Review + Before & After: Jamberry Cardinal

(Jamberry Cardinal was sent for my honest review.)

Hello!

Recently I was contacted by a representative from Jamberry, who told me that just a few weeks ago, Jamberry debuted a line of 12 polishes that coordinate with their nail wraps, along with topcoat in three finishes. This is really exciting for me, because when I play with nail wraps, I like the idea of being able to get an extra manicure or two out of them, and having the flexibility to combine them with coordinating nail polish is an incredibly fun idea with tons of possibilities. Plus, the rep's name is Michelle, so I couldn't have said not if I wanted to! Kidding of course. :)

Because of my obsession with red, I chose to review Cardinal, the red creme in their line. Her is the shiny beauty:

Jamberry Cardinal, 2 coats, artificial light

 

Cardinal is a stunning fire-engine red creme that glides on like a dream. The formula is gorgeous, and application was perfect. No pooling, not to thick, perfect in every way. You do want to be sure you wear a basecoat because when I did clean-up, I saw a little tendency toward staining, but that's the case with most reds like this, nothing strange here. I did let the first coat dry on its own before applying the second, and it dried quickly and with a very shiny finish--you don't need topcoat with this one if you don't want it, but I am wearing it here. So with respect to my review of this polish, I think this is definitely a viable equivalent for your better-than-average prestige polishes. If the other polishes in the line are like this, these will be an enormous success. You can find these, along with their impressive selection of nail wraps, by clicking here.

I wanted to keep wearing this and also wanted a bit of fall nail art, so I decided to use her as a base for a thankgiving-centerpiece sort of look I wanted to try out. For my second step, I taped off half of each nail and put on a layer of Nail'd It Fall flowers, a gold-based polish with yellow, orange, and green hex glitters. I stamped over the nail with China Glaze Passion and my Gals plates. Finally, I finished up with some dots of Kleancolor Metallic Orange to pull the look of the glitter in the polish up onto the gold stamping, to unite the two:

I wanted to throw something full of color and pattern at this base, to see if the pretty red could stand up to all of that competition. It didn't wash out or recede into the background--it absolutely held its own. So, I'm pretty darn sure that any sort of nail art combination you wanted to do with the nail wraps and anything else will come out looking good. :)

I will be back sometime in the next few days I'll also be reviewing the Jamberry matte finish topcoat...spoiler alert, I love it (that sounded a bit Gossip Girl, now didn't it...), so if you're looking for a good matte topcoat, check back for that. :)

Thanks for stopping by! Hugs and love,
M.

(Jamberry Cardinal was sent for my honest review.)

My favorite Halloween Polishes, part 2

...You ready for part 2? (if you missed part one, you can find it here. )

Last time I showed you some basic building blocks, plus a couple that were a little extra-special. I'm going to continue on with the extra-specials--and by coincidence, all of today's offerings are indies, too. :)

Let's have at it!!

Best all-in-one Halloween polish: No Worries Polish Truffula Tree

No Worries Polish Truffula Tree, artificial light

If you want a fun, special Halloween manicure that will catch they eye, but don't have time for nail art and the like, this polish is for you. Beautiful formula, and very festive. Your one-stop Halloween polish experience. :)

Most versatile Halloween accent polish: The Nail Junkie Tiger

The Nail Junkie Tiger

I realized as I was putting this together that I don't have a full swatch of this polish, because I tend to use it as an accent rather than a full mani. So I'm showing you a Halloween mani I did with it instead of a swatch. This is a great polish to use as an accent nail, a background glitter to stamp over, a stand-out skittle nail. The basic orange-and-black color scheme make it perfect for almost any sort of theme--spiders, witches, pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns, haunted houses, bats. Yes yes yes, I realize it has bar glitter. I love bar glitter myself, but even if you don't love it for daily wear, I think it still has a place in theme manicures. :)


Darkest, most goth-type Halloween polish: A Study In Polish Consulting Criminal

A Stud In Polish Consulting Criminal, direct sunlight

Perfect for deadly vampires, serious sorcerers and goth fairies, this red, white and silver in black jelly polish will take care of all of your dark, shadow-filled Halloween-style desires.


