Patriotic Polishes from Pure Ice and Salon Perfect

Happy 4th of July to those of you celebrating today! Flawed as they were, I honor our Founding Fathers for starting this experiment; if only they could rise up from the mists of history and get our current leaders back on track. What I am excited about today is the polishes I picked up on my trip from the holiday displays at Walmart, which I got swatched just in time (though this post is going up late in the day due to not getting the photos selected and cropped quite as efficiently as I'd hoped).

I'll kick things off with the red, white, and blue trio from Pure Ice: Party Time, Light It Up, and Fly High.



Fly High is a white shimmer that reminded me of the pearly frost polishes from back in the day. It's not as brushstrokey as some of those were, fortunately. I used two coats and that was plenty, so it's nice and opaque for a white.



Lacking patience to see the other two Pure Ice shades, I went ahead and slicked some freehand stripes of them on top of the white. Was immediately reminded of why I don't usually freehand stripes. But sharing them in all their wiggly glory so you can see how similar the finishes are. (This has clear topcoat on it to smooth the stripes somewhat.)



Party Time is a red shimmer. I used two coats, though one might have sufficed if I'd gotten the brushstrokes straight from the get go.



Fly High is a sapphire blue shimmer in the same finish as the other two in the trio. I did do just one coat of this one; it's very nice that Pure Ice isn't stinting on pigments even at their $1.98 price point.



I got in a little more wiggly freehand lines practice before I put these three Pure Ice aside. I added some dots this time to make myself feel slightly better about my nail art skills. (Again, added clear topcoat to smooth things over.)



Now let's look at the limited edition Salon Perfect polishes from their Make Sparks Fly display: Firewerk, National Holi-yay, Star Spangled Selfie, Block Party Blue, Bling Bursting in Air, Sea to Shimmery Sea, and The American Sheen.



Block Party Blue is a vibrant medium blue with a subtle shimmer. I did two coats and let it dry, which it did to a satin finish.



Adding topcoat brought out the shimmer more:



Bringing it into direct light really showed the shimmer:



With a nice base color laid down, of course the next step was a glitter topper; in this case, Bling Bursting in Air, a mix of blue, red, silver, and silver holo hexes in various sizes in a clear base.





The American Sheen is a red with a sublte golden shimmer that gives it a very nice glow. It's alos a one-coater and pretty shiny on its own with no topcoat.



It got more glow-y in direct light:



I paired American Sheen with Firewerk, which is a red jelly packed with red (and possibly gold—it's hard to tell so tinted is the base) hex glitter in assorted sizes. I freehanded a diagonal block across my nails with Firewerk and added clear topcoat. Firwerk is very flashy for having such a restrained color palette.





Sea to Shimmery Sea is a blue metallic shimmer. I used two coats, though it's probably quite possible to make this a one-coater if you want to do a thicker coat. This has a nice depth to it.



Sea to Shimmery Sea's counterpart is called National Holi-Yay; it's the blue (and maybe silver—again the base is tinted enough to make it hard tell) version of Firewerk. I did the same diagonal swipe as I did with the red. Since Sea to Shimmery Sea is more glitzy than The American Sheen, it doesn't contrast as much with the bling of the glitter.





Seven polishes in the LE collection means one glitter didn't have a partner, so I alternated Sea to Shimmery Sea and The American Sheen on my digits so Star Spangled Selfie would have its moment to shine. This glitter topper has red and blue metallic hex glitter and silver star glitter in a clear base. I did one coat of it on top of the red and blue, plus clear topcoat. The best part was I did not have to fish for the stars, not at all. Sometimes I'd even get more stars than I wanted on the brush at one time. Impressive.





I was on a roll at this point, so kept playing. I put down a base of Pure Ice Light It Up then alternated Salon Perfect Firewerk and National Holi-YAY, adding clear topcoat for greater depth. The jelly bases of the two Salon Perfects are tinted enough that they likely would have been buildable to opacity on their own, but I think the white base adds a nice vibrancy.





Then, just for good measure, I added a coat of Star Spangled Selfie, making an effort to only get one star in each brushload, and topped with clear. So festive!





I'm glad I braved the chaos of many Walmart stores to find these. I still wish they paid their workers better; I'd gladly spend another few pennies on each bottle of polish.

Smackers Disney Tsum Tsum Polishes

Happy Halloween! Given my love of Disney and interesting polish bottles, I scooped up all of the Smackers Disney Tsum Tsum colors when I saw them at Fred Meyer in the run up to Halloween. Left to right: Mistress of All Evil (Maleficent), Skellington (Jack Skellington), Wickedly Stylish (Cruella de Vil), Rag Doll (Sally), and Sorceress of the Deep (Ursula).



