Wheel G14: Magnetics

Today for Nail Wheel Wednesday I've got magnetics, mostly brands I had to travel or trade to get. Standard magnetic wheel rules applied: because I was doing 20 in one sitting, I didn't always leave the magnet in place long enough to make a strong pattern, and because the tips are close together, I sometimes couldn't get the magnet where I would if I were doing the pattern on a real nail.

 

(all two coats with top one magnetized) 1. Dona Mirelle Opti Grow Magnet MG05
2. Dona Mirelle Opti Grow Magnet MG15
3. Dona Mirelle Opti Grow Magnet MG06
4. IsaDora Magnetic Nails Electric Violet
5. IsaDora Magnetic Nails Magnetic Mania
6. IsaDora Magnetic Nails Steel My Heart
7. L'Oreal Star Magnet Silver
8. L'Oreal Star Magnet Grey
9. L'Oreal Star Magnet Prune [I smudged this, not the polish's fault]
10. Ludurana Aurora Magnetic Explosao de Luz
11. Essence Metallics Steel Me [used generic bar magnet for all Essence ones; I don't know if they had their own and I misplaced it or what]
12. Essence Metallics Nothing Else Metals
13. Essence Metallics Iron Goddess
14. Essence Metallics Copper Rules
15. Eye Candy Magnetic Quilt Bordeaux
16. Eye Candy Magnetic Quilt Peacock
17. Deborah Lippmann Love is a Battlefield
18. Deborah Lippmann Hard Knock Life
19. Deborah Lippmann Magic Man
20. Deborah Lippmann Pink Princess

Bottles 1 through 5:

 

Directions on the Dona Mirele ones, which I bought in Minsk, Belarus on a business trip:

 

6 through 10:

 

11 through 15:

 

16 through 20:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minsk Haul the First

Today I return to the department of things I should have posted a long time ago, namely the haul from my first trip to Minsk at the end of April. Of course some of those polishes have made it to this blog already, but others have waited patiently for their moment to at least get in a bottle shot. Today is that day.

Let's start with the IsaDora: Bronze Patina, two Sugar Crush textures (Ocean Crush, Purple Crush), and three Magnetic Nails (Electric Light, Magnetic Mania, Steel My Heart). I swatched the Sugar Crush in my Textures from Foreign Lands post. I swatched the others in A Quartet from IsaDora.



I had some IsaDora in my stash before my trip, but none of this next brand, Dona Mirelle (or pretty much any of the other brands to come). Left to right: Opti Grow Magnet MG06, Opti Grow Magnet MG05 (in a different bottle style for some reason), Opti Grow Thermo 105, Opti Grow & color 115, Nano Technology unknown pink shimmer (the label was illegible).



I usually peel price tags off, but these I left on because it's just so exotic to me to see prices in the tens of thousands on small items. That 37,250 Belarusian rubles on the leftmost bottle was approximately US$3.75; not bad for a magnetic. The labels on the back are interesting, too, though probably if I could read them they'd be less so.



I bought more LuxVisage than any other brand. They were inexpensive and had a lot of textures and glitters to choose from. Here are the colors I chose from the Sahara (texture) and Galactic (metallic glitter) lines: 55, 65, 67, 206, 212. You can see the Sahara ones on my nails in the same post linked above for the IsaDora textures.



And the LuxVisage Hi-Tech (matte glitter) shades: 10, 12, 18, 19.



The LCN colors I saw weren't as adventurous as the LuxVisage ones, but I did like the cute little square bottles. I got five of these: FD4 Sealed With a Kiss, 246 Mystic Mint, G10 Disco Fever (I had to look up the names online for all but this, which had the English name printed on the label), 203 Azure Blue, 337 Green Emerald. Green Emerald got to be in the Polish Revolution Literary Wast Land swatches as a base for one of those lovely glitters.



