Cult Nails Devious Nature

I did do a swatch of Cult Nails Devious Nature. There seemed to be a lot of interest in it according to the sort phrases that are bringing readers to this little blog, so I thought, maybe I should give you all what you're after! It is beautiful, it was hardly a hardship!

In the bottle, I thought this might have a fuschia kind of flash to it, but it doesn't translate to the nail at all. Instead, I think it gives the polish a richness of color. This is a bright and flashy Barbie pink. It has hints of blue in it that in some lights gives it a lavender kind of feel but it's definitely pink.

Please don't mind the nail line there, that isn't this polish. I had swatched about 9 before this, most of them dark. I also somehow managed to pick up the non-acetone remover...better for your nails? Certainly. As good at removing lacquer? Not a chance. So I had some build up there...if it wasn't for that, this would have no VNL.

Isn't that pretty? It went on so nicely, it's a really creamy formula, one that I enjoyed working with. See how nice my cuticles look? That's not my skill, that's the result of a really easy to manipulate lacquer.

Here's another shot of it:

See what I mean about the blue? However, you couldn't call this anything but pink. It's really pretty. It's a very wearable color. It's not in your face but it's vibrant and alive. I suspect that just about any skintone could carry this off well and it can take you from work to an interview to dinner and not be out of place at any one. Very nice.

Here's one more pic to show the nice saturation of color:

This is two coats. You can do a third but I can't say I think the color would be intensified. Did I mention how creamy this is? It shows!

I look forward to actually wearing a Cult Nails polish to see what the wear is like. As this is a swatch, all I have here are two coats of color nothing else. That shine is all the lacquer's doing. Nice, huh?

Happy Talons!

Illamasqua Kink - Gorgeous, if Kinky!

Illamasqua's Fall and Winter offering this year is Theater of the Nameless. I picked up all 4 polishes, of course, and a lipgloss, which is gorge...Belladonna. I may swatch it for you if you like!

All four polishes have what Illamsaqua calls a "rubber finish". I think this is their version of the soft matte that Orly did last year? Plastics? I really like it.

The first I'm going to show you is Kink. I love it. What can I tell you? I love Kink! LOL
Kink is a lovely dark forest green. It's soft and kind of vibrant, but muted. There is definitely blue in there to soften it. It's really pretty gorgeous and I do like the rubber finish. I was not at all sure I would. It gives the polish a softness.

I think that to honor the finish, Illamasqua changed the caps a little, they're a rubberized matte and feel really pretty nice.
See the rubberized finish to this polish? The index nail really shows it well. It's a lovely deep forest green, and I think that a shiny finish on this might make it a bit harsh. I didn't compare this to the infamous Nars Zulu (animal testing, Shisheido!) but I like this just fine. I like it on me. This is just a swatch, so all I have here are two coats of polish. It went on beautifully, which I expect from Illamasqua, and covered well. This is a thick polish, if you were careful you might get a one coater, but it's probably not worth the effort.

The finish on these, being a pseudo-matte, helps it dry really pretty quickly. As a top coat would ruin the look, this is a good thing. You're not going to want to Seche or Poshe this.

Isn't that pretty? All of the polishes in the Theater of the Nameless collection are gorgeous in their own ways. This is one of my more favorites of them.

Here's another look at it:

What do you think? Are you going to check this collection out?

Happy Talons!

Manic Panic Hellfire

Manic Panic is a brand I discovered by accident. It's a small independent, vegan, and with an interesting line. They seem to specialize in hair dyes... Here's a linky so you can check them out: http://www.manicpanic.com

The bottles are REALLY cool:

They're tiny at only .25 fl. oz. but at only $4, do you care? I love the little witch hat caps and let me tell ya, it was really easy to use! The only thing I disliked about the bottles was the opening for the brush is minute. You have to aim for it. The upside to this is that you don't really get too much polish gunked up on the brush or wand because it kind of cleans it for you.

Hellfire is so aptly named I can't even stand it. At first glance I thought, oh. A cheap clone of Rescue Beauty Lounge's Black Russian. Wrong. Where Black Russian is all subtlety and sex appeal, Hellfire is anything BUT subtle. It looks dangerous. It glows.

This looks a little brown with this light, but it's red and orange and FIRE! I love it. It's a black base and this would probably make a spectacular top coat to a black polish. I may try that! On the first layer, the red glitter is kind of sparse. I thought I was going to have a hot mess on my hands. Second coat just added depth, evened out the black...gorgeous. I had to go for a third coat and as you can see, it gets so deep you could almost swim in it. This is a stunner. I love. It went on so easily too, and dried fast. I literally would do all 10 nails and then layer immediately right over. It handles so nicely. The first coat is a bit of a streaky mess, which is what made me think...top coat over black? The second coat took care of that. It just got richer and richer.

