Milani - Purple Nail Art

Today I have an old untried in my stash.  Before Megan Chair stopped blogging, she posted a full mani done with the purple glitter Milani nail art polish.  As soon as I saw it I went out and bought two of these (okay, I bought one - it took me a couple of weeks to hunt down a second) and decanted them both.  I have no idea why it's taken me this long to wear them but when I saw Scrangie's recent post featuring this polish, it reminded me I had it.

Basecoat:  NailTek Foundation II (new bottle, yay!)
Color:  Milani Purple Nail Art (3 coats)
Topcoat:  Gelous (1 coat)
Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

This is a pretty purple jelly PACKED with blue, pink, and purple glitter.  It looks like a lighter, glitterier China Glaze "Flying Dragon".  I own both but I'm not going to compare them.

Application was not too bad.  This polish is pretty thick so it was easy to control where it went, but when I messed up it took a while to clean up.  I actually took this photo the day after I applied it, because I had to resort to picking off the excess polish/glitter.

You really need to wear a topcoat with this.  It dries semi-matte, but it feels like very rough sandpaper when dry.  Much rougher than typical glitter polish.  I used the Gelous/Seche topcoat trick and I probably could have used another coat of Seche.  This polish "ate" topcoat - the night I applied it it was almost perfectly smooth, but when I woke up the next morning, it was all bumpy.

I imagine this would be a pain to remove.  I actually picked this off (as I do with almost every polish, sigh) so... yeah.  You'll probably want to use the foil method to remove this.

China Glaze - Ahoy

Ahoy is the only polish from the nautical collection I wanted (and, for once, the only one I actually bought).  I tried several Ultas before I finally found it in stock, and of course, once I bought it I saw it everywhere.

Ahoy is a berry almost-jelly base with tons of glass fleck shimmer.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network
Color:  China Glaze Ahoy (4 coats)
Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

Ahoy was very easy to apply.  It is a tiny bit sheerer than I like so I used four coats.  I still had VNL at three.  Consistency is a little bit runny, so I had a lot of pooling at my cuticles and it was a little difficult to clean up, probably because I didn't cleanup between each coat like I usually do.

These photos do not do the sparkle justice.  I might need a backup bottle of this.

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.

Sally Hansen - Jade Jump and Kleancolor - Holo Green

Why do I keep buying these minty greens even they look terrible on my skin regardless of the time of the year?

Jade Jump is a minty slightly dusty green.  Holo Green is a diffused holo pale green.  It's a little more "green" than Jade Jump, but when I swatched this on its own you can't really tell, so I opted to layer it.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 coat)
Color:  Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Jade Jump (2 coats)
Color:  Kleancolor Holo Green (2 coats)

The first photo is the most color-accurate.  O Hai, Lobster Hands!  Ugh.

I have a love-hate relationship with the InstaDri polishes.  The brush is hard to control on my pinky fingers so I usually end up with too big a gap at my cuticle, or I slop it everywhere.  Other than that, I think I've gotten the hang of this brush, though I still usually need two coats for complete coverage.

Unlike the Chunky Holo polishes, I didn't need to thin Holo Green at all.  It actually didn't even smell as much as the Chunky Holos I've worn do.  I will definitely want to try this over something else, because it's lovely and the holo is amazing, even though I couldn't really capture it on camera.

Notice I didn't list my topcoat - it's because I got disgusted and took it off before I got to topcoat.  I really should stop buying minty greens.

Orly - Ruby Passion

Ruby Passion is a foil-y orangey red I picked up at Sally.  It was on clearance and it has a sticker that says "Last Chance!" on it so it's probably discontinued.  I think I've had this for almost a year.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 coat)
Color:  Orly Ruby Passion (3 coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

The first photo is much more color-accurate, but this photo does a good job of showing off the shimmer in this polish.  Application was good, cleanup was surprisingly easy.  However... I feel like this is a Mom Color.  It's going in my purge pile.

Orly - Cotton Candy

Cotton Candy is not new or untried for me, but I felt like I needed a palate cleanser and didn't want to spend time looking through my untrieds.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 coat)
Color:  Orly Cotton Candy (3 coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

Application was really good.  I still had a very slight VNL but I'm probably the only person that noticed it.

This isn't my usual kind of summer polish color, but I feel refreshed and ready to get back to more vibrant stuff now.

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.