Spring Colors from Kokie

Products provided for review

 

Well hello again. I'm recently back from my not officially summer yet vacation, a road trip from Idaho to Illinois and back again. In a bold move, I left my laptop at home, which meant, among other things, that I was able to wear longer fake nails than usual, but that's a story for another day. The story for today is that Kokie kindly sent me some polishes in colors perfect for spring. Left to right: Iris, Rock Star, Crown Jewel, Classic, Georgia Peach, All the Envy.

 

I started with Classic, a pale milky peach crelly. This was buildable; I did four coats but could have stopped at three for a faux French mani look. This is indeed classic. I wore similar polishes for years early in my career as an accountant when I was trying to fit the mold of a serious businesswoman.

 

Nothing like dots to quickly add color, so I decorated with Georgia Peach, Iris, and All the Envy before adding clear topcoat.

 

Iris is a light lilac creme. This one covered in two coats.

 

I topped Iris with Crown Jewel, which has blue and holographic blue glitter in a sheer gold shimmer base. (I knew this would work because I swatched a different bottle of it over another light cool creme back in 2019. Because I was craving sparkle, I used two coats of Crown Jewel and added clear topcoat to bring out the bling even more.

 

All the Envy is a medium green creme. I used two coats for my swatch.

 

I put one coat of Crown Jewel on top of All the Envy and added topcoat to that. The somewhat deeper base brought out the gold in Crown Jewel more than Iris had.

 

I combined Rock Star, a warm lavender flecked shimmer, and Georgia Peach, a light red-leaning orange creme, into a funky French look alternating with Georgia Peach alone. Rock Star took three coats and Georgia Peach two. I did add topcoat to the funky French nails to smooth the line between the polishes. This look does say spring to me. If you want to see Rock Star on its own, I swatched a bottle I bought myself back in 2019 (and also topped it with another Kokie shimmer/glitter topper).

 

Given that Rock Star was three coats, I wondered if it would work as a topper, so I laid down a base of two coats of Iris and added one coat of Rock Star to all but my index finger. I really liked the combination. Rock Star warmed up Iris just a tiny bit, and Iris brought out the pale golden shimmer in Rock Star.

 

These are all nice polishes; good basic cremes and some bling to liven them up. It's nice that Kokie doesn't seem to discontinue things too quickly, given that I got two of these colors four years ago and you can get them today. 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.

Dashing Diva Gloss Gel Nail Strips

Well hello. I had a good break from nail blogging. I've still been paying attention to a couple of polish groups on Facebook and looking for displays when I have the opportunity. Last month, I saw a mainstream collection that inspired me to not just photograph it, but buy all the colors and I've used two of them already (on my toes, so won't be sharing those here because that's a whole thing). I hope to at least get a display post with those in it up next week. Now, though, Ij ust couldn't let all of March go by without posting something, so here I am with the first nail look I've done in ages that didn't involve press on fake nails (not that there's anything wrong with fake nails).

Late last week I found a set of Dashing Diva Gloss Gel Nail Strips when I was looking for a new set of fake nails to put on (yes, the organization of my nail stuff is an ongoing issue). I'd had a few too many nails pop off from set I was wearing so thought why not try the strips. Those aren't going to end up on the floor of someone else's house the way my fake nails had the other week (twice at the same party, even). I put them on late at night at home, so please forgive the wonky lighting in these next several pics. This set is called Gleam Queen and has mostly lilac creme strips, with three different accent options: purpley pink microglitter, silver microglitter, and lilac and pink "stained glass" with white leading.

 

The directions for applying these are similar to my beloved and long discontinued Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips: prep the nail, choose a size, smooth from base to tip when applying, file off excess. Removal is different: these can be peeled off rather than needing nail polish remover.

