Butter London - The Black Knight

The Black Knight is a black jelly base with tiny multicolored gliter (mostly magenta, blue, and either gold or silver).

Basecoat:  NailTek Foundation II (1 coat)

Color:  Butter London The Black Knight (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

Excuse the rough-looking fingers and cuticles - I'm almost midway through knitting a large blanket from super chunky 100% wool.

Let me start with the good, no - the great.  The base is perfect.  It is opaque enough to cover, and sheer enough that you don't lose any of the glitter, even at three coats - the glitter is way obvious even in inside light.

Now for the not so good:  Application was AWFUL.  Easily one of the worst polishes I've ever worn.  I don't know if it's the consistency of the polish (thick and a bit gritty), or the long-bristled brush (that I normally adore), but I could not control this, at ALL.  I really had to glop it on to make sure I got coverage where I needed it.  Maybe it's the combination of the brush and the consistency.  I don't know.  Needless to say, this went everywhere, and while the base color cleaned up easily I am still picking glitter off (I'm writing this before I take photos). 

I actually looked through my stash and ruled out some Nubar glitters because I didn't want to deal with the layers of topcoat.  I figured Black Knight wouldn't have this issue, but surprise - it so did.  It was so gritty after just one coat that I knew I'd have to pull out the Gelous. 

I think I will try this again, but over black.  I'll try not to get my hopes up.

Nina Ultra Pro - Glamrock

Yes, I'm behind again - I have a few actual NOTDs (not swatches) piled up - I had some major dental work done a couple of weeks ago, which was followed immediately (as in, the next day) by an awful cold/flu thing that knocked me out of commission until just recently.  And, when that all happened I was *already* behind.  Oh well. 

Also, today I painted my toenails, which I usually don't do in the winter - but it's a weird winter in Texas.  Today it's about 80 degrees outside, and I'm wearing sandals when I go out tonight.  I'm kind of afraid of what this will mean for summer.

Glamrock is a black jelly with lots of silver glitter in two size - micro, and bigger round pieces.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Instant Artificials (1 coat)
Color:  Nina Ultra Pro Glamrock (3 coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

How hot is that?  This was surprisingly opaque and easy to apply.  I love this polish a lot - everything about the application was awesome.  The finished texture wasn't very rough either - I probably could have stood to do a layer of Gelous before my topcoat but it didn't really bug me.

Orly - Rock Solid

I'm not very sure how to describe this polish - it's an odd one, for sure.  My best guess is a charcoal Mineral FX-like sparkle, with a bunch of holographic glitter pieces.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 coat)

Color:  Orly Rock Solid (3 coats)

Topcoat:  NYC Grand Central Station (1 coat)

See what I mean?  Anyway, application was really good - my brush tended to get a whole lot of polish on it, but as long as I was careful to wipe off any excess, it wasn't a problem.  Consistency was fine, and cleanup went a lot better than I expected it to.  I have a couple of bare spots but it's not really noticeable, either in photos or in real life.

I believe NYC Grand Central Station is really a clear quick-dry polish as opposed to a topcoat, but it's been getting rave reviews as a topcoat, so I decided to try it.  Dry time is very nice - not as fast as Seche but just fine, and it's reasonably shiny.  My manicure still has a little bit of texture to it, but I'm not blaming my topcoat for it - I used a not-smooth base coat, and this polish has a lot of glitter.  It's still an acceptable texture - not anything like the Nubar Sparkles - and although I think a Gelous topcoat sandwich would work here, I just don't been like it's necessary.

Revlon - Facets of Fuchsia

Facets of Fuchsia is a black jelly with fuchsia glitter - both regular sized glitter and larger hex glitter.
I layered this over Wet N Wild's Black Creme.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Instant Artificials (1 coat)

Color:  Wet N Wild Black Creme (1 coat)

Color:  Facets of Fuchsia (2 coats)

Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

Sorry for the crap photos - the weather was awful and foggy the day I took these, so I had to resort to my desk light.

Facets applied very nicely - of course I had the super opaque Black Creme underneath, so it was pretty forgiving.  I didn't have much issue with glitter placement - I only had to push one big hex off the edge of my nail.  It wasn't thick or gloppy, either.

