China Glaze When In Doubt, Surf It Out Swatch and Review

~purchased by me~


So this is one of the many peachy-corals I have purchase in the search for a dupe of China Glaze Sun of a Peach. I'm happy to report that I have since sated that lemming, just not with this shade.

When In Doubt, Surf It Out is from this year's summer collection, Shore Off. It's a slightly dusty pinky peach/coral cream. This below picture isn't color accurate but it is what it looked like in my kitchen lighting lol.

I used three coats. Formula was good and it dried to a nice shine. These swatches are without base or top coat. The rest of the pictures are much more true to color.

This is a cute color and I can see myself wearing it as a pedicure. It's not bad on the fingers either. I got it at Sally's on red tag clearance but since it's relatively new, I'm sure you can still find it.

.

Haul Post! well...sort of

~purchased by me~


So I didn't actually haul this all in at once (which I think what a haul technically is) but more like I've gathered over the course of a few weeks. Also, I got them all at different places; 4 stores to be exact! So first up is a peachy/coral polish that I picked up at Sally's Beauty Supply. It was on red tag clearance for $3.29. I am (was! more on that below) lemming hard core for China Glazes Sun Of A Peach. I really wished I had picked that up when it first came out. Anyway, Sun Of A Peach is an orange pastel neon. Every polish that I've gotten since trying to replicate it has fallen short. Not neon enough, too pink etc. etc. This also was not what I wanted but it's a cute shade nonetheless. China Glaze When In Doubt, Surf It Out from the Summer 2014 collection Shore Off.

Next I have two Ciaté brand polishes. This is their breast cancer awareness duo that they released back in 2012. I found these at TJMaxx for $3.99 each. Pinkalilly is a bright pink with gold shimmer/flecks (I'm obsessed with this type of shade it seems) and Pinkaboo is a holographic bar/hair glitter in a sheer pink base. This is my first time trying the brand!

Pinkalilly (L) and Pinkaboo (R)

Next up is four lovely lovely polishes I picked up from Claire's. I heard that Color Club makes their polishes though I'm not 100% on that. Also, it appears that they've changed their bottles up since I last been there. Now their bottles look like Model's Own bottles. First up is two duochrome polishes: Claire's When In Chrome and Chrome Is Where The Heart Is.

Note how the bottle boasts a sticker touting the holographic nature of these polishes. These aren't holographic, not in the slightest. They are duochromes/multichromes. Nail polish companies seem to get this mixed up a lot! 

Next up is two gorgeous neon colors I've been looking for for a while now. The yellow is Sunshine and the orange is The Extra Mile. I don't know if The Extra Mile is a dupe for Sun of A Peach but it's good enough for me! Lemming cured! (or satisfied?)

I love both of these and can't wait to wear them. I'm pretty sure that Sunshine is going to need some white undies but the color is exactly the shade of unabashed yellow highlighter that I've been looking for. The Extra Mile is a bit lighter/brighter than it appears here and it's perfect. I got these on sale BOGO 1/2 off and they are $4.50 each.

Finally, I went to CVS the other day planning on picking up some NYC nail polishes because the red coupon machine printed out a coupon for $1 off NYC polishes and I had some extra bucks about to expire. I went with the intention of picking up Hamilton Peach (they didn't have it) and look what I stumbled across instead!

It's the new NYC Fall 2014 Limited Edition Fashion Queen Collection! And not only that but NYC polishes were BOGO 1/2 off that week. I got four of them: the green, blue, red and purple. I didn't get the last two polishes you see on the far right because the black one looks a lot like Sinful Colors Black Magic and I'm not a big fan of brown nail polish. Here's a closer look:

These are my favorite kind of glitter polish. It's glitter in a buildable jelly base. Swatches coming this week!

China Glaze Sun-Kissed Swatch and Review

~purchased by me~


For the labor day weekend my family went to go visit my sister who lives about 5 hours away from us. We basically lived in the pool for three days straight so this swatch also turned somewhat into a unintentional wear test. Here's what I used:

I applied this on the previous Thursday and I'm still wearing it 6 days later. There is a little bit of tip wear and the top coat dulled somewhat but I think for 3 days of chlorine abuse, this polish held up very well! I think it's mainly got to do with the base coat, which, unfortunately, is discontinued. I can see why people were snatching up backups while they had the chance!

