Nostalgic Nail Lacquer Pride

I wanted Nostalgic Nail Lacquer's Pride polish for months.  It is a top coat with a clear base and white star and bar glitter and blue and red hex metal glitter.  It was a limited edition polish, and I did not get it when it was sold on Nostalgic Nail Lacquer's website store.  When I saw a bottle on a blog sale, I snatched it up!  I love it!  When I received my precious bottle in the mail near the end of October, I was wearing Rainbow Honey's Kawako, a nice dark navy blue polish that I reviewed here.  Once my work week was over, I added a coat of Pride to my Kawako manicure.  Nostalgic Nail Lacquer's polishes are very high quality.  The polish went on easily and smoothly.  I got star glitter easily on every nail.  The bright blue and red metal hex glitter didn't curl or bleed, and it was mirror-like in the way it reflected light.  All the glitter lays flat, even the star glitter, although I did use a coat of Gelous over it and then a coat of Seche Vite just to be sure everything was glassy-smooth.  I have used other red, white and blue-type top coats, but often the glitters are paper-like, or crinkle-paper-like, if that makes any sense, and this is the only glitter top coat I've seen with these gorgeous metal hex glitters.

Here are some pictures (any bubbles are from the top coat):

Sunlight
You can see how the gorgeous hex glitters reflect light so that they're different colors at times.
You can also see the silver flakie-like glitter in the beautiful Kawako base coat.

Indirect Sunlight

Shade
Even in low light, look at how those metal hexes glow!!!

Sunlight
Jeans in the background show how close to denim the color is in Kawako.

Shade
Again, look at how the metal hex glitter glows, even in the shade!

Thank you for reading my blog!

Rainbow Honey Kawako

I apologize for not posting in a while.  I have had some health issues (nothing very serious), and we also just refinanced our home mortgage (woohoo!), and that took chunks of free time.  Also, my husband has been monopolizing the home computer, the one that I use to edit blog photos for blog posts.  The few times I was alone at home, I either had things to do and couldn't take advantage of the opportunity to use the computer, or I was just too tired and sat back and read a book instead.  I read dozens of books, actually, including urban fantasy novels and time-travel fantasy novels set in the Scottish middle ages.  Then last week I started working on our taxes.  I have to go through our receipts and have everything organized before the end of January.  It's good and it's bad, blog-wise.  It takes time away from blogging, but my "reward" to myself for finishing each category of receipts is to work on a blog post.  Working on the computer is also more challenging this week because my glasses are getting new lenses because my prescription changed so much.  I really need glasses to work on the computer, so I will limit my time on the computer to avoid too much eye strain until I get my glasses back.

This blog post is the last of my reviews of the Rainbow Honey Yokai Collection.  I had a preview post here on the Rainbow Honey Yokai Collection with pictures of the package I received and of the three polishes swatched on nail wheels by themselves and in combination with other colors and matted.  The Yokai Collection polishes were limited edition for Autumn 2012 and were released on October 13, 2012.  The polishes were available on Rainbow Honey's website for $10 each but they were not sold anymore after October.  Did any of you manage to buy any of the Yokai Collection polishes before they sold out?

The first of the Yokai Collection that I wore was Kitsune.  I reviewed Kitsune here.  Then I tried my first dotticure over Kitsune!  After Kitsune, I tried Oni and wore it as a manicure for a full week in mid-October. I reviewed Oni here.

This last polish from the Yokai Collection is Kawako.  It's worth going back to my preview post here because I had swatches of the polish as it came in the bottle and also after adding a matte top coat.  Also, I mentioned a post on Sheila's Pointless Cafe blog where she compared Kawako to Essie's Starry Starry Night.

I normally create a draft post soon after applying a manicure, but I don't have a draft post for Kawako, so I have to rely on my memory.  It's a gorgeous dark shade of blue with sparkly bits.  Other bloggers found the formula too thick, but I didn't.  The one thing I wasn't sure I liked or didn't like was the addition of flakies.  Some of the flakies were large, but they remained under the surface of the blue polish, so they marred the surface of the polish, keeping it from being smooth, but they didn't add the special multichromatic effect of flakies.  When a flakie was at the surface, however, especially when it was one of the flakies that flashed fuschia, the effect was amazing.  You'll see in the pictures below that there was some tip wear, but otherwise the polish held up very well.

Sunlight

Indirect Sunlight

Indirect Sunlight
The dimpling is from flakies below the surface of the polish.

