Orly Holo Jellies and Friends

Despite having a goal to continue buying less polish than I did in my stash expansion heyday, I'm still signed up for all sorts of brand newsletters and text alerts, including Orly's. I saw they were having a sale and went to look and noticed it included the shades from the Holo Jellies collection released this past summer. No better time then for me to share swatches of the bottles I bought a while back, along with two glitter toppers I ordered at the same time. Left to right: Party Animal, As If, Peace Out, Chill Pill, Like Totally, and Dancing Queen.

 

I first Skittled the Holo Jellies, doing three coats plus topcoat. They're not quite opaque at three coats, but close enough. All have a generous helping of silver holo glitter in a jelly base. As If is a soft orange. Peace Out is lime green. Chill Pill is a blue between turquoise and sky. Like Totally is purple, such a pretty purple, not too red and not too blue. I like these; the formula is good, with the jelly base being buildable, not too opaque so it hides the glitter.

 

 

 

I then reached for the glitter toppers, grouping them each with the Holo Jellies shade(s) they were most compatible with. Party Animal has pink, orange, and yellow matte hex glitter in various sizes plus silver holo microglitter in a clear base. I layered one coat of it over As If, finishing with clear topcoat.

 

 

 

Dancing Queen has lime, purple, and sky blue matte hex glitter plus silver holo microglitter in a clear base. It seems made for the remaining shades of Holo Jellies. I did a gradient over a creme base that matched my skintone, then Peace Out on my middle finger, Chill Pill on my ring, and Like Totally on my pinky, topping the three non-gradient nails with one coat of Dancing Queen plus clear topcoat. This whole look made me happy. I really should take the time to do manis like this again because they do make me smile.

 

 

 

I don't regret getting these at all despite having more polish than probably all the nail salons in town put together. They're mood lifters for me. And I'm proud of myself for resisting the plain jellies that Orly came out with sometime after Holo Jellies. Maybe I don't have exactly those shades of blue, pink, and yellow in exactly that consistency, but I do have blue, pink, and yellow jellies in my stash. If you don't, those are also in the sale going on now on the Orly website. Five dollars a bottle is a deal. Dancing Queen and Party Animal are available still at full price. I'd pay it because I'm a fool for glitter still, even though the nail world has mostly moved on to other things for now.

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.

Salon Perfect Bewitched Collection

Yes, Nail Wheel Wednesday is still on hiatus, and I'm still having trouble getting back into a regular blogging routine, but I'm here now with the Salon Pefect Bewitched colors from the Halloween display that showed up at some Walmart stores. Six shades here: On My Milky Way, Celestial Chic, I Need Space, Head in the Stars, Universal Glow, and Alien Apple Bobbin'. All of these are full cover glitter polishes, packed with small hex glitter in two colors.

 

I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to do full hand swatches of all six of these due to the time I had available, so I was glad that the collection naturally divided into two trios that I could swatch as groups. I started with On My Milky Way (white and gold glitters), Celestial Chic (red and gold), and I Need Space (black and gold). I did a not-quite-gradient on my index finger (over a skintone creme base) and three coats of each color individually on my other fingers, topping all with a clear topcoat. These were buildable to full coverage, as you see, though when I pull them out again I want to experiment with two coats over a base that matches the non-gold glitter as I think that will look just as good and be easier to apply and remove.

 

 

 

Then I gave the same treatment to the remaining three shades: Alien Apple Bobbin' (yellow and gold), Univers-al Glow (pink and yellow), and Head in the Stars (bright pink and silver).

 

 

 

I still love glitter, so am glad I was able to get these. I can see wearing the white, red, and gold through the winter then breaking out the three brights next summer.

Essie Roll With It Collection

I can buy nail polish way faster than I can swatch it, which means bottles get stuck in my swatch boxes and eventually I have too many swatch boxes, so I go through them to move things to the "put on nail wheels" shelves. Sometimes I find things that catch my eye all over again so before they get moved, they get swatched, months and months (somtimes years?) after I bought them. Today's example: Essie's Roll With It Collection, which I believe was released for fall 2020 and which I bought in fall 2021. There are six shades, all shimmers with a scattering of holo microglitter: Sequin Scene, Roll With It, Let's Boogie, Whirl 'n' Twirl, Lace Up & Get Down, and Head Over Wheels.

 

 

These looked like two distinct trios to me, so I swatched them that way, starting with the more neutral hues: Let's Boogie (pewter-leaning silver), Roll With It (pinkish taupe-leaning silver), and Sequin Scene (brown-leaning orange). I did a sponge gradient with them on my index finger, then Let's Boogie on my middle, Roll With It on my ring, and Sequin Scene on my pinky. All of these were three coats for me.

 

The difference between the two silvers on the nails is more subtle than it is in the bottles. Roll With It is a touch cooler-toned and seems to have a slightly less dense shimmer base. I wish instead of one of these, they'd done a deeper grey, not quite charcoal. Or a teal.

 

I topcoated the gradient, and should have topcoated the other nails, as these do have a slightly gritty look without it. Still, the holo microglitter catches the light very nicely, distracting from what might be too much brushstrokey-ness otherwise for some of the shades.

 

Then I took the same approach with the more vibrant shades. A gradient on my index, then Whirl 'n' Twirl (blue) on my middle, Lace Up and Get Down (purple) on my ring, and Head Over Wheels (hot pink) on my pinky. Whirl 'n' Twirl was three coats and the others were two. Again, I added topcoat just to the gradient. I loved how these shades blended.

 

 

Lace Up & Get Down seemed to have the densest shimmer, with fewer holo bits showing color in it that the others, though a few did pop through at some angles.

 

 

The sun came out while I had this last trio on, so I hustled over to the window and was rewarded with this glowy-ness:

 

If I had to choose just one of these (and at some point I might, as I cannot move into assisted living someday with thousands of bottles of nail polish), it'd be the blue, Lace Up & Get Down.

Warm Hues from Kokie Green

PR sample provided for review

 

Today I have three more shades from Kokie Green. For more on this new line from Kokie, see this post I did last month (just ignore that part at the end where I say I'll post the following week about the other ones I was sent). The trio I have for this post are Hotline, Rendezvous, and Troublemaker.

 

Hotline is a glowy orange shimmer. I used three coats for my swatch, though two would probably have been fine, too.

 

 

In direct light, the shimmer had even more of a glow to it.

 

Troublemaker is a rosy pink with pink and gold flecked shimmer. As with Hotline, I used three coats but probably could have stopped at two. I really liked the shimmer in this one; it's so pretty and adds a lot of visual interest.

 

 

 

Rendezvous is a classic red creme. I was on a roll with the three coat approach, so did that again with this swatch, and again, I likely could have done just two.

 

 

I played around a bit and did a rough gradient, sponging Troublemaker and then Hotline onto Rendezvous before I added clear topcoat. It was a bit rougher than I'd like, but the colors blended well and the gold shimmer in Troublemaker really popped on the red (the pink did too, but in a less flashy way).

 

 

I still haven't seen these "in the wild", but they are available on Kokie's website. I am hoping to run into them at some point, so I can get a good look at the other shimmers. If they're like the two in this post, I'm definitely buying them.

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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.