Wheel N11: Solid Color Textures

Nail Wheel Wednesday is on a reduced schedule this month while I'm doing some traveling. Today I've got solid color textured polishes, from almost smooth velvety ones from Sally Hansen and Layla to more typical bumpy ones from Revlon and Jin Soon and others.



(all two coats)

1. Wet 'n' Wild Fatigue Glam
2. Jin Soon Georgette
3. Sally Hansen Velvet Texture Lush
4. Revlon Leather Leather Skinnies
5. Revlon Leather Motorcycle Jacket
6. Nails Inc. Leather Effect Noho
7. Sally Hansen Velvet Texture Velveteen
8. Jin Soon Chamonix
9. 2B Colours Leather Effect Leather Black
10. Layla Softouch Effect 12 Noir Touch
11. Sally Hansen Velvet Texture Plush
12. Revlon Leather Rock Chic
13. Sally Hansen Velvet Texture Regal
14. Wet 'n' Wild Left Left Left Right Left
15. Sally Hansen Velvet Texture Deluxe
16. Sally Hansen Velvet Texture Velour
17. Revlon Leather Downtown
18. Sally Hansen Velvet Texture Crushed
19. Sally Hansen Velvet Texture Lavish
20. 2B Colours Leather Effect Leather Bordeaux

(My bottle shots got a bit out of skew; bottle 20 thought it was bottle 1 and cut in line when it came time to paint the wheel.)

Bottles 2 through 4:



5 through 10:



11 through 15:



16 through 20 plus 1:

Essie Valentine's Day Collection

Valentine's Day is fast approaching, so I figured I'd best do my swatches of Essie's collection for the holiday. There are six shades: Crush & Blush, Galentine, Sparkles Between Us, You're So Cupid, Roses Are Red, and #essielove. All the bottles have colorful wraps on them with see through hearts and a different design for each shade. I couldn't decide which side of the wraps to show in a bottle shot, so I did them all: front, side, and back/other side (which has a small heart that wraps around the corner).



Crush & Blush is a pale pink shimmer. This is a touch on the sheer side; at three coats I still had some nail line showing.





I didn't want to wait any longer to try the three glitter toppers in this collection, so used each over Crush & Blush. Left to right: Crush & Blush alone, topped with Galentine (white and pale pink glitter with tiny red glitter accents), topped with You're So Cupid (red, hot pink, and pale pink glitter), topped with Sparkles Between Us (hot pink and orchid glitter with small red glitter accents). These laid down so smoothly that I didn't add topcoat. Galentine pairs most nicely with Crush & Blush, though the other two also work fine.





#essielove is a classic red shimmer. This was plenty opaque in two coats.





Of course #essielove got the glitter topper treatment. Left to right: on its own, plus Galentine, plus You're So Cupid, plus Sparkles Between Us.





Roses Are Red is a deep red with small bright red glitter. This one was also a two-coater, and needed topcoat to smooth it out.





Just beacuse a polish has glitter in it doesn't mean it should have more glitter added via a topper, so here's Roses Are Red alone, with Galentine, with You're So Cupid (which apparently has some big light pink hexes in its mix, though this was the first one I saw), and with Sparkles Between Us.





I tried a few more combinations with these, too. Left to right: #essielove with funky French tip of Roses Are Red (plus clear topcoat), #essielove topped with Crush & Blush, #essielove topped with Galentine then Crush & Blush (so the shimmer visually softened the glitter), #essielove topped with Sparkles Between Us and then You're So Cupid.





I like this collection. Yes, it's reds and pinks and I'm usually less enthusiastic about those shades since they're done so very often, but in this case, for a Valentine's collection, they make perfect sense. The glitter toppers add so much fun, and the way these shades can be layered keeps things interesting. I also love the fun bottle wraps; they're very festive.

Wheel M11: Chrome Finishes

Since my recent display post when I mentioned I'd yet to see a full display of the LA Girl Liquid Chrome colors, I went to some Rite Aid stores outside of my usual hunting grounds and did find the rest of the colors, so went ahead and picked up the ones I was missing, because for $3.99 a bottle, I can afford to get the full collection. I also got a couple of the Essie Treat Love & Color metallic shades, and only a couple, because at $10 a bottle, scooping all eight up at once was not in the budget. Rather than wait until I had time to swatch them all, I put them on a wheel, along with the Sally Hansen Color Foil shades that came out in 2014 (I did do swatches of those along with some comparisons back then).



