Max Factor Fantasy Fire layered over W7 Purple Paradise

I got my hands on this mini marvel courtesy of a good friend (thanks deborah!) as a birthday present, how nice was that!  I haven't been able to find any near me so she snagged me one and sent me it.  When it arrived I admit, I may have drooled a little bit, it is such a pretty little jewel.  I have been reading a lot about this polish being a fairly good dupe for Clarins legendary 230 polish.  Since I don't have the wonderful 230 to compare it with (unless someone wants to send me a bottle, no, really?!  Shocker!) I will just post my pics and thoughts about the Max Factor polish in its own right.

It is a lovely blue based violet purple base, with amazing micro shimmer which changes colour with the light.  It flashes predominantly from fiery red, to orange, to green.  Turquoise and blue flashes are visible in the bottle but didn't show up on the nail for me, but I don't care, it is one gorgeous little pot of polish!  I didn't want to waste any as it is quite sheer so I went for layering it.  I searched through my stash and plucked W7 Purple Paradise out, it seemed to be the best match for a base, and I think it worked pretty well.  It is a nice polish on its own, but I will visit it again another day for its own post.

The pics are two thin coats of Purple Paradise, then 2 coats of Fantasy Fire, with a shiny top coat.  I kept this mani on for a whole week, I loved it that much!  OK I did add a flakie top coat for the last couple of days, but still, a week!  Thats a long time for me.  So, given that info, yes it wore very well too, went on without issue, and dry time was good.  Nothing left to do but bring on the pics.

China Glaze Prismatics - Liquid Crystal (with topcoat)

Today I wanted to show you what one of those China Glaze Prismatic collection looks like with a shiny top coat, since I have read some comments online that some would like to see that.  It does make the glitter pop a lot more, but it is a hungry glitter and this was two rather generous coats of top coat, one being a standard one, and then a fast dry.  I have also tried to capture the duochrome colour shift a little more, if you look at the bottle shot in the second pic, it looks more purple than the first which pulls more towards blue.  I don't think I need to say anymore about the actual polish, as I also wrote lots in the collection swatches.

Speaking of the collection swatches, I would also like to take this opportunity to say that the swatches I did previously were a little messier than I would have liked, but please bear in mind I usually post and photograph a full mani which I am wearing, and tend not to do a whole collection in a limited time (not many good light days in winter here!)  Plus I am really busy at the moment with my work for dog rescue and have a foster dog in at the moment, so yeah, I don't always have a lot of time!

Also I have heard mention that some are put off because my middle finger nail is a different length to the others (because it got broke sadly!) not to mention a few other comments that were a little rude to be honest.  Well, I aren't going to do squat about it, I am not ready to file all the rest down just for one nail in order to please someone I have never met!  I will say however that it doesn't look as unbalanced in real life size but obviously the pics are close up so amplify everything tenfold!  Besides, at the risk of possibly sounding rude myself, its just not that important in the grand scheme of things is it?

Right then, now thats said and done, on with the pics I came here to post :)  I hope you like them of course and I take all constructive criticism on board, but please remember this is a hobby of mine, I am not a professional, so lets be kind and play nice OK?  Thanks :D

China Glaze Prismatic Collection Swatches

Yeahh!  I have been waiting for these to come out and I have been lucky enough to be able to buy the whole set *does a happy dance* ohhh yeahhh!  So once the euphoria of having so much new and pretty bling arrive in one bundle, the real test was to see if they were as nice as we have all hoped they were going to be, or is there going to be a major anti climax approaching.  I'm sure by now everyone has seen the promo blurb.  This is what China Glaze say about these polishes in their PR "This limited edition collection was inspired by the beauty and magic of multi-coloured prisms. Complete with glitter and holographic-like technology. These six icy shades give the appearance of multi-layers of iridescent color. So add this incredible illusion of color to your line up today"

The PR pics and bottle shots are all very tantalising but they are never true to life are they, so what do they really look like?  So far I think they look totally gorgeous, they are like China Glaze said "hey we have a whole vat of fairy dust and a free afternoon, lets mess around".  They have very fine micro holo glitter, just like China Glaze Fairy Dust, mixed in with some other colours of micro glitter, and some larger multicoloured round glitter pieces.  So, lots of glitter then!  Do I love glitter, oh yes, yes I do!

