Cult Nails: Evil Queen and Happy Ending

My favorite stories are fairy tales. Ever since I could read, I love reading them over and over.


At the heart of many fairy tales are evil queens and step-mothers. Kind of makes it hard to take on the role of being a step-mother, in my opinion!


However, these is one nail company that is getting a good reputation: Cult Nails. This company's customer service is top-notch. They are a true grass-roots business. And the part that everyone who tries Cult Nails knows-it delivers.


The newest collection is called the Fairy Tale Collection. I reviewed 'Charming' and 'Happy Ending' here. Next up is 'Evil Queen' with her 'Happy Ending'.

First, the 'Evil Queen' stands alone...

This is a very wicked red. It's not a blue-red but not a tomato red. Cult Nails created a red that is right in between. And, that makes this a red that suits practically all skin tones.


Take a look at 'Evil Queen' with my cool undertone skin...

 

This is a drop-dead red. Even on a cloudy photo day, this red was beaming.

Long nails and red polish. That's my kind of all-out look for wearing nail polish. I have applied a top coat of Lumos High Speed Top Coat.

Want to see how I tweaked it up a notch? I gave the 'Evil Queen' a 'Happy Ending'...

 

 

And I do want to add, this is one coat of 'Happy Ending' over two coats of 'Evil Queen'. I didn't have to 'fish' out any of the shards of colorful glitter. Hey, they wanted a Happy Ending!! 

Both 'Evil Queen' and 'Happy Ending' dried super fast. So fast, that I didn't have any time to gouge or nick my nails. Ah, now that's MY Happy Ending!


For more info on the Fairy Tale Collection, click here to get to the Cult Nails website.

The Fairy Tale Collection was provided to me for my honest review. These are my own opinions.

China Glaze's The Hunger Games; Electrify

China Glaze, recently, came out with a collection called 'The Hunger Games'. I do live under a rock but even I know about this book series and that the movie was a financial success. I think this polish from the collection is a success as well...

 I was eager to swatch this one called 'Electrify'. Heck, even in the shade it looks like it is on fire...

The base is a transparent copper with gold and blood red glitter. This is what one coat looks like...

 I swiped it over 'Foie Gras' (from the same collection), which I reviewed here.  It didn't come out as great as I had envisioned it would...

 Uhm, yea...pass! But don't pass on either of them; they are both worth getting. 'Electrify' can come back for a visit around Christmas, I say.

This I gotta share; check out this caterpillar I had riding on my car...

Seriously, it is one weird insect!! That red dot, the head ???, was super bright. I hope it grows up to be something splendid. Kind of eery I'd come upon some insect that has gold and red on it...like the polish...[cue Twilight Zone music.]

Anyone know what this is???

Orna-ment For Each Other, At Least Through Christmas

Nicole by OPI is a brand I rarely pick up. I will check them out while shopping, but I only have 3 or now, 4. My reasoning is that they rarely have anything I find unique. And, I know, that is an odd remark coming from a nail blogger that will swatch 3 different brands that have similar colors. But, as a lot of nail/beauty bloggers know, we don't always have the most logical reasons for our choices.

Here's my latest Nicole addition...

A Christmas nail polish, if there ever was one. This is 'Orna-ment For Each Other.' Cute name! I do have to hand it to OPI, they come up with fun and definitely, unique names.

There is so much glitter in 'Orna-ment For Each Other' that it is opaque in just 2 coats. But I did the fail-safe 3...

This polish is heavy-laden with micro gold and red glitter. Very shiny; I'm swatching with no top coat. 'OFEO' is gritty, but it isn't difficult to remove like some glitters can be. It wore nicely for the 36 hours I had it on.

 

There's just a one thing I wasn't happy about with this polish. It makes my fingers look red. I think it is the combo of red and gold together. It combines to be an orange and my pallor can't handle it. Sadz.

However, besides that, it is a great Christmas glitter polish. It is feisty and cheery and just Christmas-y.

I'm just sad that the beautiful color 'OFEO' shows in the bottle didn't translate onto my nails. Interestingly enough, the color looks all the same in my photos.

Here, it shows a bit of patchiness, but I'm chalking that up to user-difficulty. There's enough glitter jammed in this polish to counter bald spots. I feel that this is the type of glitter polish that looks good on both short or long nails.