Here's a partial sunshine shot:

The first bottle shot is closest to color, honestly. And I don't have a chip on the index nail, I don't know what that is!
Look at the fire here, and this isn't even a good swatch! I will try to get a full sun picture for you. I'll be reporting back in a couple days on how this wore so I can post it then. It's an eye catcher, it takes no prisoners.

And how can you not love that name. HELLLLLLFIRE! Hells yeah.

Mechanics:

This manicure is:

1 coat Seche Base Coat
1 coat Nailtiques 2
2 coats Seche Rebuild
3 coats Manic Panic Hellfire
1 coat Seche Vite top coat

I definitely recommend. I got good service, everything arrived pretty fast, the price was sure right...how can you go wrong? There is another line from this one called Claw Polish, but I've not tried it yet. If it's like this, then it's good!

Happy Talons!

ButterLondon Wallis Swatches and wear, so far!

butterLondon Wallis is a fascinating color. It's an iced sparkly blackened olive..it's too many things. It's gorgeous and strange. It shifts in the light...Wallis is elusive. But not. I'm enamoured.

This is a bit blurry but it shows the sparkly. See how it looks different even on a single nail? Yet, it's not a duochrome, not by a long shot. It's just that complex.

Look how it blackens along the curve of the nail. Hot. One of the guys I work with, who is one of those gay guys who knows about style was immediately drawn to it and declared it "chic". Great descriptor for this. It's a lovely color for Fall but you could rock this any time.

It's almost a glass fleck effect. It's stunning and completely original. At least, I don't have anything else even remotely like this. It's almost like blackened gold, but it's too green.

I guess it's indescribable! Hmmm...Let's see what they say on butterLondon.com...

Ha. In typical butterLondon fashion:

"Wallis

In honour of the Saucy Yank who ran away with the king’s heart. A tarnished, metallic olive gold, as mysterious and regal as its namesake."

That's a working linky so click away on it. If you haven't visited butterLondon's website you really should because it's gorgeous and fun. The whole product line is fun and is one of the Good Customer Service sites that I recommend. I've had them call me to make sure I was ordering what I really wanted, when I added my freebie bottle to my cart so I would have received two. Who does that? butter! It's great, in this day and age of ecommerce to deal with a company that actually reads your order and then checks to make sure you've done what you really want to do if they see something that doesn't seem right. I did NOT want two bottles of the same color and she saved me $14 by making the call. They even sat on my order until I called them and didn't ship anyways when I didn't answer. I love that. If that annoys you then, Ulta might be your thing, but...my local Ulta does carry butters now, they've even got an end cap display these days that keeps the polishes from falling off. However...butters have an over cap...

In the early days, they didn't and you had this big rectangle to paint with....actually, I do have one old bottle.

Awkward in your hand, and butter changed these after a lot of customer complaints. See? Good customer service. This is Billy No Mates, it's a beautiful soft grey but I won't swatch it because it's no longer available. I scored this one on evilbay. Something else I learned, in this process...butter is giving us larger bottles than they used to. Billy No Mates is .3fl. oz. The new ones are .4. Just noting that.

So...you have these top caps so you only have to deal with this:

In order to help keep the over caps with the bottles, they are taped on:

That little tape comes off pretty easily, or you can cut it, whichever. (This is Marrow, incidentally. Gorgeous, just haven't worn it yet)

At Ulta...these are frequently missing, meaning someone has been doing something with that bottle and given the amount of small yard apes I see running amok in my local Ulta...I'm not paying primo price for polish that's been opened, I don't care. I love butter, I want to support them, so I will go to Ulta, scope the colors I am interested in, make my decisions and then come home and order off butterLondon.com. Sorry, Ulta. If you sign up for their promos, you sometimes can hit a free bottle or something, too. Ulta...not so much. beauty.com is another good place to score some butters, you get a kickback. Nice.

So...the moral of that loooooong tale was...keep an eye out for the tapes if you're buying these at the stores. That is, if that is the sort of thing that disturbs your calm like it does mine.

So, while I was going off on a tangent about the over caps and taking extra swatches, I took swatches of the wear. This was my formal mani from Wednesday evening and it's now Saturday. It's done some long and difficult days at work, though not a lot of dishes or housekeeping. Some. Here's what we got, along with a fascinating shot of how much of a chameleon this baby is.

Yeah, yeah...a minimal amount of tipwear. If I didn't point it out, would you catch it? Possibly not. I can deal with this. I haven't done any maintenance, either. I seriously need to, my nails would be better for it, but I have been tired.

No excuse, I know!

Here's the other:

Mmmm. Yes, that is Wallis. Grass green in that light, aren't you, you little minx! Isn't that lovely!?! It looks textured, but I assure you, it's smooth and glassy.

OK, mechanics!

2 coats Fiberglass Network base coat (wears nicely and repairs beautifully)
2 coats Wallis
1 coat Out The Door top coat.

