Tag Archives: nail lacquer

China Glaze Sea Spray nail polish review

Posted on March 7, 2011 | 2 comments

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Over a week without a nail polish blog – what’s going on?! So here’s China Glaze’s Sea Spray to get us back into the swing of things – and how!

Of all the new spring collections, China Glaze’s Anchors Away was the one I was most excited about and of all the new nail polish colours, Sea Spray was the one I absolutely had to have. Of course, Treg’s Luck struck again, meaning Sea Spray was the only colour missing from the collection when it first arrived in Cher2 (yes, I was there the first day…), meaning I *had* to stake out both branches until it arrived. Thankfully, it was all I dreamed of… and more.

The perfect shade of dusty blue has been a long-time Macguffin of mine so I was overjoyed to find it encapsulated so wondrously in Sea Spray. And since it’s the absolute ultimate blend between a light powdery blue and a pale dove grey, no other brand need bother me with dusty blues again. I’ve found my lobster (sorry non-Friends watchers)!

Despite a streaky first coat, you soon end up with a meltingly creamy finish, with just the merest hint of a pearlescent shimmer bubbling under there too. What’s more, this stuff goes the distance, staying chip-free in style for well over a week.

Since it hung around so long in immaculate fashion, I decided to see how it might look with some sparkly top coats. I gave it one coat of White Cap (a white-based gold glitter pearly shimmer from the same Anchors Away collection) and Last Friday Night (a supposedly blue but actually very sheer chunkier glitter from OPI’s Katy Perry line) and, although the greyness is diluted a little, the results were dazzling! A cross between a snow globe and the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio, I think this looks like magic dust got sprinkled on my fingers (click for a close-up of its frosty goodness!). Way to make me fall in love with Sea Spray all over again!

A slightly more delicate duck-egg blue, Sea Spray completely makes good on its evocative name. I just think it’s too pretty for words – the kind of colour subtle enough for day-to-day wear yet flattering enough to still garner plenty of compliments. It’s fresh enough to make it an obvious spring choice, yet grey enough to make it look charming all year round. It’s soft, it’s lovely and it’s mine, all mine!!! Can you guess that I like it?!

Looks good with: muted pastels, sparkly top coats, pretty things
Drying time: 5-7 mins
Coats required: 2-3
Chips: +7 days

China Glaze Sea Spray nail polish, Spring 2011 Anchors Away Collection, $60, Cher2

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OPI Miami Beet nail polish review

Posted on February 21, 2011 | 1 comment

OPI’s Miami Beet was another result of my abortive attempt to buy some colours from their new Texas Collection (abandoned as the ‘sorbet’ finish being too sheer for my liking). OPI are apparently famed for their berry cremes and chucking one or two out with nearly every collection – and if Miami Beet is anything to go by, I can see why!

I applied Miami Beet at night and was concerned that it looked too much like Essie’s slightly dull Rock Star Skinny. Thankfully, Miami Beet is much more a morning lark than a night owl and came gloriously alive (if not quite chirping!) in the daylight. The very definition of a rich raspberry, it’s the ideal half-way house between dark cerise and beetroot purple (and not as bright or as magenta as the bottle appears either).

It was also one of the best formulas I have rocked from OPI in a loooong time (don’t be fooled by that watery first coat!). Glassily glossy, creamily smooth and opaque in an even two coats, it dried quickly and stayed chip-free.

Having wanted to nibble at my nails all last week thanks to China Glaze’s delicious Heli-Yum (my other anti-sorbet purchase), Miami Beet was just as edible. We seem to be in the midst of a frozen yoghurt craze here in HK and I could barely look at my nails without thinking ‘Mmmm… Very Berry’! Mulberry, raspberry, loganberry, cranberry – take your pick! (Or, if you want to go for fruit in a slightly different state… claret, burgundy or sherry!)

It’s muted and mature enough to work for work but not so dull that it fades into the background. It also transcends seasons – warm and rich enough to fit in with velvety fall shades but light and bright enough for summer too (and it was actually released in spring!).

Like Essie’s Silken Cord, a red so perfect I’ve not felt the need to have any others in my collection, Miami Beet will definitely be my go-to berry shade for the foreseeable future. And not a ‘sorbet’ finish in sight!