Want to know a secret?  I was a little disappointed when I first opened them, I thought, "oh, pretty glitters but do they deserve the word 'prismatic'?", they were not quite what I had imagined.  But after looking at them closer, I am changing my mind.  They do have the appearance of multi layers so the PR blurb was right there, but the more I look at them, the more I notice.  Things like they aren't holo polishes, but they do have some lovely holo glitter in there but it is more subtle than I had anticipated.  A nice touch is that they have a subtle colour shift that I wasn't expecting, which combined with the holo glitter does justify the 'prismatic' part of the name after all.

So without further waffle, because you will all probably skim the words and go straight to the swatches (which is fair enough in this case!) here they are.

First up, Ray-Diant - Gold/Pale Green
Micro holo, mint green and gold glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

This one seems to shift from green to gold depending on the light.

Prism - Pale Purple
Micro holo and purple glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

Love it, well it is purple!  The colour shift isn't as evident in this one, I think purple is a predominant 'shift' colour.  Since this is purple already, then theres no real discernible change.  Still very pretty though.

Full Spectrum - Pale Pink

Micro holo and baby pink glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

This shifts subtly from pink to purple.  Very pretty girly colour, not sure if its really 'me' though, I don't tend to do baby pink things!  Perhaps because its a pastel shade I will probably still wear it though.

Optical Illusion - Teal 

Micro holo, and teal glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

Please excuse that there are only three fingers, but I had a big ding missing from my pinky and didn't realise until I came to look at the pics, and its night time now so too late to re-swatch!  Its a shame because this is one of the stars of the collection, lovely teal which changes to gold and purple, and is one of those polishes you end up walking into walls whilst wearing because you can't stop looking at your nails.

Polarised - Silver 

Micro holo, and silver glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

This is really blingy and sparkly, but it is the least imaginative of the collection.  It is basically, well, silver.  Don't get me wrong, it is a good silver polish and I like silvers so this will definitely be happily adorning my fingers again.

Liquid Crystal - Blue

Micro holo, and blue glitter, with larger round blue, silver, orange, and pink glitter.

The other star of this collection, and the one I ended up wearing as a full mani after my messy swatch-athon (I swear there is glitter everywhere now!).  This changes from an ice blue to mid blurple to purple, love it!

So there we have it, the whole collection for your viewing pleasure.  Please forgive the slowly degrading polish clean ups, but it was getting harder and harder to shift all the glitter in between swatches, and of course my poor cuticles look the worse for wear in the end too!

All these pics are 3 coats, the polishes all covered well and the formula was easy to work with.  They did dry gritty and a little matte, and all of the swatch pics were taken without top coat in weak but direct sunshine.  These were quite hungry when it did come to adding a top coat, but not the worst I have seen.  A generous dollop or two of topcoat evened my final mani out nicely and they are now shiny happy nails.

Just out of interest, I was asked would they make a good layering polish over a dark colour especially, so I took a quick snap of Optical Illusion over a Butter London Dark Knight dupe, I think the answer would have to be a yes, don't you!

So what do you think?  Love them, hate them, disappointed or excited, leave a comment and let me know :)

Funky Fingers Riot and BarryM Instant Effects Moon and Stars

Today I want to show you the mani I had on all week up until Friday!  Yep, a whole week!  It wore really well only showing some real tip wear and one small chip Friday.  It was my birthday yesterday, so I HAD to change it for then of course, and I chose Ozotic Pro 505 and Ozotic Elytra for that (I will post about that later!) but I have posted that combination before too!

I really liked this manicure, it kind of reminded me of all those things you could buy in the '80's early '90's with all the sun, moon and stars designs on them.  Whole matching bedroom sets of curtains, bedding, lamp shades, rugs, the whole kaboodle!  In fact I think I still have some curtains like that somewhere!

