Pretty and Polished Dolli-Pop Color-Changing Polish

Apologies for being away so long.  I was ill the first part of February, then my husband was ill the second part of February, then I was busier at work the first part of March, and most recently one of my dogs injured himself and needed extra time and attention from me, the other dog is always on and off sick to her tummy, and I'm still busy at work.

I haven't read the new government guidelines on disclosures yet, but from summaries on other bloggers' posts, I gather that the main concern is that readers know whether I am reviewing something that I bought or something that was sent to me for free by a company for me to review.  My Official Disclosure:  I purchased the polish I am writing about in this post.

Pretty and Polished's Dolli-Pop is a gorgeous temperature-reactive color-changing polish that is purple at room temperature or cold temperatures and then progresses from dark blue to light blue as the temperature gets warmer.

I had actually been a little run down and almost burnt out from illness and such, and when I feel that way, I have less inspiration nail polish-wise.  But on Sunday I read a post on the Holographic Hussy blog reviewing Dolli-Pop, and I instantly knew that I wanted to use Dolli-Pop for my weekly manicure.

The polish formula was a dream come true for me!  It was the perfect consistency, and it didn't pool or pond or drag.  The brush was long and made it easy to apply the polish.  I used three coats, although two might have been fine.  I barely had any cleanup to do, and what little cleanup I had was easy.  I did get some shrinkage from Seche Vite which I think I'm going to start calling Shrink Vite.   I still can't give it up, though.  It dries even thick layers of polish very quickly, and I can go to bed right away and never, ever have sheet marks on my mani after using Shrink Vite.  Anyway, Dolli-Pop dries with a matte-like finish, and I prefer it with a shiny finish.  I can say that no matter how many coats of top coat you add (I add another coat every day or every other day), it does not affect the color-changing effect.   I have been wearing the polish for two days now, and it has worn well without any chips; I just have the shrinkage from my quick-dry top coat.

This is a really fun polish that really cheers me up every time I look at it.  It's like having different several different manicures in one, so for those of you who feel the need to change your polish every day, you can actually keep this polish on for a while and still have a different mani every few minutes!  The blue shades run through the entire range of denim blue colors, from the lightest blue to the darkest.  The polish also has some gorgeous little blue gem-like flakes that catch the light beautifully.  Most of the time my nail beds were a sky blue with the tips of my nails a deep purple and the two colors blended into each other like a perfect gradient creating the look of a funky French manicure.

Here are some pictures:

Left hand, indirect sunlight, in air-conditioned car.

Left hand.

Left hand.

Left hand.

Left hand.

Left hand.

Right hand, temperature cooling.

Right hand, temperature cooling further.

Left hand, temperature cooling.

Left hand, temperature cooling.

Left hand, cool temperature.

Right hand, most purple color at coolest temperature.

Left ring finger and pinkie, cool temperature.

Thumbnail, cool temperature.
You can see the reflection of my iPhone that I used to take the photo.

Right hand, sunlight.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Sally Hansen I Lilac You

I bought Sally Hansen I Lilac You at CVS the weekend before last, and I used it right away for a manicure.

I really liked the formula.  I used two coats.  The first coat was almost perfect, though, and it was mostly self-evening.  I had no flooding.  It was also very shiny.  I had to redo three nails, and there was no difference between the shine of the polish and the shine on the other nails with Seche Vite.  The finish was very smooth.  The brush is the wider brush, like the Dior brush.  Cleanup was a breeze as there was barely any.  The polish looks more lilac (blue-leaning) in some lights and more lavender (pastel purple-leaning) in others.

This polish really inspired me and made me think of many different nail art looks.  I thought it would be nice with stamping on top, and eventually, that's what I did.  Originally I thought white stamping with a delicate lace-like pattern would be nice, but I ended up using UP Colors Laser Lilas Holo to stamp over I Lilac You.  It was my first time stamping on my nails!  I will show you the results in my next post, but for now I have a preview photo on my Facebook page and on Instagram.  I also thought that the polish would look nice with a coat of Sally Hansen Snow Globe over it, or with striping on it, or with holo dots, or with a glitter gradient, etc.  So, I will definitely be wearing this polish again.