I don't know the cruelty free status of either Fiberglass Network or Out the Door. I did kind of like Out the Door, it appeared to go on thinner, more like Poshe, and it did dry pretty fast, though I was still dentable awhile later. Meh...annoying but no other issues.

What do you think? I adore it. It's strange and beautiful and fascinating...LOVE!

Happy Talons!

Glitter Gal - Lizard Belly - The Wear...

The wear on this...not good. It's gorgeous and I'll wear it again. I cannot lie, the holo goodness is phenomenal, it rivals even Nfu-Oh, possibly is more holo than that and doesn't appear to need a special base coat. I'm still determining Nfu-Oh's cruelty free status so I don't have any posted, but if you do a Google, you'll find plenty out there. They are fantastic lacquers and are in the cutest bottles, but I stopped purchasing those when I made the decision to just flat not support animal testing any longer and I won't blog them until I know for sure where they are.

However. This post isn't about that! I did take a couple of pics just a bit ago without the flash and I think they represent the sort of everyday kind of normal look you'll get from this polish at your office or wherever you're not going to have direct light pointed right at your talons. It also shows the wear...These posts are way behind normal wear because I did each of the Rescue Beauty's individually, so just note that. I put this polish on Thursday night and it started chipping Friday. Humph. Kind of expensive for that. I just did Seche base and top and maybe that is not the best thing for this polish. I have a few others so I will be trying to test that out as I wear them. Maybe a different top coat would fix this. Take a look:

Lefty

Erp. See that?

Righty

Oh my. That is not making your Tricksie ecstatic right there.

Not sure what the trouble is. I do put my hands through a lot, but this is not normal. The polish went on beautifully and I was optimistic this meant it would wear beautifully. It is perfectly smooth so it's not a matter of a glitter particle getting caught and ripping off...I don't know. For now I'm marking this up to a bad top coat pairing and leaving it at that.
Now the question is, I get my nails done on Wednesday and it's Monday now. Do I repaint them? I guess I could, then I could swatch another color for you...Maybe a Cult Nails?

Happy Talons!

Glitter Gal - Lizard Belly

I have been SO excited to try these. These are holo goodness that is just unbelievable. In the bottle, Lizard Belly is sort of undefinable. So much so that I was surprised when I found it was a dark hunter green sort of base shade on the nails. It's gorgeous.

This is what this looks like in the sun or with the flash. Without that, it's not nearly so flashy, which I kind of like about it. It's a surprise, it's not in your face, it has some subtlety and then when the light hits it right...boom. You get this. I don't have a non-flash picture, but I hope to get one for the next post so I can show you what it wore like. Wear could be better. However, this is one coat, so...Hm. You know?

Here's a blurry shot:

OOOO!! It's just amazing.

Glitter Gal is available right now in the States at OverallBeauty.com, my home for all things BB Couture and now Glitter Gal. GG is made in Australia and my understanding is that they are all good on cruelty free. Right now OverallBeauty has a limited selection and she is ordering as she gets enough requests so if you would like to try some, I'd suggest ordering through them. It will take a bit, but you won't have the massive shipping expense that you have ordering direct. It's a deal the two companies have worked out, I understand. The bottles are minis, which is explained by Glitter Gal as being a result of top quality holo ingredients and only being a one coat polish. It IS a one coat polish, to be sure. All the same, I would put these at the higher end of the price spectrum.

This was a pretty simple manicure mechanically:

1 coat Seche base coat
1 coat Nailtiques 2
2 coats Seche Rebuild
1 coat Glitter Gal Lizard Belly
1 coat Seche Vite top coat

This was pretty easy to handle. It's a thicker polish, being one coat, but nice to manage. Because these are minis the brushes have a short throw which was interesting at first but I didn't have any problems. It's nicely pigmented and went on so well. 

Lovely, isn't it?

Next post I'll show you wear.

What do you think? Pretty snazzy, huh?

Happy Talons!!

Rescue Beauty Lounge L'Oiseau de Feu - Fortissimo

Fortissimo closes out the collection on a bang. Things started delicate and sweet and end dark and strong. Fortissimo is a unique dark dark brown, I would say, that definitely has a charcoal sort of feel to it, there is grey in it, to be sure:

This is pretty true to color. It is very dark. It has none of the shimmer, this is a straight cream, but a gorgeous one. It's brown but can you see the grey there? Very pretty, very vampy...nice how it turns darker as the nail curves around.

I have one more shot, I thought I had more. Hm.

This has a touch of blur, but the color is true. Isn't that lovely? I like it. I find at times that I tend to like darker colors, maybe because I'm so pale they look really dramatic on me? Not sure.

This whole collection is just amazing. I'm so glad I landed it. I love all of them. See why I had to swatch them, regardless? I just had to! I had to try them all out. That doesn't often happen so I'm thrilled with these!

Do you think you'll pick these up for yourselves?

Happy Talons!