Sunlight
It was difficult to capture how the polish glistened.

Sunlight
You can see a bit of the shimmer in the polish.

Sunlight
Blurred--shows the sparkles.

Sunlight
Seldom-seen right hand
You can see some of the shimmer in the polish
Dimpling and uneven texture is from flakies underneath the surface of the polish; top coat didn't smooth it out enough.

Indoors
Such a pretty dark blue!

Thank you for reading my blog!

Rainbow Honey Oni from the Yokai Collection

I had a preview post here on the Rainbow Honey Yokai Collection with pictures of the package I received and of the three polishes swatched on nail wheels by themselves and in combination with other colors and matted.  The Yokai Collection polishes are limited edition for Autumn 2012 and were released a month ago on October 13, 2012.  The polishes were available on Rainbow Honey's website for $10 each but are completely sold out on the website right now.  Did any of you manage to buy any of the Yokai Collection polishes before they sold out?

The first of the Yokai Collection that I wore was Kitsune.  I reviewed Kitsune here.  Then I tried my first dotticure over Kitsune!

After Kitsune, I tried Oni and wore it as a manicure for a full week in mid-October.  Oni is The Malevolent Wild Demon according to Rainbow Honey's website and is described there as having a myriad of glass flecks and multi-chromatic shimmer.  I agree with the statement on Rainbow Honey's website that "the consensus [from nail polish blogger reviews] seems to be that it is one of the most beautiful and intense polishes out there this fall."

Oni's base is a smoky black.  It's got small flakes or glass flecks of many different colors with the rare purple specks that were my favorite in the mix.  The overall effect is almost like a dark olive green.  Like the other Rainbow Honey Yokai collection polishes, this shade also looks like a beautiful stone and has amazing depth because the glass flecks don't just sink into the polish but show right at the top of the manicure. It glints and sparkles in almost any light and is full of life.  I think it's a really great Halloween color, as are all the Yokai Collection polishes.

It was an easy polish to apply, and the brush was good.  It was quick-drying.  The first coat went on streaky, but after a second coat, the polish was even.  I don't have great nail polishing skills, and I think that for someone more expert in nail polish application, the first coat would not be streaky.  The polish was a little top coat hungry.  Cleanup was not difficult except that I have trouble removing every single last smudge on my fingers when I use a black-based polish.  The polish wore pretty well for an entire week.  Removal was not difficult.

Here are some pictures:

Sunlight
You can see how smooth the manicure is after applying top coat.

Blurred so you can see the "special effects."

Indirect Sunlight
Against my olive-toned suit in the background

Sunlight
Do you see what I mean about how it looks like a natural stone with a lot of depth?

  

Sunlight
Look at all the colors of glass flecks in there!

Sunlight
This picture is after only one coat of top coat, but here you can see how the polish glistens.

Sunlight
Mattified

I also really recommend that you click through to the review of Oni on the No Holos blog and look at the pictures of her beautiful nail art with Oni as the base.

Thank you for reading my blog!

My First Dotticure!

As my base manicure, I used Rainbow Honey's Kitsune from the new Yokai Collection.  I had a preview post here on the Rainbow Honey Yokai Collection with pictures of the package I received and of the three polishes swatched on nail wheels by themselves and in combination with other colors and matted.  The Yokai Collection polishes are limited edition for Autumn 2012 and were released only days ago on October 13, 2012.  The polishes are available on Rainbow Honey's website for $10 each.  These are good sized bottles at a half ounce each, and $10 is a very reasonable price for these indies that are so professionally produced and look like little mini works of art.  The first of the Yokai Collection that I wore was Kitsune.  I reviewed Kitsune here.  I wore Kitsune all of last week as my manicure, and then on the 7th day, on Saturday, I tried my first dotticure over Kitsune!

Kitsune is referred to as the Magical White Fox on Rainbow Honey's website.  The base is a gorgeous cream color, like the color of French vanilla ice cream or like eggnog.  With its golden microflakes and its small sparkling holo and red-orange glitter, this creation looks like a beautiful stone.  The polish has amazing depth and the microflakes and small glitters don't just sink into the polish but show right at the top of the manicure.  It's like someone cut a slab of perfect natural stone.