I am still wearing the polish today, the tenth day since I put it on.  I have not had any chips, although I did break the corner off a thumbnail . . . while putting on baggy gym shorts for goodness' sake!  So, the polish wears really well.  I did have a little shrinkage from fast-drying top coats, but it only happened after I showered.  The shower caused a dramatic shrink-back on my nail tips, but then the polish seemed to settle back to a regular look of minor shrinkage or tip wear.

Here are some photos:

Sunlight

Sunlight

Indirect Sunlight

Indoors, Office Lighting

Sunlight

Thank you for reading my blog!

Rainbow Honey Sweet Talk

I already wrote a preview post of Rainbow Honey's Sweet Talk Collection.  The collection will start to be sold on Rainbow Honey's website tomorrow, Friday, January 25, 2013, in time for Valentine's Day!  If you click through to my preview post, you can see pictures of the adorable packaging for XOXO and Sweet Talk, and you can see pictures of swatches on my nail wheel of each of the polishes by themselves and in combination with other polishes and with a matte top coat, and you can see a picture of the third polish in the collection, Be Mine, that I don't have right now.  My past few posts before that on my blog have been reviews of Rainbow Honey polishes, too, from the Yokai Collection for Halloween.

If you click through to Rainbow Honey's website right now (Thursday, January 24, 2013), the Sweet Talk Collection polishes show as "sold out."  Don't worry!  That's just a "placeholder"-type message until the official sale begins tomorrow.

I already reviewed XOXO, a gorgeous glitter top coat in Rainbow Honey's Sweet Talk Collection, here.

Now I'm reviewing the namesake of the collection, Sweet Talk.  Sweet Talk has purple, light blue, and dark pink matte hex glitters in medium and small sizes and some stealthy tiny peachy irridescent flakes in a milky white base.  The milky white base is polish formula perfection!  It's not thick or clumpy, nor is it too thin, and it doesn't pool, pond, or flood my cuticles.  It goes on smooth and has a shiny finish, and the glitters lie flat.  The light blue hexes seem to reflect light at some angles, like they have an underlying metallic quality.  The brush is thin and worked well for me, and there is a lot of glitter, so you don't need to fish for it or dab it on.  The polish dried quickly, and I had no smudges or dents. I used one coat of Gelous over the manicure and a coat of Seche Vite over that to make the mani glassy smooth.  I didn't have any shrinkage from quick-dry top coats.

I loved this polish so much that I put it on as a pedicure, too.  It is definitely perfect for Valentine's Day and reminds me of those conversation hearts candies for Valentine's Days.  I think the colors are nice for Easter, too.  And, this polish has completely satisfied my desire for jawbreaker-like polish.  I didn't own a single jawbreaker-looking polish, and I wanted one, and Sweet Talk is the great look with the fantastic formula and the consistently great quality that you get from Rainbow Honey.

I wore Sweet Talk last week as a manicure over Essie Blanc.  The white of Essie Blanc matched the base shade of white in Sweet Talk.  The first coat of Blanc was streaky and balding in spots, but it mostly evened out with my second coat.  It had a glossy finish and gave me a mod look on my nails.  Over Essie Blanc, I used one coat of Sweet Talk on some nails and two coats on some other nails.  It was pretty both ways.  With two coats there were some glitters submerged beneath milky polish.

Here are some pictures of the gorgeous Sweet Talk over two coats of Essie Blanc:

Seldom-seen right hand
Sunlight
In the ring finger nail, at the top, you can see the stealthy tiny flakes in the polish
Top/ring finger, one coat of Sweet Talk
Bottom/pinkie, two coats of Sweet Talk

Still the seldom-seen right hand
Indirect sunlight
You can see how the blue hexes reflect light with an underlying metallic quality
Top/ring finger, one coat of Sweet Talk
Bottom/pinkie, two coats of Sweet Talk

Left hand
Sunlight
From top to bottom:  one coat, two coats, two coats, one coat of Sweet Talk

Left hand
Indirect Sunlight
So shiny and smooth!
From left to right:  one coat, two coats, two coats, one coat of Sweet Talk

The Sweet Talk Collection will be officially released on January 25, 2013 at 12:01 AM EST at rainbowhoney.com and participating Retail Partners around the world. Rainbow Honey generously shared a promo code for $5.00 off a purchase on their website.  PROMO CODE = SWEETTALK$5 (promo code expires 2/28/2013). Promo code RH25%OFF is also still active (also expires 2/28/2013), and free shipping on all orders over $25 has been extended until 1/31/2013.

Also, Rainbow Honey now has two additional very limited edition polishes that they will be giving away. They are "Dearly Beloved" and "My Love." They are glitter top coats with heart-shaped glitter in addition to traditional glitter! Every purchase of $50 or more will receive one of the two special edition polishes. They also have a giveaway that ends when the shop opens and the sale of the collection starts at midnight tonight, so you have until midnight to enter the giveaway here. They are giving away three sets of Dearly Beloved and My Love. If you click through to the giveaway link or to Rainbow Honey's website, you can see more pictures and swatches of Dearly Beloved and My Love in addition to these:

Thank you Rainbow Honey for the promo codes, the giveaways, the free goodies, and for letting me review these lovely polishes!

Note:  I received a free bottle of Sweet Talk polish from Rainbow Honey and was asked for my honest and unpaid review of Sweet Talk.  I am not affiliated in any other way with Rainbow Honey other than as a regular customer because I do buy, love and use their products.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Rainbow Honey XOXO over Sally Hansen Satin

My last post was a preview post of Rainbow Honey's Sweet Talk Collection for Valentine's Day.  If you click through, you can see pictures of the adorable packaging for XOXO and Sweet Talk, and you can see pictures of swatches on my nail wheel of each of the polishes by themselves and in combination with other polishes and with a matte top coat, and you can see a picture of the third polish in the collection, Be Mine, that I don't have right now.  My past few posts before that have been reviews of Rainbow Honey polishes, too, from the Yokai Collection for Halloween.

XOXO is a gorgeous glitter top coat.  It has red glitters in medium and small sizes.  Sometimes they came together to form a heart-like shape here and there on my nails.  There is also a gold shimmer or gold microflakes like tiny little pieces of gold leaf, and there is holo glitter in the polish.  The holo glitter is what I call the "pastel" holo glitter.  I've seen holo glitters that flash in pastel colors and holo glitters that flash in brighter primary colors.  The holo glitter in XOXO flashes appropriately in pastel shades.  The base of the polish is clear and not too thick but just right so that it goes on smooth and shiny, although even with one coat of Seche Vite and another of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat, it's still not perfectly smooth, but it's very smooth without any jagged edges to the glitter.  It's not top-coat hungry, it's just that top coat doesn't sit perfectly smooth over the glitter, similar to but much less pronounced than the effect of top coat over flakies.  The red glitter flashes a gorgeous purple at times.  I used two very thin coats.  I tried to be subtle for work and used only one thin coat at first. One coat provided enough coverage, but then I wanted more glitter!  There was no shrinkage from either top coat; I love that about Rainbow Honey polishes.

I have seen a couple of other reviews of this gorgeous top coat on other blogs.  On the Galactic Lacquer blog, there are gorgeous pictures of XOXO over a strong pink polish.  I don't own a lot of pink polishes, so I didn't have many to choose from in my stash.  The result on Galactic Lacquer's post is what my ideal would have been if I had the "right" pink polish.  The Lacquerologist also shows XOXO over a perfect pink polish and also has pictures of Sweet Talk.  On the Nails in Nippon blog, there are pictures of both XOXO and Sweet Talk, and she has a picture of XOXO over black polish that is AMAZING!

In addition to being perfect for Valentine's Day, I think XOXO would also work nicely during the Christmas holidays, and I wonder what it would like over other colors like maybe a medium blue polish.

Here are some pictures of my XOXO mani:

Sunlight
Seldom seen right hand
You can see some of the gold micro flakies and how the red glitter flashes purple at times.
You can also see the holo glitters flashing in pastel shades.
Please excuse the cuticles; I had moisturized and was about to walk out of my house when I spotted a doggie peepee accident, and my OCD wouldn't let me not clean it up right away, and scrubbing tile and tile grout with cleaners is rough on my right hand, and I was running late and couldn't stop to moisturize again.