Funky Fingers Riot is a fantastic shade of purple, it does fall a little into 'blurple' territory as it is a blue based shade but most definitely a purple though.  It is rich and vibrant, and being a fan of purple anyway it doesn't take a genius to realise that yes, of course, I loved it!  It applied well with a normal drying time, and didn't present me with any issues.  Having applied 3 coats and allowed to dry, I used BarryM Instant Effects gold foil polish as a stamping polish (these are great for stamping!), and went mad stamping away like a demon.  I got LOTS of compliments on this, which is always nice of course and a good indicator that it is as nice as I hope, and not just me thinking it looks better than it actually does!  Finally a liberal splash of shiny top coat, and stick a fork in me, I'm done.  I hope you like it as much as I did, it was so simple to do, but looks so pretty.

Update...and OPI Warm & Fozzie

Well I have been busy and really need to update here!  I have been a bad blogger, I have loads of pics of manicures but literally haven't had time so sorry to you all and thanks for sticking with me :).  Christmas happened, and my birthday is looming very soon and I got a new fancy pants camera as a 'double big gift.'  So I am extremely pleased to say the least and now I need to do a lot more reading and learning in order that I can do it justice!  So, soon you will be seeing pics from a new and improved camera, but I still have quite a few taken with my good old fuji that I will be posting so there may be a bit of a crossover.  All good though!

Right well today I have the lovely and unusual OPI Warm & Fozzie from their Muppets collection.  I love this shade, it looks initially like a lovely dark bronze foil but the colour itself is made up of tiny foil like pieces, and there is a mix of bronze, gold and surprisingly pink in there giving this a warm tone and an almost multichrome gorgeous glow.  It is lovely to look at and I can't think of any dupes for this, so refreshingly something unique as well.  It looks like it is going to be a bit sheer when you put the first coat on, but it builds up nicely and this is with three coats, application was like butter and the drying time was good.  I like foils and I like unusual, so this one is definitely my kind of polish.

Natural Daylight

Direct Sunlight

 

China Glaze For Audrey with BarryM Gold Glitter Instant Nail Effects

I finally got around to buying China Glaze 'For Audrey' after everyone telling me I needed it!  Well I wasn't too sure at first which is why it took me so long to get a bottle, but now I have it I have to say I love it!  It is a very classy colour, one of those 'not quite blue' slightly green toned shades, but quite understated and beautiful, and I don't have anything else in my collection that is close to it in colour.  It is definitely one of those love it, or hate it colours though judging from the reactions I got, there was no middle ground people either thought it was 'oo gorgeous' or in one case 'eww no thats bloody awful'.  The one who particularly didn't like it was my mum, I can always rely on her to give me her honest opinion whether I want it or not!  The formula was good, slighly streaky on the first coat but that evened out nicely after the second one.

Now me being me, I had this on for a couple of days and wanted to change it, but I really didn't have time and thought, well hey I know, I happen to have a Barry M Instant Nail Effects in Gold Glitter that was part of a giveaway I won over at Alice in Lacquerlands blog here (go ahead, click on it and give her blog some love, I will wait here its OK).  I thought the colour combination could be interesting so I slapped on a coat.  I'm not a huge fan of crackles in general but this one I did like and I can see me using again.  It is a lovely sparkly gold although it does need a top coat to bring it out properly, but thats OK I usually use one anyway.  The crackle effect was nice and even, and it was very easy to apply, not thick or goopy at all like some I have tried, in fact it was just like applying regular polish.  I liked the colour combination of using it over For Audrey, the two colours went well together in my opinion and it was overall a very pretty manicure.  What do you think, do you love For Audrey like I do, or hate it like my mum!

OPI - Sparkle-icious

I forgot how much I love this polish, and since it has recently been the season for sparkle, I wasn't quite ready to go back to bland yet!  It was sat there twinkling at me from my stash draw, so I had to do a mani with it.  I'm sorry Sparkle-icious if I have neglected you, you are indeed beautiful and I love you very much!

This polish is a clear base with small hexagonal glitter in gold, blue and pink.  I would call it Mad as a Hatters gold toned sister, it is just such a fun polish, it reminds me or carnivals and colourful wrapped chocolates for some reason.  It makes me smile, and thats a good thing right!?

The formula was good for a glitter polish, as was the coverage but I have come to expect that from OPI anyway so no nasty surprises.  Well, I guess I will put up the pics and let you have an eye full, judge for yourself if you need this!  If you already have it, I might have reminded you to show it some love.