Tag Archives: metallic

Sasatinnie Blue Steel nail polish review

Posted on April 2, 2011 | 5 comments

I promised you reviews of my newly-purchased flakie nail polishes so let’s get the ball rolling with Sasatinnie’s FCGL001.

Oh dear, that’s hardly the most exciting of names, is it? In order to combat this undeserved dullardry, I decided to give it my own name – Blue Steel. Guess who re-watched Zoolander recently!

This means that FCGL001 Blue Steel has no option other than to be really really ridiculously good-looking. And I rather think it is. It’s a steely metallic blue-grey with a river of sparkling silver micro-glitter running through it, plus a scattering of those all-important flakes of rainbow awesomeness. These flakes are actually quite subtle, relatively small and a glowing pink colour but they’re still just as awesome as their showier counterparts.

As I said earlier, I was actually pretty impressed with the formula of this polish. Despite an extremely thin murky first coat, Blue Steel became opaque in just two coats, although I applied a third to intensify the gleaming depth of those awesome flakies even further. It’s also quick-drying and long-lasting, although as a cheapo drugstore polish, it’s unlikely to be part of the ‘3 Free’ brigade (reminder: free from the three biggest nail varnish nasties) and consequently, smelt just as toxic as the ones I remember from my youth. Similarly, the brush shape is nothing to write home about – medium-sized, quite flat, fans out nicely – although since these bottles are slung into a huge vat and no doubt sneakily opened and jammed back once a security guard’s caught them doing it multiple times by excitable schoolgirls, it’s worth checking to make sure you don’t get a brush with splayed bristles. The length of the brush feels rather short, like you’re having to get a bit too close to comfort to the nail to get the job done, but none of these criticisms are serious enough to make you regret the purchase. I mean, these are glittering flakes of rainbow awesomeness, remember?!

For a polish boasting so many elements from the gaudier side of lacquers – glitter, flakies, metallic and all done in blue – Blue Steel is surprisingly low-key but in a confidently gorgeous way. The dusty pewter blue is a really wearable shade that goes with most things but gets balanced out by the fine dusting of silver glitter, which gives it a sexy shimmer without turning it into a circus.

As for the flakies? Well, they’re everything I hoped they would be. They turn Blue Steel into a much more beautiful, unique polish, giving it that extra push of oomph yet staying true to its more subtle take on things. These opalescent shreds, plus the silver fairy dust, give it a depth that makes it all the more mesmerising to anyone that looks close enough. And trust me – that’s something you’ll be doing a lot of once you’ve started wearing it!

Looks good with: cool tones, metallics, doing the Blue Steel
Drying time: <2 mins
Coats required: 2-3
Chips: 3 days

Sasatinnie FCGL001 “Blue Steel” nail polish, Super Dolly Fantasy Quick Dry Collection, $24, Sasa

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Tagged Beauty, blue, Blue Steel, cosmetics, FCGL001, flakies, glitter, make-up, metallic, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, review, Sasa, Sasatinnie, Super Dolly Fantasy Quick Dry Collection, swatch, where to buy flakies in Hong Kong

OPI The Show Must Go On! nail polish review

Posted on March 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

I seem to have been on a bit of a roll with OPI lately – my recent-reviewed Not Like The Movies, Miami Beet and most of all, Parlez-Vous OPI, now rank as some of my favourite polishes period. So let’s usher in another OPI instant classic – The Show Must Go On!

I’ve read lots of posts comparing The Show Must Go On to Mac’s Bad Fairy from its Disney-themed Venomous Villains collection, a magical glittering red-orange-pink concoction in everyone’s photos yet, from when I tried it at a Mac counter, a streaky gritty hellish mess to apply. Whilst The Show Must Go On and Bad Fairy are certainly not identical judging from the pictures, by my reckoning, The Show Must Go On is a simply beautiful colour in its own right.

