China Glaze Luxe and Lush over Black

I wanted to get something like Essie’s Shine of Time nail polish. Unfortunately, that nail polish is not available for a reasonable price any longer… so I opted out for China Glaze Luxe and Lush. It’s different – the pieces are in “rougher” cut than Shine of Time according to what I could tell from other people’s swatch. It’s still cool, and it was definitely a steal for $5 (from Amazon! 🙂 ) And I am so glad I got this nail polish.

Here’s a closeup of the nail polish over Sephora Pantone Anthracite, a nice, solid black nail polish.

I took this photo under shade.

Over a black polish, this “special effects” nail polish reminds me of Korean black furnitures inlaid with oyster shells, like this one.

For details, I put on one coat of OPI Natural Base Coat, two coats of Anthracite, two coats of Luxe and Lush, finished with two coats of Essie Good to Go Top Coat. Luxe and Lush coat ended up being bit bumpy, so I put on an extra coat of top coat to make my nails smooth, and to ensure that pieces won’t fall from it.

Here’s how the nail appears under indoor light, under direct sunlight, and under shades.

The cool effects are most obvious on top of dark coat, but I’ll have a different post on how Luxe and Lush looks over lighter color polish later today. 🙂

China Glaze I’m not a Lion and Sephora Henna-thing is Possible with Real 18-k Gold Top Coat

Sephora Henna-Thing is Possible is one of my favorite nail polish. It’s not shimmery or glittery, but still very shiny! The color is close to wine color, but the highlight is pink, so it has a mysterious tone to it.

I used It’s real 18 gold top coat over it. And I used China Glaze I am Not a Lion on the ring finger for accent. I will have an entry for just Henna-thing is Possible and I am Not a Lion later!

I bought the top coat at $15, and I still think it was one of the best purchase I have made! I wish I can take a more close-up photo, but iPhone is not good at close-up…

Here are the nails over sunlight.

And here is a photo under shade.

Magenta with Bits of Gold, Sephora OPI Alley Cat and It’s Real 18k Gold Top Coat

I painted my nails again. This time I am pretty satisfied so I won’t redo it for at least a week!!

This is with two coats of Sephora OPI Alley Cat, which is a nice thin polish of fuchsia, and with Sephora OPI It’s Real 18k Gold on top.

On the hand above, I applied two coats of the gold top coat. And on the hand below, I applied one coat of the gold top coat. I regret painting two coats of the top coat on my left hand but I don’t want to remove gold speckles from my hand.

And here is picture with the nail polish bottle. I took the photo in-door, under a incandescent lamp and whereas I took the other ones while waiting for the bus. Sorry for the yellow photo!

Sephora X Chaotic and Julep Annie

I decided to go with Julep Annie to use with Sephora X Chaotic!

I feel that it reminds me of a track suit, or even a child’s pajama. It definitely looks more playful than elegant.

On a side note, Chaotic is pretty easy to remove. Usually, for glitter top coat, I need to use one cotton ball for each finger nail. But i had to use only 3 cotton balls to remove Chaotic and what was underneath. Woot!

Sephora X Chaotic swatch

I finally got Sephora X Chaotic! I knew it was a nail polish that I would regret if I never got it.. so I ended up buying it.

I did a quick Google search of the swatches for Chaotic so far. One wonderful part of this top coat is that it would work well with many nail polishes.

To decide which color to go with, I tried different combination on each finger. I am not sure if this still can be considered as swatch.

Here are the nails without Chaotic. Just for reference, on the left hand (with yellow polish) :
Thumb: Julep Hailee
Index: Julep Cindy
Middle: Julep Alma
Ring: Julep Sienna
Pinky: Sephora OPI Yellow My Name is Betsey

On my right:
Thumb: Julep Annie
Index: Sephora OPI Too Too Turq
Middle: Sephora OPI Skinny Jeans
Ring: Sephora x Pantone Tangerine Tango Creme
Pinky: Julep Ellen

Yup, I should expand out of Julep and Sephora.

Bold colors feel like splattered paint. I am not sure what the metallic colors ended up like.

Here is another swatch of Chaotic on top of Sephora OPI Let’s Hear It for the Spirit! I reminds me of … quail egg shells.