Sun-kissed is a neon yellow that leans green and has subtle gold shimmer running through it. I'm wearing three coats here, no white undies. I don't know if I'm just too used to seeing bright colors on my nails now but this didn't seem all that bright to me while I was wearing it. It definitely is a yellow highlighter shade, it just didn't sear my retinas as I thought it would lol. That's probably a good thing seeing as how I managed to snap my favorite pair of sunglasses in half while in the pool :(. My bf tried to fix it for me but I told him I wasn't really feeling the harry potter look haha.

The formula on this is good; not streaky or patchy at all. A really nice yellow neon if you are looking for one!

I know this is an old polish but I believe you can still get it online from sites like headtotoebeauty.com for $3-4.

Wet N Wild Spitfire Swatch and Review and first Jelly Sandwich ever!!

~purchased by me~


This is the other polish I picked up from the Wet N Wild Summer Festival Collection. It's an orange jelly that is actually super opaque with a great formula!

These limited edition polishes sport white caps in lieu of the regular gray ones.

This is it at one coat. ONE! Amazing! I don't care for a lot of jellies because of their sheerness but this one can definitely be built up to opacity! The color is nice too, great for Halloween as well as summer!

This is it at two coats. Perfect opacity, completely smooth and streak free. An absolute dream to work with. If you get any one polish from this collection it should be this one! And now for my first attempt at a jelly sandwich! I used China Glaze's Scattered & Tattered.

I believe this is from their Glitz N Pieces collection. First I put one coat on...

And stopped to admire that for a bit! I really liked the way this looks! Very halloween. Then I went ahead and layered another coat of Spitfire on...

Yummy squishy-ness. I liked it like this but you can of course lay on another coat if you don't like the glitter this opaque. If you are looking for a great orange jelly you should considering picking this up while it's still available!

Blackheart Beauty Nail Polish Multi Glitter Swatch and Taco

~purchased by me~


So this concludes the last of the Blackheart Beauty polishes that I own. Multi Glitter (damn that creative name) is a glitter topper with small turquoise hex glitter, large fuschia hex glitter and yellow, orange, silver, green and turquoise bar glitter in a clear base.

The base is pretty good, if a little runny/floody. It isn't too thick though and you surprisingly don't need to fish for the large hex glitters. Since it's impossible to reach opacity on its own, I layered it over 4 polishes; a blue, a purple, a black and a white. Here are their bottle mug shots.

Man Hunt, Monica, Black Satin and French White Creme

From left to right we have China Glaze Man Hunt, Zoya Monica, Rimmel Black Satin and Wet N Wild French White Creme. Here's just a picture of the undies by themselves, for reference.

Man Hunt, Monica, Black Satin and French White Creme, 2 coats no topcoat

I put one coat of Multi Glitter over each one. The glitters come out easily, no fishing required though you might have to dab a little to get the glitter where you want it. 

One coat of Multi Glitter over each

You can see those taco-ing glitters I was talking about. Not every single one of the large hex glitters is taco but a few will inevitably be in every manicure. You can see it best on my ring finger, over the black base.

One coat of Multi Glitter over each

Here you can also see them on my index, middle and ring. The index and middle one looks worse than they are. They are more of a reflective curl than an actual curl. The ring finger got it pretty bad -- there were 3 taco's on there. I decided to put on a second coat, to try to fill in some of the blank spaces.

Two coats of Multi Glitter over each

You can see the taco pretty clearly on these. The taco isn't terrible but a taco is a taco. I didn't include this one as part of my blackheart swatches because some people consider taco glitter to be defective.

Here I picked out a taco onto a toothpick so you can see the rate of curl. And then that's what it looks like on the nail without topcoat. You might be able to get it smooth with 2 thick coat of topcoat but with tacos, I've found they usually manage to poke through anyway. Here I took the taco glitter and I placed it on the Zoya bottle cap so you can see it more clearly.

So if you don't mind taco-ing glitter or are ok with fishing them off your manicure as you come across them, you might like this polish. It's unique, the formula is good and the glitters come out easily with no fishing required.

