China Glaze Magnetix Attraction

China Glaze is one of my favorite polish brands, and I like their magnetic polishes.  I have reviewed their blue magnetic polish, Pull Me Close, here.  I have also worn their magnetic polish in a gold/brown shade, but that was before I started taking pictures of my nails and blogging about them.  I have also reviewed some Nabi magnetic polishes, most recently their red and black polish called "Wine" here and earlier their gold and brown polish called "Dark Gold" here.  I think I like the formula on the China Glaze polishes more, but the color selection (60 different colors of magnetic polish, all in very vibrant colors) of Nabi is amazing, and they cost me less than the China Glaze magnetics.  Also, the Nabi polishes have their magnet built in, whereas with China Glaze you had to buy the magnet separately (and store it--storage is always something I think about).  But, the China Glaze magnets are stronger than the Nabi magnets.  And, the China Glaze doesn't have the strong smell that the Nabi polishes have.  I don't even notice the Nabi polish smell anymore.  I use Seche Vite as a top coat, and it has a stronger smell to me than the Nabi polishes.  But, there are people who are very sensitive to strong smells in nail polish.

I started trying to make the star pattern with the China Glaze magnet, but it is hard to get the star centered on your nail the very first time.  Eventually I had gloopy multiple layers of polish on the first few nails I did.  Inevitably, I smudged the polish on a nail on my right hand as I moved on to start painting my left hand.  When I went to use a brush instead of an orange stick with cotton to try to remove the polish on that nail without getting cotton fibers all over, the brush fell into the bottle of acetone.  It was a brand new 16 oz. bottle of acetone.  The brush was an E.L.F. concealer brush with the white paint on the handle.  I couldn't get the brush out quickly, so I had to move to the kitchen, pour out the acetone (now with white paint in it) into a glass, get the brush out (now with a rough and unpainted handle), and pour the acetone back into the bottle.  It was a brand new bottle, so I didn't have a backup bottle, so I had to use the paint-filled acetone later for cleanup.  I was *not* in a good mood.  And, I had been, as usual, trying to rush through the manicure because it's always the last thing I do on Sundays before dinner, and I always seem to take much longer than I expect.  So, there I was rushing, and now I had to start over on my right hand.  So, I switched to the diagonal stripe magnet pattern.  It is much more forgiving and takes much less time.  If you are too high or low on your nail, it doesn't make a difference.  You still get diagonal stripes all over your nail.  If you are too much to the right or to the left on the nail with the magnet, again, it makes no difference because the pattern doesn't have a center like the star magnet does.

I like the China Glaze brush.  It's thin like the Revlon brushes.  Those are the brushes I first used decades ago to polish my nails, so I'm attached to them and used to them.  Now I am slowly learning to like the slightly flat and slightly wider brushes, like the ones in the Hits polishes.  The polish was easy to apply and dried quickly but not so quickly that I couldn't go over strokes if needed.  I used two coats of the magnetic polish over a base coat.  Then I used a coat of Seche Vite top coat, and throughout the week on some days I added a coat of Revlon's Quick Dry Top Coat.  The wear was the same as with my other magnetics.  They last a week on me just like my other manicures, but they do start to wear away around the edges faster than non-magnetic polishes.  They didn't chip at all, though.

I really liked the look of Pull Me Close with hematite bracelets and dark bracelets with a gritty finish that I have.  My secretary even noticed the manicure!  The polish is a beautiful dark gray, and parts of it are like metallic silver or metallic charcoal but with a gritty and grainy look that is really pretty.

Here are some pictures:

In Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

This is blurry, as the camera seemed to focus on my skirt rather than my nails,
but you can see the sparkle in the polish and how it reflects a rainbow of colors.

Indoors, office lighting.

Indoors, office lighting.

Indoors, using flash.  Look at that beautiful metallic-like shimmer!

This was after a few days of wear.  I was trying to get a picture of the polish in sunlight, and the sun came out for a moment while I was walking my dogs.  We have had several weeks of bad weather in South Florida and not much sunlight.  Normally I crop the photo to just show my nails, but in the upper right-hand corner of the picture you can see my little girl doggie out of focus.  Aw!

After a week of wear.

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Nabi Magnetic Wine

I have many untried polishes in my collection, and there are so many gorgeous colors that it's hard to choose. But, one of my Facebook fans, Emma Brown, saw a bottle of Nabi Wine in an old picture of my stash and mentioned not having seen it on my blog yet, so here it is!

The color is gorgeous.  It seemed more of a pure red to me, like red with black magnetic stripes, when I saw it swatched on other blogs, but it is definitely a shade of wine, a very vivid shade.  It was pretty even without the magnetic effect, but I didn't take pictures of it by itself.  I think it would make a very nice holiday color, maybe Christmas or Valentine's Day.

Application and the brush were O.K., but there seems to be a learning curve with magnetic polishes, and each polish is different from the last, even within the same brand.  I normally have to use thin coats for the magnetic effect to be clear, and blowing on the pattern as I hold the magnet over my nail normally produces the best effect.  However, with Nabi Wine, it was a much thicker coat that gave the best effect, and blowing on it while holding the magnet over my nail made the effect very weak, so I stopped doing that.

I did get some bubbling with my top coat.  I've been getting some bubbling lately with my top coats.  I don't know if it's the heat and humidity here in South Florida, although I do keep the air-conditioning on indoors. The top coat didn't weaken or blur the magnetic effect, but there was SIGNIFICANT shrinkage from both Seche Vite and Revlon's Quick Dry Top Coat.  It not only shrank at the tips, but there was a strange effect near my cuticles that left a rim of blurred paint outside my top coat as the top coat seemed to recede from the paint while shrinking.

I learned about the Nabi magnetic polishes from a post on another blog, and the blogger had found them in a large display of many, many, many magnetic colors in a Walgreens store.  My local Walgreens never carried the Nabi magnetics, though.  I ordered mine online and for about $20 got about 5 different colors.  The magnets are on the top of the brush cap, but I have enough bottles that I use the magnet from another bottle and not the one from the bottle I'm using to paint my nails.  It's just much easier that way.

Cleanup took a little effort.  I don't use an orange stick around the edges as I paint my nails with magnetic polish because by the time I'm done with holding the magnet over my nail, the polish is too dry, and I would drag it and ruin it.  So, there's more work at cleanup time.

The wear was O.K.  I did wear the polish an entire week--it's still on now as I type--but it doesn't look so great after a couple of days with all the shrinkage.  There were only teeny, tiny chips, though, and they weren't very noticeable.

Here are some pictures:

Cloudy day -- we have had a lot of cloudy and rainy days lately in Florida.

Indirect sunlight on a cloudy day

Indoors, office lighting.

Indoors with flash.

Using flash.

With flash -- blurry, but the colors are so pretty!

In some sunlight on a cloudy day.

I was walking the dogs, and the sun came out suddenly and briefly, so out came my iPhone.  I had been wearing the polish several days by then, and you can see the weird shrinkage near my cuticles that seemed to leave smudges of polish behind.  

My right hand, also while out walking the dogs.  I don't usually photograph my right hand because it's my dominant hand, and I use it to take pictures.

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