I will not ever use Chaotic on top of nude/skin-color ish nail polish ever again!!

I have one more example of Chaotic here, on Julep Melissa. Hmm, I feel that Melissa has been the best match so far. Here’s the image from it so you don’t have to click on the link!

I’ll do a swatch of just Melissa and Chaotic later for Chaotic Melissa!

Sephora OPI Gold Blasted on Julep Ellen

Nothing super new or spectacular. I wanted to try gold on red combination. I still believe that this is not the best gold crackle nail polish but this time the gold polish left wider gaps in between – YAY!

Here is another example of using the Gold Blasted nail polish.

Sephora It’s real 18k gold

This photo is from a while ago, and this nail polish is not available now. Sorry about keep posting nail polish colors that are not available. 😦

Originally $30, this nail polish was available for $15 during Black Friday. I was in love with this nail polish when it first came out but I couldn’t bring myself to spend $30 on the nail polish.

This is a really nice top coat by itself. I have only gotten the result I wanted when I painted this over a black nail polish, and did not like it over shiny, shimmery colors, specifically orange or green. 😦 I think with certain base colors, the ‘gold dust’, as I like to call it, ends up looking like just ‘dust’. But it’s real gold, and I need to flaunt it!!

Here is another use of the top coat, but only one coat.

Ikat print nail

 

Ikat nails!!! This is actually from awhile ago, but I am so proud of this, and this was the most effort I have put on nail art.

The nail polishes:

• Pink is Palm Beach pink from Sephora Bohemian Brights mini nail set. (It’s a wonderful shade of pink, but no longer available at Sephora )
• Blue is Julep Annie.
• White is random OPI white polish that’s sticky and old, but was good enough for this.
• Black is Kiss Nail Art Paint. Its brush is thin, which made drawing the ‘outline’ easier.

I followed the tutorial from this YouTube video.

Although some of these polishes are not available anymore, I’m sure any nail polish will do as well. This may be a summer design, but who knows how other color combinations will work out? I really want to try ikat in a different color combination soon.

Few things I noted from this experience:

• Having thin brush for the black helps a lot. **Nail polishes specifically for nail art have thin brushes. 
• I liked that the pink is translucent, and this inspired an idea of trying  ‘watercolor’ effect nail art in the future
• The white, and the base color, which in this case, was blue, has to be completely opaque!

Sephora X Chaotic

I had to quickly stop by Sephora yesterday and BAM, Sephora had a section for new nail series called Sephora X. And Chaotic Top Coat stood out the most to me.

Here is the link to the nail polish. To describe it, this nail polish consists of clear polish, white specks of various size, black specks of various size, and black linear ‘specks’. I don’t know if I can post images from Sephora site directly, but it’s this one…

 

Since I was short on time, I just painted this over what I had on my nail already. But I can definitely see this top coat working amazingly with so many colors! I love that my nails look like abstract art now. Go Sephora!!! You are amazing!

Quick notes: Some of the ‘flakes’ are really big. This is a top coat, but in case the flakes are tipping out, or seem like they might come off, applying a clear top coat on top of it might be a good idea.

I have purchased so many nail polishes lately so I might not purchase Chaotic right away… but it’s so beautiful!!!!

 

Nails INC Magnetic Polish

This nail polish is Nails INC Magnetic Polish the Strand, star magnetic shape. Of course the magnetic reflection doesn’t show up in the photo, but this nail polish is very cool and has become one of my favorite!! (BTW – This nail polish was available for $5 from Sephora website on Black Friday, and I am happy that I got them.)

The steps I followed are:

1. Apply thin layer of the nail polish
2. Dry it
3. Apply thick layer of nail polish
4. Right after, place the magnet on top of nail
5. Wiggle horizontally to make sure that as much of the sides are affected by the magnet
6. Apply top coat to finish

Some observation I have made since then:

• The star pattern is a bit different from other magnets in that it has a clearly defined center. If you don’t hold up the magnet at the correct position, your center will be off.
• It’s difficult to make sure that the magnetic effect extends to the side-edge of the nails. Since this is a start/circular design, the edge becomes less relevant and less noticeable, so this is OK!