Juicy Flakies from Great Lakes Lacquer

I know Valentine's Day was yesterday, but pink and pink-adjacent polishes are seasonless. Today I have two flakie beauties in that family from Great Lakes Lacquer's Island Horizon collection: The Real Boss and Bug ON.

 

Bug ON is a deep berry packed with shifting flakies: I see pinks, orchid, orange, green, and maybe even gold.

 

Two coats of Bug ON were ample for full coverage. I added clear topcoat to add depth and shine. This one is so rich looking.

 

 

The Real Boss is a pinky coral base with flakies that shift from pink to orchid to orange to gold.

 

I did two coats plus topcoat for my swatch of The Real Boss as well. I know I said pinkks are seasonless, but this one really makes me think of summer.

 

 

I sponged Bug ON over The Real Boss for a subtle gradient, smoothing things over with clear topcoat. I really liked this combination.

 

 

I suspected that the crelly base of The Real Boss was light enough to allow it to be used as a topper, so of course I had to experiment. I first put down an ombre of creme base colors: Color Club You're Making Me Blush (light pink), Sally Hansen Insta Dri Bubble Gum (pink), Sally Hansen Insta Dri Wild Watermelon (coral pink), and Sally Hansen Insta Dri Razzmatazz (deep pink).

 

I then put one coat of The Real Boss over the cremes and added clear topcoat. The Real Boss was powerful enough to make the two lightest pinks into the same color as its own crelly base, but the two darker pinks did change the hue. To do an ombre with this, I'd start with the pink base on my index and work to a deep berry on my pinky.

 

 

These are both delicious colors. And both still available on the Great Lakes Lacquer website last I checked, which was over the weekend when I knew I'd be writing this up for today.

Cremes from Kokie

Samples provided for review

 

I recently got a package from Kokie with some polishes to try. Rather than try to cram all six polishes I received into one post and not get to play with them as much as I'd like, I decided to split them up, starting with a trio of classic cremes I thought looked good together: Café Ole, Chill Seeker, and Playing Games.

 

Café Ole is a rosy tan that's almost "mannequin hands" on me. Though on the pale side of brown, it's pigmented enough that two coats was enough for full coverage.

 

 

Chill Seeker is a dusty rose. I used only one coat for my swatch.

 

 

Playing Games is a deep berry and another one-coater.

 

 

I plussed Playing Games with dots of Café Ole and Chill Seeker, then dotted those dots with more Playing Games. I used clear topcoat to smooth over the dots (which made it a bit more shiny than my lighting and camera setup was quite ready for, though I think you can see enough beside the glare to get the idea).

 

 

Because I thought these three looked good together, I also did an ombre with them. For my pinky, I mixed some black into a small pool of Playing Games I poured out onto a plastic tray I use for such things. (If I'd done my thumb, I probably would have done the same with white and Café Ole.) I think this is a great way to wear classic shades in an interesting way.

 

 

You can see (and buy) the full range of shades on the Kokie website. There's also a store locator if you'd prefer to shop in person. I've bought them before at Rite Aid and Bed Bath & Beyond; they're also now at Sally Beauty (in stores and online) and some Albertson's locations.

 

 

The polishes shown in this entry were provided to me 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.

A Trio from Nailtopia

Today I have a semi-good excuse for getting this post up late: the power went out as I was cropping and watermarking the photos. It's only a semi-good excuse because it was a scheduled outage for maintenance work to be done, but I'd forgotten about it in the four or five days between when Mr. K told me he'd gotten a notification and when the time came. I really wished I'd remembered before it went out because I hadn't had my tea yet. Guess I should have popped a reminder in my calendar when he told me.

I chose a few colors/finishes to try from the Nailtopia line which Ulta added to their offerings earlier this year: Yacht Week, JOMO, and Hula Girl. These are "bio-sourced", vegan, and cruelty free, according to the back label.

 

Yacht Week is a blue-leaning light (but not so light I'd call it pastel) green with fine white/silver shimmer.

 

I did two coats for my swatch; the formula on this one was a touch thicker than I'd prefer for good control but it leveled out okay. The shimmer in Yacht Week is subtle but is visible on the nail in most lighting conditions. I felt like this shade gave me a touch of lobster hands (does anyone even say that anymore? lobster hands? or is that too old school now, like "mannequin hands" and "meganchair that"?), but then noticed my hands had a ruddy look with the other two colors as well, so must have just been a bad hand day (we've have a lot of winter weather here already so maybe that was the issue when I swatched these).

 

 

Of course the shimmer in Yacht Week shows up a bit better in direct light:

 

JOMO is a purple shimmer. It is more dense with shimmer than Yacht Week, packed with silver/white microflakies.