Borghese - Stellare Notte

Here's another one from the "how has this been untried so long?" file:  Borghese Stellare Notte.  This is a black base with tons of duochrome shimmer. 

(Hello, awkward bottle shape!)

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Color:  Borghese Stellare Notte (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)



So far I've noticed both a distinct purple shimmer and a teal shimmer.  So pretty!

I'm going to take a pass on the part of the post where I usually talk about application.  Why?  I really, really hate the Borghese brush.  It's all of the super-wideness of the SH Insta-Dri brush, with an awkward cap shape and a really short stem.  AND - the neck of the bottle is super long, so I had real problems both polishing and judging the amount of polish I had on the brush.  I will say that cleanup was really good, which is great, because I got this all over my fingers.  I hate this bottle and brush so much I actually decanted it right after I took these photos.  It's easily my least favorite bottle and brush (though I haven't tried the Nicole "new" brush, which might give it a run for its money, since I already hate those bottles, too).

Opacity was really good - without the stupid brush I might have gotten away with two coats, but I needed three since I made such a mess of it.  This is a gorgeous color and I'll definitely be wearing it again.

Icing - Blackout

Blackout is a polish I wanted for a long time, and when I finally found it, I let it sit in my untrieds for way too long.  Blackout is a black jelly base packed with holographic glitter.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 coat)

Color:  Wet N Wild Black Creme (2 coats)

Color:  Icing Blackout (2 coats)

Topcoat:  Out the Door Northern Lights (silver holo - 2 coats)

I actually applied Blackout on its own.  I got to four coats before I decided it was not going to be as opaque as I wanted without at least a couple more coats, and it was already 9 pm.  So, I took it off, and started over with two coats of Black Creme.  Black Creme is a super pigmented glossy black creme.  I actually told my husband I wish I'd known about Black Creme back in my goth days, it's that smooth and glossy.  But - it stains skin like whoa and was so creamy that anywhere I got it in my cuticles, it was staying there.  I took these photos the morning after I applied and you can still see some Black Creme hanging out there.

I probably could have stopped with just one coat of Blackout.  But the glitter looked so stunning against the deep black that I added another coat, and then I used the Northern Lights silver holo topcoat on top of it.

Awesome!

Comparison: Savina - Black Mist, Jordana - Night Fall, Hard Candy - Wicked

I was rearranging my untried drawers (okay, to accomodate a sh*tload of new polish I hauled over the weekend) and noticed that I have three untried black polishes with silver glitter.  I am pretty sure I don't need three, so I decided to compare them.  I'm going to guess these are all about as equally easy to find (unless Wicked is d/c'd).  I got the Savina at Nordstrom Rack, and I ordered the Jordana from Cherry Culture.

In the bottle they look pretty similar.  The Jordana has a lot more silver glitter stuck to its sides, but it's patchy.  A good shaking up fixes this.

Here they are at one coat each.  These are in the same order as the bottle photo:  Black Mist on my index finger, Night Fall on my middle finger, and Wicked on my ring finger.  From here we can see that Black Mist has more glitter and a sheerer base.  Wicked is the most pigmented.

Two coats.  Black Mist is still super blingy, and its base is starting to fix itself.  I have a big bald streak in Night Fall, but that's my fault.  Night Fall and Wicked are looking pretty dupe-y.

Three coats.  We can safely conclude that Night Fall and Wicked are dupes.  Black Mist is fairly different from the others.

I added a fourth coat of Black Mist, just to compare it with Night Fall and Wicked.  Still not dupes, but Black Mist is gorgeous on its own.

I went into this thinking I would find that these three are all dupes, and I would only keep one.  Instead, I am keeping Black Mist and Night Fall, and Wicked goes into the purge pile.  I liked Night Fall's application a little better than Wicked's, but this was almost a toss-up.

Color Club - Where's the Soiree? and Kleancolor - Chunky Holo Black

Where's The Soiree? is a pretty standard black.  It's very pigmented (I only needed two coats, and maybe I could have gotten away with one).  It also dries to a satin finish.  I didn't bother taking photos of this alone. Chunky Holo Black is not like the other Kleancolor Chunky Holos.  Chunky Holo Black has different-sized glitters in it.  There's your standard small glitter, then a slightly larger glitter, then a small hex glitter, then larger hex glitter.  In the bottle it shows all the colors of the rainbow.

