H&M Liberty Girl

I really want to get some old polishes swatched. I mix old with new and I sometimes pass on things repeatedly and they sit in the drawers too long.

I think it's a little bit of stage fright with my nails. Now that they are "polygel free" I have less worries about shape and thickness, which seems to be always on my mind with Polygel.

Here is a beauty H&M Liberty Girl:

Three coats, no top coat. Pure delight. Could use more shaking, but very rich and covers well. Formula was very easy to work with.

H&M has since changed their bottles since I got this polish back in at the latest 2011 or 2012, so I know it's feeling a little vintage.

This is shot with my iPhone and with flash, so it actually pulls a tad bit more purple than it is in real life. My phone loves adding red, so I need get out of the habit of using it!

Polygel notes
So I've been without Polygel for several months and the weird thing about Polygel is that when it cures and sets up from a liquid into a solid, their is some contraction as it sets the bonds. Well, I've noticed splitting inside the nail, so it's not a flake or split near the top, but it goes along the free edge down to the portion where it attaches to the "meat". I normally don't care but realize that if I remove them again I need to remove most of the free edge. I had a center split because a long crack formed underneath and was flaking away an inner layer. Even when I clipped and filed, I could see the bonds in my nail weren't knitted as strongly as they should be.

Interesting.

I will be nubbing out this weekend, since my nails are too long now to support them without Polygel, and this winter I am going to be pretty busy.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Color Club Taps Into Tesserae - aka Modern Mosaic Collection Part 1

I found these on Head2Toe Beauty while I was looking for something else. The one thing about Head2Toe is that they have a good selection of Color Club at a great price. Oh, and they take Paypal, which to me is vital. As an aside, I've never (knock wood) had an issue with paypal, which is the big win for me working through their site.

Back to swatches.

So, if you google micro mosaics, you will see some cool 18th and 19th century jewelry, and some artwork as well. It's a nod Ancient Rome's mosaics, and it reemerged in the Renaissance when all things "classical" were not only paving the way for modern man, but redefining culture as a whole.

Spend a bit of time looking at the fine work of micro-mosaic jewelry and art, it's astonishing. 

Here is a search that will boggle your mind.

A few notes before starting:

The formula is a bit thick, so thin coats are a must. 

I'd recommend thinning them after you determine how thick they seem to you, mainly because they can be unwieldy, as I found out.

No top coats

Some texture, but nothing a top coat can't take care of fairly easily.

These are very unique, inasmuch as most of the time people just mix these little glitters in as a background, filler, or mix it up for different sizes. Color Club just said "let's go with little"

In a nutshell the effect is charming, cute, and for spring it's delightful.

This is a "limited edition" collection, made in the USA, I believe most of my CC is made in China.

On to the swatches!

Color Club Subway Station

Soft dove gray and white. This is two coats, I tried three coats to try to achieve coverage. It gets thick, though after two. I redid it and ended up with two coats as a better mix

Two shades of gray that I can see in the bottle. 

One coat over H&M Miss Stone Heart. 

Perfect combination, although I LOVE the H&M, I had to get it in a swap and it's not on their US site, bummer. 

If you love gray, you probably will enjoy Subway Station. I have 1/2 a helmer of gray. Love it!

Color-Club Pixi-Lated

Pale orchid pink glitters, with scant purple glitters along with white. Pretty and soft.

Two coats, although it didn't cover as densely as I would have wished.

One coat of Pixi-Lated over L.A. Colors no name light orchid pink. You can see the white and the purple a bit better. I think this would also be very pretty over a soft pastel yellow.

Color Club Orange Crush

This is perhaps my favorite. A mix of white, yellow and apricot glitters. 

Here it is over American Apparel Palm Springs. I don't think I've blogged Palm springs before, but here it is alone:

Three coats and perhaps one of your better formulas. I really wasn't sure about this color when i first got it - it was part of a job lot on eBay, perhaps those "easy to break bottles" - and put it aside for stamping usage only, but I have VERY few apricot shades so this got pulled out of stamping and put to work for swatching and other things. I kind of love this color. