NailNation 3000 Mysterious

Hello, readers! Remember me? I'm Dana, the mostly absent but still caring other half of the Two Girls :) I've been terribly caught up in real life for the last few weeks, and then I had a blissful 11 days of time off work, which coincided nicely with Christmas. I had all these plans to do a bunch of pretty manicures and get a bunch of things organized and come up with a more workable nail polish making arrangement for DLC (the smell of the lacquer really bothers my husband--gives him migraines, in fact--but it's the dead of winter in the Midwest and I can't exactly fling open all the windows in my sun room without killing all the plants and giving myself pneumonia. How do the rest of you wonderful polish makers handle this, I ask!)

Vivid Lacquer: Murdered by Pirates is Good

Sometime between Black Friday and Cyber Monday (I don't remember which day it was exactly) I ordered some stamping plates from Vivid Lacquer. You know, because I wasn't frustrated enough with the dozen plates I already had* and thought I'd add to the collection. When I got my package in the mail, I discovered an unexpected bonus: a bottle of gorgeous charcoal gray, seemingly holographic, but wait, that's blue sparkles in there, nail polish. I flipped the bottle over and found the name: Murdered by Pirates is Good. Now, I'm not always up on pop culture so if there's a reference I have no idea what it is--but the name, it's catchy! The name comes from The Princess Bride. (This is what I get for writing posts at 2 or 3 in the morning, ok??)

Update: A-England Bridal Veil and Princess Sabra

Excellent polishes, almost no issues. One chip at the last minute.

Another positive and short post. I'm okay with that, yep.  lol

Jess

A-England Bridal Veil and Princess Sabra

Sort of a Halloweenish mani, I guess. I just really wanted to wear Tristam's eyes, I love that cat.

Smitten Polish: Bifröst & I Never Drink...Wine

But first--happy belated 1 year anniversary to Jess and TwoGirlsOneObsession! Jess pointed out to me earlier tonight that we'd missed our 1st Anniversary, which was October 2. Thank you for reading along, and I hope you stick with us! If you want to give us a present, we love comments! And now, on to the reason we're really here!

Smitten Polish, in my opinion, is polish genius.* I admire her creativity so much, and when she announced the new fall holos, I thought for about 2 seconds before leaping headlong into ordering the Fall Tree-o.

Dreamy Lacquer Co: Legend of Sleepy Holo

Spoiler alert! I've been working on some holographic polishes. I think most holos are so beautiful, and I can never get enough of them, so I thought I'd try my own hand at it.

Update: Glitter Gal Belgian Chocolate

As Dana mentioned in a previous post, I am not happy with the Lippmann Gel Lab set. Sucks. Hate it. I had so many problems on that first mani and while it didn't happen a few days later with that one as she said (because I used a different top and base when I repaired, see), it happened with this one. I probably shouldn't have used them again on this but I was really hoping it was something I did. That does not appear to be the case. It's like it intentionally causes massive chipping for me. So unfair.

The Belgian chocolate itself was lovely. I said in the application post how it was sort of thick and that adding some thinner might help it out a bit? Well I got my chance to find out.

Glitter Gal Belgian Chocolate

I love this polish. A chocolatey holo? Sign me up. It took me so long to get my hands on a bottle though. Every time I remembered to check if the stockists had it, they were sold out. Or I'd see it in stock but then something else I wanted wasn't in stock so I'd wait to combine 'em for shipping and then it would go out of stock.

Finally though. Mines, duh. Oh yes, it would be mine! lol

FNUG Holographics Color Blocking

I finally decided to break these out but couldn't decide which. That's always a problem. If that were my biggest problem, I would be the happiest bumblebee on the face of the earth. I thought I'd try some simple color blocking but things never turn out simply with me, do they?

First of all, some notes on these polishes. I have learned to become very leery of swatches of holos anymore because of the way swatches are taken. In general, it's under the best lighting conditions possible. That's what makes them pretty and, let's face it, marketable enough to grab a readership of some sort. I like seeing those just as much as the next girl but one of the reasons I don't take photos of that sort most of the time is because I wanna see how the polish is really going to look. For example, Essence's Chic Reloaded. I absolutely fell in love with it when I saw swatches but when I wore it, it was crap. It looked awful and nothing like the swatches. Ever.