The colors in Kitsune made me think of fall and fall colors.  In my preview post on the Rainbow Honey Yokai Collection, I had tried Kitsune over different fall shades of nail polish, but then it occurred to me that instead of layering, I could add dots of my favorite fall colors of nail polish.  If I had practice with nail art, I might have tried to create leaves or other fall shapes instead of dots, but I ended up really liking the dots.  They were very whimsical, and I was happy every time I looked at them.  Even my husband liked them.  The lady behind the register at Walgreens complimented me on them.  Unfortunately, I took them off the next day.  I would have wanted to keep wearing them but the underlying manicure was not going to be able to last more days, and I had to go to court this Monday and felt I should wear something a little more serious.

I don't have dotting tools per se.  I tried the bottom of the handle on my one dotting tool, but it didn't make a dot as wide as the handle. On the other end is very tiny dotting tool, maybe for drawing small eyes or pupils on tiny faces on small nails.

A chopstick worked well for the larger dots I wanted. At first I was not getting enough paint on the chopstick so my dots were dimpled and not filled out. Then I had too much paint, and my dots were very thick, sticking out in 3D. No problem. For not enough paint on dots, I could go over the dots once I learned to add more paint to my "dotting tool."  For too much paint, I could dot over it with a wiped off chopstick again and again until enough paint was taken off.

On my first fingernail I did, I smeared the dots as I learned, but I had enough coats of top coat on there that I was able to use acetone to remove the dots and start over without removing the original manicure polish (Rainbow Honey Kitsune).

All kinds of nail art would look nice with Kitsune and these colors I used. I could see a funky French or half-moons or stripes or a tape mani looking nice.

It was so much fun to create this dotticure!

In the pictures below, I have:

Zoya Tamsen, dots created with a chopstick
China Glaze Papaya Punch, dots created with a chopstick
OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby?, dots created with a hair pin
Sparitual Solstice, dots created with a hair pin
topped with 1 coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.

That was over the original manicure of:  base coat, one coat of Sally Hansen Persistent Peony as "underwear," one coat of Rainbow Honey Kitsune, one coat of Seche Vite, one coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat, one coat of Gelous, and three coats (one each day) of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.

Sunlight
Left Hand

Sunlight
Left Hand
My jeans in the background

Sunlight
Right Hand
I didn't intend for some dots to be touching on my pinkie finger, but my hands shake a little, so the dotting tool did not always "land" where I planned.  I liked the end result, though, and in the future I may deliberately make dots touch.

Sunlight
Left Hand

Indirect Sunlight
Left Hand

Sunlight
Left Hand

Sunlight
Right Hand

Left Thumb
Sunlight

Left Thumb
Sunlight
A little blurry, but you can see the underlying shimmer and holo glitter in Kitsune

Right Thumb
Indoor Lighting
Immediately after Dotticure, Pre-Cleanup and Pre-Moisturizing

Thank you for reading my blog!

Rainbow Honey Kitsune from the Yokai Collection

I had a preview post here on the Rainbow Honey Yokai Collection with pictures of the package I received and of the three polishes swatched on nail wheels by themselves and in combination with other colors and matted.  I am really excited to be reviewing these polishes, and I'm honored that even with my blog being new, Rainbow Honey still sent me these polishes for review.

Rainbow Honey is an indie brand, relatively new but you would guess the opposite looking at their polishes and professional packaging.  These are my first Rainbow Honey polishes, although I have eyed many of them in the past.  After receiving the Yokai Collection, I went to the Rainbow Honey site and ordered minis of Hoof Wrassle, 20% Cooler and A Little Kindness.

The Yokai Collection polishes are limited edition for Autumn 2012 and were released only days ago on October 13, 2012.  The polishes are available on Rainbow Honey's website for $10 each.  These are good sized bottles at a half ounce each, and $10 is a very reasonable price for these indies that are so professionally produced and look like little mini works of art.

The first of the Yokai Collection that I wore was Kitsune.  I wore Kitsune all of last week as my manicure.

Kitsune is referred to as the Magical White Fox on Rainbow Honey's website.  The base is a gorgeous cream color, like the color of French vanilla ice cream or like eggnog.  With its golden microflakes and its small sparkling holo and red-orange glitter, this creation looks like a beautiful stone.  It is amazing to me that the polish has so much depth and that the microflakes and small glitters don't just sink into the polish but show right at the top of the manicure.  It's like someone cut a slab of perfect natural stone.

You can wear multiple coats of this polish, but I preferred the look of just one coat, so I wore "underwear" underneath it.