 

I did lilac on most of my nails, with silver glitter as an accent on my ring finger. In comparison to the nail polish strips, these are thicker, feeling sort of rubbery. That's good in that it makes them easier to handle: they don't tear or flop over onto themselves the way the very thin polish strips can. That's bad in that it's harder to smooth them out at the edges (my pronouced C-curve makes that harder) and harder to remove the excess at the tip (forget about the sides ... you can't cut these with the sharp end of manicure stick like you can regular polish strips). You can see some little wrinkles on a couple of my nails and some fuzziness at the ends where I had trouble filing them smoooth. The set does come with a fairly good sized one-sided file to use, but I still had trouble. The glitter strips were thicker than the plain ones, which meant they looked better since they didn't form those wrinkles at the sides and camoflauged irregularities in my nails better than the plain strips.

 

In the light of day the next morning, I wasn't super happy with how the plain strips looked, what with the wrinkles and the showing of every ridge underneath. The ridges aren't so obvious in this photo as they were to the naked eye. I also noticed some "fuzzies" stuck on the ends of some nails, likely clinging to the adhesive on the bits of strips I'd struggled to file off the night before.

 

Since I liked the glitter nail, I decided to just put accent strips over the plain strips. Much better.

 

There weren't any thumb-sized accent strips, so I just laid one of the stained glass ones down the center, hoping that would distract from the wrinkles at the sides. It looked pretty good, I thought.

 

I've now had them on for six days. There's been some slight lifting of the strips at the tips and corners of a few of my nails, perhaps because of the double thickness. The stained glass ones on my middle fingers are showing the most raggedy-ness, probably because I tend to bump those fingers into things more since they're longest.

 

I'd use these again, just stick to glitter sets rather than plain ones, or do a ridge filling base coat first, though I don't know how that would affect their sticking power.

Kokie Green Greens and Gold

Sample provided for review

 

Today I've got three more of the new shades in the Kokie Green line, which the brand generously sent me for review. Two of these are green in color, too. Left to right: Feral, Starry-Eyed, and Maybe Baby.

 

Maybe Baby is a teal-leaning medium toned green shimmer flecked with golden highlights. I did two coats for my swatch and added clear topcoat to bring out the pretty sparkles in the shimmer even more.

 

 

 

Starry Eyed has small gold and holo glitter in a clear base.

 

Starry Eyed didn't look like it'd be full coverage, so to try it, I bared just my index finger and put on three coats of it, then did one coat over Maybe Baby on my other digits. I'm not usually a gold person, but this gold and green combination looked really good to me. The clear base of Starry Eyed let the shimmer in Maybe Baby show through while the glitter added lots of sparkle and pop.

 

 

Feral is a warm-leaning medium-toned green shimmer. It looks almost metallic in some lights, porbably due to the wealth of silvery shimmer in it. I used two coats, no topcoat for my swatch. Despite it being lighter in tone than Mabye Baby, it seemed more opaque.

 

 

I liked Feral on its own, but of course that didn't stop me from experimenting on it. I sponged Maybe Baby on the tips to make a slightly messy, sort of subtle gradient. I used clear topcoat to smooth it out. I thought these worked well together.

 

 

And finally, I put one coat of Starry Eyed over the gradient, skipping topcoat because it was smooth enough for photos without.

 

 

In direct light, Starry Eyed popped nicely:

 

In the bottle, I was pretty sure I'd like the blue and purple I shared last week. I was less certain about this trio, fearing a couple would be too warm to flatter my skintone, but I ended up liking them all, especially together. 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.

Kiss Gel Fantasy Ready to Wear Nails

Sorry for my long absence from this blog. It's been a heck of a few weeks. My mother-in-law died somewhat unexpectedly in mid-February, and since then it's been a whirlwind of cleaning out her assisted living apartment, making arrangements, flying to Illinois for the burial, then having houseguests upon our return. Not all of that fell on me, of course, but it's been hard to find time to sit and write. The guests are still here and we'll be doing things with them for another week, but I've got a bit of time to myself today so wanted to pop in with a quick update. For the week of the apartment clean out, I wore a set of Kiss Gel Fantasy fakes, a limited edition design from several Christmas/holiday seasons ago featuring navy matte nails and multicolored glitter accents.