Not that OPI would have you know. Never have I seen bottle pictures more inaccurate. Google Image this baby and you’ll more than likely see a bright but boring fuchsia staring back at you. The bottle photo at the top of this post is slightly more accurate but still doesn’t nearly capture the depth and brightness of colour, nor the brilliance of its foil-like sparkle.

The Show Must Go On is primarily a metallic pink-based red, with a gorgeous shimmer that seems to come bursting from within the polish itself. It has a fantastically clean and bright finish, jumping straight off your fingers to instantly work its way into any nail polish lovers’ heart. But what makes this polish truly incredible are the subtle shifts in colour that flash at you throughout the day. Red, scarlet, coral, pink, copper, orange, gold – practically every colour from the warm end of the spectrum is there, winking at you like you’re sharing a particularly juicy secret. Needless to say, I couldn’t capture it in photographs, though I’ve tried to compensate with quantity over quality for the sake of this review (though I urge you to click and check them out close up)!

I was also quite impressed with the formula, despite a thin first coat that gave me bald patches all over. Somehow, it worked out its problems by the second coat to give me a truly flawless finish, as clean bright and shiny as a child all smartened up for her first day of school. Sadly, it did the trademark OPI thing of chipping slightly by the third day of wear, but I find their polishes self-levelling enough to fix relatively easily.

This is definitely one of my favourite polishes so far. It’s slightly reminiscent of Zoya’s Gloria, except warmer-toned, multi-coloured and with a more low-key approach to glitter (so not that similar at all then!). Whilst The Show Must Go On definitely boasts a certain shimmer, it doesn’t feel like an additional ingredient, more that it was an inseparable part of the polish all along. It’s festive without being singularly so and unusual enough to distinguish it from the stocking-load of other red foils out there.

Like a flickering flame of the most entrancing candle you’ve ever seen – we’d all be moths if flames were this gorgeous! – The Show Must Go On is a must-see. Get your tickets now!

Looks good with: your inner diva
Drying time: 5-7 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: 3 days

OPI The Show Must Go On nail polish, Winter 2010 Burlesque Collection, $168 for pack of four Mini Teasers, selected Mannings

OPI Not Like The Movies nail polish review

Posted on February 13, 2011 | 4 comments

Remember when I said that China Glaze’s IDK nail polish reminded me of what you imagined butterflies’ wings to be when you were little? Well, we can also file OPI’s Not Like The Movies into the Ethereal Wings Collection. Except that its iridescent mix of shimmering silver, pink, green and purple is clearly a fairy’s wing instead.

Alas, no nail polish company has actually created an Ethereal Wings Collection (though they can bill me for it later!). Not Like The Movies is instead part of OPI’s much-hyped collaboration with Katy Perry, who is at least famous for her colourful and crazy nails, as opposed to another of their recent tie-ins Justin Bieber, who is not. Since this is my first post about one of the Katy Perry colours, I’m going to give in to my rant about how uninspiring this potentially exciting range ended up.

The four colours in OPI’s Katy Perry line are named after songs from her second album – Teenage Dream (a soft pink glitter), Last Friday Night (a blue glitter), The One That Got Away (a bright fuchsia) and Not Like The Movies (silver). Firstly, when you think about the rest of her album, you can instead mourn for the colours that could have been (as invented by me and if KP does another line, she can mail me the royalties later!):

California Gurls (bright Smurf blue, like her hair in the video, or vibrant beach-y yellow)
Firework (multi-coloured sparkly glitter)
Peacock (blue/green peacock’s feathers)
Pearl (barely-there pearlised shimmer)
Hummingbird Heartbeat (tropical coral or turquoise)
Who Am I Living For (angsty edgy blackened purple)

Secondly, the existing colours are ALL WRONG. Although the pale pink glitter does suit the romance of Teenage Dream, the mention of ‘skin-tight jeans’ (plus shots of frolicking in the sea in the video) means it should have been the blue glitter, which applies much paler and dream-like than the bottle colour anyway. This opens up the pale pink glitter for The One That Got Away (which is basically Teenage Dream Part 2 and therefore does not suit a bright colour at all), leaving Last Friday Night to morph into a party colour befitting its feelgood vibe – the fuchsia if you must, yet anything bright and glittery would do. This means the only one OPI actually get right is Not Like The Movies – and get it right they most certainly do!

