Nubar Absolute

Nubar Absolute was released in spring 2010 as part of the Prisms Collection. It's a pale blue polish with a rather weak scattered holographic effect. I was on the fence about this polish for a long time, but I was recently able to swap for it, so here it is.

It's nothing super fancy when indoors, kind of a light silvery blue. But it does have that typical shimmery holo finish that I love so much. This is kind of like the light blue cousin of Catrice Dirty Berry in that way. I la-la-love the finish on these even when the rainbows aren't shooting off my fingertips. 

I took it for spin outdoors and it lights up in the sun. As I mentioned, it's a pretty weak holo effect. It's not one of those holoiest holos that ever holoed or anything, but it's quite lovely.

Like a lot of scattered holos, I found the formula completely fuss free. I did need to use three coats because it's rather sheer, but the color builds well with no streaking or other nonsense.

I love Nubar's brush as well. It spreads well and makes it easy to control the polish. I had barely any cleanup at all to do, which is always so nice. =)

And here's a macro shot of it in the sun.

All in all, I'm very happy with this baby. I really need to add more Nubars to my collection. Hope your weekend is going well, and thank you as always for stopping by my little blog!

Reminder: Only two days left to enter my giveaway!

Nfu Oh 56

This probably would have been better if I'd layered it over black, but I put Nfu Oh 56 over yesterday's China Glaze Custom Kicks mani.

I like it though! It's subtle instead of in your face.

I had a devil of a time trying to capture the shimmer, and the sun has refused to come out and play, so I'm afraid this is as good as it's gonna get. *sigh*

Happy Friday, everyone! Once again, welcome to all the new folks, and don't forget to enter my giveaway!

China Glaze Custom Kicks

Well, after that in depth blah, blah, blah session about yesterday's polish, I find that I don't have that much to say about this one. Custom Kicks debuted as part of China Glaze's Kicks Collection in April of 2009. It's a vibrant green-leaning turquoise with a hint of gold shimmer that is, I'm sad to say, completely invisible on my nails.

If you enlarge this pic, you can see the shimmer in the bottle. But still... I can't really complain. The color is beautiful. It's highly pigmented and was very easy to control and apply.

And it doesn't smell like roses. =)

Until next time! Welcome to all the new folks, thank you all so much for joining me here in my little corner of cyberspace. And don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Missha JBL01

Okay, where do I start? I suppose at the beginning, when I saw this polish on Stef's blog. Missha is a Korean brand, so I thought that this would be difficult to get hold of - turns out I was wrong. I ordered it from eBay on July 22, and it arrived on August 2. Pretty quick for shipping all the way from Korea, I have to say!

They have some of the prettiest bottles ever. Check it out - heart shaped!

What's inside is even better, a magical concoction of teal glitter and shimmer and little bits of flakies. The finish is unreal on this baby.

Dig it up close.

Now, for the bad. I bet you guys thought I raved about every polish I get as though it's the best thing ever. Nope! It just so happens that I've been wearing polishes that are legitimately great. However, applying this polish made me feel like stabbing myself with a spork.

Firstly I'm all like, "What the HAIL is that smell??" Roses. It took me about two hours to figure out that it smells like roses. For some people this might be great... but I don't want to be assailed by the smell of roses the whole time I'm wearing this polish. 

Now, let's talk about the brush. This bottle is small, only 8 ml. And it has this giant mop of a brush with a stem that's almost as wide as the opening of the bottle. Hate. So much hate, I can't even tell you. I think the formula on the polish is actually pretty good - I probably could have done one coat, but because of this stupid brush, I made the biggest mess painting my nails that I've made in months. It took me a second coat to even out everything, all the while cursing this mop of a brush.

And the best part of it is... even after all that... I will totally wear this again. It's that beautiful. I just wish it wasn't so hard to put on and that I wasn't wafting through life smelling like roses. 

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Zoya Kotori

Kotori is one of my very favorite Zoya polishes, and one that I don't see mentioned very often. Kotori is a teal shimmer in a sheer black jelly type base. I suspect its sheerness is what stops people from embracing this color, but this is one polish that is worth the effort, at least for me. 

What you see here is three coats. I'd prefer that it was just two, but three coats doesn't reach the point of ridiculous to me, so I'll do that for colors that I think deserve it. I know that some people also layer it over either black or a dark blue to avoid doing three coats. I like it with three coats myself because I feel like it builds up more shimmer.

The color builds well and the dry time is reasonable, even at three coats.

Please excuse the nubs. I got a little overzealous with the file last night. I know this length isn't nubs to some people, but because of the way my nailbeds grow, this is as short as my nails can go without mangling the undersides of them. It actually kind of feels a little liberating having them this length... but I do prefer the way they look when they're just a little longer. Oh well, they'll grow back!

Thanks for stopping by, and welcome to the new folks who've started following! And don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Woooooooot! 100 Followers Giveaway!!!

so excited! I've been sitting on these prizes for a couple of weeks now and I wanted to share so badly, but I wanted to wait until I actually hit 100 followers. I literally JUST cropped the pictures in preparation, checked my blog, and it was rolled over to 100! Thank you all SO much! I really just thought I'd be talking to myself here, and it means more than I can say that people actually are enjoying what I'm doing here. =)

So here's the deal. First the prizes. I originally had only planned to offer the polishes, but after some thought, I realized that they might not be everyone's cup of tea. I decided to add a secondary prize, and you can choose which prize you'd like to be entered for. I hope that made sense. Anyway! Here are the two prizes to choose from:

First, the complete set of the Revlon Fizz collection. =)

The other prize I'm offering is four pieces of the jewelry I make from nail polish. You can click on the pics to enlarge them to see what polishes I used for the pieces. I know that some people are sensitive to scents, so I didn't want to just offer the Revlons and perhaps leave people out.

The rules are:

• This contest is open to everyone, regardless of where you live.

• You do NOT have to be a follower of my blog to enter. I get that Google Friend Connect isn't everyone's cup of tea, so I'm not gonna penalize you if you choose to just have my site bookmarked instead or whatever. =)

• You will have the opportunity choose which prize you'd like to win on the entry form.

• I will accept entries until midnight on August 8, 2011, and will do the actual drawings on August 9, 2011 using random.org. The winners will be notified and will have 48 hours to contact me to arrange for delivery. If you don't contact me within 48 hours, the prize will go to someone else. 

• You can gain an extra entry by blogging or tweeting about this giveaway.

• The nail polish prizes were purchased by me for this giveaway and are brand new, never opened, swatched or worn. The jewelry was made by me using polishes from my stash.

And I think that's everything! Good luck everyone, and thank you so much for your support!

xoxo,
Noelie

a england Tristam

a england is a relatively new nail polish brand based, as you might have guessed, in England. They just have one collection out at the moment, The Mythicals, which is a King Arthur themed collection. I'd had my eye on Tristam for a while when it started appearing on blogs, and when a england offered a promotion with free shipping I went ahead and ordered it. 

Tristam is a navy blue scattered holo polish. The holo particles aren't showing up for me indoors whatsoever, but like a lot of weaker scattered holos, it still has an interesting finish that I really, really like.

The holo shimmer does come out to play out in the sun though. It's really a beauty of a polish.

The formula is absolutely top notch. Two effortless coats that dried incredibly quickly. This is two coats, but I honestly would have been fine with one.

I'm going to be keeping an eye out for more collections from a england for sure!

Happy Monday, folks... and, as always, thanks for stopping by!