Polish that looks most like body part and blood splatter: 6 Harts Ninja Bat

6 Harts Ninja Bat, over medium gray franken, indirect sunlight

Let's say you're stuck in a horror movie, and some serial killer is coming after you, trying to kill you. Let's further say that you pull out a grenade, and blow him to bits. Let's still further say you take a look over at the wall that his body splattered all over. That's what this polish reminds me of, when I'm in a Halloween state of mind.

On that note: Spaghetti and meatballs, anyone?

Most night-sky and alien-esque Halloween polish: Nail'd It Purp...Excuse Me.

Nail'd It Purp...Excuse Me!, no undies, direct sunlight

Looking for a night sky polish that comes with its own moons? Want something that captures a whimsical, alien-creature type of look? Going to the party as Dr. Who, and want to take the galaxy with you? Want nails that the sauciest of sorceresses would wear, polish that will make your nails look like they can cast spells all on their own? This is the polish for you. You could get a slightly more subtle look than the one I put together here by putting undies under it and using one coat. But who wants subtle for Halloween??? :)


Most self-explanatory: Pretty & Polished Blood Clot

Pretty & Polished Blood Clot, no undies, two coats, artificial light

Yeah, it's probably pretty obvious why this one made the list--this is so creepily, horrendously like a microscope view of blood cells clotting up, it makes the Halloween freak inside me dance with joy. This is also one of those frustrating polishes to photograph--it looks so much better (and creepier!) in person. I believe this was also released for a while under the name 'Bloody Mary'; whichever way you find it, your evil nurse/doctor/serial killer costume would not be complete without some of this dripped, er, painted onto your nails.


Most non-horrific Halloween polish: SoFlaJo Frankie's Lab Dance

SoFlaJo Frankie's Lab Dance, 2 coats, indirect sunlight

 

The only thing horrific here is my swatching ability--these were taken a year ago, I apparently didn't realize the bottle was in focus rather than the nails, and they make me shudder! But they still get the basic idea across, including the duochrome aspect of the polish, and the glitters. This is a wonderful polish for princesses, faeries, elves of various sorts, and other sweet, ethereal costumes. It's also just a fun, quick Halloween polish that will help you capture the general spirit of the holiday in one bottle.


And to end, an absolutely quintessential Halloween polish: Leesha's Lacquer Monster Mash

Leesha's Lacquer Monster Mash over Zoya Keiko, artificial light

I have undies here, but you can build this polish up on its own to get more glitter and nearly the exact same base color (as you can see in the bottle). This is another polish that I love for capturing the spirit of the holiday just as it is, with no nail art and no costume to pair with it. It's full of energy and fun, just the way Halloween should be.

And so, my favorites are at an end...but I'm sure this is only the beginning of the possibilities. So I leave you with this very important question: what amazing Halloween polishes am I missing from this list? What are your favorites? Point me to them!!! :)

Hugs and Halloween thrills,
M.

Before & After: Lacy Petticoat

(All products in this post purchased by me.)

Hello!

I've been in a race today to get this manicure posted, so I will apologize up-front for the cat hair you may or may not find somewhere in the pictures today...>.>

Today is the next installment in the Cheeky twin post challenge I'm working on with Dina of Secretary's Nail Art, and we're on Cheeky 52--we chose the swirl image from this plate, and it's been one I've been looking forward to, 'cause I love my swirls!

I started with a base of Barielle Orange Parfait, a soft, coral-orange creme that goes almost to a melon color; this is two coats:

Barielle Orange Parfait, artificial sunlight

The formula on this wasn't great, but it wasn't too bad, either. The first coat was a little patchy, but it evened out nicely with the second coat.

Next I put on a coat of a fun glitter I recently got in a scratch 'n' dent, Nail'd It Plum Sassy, which is filled with purples, blues, and greens of all sorts, shapes and sizes! I thought this would make a pretty contrast against the soft orange.

Finally, I've been wanting to play around with masking off a portion of the nail for stamping, so I tried it out here. I masked off wedges on each nail, and stamped the image over them in white; on the accent nail, I edged the wedge in white nail tape:

What do you think? This reminds me of a pretty pleated skirt that when the folds separate, you see some hidden lace or a petticoat. I also wonder if it would look better with all of the nails taped off?

Thanks for looking, and don't forget to check out what Dina did with the image!

Hugs and love,

M.

Review: Picture Polish Revolution (with a simple Before & After thrown in for good measure)

Hello!