Looks good with: just about everything
Drying time: 3-5 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: +5 days

OPI Miami Beet nail polish, Spring/Summer 2009 South Beach Collection, $70, Cher2

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China Glaze Heli-Yum nail polish

Posted on February 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Remember my quest for the perfect hot pink? It wasn’t quite as long-winded as my search for Pixie Lott’s yellow, nor as die-hard as my search for a true turquoise and it certainly didn’t entail as many miles as my search for Gosh’s Gasoline but it eventually ended abruptly and slightly unhappily with Essie’s Fiesta, a colour that looked perfect in the bottle, on samples and indeed, in photos but which looked like I’d scribbled my nails in with a Muji gel pen in real-life. Well, I’m now happy to report I found my perfect hot pink without even looking. It’s China Glaze’s Heli-Yum.

I’d originally intended to buy one of the pinks from OPI’s Spring Texas Collection, yet on seeing the supposedly innovative “sorbet” finish (i.e. too sheer for me), I was guided towards the more easily opaque Heli-Yum. A candy-coated bright raspberry creme, it looked even more edible on my fingers than it did in the shop.

China Glaze are fast becoming my favourite brand – the cheapest in Cher2 but with a gorgeous array of colours and consistently high quality results. I was a little worried as Light As Air, which came from the same Spring 2010 collection Up & Away, had been a little gloopy with a lumpy finish but no such problems with Heli-Yum. In fact, it was probably the best yet I’ve tried in terms of formula and application, a smooth and glossy one-coater that dried quickly to boot.

I totally loved Heli-Yum. It was almost good enough to eat (please note: Through The Looking Glass does not recommend you actually try and eat it). It’s the picture perfect shade of hot pink for me, a creamy cerise that’s supremely flattering rather than being sunglasses-needed shocking.

Truly scrumptious!

Looks good with: summer brights, sweets, fun
Drying time: 3-5 mins
Coats required: 1
Chips: +5 days

China Glaze Heli-Yum nail polish, Spring 2010 Up & Away Collection, $60, Cher2

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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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Zoya Pinta nail polish review

Posted on February 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Oh Zoya. We’ve come this far and you’ve never disappointed me but I suppose it’s inevitable we’d have a falling out eventually. Well, I’m afraid the time has come. The reason? Pinta.

Your website says Pinta is a dark purple creme. The bottle is a dark purple creme. And yet when I apply it, I just see dark navy inky blue.

Lots of bloggers also seem to think it’s the perfect ‘blurple’ shade (have they heard of the word ‘indigo’? Because I’m fairly sure that’s the colour ‘blurple’ is meant to be!) but I could rarely catch the deep grape colour that everyone else seemed to see. Sometimes, when the sun was shining hard, my nails were angled just right and all the planets were aligned, I could just about catch it, but mostly it was like an eternal midnight on my nails.

Desperately seeking purple: Take 1 (regular lighting)

OK, I’m overdoing this a bit because even when Zoya nail polishes aren’t exactly what I had in mind, they’re still better than most other polishes on a good day. The formula was fantastic, opaque in just one coat, although it could have been a little glossier and dried a little quicker in my opinion. As ever, I find Zoya’s brushes by far the easiest to work with and although it’s such a strongly pigmented colour, it came off easily and without staining. And if you wanted a deep dark inky blue, then this would be great. But I didn’t – I wanted blurple. I mean indigo.

What I really wanted was the bottle colour that had drawn me in the first place, a soft creamy indigo that you could get lost in. Dark? Yes, but still definitely visibly purple. But once on the nails, at times it even seemed closer to jet than purple! And it’s also worth noting that it looks WAY more purple on all my photos than it ever did in real life!

Desperately seeking purple: Take 2 (strong sunlight)

After Edyta, another ultra-dark Zoya shade that I liked but didn’t love, I think I’ve worked out that I’m not really a fan of these really dark hues. I guess I save that stuff for my eyeliner.

I’m afraid Pinta just isn’t for me, Zoya, but I’m sure we’ll patch things up soon!

