Pop Beauty - Foggy

Pop Beauty Foggy is a shimmery gray.  It is warmer and deeper than Butter London Lady Muck.

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Color:  Pop Beauty Foggy (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

So, clearly, these photos were taken under a desk lamp.  They're also taken about three hours after I finished applying.  See that tip shrink?  Ugh.  I will need to go back and check but I could swear I've worn a Pop polish with Seche and it was fine.  I took this off right after I took the photos.

Anyway, aside from that, this is a lovely color.  The application was really good - much better than the cremes I've worn previously.  Cleanup was super easy, too.  This might be one of those "better in winter" colors - it didn't look great with my skintone this time of year, too.

I'll definitely be trying this again with a different topcoat.

Nubar - Prize

Nubar Prize is a medium pink jelly packed full of holographic glitter.  I'll warn you right now that these photos don't do it justice 

- it's overcast today so I had to resort to desk lamp (again).

Basecoat:  Nubar Foundation base coat (1 coat)
Color:  Nubar Prize (3 coats)
Topcoat:  Gelous (1 coat)
Topcoat:  Seche Vite (2 coats, one applied the morning after)

Prize is not nearly as bumpy and gritty as the Sparkle glitters are, but I still needed to use Gelous and multiple layers of Seche.  I have some tipwear that I think is a combo of tip wear and shrink - I've been doing things around the house this morning and my nails are a little longer than I usually keep them right now, so I think it's mostly wear.

I had issues with the brush in Prize.  I don't remember the brushes in the Sparkle polishes being as wide as this one is.  So - yep - I got it everywhere even though I was trying to be neat.  Cleanup went surprisingly well, though - the base color cleaned up super fast and it wasn't even a pain getting the glitter off my skin, either.

Some of these photos show a little bit of VNL - it is visible in real life, but you have to look *really* closely to see it.

Maybelline - Cool Couture

Cool Couture is a medium grey polish with awesome teal shimmer in it.  It's a limited edition and frankly I thought I'd never get my hands on it (I've never even seen the Wet N Wild Halloween display, much less the polishes in it).  However, I was at a random Albertson's the other night and came across not only Cool Couture, but Purple Trend (from the same collection), Sally Hansen Pumpkin Spice, *and* the Halloween SH polish strips!  I'll definitely have to keep this place in mind when I'm looking for something.

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Color:  Maybelline Cool Couture (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

Click to embiggen and be amazed by the teal shimmer!  So pretty!  I swear I can occasionally catch a purple shimmer, too, like it's a duochrome, but..... I applied this literally, the last thing I did before I went to bed, so I was using a different light than normal, and I was NEVER able to catch that purple again.

That said - I applied this last thing before I went to bed, so I might have actually been able to stop at two coats, but again - different lighting, so I went with three.  I'm frankly shocked I had no major issues, either, just some minor tipwear because I took photos the afternoon after.

The three last photos look different because I had to use my desk light - it's been one of those annoying days where it's mostly cloudy but occasionally the sun shines brilliantly and disappears just as I get to the window with my camera.

You need this polish.  Grab it if you see it.

Color Club - Perfect Mol-Ten

Yep, another one from the "Foiled" collection.  Perfect Mol-Ten is a minty green.  It pulled a little bit dustier on me than I expected it to.

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Color:  Color Club Perfect Mol-Ten (2 coats)

Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

Ugh, awful cleanup.  Anyway, this applied much better than I expected from a foil.  Totally opaque in two coats.  And it dried super-fast.  I'm actually looking forward to wearing the rest of this collection.  I might have to buy a backup set to use for stamping.

Color Club - Lumin-icecent and OPI - Simmer & Shimmer

I picked up the Foiled collection at my Ross a week or so ago, but I didn't really want to wear them alone - foils are pretty unforgiving to ridges and imperfections.  I looked through my untried glitters and pulled out Simmer and Shimmer.

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Color:  Color Club Lumin-icecent (2 coats)

Color:  OPI Simmer & Shimmer (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Topcoat:  Sally Hansen Insta-Dri (1 coat)

Lumin-icecent (forget it, I'm not typing that stupid name anymore) is an icy blue metallic.  It's so icy it almost looks gunmetal in indoor light.  Anyway, it was awesomely opaque and I didn't really have any problems with application - it didn't streak or drag.  I don't usually like foils but I might end up wearing these alone, though I bought them with the intention to use them as stamping polishes.  It was your typical foil cleanup, though - tons of sparkle where it's not wanted.

Simmer and Shimmer is a multicolored glitter that is mostly pale blue.  It also has some silver and magenta glitters in it.   All the OPI glitters apply about the same, so I'm not going to really talk about that other than to say again that I really hate the ProWide brush and I got glitter everywhere on my smaller nails.

These glitters more or less killed my lemmings for the Muppets collection - I swear I still have at least three more of the Burlesque glitters sitting in my untried drawers.  I figured if I hadn't worn these I probably was going to take just as long if not longer to wear those, too.

Orly - Stone Cold

Stone Cold is a bright, heavily flecked blue.  It is so awesomely bright it's almost eye-searing.

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Color:  Orly Stone Cold (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Sally Hansen Insta-Dri (1 coat)

AWESOME.  So bright and sparkly!  This is similar to (but not a dupe of) last year's.... Lunar Eclipse? Whichever the blue one was that's a dupe of DS Magic.  (Bad blogger!  I compared these in a post last year, but I'm too lazy to go look it up.)  Stone Cold is brighter and more intense.

This was a little bit stain-y in its application - I took these photos the morning after I applied it.  It wanted to run into my cuticles bigtime, so you'll want to look out for that.   This will probably be one of those that stains on removal if you don't peel your polish off like I do, sigh.

I actually bought a second bottle of this,  because I have a friend who is partial to blue pedis - she usually wears Yoga-ta Get This Blue or Ink Suede with a topcoat - she recently branched out into Orly Star Spangled on her fingernails so I  am giving her a bottle of this.

Nubar - Night Sparkle and Fire Sparkle

Yes, it's the return of the glitter-bomb Rangers manicure.  Both these Nubars are untried - I usually use Orly Star Spangled and Royal Navy for this kind of stuff.

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Color:  Nubar Night Sparkle or Fire Sparkle (alternating, 3 coats each)

Topcoat:  Gelous (2 coats)

Topcoat:  Seche Vite (2 coats)

These babies are topcoat devourers like nothing else.  But they are so, so awesome, I wear them anyway.  Obviously, Fire Sparkle is the red glitter and Night Sparkle is the blue one.

Both of these have tinted jelly bases - Night Sparkle is a little more opaque in its base.  At any rate, both covered pretty good at three coats.  I have a lot of red glitters but Night Sparkle may just be my holy grail blue glitter - Royal Navy isn't as glittery as Star Spangled, and its glitter is teal, and Dorothy Who? isn't as primary a blue as I prefer for this style of manicure.

I know you are shocked, but cleanup sucked.  Better off to just be careful.   As usual, I can't comment on wear or removal - I am pretty sure I will be peeling this off as usual.