All This Polish: holo

Showing posts with label holo. Show all posts

Friday, January 1, 2016

Happy 2016!

Happy New Year! I kept it pretty simple again for New Year's. Just a quick stamping mani using images all from MoYou London Festive Plate 05.

The base color is KBShimmer Black Pearl, from their new Birthstone Collection, available today. Black Pearl was provided for review, regular swatches coming soon. All the birthstone polishes are a combination of flakies and holo. This is 2 coats of Black Pearl, which went on very smoothly. It wasn't thick or lumpy, and dried to a fairly smooth finish that needed very little top coat to be perfectly smooth. The flakies in Black Pearl give off a gold look, so I thought it would pair perfectly with Essie Good As Gold for the stamping.

Starting at the index nail, I used a fireworks design, then a clock striking midnight on my middle finger, champagne flutes on my ring finger nail, and a streamers/confetti design for my pinkie nail.

I also used a different design for my thumbs, which I just now realized I don't have any pictures of. The design I used though is sort of a fireworks burst/shooting stars type look. On Festive Plate 05, it's the design to the immediate left of the clock design. I kind of slapped it on my thumbs, not sure of which design to put on them, and I was really surprised with how much I liked it. I want to do a full nail look now with just that one image. I think it would work well as an abstract, everyday look.

*Some polishes were provided for honest review. Review contains only my personal opinions.*

Friday, February 6, 2015

KBShimmer Spring Collection 2015 - Holo Swatches

Press Sample

Where did January go? Seriously. Where??? One day it was New Year's, then *POOF* I'm watching the groundhog predict 6 more weeks of Winter. Since January decided to fast forward on me, let's just fast forward a little bit more, to Spring. Because today marks the release of the new KBShimmer Spring Collection for 2015. I have a total of 8 out of the 12 new Spring polishes to show you, and in today's post I'm starting out with 4 of the 8 shades. Keep reading after the jump for my swatches of the 4 new KBShimmer holo polishes.

KBShimmer Early Summer Collection 2014 - The Holos

Press Sample

Today I have some of the new holographic polishes that KBShimmer will be releasing this Friday, May 23rd, as part of the Early Summer Collection 2014. There are 6 holo polishes in all. I have the 3 more neutral colors to review for you. For each shade, I am showing 3 coats of polish without top coat. All 3 of the holos had quite smooth formulas, and I had no issues with application. First up is In Bare Form.

This post will be a bit more picture heavy than the previous post, so follow the jump for the rest of the swatches.

DIFFERENTdimension Just Keep Swimming and Dueling Unicorns

Here are a couple simple stamping manicures I did towards the end of January, using some gorgeous holos from DIFFERENTdimension.

I bought these two polishes back in November and finally decided that they had been sitting in my untrieds for way too long. This might be a bit picture heavy, because I can't resist showing some swatches of these pre-stamping, so this seems like a good spot for a jump break.

Liquid Lacquer The Rain Song and Collide Into You

I have got two more polishes to show you out of the blogger package, which I purchased last month from Liquid Lacquer. I've grouped these two together because both polishes are great teal/turquoise shades. The Rain Song is beautiful teal holo shimmer polish and Collide Into You is a teal jelly with pink and gold circle glitters and gold micro glitter scattered throughout.

First up, let's take a closer look at some pics of The Rain Song. All pictures show 3 coats. I think most people would be satisfied after just 2 coats, but I just can't seem to resist adding a 3rd coat when it comes to, well, practically every polish I ever wear.

Application was a breeze and the polish seemed to dry super fast. The holo is a bit subtle but it's a gorgeous shade of teal with what is really just the perfect amount of holo shimmer. Even though it's not an in-your-face kind of holo, I still found myself constantly admiring the color on my nails.

Next up is Collide Into You, which seems, to me anyway, to be one of the most popular Liquid Lacquer shades around. And looking at the following shots, I think you can understand why.

This was 3 coats as well, but like with The Rain Song, I think most people would be happy with just 2 coats. Application of Collide Into You was super smooth. I had such an easy time with getting the glitter to apply evenly. There were even a few times where I had a little too much glitter on the brush and just used an extra brush stroke to sweep off a little excess.

One more shade from the blogger package to go! Be sure to check out Liquid Lacquer's shop to view all of the polishes currently available.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Green Snakeskin: Rescue of the Swamp Nails

I wish I could say this manicure was my master plan all along and that I didn't end up with this as a way to try and cover up a massive fail, but that's exactly what this was, a complete rescue mission of a stinker of a manicure. In the end, I absolutely loved this look. So much so, that 3 days later when I noticed it starting to chip, I took it off and did the same thing over again! My stamping on the second round of this mani was actually much straighter and more centered, but I didn't get a chance to take any pictures so these are all from the original manicure.