Looks good with: the knowledge that it really isn’t that purple
Drying time: 10 mins
Coats required: 1-2
Chips: 3-5 days

Zoya Pinta nail polish, Fall 2009 Dare Collection, $80, Cher2

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OPI Suede You Don’t Know Jacques nail polish review

Posted on February 11, 2011 | 1 comment

The only problem with OPI’s Suede Collection? Once you wear one, you’ll never want to take it off. And such was the case with You Don’t Know Jacques.

A soft velvety take on mink with that trademark matte micro-glitter finish, You Don’t Know Jacques in Suede is yet another winner from the collection. C’mon OPI – this 100% hit rate is getting boring! It’s a tawny taupe transformed into a muted muddied copper thanks to that dense shimmer effect, and it’s the perfect matte take on the whole greige trend. I absolutely adore it.

This is the third Suede I’ve reviewed now (following the stunning Lincoln Park After Dark and Ink) and all the pros and cons are still exactly the same. Super speedy drying, excellent coverage from just one coat, a fat brush that is impossible to use on my pinkie and more chips than you’ll find in the deep-fat fryer at McDonalds. Seriously, it’s ridiculous. 12 hours spent lying flat in bed and you’ll probably still have some chips to show for your efforts.

Of all the drawbacks to have, chipping quicker than an Olympics 100m race is a pretty big one, but somehow OPI Suedes still have me coming back for more. You Don’t Know Jacques is no different – it’s a really subtle soft but sophisticated shade, highly versatile and a contender for a different take on work-wear nails. It looks really dreamy matched with pastel pinks, greys and creams yet also looks ultra-haute against black. I’m going goo-goo eyed even thinking about it.

There’s just something about that suede finish that is, as my good friend Alex Perry would say (with strong Aussie accent for best effect), ‘expensive’. You Don’t Know Jacques might just be the most expensive of the lot.

Looks great with: soft pastels and neutrals, workwear, luxury
Drying time: <1 min
Coats required: 1
Chips: <24 hours

OPI You Don’t Know Jacques nail polish, Fall 2009 Suede Collection, $70, Cher2

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Majolica Majorca V1494 nail polish review

Posted on February 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

On my epic quest for Gosh Cosmetics, I had some happy accidents along the way (although this makes it sound as if I was merrily wetting myself upon arrival at each Watsons store – not the case I assure you). One such discovery was Majolica Majorca’s V1494 nail polish.

V1494 – snazzy name, right?! However, that’s pretty much the only thing about this polish to dislike. Almost too sparkly for words, it’s a bright violet-based glitter packed with more twinkles than you could shake a magic wand at.

Majolica Majorca is the drugstore sub-brand of Japanese high-end cosmetics company Shiseido, and can be found in most Sasas and selected Watsons. The whole line is very typically Japanese – overly cute girlie packaging, pretty feminine colours, liberal heaps of sugar and spice and all things nice… you get the picture. Their nail polishes are suitably packaged in 3ml teeny tiny bottles (so much so they can’t even fit their ingredients list on!) – but my, do they pack in some polish for your buck!

V1494 is part of Majolica Majorca’s Jeweling Line (and yes, it pains me to write that typo but that is how they’ve decided to spell it…), designed especially for creating glittering and glistening nail art. They’re meant to dry in 45 seconds flat and have teeny tiny brushes so you can be as delicate and precise as possible. I’d highly recommend their website, which features lovely step-by-step tutorials on how to create pretty designs that look do-able even to a nail art novice like me. However, despite the rainbow of glitters available as part of the Jeweling Line, V1494 is the obvious standout.

Why? Because in addition to the lushly gorgeous pinky-purple glitter itself, V1494 comes studded with beautiful bigger rainbow-reflecting circles of sparkle that have an almost diamante effect on the nail. It’s an absolute dazzler.

As a topcoat (shown below), it’s seriously stunning. I put it over the tips of Gosh’s Gasoline to accentuate the violet glitter; the overall effect reminds me of the glittering sumptuous jewel tones of an Indian sari, with a cascade of gemstones thrown at it for good measure. Super pretty – I could not stop looking at it.

