; Plisherrific: April 2018

Apr 30, 2018

Navy Frills - Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Wildcard, White Lace Water Decal


I thought jazz up last week's manicure as well as get a move on with my ever-increasing stash of water decals....

[Dainty]
...and here's the result! Something nice and simple! To tell the truth, I considered doing a stamp the base shade at first but stamping was just not working out for me that night! So water decals, it was!

[Bottle to nail: Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Wild Card (2 coats)]
My base shade was Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy in Wild Card, a blue jelly-creme polish.

[Base: Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Wild Card (2 coats); Water Decal: White lace]
I chose a white lace water decal and carefully cut out sections the width of each nail. Always remember to remove the plastic film over water decals before dunking them in water! After a minute, the decal should slide right off. With small pieces like these, it's easy to get them folded over and hard to position them properly before they stick.

[Base: Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Wild Card (2 coats); Water Decal: White lace]
Here's some quick tips for water decals:
Get your nails wet so you have a bit of extra time for repositioning. When the decal starts sliding off the backing paper, keep the decal mostly on the backing so it maintains it's shape, leaving an edge free. Place the free edge where you want it on the nail, then hold that in place, and slide the rest of the paper off. Hope that makes sense! It certainly makes things much easier for decal placement!

Remember, topcoat after to keep the decal firmly stuck down!


Apr 23, 2018

Blue Jelly - Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Wild Card, Diamond Top Coat


I finally got around to using one of the gifts from Jme for my last birthday!

[Bottle to nail: Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Wild Card (2 coats)]
This was fun to try out! This shade is Wild Card from the Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Range.

[In the box: Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy 2 Step kit]
This particular shade comes in a set along with the Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Diamond Top Coat. In combination, this is supposed to give you a gel-like finish while working like a normal polish (ie. no curing!).

[2 coats: Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Wild Card]
First things first, it's a lovely slightly dusty blue shade. The formula was slightly prone to flooding and was uneven with one coat but evened out nicely with the second coat. However, it tended to bubble, which is not an issue I have encountered for quite a while!

[2 coats: Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy Wild Card]
It's a bit of a combination between a jelly polish consistency and a creme, which gives a nice squishy finish which I assume if where the "gel finish" comes in. Dry time was better than I expected from the formula so that was a nice surprise.

Overall, I don't think it's all that gel-like - you could get the same finish from any creme polish and a good topcoat, but maybe you'd have to wait a bit longer between coats. As a regular polish, it's a nice staple shade, and a good thin topcoat for cremes.



Apr 20, 2018

Midnight Rainbow - Holographic powder

More mysterious holographic powders that I got from EV! She actually sent me a bunch of photos of what they should look like on the nails but it was hard to guess what powder I was using based on the photos so I pretty much picked at random.

Anyway, this one was a much more successful experimentation!

[Holographic powder]
The result is this gorgeous deep purple-orange chrome with intense linear holographic microglitter.

If you look carefully at the edges of my nails, you can see that I used a white base coat. On top of the white base coat, I used Emily de Molly's Special Effects Base Coat before applying a lot of the powder! Then I sealed it all with Born Pretty's Mirror nail polish top coat. No UV polish or light necessary.

So, using the white base coat served two purposes. One, so that you cannot see my nail line. Two, so I can see if I'm applying enough coverage for a powder with a dark base. When I tried a light base powder against white nail polish, I definitely didn't apply enough of the powder so the effect was fairly muted. A dark powder shows up much more clearly against a white base.

That said, a dark base powder against white nail polish definitely has difficulties where the white shows up starkly in places and you need a lot of the powder for full opacity. I'll try for middle ground next time.


[Holographic powder]
In these two photos above, you can see the purple sheen in the first and the orange sheen in the second. This was a very pretty mani!

Apr 16, 2018

Oxidative - Emily de Molly Rustic Vibes


I'm back with yet another holographic polish..!

[Galvanised]
It was a bit difficult to capture this one, but I've tried my best...

[Bottle to nail: Emily de Molly Rustic Vibes (2 coats)]
This is Emily de Molly Rustic Vibes, a rust-leaning red holo with larger holographic glitter particles. The combination of the red holo base and the holo glitter gives it a scattered holographic look, with a subtle linear holo.

[2 coats: Emily de Molly Rustic Vibes]
As you can see, it looks different in all the photos! In real life, it's more of a deeper, slightly darker red. I think the first photo is closest in shade to what it looks like.

[2 coats: Emily de Molly Rustic Vibes]
Formula was great as usual with excellent opacity. I used two coats here and topped off with topcoat. Nice and fuss-free, but I'm undecided if it stands out all that much from all the other red holo polishes I already own!


Apr 13, 2018

Emerald Shine - Dance Legend Strutter

Look at this beauty! This is Dance Legend's Strutter from their Wow Prism collection.

[Dance Legend Strutter]
Strutter is an emerald green jelly with holo shards. It's stunning and eye-catching. My one criticism is that the holo doesn't stand out much on the nails. Overall, it's opaque in one or two coats, and applies smoothly. I love the Wow Prism nail polishes, and I'm eyeing some others now.

Apr 5, 2018

Pearlescent Moon - Holographic powder

So, this is my first time trying those holographic powders and I don't think I did a really good job, haha.

[Holographic powder]
The powder was a gift from Ev, so I'm not going to be naming where they're from since I've no idea. My camera isn't very good at capturing holo, but it really wasn't that holographic on my nails in person either.

I think it's because I didn't apply enough of the powder and at the same time, I'm not completely sure if the top coat I'm using for it is very effective. So I'm using Emily de Molly's Special Effects Base Coat. It seems okay as a base coat, lots of powder stuck to it. Then I used Born Pretty's Mirror nail polish top coat to seal in the powder, which I'm told should work as well. So no UV top coats here! I like that there's less work since I don't have to deal with UV lamps and waiting, but at the same time, the holo seemed less obvious after the top coat was applied.

While the result is still pretty, it's not as holographic as what I've seen in all the pictures online. I've got to figure out what I'm doing wrong here!

Apr 2, 2018

Plum Preserve - Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith, Essie Ignite the Night


Something about the combination of basecoat, polish and topcoat didn't quite work out for me last week which is pretty curious as I generally get excellent wear time from Dance Legend polishes...

[Va-va-voom]
So I used a go-to method I haven't had to employ for some time... Pop some glittery tips on!

[Bottle to nail: Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith (2 coats)]
My base from last week, the very sexy Achieve the Zen-ith from Dance Legend - a magenta-leaning purple linear holo.

[Bottle to nail: Essie Ignite the Night (tips); Base: Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith (2 coats)]
I was uhhmming and ahhhing over whether to do gold or silver tips when I spotted this one in my collection. Essie Ignite the Night - a gorgeous dark silver/gunmetal glitter.

[Base: Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith (2 coats); Tips: Essie Ignite the Night]
I think it goes very well with the vampy base shade! I basically taped off the tips and dabbed the glitter polish on to ensure full coverage. Then topcoat topcoat topcoat to smoothen it out!

[Base: Dance Legend Achieve the Zen-ith (2 coats); Tips: Essie Ignite the Night]
Very happy with how this turned out and it's making me think I should pull out my glitter polishes more often (I have A LOT.) =p