China Glaze When Stars Collide

I had been incredibly underwhelmed at China Glaze's Hologlam collection. (I'm thinking Color Club's Halo Hues have ruined me for any other linear holos) But as swatch photos started popping up, A couple of them caught my eye. 

The holo particles in this collection are much finer than some of the in-your-face holos we've seen lately, lending to their more subtle appearance. When Starts Collide is a plum purple base packed with holo.

Application is tricky. Thin coats are key, as is waiting a couple of minutes between. I used a quick dry top coat and found that the effect diminished slightly at first, but came back strong when completely dry.

NerdLacquer All of Time and Space

I saved my favorite NerdLacquer for last. This wasn't on my must-have list for the store opening at all, but it was available, and pretty, and another Doctor Who inspired one, so in the cart it went.

All of Time and Space has a mint-ish green base with a prominent silver shimmer. In the mix are small and medium fuschia hexes and small silver ones. Application was cake. Two coats and a layer of top coat. Easy peasy.

NerdLacquer Don't Blink

NerdLacquer Don't Blink is the other polish that got me drooling over NerdLacquers and crying because I didn't get any before Amanda went on hiatus.

It's modeled after one of my favorite Who monsters, the Weeping Angels. Monsters that don't kill you, but zap you back in time and swipe some of your life energy. They're lightning fast and turn into stone if you look at them. Blink, and you're zapped. Hence, Don't Blink.

Pictured are two coats of light grey creme polish with small black and medium white/silver hex glitters. This photo shows a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly in Love over it all. I didn't realize that all of the non-matted shots were blurry until I started writing the post. I prefer it matte anyway as it really brings out the stone look!

NerdLacquer I Think You Call Me... Sexy

This is one of the NerdLacquers that got me lemming NerdLacquers. It sings to my nerdy, Doctor Who loving heart. Inspired by the TARDIS, this polish gets it's name from Idris, the woman-form of the TARDIS from one of the brilliant episodes written by Neil Gaiman. 

I Think You Call Me... Sexy has a cobalt blue base loaded with varying sizes of silver hex glitters and a warm red/gold shimmer. There are just two coats shown here and all of the glitter lays perfectly flat with just one coat of top coat. I've went through almost a whole bottle of NYC Grand Central Station. A great fast-dry top coat for $1.97 at Meijer!

NerdLacquer I Aim to Misbehave

The next NerdLacquer I have for you is I Aim to Misbehave. Oh, Firefly. Oh, Mal. This one sings to my nerdy heart. If you're not familiar, Firefly is a sci-fi western-ish Joss Whedon TV show that was cancelled after one season and caused an uproar in their fandom. Fox didn't care, and it's gained popularity since then. There's also a movie, Serenity. (Both are on Netflix and should be enjoyed by all sci-fi lovers!)

But, the polish. :) A wine-colored base filled with blue/silver shimmer varying sizes of gold, blue, and reddish glitters. I think. Who cares? It's pretty. I used two coats of top coat with this one. As Amanda says in the description, "It's a gorram glitter bomb." 

NerdLacquer The Quantum Bluniverse

The Quantum Bluniverse is the second of five NerdLacquers I got my mitts on, and it's a beauty! TQB has a blue jelly-ish base that is packed with gold and blue hexes in varying sizes, gold flecks, and a bit of a duochrome blue/green shimmer. Super busy glitter bomb of a polish, but I love it to bits! 

I used two coats here, and application was a breeze. No dragging, no need to place or dab the larger glitters, and no need for undies.

And, taking a cue from Mish at Accio Lacquer (you guys have to check her out if you haven't already. She's hilarious and her nerdiness just sings to me!), I mattified this baby with a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly in Love. I love how easy it is to see the details when glitters are matted. And see that tiny bit of tip wear? That's about 3 days in. 

For info on restocks, follow NerdLacquer on Google+. And practice your lightning fast fingers. These polishes are gone before you can blink. ;)

Zoya Nyx

Nyx is the second PixieDust polish I ordered from Zoya's original release. As with London, application was simple. Here, I used 2 thin coats over CND Stickey base coat. The key is to let each coat dry before adding the next to avoid dragging the texture to the end of the nail. Dry time was excellent with both, and they wore really well on me. I believe I got 5 days out of Nyx.

I had a reader ask about removal of the PixieDust polishes. Taking these polishes off was fairly simple. Nowhere near as difficult as with glitter bomb polishes, but only slightly more work than with a shimmer or flakie polish.

Zoya London - My first PixieDust polish

I was wary of the whole "textured polish" trend, but after hearing such rave reviews of Zoya's offerings, I decided to try a couple from the original PixieDust release. 

First up I have London, a beautiful grey with a large amount of silver shimmer. Application was super easy. I used two thin coats, no base coat and no top coat. Just make sure you let the first coat dry before adding the second, and you're golden! 

OPI Spotted Black (!!!!) over China Glaze Mani's Before Mimosa's

I don't know if you guys know about OPI Black Spotted, but it was released with their The Amazing Spider Man collection in the summer of 2012. Only in Sephora. In France. So, this is a very limited Limited Edition. I tried to get my hands on it for a long time to no avail, so I jumped quickly when I saw that one of my IG friends had a few spare bottles for sale. 

The premise is the same as with crackle polish. When your base coat of polish is completely dry, paint on a very thin layer. The cool thing about this one is that there is no waiting. It immediately starts to look like an oil-slick on your nails. It also dries super fast and super shiny. I would definitely throw on top coat because Spotted wore off within a day or so.

China Glaze Mani's Before Mimosa's

This is the second polish I picked up from China Glaze's Avant Garden collection. The swatch photos I saw online looked absolutely beautiful. However, this is an excellent example of why I need to read more closely. 

Why? Because the formula on this one was all kinds of awful. Thick, but runny, streaky, and not self-leveling at all. There are three coats to this mani, and it was still a bit of a struggle to get even. Luckily the color is an awesome light coral/peach with gold shimmer. Makes the application hurt less. :)

I cannot conclude without addressing those silly apostrophes. Or shall I say apostrophe's? Ugh. Did your naming people quit school before learning about apostrophes? Does anyone know if this is a reference to something that I'm unaware of? It drives me absolutely crazy. If I were an English teacher, kids would hate me.

China Glaze Fancy Pants

Today I've got one of the two polishes I picked up from China Glaze's Spring collection, called Avant Garden. 

Fancy Pants looks to be a blurple to me (blue/purple), but I've seen it described as both cobalt blue and purple. Either way, I love it. There is a smattering of pink/copper shimmer particles that I think are fairly visible indoors and blatantly obvious in the sun.

The formula was beautiful. Above is two easy coats. I probably could've gotten away with one, but I prefer the look of two. I'm super thrilled with this one. Not so much with the other polish from this set, but that's a post for another day!