On its own, it’s perhaps a little gaudy for some, but the mixture of colours and sizes of glitter means that you get a wonderfully three-dimensional effect that flashes in continually entrancing ways whatever time of day it is. It takes three coats to build up the intensity of the violet to opaque levels (a bit of a pain with the tiny brush) and, as with many glitters, you end up with a slightly bumpy and uneven finish, but for nails so blingtastic they’d put J.Lo to shame, V1494 is a winner.

Alas, I didn’t have my stopwatch with me, but 45 seconds doesn’t seem too much of an exaggeration. It also sticks like glue, lasting days without chipping, and as a topcoat could add life to your manicure as well! Glitters are renowned for also sticking like glue just when you don’t want them to but, with my trusty Nail Tek II as a base, I found I could just peel it away, like the white PVA glue you used to use as a kid in school (and which Neil Buchanen was constantly using on Art Attack, of course).

It’s basically WOW in a bottle. Hell, it’s even good enough to excuse that typo too!

Looks good with: purple base coats, jewel tones, not being a shrinking violet
Drying time: <1 min
Coats required: 3-4 on its own, 1 as a top coat
Chips: +5 days

Majolica Majorca V1494 nail polish, Jeweling Line, $38, selected Watsons

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Gosh Gasoline nail polish review

Posted on February 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

After the various trials and tribulations involved in getting my mitts on Gosh’s Gasoline nail polish, it didn’t have much choice other than to be bloody brilliant. Thankfully, it was.

An amazing glittering true purple that manages to be bright but deep at the same time, I can honestly say it’s become one of my favourites. Partly because purple is lucky enough to be my favourite colour full-stop, but mostly on the grounds of Gasoline’s merits alone.

However, in addition to the hard slog that was getting the nail polish itself, application wasn’t exactly a breeze either. As a girl used to salon-quality nail varnish in the forms of OPI, Essie, China Glaze and Zoya, the ridiculously sheer first coat was a bit of a shock. On seeing the initial pale watery fuchsia colour, I wondered if I’d be building up coats quicker than mattresses in The Princess & The Pea in order to get the bottle colour. It took four coats and a long fraught drying time of tackiness, but I finally got there – and it was totally worth it.

Chock-a-block with flecks of multi-coloured glitter, Gasoline is a hypnotising mesmerising shade of purple that was just about everything I wanted but failed to get from Essie’s Sexy Divide. It’s that pitch-perfect purple smack bang in the middle of the spectrum between pastel and midnight. Neither too pink nor too blue, it’s basically the colour I’d conjure up in my head if you asked me to envisage my ideal purple. Eye-catching and still obviously purple in all types of lighting, it especially comes alive against black.

What with the vivid purple colour and the glittery sparkliness, it’s the kind of nail varnish I’d imagine my all-time favourite cosmetics company, Urban Decay, coming out with. In fact, it’s pretty much the polish equivalent of their brilliant shimmering 24/7 eyeliner in Lust. [Gasoline is such an Urban Decay name too.] Then again, it’s also the polish equivalent of the Purple One in a box of Quality Streets too.

A rocky vibrant shade with a gleaming cosmic depth provided by those swirls of glitter, Gasoline had me utterly spellbound. Thank God Treg’s Luck didn’t strike again!

Looks good with: black, love of purple, Urban Decay make-up
Drying time: +10 mins
Coats required: 3-4
Chips: +7 days

Gosh Gasoline nail polish, $78, selected Watsons

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Zoya Edyta nail polish review

Posted on January 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Seems someone at Zoya is a Dancing With The Stars fan… they managed to sneakily name their entire Wicked Collection after its dancers – and even one judge! Edyta, a rich mix of blackened moss green and olive gold, is one such shade.

It’s an elusive colour that pictures don’t really do justice to. On first sight, it reminded me of the rainbow of shimmering golds, blacks and greens in an oil slick. On first application, this changed to a nugget of fool’s gold (posh name: pyrite) I had when I was little – a muted murky shade of blackened burnished gold. Finally, in daylight, it becomes a luxuriously dazzling pine green, shot through with ripples of metallic glittering gunmetal (the colour I managed to capture for the photo below).