If you're reading this blog, you probably love pretty nail polish, and if you love pretty nail polish, you probably love at least a few polishes that contain glitter. And whether you're a glitter bomb/soup lover or the type that prefers a more subtle type of glitter, they're all a PITA to get off. And we all try pretty much any idea anyone has for ways to get it off more quickly.

Therefore, it was my moral responsibility to snap up a bottle of piCture pOlish's new glitter base, Revolution, when I had the chance during a Llarowe restock. And I am definitely not one to shirk my duty! So, I shelled out my $12.50 and said a little prayer it would work.

At first glance, this looks like it might be another glue-base that you peel off, but it's not. Supposedly, Revolution works just like any other basecoat; you put it on, put your glitter polish on top, and when the time comes to remove, you use your regular nail polish remover. The only real difference is that they advise you to use two coats of the base coat, and let it dry in between.

I wanted to give the Revolution a vigorous test, so I applied my two coats (luckily, it dries very quickly, so two coats didn't take a lot of time like the glue-base coat method does), and then used the most glitter-bombiest polish I own, my recently acquired and much adored Nail'd It Purp...Excuse Me!:

Nail'd It Purp...Excuse Me!, indirect sunlight

Nail'd It Purp...Excuse Me! direct sunlight

First, let me take a moment to sing the praises of this polish. It's a mash of purple jelly base, purple, teal, pink glitters of all sizes, and lots of magic. It looks like a psychedelic universe exploded on your fingers, to rest there in an eternal dance of light and joy...and I say it contains magic not just because the color of the glitters shift as the light hits them differently in the jelly, but also because there is no way this  much glitter should apply as nicely as this does. It's not perfect--it is almost completely glitter after all--but I've had polishes with half as much glitter cause me tons of headache, while this one caused me almost none. Even the big glitters were not hard to get out; I did have the bottle stored upside-down and I did placed the big glitters on the nail where I wanted them, but I didn't have to fish for them. In fact, I had to put two back into the bottle.

But enough of that--the point is, if any glitter should be hard to remove, this one should. I kept this on for a full 24 hours to make sure it was fully cured--that's about as long as I normally wear a polish, so I was able to do a fair comparison with other methods. I also not only put topcoat on it, but did nail art, the way I'd normally do, and put topcoat over that, the way I'd normally do. My Llama Nails group had an 'inspired by space' theme, and how could I not use this polish for it? It clearly doesn't need much added to it, so I did a quick stamp job with Barry M Silver Foil and Cheeky 45:

Look at how the light and jelly change the color depending on angle--just sublime...:)

So, how about that base coat?

1) Did it work? 
Yes, absolutely. While it doesn't make the glitter polish as easy to remove as a non-glitter polish, it made it about the same as a textured polish to remove. It took me about 2 minutes to remove it all, with a normal nail polish remover (no pure acetone needed).

2) Is it better than the foil method and the glue method?
In my opinion, yes. This saved time over both of those methods; with the foil method I have to sit for about 5 minutes per hand (10 minutes total), and use pure acetone. With Revolution I was done in about the time it would take me to apply the foils to my fingers alone. With the glue method, it takes ages longer for the two base coats of glue to dry before I can apply polish; and when the time comes to remove it, there always seem to be pieces left behind that I have to scrape off, and I have to do additional clean-up. I've also heard from some people that with the glue-base you get nail polish popping off after a day (although that has never happened to me). So without a doubt, this is now my preferred method for glitter removal.

3) Is it worth the money?
This is where things get a bit tricky. Revolution costs $12.50 currently at Llarowe, and $10 AUD on the Picture Polish site; the bottle is the standard size of all their polishes. But it's very thin, and after using it twice, I still couldn't tell that any was missing from the bottle; it seems it will last for quite a few manicures. So this really depends on your budget and how often you wear glitter...If you can afford to invest in a bottle of this and you only wear glitter once in a while, your bottle will probably last a long, long time, and will be well worth it. If you wear glitter every day and change your polish every day and are on a tight budget, it might be worth it for you to use a different method. But this is a personal choice, not one dictated by my review--all I can tell you is that it works and is a time-saver. So at the very least, you don't have to worry about risking $12.50 on something that's going to be a complete FAIL. :)

There you have it! I love it and recommend it. I hope the review was useful for you, and please check out the other 'inspired by space' manicures linked below. :)

Hugs and happy glitter removal!
M.

(The polish and glitter base in this review were purchased with my own money.)