So, what exactly was the fail that started it all? I was working on some ideas for the Matte Magic part of the April Showers Bring May Flowers Challenge (which I still have yet to do) and one of the ideas I thought of was to recreate a manicure I've been meaning to do for several months. One of my absolute favorite bloggers is Amy Grace from The Polished Perfectionist. Check out her site, but be warned, it will make you jealous! She was blessed with perfectly shaped nails and has an unbelievable artistic talent for not just nails but also cake making. Pigs in the Mud...too cute for words! Anyway, I saw this manicure she did back in October...I know, going way back there Sarah, but this was the post that taught me all things Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black. I've since gotten the entire Kleancolor Chunky Holo collection thanks to my sister getting the set for me at Christmas. So even though I had this since December, I had yet to try this particular manicure of Amy Grace's, Chunked Shawn. It's weird but beautiful weird! I love all things green and for some reason I especially like the weird shades of green, so this was right up my alley. Even months later after first seeing it, I can't stop staring. Unfortunately, my attempt at this simple manicure went south quickly. In Amy Grace's manicure, the wonderful green base of Zoya Shawn still shows through, but on my nails, I ended up with a brownish-green, swampy mess. Ewww!

I attribute this to two things basically, one is that even though I only used one coat of Chunky Holo Black, I think I slathered it on way too thick in an attempt to get the glitter just perfect. The second thing is that I think my bottle could use a few drops of polish thinner. The base in Chunky Holo Black is this weird brownish-red-olive jelly like color. So I think the combination of a thick layer of already thick polish is what did me in.

I actually did wear it like this to work last Monday because I just didn't feel like starting all over Sunday night. But I felt like I wanted to just hide my nails all day long, that's how disappointed I was. When I got home from work that day, I was trying to figure out what to do and I just kept thinking about how swampy my nails looked. At some point, my brain made a connection from the swamp to snakes and that was when I remembered the snakeskin pattern in one of my Bundle Monster plate sets. I decided to stamp using Sally Hansen Color Quick Nail Polish Pen in Green Chrome. The snakeskin image is from Bundle Monster plate BM-215. Then I added a layer of Seche Vite top coat to finish. I love the way the holo glitter flashes in shades of copper and green through the chrome stamping making it look all scaly and reptilian.

So for the past 7 full days, this pattern has been on my nails, including a do-over on Thursday since it was chipping but I couldn't bare to part with it just yet. I was planning to take it off today, but was feeling lazy and decided to wait until tomorrow. So this will be a record 8 days for me with the same design. And some day, with polish thinner by my side, I will attempt Amy Grace's Chunked Shawn again!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Spring ASBMF Challenge #7: Glitter Tips!

For part 7 of the ASBMF Challenge, I had a ton of ideas for glitter tips and didn't know what direction to go in. One of the ideas I had involved using one of the new jelly polishes I had recently received from Birchbox when I bought the Zoya Blogger Collection. I didn't have a definite plan, I just knew I wanted to try out one of these newbies and thought maybe I could make sort of a glitter tips/glitter sandwich combo out of it. And that is basically what I ended up with. It was a lot more subdued than some of the original ideas I had in mind, but I think the end result was a subtle and elegant little manicure.

Out of the three Blogger Collection colors, I decided to use Zoya Belle because it is the most unique jelly out of the three. It's the most unique jelly I own actually. The shimmer in it makes it looks not quite as squishy as other jellies, but it's still got a lot of jelly characteristics to it. Here is three thin coats of Zoya Belle over nothing but Orly Bonder base coat.

You can see there is some visible nail line even with three coats but I think adding a fourth thin coat or having used three thicker coats instead would have taken care of that. The glitter I decided to use was China Glaze Techno, which is a clear base full of holographic hex glitter and holographic micro glitter. For application, I just used the bottle's brush to dab the glitter around on the end of each nail. After it dried, I dabbed the brush around the tips a second time just to get some more hex glitters on there. Techno right on top of Belle was pretty harsh on the eyeballs, to tell you the truth. It was "Japanese anime cartoons causing seizures in kids" type harsh. If I hadn't already considered layering the glitter between the jelly, I probably would have ended up taking it off at that point. Techno looks great over so many colors, so I'm not really sure what happened when I layered it over Belle that made me dislike it so much, but I think maybe the shimmer in Belle and the holo in Techno just weren't able to play nice with each other. I wish I had taken a picture of the glitter like that, but it just slipped my mind at the time. After the second coat of Techno dried, I added two super thin coats of Belle and that just transformed it into something totally different!

Techno was so pretty layered between Belle instead of just layered over it. You could still see the holo in the glitter come through but without feeling like someone was smacking you in the face with a disco ball. Here's a reminder of what's yet to come and, as usual, be sure to check out the other ladies who are participating in this challenge!