Wheel V6: Flakies from Nfu Oh and Zoya, Mostly

Since I've been in a flakie mood lately, I've got a flakies wheel for Nail Wheel Wednesday.



(all 3 coats on their own in slots 1 to 10, then 2 coats over black creme in slots 11 to 20)

1. Nfu Oh 41 [oh, these crazy curvy bottles]
2. Nfu Oh 57
3. Nfu Oh 53
4. Nfu Oh 52
5. Nfu Oh 51
6. Zoya Chloe [the star of the Zoya trio as far as I'm concerned]
7. Zoya Maisie
8. Zoya Opal
9. LA Girl Rockstar Crowd Surfing
10. Love & Beauty Light Green [why yes, this is the same as #9, just with a different brand name]
11 to 20. Same as 1 to 10, over black creme

Bottles 1 through 5:


6 through 8:


9 and 10:

More Fun with FingerPaints Flakies

Earlier this month, I swatched the FingerPaints Kaleidoscope Flakies. I knew I wanted to try them over something other than the black base I used for those swatches, and for a change, I actually followed up on that.

I first tried two coats of Vivid Reflection (plus clear topcoat) over Sally Hansen Dreamsicle. The orange base brings out the pink and gold in the flakes. It's a subtle effect and definitely more interesting than the creme alone.





Two coats of Colorful Dream over Sally Hansen Love Train (again plus topcoat) was a pretty combination, with the flakies showing pink and lilac and gold, mostly.





One of the things I hadn't done with the black base was add matte topcoat (I've no idea why, since I have so many matte toppers around), so I remedied that during this swatching session. Here's Symmetrical Symphony over Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme, topped with OPI Matte Top Coat. I quite liked the effect.





For my next experiment, I laid down a dark blue base (Sinful Colors New Wave) and played with pairing up the flakies. Left to right (all mattified): 2 coats of Abstract Attraction, Abstract Attraction and Symmetrical Symphony, Abstract Attraction and Colorful Dream, Abstract Attraction and Psychedelic Hue.



Another view of Abstract/Symmetrical (top) and Abstract/Colorful:



Then it was a deep violet base (Sinful Colors Enchanted) with combinations featuring Vivid Reflection. Left to right (again with the matte topper): 2 coats of Vivid Reflection, Vivid Reflection and Colorful Dream, Vivid Reflection and Psychedelic Hue, Vivid Reflection and Colorful Dream and Psychedelic Hue.



Another angle:



I've heard some people expressing disappointment in these flakies compared to the prior FingerPaints collection, which was more vibrant; I for one like the variety and enjoy having some less flashy options in my flakies wardrobe.

Sally Hansen Insta Dri Spring 2014 Limited Edition

One of the things I shared in my last display post was the Sally Hansen display with the latest Insta Dri colors. The display says both "Color Vibrations" and "Kaleidescope" on it; it also says "Limited Edition" so I thought I should swatch these sooner rather than later before they disappear. I also thought playing with some bright colors was just the thing to cheer me up here in the dregs of Michigan winter, when it's dreary and pretty much everyone is sick of snow and ice and cold. The six shades are: Dreamsicle, Glow With It, In the Groove, Revobluetion, Purpelling, and Love Train. Most of these are cremes. Glow With It is the exception; it's a subtle shimmer.



I wore the three hues from the cool side of the color wheel all together. (And yeah, I'm sporting shorties once again; I just can't seem to keep Mr. Peelies away for long.) Love Train is a bright Spring green. Purpelling is a medium purple; this leans slightly more toward red than blue. Revobluetion is a vibrant blue, what I'd call deep sky blue (not green-leaning enough to be turquoise). All of these were two coats, though if I'd worn base coat to smooth my ridges maybe I could have done one, as they are quite pigmented (especially the blue).





I paired up Dreamsicle, a yellow orange that is quite remisiscent of the frozen treat of the same name, with Love Train, a medium pink that pulls ever so slightly purple, at least on me. These were two coats as well.





Glow With It, a lemony yellow, got my whole hand to itself. This was a three coater, which surprised me not at all since yellows are notoriously tricky.





"But Karen," I hear some of you saying, "didn't you call Glow With It a shimmer? I don't see any shimmer." Yeah, I don't see any shimmer, either, not on my nails. In the bottle, yes, there is shimmer. Witness:



Isn't that pretty? Shame it's so incredibly shy on the nails. Maybe the next time we have sun here I'll pull it out and see if that's the trick to get it to show up, as I had no luck indoors, even with the direct light setup that usually works to pull out shimmer. But never mind, I distracted myself from the shimmer issue by playing with my dotting tools and adding a rainbow across the top of Glow With It. Some of my dots got a little wonky but I could overlook that due to the overall happiness factor of all these bright colors together.





There's nothing revolutionary here but they are nice spring/summer basics and I bet most of them will be good for stamping. Someday I'll stamp again.

