Perfect Plum - Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith

I find that I'm building up quite the collection of holographic polishes - they're just sooo sparkly..

[Plum gorgeous]

That said, this one is actually pretty understated though, don't you think?

[Bottle to nail: Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith (2 coats)]

This pretty is Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith - a gorgeous deep plummy/magenta purple linear holo. I don't think I have a shade quite like it, even though at first glance it seems like quite a common shade.

[2 coats: Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith]

I really like something about this shade though. I don't really like straight purple polishes (le gasp!) but tweaking it towards the pink spectrum really does it for me!

[2 coats: Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith]

The holo flame is not overly in-your-face, but it is still a good amount of sparkle for such a rich shade. Formula was great as always, self-levels and dries smooth and glossy, although I used topcoat anyway as usual!

Violet Voices - Dance Legend Anthem

Here's one of many gifts from Ev. :) This is Dance Legend Anthem and it's a beauty!

[Dance Legend Anthem]

What is there not to love about a purple holo? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Anthem is a vibrant purple polish with linear holo and chunky bits of holo to up the wow factor. It's a smooth application, and opaque in two coats. There's certainly no shortage of holo here!

Net Gain - OPI This Color's Making Waves, Hit the Bottle Purple Reign, Bundle Monster BM-208

 I decided to jazz up last week's polish with some stamping goodness so here it is...

[Eye-catching]

I really quite like this effect of the gold sparkle peeking out between the stamping! Apologies for the tipwear in these photos... I'd had the base on for a week at this point.

[Bottle to nail: OPI This Color's Making Waves (3 coats)]

Quick recap - my base shade is OPI This Color's Making Waves, a blue shimmer polish with scatter gold microglitter.

[Base: OPI This Color's Making Waves (3 coats);
Stamping: Hit the Bottle Purple Reign, Bundle Monster BM-208]

I chose the stamping pattern above off Bundle Monster plate BM-208. It kinda could pass for scales or fishnet! I'll choose fishnet to keep up with the beach/sea theme going... =p

[Base: OPI This Color's Making Waves (3 coats);
Stamping: Hit the Bottle Purple Reign, Bundle Monster BM-208]

My stamping polish was Hit the Bottle Purple Reign - such a gorgeous royal purple shade! Against the blue base polish, it definitely takes on a more royal blue hint. No issues at all with either the plate or the stamping polish, both picked up and transferred beautifully onto the nail.

I was quite happy with how this turned out in the end! The contrast between the two shades and textures is really striking, and a lot more obvious in real life.

Blushing Pink - Born Pretty Shallow Love (G008)

This is Born Pretty's Shallow Love or G008, and it's a nail polish that does a lot. It's a peel-off thermal sunlight-sensitive colour changing nail polish. What a mouthful!

[Born Pretty Shallow Love]

Here, you can see the thermal colour changing part of the nail polish under indirect sunlight. The nail polish is a pink-lavender where it's warm and a dusty rose at the tips where it's cool. I'm pretty impressed at the nail polish's sensitivity to temperature because it's still summer here, and I've seen many thermal nail polishes that show no colour difference on my tips when it's that warm in summer. And my nails aren't very long either, so I wasn't expecting to see much difference in colours so I was pleasantly surprised here.

[Born Pretty Shallow Love]

And here's the nail polish under direct sunlight! A completely different colour in a fuchsia shade. There's supposed to be a different thermal colour for where it's cool under UV light but all that is showing up is the warm + UV shade, which makes sense because my nails felt pretty warm under direct sunlight, haha.

I also did try the third element of the nail polish which is the peel off aspect. The nail polish peels off easily too. As someone who does tend to chip my own nails and then peel the whole lot off eventually regardless of whether it's a peel-off nail polish or not, I think I have quite a lot of experience in this. :P  I can confirm it peels pretty great and more than that, I'm impressed that it did last me a few days while also being easy to peel when I chose to peel it, unlike my other peel off nail polish that started peeling itself within a day.

Okay, about the nail polish: The brush is very thick, I have never used such a big brush before. You only need one swipe of the brush to cover your entire nail. You have to be sure to get rid of as much of the excess nail polish as you can because the nail polish kind of just clings to the thick brush. It isn't gloopy or thick, there's just a lot of it on the brush. Apply each coat as thinly as possible and let the coat dry before applying the next coat. I think that's the best way to get a smooth application.

I'm pretty impressed by how much is going on in this nail polish!

If you're interested in this nail polish, you can get Shallow Love from Born Pretty and use our code above for discounts on non-sale items!

Sandy Beach - OPI This Color's Making Waves

It's been a really hot summer so far, argh~ So I might as well have a cool beachy manicure to take my mind off it!

[Bottle to nail: OPI This Color's Making Waves (3 coats)]

This is OPI This Color's Making Waves from the Hawaii collection. It's a slightly frosty blue shimmer which almost looks duochrome at the edges (but isn't!) with lots of tiny golden glitter flecks in it.

[3 coats: OPI This Color's Making Waves]

Formula-wise, this required three coats to be fully opaque. It has a thin texture so is slightly prone to flooding during application. However, it dries in decent time with minimal streakiness.

[3 coats: OPI This Color's Making Waves]

The gold flecks are really quite interesting - they are quite scattered but sparkle randomly. Really gives that sand and sea look to this manicure!

However, from afar, it's not super obvious so it ends up just looking like a foil-like blue shimmer. An interesting one to try, but I'm not sure I'll be revisiting this beach!

Red Hound, White Tooth - Hit the Bottle Drop Red Gorgeous, hehe plate 079, Sally Hansen Ivory Skull

Even after all this time, I still have occasional stamping failures. I don't know what happens, but something goes strange. But I'm going to post it anyway!

[Base: Sally Hansen Ivory Skull
Stamping: Hit the Bottle Drop Red Gorgeous, hehe plate 079]

[hehe stamping plate 079]

So this is a houndstooth mani, using hehe plate 079, and Hit the Bottle's Drop Red Gorgeous, a chrome red stamping polish on Sally Hansen Ivory Skull, a white creme polish as the base.

[Base: Sally Hansen Ivory Skull
Stamping: Hit the Bottle Drop Red Gorgeous, hehe plate 079]

It's a little bit patchy and weird, but it's an okay mani I suppose.