Kokie Green Skinny Dip and Friend

Sample provided for review

 

Wrapping up my month of Kokie Green, today I have Skinny Dip, a blue shimmer with a subtle purple shift that's hard to capture on camera. This isn't one of the newest eight shades in the Green line, but one I hadn't tried before. I used three coats for my swatch.

 

 

You can maybe see a hint of the violet in this side shot:

 

I added Starry Night on top of Skinny Dip (you may remember Starry Night, a gold holo glitter, from this recent post). I was going for a glitter gradient look but I'm out of practice.

 

 

Skinny Dip is a nice shimmer, more flecked than frosted. I wish its purple side showed up more for the camera but it shows up for my eyes so that's fine.

These shades are available at select Meijer stores and online for $8 each on the Kokie website.

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The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.

Salon Perfect Dippin' Dots Collection

Continuing the "Easter in July" Skittles theme I started last week with Sally Hansen x Peeps, today I have the Salon Perfect Dippin' Dots colors, which caem out around the same time. These aren't necessarily Easter, though the palette does resemble candy eggs. I'm pretty sure I have similar colors from any one of a number of "soft neon" or "pastel neon" or "sunwashed neon" collections that have come out over the years, but the Dippin' Dots tie-in got me. It's been ages since I had any of that delightful ice cream of the future, so having the nail polish to look at is good. Top: Banana Split, Orange Creme, Strawberry Swirl, Birthday Cake. Bottom: Berry Freeze, Cotton Candy, Cool Mint, Lime Ice.

 

I wanted to try these over white, so I first grabbed two of the colors to try that. Left to right: Banana Split (2 coats), Banana Split (1 over white), Lime Ice (2 coats), Lime Ice (1 over white). The white made a slight difference, brightening the color a touch. The formula on these was a bit tricky; definitely pigmented but also a bit runny and didn't self level as well as I'd like. Still, not too hard to work with.

 

Then I got to Skittling, without the white base. Top to bottom: Banana Split (2 coats), Orange Creme (2), Strawberry Creme (2), and Birthday Cake (1 thick).

 

 

Now the cooler shades (all 2 coats): Lime Ice, Cool Mint, Cotton Candy, and Berry Freeze.

 

 

I don't think any of these are must haves, but I can see wearing them for summer pedicures.

Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Cruella Pairings

Today I have some swatches I did a while back with my selections from the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Cruella collection. Of course I got all three of the glitters and also got three shades I felt coordinated with them (and that weren't core colors with a new cap screwed on). Left to right: Fame & Fortune, No to Conformity, Iconic Darling, The DeVil is in the Details, Luck & Glory, Pretty in Punk.

 

Here's Fame & Fortune, a warm purple almost metallic shimmer, with No to Conformity, a topper with blue, purple, and rose pink glitter ... mostly hexes, including some very small ones, but also some irregular shards (I guess that's the non-conforming part). I used two coats of Fame & Fortune and one of No to Conformity, plus clear top coat.

 

 

A closer look at No to Conformity:

 

I did like Fame & Fortune on its own quite a bit, so here's a peek at that:

 

Up next, Iconic Darling, a frosty light grey, with The DeVil is in the Details, a black and white glitter topper. Iconic Darling took three coats before I felt it looked decent. The DeVil is in the Details was fine at one, with no issues getting glitter out of the bottle and onto the nail.

 

 

 

Finally, Luck & Glory, a blue shimmer that leans just a touch periwinkle, and Pretty in Punk, a topper with pink, red, purple, and sky blue matte hex glitter. I did two coats of Luck & Glory and two of Pretty in Punk because I just wanted more of that glitter.

 

 

 

My least favorite of these is Iconic Darling; it was a bit too brushstrokey for me. My favorite is No to Conformity, which has already made it into my pedicure rotation as it goes with many of the colors I wear on my toes and is a fun way to freshen up my look between color changes.

Pop-arazzi Trio

I am just embracing that this blog is pretty much a museum now: documenting noncurrent polishes in an old school format. Today I've got a few polishes from Pop-arazzi that may or may not still be in stores. I bought a few of the white capped bottles on my road trip last August, then ordered more from CVS online when they had a big sale last fall. My first shipment arrived in less than stellar shape, with one bottle having broken and spilled all over the rest of the polishes and the inside of the box.

 

Beause I'm an optimist (sometimes) and had no other option to get the polishes, I did another order before the sale ended, including a replacement for the broken bottle. These came very securely packaged, wrapped in bubble wrap that was taped shut. No casualtie. I don't know if the policy for packing changed between orders or I just got unlucky the first time and lucky the second or what. Most of what I ordered is still waiting to be tried, but I did swatch a trio I thought looked good together: After Party, Deco'd Out, and Iridescent Purple.

 

Deco'd Out is a lilac shimmer that has a subtle blue/purple shift. I used three coats for my swatch and found it showed brushstrokes more than I'd like. It is a pretty color, though.

 

 

 

Then it was time to play with layering, as both the other two polishes looked like toppers to me. After Party has multichrome flakes in a clear base, while Iridscent Purple has exactly that ... iridescent purple/blue flakes in a translucent base. Top to bottom below: black creme topped with Deco'd Out (brushstrokes not a problem so maybe it was operator error), Deco'd Out topped with Iridescent Purple, Deco'd Out topped with After Party, Deco'd Out topped with After Party and Iridescent Purple.

 

At an angle to show the shift (yes, there was an incident where I bumped my ring and pinky and messed up the polish, and didn't have the patience to redo, but I'm sharing anyway because you can still see the effect even messed up):

 

Because I felt like the flakes were getting a bit lost on Deco'd Out, I did another hand of layering starting with a black base on all my digits. Top to bottom: black plus Deco'd Out plus Iridescent Purple, black plus After Party, black plus Iridescent Purple, black plus After Party plus Iridescent Purple.

