Swatch Sunday: Kleancolor’s Neon Orange

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Stacie Wacie

For today’s edition of Swatch Sunday, I’m wearing a new-to-me brand, Kleancolor. I grabbed a couple bottles of Kleancolor polishes during my last trip to Atlanta, and I’m finally trying one of them out. This is Neon Orange; I’m wearing three coats with one coat of Seche Vite.

sskcno

sskcno2

sskcno3

was on the thicker side, but this didn’t hinder its quality much. It dried quickly and with a satin finish. My one complaint is that it’s still not fully opaque at three coats; it’s not obvious in photos, but my nail lines were still rather visible.

sskcno4

sskcno5

Under a black light!

This isn’t a bad little polish. It’s pretty well-pigmented and the neon is as bright in person as it is in photos. It makes my hands tan, and it really lights up under a black light! Unfortunately, neon cremes are pretty easy to come by these days, especially within the indie polish community; this Neon Orange isn’t your only option, but it’s a good option if you can find it.

sskcno6

sskcno7

I bought this polish myself.

Swatch Saturday: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Peruvian Lily

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Stacie Wacie

Swatch Saturday!! Today’s post is all about Peruvian Lily from Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer. It’s the second polish in their April Showers collection from Spring 2014. I’m wearing three coats with one coat of Rica‘s Glossy Glam top coat.

BEGL describes Peruvian Lily as a “pastel orange creme with a red to gold shift”. To me, it’s more of a peach. Application was very easy; I had full coverage in two coats. However, the creme is so opaque that it covers up the shifting pigments. The shimmer is visible in some parts of the nail and not others, and the shift doesn’t seem to occur at all. It dries with a semi-glossy finish and was dry to the touch in about five minutes.

Even though the shift didn’t work out for me, I love this color. I don’t think I have anything quite like it. It’s a soft and sweet color, but it suits me. Other people agree; I’ve gotten so many compliments on this polish. This one teaches me that a polish can be borderline-dainty and still be unique.

Though Peruvian Lily has been discontinued by BEGL, you can purchase other polishes from their store.

I purchased this polish myself.

Manicure Monday: Clambake Sandwich

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Stacie Wacie

For Manicure Monday, I’ve done another jelly sandwich! I love this style; my nails always look so shiny and luxe, like special little jewels. This sandwich is made with three coats of OPI’s In True Stefani Fashion between Essie’s Clambake, topped with one coat of Rica‘s Glossy Glam top coat.

I have to tell you: I really love Clambake. It’s not one of the more popular Essie shades, and I guess I can understand why; I know people expect a more pigmented, fuller coverage polish, and jellies are duds. I think I also remember it being towards the bottom of the Walgreens Essie display and that’s probably a factor as well. I just think that, if you like jellies, perhaps this is one you should consider. It’s so squishy that you can see the squish from outside the bottle, and the color is really potent, despite the sheer coverage. It’s definitely unique to the Essie lineup, and pretty unique in my collection, too.

However, In True Stefani Fashion was a bit of a letdown. I mean, it’s a fantastic polish; it dried well, I got pretty good (but not complete) coverage in three coats, and it dried very quickly. In the bottle, it looks like there are more holographic silver glitters than there are. I thought it was all holographic glitter, which is why I picked it to go in this sandwich. Instead, I think it’s just the bigger square glitters that are holo, and the rest are just metallic silver. I mean, it ended up looking pretty good, but there’s just nothing like a jelly sandwich full of twinkling holographic glitters.

I added a bow. When I did that purple jelly sandwich a few weeks, I thought that, even with all that glitter, it still looked a little bare, so this time around I added a bow, just for a little something extra. It’s not the same orange as the polish, but I still like it.

Clambake is available wherever Essie polishes are sold; I got mine from Walgreens. I think In True Stefani Fashion was a limited release as part of the first Gwen Stefani collection, but it can still be found around online. My bow charms are from Claire’s.

Manicure Monday: Complementary Glitter

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Stacie Wacie

Manicure Monday!! I love my mani today. I’m wearing three coats of Color Club’s Sparkle and Soar, one brushed coat of Digital Nails‘s Aguamenti, and one coat of Ciate’s Speed Coat Pro top coat.

Sparkle and Soar is a shimmery orange polish with golden glass flecks and a hint of gold-to-green duochrome. Application was pretty easy, I didn’t have any problems with it. The consistency is fine; it’s thick due to the amount of shimmer/superfine glitters, but it’s easy to control. It dried pretty quickly, and to a satin finish. With a top coat, the shimmer becomes that much more vibrant.

Aguamenti is a glitter topper with a truckload of metallic and holographic glitters in various shapes and colors. There are dots, hexes, squares, and bar glitters in blue, aqua, teal, and green. The maker says the base is slightly tinted, but I can’t tell. The application here was super easy for a glitter like this; the large glitters were easy to find and brush on, never getting lost in the smaller glitters. Also, sometimes it’s really hard to get good and even coverage with a polish like this, and that’s definitely not the case with Aguamenti. I could just brush it on and get this without any manipulation or glitter-placing at all. It’s awesome.

