the amazing-ness!! The formula is pretty darn good and if you let it dry in between coats you can probably get away with just 2 coats. I rushed mine so ended up with 3 for these photos. The only problem is this dries gritty because the glitter isn't in a suspension base. After 1 layer of Glitter Gloss and 1 layer of NYC quick dry top coat it was still textured looking up close :(

But really, only I could tell :)

I also have Bunny Slope! So watch out for that.

xxx

NPA

Pink Wednesday: KB Shimmer Cheerleader

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Ahoy-hoy ladies,

I feel the need, the need to post a Pink Wednesday. Even though I'm an hour in to Thursday.

Has anyone else noticed that I've featured an awful lot of pink polishes lately? I must be going through a girly phase!! My 'ugly' coloured lacquers haven't appealed to me at all :(

On with the PINK

KB Shimmer Cheerleader

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Cheerleader is part of the Clique Collection. It's a mix of white, blue, purple and pink matte hex glitter in a pink (bordering on fuchsia) jelly base. It's certainly girlish.

While I'm not crazy about Cheerleader, it has a great formula. The glitter is well suspended (I did not even have to shake the bottle) in the thick base and it applies like a dream; reaching full coverage in 2 coats.

I needed 2 layers of top coat for optimal smoothness and shine. For these photos I used 1 cost of Aqua Daisy Glitter Gloss.

What clique were you a part of in high school? Did you have 'cliques' or were there simply 'cooler' and 'nerdier' groups of friends like at my school?

xxx

NPA

A Polish Addict: Shimmer Polish Giveaway!!

Pin It  A Polish Addict: Shimmer Polish Giveaway!!: Hello everyone! It's giveaway time!! A huge THANK YOU to Cindy from Shimmer Polish who earlier has sent me some extras of her sparkling...

Try It On Tuesday: Misa Bed of Roses

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I've been a bad girl...

This is my first TIOT post in a while. Sorry!
But how can I try on all my older untrieds when so many new polishes are screaming out to me?!

Here are a shed-load of swatches to make up for TIOT's absence.

Misa Bed of Roses

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Bed of Roses was released in the Spring Precious Moments Collection. Every other polish in the set bored me, except this beautiful pink jelly!
BOR is bright without being 'hot' and looks really flattering with my skin tone. It's a warmer pink which is way harder to find! The formula is a bit thick, but I found it really easy to apply, no streakiness. I used 3 coats and there is still some VNL but I wouldn't add a 4th, it looks too perfect at 3!

I've also found that BOR is great for jelly sandwiches. I've never seen a pink jelly anything like this before, so I'm so happy to have snapped it up!!!

What have you got on your tips this Tuesday?

xxx
NPA

KB Shimmer Showgirl

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Thanks to everyone for their sympathies and suggestions re: wiping my SD card of swatches!

Today I have the BEAUTIFUL & SASSY KB Shimmer Showgirl!

KB Shimmer Showgirl

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Showgirl is a black jelly with fuchsia and silver holo glitter. It looked great in 2 coats and you could try layering it over black in order to preserve this pretty.
The formula is relatively thick but applies nicely. I had no issues getting the larger square glitter on to my nails, so that equals a win for me!

Do you have any KB Shimmer lacquers?

I purchased mine through Harlow & Co. But if you live in the US you can buy direct from KB Shimmer.

Their new collection is set to be released September 1st!

xxx
NPA