I have read other reviews where other bloggers describe the formula as thick and perhaps in need of a small amount of thinner.  I don't have really great manicure skills, though, and my hands shake a little, so I really *loved* this formula and didn't find that I wanted to add thinner to it.  I liked that it didn't pool or flood my cuticles, and I liked that where I put it, that's where it went and stayed.  I basically didn't need to do much cleanup, and I had no balding or dragging, even though I didn't wait between applying the underwear coat of polish and the coat of Kitsune.  The brush is great, round but a nice size and not too thin.  It was a very fast and easy mani, and I got so much payoff in terms of the beauty and complexity of the polish.  With a look that rich, you would think that I had put together layer after layer of this and that to make up the final look, but you get an amazing look in just one coat of Kitsune.

I found the formula top-coat hungry.  I like my manicures glassy smooth, and this mani didn't get that way until about Thursday.  I do my manicures on Sunday nights, so by Thursday I had the initial Seche Vite top coat plus another four coats (one per day) of Sally Hansen Quick Dry Top Coat.

The manicure wore extremely well for an entire week.

The polish reminds me of eggnog, and with the holo glitters and red-orange glitters and the very reflective gold mini flakes, it is very festive.  So, while it looks like shades of fall, I think it would also be a nice holiday polish.

You can count on Rainbow Honey polishes to be unique and unlike any other polishes out there.  I definitely don't have anything like Kitsune in my collection of polish.

In the pictures below, I have on a base coat, one coat of Sally Hansen Persistent Peony as "underwear," one coat of Kitsune, and one 1 coat of Seche Vite.

Sunlight

Indirect Sunlight

Sunlight
You can see the small and very reflective gold flakes in the polish.

See the holo glitters?

Indoors, not 100% color-accurate, but the color does look a little different in different lighting.

In this blurred picture you can see the golden shimmer effect.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Halloween Giveaway Winners!

The winners of my Halloween Giveaway are:

#1:  Angela Barnhart Scott,
and
#2:  Abby Mode.

Congratulations!

I have sent out e-mails letting you know and asking for the address where I can send your prizes.

Nail Polish Stash List Page Added to Blog

I added a page to the blog that goes directly to the spreadsheet with my Stash List.  It took me so long to type up my Stash List!  Over time I hope to fill in the blanks for the name of the collection that the polish is from and the year the collection is from and the finish on the polish.

So, just click on the tab on the home page for the stash list, or you can go directly there by clicking here.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Halloween Giveaway

I have a quick giveaway for Halloween for you because I couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy some polishes and nail polish strips at really great prices.  These prizes were purchased by me specifically for this giveaway.  You don't have to be a GFC Follower or Like my Facebook page to enter this giveaway.  Follow the instructions in the Rafflecopter widget below to enter, and please give the Rafflecopter widget a few moments to load on your screen.

This giveaway is open internationally as long as it is legal for me to send you nail polish in your country.  For the full terms and conditions, please click on the terms and conditions link in the Rafflecopter widget below.

There will be two winners.  The prizes are explained in more detail in the Rafflecopter widget below, but here are some pictures of the prizes, starting with WTFuschia:

And also Party Action, with lots of really pretty glitter in there.

And also Deceit, a favorite of mine with its gorgeous flakies.  I have a post on the blog comparing Deceit to Finger Paints Twisted and I have another post with pictures of my own bottles of Blackheart Beauty and swatches of those polishes on nail wheels.

This picture is from Hot Topic's website.

And also the Sally Hansen nail polish strips in the skull & crossbones pattern.

I have my own bottle of Deceit.  I don't own the other two Blackheart Beauty polishes, and I don't own the skull & crossbones nail strips; I bought them just for this giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for reading my blog!

Rainbow Honey Yokai Collection Preview

I am very excited to write this preview blog post on Rainbow Honey's Yokai Collection.  It's a preview because the polishes themselves go on sale on October 13th, and it's a preview because it's not my usual manicure blog post.  I am also excited because I was very lucky to be given all the polishes in the Yokai Collection to review!  I got my package from Rainbow Honey in the mail yesterday, and I expected the package to have one polish to review, maybe a mini polish, but I received all three of the Yokai Collection polishes, and all the bottles are full size!  That package really made my day yesterday.  My husband is away on a trip (he's flying back home right now), and I was a little mopey yesterday at home.  Please forgive me military spouses because I know that you have to endure much longer separations from your significant others, but I am just a wuss and really miss my husband when he's gone.  Rainbow Honey's package changed my mood and got me to "do something."  I immediately swatched the polishes on nail wheels.

