Hare Polish From The Balcony Of Chateau Marmont Swatch And Review

Happy Tuesday!  Are you hung over from Cinco de Mayo?  If not, hopefully you had some yummy Mexican food to celebrate.

Hooray!  Hare Polish recently released a collection inspired by the city of my home, called Viva Los Angeles.  Upon hearing this, I knew it was a great time to break my mini ban and splurge on the collection.  Living in Los Angeles has its pros and cons, and it's always nice to be reminded of the beauty found within this desert city.  I'll be sharing a swatch of each polish in the collection over the next few posts.

The first polish is From The Balcony Of Chateau Marmont, a pool blue base loaded with pink, white, black, and gold microglitters with a dusting of gold flakie shimmer.  Nikole's inspiration is the pool side view from Chateau Marmont, an experience that I've not yet had the pleasure of experiencing.  I suppose it's never been high on my list of things to do in LA, but after wearing this polish, I'm making a mental note to put it higher on the list. Chateau Marmont is located off of the infamous Sunset Strip, and is well known for its celebrity popularity.  To achieve opacity, I used three coats here and had no issues with balding, glitter stacking, or dragging.  I added extra shine with two layers of topcoat.

Hare Polish From The Balcony Of Chateau Marmont

Hare Polish From The Balcony Of Chateau Marmont

Hare Polish From The Balcony Of Chateau Marmont

Hare Polish From The Balcony Of Chateau Marmont

Hare Polish From The Balcony Of Chateau Marmont

Hare Polish From The Balcony Of Chateau Marmont

I can see pink blooms above the vibrant blue water of the pool, along with the glow of the ever present LA sunlight.  I love that this polish contains unexpected glitters like the tiny black glitters against the blue base.  It's not something I would think to add myself, but along with the other glitters, it comes together to create a harmonious canvas.  There's also an illusion of added length to my nails, and suddenly they seem impossibly long. It might be time to take down some of that length.  In the meantime, I'm looking forward to swatching the rest of these polishes with their beautiful unexpected color combinations.  Its a true representation of LA, which is finding unexpected delicate beauty in a dusty congested desert city.  Stay tuned for more!

Elevation Polish Gobi Swatch And Review And Nail Art

I was thinking today that I've been good about not binging with a polish purchase lately.  I'm not sure why that is, maybe I haven't seen a collection that has captured my attention.  My wallet is happy about that and maybe now I catch up on using up some of my untrieds.  Are you in a funk too?  Or have you been enamored by any new releases?

Have you ever been confused by a color, and unable to describe it accurately?  I'm having that problem with today's color, which is Elevation Polish Gobi, a gold base with green shimmer.  I think there might be some holographic particles in there as well but the little guys aren't really translating onto the nail.  For being a light color, I expected the formula to be sheer but instead it applied with plenty of pigmentation and needed only two coats here.  There's a bit of brush strokage as well, so make sure to wipe the excess polish on the neck of the bottle before applying.  No topcoat shown below.

Elevation Polish Gobi

Elevation Polish Gobi

Elevation Polish Gobi

Elevation Polish Gobi

Elevation Polish Gobi

The green shimmer reminded me of beetle wings, and I was inspired to try and do a little geometric nail art to replicate a beetle's back.  I used Wet N Wild Black Creme with a striper brush and then layered with my Poshe/GFC topcoat mix.  Thankfully there was no streaking of the black!

Elevation Polish Gobi Nail Art

Elevation Polish Gobi Nail Art

Elevation Polish Gobi Nail Art

Elevation Polish Gobi Nail Art

Elevation Polish Gobi Nail Art

The green shimmer is much more prominent IRL than here in these pics, and the beetle effect really works with this base color.  Elevation always makes really unique colors, and this is certainly one of them.  I think the spectraflair adds a touch of elusive sparkle that really sets this color apart from anything else I've ever seen.  Have you ever encountered an intriguing polish that crosses line the line between shimmer and holo?

