Something wicked this way comes – wickedly good, that is.
I’m normally of the opinion that Halloween is a bit of a waste of time… unless it gives me an excuse to break out a brand new nail polish of course – and Deborah Lippmann’s Weird Science is exactly the kind of special sauce that spooky season screams out for!
Posted in Beauty
Tagged best glitter nail polishes, best green nail polishes, best metallic nail polishes, Deborah Lippmann, Deborah Lippmann nail polish, Fantastical Holiday Collection, glitter, gold, green, Halloween manicure, Halloween nail polish, Holiday 2014 Collection, manicure, metallic, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, NOTD, review, swatch, Weird Science, where to buy Deborah Lippmann in Hong Kong
Do you believe in magic? Well, if not, may I present you with Christian Louboutin’s Scarabee I.
Duochrome colours – metallic shades that shift different colours in different lights – are certainly nothing new in the nail polish world, but that certainly doesn’t stop me feeling a giddy sense of wonder every time I wear one… and Scarabee I is no exception.
Posted in Beauty
Tagged Beaute Louboutin, Beauty, Christian Louboutin, Christian Louboutin Hong Kong, Christian Louboutin Nail Colour, Christian Louboutin nail polish, Christian Louboutin Scarabee I, copper, duochrome, gold, Louboutin nail lacquer, Louboutin nail polish, Louboutin nail varnish, Louboutin Scarabee Collection, manicure, metallic, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, NOTD, photos, review, Scarabee Collection, Scarabee I, swatch, where to buy Christian Louboutin in Hong Kong, where to buy Louboutin nail polish in Hong Kong
Metallic polishes are ten a penny and dime a dozen these days (phrases which would both make for decent metallic nail polish names actually!), so it takes something pretty special for me to sit up and take notice of one. And with a name like Screaming Bright – and a colour that lives up to it – MAC have achieved just that!
MAC’s Screaming Bright is part of their recent permanent collection of polishes – a pale yellow gold that is SO bright, it almost starts to look silver… if that even makes sense! This is some seriously SHINY shizzle.
Posted in Beauty
Tagged Beauty, best metallic nail polishes, cosmetics, gold, Mac, MAC cosmetics, make-up, metallic, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, review, Screaming Bright, silver, swatch
Nail polish by non-nail polish specialists (other than Chanel, of course!) is rarely worth bothering with. Easily dupe-able colours but at insane prices means that the big brand lacquers are usually worth bypassing… but then in comes Estée Lauder, ready to destroy my theory!
For Fall 2012, Estée’s creative make-up director Tom Pecheux has unleashed an awesome array of new nail varnishes inspired by Paris’ classy but dazzling night lights. The result? Annoyingly unmissable nail polishes that are a hell of a lot more expensive than the ones procured during my Cher2 trips!
Nouveau Riche is an absolutely stunning bronze-gold, with a duochrome shift that takes it to rosy pink, champagne gold and even a hint of olive-green thrown in there too! Again, it has that awesome glowing metallic finish made up of lots of teeny-tiny glittering gold flecks and flakes but that is resolutely not a glitter (think Chanel Graphite or Butter London Wallis); seriously, this finish is totally rocking my world right now, it’s just the perfect look for a really refined sophisticated metallic, but which still has enough complex shimmer to shake a sock at.
Posted in Beauty
Tagged Beauty, best metallic nail polishes, cosmetics, Estée Lauder, gold, make-up, Metal Mania Collection, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, Nouveau Riche, review, swatch
I’m never one for following the seasons with my nail polish (I mean… have you seen how often I wear glittery “holiday” colours?!), but if you’re looking for a perfect fall colour, you can’t go far wrong with Butter London Wallis.
This beauty made its way to me thanks to my lovely make-up mule Justine after many months of lusting – but it was definitely worth the wait. Generally, I don’t lose too many sleeps over Butter London’s limited (and stupidly expensive) availability in Hong Kong as their colours aren’t really that special (their British slang names which have been confusing American bloggers for years with hilarious consequences, are pretty priceless though), but Wallis is definitely one of their smash hits and unique enough to warrant pursuing across the oceans!
Posted in Beauty
Tagged Beauty, Butter London, cosmetics, gold, make-up, metallic, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, review, swatch, Wallis
It’s been a while since I posted – but this is the perfect polish to break the rut… Chanel Graphite.
Oh, Le Vernis Graphite… j’adore.
After using Graphite, my first Chanel polish, I was completed consumed by the desire to buy as many of their lacquers as possible, without care for cost or availability or anything else similarly level-headed – THAT is how good it was. However effusive I am in the rest of this review, trust me, it isn’t enough!
Graphite is just amazing. I’ve seen lots of posts that make it look like a charcoal silver, which it most definitely isn’t. Instead, it’s a gorgeous glittering green gold, burnished blackened and utterly brilliant. In some lights, it flashes a shimmering silvery khaki but this dirty dazzling delicious fool’s gold is by far the more dominant colour. It’s simply a joy to behold and I make abslutely no apologies for the abundance of photos that follows as a result!
The other amazing aspect of Graphite is its finish. It’s a cross between a foil and a glitter but is obviously neither and yet more than both put together. It looks amazingly textured but is totally smooth to the touch. It’s Extra Special in a way that words that also name an expensive supermarket ready-meal just cannot do justice to. In my collection, it’s also utterly breathtakingly unique.
