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:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ludurana Aurora Magnetic

Today I have another bit of gorgeousness from my swap with Lucy in Brazil: Ludurana Aurora Magnetic in the shade called Explosão de Luz. This is a blue/purple magnetic duochrome shimmer, and as if that weren't enough, it's also scented, giving off a light floral fragrance when dry.

The color shift is clearly visible in the bottle:



I used two coats of this, no topcoat, and left one finger unmagnetized so I could see how it looked plain. It was more silvery that I expected based on the bottle; the stripes left by the magnet alternated bottle color and a silver/pewter. The magnet is glued to the cap, and the pattern isn't marked on it, so to keep the stripe direction somewhat consistent I just had to pay attention to the writing on the label and orient that the same way.



The color did indeed shift on my nails, so much so I'd call this a multichrome rather than just a duochrome. I saw the blue and purple from the bottle, plus the blue shifted to teal and the purple to plum/dark pink depending on how the light was hitting my nails. Sometimes, each nail looked different. I took many oddly angled shots of this trying to capture it and only partly succeeded. Here's a sampling:













This is such an interesting and beautiful polish. I need to wear it as a full mani soon.

Swap Goodies from Brazil

I recently completed another swap with the lovely Lucy from Brazil. She sent so many pretty things that I couldn't fit them into one picture.

There were these Jade holos:



And even more Jade holos:



Those bottle shots aren't showing off the holos to their best advantage. Here's a close up of one of the colors so you can see the rainbows:



There were holos and glitters from Impala and Ludurana as well as a magnetic duochrome from Ludurana—I thought I'd seen every kind of magnetic there is but hadn't seen one like that.



Here's a closer look at the Ludurana holo:



But wait, there's more—wonderful stuff from Hits, featuring gorgeous glitters:





There were some other treats, but those were not available for photos because they were edible and I started nibbling on them almost immediately. Unlike last time, I didn't wait months to use the polishes, either. I seized the moment and tried two of them within a couple weeks of unpacking. It was difficult to decide which to try first since they were all so enticing. In the end, my love of purple won out and I reached for Jade Holográfico Fascínio Violeta. This is not a high maintenance holo; I applied two coats of it over my usual base (Instant Artificials) and had no problems. For my accent nails, I added one coat of Hits Speciallita Glitter's World Sydney, then topped all my nails with Diamond Dry.



A few rainbows showed up in my lightbox as seen above. I wanted to get some sunlight shots, but we were having second winter all the days I wore this combination so there was not much bright sun to be had. Fortunately, the Jade shows rainbows in a variety of normal room lighting conditions, so I strolled around my house snapping shots in my kitchen and dining room.





I did capture a photo near a window in weak sunlight coming through the glass; before I could go put on shoes and get outside, the sun was behind the clouds again, so I'm glad I got the shot I did.



I also snapped some pics in the car; I didn't catch any great rainbows from the Jade, but I did get the holo hexes in the Hits to show off:



I am so happy that Lucy got in touch again and was so kind to shop for all these lovely polishes from Brazil for me. Thanks, Lucy!

Brazilian Beauties

So long ago that I'm embarassed to admit, I did a swap with Lucy in Brazil, who writes Frésias Azuis (in Portuguese, which I don't know, but I can appreciate the photos). She sent me many gorgeous polishes; they were so pretty I didn't want to use them but instead just admired them in the bottles. This approach, of course, is silly, yet I can't seem to get over it and just do a mani with one of them already. As a compromise with myself, I did some Skittles swatches which wouldn't make too big a dent in the bottles and would let me enjoy some of the colors Lucy sent on my nails for awhile.

First I tried four of the Speciallità Hits no Olimpo holos: Ares (red), Apolo (blue), Dionisio (purple), and Zeus (black).





To make sure I had a smooth base, I used one coat of Salon Sciences Instant Artificials before adding the color. I used two coats of all but Zeus, where I had to use three because I made the first one too thin.







The Hits no Olimpo were so pretty I wanted to try the other colors Lucy sent right away, but talked myself into trying a sampler of holos from other brands so I could see what they were about: Ellen Gold Holográfico Dourado (gold), Ellen Gold 3D H9 (green), Ludurana Aurora Boreal Supremo (purple), and Impala Army na mira 3D (black).



Again I used Instant Artificials as a base and added color. The more linear holos, the gold and purple, took two coats, while the more glittery scattered ones (green and black) took three. Even then the green was a bit sheer; next time I'll layer it over a base.







I fell in love with the Impala one—so many colors winking out at me, even in the lightbox (unfortunately it was sun-free when I swatched these so I couldn't try them outside). Maybe I'll get over my fear of using it up and do a full mani with it one of these months. In the meantime, I do have the pretty pretty bottles to enjoy.