Pahlish Winter's Heart Swatch And Review

Purchased

Hello m'dears, I hope you enjoyed your weekend!  Yesterday we took LO and Grandma to the LA Zoo.  I've lived here for over ten years and have never gone, so it was a first time experience for me, and as a mom at that.  It's comparable to other zoos that I've been to, which involve a lot of walking and a lot of sleeping hard to see animals.  Overall it was memorable family experience, but I'll probably wait another couple years before we repeat it again!

Today's polish is a remnant of last winter's Pahlish collection, and it's rightfully called Winter's Heart.  It's a deep cerulean blue jelly embedded with tiny matte black glitters and larger silver hex glitters.  The formula was a bit thick and sticky making it difficult to control, making neat application nearly impossible.  There was also quite a bit of glitter drag with the larger hex glitters, but two coats covered up the streaks and allowed even coverage.  It dries a bit matte so topcoat is needed for shine.

Pahlish Winter's Heart

Pahlish Winter's Heart

Pahlish Winter's Heart

Pahlish Winter's Heart

Pahlish Winter's Heart

Pahlish Winter's Heart

This is one of the more unusual polishes that I've tried to date, in that it's a shade of blue that I'm not accustomed to seeing as a jelly.  It's got a bit of a teal edge to it but it's a saturated deep blue, almost like looking into a deepest part of a lagoon.  The tiny matte black glitters are unexpected as well, not something I would think to put into a dark jelly shade.  They seem to get overpowered by the jelly which makes it hard to appreciate them.  It does add a subdued sparkle to the jelly, but to be honest, I think I'd rather just having the jelly by itself in that case.  I think it would have a juicier, squishier effect by itself.  Now I want to go find a jelly in this color... has this ever happened to you?  Is there a jelly out there that would fit this craving?

Purchased

Different Dimensions Orion Nebula Swatch And Review

Have you ever obsessed over something that was out of stock?  What am I talking about, if you're a female, then yes you have.  Currently I'm obsessing over a pair of shoes that I saw on instagram and that are currently out of stock online... I'm waiting for the first minute the store is open to call and ask if they can do a sku search for the item.  Hopefully they'll have it available for order!  What's the last thing you obsessed about that was possibly unattainable?

I've been wanting to try a circle glitter jelly ender since I first discovered swatches of them and I finally took the plunge with Different Dimensions version called Orion Nebula.  It's got a black jelly base and fuchsia circles in various sizes.  The base is sheer and the circles are few, and I needed for coats until I was satisfied with opacity. I turned the bottle upside down between costs so I could grab more glitters on the brush but I still had to fish for the larger circle glitters.  When I did manage to get one, of course it had to be one that had another clinging onto it and stacked upon the nail.  I finished with topcoat to add shine.

Different Dimensions Orion Nebula

Different Dimensions Orion Nebula

Different Dimensions Orion Nebula

Different Dimensions Orion Nebula

Different Dimensions Orion Nebula

Different Dimensions Orion Nebula

I noticed that I had quite a bit of bubbling, and I chalked it up to the me agitating the bottle too much to get those elusive large circles.  The bubbling is worth it though, look at that beautiful holo effect on those circles!  I like the overall spacey effect but I wish there were more of those holo circles.  Have you tried circle glitter jelly polishes before?

Cirque Polish Hellebore And Dark Horse Swatch And Review

Nothing To Disclose

Happy Tuesday!  Did you get to have a three day weekend?  I forgot that it was President's Day yesterday because I still had to work as usual.  Unfortunately, bank holidays means that daycare is closed too.  Boo. Hopefully DH didn't mind taking her into his office.  Note to self, update calendar phone to notify me of bank holidays!

Today's post will feature two textures that were released by Cirque Polish in her earlier collections. I think Cirque is incredibly innovative when it comes to finishes and colors, and possibly she was one of the first to release a textured polish before the polish world was ready for one.  I looked up some of the swatches of today's colors and most posts show the colors with topcoat, which is what everyone did with gritty polishes.  I'll have today's posts in their original finishes.