Mistress of All Evil is a teal shimmer that's somewhat old school in finish, what with the brushstrokes one has to be aware of when applying it. They're not so prominent that I'd call this a frost finish, which is good. I used two coats for my swatch.





For fun and because I want to do more nail art, I did some freehand squiggles and dots on top of this teal with Sorceress of the Sea, a purple shimmer we'll take a closer look at shortly. I added clear topcoat, too.



Sorceress of the Sea is a purple shimmer, again with some brushstrokes but less so than Mistress of All Evil. This was also a two coater.



In direct light, the shimmer did show some microfine flecks I thought were pretty (Mistress of All Evil didn't do similar, thus no direct light pic of that one).



To get a little arty, I dotted Sorceress of the Sea with Wickedly Stylish and Rag Doll, then added a matte topcoat.



The remaining three polishes are all straight cremes in Halloween colors: Rag Doll is orange, Skellington is Black, and Wickedly Stylish is white. I combined them all in one look, doing ruffly stripes with all three on my index finger, three coats of Wickedly Stylish on my middle, two of Rag Doll on my ring, and one of Skellington plus clear topcoat on my pinky (I needed the topcoat to smooth the finish; if I'd known it was a one coater I would have been more attentive with the color).







This is a fun group, mostly for the bottles, but the polishes are certainly decent and usable, too. I don't know that I would have gone with teal for Maleficent, but that's a minor quibble.

Alessandro Sunday Rose Collection

Product provided for review

Today marks the end of an era, in that I have the last set of review samples making a stop at my house before heading on to Lucy's Stash. Changes in both of our lives led to it making sense for us wind up this arrangement (including I won't be sitting at my desk most every weekday, ready to receive packages). The Alessandro Sunday Rose collection gets this honor; it's a group of five slightly dusty base colors paired with a somewhat subdued gold glitter. Left to right: Happy Coral, Apricot Touch, Tender Rose, Pastel Mint, Sunday Blues, Euphoria Top Coat.



As is my wont, I reached for one of the cool colors, first. Pastel Mint is just what it says, a pastel green. On me, it pulled toward blue-green; I've seen swatches around that look much more green. This is a tricky one; the photos also look more blue on one of my monitors and more green on the other; regardless, it's a pretty and flattering color for my skintone. This has a subtle white/silver shimmer to it that's only visible up close in most lighting conditions. I needed only two coats for my swatch, which I thought was great for a light color like this.



Since it's hard for me to leave well enough alone, a did a dotticure on Pastel Mint with Sunday Rose and Apricot Touch, mattifying it for good measure.



Continuing in the cool color vein, I tried Sunday Blues next. This cornflower blue creme was nearly a one coater, though I used two for my swatch. I topped an accent nail with one coat of Euphoria, adding clear topcoat for shine more than smoothness, as Euphoria laid pretty flat on the nail. Euphoria is pretty dense for a glitter topper; it's got an abudance of tiny gold holo glitter, small and medium gold hexes, and transluscent coppery shards that needed a bit of coaxing to leave the bottle.



Low light photo to show off the holo in the glitter:



I wore the three warm colors together. On my index finger, I freehanded diagonal stripes. My middle finger has two coats of Tender Rose, a pastel pink creme. On my ring finger, two of Happy Coral, a light red orange creme. Rounding out the set, my pinky has two coats of Apricot Touch, a light warm orange creme.



You probably already guessed that I also had to add glitter to this look. Despite gold not really being my thing, I found Euphoria quite interesting.



Here's the warm color mani with Euphoria added to the non-striped digits:



Even though it was clearly labeled as a top coat, Euphoria was so dense with glitter that I had to try it on its own, which I did on one nail, doing a gradient over Pastel Mint on the other fingers (all digits got clear topcoat, too). At three coats, there was just the barest hint of visible nail line with Euphoria.



I liked the mint and gold combination even more when I added matte top coat, which gave it that sea glass effect.



This is nice collection. The topper works with all of the other colors, and the formula was good across the board. I haven't seen these in any store, but they are available on the Alessandro USA website for $6 per 5 ml bottle (three of the shades are also available in the Striplac peel off LED cured formula for $18 an 8 ml bottle). You can follow the brand on Facebook at AlessandroInternationalUSA, on Instagram at @alessandrousa, and on Twitter at @AlessandroIntUS.