Are you a Nicole by OPI fan? Is 'Orna-ment For Each Other' for you?

Del Sol's Christmas Polish: Tinsel Toes

This just in...Holiday Del Sol polish!!!

 

 

'Tinsel Toes!' I love it! I visited clients that have businesses out at the airport and this is where there is a Del Sol store. Since I found a Halloween polish and I blogged about it here, I stopped in to see if they had any Christmas polishes.

OK, the novelty is neat but I like the colors a lot. The fun of this brand is to show people that haven't seen it. Kind of like magic!

'Tinsel Toes' is a softened gold that is slightly sparkly and understated. It is not an 'in your face' flashy gold. These photos were taken in the shade.

Now watch it change...

A little more red....

Getting darker and redder...

And here it is a magical golden red. However, it comes off a bit like a salmon color on the nails. It's not so noticeable in real life. However, you can see how it makes my fingers look like the infamous 'lobster fingers' where the contrast between nail color and flesh tone collide.

I was surprised, and I don't know why, that this wasn't more opaque. I have on 2 coats and I just finished there because I knew it would take many more to get it opaque.

So, Del Sol's 'Tinsel Toes' is a more subtle sparkle, and after flashy glitter manis and polishes, it is nice to wear something more demure.

Share with me your thoughts on 'Tinsel Toes.'

Is Bigger Better For Glitter? What If I Said Flaky Glitter?

I just have to face the facts. I'm going to wake up and it is going to be Jan 2, time to start a new year and new business contracts. That means Christmas and New Year's Eve will have flown by me and I'll be sitting here with a lot of Holiday polishes I never got to swatch. So, I better get busy!

Realizing this situation, I dug around the to-be-swatched drawer in the vanity. I was all set to pick out my favorite one and get crackin'. My first choice was China Glaze's 'Snow Globe' from their 2011 winter collection. In staying with the comparison theme, I dug some more and found Cosmetic Arts no-name flaky that is now 'Super Size Me Flaky'.

 

'Snow Globe' is the perfect name for this polish. You'll find a mix of holo micro-glitter along with a bit of holo hex glitter.

Sparkle-dazzle holiday. Yes, it does, indeed, look like a snow globe...

I picked this photo because it reminded me of the kid that got double-dog dared to lick a metal pole. You know, from 'A Christmas Story.' I can only guess that the little people in this snow globe are playing hide-and-seek.' But they must really suck at it.

Done digressing...
Cosmetic Arts is missing the fun by not naming their polishes. But, they are giving me some fun. When I first laid eyes on this one, I really did yell out 'Oh, shit!' I couldn't grab this polish fast enough when I found it at Ross'...

I don't think I have another polish that has flakes this size. Thus, 'Super Size Me Flaky.'

There was nothing that could suffice to showcase these topcoats other than a rich creme. I picked out 'Velvet Box' from China Glaze's current holiday collection. And, I think this one did the job...

On my thumb, middle and pinky finger, you see 'Super Size Me Flaky.' That leaves 'Snow Globe' for the index and ring finger. Now tell me, if you had 4 seconds to pause at a red light, wouldn't you stare at these?

 

Good grief, those flakes are on steroids. And I was flat out thrilled that this polish applied in a very well-behaved manner. 'Snow Globe' was thick and it wanted to bunch up at the tip of the nail. After patience with laying it down and going back over it before it dried, it fell into that scattered look.

I'm gong to play favorites all over this post...

 

I'm not a fast-food girl; I gave it up 9 years ago. But this is one time I have no regrets at all to ask for a Super Size.

Opinions? Envys? Revulsions?

'Yule' Be Seeing Red With These Comparisons

In the years before becoming a blogger, during the Holidays, I'd just wear a red creme polish. I haven't traveled too far from that love. Red will always be my favorite nail polish color to wear. (Oops, I should have named the blog after a RED vanity, eh?)

These red polishes were fun to compare...

 Sorting through my untrieds, these are some hot reds that I found.

Starting from the left: Finger Paint's 'Magenta Mood'; Color Club's 'Yule Love It' (from the '09 Holiday collection); Zoya's 'Sarah.'

This started out as a comparison post and not a dupe one, but you'll soon find that it all takes a turn...

 Here are the polishes in the order I put them on my nails.

And, this was my outcome. 'Sarah' is on my thumb as well as my ring finger. 'Magenta Mood' is on my index and pinky. That leaves 'Yule Love It' for the middle finger.

Zoya and Finger Paints, surprisingly, are dupes. I couldn't tell them apart. That is, if I don't count the application. Zoya reigns supreme in that area.

I didn't put on cuticle oil before taking photos, and that's a super bad habit. In this photo, can you see how 'Sarah' and 'Magenta Mood' are total twins?

Color Club's 'Yule Love It' looks bubbly and gritty next to the other two. It wasn't bubbly, just gritty.

The opinion I'll give is that you do not need both 'Sarah' and 'Magenta Mood'. Zoya is going to get my vote because it applied so much easier. Even with just 2 coats, both of these were fine. However, I completed the mani with a total of 3 coats. And I didn't use a top coat.

Next post will be on Holiday greens. 

Do you have any of these reds? Gotta favorite?

The Ghosts of Christmas Dupes

Can you believe there are this many polish dupes this season? I don't know if this is normal, as it didn't seem like that last year.

Well, here are some more to check out...

I really like these combos. First is Color Club's 'Jingle Jangle' from their Beyond the Mistletoe collection. Very much micro-glitter in a very light gold, light purple, and iridescent colors. Next to that is China Glaze's 'Twinkle Lights' from the Let It Snow collection. This one doesn't look totally similar in the bottle, however.

  'Twinkle Lights' has glitter that is a bit larger than the Color Club's. The glitter is gold, red and green. It looks very pretty in the bottle. I'd love to have a long scarf like this and wear it with a dark green or black shirt.

This is what they look like side by side...

'Jingle Jangle' is on my thumb, middle and pink. I put 'Twinkle Lights' on my index and on my ring nail. Hard to see a difference, even though they seemed quite different in the bottle.  I didn't get in super macros on this but you can see just the very slightest bit of green in the 'Twinkle Lights' on the two nails. 


My thoughts, if you need just one, you might be hard pressed to decide. Here's why: China Glaze applied a bit easier and had less drag than Color Club. But Color Club's 'Jingle Jangle' gave more coverage with the 2 coats I applied. Once again, I didn't put on a top coat so you could see just how sparkly they were without it.

Now, on the right hand...

These are out of order from how I applied them on the nails. However, this is what is lined up here: Finger Paint's 'Santa Kisses' and this is from the Merry and Bright collection. In the middle is China Glaze's 'Ring in the Red' and that is from the Let It Snow holiday collection. On the right is Wet 'n Wild's 'Rockin' Rubies.' That is from the recent Ice Baby collection.

 Wet 'n Wild's 'Rockin' Red.'

 China Glaze's 'Ring In The Red.'

And this is Finger Paint's 'Santa Kisses.'

They can all look similar, at first glance because they are reds all within the same hue.

So, let's see what happens when they end up on the nails...

Starting with my thumb and ring finger: that is Wet 'n Wild's 'Rockin' Red.' Then on the index finger and pink, that's China Glaze's 'Ring In The Red.' And all alone, on the middle finger, I have applied Finger Paint's 'Santa Kisses.'

Let me start off with 'Rockin' Red.' This polish has pink glitter floating in a mass of red micro-glitter. And then, sometimes that pink glitter will flash red. It's a trickster.

On the index and pinky, I have China Glaze, and this is my favorite of the three. With the first coat, which almost always is thin, I can tell that the base color is a translucent red. Swatching it on white pape, it looks fuchsia next to the other two. But the micro and semi-micro glitter is red, no doubt. This gives it better coverage in two coats than the other two.

Last is Finger Paints and I'm actually disappointed in this one. The base is a much weaker base of red. And it has true red glitter but only one size. However, it didn't give as complete coverage as the other two did. It would need three or four coats to become opaque. So you might want to keep that in mind.

The lighting is off, but I wanted you to see the differences in the opaqueness of the three.

I think they are similar, again, that I wouldn't need all of them. For the gold, my favorite, easily is China Glaze's 'Twinkle Lights.' And I'm favoring China Glaze's 'Ring In The Red' for the red glitter.

Tell me your thoughts on these.