It’s a wistful shimmering silver that OPI’s PR and photography department aren’t doing any justice to whatsoever. They’re labelling it a ‘sultry silver’ with photos that make it look like your average gun-metal grey. Which it most definitely is not.

With a spectrum of colours almost as difficult to capture as a fairy itself, it’s a beautiful blend of dreamy shimmers and glimmers that casts a spell on all who look at it. It’s rather sheer, taking three to four coats to build up opacity, and since I bought the mini nail lacquer set, I found the simultaneously tiny-yet-fat brush really hard to work with. But it was very much worth it.

A pale iridescent silver flecked with tiny sparkles of silver micro-glitter, it also becomes a romantic pink, a metallic lavender and a sea-foam green whenever the mood takes it. It’s an absolutely enchanting effect that shows up better in the bottle than on my nails in some of my photos but it’s ridiculously captivating in real-life.

The only possible explanation for it so beautiful? Well, I’m settling for a sprinkling of fairy dust, of course!

Looks good with: princess dresses, pretty things, believing in magic
Drying time: 5-7 minutes
Coats required: 3-4
Chips: +5 days

Read my reviews of the rest of the OPI Katy Perry Collection:
• The One That Got Away
• Teenage Dream

OPI Not Like The Movies nail polish, Spring 2011 Katy Perry collection, $168 for set of four minis, selected Mannings

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Tagged Beauty, best duochrome polishes, cosmetics, duochrome, Katy Perry Collection, Katy Perry nail polish collection, Katy Perry Not Like The Movies, Katy Perry OPI, make-up, metallic, nail lacquer, nail polish, nail varnish, Not Like The Movies, O.P.I, OPI, review, silver, swatch

Zoya Gloria nail polish review

Posted on January 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

OK, so it might be a bit late for festive nail polish, but Zoya’s Gloria would work just as in May as it would under the mistletoe.

Zoya winningly describes it as ‘a delicate winter rose’, a description so accurate it practically renders the rest of my review pointless. Many metallic pink glitters tend towards the very bright or the very cool, but Gloria has a lovely warmth to its rosy foil effect. This might be down to its inviting crimson base or its beautiful gold-flecked glimmer, but either way, it’s a highly enticing mix.

I’m a huge fan of Zoya’s glitter polishes. They generally steer clear of using huge particles and instead give you a solid shimmer with a flashy foil-like finish. It’s a mature, grown-up way of wearing glitters, and I approve wholeheartedly.

As with most of Zoya’s varnishes, Gloria applies easily, with a reassuringly consistent formula (strange streaking is a general occupational hazard of glitters) and became smoothly opaque within two to three coats. But Gloria is sheer enough to layer over other polishes with just one coat – pictured is it transforming into a beautiful burnished copper over Essie’s Rock Star Skinny – whilst also being uniquely gorgeous in its own right (a translucent frosty rose since you asked). It also changes in different lights – at night or under artificial lighting, Gloria easily passes as a pink-based scarlet but by day, it’s more obviously a glimmering gold-kissed blush. (Shown above: natural light, artificial light; below: strong direct sunlight; click for enlargements)

Either way, it’s a really rather ravishing shade, with enough to distinguish it from that perennial Christmas favourite, a simple red glitter. But with a colour this pretty, Gloria is a winner any time of year.

Looks great with: gold, glitter, all year-round festive spirit
Drying time: 3-5 mins
Coats required: 2-3 (for opacity)
Chips: 3-5 days

Zoya Gloria nail polish, Winter 2010 Flame Collection, $80, Cher2