Ciaté Pinkalilly and Pinkaboo Swatch and Review

~purchased by me~


I picked these up separately at TJMaxx for $3.99 each but it was originally released as a duo set for Breast Cancer Awareness and sold for $28. This is my first time trying the brand. Keep reading to see my thoughts below!

The brushes are nice on these and I like the long cap; makes it easy to grip onto when I'm painting. Also the slim profile of the bottles takes up less room in my Helmers than a regular bottle of nail polish (but makes posing my hand on the bottle quite difficult!). The bow is also a very cute touch.

Pinkalilly has a good formula; this is two coats. The golden flecks are annoying when you are trying to clean up though so use a steady hand to minimize any mistakes so that you won't have to deal with it. I put one coat of Pinkaboo on my ring finger as an accent.

Pinkaboo is a holographic bar/hair glitter in a sheer pink base and it's quite glitter dense. I know some people can't stand bar glitter but I personally don't mind it. The suspension base was a little thick and goopy but not unworkable. You can add a drop of thinner if it bothers you.

I think it looks pretty cute! I usually don't wear holographic bar glitter over any color other than black but I made an exception for this since it normally comes in a set with the other one. Tomorrow I have planned a little bar glitter comparison post so stay tuned if you're interested!

Sally Hansen Color Foil Titanium Flush Swatch

~purchased be me~


Remember that mini-haul I had recently with the color foils? I went back to that target and not only did they have more colors on clearance, they had dropped the price down to $2.08! I finally was able to get the Cobalt Chrome shade I wanted, yay! Now if I can only find Liquid Gold I'll have all the colors that I wanted from the collection. Don't you love it when limited edition collections work in your favor? ^_^

I know these say to apply without base or top coat but I've heard from others that if you do it that way, not only do you see all the ridges and lines from your natural nails but the mani only lasts a day or two before chipping. So! I just applied this over an old manicure. Worked like a charm! These will work great for when you want a mani change but don't have time to remove your old one. Nail polish sweatpants!

They apply very smoothly but shake them very well before use! When I put my first coat on and didn't shake it properly, it applied almost like an ombre effect on my nails. I used two coats here with no topcoat. The chrome mirror-ness is very nice. When you apply, lightly "float" the brush and try not to go over the same spot too much to reduce brushstrokes. Next, I tried to apply top coat. I used a fast drying one on my pinky (NYC Grand Central Station) and a regular one on the rest of my fingers. At first I was worried that I ruined the chrome effect because the polish became slightly...cloudy? when the top coat was initially applied but that went away when it dried.

Topcoat does take away a tiny bit of the chrome-ness but not enough to be really noticeable. I think the extended wear time is worth that little bit of shine you lose. I think the regular non-fast drying topcoat is better over this than the fast drying. I haven't tried it with Seche Vite yet but I imagine it will be the same.

Sunlight pic! Sorry for the weird angle but I was losing sunlight and had to chase it around my kitchen haha. I think these color foils are pretty cool and I'm glad I was able to snag them (on clearance no less!) before they disappeared. If you haven't gotten these yet, go run and see if you can still catch them at stores.

Zoya Ali Swatch and Review

~purchased by me~


I love wearing neon shades in the summer and I think one color that compliments every skin tone is a good bright pink! I actually used to not like wearing pink anything, nail polish included and I also used to not like wearing cream (creme?) nail polishes. A lot has changed since then! This is what I used:

Ali is described on the Zoya website as "Ultra-bright warm medium neon pink creme.A fluorescent shade for maximum impact." I think this description is right on! Medium neon describes it perfectly! It definitely has some sort of neon pigment in it because it dries semi matte. You can use two coats if you have shorter nails but I needed three to cover VNL.

In sun

It dries a little darker than bottle shade but it's still bright. The formula was very easy to work with, not sheer nor streaky.

Some people say that Zoya polishes chip like mad on them. The only Zoya's I have worn for more then a few days were the PixieDusts, which wear like iron since they are basically glitter bombs so I can't really comment on that. I've also heard that the reason why Zoya's don't wear well for a lot of people is because they aren't using the Zoya base and top coats in conjunction with the polishes. I don't think it's so much the brand as the ingredients that Zoya polishes seem to have a problem with. A lot of bloggers have noted that using a base or top coat with the ingredient cellulose acetate butyrate (a common ingredient in fast dry top coats) may be causing the problem. I used Seche Vite as my topcoat which contains this ingredient so I'm not really expecting fantastic wear lol.

I like this color a lot! If you are on the market for a medium neon pink shade, consider this one! Also, I'll keep you updated on the wear ;).
Zoya polishes retail for $9-$10 and can be purchased on the Zoya website or at Ulta.

Zoya Kimber and Salon Perfect Pink Mystique Comparison

~purchased by me~

I wasn't a huge fan of the color pink previously, except in blushes or lipstick but not for clothes, shoes or nails. Then suddenly! one day my feminine side kicked in and I embraced the pink. Kind of. It's still not my favorite color to wear but I learned to appreciate it. I'm still not a big fan of purple though (strange, I know, since it seems that most nail polish addicts lurve purple). I especially love pinks that have a golden shimmer to them. I think gold accents pink quite nicely.

They look more similar in real life...

I make a point to not consciously buy dupes of nail polish. I only have one helmer and I intend to keep it that way. Inevitably, I will have some dupes, but I try really hard to keep it to a minimum; I'll even franken a polish to make it different or I'll give it away. However, today, I needn't to do either. These are not dupes!

Salon Perfect Pink Mystique (I+M) Zoya Kimber (R+P)

Though it totally, absolutely looks like I have Zoya Kimber on my index and middle finger and Salon Perfect Pink Mystique on my ring and pinky, it is the other way around! Maybe that's why I thought they were dupes from just looking at the bottles? Either way, Kimber pulls more red than Pink Mystique. Two coats of each, no topcoat.

Here's a pic in the shade with natural lighting. They look realllly similar here. The lighter shade at the tips of my ring and pinky are just from the free edge of my nail bed. You can't see VNL though. 

Finally, Kimber shows her true (bottle) colors!

In the sun, Kimber in the bottle is finally looking like Kimber on the nail! So yeah, the shades are similar but not the same, though the golden flecks are identical in both. I think they are both worth owning! I bought Salon Perfect Pink Mystique at Walmart for $3.98 and Zoya Kimber retails for $9.00 (back in the day it was $8.00) but most likely I only paid $4.00 for it. Yay for Zoya sales!