Sunday, November 5, 2017

by Kitties26 on Sunday, November 05, 2017 Leave a Comment

Pink flower MILV water decals over Dance Legend Bi Oksana 49

This mani was so adorable, I just loved wearing it. I wore it during the time that I went to floriade, which is my home town's spring flower festival.

It was such as simple mani to do because of the awesome MILV water decals. These ones are transparent with the pink roses and the gold fish net pattern, which means you can wear it over any base colour and it's going to look pretty amazing.

I applied them over Dance Legend Binary polish called Oksana. Now, I've not really read much about the Bi range, because I'm lazy and everything both on the bottle and on blogs is in Russian. But this time when I wore this polish I applied two coats of the pink colour, and then one coat of the Bi Top coat instead of my normal Seche Vite top coat. Oh my. This stuff was a hard as nails. I'm sure I wore this for an entire week with no chips and not even tip wear. I'm super duper impressed by the longevity of the Bi range when it's paired up correctly.

Polishes and water decals provided for consideration, but don't let that make you think I'm raving about these cause they are press samples. I'm genuinely impressed with the Binary range and the ease of use of the water decals, not to mention the massive range of designs to suit all tastes and would happily recommend them to anyone.

Thursday, November 2, 2017

by Kitties26 on Thursday, November 02, 2017 1 comment

Picture Polish Blue with MILV water decals

A little while back I received a package from MILV Art with a whole bunch of different water decals. Now the truth is I already had a whole much of MILV water decals that I had purchased through Picture Polish, and I actually can't recall if this one that I purchased or one that was sent to me, but either way, it's such a great decal. I really love using water decals to create nail art looks that are really difficult to create with stamping. I possibly could have done something similar to this by creating stamping decals, but there is no why the lines would have been this crisp.

Rather than creating a whole mani using this pattern, which would have been a little intense, I pared it us with Picture Polish Blue and and OPI Orange you stylish. This was the first time I'd worn Picture Polish blue and I have to say I'm a big fan. It's in the same colour family as Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, which has become quite the collectable polish, and I also have a similar blue shade by Ulta3 called Blue Marlin, but the formula on this one is soooo much better, it's two simple perfect thin coats.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

by Kitties26 on Saturday, October 28, 2017 Leave a Comment

26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Halloween with negative space

Around this time last year was when I shared the last mani I created for the 26 Great Nail Art Ideas Challenge. Then I had my motorcycle accident and didn't end up rejoining the challenge again. This year I'm back in, and we have only just started. If you like to paint nail art and want to join in the challenge, then please come join the facebook group to get all the details. All nail artists are welcome to participate and the rules aren't too strict, it's ok to miss weeks if you are too busy and we only post one mani every two weeks.

The prompt is Halloween with negative space. Negative space can be tricky, especially if you have stained nails, which is why you will usually find that I do the negative part towards the back part of my nail.

I just free hand painted on random shapes using the three classic Halloween shades of green, purple and orange. I then just painted the black like to make the patchwork appearance.

An InLinkz Link-up

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

by Kitties26 on Wednesday, October 25, 2017 4 comments

Time to wear some VHTF polishes - Clarins 230, the original unicorn pee

I have another special polish today, the most sort after original Unicorn Pee, Clarins 230. Very similar pigments to the original unicorn pee pigment are now available in lots of indie brands, so this polish has been well and truly covered as far as attempted dupes. But just like I said the other day, there is something special about owning the actual original of one of the HTF polishes, rather than the dupe.

I've already worn this and shown it on my blog a few times, but I've actually never worn this on it's own, without layering. So that's what I did this time.

You're going to need patience to wear this alone, cause it takes a lot of coats. And cause it takes a lot of coats, you're going to want to do thin coats so you don't start a polish mountain. I ended up doing 5 coats for this mani, followed by a single layer of top coat. Whilst there might not be much tint in the base, there is a heap of the unicorn pee pigment, which means at five layers the depth of sparkle is just amazing.

I took about 100 photos in various lighting conditions, and here are the best of them. It's so damn hard to capture both the green and red sparkle in the same photo.

Monday, October 23, 2017

by Kitties26 on Monday, October 23, 2017 5 comments

Time to wear some VHTF polishes - Essie SSN original

I have a few very hard to find polishes that I have procured over the years. Some I paid retail for and just happened to be around at the right time, others I've paid a little more shall we say.