 

On the nail, JOMO was more sheer than I expected, and more warm-toned than it looked in the bottle. I used three coats and there's still some nail line showing. It did apply more easily than Yacht Week, so that's a plus.

 

 

What with the sheerness of JOMO, I had to try layering with it. Top to bottom: JOMO alone (3 coats), 1 coat of JOMO over China Glaze Plur-ple (warm-leaning purple creme), 1 coat of JOMO over Sally Hansen Insta Dri Vivid Violet (cool-leaning purple creme), 1 coat of JOMO over Zoya Lidia (deep warm purple creme). I definitely like it as a topper.

 

 

Hula Girl is a pale blue creme. This was a bit tricky to apply; it seemed thick but didn't self level as well as I'd like. Two coats was opaque enough in most spots, but I needed a third coat to even things out.

 

 

Here's what the brush looks like; it's flat, neither wide nor skinny. I thought the cap might be annoying to work with, what with that skinny bit at the top, but I didn't really notice it when I was using it (of course I do fine with the small Essie caps, so your mileage may vary). I'm not sure what they were going for with that cap design ... elegant face serum vibe maybe? It reminds me of an eyedropper or a Flonase bottle, neither of which make me think of beauty.

 

I'm not sure if I'll get more of this brand. They're fine, but the line has a lot of cremes, and the creme I got wasn't the best of the three I tried (plus I need more cremes like I need to gain more pandemic isolation weight). I noticed on the Ulta site yesterday that some of the colors are half off; not sure if they're discontinued some shades already or what. Ones I noticed for $5: Slay All Day (blue), That's Hot (hot pink), Squad Goals (pastel green), Trust the Process (pastel blue green), Keep It 100 (lilac). That's only 5 of the 70+ plus shades, so maybe they're just tweaking the lineup.

Cool Hues from Bee's Knees Lacquer

A while back, I did a post with some warm hued shimmers from Bee's Knees Lacquer. Today I've got some cool hues from them: I Was a Survivor and I Was Strong, Welcome to the Family, Feyre Darling, and Night Triumphant.

 

Three coats of each in the same order as the bottles above. I Was a Survivor pulls more yellow on me than the lime green it looks like in the bottle, but it looks okay. There is a hint of nail line showing with some of these in certain conditions, and I'm fine with that. The glow and shimmer of these provide a lot of visual interest that distracts me from worrying about VNL.

 

 

 

In direct light, they go from glow to showing some sparkle in the shimmer.

 

Like I did with the warm hues, I tried these in a funky French with a "mannequin hands" creme base and black creme tips to which I added one coat of the shimmers in the same order as above. (I was a bit heavy handed with Welcome to the Family, the green on my middle finger.)

 

 

I had a few more cool hued shimmers from Bee's Knees I also wanted to play with: Prick, Don't Let the Hard Days Win, and Stay with the High Lord. Like the ones above, these are from the Acotar Agaaaiiiin collection, but I bought them later, after I saw how gorgeous the first group I got was. (There were still four shades in the collection I didn't buy, and I'm wondering now if I should have just gone for it and got them all. Too late; the ones I skipped are now sold out.)

 

 

I first tried these as Skittles. On my index finger (top), I layered them all together; two coats of Stay With the High Lord followed by one each of Don't Let the Hard Days Win and Prick. Moving down, they each got their own digit: Prick, then Don't Let the Hard Days Win, then Stay With the High Lord on my pinky. All shown at three coats each. You can see that Don't Let the Hard Days Win is the odd polish out finish-wise; it's more of a traditional pearly shimmer compared to the newer style flecked/microflakie ones. I like the layering effect; I'm not sure how much Stay is contributing, but the blue of Don't Let the Hard Days Win transforms Prick's greenish base and still lets the shift show.

 

 

 

Next I did an ombre with Stay With the High Lord. My base colors were Wet 'n' Wild Megalast Kiss My Mints (light mint green), Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Teesta Turquoise (medium teal green), Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Jungle Green (deep teal green), and black. I added two coats of Stay With the High Lord over those cremes and ended up with this:

 

The two darker base shades really let the shift show:

 

 

I was absolutely in love with how this looked in regular room light:

 

To finish out my swatching session, I tried an ombre with Prick. I used it alone on my index finger, then over OPI Dreams Need Clara-fication (cornflower blue), SinfulColors Roar (medium blue), and black. This didn't look like an ombre when viewed straight on because Prick alone pulls greenish, not blue, and the black base highlighted the green side of the shift.

 

It looked more ombre-esqe at an angle, when the purple in the shift came out more:

 

Like Stay, this looked great in regular room light; it made me think this was a manicure a mermaid would wear.

 

So yes, more beauties from Bee's Knees. I don't think I've gotten anything from them yet that I haven't liked.