ILNP Ultra Chrome Gradient

Hello my dears, today I have one of my absolute favorite manicures to show you.

I found ILNP a while back and have been growing my collection quickly! And by quickly I mean 3 or 4 polishes from each of her collections. Barbara makes some of the most amazing polishes I've ever seen! Today I will be showing you three of her Ultra Chromes that were released in 2013: Mutagen, Cygnus Loop and Birefringence.

Mutagen is a chrome polish that shifts from vibrant green, blue, red, orange and slightly greenish gold depending on the angle of your fingertips.

Birefringence shifts through various shades of blue and purple, to red, orange and sometimes even yellow.

Cygnus Loop shifts from bright purple to orange, yellow and green.

All are formulated without the need for a base color with full coverage in 2 coats, however I always find that black undies work best and prefer to use that in order to use less of my precious polish.

All photos are taken indoors under artificial light and have one coat of black undies and top coat. The gradient starts with Mutagen at the cuticle and then Birefringence and Cygnus Loop closest to the tip.

When moving your hands at different angles under the light, the color shifts are quite prevalent. All three shifting at the same time is quite amazing!

I love this picture because you can actually see bright green, blue and purple on my thumb then half green half teal, pinkish purple and royal purple on my other fingers. Possibly even a little orange on the left side of my pinky. The photo is a little washed out, but the color shifts are stunning in real life!

At times, it appeared as though there were 6 different colors on my nails at once. I'm wearing this mani as I type up this post and I honestly can not stop looking at my hands.

ILNP has a wide variety of polishes from cremes and glitters to amazing holographics (and Ultra Holos!!!) to Ultra Chromes. You can shop Barbara's store at www.ILNP.com but be warned....do not visit when you are on a no-buy! You will break it, and be ashamed of yourself at how weak you are.

There are 4 new Ultra Chromes with her new Spring 2014 Collection along with some sweet pastel holos and ultra holos. I picked up a few and cannot wait to show you what I'm sure will be more amazing color shifting beauties and holo magic.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Linda

Julep Melanie

Today I'm wearing Julep Melanie, described as a pastel indigo metallic chrome. This is one of the polishes I received in my Julep Maven It Girl Box for August, and I was very excited because it seemed like it had a fabulous purple base in the swatches on the Julep Blog even though the bottle looked just plain blue.

To my upset, the purple I thought I was seeing must have been a trick by my monitor. What a shame! The color is still very nice and the chrome finish on this polish is one of the better ones I've seen. I was just a little let down due to my inaccurate expectations. Aww well.

This is two coats of Melanie and one coat of Seche Vite. Application was very smooth and I didn't have any issues with dragging or excessive brush streaks being visual.

 

This last picture was taken outdoors in a moment that the sun was behind the clouds. I love the way that you can see the fabulous metallic sheen in the bottle.

Overall this polish was very nice. It faded relatively quickly but I'm sure you could keep up the color with new top coat every other day.

Have you tried any of the Julep Metallics yet? Do you have a favorite chrome polish?

~Linda

China Glaze Bohemian Collection

Hi All! Ugh I've been so busy that I've had no time to play with polish. The first suckers I reached for were of course my lovelies from the China Glaze Bohemian Luster Chrome Collection. After seeing a few swatches on other blogs I decided to get only the polishes that I knew I was going to love. There are a few that are just totally not me (i.e. Swanky Silk, No Plain Jane).

All pictures are three thin coats but these are very well pigmented and two coats would be sufficient if applied properly. Brush strokes can be seen in the polish due to the chrome finish but that's to be expected. 

First up is Unpredictable which is described as a multidimensional green and I would have to completely agree with that. There are soo many different shades of green, and even blue, in this polish that no two pictures look the same. Here are a bunch to show you just how flashy this polish is!

 

 

Next is Want My Bawdy which was definitely the most sheer of these polishes. This goes on as a grayed out purple but as the coats add up the purple definitely becomes stronger. On the nail the duo chrome is barely existent but it changes from a purple to slight blue tint.

