Pop Beauty Nail Glam Duo

My most recent jaunt to the county to the south of me (to get my 2nd dose of COVID-19 vaccine—yay!) didn't yield any new displays to share but did lead to me discovering a mystery in a cosmetics bin on the clearance shelves at Walgreens: Pop Beauty Nail Glam polish, which I'd never seen at Walgreens before. I thought this brand was long gone, having not seen it anywhere in years. I bought a bunch when Ulta carried them back in 2011. Those were full size 15ml rectangular bottles; these are 8ml half size in square bottles. Despite being in the clearance bin, they rang up at full price: $6. There were only two colors in the bin: ZZZ Pink and Black Cherry.

 

ZZZ Pink is a medium pink with pearly shimmer.

 

This was plenty opaque in two coats. Unfortunately the shimmer pretty much disappeared on the nail, leaving just pink. Which maybe is why they named it ZZZ Pink ... it's so uninteresting it puts me to sleep. Yes, pink polish is classic, and looks pretty. No problem if that's your thing. It's not my thing anymore. Yet I still buy it to satisfy the collector in me, so I guess I'm encouraging brands to keep pumping out the pinks and reds and skintones. They're going to do that anyway, though ... always have.

 

In direct light, the shimmer was ever so slightly visible.

 

To add a pop of interest to ZZZ Pink, I added funky French tips with Black Cherry, which we'll take a closer look at shortly. Yes, my lines could be smoother, and I might as well have used a cheap black creme for this, but it is more interesting to look at.

 

I had high hopes for Black Cherry, which has lots of small deep pink glitter in a black base.

 

Two coats of Black Cherry plus topcoat (to smooth out the glitter) later, I was let down. The glitter disappears into the base on the nail, which makes having to add topcoat to deal with the texture frustrating. (I don't think it's supposed to be a textured polish.)

 

Okay at this angle I can see the tiniest hints of glitter showing on some of my nails. I can also see the uneven texture despite already having added one layer of topcoat.

 

Getting up close in direct light does let the the glitter shine through more. In daily life, I am not this close to my own nails very often, much less letting anyone else get that close (especially in COVID times).

 

I did try putting a black creme base on and trying to do a thin coat of Black Cherry to see if that would help. It was hard to tell. Maybe a tiny bit, but I still needed bright direct light to see the glitter.

 

 

So yeah, I'm underwhelmed by these two. I do like square bottles for how space efficient they are to store, and the formula of these has good opacity (too good in the case of Black Cherry). I see that more shades are available direct from Pop Beauty, but as there are no swatches, it's hard to know if things like the blue glitter or the purple shimmer are worth getting.

China Glaze Shades of Paradise Pre-Glued Designer Nails

The China Glaze Shades of Paradise collection was released for summer of 2018 but I didn't let that stop me from wearing one of the fake nail sets from it in the fall; the colors went quite nicely with some of my sweaters (and it's definitely sweater weather on my mountain now). As you can see, I bought this set on clearance; they sat in my stash waiting for the right time. I don't know if this purple and green design had a name. If it did, it wasn't printed on the box.



Application for these was simple. They have the adhesive already on the nails, covered with thin plastic so you can try them on for size before you put them on. When you've found the right size, just grab the tab on the plastic sheet and peel it off and stick the fake nail on your real nail. Easy.

These were labeled as "medium almond". They felt long to me, probably because weeks of wearing shorter nails came before these. I'd call this shape ballerina or coffin rather than almond since the tip is squared off, not tapered like an almond.

Most of the set were purple/green duochrome with a white fishscale pattern printed on top that made me think of a mermaid. The accent nails were purple microglitter. I was slightly bothered that the purple of the accents was more cool-toned than the purple in the duochrome but not bothered enough to paint over them with something better coordinated.



Like most longer/pointier fake nails, these started narrowing closer to the base than my natural nails, which is not a great look but I hoped the design was flashy enough to draw attention away from that.



The shift was really visible and really pretty. I spent a fair bit of time moving my nails around and admiring the colors.





In the sun, there was some sparkle to the duochrome.





After a few days, I filed off a tiny bit of the length and rounded the square corners; that looked and felt better to me.





I wore these for a full week. There was some tipwear showing by the time I took them off; it wasn't too noticeable though (if I hadn't reshaped the tips a few days it probably would have been more pronounced).

I liked these a lot, and they coordinated nicely with much of my wardrobe. I have another set or two in my stash; I also saw them on ebay today when I checked, though for more than I wanted to pay.

Wheel O10: Various Magnetics

Back to our regularly scheduled programming this Wednesday with a wheel of magnetics. They're popular in the indie world now, but not so long ago, it was easy to pick them up at retail stores, which is how I got the polishes featured in this episode of Nail Wheel Wednesday.