Over the last few weeks I've decided to wear them all, because why own a pretty polish if you aren't going to wear it. All the polishes I'm going to show you this week have definitely been duped, or at least close enough to dupes that many people wouldn't care. But at some point in time, my nail polish collection became just that, a collection. Which means owning the actual original polish with the right bottle and name is more important, because it forms part of a collection.

The first one I have here is one of my more recent acquisitions. I actually was able to purchase this bottle off one of my fellow Digital Dozen pals, who had backup bottles, if you can believe it.

This is the original Essie Starry Starry Night. I really do love it. I did apply four thin coats because I wanted to see SSN in it's full deep dark depths natural glory, and I wasn't disappointed. I'm so glad to have this one in my collection now.

I never bothered buying the new Starry Starry Night, because after seeing swatch comparisons, it was clear it wasn't even close to the original.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

by Kitties26 on Wednesday, October 18, 2017 2 comments

Well overdue Picture Polish swatches

You know when you get a text message from someone, and you read it, and then you forget about. And I mean forget about it for several days or a a week. Then when you remember it's all weird and awkward about whether it's too late to reply. That's kind of how I feel about these swatch photos.

These swatch photos were again done last year. All just before I had my motorcycle accident. Which totally messed up my entire blogging schedule. I've seriously got to get on top of my draft blog posts. I currently have 18, and that's after I merged all these Picture Polish swatches into one post.

So I'm just going to jump straight into swatches, cause these polishes have all be around for ages now. There are already plenty of swatches out there, but here are mine.

Merge - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown in full sunlight.

Muse - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown in full sunlight.

Posey - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown in full sunlight.

Summer - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown in full sunlight.

Winter - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown in full sunlight.

Alice - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown in full sunlight.

Free - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown under a lamp.

Orchid

Remember - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown under a lamp

Rose - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown in full sunlight.

Sisters - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown in full sunlight.

Soul - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown under a lamp.

Wunderlust - 2 coats with seche vite top coat shown in full sunlight.

Maybe now I can update my Picture Polish colour guide a bit, argh, but that means coding some stuff up and I just can't be bothered at the moment.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

by Kitties26 on Tuesday, October 17, 2017 1 comment

The Polish Chrome Wars Part 10 - Are all multichrome powders the same?

To say it's been a while since I last did a post in my series about chrome powders would be a serious understatement. In fact, I don't think I could I have sat on this post for much longer! I reckon I've had these photos edited and this post sitting here waiting to be written up for more than a year! But at least these are things I bought myself, and not products sent for review. Then I'd be in real trouble!

In August last year I shared my swatches of the chrome pigments available at the time from Born Pretty. Of course a year has gone by now, and they have added to their range since then, but back when I did these photos these were the only powders you could get from the BP store. So I may as well show you the comparison of the iridescent type chrome powders (the ones that are white crystallized looking powders) compared to the coloured multi chrome powders.

The multichrome powders I have here are the ones from What's Up nails. I've since got the similar powders from Born Pretty Store so I will be able to compare them, but I think I'll make you all wait a year for that! Haha.

All my swatches of the powders are applied over a black base of Dance Legend Black glitter base.

Here is a photo of the two types of chrome powders, even those these two end up looking similar on the nail, they look completely different in the jar.

The first one is Absinthe from What's up nails.

Here is the comparison the the similar shade in the iridescent multichrome powder range from the Born Pretty Store #585. The Born Pretty one is actually sparklier, but the finish isn't as smooth and the multichrome shift nowhere near as strong.

Next up is Dragon from What's up nails. Amazing color shift on this one.

The next three shots show the comparison with Born Pretty iridescent multichrome powder #681.

Here is Paradise from What's up nails.

Born Pretty #587 is very similar in colour and shift, but again the finish isn't as smooth and its sparklier and more metallic looking.

Finally, here is Royality from What's Up Nails.

There isn't really a colour that matches the intensity of this one in the Born Pretty iridescent multichrome range, but #583 is probably the closest.

For $1.99 a pot, the Born Pretty ones really hold their own, especially when not compared to the expensive brands of powders. But are they the same - No!

It will be interesting when I compare the BP Chameleon Powders and What's up powders to see if they really are identical.