Thursday, December 20, 2012

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!



Tuesday, December 18, 2012

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!