Wheel U11: Textured Shimmers

Today for Nail Wheel Wednesday, I have textured shimmers, mostly from the Julie G brand. Some of these have scattered glitter in them along with the shimmer. These are my favorite kind of textures because they can be worn on their own or with topcoat to bring out their depth visually when I don't want the texture. Solid textures just look weird to me when topcoated.



(all two coats)

1. Julie G Tangerine Dream
2. Julie G Sugar Rush
3. Julie G Hot Cinnamon
4. Julie G Textured Ho Ho Ho [I like that the holiday colors say textured on the front of the bottle; that's easier to spot and looks better than the stickers on the backside of handles of the earlier releases which say "for full effect do not use top coat"]
5. Julie G Crushed Candy
6. Orly FX Pink Pixel [as established in one of my texture comparison posts, this is essentially a dupe for Julie G Crushed Candy (or vice versa; I think the Orly came out first)]
7. Julie G Sugar Plum Fairy
8. Julie G Blueberry Fizz
9. Julie G Sleigh Ride
10. Julie G Mistletoe
11. Orly FX Aqua Pixel
12. Julie G Rock Candy [more Julie G/Orly dupe-y-ness with 11 & 12 here]
13. Orly Silver Pixel
14. Julie G Silver Bells [evidently by the time the holiday textures came out Julie G was done duping Orly]
15. Misslyn Velvet Diamond Elegance [it wasn't until I had this on the wheel that it occurred to me that perhaps "velvet diamond" finish wasn't meant to be textured; a bit of research has enlightened me that the brand describes this as having an "exciting contrast between a velvety matte effect and a sparkling glitter optic", nothing about texture at all; ooops]
16. Orly FX Plum Pixel
17. Orly FX Black Pixel [I'm sort of irked that this doesn't have scattered glitter like the other Pixel shades; I like consistency]
18. Icing Quick Sand Sand Castle
19. Orly FX Rose Pixel [and yep, looks like the Icing is a dupe for this one]
20. Julie G Gift of Gold


Bottles 1 through 6:



7 through 12:



13 through 17:



18 through 20:

Wheel J8: Glitters from Icing and Savina

Nineteen of the twenty polishes on this week's episode of Nail Wheel Wednesday are from Icing, with Savina slipping in to fill out the wheel because the bottle looks very similar to Icing. I got most of these, perhaps all of these, from swaps back when I was doing a lot of swapping. (Many are from my friend the Canadian Nail Fanatic.) There are Icing stores in Michigan, but none of them are convenient to my usual polish hunting routes, thus the swapping. I know it makes no sense that I will drive around to a dozen drugstores in one day looking for displays but won't take the time to go to a mall to see what Icing has, but that's how I roll.



(all three coats plus topcoat except as noted below)

1. Icing Glamourous
2. Icing Tiger's Blood
3. Icing After Party
4. Icing Tell Me I'm Awesome
5. Icing Birthday Beyotch (2 coats)
6. Icing Rock Star from Mars
7. Icing Disco Ball
8. Icing Epic Winning
9. Icing Written in the Stars (2)
10. Icing All Night Long
11. Icing Sunlit (2)
12. Icing Crystal Heart
13. Icing The Golden Age of Glitter (2)
14. Icing Gold Dust
15. Icing Pop a Bottle
16. Icing Bedazzled
17. Icing Party Confetti
18. Icing The Party Has Arrived
19. Icing Glitterati
20. Savina Purple Hologram (2)

Bottles 1 through 5:



6 through 10:



11 through 15:



16 through 20:

















Destash notes: Looking at this wheel in isolation, there's not much I can let go of since there's a lot of variety here. 18 possibly, since it's pretty much 17 with the bluer purple taken out. I know I have some glitters similar to these in other brands, though, so one day I will have to have a big glitter face off to settle matters.

Wheel H8: Magnetics in Cylindrical Bottles

When I got back into nail polish 'round about late 2009, magnetics were a rare and exotic thing. I remember getting a few precious L'Oreal Star Magnet colors in swaps with ladies from Europe and treasuring them like the jewels they were. Then a couple/few years later, magnetic polishes were everywhere, with drugstore and salon brands alike coming out with multiple shades. I of course bought a lot of them. Today's wheel o' magnetics is just a fraction of the ones I have in my stash. I had to start somewhere, so I grabbed the eight colors Sally Hansen released (and I swatched) in spring/summer 2012 along with other brands in similar bottles—I strongly suspect these all rolled down the same filling line and just got different labels at the end.



(all two coats)

1. Sally Hansen Magnetic Silver Elements
2. Sally Hansen Magnetic Graphite Gravity
3. Sally Hansen Magnetic Ionic Indigo
4. Sally Hansen Magnetic Polar Purple
5. Sally Hansen Magnetic Red-y Response
6. Sally Hansen Magnetic Kinetic Copper
7. Sally Hansen Magnetic Golden Conduct
8. Sally Hansen Magnetic Electric Emerald
9. Nails Inc. Magnetic Effect Houses of Parliament
10. Color Club Magnetic Force Steel of the Night
11. Color Club Magnetic Force Magnetic Force
12. Color Club Magnetic Force Sci Fi
13. FingerPaints Magnetic Steel of the Night
14. FingerPaints Magnetic Electro Midnight
15. FingerPaints Magnetic Hipnotic
16. FingerPaints Magnetic Cop an Attitude
17. Icing Magnetix unnamed grey
18. Icing Magnetix unnamed blue
19. Claire's Magnetic unnamed rose
20. Claire's Magnetix unnamed green

Bottles 1 through 4:



5 through 8:



9 through 12:



13 through 16:



17 through 20:





















Destash notes: In a somewhat unusual approach for me, I refrained from buying every shade of every line of magnetics once the intial rush had passed, so I have less destashing to do than I otherwise might. For instance, the two Icing colors here are the only two I bought. Still, there are dupes and close-enoughs here: 1 and 17, 2 and 10 and 13, 3 and 14 and 18, just for instance. Since I have the full set of Sally Hansen (though later they came out with other colors, too), they'll get to stay and the other brands will go. When I destash. Which I will. Someday.

Textured Glitters from Nina Ultra Pro and Icing

Continuing Fall Texture Week 2013, today I've got offerings from Nina Ultra Pro and Icing, also know as miscellaneous texxtured glitters I bought this summer but didn't get around to swatching until now.

The Nina Ultra Pro Matte Glitters showed up at my Sally Beauty store in early June, in a narrow twirling triangular unit stuck next to the core display. At my store, the polishes were facing out (pic here), but I've seen photos of other stores where the display unit was spun around so the polishes were hidden and what showed was a display card with the words "Matte Glitter". There are three limited edition shades (left to right below): Star Bright, Shooting Star, and Twinkle Twinkle.



Star Bright is a rose pink; the glitter particles are mostly very small but there is also a scattering of larger ones that adds some visual interest. Though the brand calls this a matte glitter, it doesn't really look especially matte when it dries, probably because the glitter has a silvery metallic undertone to it. I used two coats for the swatch.





Shooting Star has the same glitter mix and texture, just all silver. This was two coats as well.





Twinkle Twinkle is dark dusty blue. Like the first two, I used two coats. Unlike the first two, this didn't have the larger glitter particles in the mix, just the tiny ones.





Of the three, this one looked the most textured when dry, probably because it didn't have the larger glitters reflecting light and distracting the eye. That meant it was the only one I felt compelled to try topcoat on. Here's how that turned out (I only did one nail because I was feeling particularly lazy):



The last polish I want to share today is not from Nina Ultra Pro but has a very similar finish. It's Icing Sand Castle, from their Quick Sand line. I only bought this one color to try; there are others, I'm just not sure how many since I don't haunt their store the way I do other places. Sand Castle is a rosy tan glitter. Like the Ninas, it was two coats.





If you think some of these look familiar, you're right. I'm planning a big comparison post to wrap up texture week, and you'll see these polishes again then—I can tell you now that three of these four are dupes of colors in the Orly MegaPixel FX collection. All four of these are cheaper than Orly FX, too.