I really like the way this paired together. I was going for something complementary; I wanted a glitter that would make the color pop a little more, and vice versa. The gilded orange is so rich and bright; the glitter glistens like jewels. I knew I would love this look, but I really surprised myself with how much I like it.

Sparkle and Soar is sold on the Color Club website, and wherever else Color Club is sold. Aguamenti is currently in stock in the Digital Nails shop, but has been discontinued. Definitely be on the lookout for these polishes.

I bought these polishes myself.

Manicure Monday: Multipass

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

It’s the first Manicure Monday of November! I am so happy to be wearing these polishes today. I have on one coat of Digital Nails‘s Multipass over two coats of Essie’s After School Boy Blazer, topped with one coat of Ciate’s Speed Coat Pro top coat. Mul-ti-pass.

Sweater.

Multipass is a glitter topper based on Leeloo from The Fifth Element. It is described by Digital Nails as “a crazy clown car of color”, and was an attempt to “capture Leeloo’s essence in polish form”. The colors and shapes are evocative of her; blue glitters match her eyes, orange match her hair, white slices to match that weird flimsy bandage outfit she wears in that one scene. There are also some dark holo glitters and baby shimmers for added sparkle. If you ask me, this is spot-on. Digital Nails really nailed (intended) this one for sure. It couldn’t be closer to perfect.

Multipass was very easy to apply and dried quickly. I had no problems at all with glitters refusing to spread or thick, goopy base. It did eat up my top coat; I’ll definitely use something a bit thicker and glitter-friendly next time.

A quick word about my base polish: After School Boy Blazer is a deep blue-black creme. Application was easy, the polish dried quickly and with a high gloss. It’s very nice, but it was hard to clean off my cuticles. Maybe I deserve it for not being very careful with it. I chose this as the base because it’s the blue that interfered the least with the colorful glitters.

Direct sunlight.

Final word: I love this look. I am a huge, huge fan of Digital Nails’s glitter toppers, and I really think they hit this one out of the park.

Swatch Saturday: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Sell Souls for ISOs (OBO)

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

I got some Halloween costume catalogs in the mail this week, so it’s officially not too early to post this manicure. We’re still looking at long overdue swatches from Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer‘s Halloween 2013 collection. This polish is called Sell Souls for ISOs (OBO); I’m wearing one generous coat of it over China Glaze’s Pelican Gray and Essie’s Fashion Playground.

Sell Souls for ISOs (OBO) is a clear glitter topper with orange shimmer, orange and black glitters, white skull-and-crossbones, and holo orange pumpkins. The skull and pumpkin shaped glitters were new at the time, and that was enough to sell me on this polish (or any polish, really). The description doesn’t really do it justice; you can look at the bottle and see a myriad of different shapes, sizes, and finishes of glitter. It’s a well-rounded mix. The skulls and pumpkin glitters are scarce, I fished for a pumpkin glitter for like fifteen minutes and the only one I got was the one on my thumb. They’re rare on purpose, so that they can easily be avoided, in case you happen not to like them, or happen to be wearing the polish in September.

Application was easy, but because I swirled the polish around so much fishing for glitter, I ended up with a lot of bubbles. The drying time was pretty good for a polish like this; I really blobbed it on and it was dry in five minutes. The consistency was a bit thick, and got thicker as I used it, but that’s to be expected from a polish like this, and is easily remedied.

Outdoors, this polish is amazing. The metallic orange glitters really shine (hee) in direct natural light.

Now for a little lesson on lacquerista vernacular (because sometimes my mom reads this): “ISO” stands for “in search of”, and is used on message boards and such to express a strong desire to own a certain polish. These are often small batch polishes that aren’t widely available or have been discontinued by the maker. A desperate lacquerista might resort to some pretty drastic measures to own it, hence the name of this polish. We all have a polish we’d sell our souls to own. Mine is Lobster Roll from Enchanted Polish. You don’t know the horrible things I’d do for it.

Swatch Saturday: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Self-Satisfied

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Swatch Saturday this week is glitter chaos! I’m wearing Self-Satisfied from Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer, a smorgasbord of neon glitters. I’m wearing one dabbed coat over Eaton Terrace from Nails Inc., and Saltwater Taffy and Skylight from Cover Girl, topped with one coat of Color Club’s clear coat.

BEGL describes Self-Satisfied as a glitter topper “predominantly yellow and green neon glitters with pink, blue, orange, and purple neon glitters, baby blue holo moons, fuchsia dots, and silver holo butterflies”. I’m not sure it’s possible to count every size, color, and type of glitter in this bottle. Attempting to do so would probably result in some kind of head-clutching space madness.

Since I dabbed this polish on, I’m not sure how long it took to dry, but it seemed dry enough after a 15 minute drying period. The glitters spread evenly enough, but I will admit that I placed a few here and there, just to cover some bare spots. Application is pretty typical for a glitter topper like this, but the look you get is so unique and so worth it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve worn Self-Satisfied; I brought it on vacation with me a couple months ago. I took a picture of my nails with the Washington Monument. I’m wearing it over Julep’s Cody.