One of the ladies in the office told me Belor Design was based in Belarus, so I definitely wanted to get some of their colors. I would have gotten more but the displays I saw were chock full of only pinks and reds and other traditional colors which I'm already crazy overstocked with. I'm not sure where the Maxi Color brand comes from, but I'd never seen it before so grabbed a couple of those, too. Left to right: Belor Design Podium 71, Belor Design Classic 19, Maxi Color Aromatic 04, Maxi Color Style 108. Two of these were in my Minsk Quartet post earlier a few months back.



I like to buy at least two of any brand I get (so I don't have oddballs; not sure why that should matter). I could only find one Vivienne Sabo Noctuelle but got it anyway since I also like variety in my stash and didn't have any of this brand. I'm not sure what this holo silver bar glitter is called, but I'm glad it's in my collection. I got three from Relouis (I finally figured out that's what the brand is called; the bottles only have an "R" on them): 03, 01, 421 (I would love to track down 02 someday, but don't think that's going to happen). Two of the Relouis glitters are also in that Minsk Quartet post linked above.



I was charmed by the "mix beads & sticks" stickers on some of the Novelty Cosmetics glitter polish bottles, so grabbed two of them, 805 and 541. I also got one Maybelline, even though on a normal day I drive by approximately four dozen stores which carry Maybelline. But those stores don't have the Colorama line, so I'd never seen this delicate lilac with translucent microglitter. The price of 27,500 rubles sealed it—I needed it to come home with me.



In addition to the swatches linked previously, I was able to get a few more of these on my nails (but not all; that may need to be a new rule—no hauling until I've swatched all of the previous one, but I'm not sure how that would work in practice; trip hauling is easy, but what constitutes a haul at home? A week's worth of purchases both online and off? Maybe when I hire my stash assistant she or he can figure it out for me.)

Here's three coats of Belor Design Podium shade 19. I chose this one from among the whites and pinks and reds and wines on offer because the gold shimmer made it just a touch more interesting (the internet tells me there are a couple purples and a blue in this line but I sure didn't see it in the store in Minsk where I got this).





With the gold shimmer, the Belor Design seemed like a good base for the gold and black LuxVisage Galactic 212. I added one coat of the glitter plus clear topcoat.





The LuxVisage Hi-Tech in the bright bases looked sheer, so I put on some undies first, both skintone and white. Top to bottom: OPI Samoan Sand plus three coats of LuxVisage Hi-Tech 18, Sally Hansen Whirlwind White plus 18, white plus three coats LuxVisage Hi-Tech 19, Samoan Sand plus 19.





I tried the two Dona Mirelle magnetics together. The purple, MG06, was less well behaved than the blue, MG05. I'm not sure what that was about, or how I managed to get two different shades of purple out of MG06. Not enough shaking of the purple maybe? Or perhaps the bottle style change is significant. Regardless, the blue had a much nicer, more sparkly finish, and I got better results from the magnet. The purple can always be a base color for glitter or shimmer or something if I can't get it to work nicely with the magnet the next time I try.





The Dona Mirelle Thermo 105 was quite interesting. It's a delicate periwinkle blue with pink shimmer. When I first put it on, I wasn't seeing much color change at my tips, but it was a very pretty color nonetheless.



I ran cold water over my hand and saw a darker blue shade emerge.



As my hand warmed the polish, I got the two-tone effect I'd been expecting.



In sun, I saw something unexpected; the periwinkle looked more purple than blue and some gold shimmer appeared in addition to the pink.



I was quite fascinated with this one. It seems like it's sheer enough that it might be a good layering polish, too.

The last one I have to share today is LCN 337 Green Emerald on its own at two coats.



I liked the shimmer in Green Emerald most in direct low light:



The problem with looking at these pictures is it makes me want to go back to Minsk. Right now, I have no return trip on the schedule and not sure one is in the cards, either. Fortunately I still have my haul from trip number two to swatch, so that will help some.

A Quartet from IsaDora

Nail Wheel Wednesday called in busy yesterday; I am hoping it will be back next week, as my calendar looks a bit less chock-a-block then. Today I've only got time for a quick post with the four non-textured IsaDora polishes I got on my first trip to Minsk earlier this year. I shared the textured ones in my Textures from Foreign Lands in May; these swatches haven't been waiting quite that long to see the light of day but they have been languishing on my hard drive for a few months.

This quartet consists of Bronze Patina, a shimmer, and four magnetics: Magnetic Mania, Steel My Heart, and Electric Light.



I Skittled these, though I am now wishing I'd at least given Bronze Patina the whole hand treatment, as it's quite an attractive black with olive-y gold shimmer that was nearly opaque in one coat. I used two for this swatch, and also wish I'd added topcoat to shime it up a bit more. That's the story of my index finger, so on to the magnetics. Magnetic Mania, the purple, was thinner than the others; I used three quick coats before holding the magnet close to the surface for about 15 seconds. Steel My Heart is a dark blue grey with a more speckly shimmer than Magnetic Mania and a thicker formula; I used two coats of this one. Electric Light, the plum, had a similar finish to Steel My Heart.



At some angles, Steel My Heart showed off its more blue side, with the shimmer sparking little pops of bright turquoise.









I'm glad to have all of these and would probably have more IsaDora in my stash if it were easier to get around here.

Textures from Foreign Lands

I'm wrapping up this shortened edition of Texture Week with some polishes I bought during my recent travels. First up, a few I got in Canada last weekend (plus a domestic buy for comparison's sake). Left to right: Revlon Diamond Texture (from Rexall in Canada), GOSH Frosted Silver (from Super Drug Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada), GOSH Frosted Purple (ditto), Orly Plum Pixel (from Ulta in the US). Revlon I can get easily near home, of course, but I haven't come across this new core shade anywhere before (though I admit I haven't been looking super hard). GOSH I've only seen in the US in a couple of super fancy Walgreens stores.



Here they are on the nail, in the same order as above:



The silver ones were three coats and the brownish purple ones were two. The Revlon silver seems slightly finer-grained than the GOSH, but it's not something you'd notice unless you were looking for differences. The GOSH purple is a bit coarser-grained than the Orly but again it's not really that noticeable; the colors are pretty darn close.







The next two textures I have to share part of my haul from Minsk, IsaDora Sugar Crush in Ocean Crush and Purple Crush.



Ocean Crush is a turquoise with gold microglitter. Purple Crush is a slightly dusty purple with a medium hex glitter and microglitter. I used two coats of each, and you can see that Purple Crush is perfectly opaque but Ocean Crush still shows a hint of visible nail line.



I still haven't figured out how to hold two bottles at once.







Also in Minsk, I got three textures from the Lux Visage Sahara collection. I don't know if these have names since I can't read the words on the labels, but they do have numbers. Left to right: 67 (blue), 55 (orange), 65 (purple).



All of these needed only two coats and have microglitter in with the texture. 55 Orange has yellow glitter; 65 Purple has pink glitter, and 67 Blue has silver shimmer. I liked these a lot; if I'd tried them before I left Minsk I would have been very tempted to go back and scoop up more colors, luggage weight limits be damned.







And now I'll wrap up with a very special polish I got in Canada last Saturday: Girly Bits Bette Davis Eyes, which is part of the 80s Girl Bands collection that opens for pre-order on June 2nd at noon EST. It was very exciting to get a preview of the collection as part of our workshop and even more exciting to be able to buy some of them. Bette Davis Eyes is a light silver fine grained textured shimmer. There are tiny pops of rainbow color in the shimmer, which makes it more interesting. My swatch is three coats.





I know not everyone will want to wear Bette Davis Eyes textured, so I added topcoat to show how it looks shiny.





And finally here's a low light photo blurred to show how pretty the pops of color are in the shimmer:



I bought one more color from the 80s Girl Bands collection and Pam kindly gave each us a another color of our choice to review, but those aren't textured so they'll have to wait 'til next week.