Nicole by OPI Carrie Underwood Collection, Part Two

A couple days ago I posted swatches of the first group of Nicole by OPI Carrie Underwood polishes to hit stores. Today I've got the other half of the samples I got for review. I'm not sure when these will be in stores; if last year's Selena Gomez collection is any indication, they should be popping up in the next few months. As with the first group, there's a variety of finishes here, from creme through shimmer to chunky glitter.



I did Skittles swatches of what I thought were the four cremes in the group. Top to bottom: Love My Pups, Color Me Country, Some Hearts, and American as Apple Pie.



Love My Pups is a slightly sheer pale pink creme; I used three coats. Color Me Country is a warm medium pink creme; this was also three coats. Some Hearts is a coral creme, and another three coater for me. American as Apple Pie is straight up red; I used two coats and only after I had it on and was taking photos did I realize it's got shimmer in it. The shimmer is very subtle and only shows itself in bright direct light, which I never did manage to get on my nails at the right angle during this swatching session, so a bottle pic will have to suffice to show you the shimmer.



The glitter in this group is called Party Bus, and it's got small and medium size silver holo hexes plus large flower shaped silver holo glitters in a clear base.



I added one coat of Party Bus plus topcoat to my Skittles. I had to do some fishing for the flower glitters; often they'd get stuck in the neck of the bottle when I wiped the excess polish off the brush. It wasn't hard to pick them up with a dotting tool and plop them on my nail before using the brush to distribute the rest of the glitter on my nails.





Sing You Like a Bee is a white and gold flecked shimmer. The formula, at least in the bottle I got, was on the thicker side, so I only used two coats. There was some visible nail line, but it made my tips look nice and brightly white, so I thought that was fine. I didn't use topcoat on my swatch, which gave it a slightly textured look.





Fisher Queen is a classic shimmer in a deep purple hue. It has a nice glow in the bottle, but that glow doesn't show up as much on the nail. I used two coats of this plus topcoat for my swatch.





I got more of the glow in some lighting conditions; I suspect direct sunlight is needed to bring it out fully, but direct sunlight is in short supply in my part of the world at this time of year.



Fisher Queen made a great base color for Party Bus, a less good one for Sing You Like a Bee, which I think needs lighter undies.





It probably comes as no surprise that Party Bus is my favorite here, though if I had to choose between it and the glitter from the first group, it would come second, since I have so many silver holo glitters already and very few golden ones.

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider.

Wheel M6: Glitters from Revlon, Shades of the Season, Petites, and City Color

At this point, most of my backlog of painted but unposted nail wheels are glitter, so no time like today to keep chipping away at that. This wheel starts with colors from Revlon, which can do nice, if sometimes quite Deborah Lippmann derivative, glitters when they want to, and did do a lot of great ones back in the day in the Street Wear line, though the two here are of the quite, shimmer base variety rather than glitter bombs. The next chunk of colors are from Shades of the Season, a brand I only ever see sold in sets at CVS during Christmas time. For a brand like that, there are some decent colors; the glitter/shimmer combos are especially nice. I filled the rest of the wheel with glitters from Rite Aid, my only source for Petites and City Color, though I haven't seen new shades from either line in a while.



(all have one layer of topcoat over the glitter coats noted below)

1. Revlon Blue Mosaic (4 coats) [seems like I could have stopped at 3 coats since this is not going to build up to full coverage anyway]
2. Revlon Whimsical (3) [remember when lots of us were stalking this one?]
3. Revlon Starry Pink (3)
4. Revlon Sparkling (3)
5. Revlon Top Speed Glitz & Glam (2) [so nice and dense]
6. Revlon Facets of Fuchsia (3)
7. Revlon Street Wear Slip (3)
8. Revlon Street Wear Prince Charming (2)
9. Shades of the Season unlabelled iridescent(3) [needs to be layered over something dark]
10. Shades of the Season unlabelled silver (3)
11. Shades of the Season unlabelled blue (3) [looks like a close cousin of Sinful Colors Hottie]
12. Shades of the Season unlabelled green (3)
13. Shades of the Season unlabelled red (3)
14. Shades of the Season unlabelled rose (3)
15. Shades of the Season unlabelled pink (3)
16. Shades of the Season unlabelled orchid (3) [this appears to be a long lost sister of Orchid Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time]
17. Petites Color Fever Pink Diamond (2) [if you liked Revlon Sparkling but wished it had denser glitter, this is just the thing]
18. Petites Color Fever Galaxy (3) [with a name like Galaxy, I don't think it should be red, but maybe that's what out there in space]
19. Petites Black Amethyst (2)
20. City Color Reddish Purple (3) [yep, that's really what it's called]

Bottles 1 through 6:


7 and 8:


9 through 12:


13 through 16:


17 through 20: