Fashionista Nails Review

Recently, a dear friend I met a few years ago in another world (yes, another world) contacted me to let me know she was creating a product I just might be interested in.  Since we met in that other world, we've become friends in this one and she's seen the many photos of my fingernails I post up at Facebook, and she joined the "Nail Polish Collectors" group there. Fantastic group by the way, join us! Erin of the Tropical Mind Blog started the group and we share photos, lemmings, whatever. If you haven't joined that party, you are missing some fun (and maybe missing out on contributing some fun too!)

I digress.

My friend Esther and I chatted a bit and she offered to send me some rough samples.  I'm talking about something I've been tweeting and facebooking about for a few weeks now. Fashionista Nails!  

Ok, I know what you're thinking: "Everyone is doing nail covers. I've seen them, don't need to see anymore." Let me tell you and then show you what's different about these.

1. They are water decals, not stickers. Full nail coverage in a water decal. This means easy removal folks, this means you can move them around until you get them placed where you want them without messing them up.

2. They are precut so you just do a little snip snip and they're ready to play with.

3. They wear like regular nail polish, so if you keep the tips touched up, they'll last for a few weeks providing you stay out of water and all the regular things you want to avoid to keep your manicure looking nice.

4. And this is the best one: They are sheer...but not so sheer that you can't see the beautiful designs on your nails, but oh the fun I had with this part! You put them on over nail polish 

The first set I tried was named, "Seduce" and I wasn't crazy about it on the paper, but I put it on over Orly Glitz and Glamour to make the lines pop and it worked. I'm rogue like that...I read the instructions and then interpret them my own way.  Take a look: (and you can click pics to make them larger)

I will tell you now, that manicure is a week old there. :)  I got lots of compliments on this manicure.

So, I wore some other colors and took my time cutting out the next set...so that when I sat down, I could do them all and see how long application would take in the new format (precut!)  After laying down the polish bases, it took me about 20 mins to do the whole decal application/sealing thing. So it adds about the same amount of time as a basic Konad design, but you get a bit more...and you can konad over this stuff, add bling or what ever the creative muse tells you to do.

For the second set: "Fever" I decided to play around with the base color. On my pinkies I used a Pink Foil from Europe that has no name, ring fingers got Orly Glitz and Glamour again, Middle got Nfu Oh #61, forefingers got a coat of Sally Hansen Celeb City (or some similar silver foil) and the thumbs were a base of China Glaze Millenium.  So you can see how the different base colors can change the overall look. Check it out (and remember to click!)

These photos were also taken about a week into the manicure...so I remain impressed. I couldn't see the wrinkles that the macro setting sees.
I love how the ring finger looks more festive in a holiday kind of way...and the holo underneath the design is just amazing. My favorite one.

See?

Overall, I will probably get a few more to keep around for special occasions when I want to rock something completely different that allows for me to add my own twist. 

I think the price is right there with the "norm" for manicure items similar to this, but this is more versatile and honestly, it was fun to have a different base color under each one...kind of an artful skittle. 

I made a video and when I figure out how to post it to my Youtube from my phone, I'll post it up. You have to see the holo in action.

Fashionista Nails has a Facebook Page and a Twitter account in case you want to follow them. Last week they gave away a couple sets to followers. But you can see the designs here: http://www.fashionistanails.com/designs

What do you think of these?

Nubar Spark - the Office appropriate Prismatic/Holo

Like Ange-Marie (happy early Birthday woman!), I am a holo-whore. So I had to get the entire Nubar Prisms set when I got a killer discount and could afford to order it along with the Nubar Reds (which are also absolutely divine!)

I chose Nubar Spark to wear first because I had a big business event I had to attend and I was the person doing the checking in of all the business women. I thought this was a nice color to use for the event, understated but with some bling in the right light. It wasn't really noticed and that's pretty much what I was going for. Yeah, I saw a few eyes diverting to my nails, but no one said anything. Success!
Here is Nubar Spark in evening sunlight: (you can always click the pics for a bigger view)

In the shade with the flash from my cell phone:

Again in the evening sun/shade...almost my prism mannequin hand?

One more time!

For this mani, I used all Nubar products: 2 coats Foundation Base Coat, 2 coats polish and 1 coat Diamont Top Coat. This manicure wore so well, I was truly impressed. The Nubar products work very well together and gave me a mani that lasted a week and might have gone long had I been able to avoid boredom and need a new color to look at. You can get Nubar nail products at www.bynubar.com

I have to say, this isn't the most prismatic/holo nail polish I own, but it is a holo that is suitable for the office and for that the Lizard give it a rating of Toasty. I'll wear it again for work or when I need that understated bling that Nubar Spark is so good at delivering.

Sea and Be Scene

Hi everyone, I had to post this one up now. I love this mani!
I used smART Nails stencils # N003 and N049 for the waves and N030 on my pinkies with just a slathering of holo-ey goodness on the thumbnail tips.

Sun!

Polishes used: Sally Hansen Sea and Be Seen, Milani Cyberspace for the waves and thumbtips and China Glaze OMG for the Dolphins and accent on the pinkie nail.
I love this so much that the RBLs that arrived today will have to wait til Monday unless this chips.
Sea and Be Seen is so much like sparkling ocean water on a bright sunny day. I love it. I purged my stash of just about all the drug store brands and decided I'd keep this one.

Shade!

So much cool stuff going into the upcoming contest...put your creative caps on, I'm aces at coming up with a fun challenge!
This manicure is for my niece, Julie. She loves the Dolphins and I hope, one day, she'll come visit so she can see them. Maybe we'll row my raft out and see if they'll come visit. :)
(as always, click the pics for detail)
The Lizard rates this one: Sizzling!

On another note, I have to say, the RBL bottles look so much bigger on the web than they are in person...not disappointed, just thinking you all have itty-bitty hands! I have big mitts with long fingers, so I'm going to learn how to play the piano!
Til Monday, have a wonderful weekend!

Purple Holo Comparison

I did this comparison back when I did the Silver holo comparison, but it took me a while to learn more about The Gimp so I could get these pictures together for you. It's been a fun time (really) learning how to use this open source program!

On to the polish. I wanted to compare Milani Hi-Res, China Glaze IDK and LOL (both from the OMG collection), and Color Club's Wild at Heart.

I started with Hi-Res on my pinkie:

IDK went on the Ring Finger (I have no idea what that wrinkle on the tip is about):

Wild at Heart on the Middle Finger (with matte top coat on the tip = Fail)

LOL on the Index Finger (again with Matte tip = less fail but still fail):

And then I did the layering of IDK with Hi-Res over the top:

When you look at the Thumb next to the pinkie - Just like the Silver Holo comparison, the rainbow is more pronounced in the layering and the sparkle of Hi-Res adds interest.:

And again I applied matte topcoat to half the thumb and it basically lost all it's holo-y goodness, but I had to try. Since I did this at the same time as the Silver holos, I hadn't learned NOT to matte a Holo. Here's the full line up:

Wild at Heart and LOL are very much the same color with Wild at Heart having a chunkier look, not quite as chunky as Hi-Res, but chunkier than the smoothness of LOL and IDK. Wild at Heart seems to have a bit more purple to it, but they are very similar. All of these colors, like holos do, dried in record time so I had to work quickly to apply them smoothly. 

I love them all and I'm glad I have every single one!

Til next time!

~The Lizard 

Holy Holo Fun Batman!!!

I have acquired quite the collection of Holo Polishes...and yet, my collection is incomplete and I need MORE! HEHEHEE!
I had some fun with Milani, China Glaze and Color Club and the intermittent sunlight we had yesterday while waiting for the Tsunami to hit the Santa Barbara Coast. Things were a little tense downtown, but here at home we have an 80 foot drop from the bluffs to the ocean, so I wasn't worried. It turned out to be uneventful but with all the earthquakes happening, the hubster and I decided we would be wise to make sure we have plenty of bottled water in case the big one hits close to home. Santa Barbara is somewhat isolated from travel in the event of a big disaster as we learned when the mountain fell in 2005 cutting us off from most suppliers. Our grocery stores were almost bare when they finally reopened the roads.
Our lifestyle has us basically prepared anyway, but we need to keep a few gallons of fresh water on board too...but I digress into unhappy things..., let's move on to polish, shall we?

I chose Milani HD and China Glaze OMG to compare and play with, Take a quick look:

What you're looking at: from Pinkie to Thumb: Milani HD 3 coats, ChG OMG 3 coats, OMG topped with HD 2 coats OMG, 1 coat HD, HD 3 coats with ChG Matte Magic over the top, and on the thumb I did OMG on the left side (upper in this pic) and the omg/hd combo like on the middle finger on the right side (lower in this pic) then I put Matte Magic over the top.

Let me say first off, putting a matte topcoat over a holo, takes away the Holo completely...and you cannot get it back. Nope, not even if you put a shiny topcoat on top. Look:

See? Nuthin'.

Let's move on, shall we?

Here's a closer look, side by side: click it!

Now, I don't own Nfu Oh #62, but I think Middle finger just found a good dupe! I'm telling you, getting that smooth rainbow topped with the chunkier one and it was blingtastic! Gorgeous! Those of you who do own the Glorious #62, please tell me what you think, I need to know if I still need to add it to my hubby's buy list. :)

I love Holos for their color and for their drying time. I will say that HD was MUCH easier to apply, just smooth and nice as I don't give each layer much drying time, I don't have the time! :)  OMG was a bear, dragging polish for the first two layers so I applied it a bit more thickly for the third and it evened out. I used no top coat for the non-matte nails.

I will definitely layer the Milani Holographic polishes over the corresponding China Glaze OMG series colors because it's just so much more holographic. I like having options!

PS: For those of you having issues with blogger, be it posting, commenting or whatever. Get Google Chrome. DO EET NAO!! It works seamlessly and I am in heaven.