Maybelline Color Show Holographics: Blue Blaze, Mystic Green, and Lavender Lustre

An Open Letter to Maybelline New York:


To whom it may concern:

I realize that you are a major, huge cosmetics company. You've been in business for almost 100 years (congratulations on your centennial next year, by the way), and I'm just some customer in the good ole Midwest, but even so, I believe I may know a few things that at least one person in your company could stand to learn. Let's start with some definitions!

Update: Avon Saturn

Not a smooth start on this one. Another of those weirdos that had the tiny chipping on the first day but once it was fixed, almost no problems the rest of the week. Why does that happen?

When I repaired it, I decided I should use Avon's liquid freeze just because hey, it's all Avon and it should work better, right? Naw. The third coat I put on took extra long to dry even with the speedy topper added. On the zoom you can see pressure marks on my left middle and ring fingers.

Regardless, it's yet another of those that began poorly but somehow turned it around and went the distance. Great polish.

Jess

Avon Saturn

If you follow us on facebook you'll remember a status update a few days back where I mentioned that Avon had their holo collection on sale. It's called the Cosmic collection, ten different subtle holo shades. Like I said on the fb, we're not talking Color Club Halo Hues here. More like China Glaze's Hologlams.

I'm not exactly a summer person. I hate being hot and sweaty and just bleh. Gross. Pop me in the air conditioning and leave me there until fall gets here. Recently it's just been a disgusting heatwave around here, 90 degrees plus, and I have so been longing for cooler weather. Segue to Avon's Saturn, a crisp pumpkiny orange holo that just makes me think hoodies, jumping in leaf piles, and oh em gee hooray for Halloween.

Update: L.A. Girl Sparkle Ruby

Yay belated sunlight shot!

There's like no holo to that, see? I weren't kidding. Very pretty but definitely not holo. I think one of the reasons is that the lacquer covers it too heavily. Maybe there isn't enough in there.

L.A. Girl Sparkle Ruby

If I've ever used an LA Girl polish before I don't remember it. It's my bias against cheap polish, see. This new display was in Rite-Aid, and it's holographic, so I couldn't resist. I do like the holos.

These really...aren't, though. They look sort of promising, especially the silver one, but the rest sort of just look like holo glitter was added, not a true holo. I'm guessing they went for the scattered and not linear (and also cheap) version.

Update: OPI DS Divine (JP)

...not so good, actually. It's a shame that such a beautiful polish can't last longer. Perhaps I should have used that top coat anyhow. It just looks so much better without.

That's after two days. Would you look at that holo? I'm drooling all over again. Those chips are horrendous though.

OPI DS Divine (JP)

I got nothing for Easter this week. LOL I used my big idea last week, see. I was going to maybe try some flocking and fuzzy bunnies but it turned out to be a whole lot more effort than I wanted to deal with so I delightfully abandoned it.

Instead I have another delicious holographic for you. I don't know about you, but I get really annoyed when other countries get things I want here. I'm sure the opposite is just as true. Did you know that Japan got different versions of a few of the OPI Designer Series polishes? Neither did I.

China Glaze HoloGlam Collection

As Jess and I were talking the other night, she pointed out that one of the beauty supply web sites had the China Glaze HoloGlam collection. I couldn't buy all 12 of them, so I chose my favorite 6 and waited anxiously for them to arrive. When I got home from work Thursday night/Friday morning, there they were, sitting on my kitchen counter in an innocuous cardboard box. I lasted almost ten whole minutes before I ripped into the box.

Update: Color Club Cherubic

Nothing to see here. No chips, no problems, nothing.

Jess

Color Club Cherubic

I started this one out with completely different intentions. It was going to be a french and I was going to use holos but I couldn't choose which ones and how. So I got frustrated and procrastinated and finally did it with just one color. It turned out well anyhow, I wore it for a whole day but I still wanted to do more with it. I think I've finally settled.

My nails are stained yellow. I've tried different bases, I've tried the white as a base, and for whatever reason they just don't work for me. Normally this wouldn't be an issue because I almost always have nail polish on so who cares. But as I've just told you that I did a french manicure with only one color, I think you can see where this is going.

Color Club 2013 Holographic Halo Hues Collection

By now, I believe it is firmly established that around here, we love the holo polishes. Jess found the Color Club 2013 Halo Hues a couple of weeks back for a great price at Enospring (they've had a small increase in price since we pulled our respective triggers, but only a dollar or two for the 6-piece collection). Luckily enough, they also had the 2012 Halo Hues, so I grabbed them up while I was there.