So what color do you like it best layered over? I personally like it best layered over the white. It reminds me of flowers in a garden. Are you ok with taco glitter? Would you buy this? It grew on me a little bit but I don't really care for this type of glitter topper and probably will do what I said and dump it out to use the bottle to franken with. Blackheart Nail Polish can be purchased at Blackheart Beauty and Hot Topic in store and online for around $5. I bought this particular one in store and the label was all peeling off :(

Blackheart Beauty Nail Polish Swatches and Comparison Part 1

~ Purchased By Me ~

Hello!
I have six blackheart beauty nail polishes to swatch and compare for you but I'm going to break it up into two posts. So the first three are Golden, Pastel Green and Glow Away.

From left to right, Golden, Pastel Green and Glow Away

I love the skull bottles that these polishes come in but some of them do seem to have a problem with keeping the polishes from evaporating. Even worse, the polish that suffered from this the most is Glow Away, one of those layered polishes that say "DO NOT SHAKE" on it. I added a few drops of thinner and gently rolled it to keep the layers from mixing and to restore it to its proper consistency.
Anyway. So first up is Golden. The formula was nice and smooth. The below swatch is two easy coats.

Blackheart Golden, two coats with topcoat

I thought this polish looked very similar to Revlon's Gold Coin. I swatched Gold Coin on my index and middle finger and Golden is on my ring and pinky.

Revlon Gold Coin (I+M) and Blackheart Golden (R+P)

As you can see, while the color is the same, the difference is in the finish. Golden has a much smoother finish and Gold Coin is a bit more grainy. Gold Coin can be opaque in one coat but I used two here. You have to use two coats for Golden because the brush is a little rough and you need to "float" the second layer on so that you have a smooth finish. They look really similar in the bottle.

Blackheart Golden and Revlon Gold Coin

Next up is Pastel Green. This is 4(!) coats. The issue isn't in it's opacity, but in the formula. The rough brush doesn't really help. It goes on streaky and runny but the color is awesome, a sort of neon pastel. I got ton of compliments wearing this one. You may be able to get away with 3 careful coats.

Blackheart Pastel Green, 4 coats with topcoat

I thought this looked similar to Color Club's Twiggie. I have Twiggie on my index and middle finger and Pastel Green on my ring and pinky.

Color Club Twiggie and Blackheart Pastel Green

Twiggie has a far superior fomula, this is two easy coats. It is a shade darker (I had to color correct it in photoshop so sorry if if looks strange). But the colors are pretty close. Kissing cousins you could say. In the bottle they look really similar as well.

Color Club Twiggie and Blackheart Pastel Green

Last up is Glow Away, obviously the most creative name in this group lol. This is three coats. Because it's a glow-in-the-dark polish, it's grainy from the glow particles. Once again, the brush isn't very helpful. The color is a sweet pinky coral and it dries matte. I've swatched it with top coat.

Blackheat Glow Away, three coats with topcoat

I thought it looked smiliar to China Glaze's Flirty Tankini. Flirty Tankini, two coats, is on my index and middle while Glow Away, three coats, is on my ring and pinky. Both are topcoated.

China Glaze Flirty Tankini (I+M) and Blackheart Glow Away (R+P)

Flirt Tankini has a better formula and it also has some fine pearl like shimmer running through it which mirrors the glow particles in Glow Away. While very close, Flirty Tankini is a little darker and more of a true coral while Glow Away is more of a pink coral. Bottle shots are pretty close as well (the pink dominates the layers).

China Glaze Flirty Tankini and Blackheart Glow Away

Also, Glow Away glows in the dark. I couldn't quite capture Glow Away glowing because my camera couldn't seem to take a picture in the dark. So what I did here was focus my camera in a lighted room then quickly into the dark room before it could refocus. Sorry, this was the best I could do!

Blackheart Glow Away in the dark

You can purchase Blackheart Beauty nail polishes at Blackheart Beauty or Hot Topic, in store or online. These retail at Hot Topic for $5 but they regularly have them on sale for BOGO free or BOGO half off.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because of the oddly shaped bottles, I had a hard time learning how to position my fingers. I think I got it in the end but I apologize for the multiple finger positions. I'm still learning what I like and I promise I'll get better!