 

My natural nails have been in pretty good shape considering it's winter, which I attribute to keeping them protected with fakes most of the time, so yes, I want to continue that.

 

I used the adhesive tabs to attach them, so in a few minutes, my nails were done (and I hadn't risked gluing my fingers together). I really liked the glitter accent; it was just the right amount of flashy for me right then.

 

 

On the drive home from the apartment clearing/memorial arrangingg trip, nine days after I'd put the nails on, they were still looking pretty good. The matte nails were less matte, but no one who hadn't seen them fresh would notice that. I did have to reattach a few of them during the week, but on the whole they performed really well through all the sorting of stuff and packing and moving of boxes. I was pleased.

 

I kept them on another four days. The navy ones were pretty glow-y by then, but still the overall effect was looking good. Now I wish I'd bought all the boxes of these when they were around.

 

Given the houseguest situation, I'm not sure when I'll manage to post next. In a week or so, I'm hoping things will be calmer for me.

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Halloween 2021

There was no question that I was going to buy the new Insta-Dri Sour Patch Kids shades that Sally Hansen released for Halloween this year. That was more challenging than it might have been, since I had to get them from three different sources. Left to right: Full Moon (never saw this in a store, got from the Target website), Slime All Yours (Walgreens exclusive), Oh My Gourd, and Hallo-Queen (these last two were more widely available; I think I got mine at Bed Bath & Beyond but might be remembering that wrong).

 

Full Moon, a blue base filled with tiny white glitter, looked to me like a combination of two shades from last year's Halloween collection, so I had to pull those out to compare. One my index finger (top): Boo-lue (from 2020) topped with First Sour Then Sweet (2020, rereleased this year). On my other digits, three coats of Full Moon. So obviously Full Moon isn't quite the same blue at Boo-lue, being a touch more turquoise. Full Moon is also more sheer to let the glitter show through. It also lets some visible nail line show; I think I might try Boo-lue (or another blue) as a base under two coats of Full Moon next time I wear it.

 

 

Slime All Yours is a green microflakie shimmer with pops of blue and lime as well as a scattering of tiny white hex glitter.

 

I wasn't sure how sheer Slime All Yours would be, so I hedged my bets by doing another layering experiment on my index finger. So on my index (top) I have Hallo-green (green creme from 2020) topped with one coat of Slime All Yours, then on my other fingers I have three coats of Slime All Yours.

 

 

 

 

Oh My Gourd is a glitter topper with hex glitter in pale yellow satin and white matter plus tiny pale yellow satin glitter in a clear base. Just looking at it in the bottle, it didn't say Halloween to me, more like Easter, so when I tried it, I first did orange creme tips with Pump-kid (from 2020, rereleased in 2021), then put on two coats of Oh My Gourd. The look has a sort of candy corn vibe.

 

 

Hallo-Queen is a another glitter topper. This one has large and medium satin hex glitter in pale orange, medium hex glitter in black, and square glitter in silver holo.

 

I put two coats of Hallo-Queen over R.I.P.-urple (from 2020, rereleased in 2021).

 

 

There were also two glow in the dark shades in this year's Halloween display that fooled me into thinking they were new, because their names weren't on my spreadsheet, but when I got them home, they looked suspiciously like two shades from last year. Left to right: Glowing Night (2020), Creep It Real (2021), Fa-BOO-lous (2021), Happy Hollow-een (2020).

 

On the nails, top to bottom (all three coats): Glowing Night, Creep It Real, Fa-BOO-lous, Happy Hollow-een. The 2021 version of the pink seems a bit more pigmented than the 2020 one but not dramatically so. The two margarita colored ones are indistinguishable from each other.

 

In the dark, all four glow evenly.

 

Slime All Yours is the standout for me in this group. I do like the two glitter toppers, too.