Deviantly Daring is my absolute favorite! This polish is soo rich in color and fabulousness I want to paint my walls with it! After buying my first bottle, I immediately bought two more. Yes I know I know, I'm obsessive. I can't help it. This has to be the best polish I've ever seen! It's described as a bold peacock teal and I think that suites it quite well. Of course my name for it would have been "Awesome Sauce"!

The last polish that I bought was Rare & Radiant. There was soo much fuss over this being yet another dupe for Chanel Peridot that I decided just to get it to see the big deal. I never wanted Peridot or OPI Just Spotted The Lizard because the color just didn't appeal to me. Now that I bought this and tried it out, I know I was right. The color is just not me. Coverage was good and the formula was just as nice as the others.

Overall I really like this Collection. There are some dupes or colors that we've seen before but I think that this was probably one of China Glaze's most anticipated collection in a while.

Side Note: I ordered these online from Head 2 Toe Beauty and this was my first time ordering from them. Since these have the 'special' silver caps I was kinda peeved when I received Unpredictable and the cap was all chewed up (you can see it in my bottle picture). Just because I ordered the product online doesn't mean I should get something that I wouldn't have picked up myself and bought at the store. After two completely unapologetic emails from customer service and pictures sent by me, I received a replacement cap. No brush...Just a cap that must have been on a red polish because there is traces of red inside the cap. I have no clue how to remove the brush from the damaged cap and put it into the new one. The larger problem is the completely ridiculous customer service. I cannot believe that no form of apology was ever made. Needless to say, I don't think that I will be ordering from them again.

Sorry for such a long post, but I hope that one more round of photos might help you make your decision if you have not yet gotten your hands on this collection.

Thanks for stopping by! 

~Linda

I Got A New Com-pewter

Today I am rockin a bright new polish! This is I Got A New Com-pewter from the Wet n Wild Chrome Collection and boy oh boy is it shiny! The lime green color is amazing but the formula was a little thick and gloopy. The bottle is essentially mini at .29 fl oz and retails for $4 USD but I'm sure this will rock for stamping. 

This is two coats with no top coat and the pictures were taken outside in morning sun. 

The color of this polish changes quite a bit from natural sunlight to artifical light so here is a pic from inside. I love that the polish actually looks much more rich indoors while maintaining it's 'chrome' finish. 

The Wet n Wild Chrome Collection consists of 8 different polishes although the display I saw only had about 4 and this lime green was the only stand out. I've seen swatches online since buying this and there are some awesome looking colors but unfortunately not in Walgreens I found this at. 

Overall the polish was pretty good. It dried relatively quickly and you might be able to get away with one coat if applied properly but I had some dragging. I'd like to get my hands on a few of the other colors to see if the formula is the same on the whole collection. 

So what do you think? Would you wear a lime green chrome polish?

~Linda

Julep Maven August - It Girl

Morning Chicas! I got my August Julep Maven box the other day and wanted to show you some pictures of what I got. I received It Girl this month which comes with 3 polishes and added on the 2 Boho Glam polishes. Julep Maven was also celebrating their 1 year anniversary so they included a nice little tote bag in the box.

It Girl came with a liquid silver metallic chrome named Harley, a pastel indigo metallic chrome named Melanie and Sienna, a shimmery gold which was actually not a new polish launched in August. Harley looks like all the other silver polishes I own but Melanie and Sienna are both new colors to my stash. 

 

I added on a soft milky-white metallic named Isla and a mint-teal metallic chrome named Piper that were the 2 colors from the Boho Glam box. These are my two favorites out of all that I received this month. Both are soft colors but very beautiful. 

Overall, I don't think that any of these have that amazing 'chrome' finish that I am always searching for and never find, but they are pretty good. I'll pull together some full swatches sometime soon.

If you are interested in trying the Julep Maven subscription you can get your first box for 1 cent by using the code PENNY at checkout. The great thing is that if you don't like it you can cancel and won't get slammed with the full cost of the box. You can check out their intro boxes here and if you use my referral link it would be greatly appreciated! 

Thanks for stopping by! 

~Linda