 

 

 

I am happy with these, especially given the price (regular $4.99 but often on sale ... I just checked and they're buy one get one 50% off right now). I especially like After Party. I think it'll look great over a whole range of darker shades.

Revlon Ultra HD Snap!

I am skipping over my backlog of swatches for something fresh: the three colors I chose to try from new Revlon Ultra HD Snap line. The Revlon website says of these: "Finally there’s a 1-coat full coverage nail color that’s quick drying, easy to apply, and isn’t made with all those controversial ingredients." The Revlon website also says there are 24 shades, though the one store I've seen these at only had 16 of those. Pity, as might have chosen a different assortment to try. Ah well, done is done. I picked Marigold Maven, Commander in Chief, and Get Real. Yes, they're all cremes, because the line is mostly cremes, so that's what I got even though I'm overstocked in cremes.

 

Marigold Maven is a taxi cab yellow creme. Despite the marketing hype, I used two coats over bare nails, and even then I wasn't 100% happy with the look, as I could still see the ridges on my nails and the finish wasn't super glossy. If I were wearing this for a full mani, I'd want base and topcoat. Still two coats isn't bad, especially for a yellow, and it did dry quickly.

 

It dried so quickly, in fact, that I was able to stamp over it as soon as I finished taking the plain photos. I used the Nauti But Nice plate from Uber Chic and Commander in Chief as a stamping polish, figuring if they were saying these are one coat, they should be opaque enough to stamp with. And Commander in Chief was. I had to work fast because of the dry time, but I think it turned out okay considering how long it's been since I stamped.

 

Get real is a cornflower blue creme. I again used two coats, though one thick one might have sufficed.

 

I stamped over Get Real with Marigold Maven (using a plate a failed to make a note of). I wish I'd added a topcoat as well to disguise the ridges showing through but I was afraid of smearing the stamping.

 

Commander in Chief is a deep warm green creme. I did use only one coat of this one.

 

I stamped on Commander in Chief with the other two shades (again failed to make note of the plate).

 

Pros of these: They do dry quickly. They do work as stamping polishes. The cap has some sort of "snap into place" construction so it stays lined up with the bottle when you screw it back on.

Cons: Price is full sized (around $6); bottle is mini sized (8ml). If your nails aren't perfectly smooth, will need a base coat. If you like shine, will probably need a topcoat.

For the Love of Polish Aurora Borealis Box

Today I finally have individual swatches of the three polishes I used to create my Northern Lights Nails look to kick off 2021: Tonic Euphorealis, Pahlish Solar Wind, and Polished for Days Polar Lights.

 

I started with Polished for Days Polar Lights. It's got a blue-leaning purple base with shifting flakes in turquoise, pink, and blue along with some silvery holo flakes.

 

I did three coats of Polar Lights for my swatch. Two might have been fine, but I got distracted by the pretty. I added clear topcoat for more depth even though the polish was self-leveled nicely.

 

 

 

Tonic Euphorealis is a warm purple with green to blue shifting shimmer.

 

I did three coats plus topcoat for this swatch as well, and again, two and no topcoat would probably have been just fine.

 

 

 

Here's the embarrassing part: I forgot Euphorealis is a thermal. Since it's winter, my hands weren't warm enough to make it change, so there was no visual indication of its thermal-ness, and the label doesn't say anything about it, so I went about my merry way without capturing the warm state at all. Between the time I did my swatching and the time I sat down to write this post, my nails have taken a beating from the winter weather, so instead of re-swatching, I slapped Euphorealis on a nail wheel to see the shift. Its warm state is a very pale lilac.

 

Pahlish Solar Wind is a dusty green-leaning blue shimmer with plenty of flakes to add even more visual interest: green shifty flake and holo flakes and microflakies.

 

Two coats of Solar Wind was plenty for full opacity, so I stopped there with this one. I did go ahead and add topcoat just because; it was smooth enough on its own.

 

 

 

Here's Solar Wind in direct light, showing off its holo:

 

Being me, I had to play around with layering, even though none of these are technically layering polishes. Why let that little detail stop me? First up I have one coat of Tonic Euphorealis over Pahlish Solar Wind. Euphorealis mostly covers up the flakes in Solar Wind, though one or two of the bigger ones do peek through at some angles. The dusty base of the Pahlish cools down the purple of of the Tonic, makes it softer.

 

 

I tried Euphorealis as a base under Polished for Days Polar Lights, leaving the Tonic on its own on my index finger for comparison's sake (should have done this with the above layering combination, but too late now). The warm purple of the Tonic used as a base does make the Polished for Days warmer, too, though the difference is subtle.

 

Then I was curious how much the base color could change the look of Polar Lights so I did Skittles with China Glaze Plur-ple (medium warm-leaning purple), Sally Hansen Insta Dri Purple Heart (deep blue violet), SinfulColors Roar (medium blue), and SinfulColors On the Prowl (teal), then topped those with one coat of Polar Lights plus clear topcoat. And yes, I'm calling this experiment a success, as the base colors definitely have an effect, pulling Polar Lights more to purple or blue or navy. Purple Heart on my middle finger changes it the least, which makes sense as it's the closest to the color of the base of Polar Lights.

 

 

I'm very glad I bought this box back in November. I'll have to remember the Tonic come summer and hope the thermal won't be dead by then (I don't think it will be but when you see this next Nail Wheel Wedenesday you'll understand my concern).