The first polish is Hellebore, a lovely light green texture with yellow undertones and a sprinkling of lavender microglitters.  This was released as part of the Objets d'Art collection and I believe it was the lone texture in that collection.  I used three coats here, and had slight difficulty navigating the brush to reach the towards the cuticles.  That's probably normal for most textures.  It dried in good time, about 15 minutes which is slightly longer than normal polish but not terribly long.  The purple microglitter is hard to see from afar, but they're visible up close.

Cirque Polish Hellebore

Cirque Polish Hellebore

Cirque Polish Hellebore

Cirque Polish Hellebore

Next I have Dark Horse, which was released in the first collection named after it, Dark Horse.  This is a black textured polish with glints of blue and pink.  This particular one was harder to manage than the previous texture. The density of glitter was sparse during application, which means loading up the brush is needed in order to get a decent amount of glitter with each layer.  I used four coats here while allowing time to dry in between coats, but the overall look is still a bit patchy looking.  Not my favorite to apply, that's for sure!

Cirque Polish Dark Horse

Cirque Polish Dark Horse

Cirque Polish Dark Horse

Cirque Polish Dark Horse

I didn't like the patchiness of Dark Horse alone, so I used a layer of Gelous followed with topcoat to see if the glitters would be enhanced.  It does somewhat, but still not enough to make this polish worth the hassle of application and dry time. 

Cirque Polish Dark Horse

Cirque Polish Dark Horse

Cirque Polish Dark Horse

I do like the charcoal appearance of this texture, but it's not enough for me to want to wear it again. I'm going to chalk up the difficulty of application and end result as a test phase for texture polishes by Cirque.  She may have inadvertently came up with a texture polish, but it may have set the trend for more to follow.  When do you think the first texture polishes were released, and by whom?

Nothing To Disclose

Happy New Years! Wet N Wild Blackmail With KBShimmer Toast-ess With The Mostest

Purchased

Happy New Years my dears!!  Kick 2013 to the curb and let's bring in 2014 with a glittery bang! 

I started with an oldie to represent the past - Wet N Wild Blackmail.  Yeah, I'm bringing it back old school.  Look at the New! sticker on that cap.  I wanted a black base with some microglitter, preferably gold, but couldn't find one and settled on this which has multicolored microglitter.  I used two fairly easy coats, no small feat considering the layer of dust on this bottle!  This is finished with topcoat(tip shrinkage, what!).

Wet N Wild Blackmail

Wet N Wild Blackmail

Wet N Wild Blackmail

Wet N Wild Blackmail

Next, to obliterate the old(yeah, I'm looking at you 2013), I used a New Year's worthy glitter topper by KBShimmer, Toast-ess With The Mostest.  This gorgeous glitter topper is jammed with circles of all sizes in pink, holographic silver, and gold.  Yum yum yum.  One coat was enough to cover the nail with a sufficient amount of glitter but I artfully placed a couple extra circles to balance it out.  This is finished with a layer of Gelous and topcoat(no skimping here!).

KBShimmer Toast-ess With The Mostest

KBShimmer Toast-ess With The Mostest

KBShimmer Toast-ess With The Mostest

KBShimmer Toast-ess With The Mostest

KBShimmer Toast-ess With The Mostest

KBShimmer Toast-ess With The Mostest

KBShimmer Toast-ess With The Mostest

 I can never get enough circle glitter, and this particular beauty hits that out of the park.  I toyed with the idea of layering over a sheer black jelly to make a sandwich, but I decided against it to maintain that sparkle.   Toast-ess is a really versatile glitter and I definitely plan on getting more use out of this in the future.  In the meantime, I plan on taking a hint and making sure that I do some toasting when the clock hits midnight!  Are you ready to bring in the new year?  What plans or resolutions have you made?

Purchased