L'Oreal The Magic Top Coats

Continuing with the L'Oreal theme from yesterday, today I have five of the six special effects topcoats from the L'Oreal Nail Art Made Easy display that's in stores now. (The sixth one I've already swatched; it's The Matte Velvet as seen in my recent matte topcoat comparisons post.) Left to right: The True Diamond, The True Gold, The Sparklicious, The Shift Me, The Holographic.



Because these are topcoats, I needed base colors to put them over. Rather than use the core colors that were also in the display (I try to avoid buying core colors from seasonal displays because that just encourages companies to put them there), I used the cremes from the mix and matte display that I swatched for yesterday's post.

The True Diamond has a clear base filled with lots of fine white shimmer. I layered two coats of it over Lacque-onic; I could have stopped at one coat, but then I wouldn't have so many sparklies, and I like sparklies. This is pretty smooth by itself; my swatch doesn't have any added clear topcoat, just The True Diamond.





The True Gold is small gold glitter in a clear base. I put two coats of it over No Matte-r What. I didn't use additional topcoat on this one, either, though looking at the photos now, I think perhaps it would have been a good idea. The glitter isn't too bumpy, just I think it'd look a tiny bit better "under glass".





The Sparklicious has medium black hex glitter, slightly smaller silver hex glitter, and silver holo bar glitter, all in a clear base. I really wish they'd called this something else, because I have as much trouble spelling Sparklicious now as I did when they had a polish by that name in last year's Diamond Collection. I always want to type Spark-I-licious. Why not call this The True Bold Glitter? I used Lacquer-ized as the base color for this one, and did add clear topcoat this time. I'd say I used one and a half coats of The Sparklicious, as I did one coat and then dabbed extra black hexes on top; they were pretty easy to grab out of the neck of the bottle with the brush.





The Shift Me is a light shimmery pink in the bottle. Note that it is not called The True Pink. For the base under this one, I used She's So Matte (which is black, remember) with an accent nail of Lacquer-ized (purpley pink). What did I get? A lot of blue. On my index and middle fingers, I used one coat of Shift Me; on my other two nails, I used two.





The Holographic is not what we lacquer lovers think of when we hear that term. There are no rainbows here. Instead, we have blue/green/violet shredded mylar flakies in a slightly milky base. I layered this one over Matte-r of Fact, using about one and a half coats, the half because I had to kind of push the shreds around. I added one layer of topcoat and probably should have added another, as these shreds are prone to sticking up.





The display for these says "LAYER THEM ALL!" on it, which I considered doing for a moment before deciding that even with my love of excess, five special effect topcoats used together was too many. I did experiment with some combinations, though. I laid down a base of She's So Matte with an accent nail of No Matte-r What, then chose two of the L'Oreal topcoats for each nail. Left to right below: The True Diamond and The Holographic, The Shift Me and The True Diamond, The True Gold and The Sparklicious, and The Shift Me and The True Gold.



My favorite combination was The True Gold and The Sparklicious.



Overall, I like this collection. The matte topper I shared in the post last week is nice and matte and well behaved, and there's a good variety in the rest of the group, from shimmers to glitters to shreds. I wish they'd done a true holographic topcoat, but that's hard to do at drugstore prices, I suppose. If I ever find time to franken again, I think The True Diamond would make a great shimmer base.