Edyta is fascinatingly complex and really rather unique. I did have some problems with the formula, finding it pooled in strange places and that the threads of glitter streaked in funny ways, and it’s extremely stubborn to remove but the pay-off is intense and intoxicating. Although I’m not really one to abide by seasonal rules for nail polish colours, I’d say this is definitely one shade too dark and rich for spring or summer, and indeed for daytime in general. Forget pastels and primroses, this is definitely one to vamp up too!

Somehow, it wouldn’t quite have the same level of exotic mystery if it was named after our own Arlene Philips, would it?!

Looks good with: dark colours, cloaks, the witching hour
Drying time: 10 mins
Coats required: 2
Chips: +7 days

Zoya Edyta nail polish, Fall 2009 Wicked Collection, $80, Cher2

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China Glaze IDK nail polish review

Posted on January 25, 2011 | 2 comments

One of the more unexpected nail trends to emerge for Spring 2011 is the unstoppable rise of glitters. It seems nail varnish companies have (finally!) locked onto the fact that their most bling-tastic of polishes go down a treat all year round, as opposed to just with lashings of festive spirit. In China Glaze’s case, this has meant producing a twelve-strong collection of glittering gleaming finishes for their 2011 Tronica Collection… a task that probably didn’t require too much work as it basically entailed reproducing one of their much-loved and lusted-after sets, the OMG Collection.

Alas, as with most awesome things, the OMG Collection is now preceded by the word ‘discontinued’. Like your favourite ever lipstick shade, your favourite ever childhood chocolate bar or your favourite ever Disney movie, brands seem to just love stashing away the good stuff to cause much stamping of feet and gnashing of teeth all-round. I don’t think I’ve visited a nail varnish blog where the OMG Collection isn’t talked about with a reverence more befitting of the Holy Grail. And bizarrely, I lucked out on finding two such mystical polishes kicking around in the bargain bin at a little toiletries shop down a side-street in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Having now checked out OMG in its entirety online, I have come to the conclusion that I found the obvious best shades (!) – IDK and 2Nite (the worst thing about the set was that they were all named in txtspeak).

Strong sunlight vs shadows (click to enlarge)

IDK is a lovely dusty lavender, a colour I’d love even if it wasn’t for OMG’s special ingredient – a holographic finish. This basically means it shimmers and glimmers in a whole rainbow of colours, like those shiny silvery stickers you used to collect when you were a kid. You know, they had a whole special page in your sticker book and they were the most prized possessions for trading with friends. [So, given the barter value of holographic nail polishes, not much has changed!]

IDK was a joy to apply, even in its two year-old, mouldering on a lonely shelf state (note: not actually mouldering, merely separated pigments and an air of being unloved). Despite having read you shouldn’t apply it with a base coat, my Nail Tek II and I are never parted and I had no problems. Initially, it looked like it was going to streak and pool in strange formations, yet it dried rapidly to a beautiful smooth and even finish with just the one coat. I applied another coat for luck and we were good to go!

Before I wax lyrical about IDK’s many other magical properties, I’ll mention the only downsides. Like many other holographic nail polishes, it chips easily and without warning. Secondly, the formula feels very thin, meaning when it does chip, it flakes away with abandon, peeling off like thin parchment. But even with these negatives, IDK is SO worth it.

It’s an absolute dreamboat of a colour, reminiscent of how you imagined butterflies to be when you were little – actually glittering, a light pretty lilac, flashed through with rainbow sparkles in the sunlight. In short, it’s a total ‘wow’. And whilst some might say it’s flat and dull without the holographic effect (which really does only show up angled against natural light), I even love in its plain old alter-ego as a pale dusty purple. An unusual subtle shade that I’ve not managed to find sans glitter, it’s right up my street.

Think of me as Rio Pacheco, torn between love for both flashy glamorous Jem and more grown-up Jerrica on favourite-ever cartoon Jem & The Holograms – alas, also now discontinued. Sob.

Looks good with: florals, childhood wonder, definitely not just Christmas
Drying time: 1 min
Coats required: 1-2
Chips: 2 days

China Glaze IDK nail polish, Spring 2008 OMG Collection, $80

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