Self-Satisfied, and well as its insane pink counterpart, Watch the Walls, are on sale at the BEGL store for $6 each. I adore both of these polishes, and I definitely say they are worth grabbing.

I’m going to hijack the end of this post to say goodbye to an old friend. Last August, I bought a four ounce bottle of Seche Vite. Everyone thought I was crazy to buy so much at once, but I was living alone at the time, I couldn’t get to Sally Beauty whenever I wanted, and I got tired of having to buy a new bottle every few weeks. It was so worth the $15 I paid for it. Last Wednesday, I used the very last of that giant bottle. That giant bottle of Seche Vite has gotten me through nearly every manicure in the past year. Good night, sweet prince.

This is the day I got it. My polish is OPI’s Get Your Number.

My interim top coat is Color Club’s clear coat. I’m not sure if this is a full-fledged top coat, but it dries quickly and leaves a nice shine, and that’s enough for me. This is my first time using it, so I don’t know how well it’s going to wear, but we’ll find out. Either way, it’s fun using something new.

Manicure Monday: Glitter Explosion over Orange

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Manicure Monday is so fun this week! I’ve got two fun polishes, Wet ‘n Wild’s Orange Smoothie and Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer‘s St. Nick’s Sweet Treats. I love these together so much. I have on three coats of Orange Smoothie, one brushed coat of Sweet Treats on my accent nails, and one coat of Seche Vite.

Orange Smoothie is a sheer orange with golden shimmer. I like it, for the most part: the consistency was about average, and it dried pretty quickly with a nice shine. The brush was stupidly wide and made a mess, so application wasn’t terribly easy. It is still pretty sheer; I can see my very thin nail line through three coats of it. However, it looks so nice when the light hits it that I don’t even care.

St. Nick’s Sweet Treats is a veritable glitter explosion. It completely makes this manicure. This is the glitter topper to end all glitter toppers. The glitters are mostly white, red, and gold, with smaller glitters in different colors and silver micro-flakies. I am not exaggerating when I say there is a little of everything in this bottle. It applies beautifully; what you see here is one brushed coat. There was no dabbing here, no blobbing, no sponging, no nonsense. The lacquer-to-glitter ratio is perfect. I had no trouble with this at all.

Unfortunately, it stormed all day, and so I don’t have any gorgeous sunlight photos to post. I know this would be a stunner outside for sure.

Summer of Untrieds Day 11: Summer

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Day 11 of the Summer Untrieds Challenge is simply titled “Summer”, so I scanned through the Polish List, looking for something that spoke to me. After a couple of rounds, I found Super Temp and thought it was perfect. After all, what says summer like the temperatures in Florida in July? I’m pretty sure Super Temp is actually a Doctor Who reference, but I’m going to overlook that for now. Anyway, here is Super Temp from Digital Nails at three coats and one coat of top coat.

Super Temp is described by Digital Nails as “a brighter-than-most-can-handle orange coral jelly-crelly, with loads and loads of golden microflakes”. The consistency was a little thick but still easy to work with; I’m going to chalk that up to all the gold flakies in here. There’s a ton of them, and they shine beautifully in the light. The opacity is just right, too; even though it’s meant to be a thick jelly, my first coat was nearly opaque. This is seriously really fun to wear.

I knew I needed this when I first saw it. I don’t own a ton of orange polishes, and I’m always on the lookout for more, especially when they’re as bright and insane as this one. It makes my fingers look tanner, too. It’s a summery color for sure! I’m just sorry I couldn’t get an outdoor sunshine photo of this, it would have been crazy. Actually, if I’d wanted to be accurate about Florida’s summer, I would have used something gray and blah, because it has rained every day this week.

One more thing: you’ll notice the bottom of my bottle is faded white. I actually have a few bottles doing this, and I don’t know what causes it. The polish in the bottle is fine, but the stuff on the bottom is a completely different color. What gives?

Summer of Untrieds Day Six: Orange

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Day Six of the Summer Untrieds Challenge is orange, and my first untried orange on the polish list is Ciate’s Hopscotch, so here we are. I have a ton of untried Ciate polishes from their advent calendars and various nail art kits, so I’m excited to finally use one. I’m wearing three coats of Hopscotch with one coat of Seche Vite.

This one varies a bit in different lighting conditions. In my office, it looks pretty orange, but in the studio, it’s a tomato red. I liked the formula and consistency of the polish, it applies evenly and easily. It dries with a very shiny finish, almost shiny enough to go without a top coat. My one complaint is that it’s still sheer enough after three coats that my nail line is still visible; this is something that’s not too obvious in photos. It’s not a bad thing, really; I’d hoped for more opacity.

You can see the visible nail lines here.

I love orange polish, and this is one I definitely want to revisit in the future.

Wacie.com

Home of Wacie Nail Company

Tag Archives: orange