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider.

Barielle Bling It On Glitter Collection

Press sample provided for review

Barielle has launched two glitter collections this month. I was fortunate to receive one of them to review, the Bling It On collection. This five-piece group has glitter toppers as well as some glitters in bases that build to opaque and can be worn on their own. Left to right: Sea Urchin, Golden Halo, Amethyst, Angel Dust, Shooting Star. (Yes, the Amethyst bottle is turned around the wrong way. I would have held this post until I could do a reshoot, but frustratingly, this is the reshoot--the first time I snapped the bottles, I had a different color out of skew. Guess a perfect bottle shot is not meant to be for me and this group, but at least this time, my oops is centered.)



Golden Halo has a gold metallic shimmer base with mixed sizes of pink metallic hex glitter.



Golden Halo can be worn layered or alone. I put a base of Barielle Edgy, a very deep plum creme, on my index finger and topped it with one coat of Golden Halo, then did three coats of Golden Halo on its own on my remaining digits.







Golden Halo is reminiscent of Gilded Rose from the Maybelline Brocades collection and Golden Ticket from Cinapro Nail Sugar, but the Barielle is less chunky to the eye and lays flatter on the nail due to having its mix skewed more toward the shimmery base than those other two. I didn't use topcoat for my swatch, even.

Angel Dust has a mix of transluscent iridescent glitter, from tiny microglitter to medium hexes, in a sheer pink base.



Angel Dust seemed like it might work well with Golden Halo, so I used the look above as a starting point for my first experiment with Angel Dust. I cleaned off my index finger and put a fresh coat of Edgy on, topping with one coat of Angel Dust. On the other nails, I added a funky French tip of Edgy on the Golden Halo, then topped with Angel Dust. I quite liked how this combination turned out. Angel Dust self levels well enough that I didn't feel a need to use topcoat for this swatch.







I also tried Angel Dust on its own over Barielle Dinner at 8, a red creme. I used only one coat of Angel Dust, so you can see it has a good glitter payoff (no fishing needed, either).





Since I'd put Angel Dust over Golden Holo, I figured I'd try the reverse as well, and brushed on a chunky gradient of Golden Holo at my tips.





If you like the Monet topper that came out with the Zoya Awaken collection, you'll like Angel Dust. It's the same concept but the Barielle has a more complex glitter mix.

Shooting Star has a blue/purple duochrome and white shimmer base with a mix of blue metallic hex glitters.



To bring out the duochrome, I put Edgy to work as a base again, this time on all but my index finger. I topped Edgy with one coat of Shooting Star and did three coats of Shooting Star on my index finger, topping all my digits with clear topcoat.







Shooting Star is similar to Cinapro Sweet Tooth; the blue/purple shift in the Barielle seems to be stronger than I saw in the Cinapro, maybe because the glitter is less dense.

Amethyst is the least complicated glitter one in this collection; it's got one size of light purple metallic hexes in a clear base.



I put one coat of Amethyst plus clear topcoat on the Shooting Star mani above. I know it looks like these hexes aren't flat, but they are; it's just reflective curling.





I also tried Amethyst over Barielle Magna Cum Laude Turquoise, adding Shooting Star as well to an accent nail before adding clear topcoat.





I saved my favorite for last. Sea Urchin has gold, green, and turquoise metallic glitter in a blue green shimmer base.



Sea Urchin looked like another "layered or alone" one, so I put Head of the Class Green on my index finger and left the others bare, adding one coat of Sea Urchin over the green and three coats on the bare nails plus funky French tips in the green for all digits (the tips got a bit thick because I wanted to make sure to cover the glitter; if I were doing this for a full mani, I'd have fixed that). Head of the Class Green was such a good match for the base color of Sea Urchin that it was hard to tell the difference between the layered nail and the others; the sparser shimmer and glitter on the layered nail wasn't evident at first glance.







To see the effect of different base colors on Sea Urchin, I grabbed Magna Cum Laude Turquoise, Head of the Class Green, and Irish Eyes. I did some freehand diagonal blocking with the cremes on my index, then used each as a base, starting with the turquoise on my middle finger. One coat of Sea Urchin plus topcoat went on the plain bases. The differences were subtle; I was most surprised how Sea Urchin masked the dark warm green of Irish Eyes. This is one of those swatches I'd like to wear as a full mani one day.







These polishes are available on the Barielle website individually ($8 a bottle) or as a set ($25 for all five). The other new glitter collection from Barielle is Glitter Mania.

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.