Random Nail Spam

While I'm working on getting back to swatching, I thought I'd post a little spam of random, old, un-posted stuff to make it a little less lonely over here!

 Clarins 230 over Orlane 90

 Orly Bubbly Bombshell

 Orly Coquette Cutie

 Butter London Disco Biscuit

 Nicole Texture Coat in Opal over China Glaze Gothic Lolita

Orly Flirty

 Orly Fresh

 Nicole Texture Coat in Gold over neon pink

 Orly Here Comes Trouble

 Milani One Coat Glitter in Lavender Fizz

 Jordana Glitter in Lunar Lights

Deborah Lippmann Mermaid's Dream

 Finger Paints Motley over Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Ghostly

  

L'oreal Owl's Night

 Nicole Texture Coat in Quartz over a magnetic polish

 Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Ring My Shell over Essie A Crewed Interest

 Jordana Glitter in Sequins

 China Glaze Ulta-mate Holiday

ORLY Flash Glam FX in R.I.P. Swatches and Review

I have Halloween on the brain right now. The weather's started turning colder and darker, I'm burning my new Pumpkin Cupcake candle from Bath and Body Works and I have a wicked craving for a Pumpkin Spice Latte. Then this polish comes along... a perfect black and orange Halloween glitter. It's called R.I.P. and it's part of Orly's new Flash Glam FX line of glitters.


Orly Flash Glam FX in R.I.P.. A sheer black jelly base with medium hexagon and small round orange glitter. It's sheer enough to layer over black if you don't like jelly polishes, but it's definitely opaque enough to wear alone if you don't mind doing three coats. It is reminiscent of China Glaze Fortune Teller, but it's not an exact match.

The formula on this was disappointing. It's thick and a little glue-like. It has a tendency to pool at the edges of the nail and get stringy. The glitter also clumps together more than I thought it would so it's a little bit of a challenge to do a thin, even coat. My strategy was to do as thin of a coat as possible, not worrying about glitter placement, let it dry for five minutes and repeat until I reached three coat. It's a little lumpy and definitely needs topcoat. Dry time is long.

The color? Perfect. The formula? Not so much. Adding a little polish thinner would probably help this polish a lot in the application department. But, I do love my Halloween-themed polishes, so I don't mind having to break out the thinner for this one.

(This was sent for review.)

Blue Comparison

Here's a quick comparison of the most vibrant blue shades in my stash. Sorry I didn't have this up before the Rescue Beauty Lounge pre-order :(

Also, before I get to the comparison, has this happened to anyone else?

I had originally planned on including Illamasqua Force in this comparison because I remember it being an amazing bright blue creme, but when I took it out of its box, I saw this:

It turned a faded, dusty purple creme! WTF? I thought I was going crazy because I clearly remember this polish being blue, but I looked through every Illamasqua polish I have just to double check in case I was remembering the name wrong, but no... It was this one and it used to be blue. I don't know how this could have happened. It's been stored in its box, in a drawer, away from sunlight ever since I last wore it in 2010. Would have been worth comparing if it hadn't changed. Anyway. On to the blues.

Left to right (pinkie to index):
Rescue Beauty Lounge IKB:2012, three coats plus topcoat
ORLY Royal Navy, three coats plus topcoat
Revlon Royal, three coats plus topcoat
Rescue Beauty Lounge IKB:2012, three coats plus topcoat

None of these are exact matches to each other, but they are similar. They do come across a bit more bold/crisp/clean in photos than they do in real life- each has a slightly more dusty/soft look to the finish, but they're still very bold.

IKB:2012 has the deepest color and the softest finish. The finish looks dustier compared to Royal, and it's the most opaque of the three. The color itself has a bit of purple to it, like it's so blue that it's just about to tip over into the indigo/violet portion of the spectrum. Out of all three, IKB:2012 has the weirdest application, but I've been told that the final release version will have an improved texture.

Revlon Royal is the brightest, but it's not as bright as something like Nubar Blueberry. It has the sheerest formula (I'd call it a jelly), the runniest texture and the longest dry time. It is an amazing color and if you don't want to spend the $20 on the Rescue polish, I think you'd be satisfied with this one.

Orly Royal Navy isn't really comparable in the sense of being a duplicate, but it does have a similar base color to the other two. Also, if you let your bottle sit without shaking it for a while, all the glitter will settle to the bottom and you'll be able to apply it as a slightly glitter-flecked blue jelly. I had to shake my bottle really, really hard to get this much glitter to show up on my nail. It has a thin but easy to apply formula and the second longest dry time.

Bundlemonster stamping over Orly Emberstone

Here's some kinda crappy pictures of a semi-Halloweenish mani I did recently. I used a Bundlemonster plate and Konad Special Polish in Black to stamp over Orly Emberstone:


And then I decided to take pictures of it at midnight. But you can still kinda see the black pattern over the sparkly red-orange goodness, right?

This is such a weird pattern but all those bold, crisp lines really stand out and look very cool.