Glitter Gal Holographics

I finally caved in an bought a couple of Glitter Gal holographic polishes.  I've seen heaps of posts on blogs around December and January from people who were sent a bottle to review, so I thought I would try some out myself.

I bought Marine Blue and Black.  First, lets just say I'm disappointed in how long they took to get here.  I ordered off their website on Saturday.  The only option for shipping in Australia is express post - costing $9.  I was happy enough with that knowing I would get my polishes quickly.  In Australia, an express post bag is guaranteed to arrive the next business day.  So I thought, give them a couple of days to grab my two polishes, check my paypal payment, they should have it in the mail by Tuesday, and I'll have them in my hands by Wednesday.  Nope, no polishes Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.  They did not turn up until the following Monday.  Which means they didn't even post them until Friday.  Kind of disappointing service.  I hate paying for express post and then not getting it.  *end rant*

Where was I, oh yes, I bought Marine Blue and Black.

Marine Blue is a rich green toned royal blue.  The holographic particles are subtle indoors and more obvious in the sun.  The holo particles are more scattered like the China Glaze Kaleidoscope holos and the Artform holos, not linear like Nfu Oh and China Glaze OMG. But I don't think there are nearly as many holo particles in these Glitter Gal polishes compared to the others mentioned above.

Marine Blue

Up close to see the holo.

Black.  I'm so disappointed with this one, I really wish I'd bought another colour.  I wore this all day and I don't think I saw even the faintest flash of holo jump up and say 'Hi, look at me, aren't I pretty'.  I was just flat black cream all day.  Flat cream polish is nice, I like it, but not when I've paid good money for a holo.

Up close to see the holo. See, it is there when you zoom in close.

The formula of these was great, not watery and both had good pigment.  Only two thin coats required.

As other people have said, the bottles are small. 9ml.  And the polishes have gone up from $9.95 to $11.95 each - ouch. Which is a little steep for such a small bottle.

I think for my dollar, I prefer the Artform holographics, which you get a full size 15ml bottle for $10.95. Although you don't get quite the same range of colours as with the glitter gal, and they don't post internationally. I dunno, maybe the combo of the slow delivery and the disappointing black polish is turning me off this range??

BYS Hocus Pocus

I was going through my swatch box and found this little BYS beauty that I hadn't worn yet.  This is Hocus Pocus and it is an aqua polish with a silver micro shimmer. 

Up close of the shimmer.

What I love about his polish is that it's such a summer colour to me.  The silver shimmer in this makes the polish look wet and shiny on your fingers, like they are dripping with water.  It also reminds me of the shimmer on the fibreclass finish to our pool.  Although its not the same colour, it does have the same wet and shimmery finish. 

The formula was nice on this, maybe a little sheer, this is three coats.  But what I did find was that this polish was smelly, really toxic smelly.  Oh the things we do for a pretty polish!

Hey now, I'm a rock star

LA Girl Rock Star polishes have been around for a while and are easily available in stores and online.  I don't have all the polishes in the collection, but here are the ones I have.

Groupie

Backstage

Double Platinum

Head Banging

Live on Stage

Overdose

Paparazzi

Punk

These were all three coats.

I bought all these polishes from Coscut Cosmetics here in Australia, except Groupie, which they were always sold out of.  I grabbed that one from Cherry Culture when I ordered my Milani 3D polishes.

I'm not going to go into detail about each of these polishes as many have already done that before me, and probably done a far better job.  But what I will say is that I don't think these polishes get enough credit for what they are. Is it because they are cheap and easily available?  Do people only rave about polishes that they can't get there hands on?  These polishes deserve to be raved about. So consider this a rave!

I've got the fever...

The Ulta3 fever that is.  I finally got my order from Pulse Pharmacy Online with the six new Ulta3 colours.  Less talk, more pictures.

First up Pacific Fever. A turquoise teal blue with a micro shimmer of the same colour.  This polish is beautiful.  Formula was great, thin and smooth. This was two coats taken in full sun.

Close up of the shimmer in Pacific Fever.

Twilight Fever - WOW, this polish is so great.  It's a dark mushroomy brown, grey, purple (hard to describe), with a bright purple micro shimmer. Again, excellent formula. This was two coats taken in full sun.

Close up of the shimmer in Twilight Fever.

Midnight Fever.  Very dark inky blue.  Indoors it looks almost black.  In the sun you can see the blue colour as well as the bright royal blue micro shimmer.  Good opacity in this one.  I was expecting it to be sheer like Hollywood, and would probably need several coats, but it only needed two. Full sun.

Close up of the stunning bright blue flecks.

Blossom Fever.  This is an interesting polish.  It's a very nude colour.  Very work appropriate.  It makes your fingers look really long as though you don't even have nails.  Again this has a fantastic micro shimmer, this one is pink/red.  This polish was sheerer than the others and required three coats to be opaque.  The shimmer in the bottle seems more obvious than the shimmer on the nail.