Rainbow Honey is an indie brand, relatively new but you would guess the opposite looking at their polishes and professional packaging.  These are my first Rainbow Honey polishes, although I have eyed many of them in the past like Hoof Wrassle, 20% Cooler, Koi Pond, A Little Kindness, Pinkie Promise, Celestia, Mare of the Moon, Lunairetic, Siren Song, Snake Eyes, and Frozen Flame.  I think I will be ordering some minis of those tonight before I go to sleep!  I'm really itching for them now even more than before! Rainbow Honey polishes have a distinctive look to me which is hard for me to describe, but it's a kind of look that reminds you of texture and natural grains in stones, even though it's not really grainy polish.

The Yokai Collection polishes are limited edition for Autumn 2012.  There are three polishes in the Yokai Collection.  In alphabetical order, they are Kawako, Kitsune, and Oni.  Kawako is dark blue and makes me think of the night sky; it has tiny silver flakies that sparkle, and it has blue flakies, some of them large.  Kitsune is a camel/nude base with gorgeous tiny gold shimmer and/or flakies and brown microglitter and my favorite part, small orange glitter hexes.  Kitsune looks like "fall" to me.  Oni is a blackened brown base with irregular gold and purple flakies; the combination looks olive or flashes olive and is spectacularly pretty!  All the polishes have cream bases as far as I can tell.  In my opinion Kawako and Oni look best with two coats, but I like using just one coat of Kitsune.  I will be using Kitsune for my manicure tonight, and I will put up a blog post about it hopefully on Tuesday.

There are already a lot of review posts of the Yokai Collection up on blogs.  Two posts really stood out to me.  Sheila has a comparison post on her blog, Pointless Cafe, where she compares Kawako to Essie's Starry Starry Night.  In a post on the No Holos! blog there are pictures of Rainbow Honey Oni with gold nail art swirls.  So gorgeous!  Click through and take a look!

Even though I only just swatched these on nail wheels, I was a little obsessed and tried the polishes mattified and tried Kitsune over lots of different polishes, so there are a lot of pictures coming up.  In the nail wheels below:
#8 is one coat of Kawako,
#9 is one coat of Oni,
#10 is one coat of Kitsune,
#11 is one coat of Kitsune over one coat of China Glaze Papaya Punch,
#12 is one coat of Kitsune over one coat of a burnt orange polish,
#13 is one coat of Kitsune over one coat of a different burnt orange polish,
#14 is one coat of Kitsune over Wet N Wild Black Creme,
#15 is one coat of Oni over Wet N Wild Black Creme,
#16 is one coat of Kawako over Wet N Wild Black Creme,
#17 is one coat of Kawako with a coat of mattifying polish on top,
#18 is one coat of Oni with a coat of mattifying polish on top,
#1 is one coat of Kitsune over one coat of Essie Blanc,
#2 is one coat of Kitsune over one coat of Finger Paints Gossamer White (a light pinkish nude cream),
#3 is one coat of Kitsune over one coat of Sally Hansen Persistent Peony (iridescent nude very similar to Kitsune's base), and
#4 is one coat of Kitsune with a coat of mattifying polish on top.

This beautiful card came with the polishes.

Rainbow Honey does a great job with packaging.
The paper is more eco-friendly than extra bubble wrap or styrofoam.
Under the paper the three polishes were in a bubble wrap bag.
Inside the bag, the three polishes were each in their individual boxes which kept them safe and meant not using more bubble wrap instead.

I like Kitsune at one coat (#10 above).

Kitsune over Papaya Punch was pretty (#11 above).
I think some nail art with Papaya Punch on part of the nail and Kitsune on another part would look nice.

 

Look at how beautiful the polishes are mattified (#17 & #18 above)!

I love the golden shimmer from the mini flakies in Kitsune.

#3 is how I'll be doing my manicure tonight:
one coat of Kitsune over a coat of Sally Hansen Persistent Peony.

The Yokai Collection will be available starting October 13th on Rainbow Honey's website for $10 each.  These are good sized bottles at a half ounce each, and $10 is a very reasonable price for these indies that are so professionally produced and look like little mini works of art.  I see adorable squat little mini bottles on the site for other collections, and those are $5 each, but I don't know if the Yokai Collection will include any mini bottles.  Again, this is a limited edition collection, so when they run out, they're gone!

Thank you for reading my blog!