(all are two coats except for the LA Girl, which are one; some have enough texture that they would have benefitted from topcoat, but I skipped it in favor of moving on to the next shiny thing that distracted me the day I painted this wheel)

1. Ulta Put a Ring on It [these first four minis came in a set; the magnet is this ring on the cap of this first one]
2. Ulta Polar Opposites
3. Ulta Opposites Attract
4. Ulta Rules of Attraction [has a different formula than the other three Ulta magnetics; didn't get much change out of it, though perhaps I just wasn't patient enough]
5. LA Girl Magnetized [magnets for the LA Girl are in a piece that pops out of the top of the caps; different colors have different designs]
6. LA Girl Positive Charge
7. LA Girl Attract
8. LA Girl Electrostatic
9. LA Girl Repel
10. LA Girl Magnetic Field
11. LA Girl Magnetic Force
12. LA Girl Polar Opposite
13. Magna Nails Silver [magnets for the Magna Nails are on a separate piece which has a nail tip glued to it showing the color of the polish and the pattern the magnet makes]
14. Magna Nails Wind
15. Magna Nails Water
16. Magna Nails Titanium
17. Magna Nails Gold
18. Magna Nails Earth
19. Magna Nails Copper
20. Magna Nails Fire


Bottles 1 through 4:



5 through 8:



9 through 12:



13 through 16:



17 through 20:






















Destash notes:

Protective Nails of the Day

I am home from nearly a month on the road! There's so much unpacking and laundry and such to be done, most of which I haven't gotten to yet because a friend and her dog came up to visit for the weekend soon after I returned. I'm now one week into a manicure intended to protect my nails from the rigors of moving luggage in and out of hotel rooms as I drove back over three days and all the reaching into suitcases and the washing machine and dryer as I settle back in. If you've been reading a while, you've probably already guessed that it's fake nails to the rescue. This particular set is from Pretty Woman, some Designer Nails I picked up on my trip in (I think) Billings, Montana. I don't see any name on the box, just the item number PD1004. They're a long-ish coffin shape, most in a pale peachy pink solid color with a few accent nails in a coordinated microglitter finish.



There are 24 nails in the box; I didn't have any issues finding sizes to fit my fingers. I was frustrated that the accent thumb nails weren't the best fit for me, so I had to have plain thumbs, but that's just how it goes. I used the adhesive tabs to apply them; those seemed a bit short for my bigger fingers (all the tabs are the same height and just differ in width). I'd describe the nails as thin but sturdy; they didn't feel heavy on my nails nor did they seem too bendy to do the job of protecting my natural nail tips underneath. The shape was not something I'm used to—the corners on the tips felt very sharp and pointy to me the first day or so I wore them. After that, I either got used to them or they wore down and smoothed out a bit due to normal use. They still felt long to me but weren't as distracting.



As with most other pointy fakes I've tried, the edges of the nails tapered down too quickly to cover my real nails at the sides of the tips; that bothered me when I first put them on but then I forgot about it; the pale color of the fakes blended fairly well with my skin and nails so it wasn't obvious where the gaps were.



Within twelve hours of putting them on, I popped off the first nail when the sticky tab lost its grip. I re-affixed the nail with glue (also included in the box) and just kept doing that as the tabs failed. By a few days in, all the nails were glued on, and they mostly stayed (in a couple cases, a hard knock of a tip against a hard surface would dislodge them, but regluing was easy).



The last morning of my drive back, I melted the tip of my left index finger nail when I got it too close to a hot toaster in the hotel when fishing my bagel out. It didn't deform too much, fortunately.



After I got home, I decided to clip off the melted part of that one nail and shorten the others to match, filing them all into a more rounded shape that feels more comfortable to me.



I think I can get a few more days wear out of these before the gap at the base starts to bother me, so that's what I shall do. Perhaps I'll reward myself with a new manicure after I finish my unpacking!

Wheel P10: Girly Bits

This coming weekend I'm attending the second annual Indie Expo Canada, and in honor of Pam, who made IEC happen, I've got a Nail Wheel Wednesday filled with her brand, Girly Bits.



(all have clear topcoat over coats of color noted below)

1. Girly Bits Refresh Refresh Refresh (2 coats over black)
2. Girly Bits OVbunEN (2)
3. Girly Bits Love Ya Beach (2)
4. Girly Bits You Spin Me Round (2)
5. Girly Bits Sugar Beach (3)
6. Girly Bits Into the Night (3) [early version]
7. Girly Bits Into the Night (3) [later version]
8. Girly Bits Gravedigger (3)
9. Girly Bits Purple Potion (3)
10. Girly Bits prototype FRPS#1 (3)
11. Girly Bits Visions of Sugar Plums (3)
12. Girly Bits unknown (2) [lost the label on this one]
13. Girly Bits Seriously Sassy (2)
14. Girly Bits No Such Thing As a Purple Problem (2)
15. Girly Bits prototype FRPS#5 (2)
16. Girly Bits Stayin' Alive (2)
17. Girly Bits Razzle Dazzle (3)
18. Girly Bits What Happens in Vegas Ends Up on Instagram (2)
19. Girly Bits The Power of Love (2)
20. Girly Bits A Stripper Has Been Sleeping in My Bed (3)


Bottles 1 through 5:



6 through 10:


11 through 15:



16 through 20:














Bonus direct light shots of a few of these: