Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I'm wearing Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice, which is a very cool but kind of oddball glitter from the display that held Midnight Sky and friends.  It's a black jelly base with fine orange glitter, which sounds like the old Halloween standard, but Pumpkin Spice is a little bit different.

The black base is very lightly pigmented even for a jelly, and I ended up needing four coats to make it opaque and even.  It's not stark black at four coats, that's just enough for me to make it even without bare looking spots.  It seems like that could be by design - the result was that the glitter really got loaded up nicely, more than the Halloween polishes, and the impression I get from it is very late Fall, not Halloween.  I noticed applying it and again now that the glitter in Pumpkin Spice is very smooth, which is one of those factors that strongly affects the likelihood of me choosing a glitter polish over another when I go to change color.  I applied it last night very shortly before bed, so I used China Glaze Fast Forward to dry it.  Four coats of color right before bed is a bit ambitious and I was prepared to have it messed up this morning, but it dried quite nicely with only one flaw.  Unfortunately, that one flaw was the one that puts me off to various quick dry top coats - Fast Forward shrank the polish at my tips a bit.  I'd noticed some shrinkage with Fast Forward before, but I think it might be evaporating a little with use because it's more pronounced today.  Thinner might fix that right up, but that presents the question of where the heck I have thinner.

This is the finished Pumpkin Spice manicure in sunlight after it dried completely.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice Nail Polish, Four Coats

I think it's a nice polish, but particularly nice for a Fall novelty polish.  In the picture, the spots where the sunlight really hits the polish show just how smooth the glitter in Pumpkin Spice is with only one coat of top coat.  There's no unevenness to the surface, and I hope Sally Hansen keeps using glitter from whoever made this stuff so nice and flat.

That's Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice and just about all I have for you this morning, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!



All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

Illamasqua Brigitte

Not long ago my nail pal The Asian Girl helped me get my hands on some Illamasqua polishes I've been wanting. Some of these have been on my wish list for a while now...I don't think I've bought an Illamasqua polish in more than a year. Longer even! Which is just crazy because they are truly lovely.

This is Illamasqua Brigitte. We are going to get married.

Brigitte is a jelly. Such a jellyish jelly that I was terrified when I opened the box because wow does it look sheer. It put me in my mind of my Ruby Kisses American Clear Pink, which made my nails look like a nuclear accident. I've also purchased other iterations of that color with equally disappointing results. Oh how I craved the perfect pink jelly!

This is four coats.

I used my Palladio ridge filler, which I haven't in a while, because it has a slight creamy tint to it. Just enough to take the edge off any stains on my nails.

With the first coat of Brigitte you definitely think "I have chosen...poorly." But with the second coat you can tell it's definitely going to build properly. I might have even stopped at three, but most of the swatches I found online that I liked showed four coats, so that's what I did.

Brigitte is a UK-exclusive Illamasqua shade, although when I tried to find it on Illamasqua's site this morning, I couldn't. So it's possible it's been discontinued. I couldn't find it on eBay, either! There are other UK-exclusive shades, though, and they retail for about $22US, depending on the conversion rate.

Revlon Just Tinted Victorian

Good morning, Dear Reader!

After a few days of wearing strong colors, a Revlon Just Tinted jelly polish seemed in order today, so I went with Victorian, a medium pink.

Victorian applied reasonably well, but I needed four coats.  It was still quite sheer after three, so I knew a fourth wouldn't make a tremendous difference in opacity, but when I took a look to see if I could stop at three, the color was pretty blotchy.  The fourth evened it out, then I used a coat of Poshe to dry it and one of that Sally Hansen Salon 10 Day Speed Dry top coat I mentioned the other day to shine it up.  This is Revlon Just Tinted Victorian in sunlight after it was pretty dry.

Revlon Just Tinted Victorian Nail Polish, Four Coats

I think it's pretty, but that's a lot of coats.  If you recall, I often have troubles with Revlon polishes completely curing well, so I'm a little concerned that this will be a Braille manicure by this evening even though I allowed each coat to really set for a few minutes before applying the next.  Time will tell.  It's a nice break from bolder shades without going for all-out sheer, so I'm willing to wait and see if it dries properly.

That's the manicure for today, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!



Later that day... A few hours after posting, I was connecting cables and hardware for a network, and my polish dented pretty badly.  No bubbles or smudges, it just stayed a little bit denty.  Boo.

All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen.

Revlon Just Tinted in Desire

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I decided to try out a Revlon Just Tinted nail polish, Desire, for today because although Zoya Smoke is lovely, with a heat index of 105° it's difficult to get enthusiastic about a Fall color so I took a Return to Summer break.

Revlon's Just Tinted line is rather lightly pigmented jellies, and I'd eyed a couple a few times before finally getting them during a sale for the day when my nails would be short enough to wear them.  Lo and behold, that day has arrived.  The shade I chose for today, Desire, is a very bright pink, perfect for summer.  I needed three coats of Desire to make the color even, and it seems to be drying well with quick dry top coat.  This manicure screams of Summer.

Revlon Just Tinted Nail Polish in Desire, Three Coats

I like it because it's so summery, and it's a really nice one for the current length of my nails.  It makes me want to feast on seedless watermelon.

That's all there is to my Revlon Just Tinted Desire manicure, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Best Nail Treatment - Review and swatches

I was contacted a while back by Lynn, the lovely owner of  BNTabout trying her line of nail products and after my drooling and wavering due to the beautiful selection of nail colors I finally picked a couple and I have been testing these in a serious way!You can check out the shades hereLeft to right: Air Cure system Base coat, Grape Crush, French Twist and Air Cure System fast dry Top CoatNow I

IsaDora Hotness in Hunter Green

This is another beauty from my sweetheart FélineIt is a Swedish brand and I am in loveBeautiful blackened hunter green jellyI had to add Nfu-oh #40 because it just made me think FélineIsaDora is my new mistress....she is a hot little thingThe formula is wonderful, smooth and pigmented (for a jelly)I wore this for 4 days....seriously I did!Stop licking the monitor!I will be wearing this again and

Nicole's Heart Franken

As promised I made a fun Neon orange jelly with flakies frankenAnd named it after my dear friend Nicole (from nightly Nails blog) because it reminds me of her...warm, beautiful, happy and far more interesting and complex than some plain old orange!(I love you Nicole & you better email me your addy so I can send you one of these)This girl is so hot I wore it for 4 daysYes I took 6 billion pictures

OPI Too Hot Pink to Hold 'Em

Another from the OPI Texas collectionYou know I love a jelly...I added OPI Standing room only over my thumb and ring fingerI know this is supposed to be hot pink but on me it's a cool toned red, because I'm special like that!This is 3 coats with Seche ViteThe formula is a perfect jelly, smooth even coverage, sheer and dries quicklyMy final thought....OPI, more jellies Please!

*product in this

OPI Big Hair... Big Nails

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I thought I'd take advantage of shorter nails and use OPI Big Hair... Big Nails.  It's one of the jelly polishes (or "sorbet" if OPI is paying you) from the Texas Collection, kind of a reddish orange.  The name of this one tickles me because I have big red hair and usually have some pretty big nails, so it seemed entertainingly fitting.  I don't have any sense of whether the stereotypical Texan big blonde hairsprayed crowd finds humor in their huge hair and nails, but somehow the name is even funnier to me if they don't.

I didn't get any of the OPI Texas jellies until I'd been assured that they don't require a zillion coats and the VNL isn't too bad, and I found those things to be true as well.  I used three coats of Big Hair... Big Nails, and that's given me even and almost opaque coverage.  With a short free edge, the remaining hint of VNL doesn't creep me out, so I like how it looks.  When I sat down to change my polish, I'd planned on using white Konad of some sort on this, but was surprised that I like it well enough on its own that I'd prefer to wear it plain for a while before adding to it.

OPI Big Hair... Big Nails Nail Polish, Two Coats in Artificial Light

Using nail polish again this week after having gotten accustomed to the soak off gel, I really have no idea which I'll end up sticking with.  At this point, having done some damage to my nails that I have to grow out that's unrelated to either polish or gel, they're so little that they hardly need the protection of gel, and I'm not too enthusiastic at the prospect of the additional application time of gel.  I wouldn't use it right now anyhow because as you can see, my application skills are much weaker with shorter nails and I think gel would take me an eternity to get right, so for now, I think I'm going with polish.

That's the update for today, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!  

OPI Texas Collection- Houston we have a Purple

Houston we have a Purple is more of a raspberry jelly than actually purple but it's gorgeous no matter!Notice that this one is more opaque than most jelliesIt still required 3 coats, as do most jellies in my opinionI love that this has the squishy jelly texture but almost no VNLHouston is a bit more pigmented but the formula is not too thick and not runny so it applies very smoothIf you only get

OPI Texas collection- Big Hair Big Nails

OPI's Texas Collection is 12 shades, 6 are what they call sorbet...I call them jelliesand I'm stubborn and don't take to change well so they will be referred to as jelly. :oP~The first one up is Big Hair Big Nails a Red jelly that is almost a coral/orange toned red.If you've been reading my blog long then you know I love red and I loooooove Jellies(I do not like the name at all)This is 3 perfect

Nightmare, dream and a guest post

I am sorry that I've not been around much...I'm am trying to reorganize my world.I hope very soon to be back to steadily posting 3-4 times a week.I did a little guest post over at Overallbeauty's blog
Kim got in and is now carrying these sweet little skully nail decals and beingthe sweetheart that she is, she thought of me when they came in and sent me a set because she knows that like her I am

OPI Katy Perry part 1 Swatches and review

I know it's a small collection but I'm doing this in 2 parts because I really like the colors and so traditional swatching isn't going to work when I really want to just do a full manicure and enjoy them.
So on to the pretties...Not like the Movies is a pale purple to gray to green multi chrome with silver scattered shimmerThis is 2 coats with top coat in lightbox lightingThe formula is good

My New Years Eve Mani

I used one of the Sally Hansen Salon effects strips in Misbehaved on my ring fingerThe rest is a beautiful franken my friend Flinty over at Polish or Perish shared with me last year called 917 over one coat of BYS Matte Royal BlueIf you click to enlarge the pictures you can see that 917 not only has holo glitters but it also has flakiesSalon Effects are really easy to apply though I had a hard

Barielle Elle's Spell

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I have another from Barielle's 2010 Holiday Hustle collection, Elle's Spell, which is the only non-frosty one.  As for availability, I got an email yesterday telling me the whole collection is on Barielle.com, so get 'em while they're hot.

Anyhow, Elle's Spell is described by the manufacturer as "a jelly red with multi-colored foil flakes," and I'd say that's accurate.  I'm much more impressed with Elle's Spell on the nail than in the bottle.  It looked interesting in the bottle, but it really comes alive on the nail.

It's much thinner than most Barielle nail polishes, but that's not all bad.  It applied really well, and the color builds nicely.  I used three coats to make it opaque, and it still retains the jelly quality and the flaky glitter isn't too dense in three coats.  Here it is in sunlight, the dry manicure.

Barielle Elle's Spell Nail Polish, Three Coats

Elle's Spell is a really nice polish, I think.  It's unique, holiday appropriate, and I just like it.  So far, so good for Barielle's Holiday Hustle... I'll try to have another for you tomorrow.  Until then, love and nail polish to you!  


*This polish was sent to me fore review by Barielle.

Zulu!

So originally I was going to tell you about my recent love affair with my OPI polishes, but then I remembered that I promised to show you Zulu.



I resisted liking this polish for so long, even when people were crowing about it nonstop. I bought Illamasqua Rampage, which isn't meant to be a dupe but is very like Zulu. I liked it well enough and thought well who needs Zulu?

And then one day I was doing a Sephora order for some Christmas gifts and BAM Zulu fell into my cart.



I really love it.



I mean, what's not to like?


It's a beautiful, beautiful color and it applied like a dream. This was a can't-stop-staring color for sure.

I got Zulu from Sephora and I am pretty sure it's still available...so if you can't live without it...get after it.

My Official All Hallows Eve Manicure! I love Halloween if you hadn't guessed!

Idecided to go classic Vamp for my official Halloween nails!Traditional Gothic era Vamp!Why yes I did actually file my nails to a point! I used Risque Rebu as my base color(Thank you Sarah of Look at them pretty colors )I need 6 more bottles of this perfect jelly blood redI very carefully outlined the entire free edge in black creme using NOX Twilight Black TieIt's a detail few would notice but

China Glaze Fight like a Woman swatches

I love the name of this special LE collection!Fight Like A Woman! Some of the strongest and most courageous people I've met are women!
China Glaze Nail Lacquer Gets the Gloves Ready to Join in the Fight Against Breast Cancer Join China Glaze Nail Lacquer this October in the battle against breast cancer, one nail at a time! The professional line of nail lacquers brings on the fight with three

Across The Universe.......sigh

Deborah Lippman's Nordies exclusive Across the Universe.A sexy black jelly with layers of chunky green and blue hex glitter and a back drop of micro glitter.This is 3 coats
Bah...camera kept bluring out!
You really have to click to make these big to see the layers of glitter floating in there!
You can see the green glitter a bit better here.I'm sorry I had to do lightbox pictures since we had the

I love a Bad Romance......

Deborah Lippmann's Nordies exclusive Bad Romance!I think this is the most perfect glitter polish I've seen!A sweet black jelly base with bright purple micro glitter and large purple hex glitter suspended!*Drool*This is 3 coats, you could layer over a black creme and do one coat but I think it's truly beautiful on it's own and well worth doing 3 coats to layer and give a stunning depth.Click to