Red Treasures - L'elan Vital Red Crackle, The Face Shop GL111

I'm still on vacation and will be for awhile yet, but I intend to continue posting new pictures during this holiday.

As I'm travelling, I actually don't have access to my usual nail polish collection, but I did bring along The Face Shop's GL111, because a shiny gold foil goes with most outfits and occasions, in my humble opinion. :P

I'm visiting my parents, and my mum does have a modest collection of nail polishes. One of them is a recent purchase from Cosway, and it's the L'elan Vital Red Crackle.

[L'elan Vital Red Crackle: Click on the picture for a link to the product.]

The L'elan Vital Red Crackle doesn't actually have a product name, but the product number is 92219. This Korean product is a really easy crackle to use. It dries really fast, and cracks beautifully really fast as well. You won't have time for more than one coat, so make it count. As usual, a thicker coat will produce larger cracks, while a thinner coat will give you finer but more cracks. The red actually dries as a dark pink, but if you go over it with a topcoat, it becomes a deep red that matches the polish in the bottle.

[Base: The Face Shop GL111
First coat: L'elan Vital Red Crackle 92219
Tips: The Face Shop GL111]

The quality of my photos are a little dodgy right now, as I try to find the best spot to photograph my nails in this new location. I do miss my balcony and my billowing white curtain!

There are a number ways to do this manicure. I started with a base coat of GL111, the gold foil, and then went over everything with the red crackle. Then I did the French manicure tips with GL111 by free hand. You could also just tape over your tips when applying the red crackle to achieve the same outcome, I believe.

The only difficulty I faced was that I had to start the gold tips further into the nails than I prefer, because of where the red polish had randomly cracked.

[Base: The Face Shop GL111
First coat: L'elan Vital Red Crackle 92219
Tips: The Face Shop GL111]

These pictures were taken about a week after the manicure was applied, so there is some tip wear seen here.

[Photo taken with an iPhone]

Photos with my iPhone are always that little bit blurrier or grainier, but the positives is that the iPhone camera captures shininess so much better due to the slight blurriness in the photos. :P

I have bought a heap load of new polishes here in Penang, so do hang around for more of that next week!

Jme's Past Plischtures - Catching Up Like A Boss

Here we go, these are a few nail polishes I swatched in the last few months and that I quite liked.

Most of the glossy polishes have either Seche Vite Quick Dry, or Orly In A Snap over them because I am impatient, and because the topcoat tends to make them shinier which is always a plus.



[Ulta3 English Rose]

Ulta3's English Rose is a very pretty red with gold shimmer. I find Ulta3's formula to be rather nice and I like that it isn't streaky like some shimmers.

[LA Splash Ocean Sprinkles over Zoya Tiffany]

I don't have any pictures of LA Splash's Ocean Sprinkles on its own, but it is a light blue-base jelly-ish polish with sparse gold glitter in it. I quite like it and often layer it over other polishes to get that blue hint and glint of gold.

[Orly Here Comes Trouble]

Orly Here Comes Trouble, which is an amusing name to me, consists of small hexagonal glitter among other tiny glitters! Would look gorgeous as one layer against black I think, but only needs two coats for full coverage.

[China Glaze Tarnished Gold and Platinum Pieces over Nubar Night Sparkle]

I have read that the metallic crackles are as good as the creme crackles, but I don't find this to be the case. I think China Glaze's Black Mesh (as seen below) cracks a lot better than China Glaze's Tarnished Gold or Platinum Pieces, both of which tends to be a bit thick.

[China Glaze Black Mesh over Revlon Tropical Temptation]

I do love Revlon's Tropical Temptation, because it's such a cheerful, summery colour. With China Glaze's Black Mesh over it, the mani suddenly gains a cool edge!

[XOX 24 (white-blue) over China Glaze Black Mesh over Zoya Tiffany]

XOX 24 is a sheer white polish packed with electric blue micro-glitter. I have tried it layered over all sorts of dark colours and it really does give manis a zingy, almost sci-fi look. However, XOX polishes also smell incredibly foul. Eaurgh. Use only in well-ventilated places.

[China Glaze Black Mesh over Ulta Silver Glitter]

Black crackle polishes against bright glitter ones are gorgeous! Ulta's Silver Glitter is a dense silver glitter with random holo glitters through it. Quite pretty and only requires two coats for full coverage if your nails aren't very long.

[BYS Cracked Red over China Glaze Black Mesh over Ulta Silver Glitter]

BYS Cracked Red doesn't crack much. It cracks slowly in fine spiderweb cracks as it dries. But it does make the polish easy to flake off in cracked pieces, so you can control how it looks. I think this one looks like an odd macabre goth polish. Topcoat over the lot makes the red crackle stay on.

[China Glaze Atlantis from index to ring finger, Mio Piccolo 03 on pinkie and thumb]

China Glaze's Atlantis is a holo glitter in blue-green jelly base that dries matte. Needs about three/four layers for full coverage. Mio Piccolo 03 (from Korea I believe) comes in a small little rose-shaped bottle, which is quite cute.

 

[LA Splash Embellished]

 LA Splash Embellished (which is actually spelled Embellshed on the bottle) is a very striking magenta polish with holo glitter. One of my favourites from LA Splash.

[LA Splash Sparkling Torpedo]

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh, LA Splash's Sparkling Torpedo is another favourite. Densely packed silver holo glitter, one of the most holographic polishes I have seen. It also dries smooth instead of rough and gritty, unlike most dense glitter. The formula is a little gloopy, but the negative is well worth the pretty you get. Needs about two/three layers for full coverage.

[Essie Matte About You over Nubar's Nubar 2010 over OPI My Private Jet]

I love flakie polish, yes I do. Oh, and because I use matte polish over OPI My Private Jet, the holo disappears of course. But the duochrome (triochrome?) flakies from Nubar 2010 are still as gorgeous as ever.

[Nfu Oh Nfu 40 over Savvy Coal]

Nfu Oh's Nfu 40 (not terribly creative names here) is one of my favourites of all times! From certain angles, it has a purple tinge my camera is not picking up, and it's more blue or green depending on how you turn your hand. Blurple-green flakies are so lovely, and they really remind me of opals, so I had to do a comparison:



How gorgeous is that? Just looking at the pictures make me want to try them on again.


That's all for my catch-up post for now! Tell me what you think~