(all are two coats)

1. Sally Hansen Color Foil Yellow Gold
2. LA Girl Liquid Chrome Gold Digger
3. Sally Hansen Color Foil Liquid Gold
4. Sally Hansen Color Foil Sterling Silver
5. LA Girl Liquid Chrome Brushed Nickle [seriously this is how they spelled it]
6. LA Girl Liquid Chrome Gunmetal Gray [not sure why this one dried matte; I believe I shook it up as much as the other shades]
7. Essie TLC Power Plunge [metallic rather than chrome but I needed to fill out the wheel and this was handy]
8. Sally Hansen Color Foil Minted Metal
9. LA Girl Liquid Chrome Electric Blue
10. Sally Hansen Color Foil Cobalt Chrome
11. Sally Hansen Color Foil Leaden Lilac
12. LA Girl Liquid Chrome Lacquered Lavender
13. Sally Hansen Color Foil Purple Alloy
14. LA Girl Liquid Chrome Radiant Rose
15. Sally Hansen Color Foil Titanium Flush
16. LA Girl Liquid Chrome Plated Pink
17. Sally Hansen Color Foil Pink Platinum
18. Essie TLC Laced Up Lilac [not the same metallic finish as the other Essie from same display]
19. Sally Hansen Color Foil Rose Copper
20. LA Girl Liquid Chrome Burnished Gold


Bottles 1 through 6:



7 through 10:



11 through 13:



14 through 17:



18 through 20:


















If only my nails were as smooth as the tips on a nail wheel, I might wear chrome polish more often.

Matte Topcoat Comparisons, Part 15

It's been over a year since I tried a new matte to me matte topcoat. It hasn't been over a year since I bought one, I'm just behind on trying them. Today I've got a few different ones.

For comparison, I grabbed my old favorite, OPI Matte Top Coat. The three new additions are Alter Ego She Matters, Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Matte Top Coat, and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Matte Top Coat.



I applied these over a black creme base in the same order as the bottles above. Top/index finger is the OPI, which is super matter. Alter Ego She Matters is just a touch less matte. The Sally Hansen Miracle Gel is really nice and matte, and doesn't need to be over a no-light gel to work. The Sally Hansen Complete Salon (which I got in Canada) dries the least matte of this group, not quite a satin finish but heading in that direction along the spectrum.





I then swapped out the Alter Ego for the newest SinfulColors Matte Top Coat (the older one, MatteFinish, appeared in the very first installment of this series back in 2013, before I knew this was going to be a series).



This new SinfulColors, on my middle finger below, seems like it's more matte than the older version (I would have compared them side by side if I could have put my hands on the older one, but that was six years and a cross country move ago). It's not as matte at the OPI or the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel.





OPI is still one of my favorite matte top coats. Of the new ones, the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel is my pick, with Alter Ego not far behind.

Links to all the prior installments in this series:

Part 1: OPI, Barielle, China Glaze, SinfulColors, Butter London, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics
Part 2: Revlon, NYC, Essie, Claire's
Part 3: OPI, Essie, GOSH, Cult Nails, Icing, Ulta, Fing'rs
Part 4: Orly, Salon Perfect, OPI, Sally Girl
Part 5: OPI, elf, L'Oreal
Part 6: Nicole by OPI, OPI, Sally Hansen, Formula X for Sephora, Deborah Lippmann, Dolce & Gabbana, Nails Inc., Nina Ultra Pro, Illamasqua
Part 7: Fresh Paint, OPI, CK One, Wet 'n' Wild
Part 8: Glitter Guilty, Rescue Beauty Lounge, H & M, Kleancolor, Wet 'n' Wild, OPI.
Part 9: Paul & Joe, OPI, Wet 'n' Wild
Part 10: Dr.'s Remedy, Zoya, Hollish, OPI.
Part 11: Julie G, Pop-arazzi, Pure Ice, OPI.
Part 12: Jin Soon, Morgan Taylor, Girly Bits, Colour Prevails, Wet 'n' Wild.
Part 13: OPI, Pacifica, Bliss, Essence
Part 14: OPI, LA Colors, Wet 'n' Wild, Butter London