Left hand
Even in very low light conditions, this polish magically sparkles.
Didn't use this hand to scrub after the doggie accident,
but I did wash both hands and with that washed a lot of my prior moisturizing efforts away.

Seldom seen right hand
Indirect Sunlight
Sparkly even in low light
This picture comes closest to showing the true color of the pink "underwear" polish; the sunlight washed it out in other pictures.

Indoors
Seldom seen right hand
Camera was too dazzled by this polish indoors to take a better picture

I used Sally Hansen's Satin as "underwear" for XOXO.  Satin is a very pale pink with a peachy tone from the Smooth and Perfect Color and Care line.  I had wanted those pastel polishes ever since last Easter, and around Christmas they went on clearance at CVS, and I bought the pastel pink, orange, green, blue and purple polishes.  Now I'm all set for Easter this year!  I used two coats of Satin, and I still had visible nail line, but it looks nice.  I had heard other bloggers complain about the formula in the Smooth and Perfect Color and Care line pastel colors, saying that the formula was thick or difficult to work with or dragged or left bald patches.  I didn't have any of those problems.  The only issue I had was a couple of small bubbles, but I had just shaken the bottle before applying the polish, and you couldn't see the bubbles after I applied the XOXO top coat.  I thought the formula was good, not too thin or thick, and it didn't pool or flood my cuticles, and I barely had any need for cleanup.  There is a bit of a frosty shimmer to the finish, but it's not too brushstrokey.  The brush is wide and the end is curved like my cuticles, although that curved end is trimmed unevenly in places and looks like it has jagged edges, but the brush worked well with the formula, and the polish went exactly where I wanted it to go.  Below are some pictures I took of Satin while I was doing my nails, so it's pre-cleanup, and it's very poor quality indoor lighting:

Very poor indoor lighting -- left hand -- one coat of Satin
Pre-cleanup, manicure in process
The pale pink polish has a bit of pearly shimmer to it.

Very poor indoor lighting -- right hand -- one coat of Satin

Very poor indoor lighting -- left hand -- two coats of Satin
Pre-cleanup, manicure in progress

Very poor indoor lighting -- right hand -- two coats of Satin
You can see one of the small bubbles on my pointer finger, on the far right. 

The Sweet Talk Collection will be sold in a private sale at fab.com from January 16, 2013 through January 19, 2013. The Collection will be officially released on January 25, 2013 at 12:01 AM EST at rainbowhoney.com and participating Retail Partners around the world. Rainbow Honey generously shared a promo code for $5.00 off a purchase on their website.  PROMO CODE = SWEETTALK$5 (promo code expires 2/28/2013). Thank you Rainbow Honey for the promo code and for letting me review these lovely polishes!

I should have a review post of Sweet Talk by next weekend.

Note:  I received a free bottle of XOXO polish from Rainbow Honey and was asked for my honest and unpaid review of XOXO.  I am not affiliated in any other way with Rainbow Honey other than as a regular customer because I do buy, love and use their products.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Rainbow Honey Sweet Talk Collection Preview

Happy New Year!  This is my first post in 2013!  I haven't been on the computer much.  I am waiting for my eye glasses to be ready.  I was without them for over a week in December, but when I got them, I was even worse off and couldn't see.  My right eye is very nearsighted, my left eye has astigmatism and presbyopia, and I wear progressive lenses, but my brain couldn't reconcile the huge difference between the right and left lenses, so my vision was not aligning vertically, and I had to go back last week to the eye doctor.  They are trying one last tweak to the glasses, and even this may not work completely, but hopefully it will be an improvement.  Right now, without the glasses, the computer screen is blurry, so I have avoided doing anything on the computer other than when absolutely necessary for work.