I could not get that blue tone to show up on my nails at all.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Instant Artificials (1 coat)
Color:  Color Club Where's the Soiree? (2 coats)
Color:  Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black (3-ish coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

Where's the Soiree? has a pretty good application.  Totally opaque in 1 coat except the places I messed up so I went with two.  Cleanup was not fun.  This is a very pigmented polish so it's best to be careful or plan to spend lots of time on cleanup.

As with the last Chunky Holo I wore, I thinned this before I even tried it.  As a result I don't feel like my nails are super thick and I don't have any shrinkage even though I'm writing this post the next day.  I did two regular coats and then dabbed on some of the larger glitter wherever I felt like I was missing it or had patchy coverage.  The base of this polish is a weird grayish/brown sheer jelly.  I might try this next time over a different color, like a dark blue, but I'm not sure what the base jelly will do to it.

I spent all night staring at my nails.  This is a stunning combination.  If you see Chunky Holo Black, you need to pick it up - you won't regret it.

Franken - Black No. 1

I gave in to the dark side and I finally made a franken, simple as it is. I saw this idea on MUA, and since I'm not going to pay big bucks for the holo version of My Private Jet, I think this is plenty close enough. I named it Black No. 1.

Wow, that is a terrible bottle photo. If you click for the bigger version, it's better but not great. Anyway, here it is on.


Basecoat: OPI Ridge Filler (2 coats)
Color: Franken - Black No. 1 (3 coats)

Because this is a holo I didn't use topcoat. To make this, I took a full bottle of OPI DS Shimmer and poured in some Wet N Wild Black Creme. I don't know exactly how much I used, I just stopped when I couldn't get any more in the bottle and shook it up like crazy. I slapped it on and thought it wasn't dark enough, so I took it off and used the new empty space in the DS Shimmer bottle to add more WnW. Shook it up like crazy, swatched it again, and decided that was good. If I had to estimate I would say I used maybe a tenth to an eighth of the Black Creme - I mean, I can't even see a drop in the bottle level.

Because Black Creme is crazy pigmented, cleanup kind of sucked for this franken. Still, I absolutely love this.

Sinful - What's Your Name

What's Your Name is supposed to be a dupe of OPI Unripened, or a tiny bit sparklier. I own Unripened, but only in the mini size, and I haven't worn it yet, so I don't know for sure whether I think it's a dupe or not.
Despite what this photo looks like, What's Your Name is a black jelly with duochrome (?) glitter. If you look at it straight on it looks like teal glitter, but at some angles it's purple. This effect is visible on the nail but I just could not get that in the pictures. It is visible in the bottle, though.

Basecoat: Gelous (1 coat)
Color: Sinful What's Your Name (3 coats)
Topcoat: David (1 coat)

The application for What's Your Name wasn't terrible. It's black, so cleanup was kind of a pain, and the glitter was a little difficult, too. But overall I didn't really have any problems.

This is one of those polishes that definitely looks black indoors unless you look closely. For that reason I wasn't super thrilled with it, but it's very pretty in the sun.

China Glaze - Mummy May I

Mummy May I is a black jelly with purple glitter. It is part of the Awakening Halloween collection. I own all three but this is the first one I've worn.
Application was not too bad - I was expecting the black to be a creme instead of a jelly, so cleanup also wasn't as bad as I was expecting.

Basecoat: China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (2 coats)
Color: China Glaze Mummy May I (3 coats)
Topcoat: David (1 coat)

Consistency was nice - a little runnier than I expected but I didn't have any problems controlling it. The glitter was a little sparser than I had hoped. I did have some stray glitter cleanup to do, but it wasn't a big deal.

China Glaze - Lubu Heels

I've had Lubu Heels in my stash for a long time, but I finally pulled it out and wore it for the first time. This is a black jelly with red glitter.
As you can see, this looks black unless you look closely.


Basecoat: China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat (2 coats)
Color: China Glaze Lubu Heels (3 coats)
Topcoat: David (1 coat)

I took these photos the morning after I applied Lubu Heels. You can see I have some shrink at the tips, which is unusual for a China Glaze. This was a little thinner than I expected, so I had some pooling at my cuticles. Cleanup was a little difficult but not too bad.