Up close of the shimmer in Blossom Fever.  The macro photo shows gold flecks in the shimmer too, which is interesting.

Royal fever. Just a purple cream.  Boring.  I want a micro shimmer in this one too.  Nice polish, but it just doesn't seem to fit in with the others in the group.  Two coats.

Gold Rush Fever - Gold chrome finish, slightly on the warm side but nowhere near as warm toned as Precious.  The only bummer with this one is the streakiness in the application.  Opacity was great, this is two coats.  I think this would work well for Konad stamping.

Up close of the brush strokes of Gold Rush Fever.

So there they are.  I'm super happy with this release of six new polishes from Ulta3.  I like them the best out of the last few releases.  I love the fact they they didn't just do a whole bunch of creams again.  The formula on all these was great, a little thin but gave a good coverage.  You can tell they are nice new polishes and haven't been sitting in the Ulta3 bin in some chemist for 5 years!  All the swatches were two coats, except Blossom Fever which was three.  No top coats, but they all dried to a shiny finish.

The only down side is that Ulta3 polishes are now $2.25 rather than $2.00.  But seriously, there is nothing to complain about here when you get such a great bunch of polishes.

Nfu Oh polishes - order from the US

Fellow polish lovers here in Australia would know that its almost impossible to get Nfu Oh polishes here.  The only stockist is Vivid nails and they don't have anything on their website to give an idea of what they have in stock or what they cost. I purchased holos from them last year for $18 each. And they were selling the decent flakies (what they had in stock) for $25.40 each!  Given the Aussie dollar is parity with the US dollar, I just don't think that we Aussies should have to put up with those sort of prices or lack of availability. So...

I’m thinking of placing an order for some Nfu Oh polishes from fabuloustreet in the US, using hopshopgo.  For those that don't know, hopshopgo gives you a US address that you can ship the items to, then they post them on to you in Australia.  It gets around the whole "you have to purchase from the authorised reseller in your country" business and means we can get things from companies that wont ship internationally.  My husband and I have ordered Nike IDs, My M&Ms and a whole stack of other things and the service works perfectly.

The cost of the polishes is $12.50 on fabuloustreet, but taking into account the hopshopgo service charge and shipping to Australia, it would cost about $16.50 per bottle.  Is anyone else interested in me ordering some Nfu Oh (holos or flakies) for them??  If so, check our fabuloustreet and send me an email.  You would also need to pay for postage from my place in Canberra to you.

Just to whet your appetite, here are some of my Nfu Oh swatches.

Soft stamp nail art

When I purchased my magnetic polishes from Nail Art and More, I also purchase four soft stamp nail art pads.

The pads are about 1cm tick, and on one side they have coloured versions of the stamping designs.  These are good (in theory) because they give you an idea of what can stamped.

The under side of the stamp has the designs engraved and the finish and feel of this stamp is similar to a konad stamper - slippery and silicone like.

The idea is that you paint the polish directly onto the stamp like so..

Then blot off the excess polish onto paper so that only polish remains in the engraved area.

Then you simply roll the stamp onto your nail...  yeah right!

Like any new product, there is a steep learning curve at the beginning.  I recall my first efforts at konad and know they were dreadful, but were they as dreadful as this??

As you can see the polish didn't transfer out of the stamp correctly.  It was gluggy and thick and horrible.  But I did manage to get an OK kiss.

After these I tried to do multi coloured combinations, which was the main reason I bought these. I haven't been able to do that with Konad because of using the scraper.  Well, lets just say that I haven't posted those photos for a reason.  I found it took me too long to apply the different colours to the stamp and then when I was trying to blot off the excess, it removed the polish from the engraved areas too.   I will continue to practice to determine what works and what doesn't.  I really want to get the multicoloured designs working.

Has anyone else seen these or used these?  How did you go? Got any tips to share?

Magnetic Bottle Green

Here comes another one, just like the other ones.  As you can see, the team at Nail Art and More have come through with great customer service and shipped my missing bottle green magnetic polish in record time.

This polish is truly amazing.  The rich green colour that comes through with the magnet is just awesome.  And another thing, this is just one coat!!  Yep how is that for pigment. Also wear on these is great.  I had a massive cleaning day today, including steam cleaning the front of all the kitchen cupboards and the splash back.  I didn't wear any gloves and I'm so happy cause I only have a tiny bit of tip wear, no chips nothing! 

Not great swatches as the sun was a little shy today.

This polish dries really fast, and one thing I have learnt with these magnetic polishes is that you need to apply a thickish coat and quickly apply the magnet.  Otherwise it dries too fast and you don't get the full effect of the design anywhere that is already dry.

I've just noticed on their site that they are now selling these polishes in mini 5ml bottles (4.75€) as well as the 11ml ones (8.95€) and you can take 20% off those prices because they include tax. Given the excellent pigmentation in these, you could certainly be happy with a mini bottle.