I'm very excited about this post, though, so it's worth the eye strain.  This morning I received an e-mail from Rainbow Honey announcing their new Sweet Talk Collection that will be out just in time for Valentine's Day.  I love Rainbow Honey polishes, so that e-mail was already great to me, and then I read that they were sending me samples to review!!!!  Even more exciting, they said they had already sent them, and they were on their way to me as a surprise!  I clicked on the tracking number and found that the polishes were going to arrive today!  I'm off from work today, and I was going to change my manicure, so it's perfect timing!  In the e-mail, Rainbow Honey also shared a promo code for $5.00 off a purchase on their website.  PROMO CODE = SWEETTALK$5 (promo code expires 2/28/2013). I don't receive anything for you using that promo code, so it's not like one of those referral links on other websites. All the bloggers who are reviewing samples of the Sweet Talk Collection received that code to share with their readers. Please feel free to share it with anyone you know who might be interested.

There are three polishes in the Sweet Talk Collection.  These are Rainbow Honey's descriptions of the polishes:
Be Mine: A lovely kiss of pink on your nails with a dusting of microshimmer and gold flecks
Sweet Talk: A decadently sweet collection of pastel glitters in a white jelly with hidden shimmer
XOXO: A ravishing blend of glitters and flakes in a clear base for easy use over any manicure
Be Mine and Sweet Talk are wearable on their own. XOXO can be used as a glitter top coat over an accent nail or over an entire manicure.

Here is a photo with bottle shots from the press release I received for the Sweet Talk Collection:

Rainbow Honey sent each blogger two out of the three polishes. I received Sweet Talk and XOXO. I had thought I would choose Sweet Talk for my manicure thinking it might be more work appropriate because it's less blingy. It's hard to say which is more appropriate for work because pastel glitter doesn't convey that aggressive image you sometimes want to convey as an attorney, but blingy glitter is more likely to stand out and get noticed, and conservative clients may not appreciate glitter. I try to avoid glitter during the work week, but when I swatched Sweet Talk and XOXO, I loved XOXO too much to wait to wear it! I have pictures below of the adorable package I received from Rainbow Honey and pictures of both Sweet Talk and XOXO swatched by themselves and in combination with other polishes. All my photos were taken using indoor lighting.

This adorable little card was enclosed with my polishes!
The dates for the release of the polish have been revised.
The revised Fab.com release dates are in the text of my post above.

How adorable is this packaging?
And, it added to the suspense of not knowing which two of the three polishes I had received!

I received Sweet Talk (on the left) and XOXO (on the right).
Full size bottles!

In this photo you can see the milky white base of Sweet Talk.
The pastel glitters remind me of Valentine's Day candies.

There are pinkish red glitters, purple glitters, and light blue or silverish glitters.

The glitters look matte in some lighting, but they are definitely shiny and reflective if they catch the light.

There are gorgeous pinkish red glitters in XOXO, and there are small gold glitters and/or shimmer flakes.
Some of the microglitter has a holographic effect.

XOXO

From left to right:
#18:  one coat of Sweet Talk
#17:  two coats of Sweet Talk
#16:  one coat of XOXO
#15:  one coat of XOXO over Revlon Electric Pink
#14:  one coat of Sweet Talk over Revlon Electric Pink
#13:  one coat of XOXO over China Glaze Poinsettia
#12:  one coat of XOXO over Sally Hansen Persistent Peony
#11:  one coat of Sweet Talk over Sally Hansen Persistent Peony
#10:  one coat of Sweet Talk with a matte top coat
#9:  one coat of XOXO with a matte top coat

XOXO over Sally Hansen Satin (from the Smooth and Perfect Color and Care line)

XOXO over Sally Hansen Satin (from the Smooth and Perfect Color and Care line)

The Sweet Talk Collection will be sold in a private sale at fab.com from January 16, 2013 through January 19, 2013. The Collection will be officially released on January 25, 2013 at 12:01 AM EST at rainbowhoney.com and participating Retail Partners around the world.

I'm off to go do my new manicure with XOXO! I was going to layer XOXO over Sally Hansen Persistent Peony, like in #12 in the picture of the swatches on the nail wheel above, but then I thought to try it over a very pale pink, Sally Hansen's Satin, from the Smooth and Perfect Color and Care line, like in the last two photos above. I think the pink background is perfect with the Valentine's Day theme of the collection, and it's my favorite combination, so that will be what I use for my manicure. I may be able to have a review post up with pictures of my XOXO manicure as soon as in two days.

Thank you for reading my blog!

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!