Ethereal Lacquer - Looking Glass Swatch & Review

Oh, hey. Monday.

The first Ethereal Lacquer swatch I ever saw was of Looking Glass and I remember just being like, uh, yeah, I need that. It took a couple months, but I found somebody who wanted to swap for it, and then I swatched it. For you! I did that for you!

Looking Glass is hard to describe kind of. It's a bit sheer and it's got linear holo and a bright green flash (that, in certain light, looks peachy orange), but I don't know what the heck to call the base. White? Silver? Halp!

Because of its sheerness, I've layered it over China Glaze - Dandy Lyin' Around since it isn't a totally opaque, stark white -- I wanted to keep a bit of the, I don't know, ethereal quality of Looking Glass. The formula was easy to work with but I don't think it would ever build to complete opacity on its own. Or maybe I'm just too impatient.

Meh.

Shown below is three layers of Looking Glass over Dandy Lyin' Around with a coat of Essie G2G on top.

It's a lovely, soft dreamy color that I desperately wish was less sheer. I'm sure it would make a nice holo topper (which I look forward to experimenting with different bases to go with that green flash).

The Polish Bar - Shiny Pebbles Swatch & Review

Frans.

I've had two nail breaks in the last four days; the ring finger of my swatch hand and the middle finger of the other. I'm right-handed so my right hand's nails don't usually ever get to grow past the very tip of my finger because of how gawky-handed I am. I do believe I've mentioned this.

Also my skin is soooo dryyyy. This Ohio Winter has been rough. I'm ready for Spring and flowers and sunshine and.. allergies. The bad with the good, blah blah blah.

I hadn't heard of The Polish Bar prior to seeing Shiny Pebbles on a Pinterest ISO board. I pinned the crap out of it and went about my business as I had just enforced a no-buy. So lame, no-buys. Anyway, after a few polish sales, I kicked that no-buy in its stupid face and bought a couple polishes from my want-list and Shiny Pebbles was one of them. Glitter in a milky base will forever be my favorite polish genre, however much I hate the word "milky". Ugh.

Shiny Pebbles is a milky white base packed with orange, light orange and brown hex glitter in varying small sizes and turquoise small square and micro glitter. The result is a non-literal translation of what reminds me of river rocks and it is so great.

The formula, despite the amount of glitter, is smooth and super easy to work with and reaches opacity in two medium coats. I used three thin coats over a coat of Rejuvacote, finished off with another layer of Rejuvacote. I need more fast-dry topcoat ASAP-- my Essie G2G has turned into a gloopy disaster and I finally accept that, sigh.

So, uh, yeah. I love it. There is such an ungodly amount of awesome indie polish out there, a lot of which I'm sure I'm not even aware of yet. 

It looks like Shiny Pebbles is out of stock (and I'm not sure if it's going to be restocked anytime soon or what) but you can see and purchase other lovely polishes by The Polish Bar here.

Sinful Colors - Pride Swatch & Review

HEY.

I GOT COLORS TODAY.

Sinful Colors - Pride is red and pale yellow and green and blue and magenta hex glitters in varying sizes suspended in a slightly thick, clear base. I have a couple other polishes like this (Ulta - Pinata-Yada-Yada and Milani - Gems) but this one definitely has the best glitter payoff. The formula isn't unbearably thick, either. I feel like this would be perfect for a glitter gradient!

Swatches show Rejuvacote as the base, a thin layer of Essie - Waltz, three medium coats of Pride and no topcoat.

For good measure, I then added a thin layer of Essie - Waltz. I looooove how it dulls the metallic shine of the glitters. This reminded me of a more muted China Glaze - It's a Trap-eze, which I don't yet own but have been considering getting. I have such a thing for glitter in a white base, which I'm sure I've said before.

Party on my nails!! This was, however, a little bulky what with the layers. In the future, I'd probably be a little lighter-handed with Pride and stick to using it as a full-coverage polish as an accent nail or two.

Dollish Polish: Expecto Patronum Swatch & Review

I've been an HP fangirl from day one, for realsies. There's nothing that gets me in the feels more than fantasy and magic and blah blah pushing my glasses up and living in my mom's basement and all of that. My patronus would for sure be, like, a potato. So, anyway...

Expecto Patronum is a (not too) sheer milky white base with small aqua hex glitter in varying degrees of smallness (some of which are holographic!) and magical iridescent shards. I know I rave, like, a lot on this blog, but I LOVE THIS POLISH.

Sunlight

Cloudlight

I bought this polish from a Pinterest sales board and it's slightly older, round-bottle style. Some of the glitter has settled against the side of the bottle (and I will be googling methods to correct this shortly), but the glitter payoff was still good. I didn't struggle getting an even dispersion of glitter at all. I used three coats for full opacity, but you could probably be fine with just 2. Also, I'll probably just layer this over while next time. It applied super smooth too.

This polish is definitely made of happy thoughts, man.

Funky Fingers Solar Collection: Solar Flare & Lil Miss Sunshine

Solar Flare

Solar Flare is a seriously lovely neon yellow creme with green shimmer that is supposed to turn bright brick-ish red in the sun. 

Two layers over white on ring finger, four (!!!) layers on the rest

I haven't bitten my nails since I started this blog, PS. Slowest. Growing. Nails. Ever. The middle one broke, to be fair. Also, you'll notice that my ring finger has a layer of Zoya Purity (white) under the Solar Flare since we all know that's how neons are supposed to be, you know, worn, or whatever. Formula-wise, the polish is a little on the thick side and coverage isn't great if it's not layered over white which is pretty normal as far as I know.

dat shimmer

What stands out for me about this polish is the green shimmer. That's good and bad, because what should probably be the selling point of a color-changing polish is its, um, ability to change colors. 

I mean, okay. It's definitely a more orange-toned yellow and not neon anymore. But it's definitely not anywhere near the color it said it would turn in the sunlight. I shall henceforth refer to this polish as Solar Normalcy.

Then there's this little fella:

Lil Miss Sunshine

Lil Miss Sunshine is a pearly white creme that's supposed to turn orange in the sun. You know, it doesn't specifically say "in the sun" anywhere on the bottle. It says "OUTSIDE". I didn't, however, go outside. I opened my window and stuck my hand in the sunlight. Maybe that's what the problem is... maybe you have to actually BE outside. Maybe the polish knows....

Two layers over white on ring finger (it's my right hand, PS), three on the rest

I think I might change the name of this blog to "Pictures of How Effed Up My Fingertips Look". I seriously have got to have the deepest-ridged fingerprints in this entire world. And I can't even grow my nails out too long because when I try to put in or take out my contacts I, like, scratch my corneas off. MY LIFE.

Anyway, it's pearly white. See? Aaaand now in the sunlight:

It goes a nice pastel apricot. Orange, no. Still a fruit, I guess. And it's a pretty nice color all the same, but still not the in-your-face color change I was hoping for. I declare this polish Lil Miss Peachface.

So there it is. You can pick these guys up at Five Below for $3 a pop. Other colors included a bright teal that changes (maybe) to a dusty blue-grey, a bright bubblegum pink that changes to a darker version of itself and a vivid fuchsia-purple that changes to eggplant.