Kokie Seasonal Trio

PR Sample provided for review

 

It's still technically summer for another week, so I'm squeaking in here with three shades that Kokie sent me to celebrate summer: Sparkler Send Off, Cayenne, and Café Olé. I'd wear these year round, myself, because I'm flexible that way.

 

Being me, I started with the glitter, Sparkler Send Off, which has gold and pink metallic hexes in a sheer gold shimmer base. Here's how it looks worn alone at two coats:

 

 

For a similar look with no visible nail line, I layered one coat of Sparkler Send Off over Café Olé, a rosy tan creme. You can see Café Olé swatched on its own in this post I did last December.

 

 

To see Sparkler Send Off topping a light pink shimmer, see this post I did in 2019, before I started swatching for the brand. Cayenne is a red-leaning orange creme. It covered nicely in two coats. This shade is definitely perfect for summer, and also works for fall (some of the leaves are turning just this color right now).

 

I added one coat of Sparkler Send Off to Cayenne and really liked the combination. I thought the pink glitter on the orange might not be great, but the gold is so prominent it works just fine. Sparkler Send Off lays flat enough on its own that I didn't even add top coat for this swatch.

 

I did one more look with these polishes, using Cayenne and Café Olé to do a freehand clouds/stairstep sort of design. This I did add topcoat to in order to smooth the borders between the colors.

 

 

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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.

Sally Hansen Sour Patch Kids Collection

Sally Hansen Sour Patch Kids CollectionI was on such a high after my nail polish display hunting outing the other day that I swatched some of my purchases almost immediately, including the ones I have today, the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Sour Patch Kids Halloween collection. Left to right: First Sour Then Sweet, Pump-kid, The Un-red, RIP-urple, Boo-lue, Hallogreen, and Ghouls Night Out.



Because all except the white one are cremes, I decided Skittles swatches would be fine to show the colors, so I started with Pump-kid (orange), The Un-red (red), and Ghouls Night Out (black). I did freehand stripes on my index with all three, then each shade got its own digit. Pump-kid and The Un-red were two coats; Ghouls Night Out was one.





I gave the same treatment to RIP-urple (purple, though a lighter shade than has become popular for Halloween in recent decades), Boo-lue (blue), and Hallogreen (green). RIP-urple and Boo-lue were two coats; Hallogreen was one.





I put down a base of the black, Ghouls Night Out, then did a ghost on my ring finger with one of the Insta Dri whites (I think it was the Crayola one), dotting her eyes in with Ghouls Night Out, then put a coat of First Sour Then Sweet, which has tiny white matte glitters in a clear base, over everything. Given that it's not unusual for it to snow on Halloween where I live, I think this is a perfect mani for the holiday.





Of course I had to do some comparisons. I started by putting Hallogreen up against Jelly Belly Green Apple from 2020, Jelly Belly Green Apple from 2019, and Crayola Granny Smith Apple.



Below on the nails, one coat each, in the same order as the bottles above. Hallogreen is pretty much indistinguishable from either of the Green Apples (I had to use them both to make sure it was just a shade number change from year to year); it might be a touch darker but not so you'd notice unless you were studying it super duper closely. Granny Smith Apple is definitely more yellow than the other three.



Pump-kid was up next; I pitted it against Pumpkin Queen (from 2014's Halloween collection), Crayola Sunset Orange, and Crayola Atomic Orange.



On the nail at two coats each, Pump-kid is ever so slightly darker and red-leaning than Pumpkin Queen and Sunset Orange (which are pretty much dupes). Pump-kid and Atomic Orange are basically the same. (My apologies for the poor cleanup here; as will become even more clear later, I was evidently having some kind of a day and didn't realize at the time.)



The Un-red matched up with Crayola Wild Strawberry, Jelly Belly Very Cherry, and Crayola Scarlet.



I call this comparison the most subtle red ombre ever. From The Un-red to Scarlet, these shades get the tiniest bit more orange as we move from index to pinky. All are two coats.



I pulled two polishes to compare to Boo-lue, namely Crayola Cerulean and Crusin' Blue (from 2019's Tropical Brights collection). I snapped the bottle shot, painted my nails and took notes, and then apparently briefly blacked out or was abducted by aliens or something because I did not take any photos of them on my nails and failed to notice until I was writing this post. You and I will have to take my notes' word for it that there were no dupes here. Cerulean is less turquoise-leaning than Boo-lue, and Crusin' Blue is lighter.



I did no comparisons with RIP-urple because there were no shades that were even close in either the Jelly Belly or Crayola releases (nor in any of the other Insta Dri purples I had close to hand). I'm sure I have something in another line that's close if not a dupe but I didn't go digging in my stash.

I rallied to do a bit more play with these colors, doing a dotticure with the five non-black cremes, then topping with First Sour Then Sweet, which did a good job of distracting from where I'd smeared some of the dots with topcoat.



Obviously the most interesting of these it First Sour Then Sweet. Ghouls Night Out is a great black creme if you're needing one. The other cremes are also solid choices with good formulas (though I know the Insta Dri wide flat brush is not to everyone's liking), but none of them are must haves if you've already got a stash built.

Sinful Colors Neon Collection 2019

I can take photos of my nails and swatch polish way faster than I can write posts and crop and watermark pictures, so I always have a backlog of content I intend to share here. If I were disciplined, I'd either post things in a fairly timely manner or delete the folders of photos knowing I'm never going to get around to them. I don't do either, which is why I just came across some swatches I did last summer of the Sinful Colors neons that were newly released. Why post them now? Well, because the polishes are available now as a set on the Target website, which I know only because a few ladies in the Sinful polish group I'm in on Facebook have shared their recent purchases. So now these nearly year-old swatches will have their day in the sun.

There are six shades in this collection: Popped (pink), Juiced (orange), Extra AF (yellow), Lit-terally (green), Zzzapped (blue), and Hella Bright (purple).



I apparently was feeling both impatient and creative that day back in June that I played with these, as I didn't do any straight swatches, but instead split them into warm and cool trios of colors and did some some looks over a white creme base that incorporated dots and funky French tips using the Sinful Colors Pride shades from 2019.

First up, the warm hues. Again, these are all over a white creme base. Index finger has freehand stripes of Extra AF, Juiced, and Popped with dots of Natural Blonde, Tight Squeeze, and Tainted Love, respectively. Middle is Popped with a tip of Tainted Love. Ring has Juiced with a Tight Squeeze Tip. Pinkie is Extra AF and Natural Blonde. All nails have clear topcoat to smooth everything out.





All of the neons have shimmer in them, but I couldn't get the orange and yellow to show theirs until I put them in direct light (see two photos below).





On to the cool hues. Index finger stripes are Lit-terally dotted with Filthy Rich, Zzzapped with Love is Love, and Hella Bright with Drag Queen. You can figure out the combos on the other nails, I'm sure.








The cool hues showed their shimmer better in the lightbox than the warm ones had, but I still wanted to share a direct light shot.



I'm not sure why Sinful Colors (which I'm now styling with a space in between the words, in a change from what their PR person told me years ago, as the new bottles out now have the words on separate lines) decided to release these as neons, as they're nothing like what we in the nail polish world think of as neon. They're colorful, yes, but not super super bright, and don't dry satin/matte as neon pigments are known for. I like them, and am glad I bought them, but I don't think they're neon, no matter what the stickers on the caps say.

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.