I was also blown away by the pure quality of it. I felt I didn’t need to do anything. It just flowed perfectly from the bottle to the brush and onto my fingernails in a neat perfect shape. I always hear the term on polish blogs ‘applied like butter’ and have never really had cause to use it – but this stuff really seemed to melt like magic onto my talons.
For those not familiar with Chanel nail polishes, the chunky square cap lifts off to reveal a small round screw cap that allows better grip for application. The brush itself is slightly short but medium-sized in thickness and I encountered no problems with it whatsoever. However, by this stage, I was in such a state of general giddiness that the brush could have been starfish-shaped for all I’d have known – I just could not stop staring at my nails!
If you look up images of graphite itself, it’s amazing to see how Chanel have managed to transform the mineral’s exact qualities and shading to a polish. It also reminded me of another mineral – pyrite, also known as fool’s gold – and the colour is just this wonderful textured mixture of gold, silver, green, charcoal and black, with shadows and shimmers in all the right places. It’s gorgeous from up-close, it’s gorgeous from far away… I imagine it would almost be gorgeous with your eyes shut too!
It’s so glittery, it pretty much glows in the dark but despite it’s glitz factor, it absolutely never feels obtrusive, ostentatious or OTT. It also reminded me of a shimmering sheath of snakeskin – slinky, glitzy, totally divinely luxe.
Wonderful colour, fabulous quality, a sense of sophistication, a luxurious glamour that’s still tasteful… It’s basically everything I ever hoped and expected from Chanel but had been afraid to believe was true. Well, it all was!
Looks good with: black, sophistication, The Look
Drying time: <5 mins
Coats required: 1-2
Chips: 2-3 days
Shimmering in the shade!
Chanel Le Vernis Graphite, Fall 2011 Illusion D’Ombres Collection, $180, Chanel
Posted in Beauty
Tagged Beauty, best glitter nail polishes, Chanel, cosmetics, favourite nail polish, gold, Graphite, Illusion D’Ombres Collection, le vernis, make-up, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, review, silver, swatch
As anyone who’s read any of my previous nail polish reviews will know, I have a habit of being Goldilocks-levels of exacting about colours. So like Turquoise & Caicos was the result of a quest for a true turquoise, Pamplona Purple the quest for a pink-based purple that popped and Bekka the quest for the exact shade of yellow that Pixie Lott wore in a music video (bloody hell, I really don’t make it easy for myself, do I?!), China Glaze’s Midnight Kiss was the end result of a quest for the perfect gold.
Metallic nail varnishes are ten-a-penny, glittery nail varnishes dozen-a-dime, but a good gold is hard to find. I didn’t want a simple shiny gold gloss or a lacquer that looked like a kindergarten’s craft cupboard had exploded in it but for it to seem as if I had coated my nails in gold leaf. Like the gilt edging you get on fancy encyclopaedia pages or the sheets of stuff that Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen was always advocating we apply to just about every hard surface on Changing Rooms, it had to be dense, shimmery and stunning. Midnight Kiss was spot on.
Did I also mention that I didn’t want it to be too yellow either? I wanted a champagne-infused sparkle rather than brassy Bet Lynch glare. Midnight Kiss delivered that too.
A pale buttercup foil that built to a glittery but not gaudy intensity, Midnight Kiss was pure tinselly brilliance (it is part of their Holiday Collection after all, hence the nice touch of the brushed silver lid). I’d experienced some problems with the finish of a previous China Glaze polish but had no such issues this time. It applied and dried super-smooth and super-fast. Although I find glittery polishes have a tendency to get streaky, China Glaze’s brush fanned out nicely to ensure a beautiful even finish, with two (or even one) coats proving sufficient.
What I loved was how evenly and densely-packed the sparkle was. None of this kiddie glitter-glue type effect but a pure hit of genuine gold. It might be a bit too full-on for traditionalists to consider it for everyday wear, but its mellow blonde qualities mean it isn’t overly flamboyant. And the great thing about gold is it goes with literally everything. This would look absolutely amazing with black, or even chocolate brown tips (if only I had the nail polish skillz to achieve such a look).
If Midnight Kiss were a Christmas bauble, it would be a proper posh M&S sparkler, rather than a cheap and cheerful Primark wonder. Midnight Kiss delivers a hefty dose of grown-up glamour for the nails, any time of the year.
Looks (especially) great with: black, chocolate brown, all-year round festive spirit
Drying time: <5 mins
Coats required: 1-2
Chips: 3 days
China Glaze Midnight Kiss nail polish, Winter 2010 Tis The Season To Be Naughty Or Nice Collection, $60, Cher2
Posted in Beauty
Tagged Beauty, best gold nail varnishes, China Glaze, Christmas Collection, cosmetics, festive, foil effect, gold, Holiday Collection, make-up, metallic nail polish, Midnight Kiss, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, review, swatch, Tis The Season To Be Naughty Or Nice Collection, where to buy China Glaze in HK
I'm Rachel Read, a Hong Kong-based freelance writer and editor, make-up addict and general layabout. I'm powered by bacon, cupcakes, nail polish and the needs of two cute Yorkies.
All products/meals were paid for by me, unless otherwise stated.
Contact me at
rachelmread+ttlg@gmail.com
Photo by Sabrina Sikora Photography
© Rachel Mary Read and Through The Looking Glass, 2010-20.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material (including photos) without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.
Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Rachel Read and Through The Looking Glass with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Through The Looking Glass by Rachel Read is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Through The Looking Glass 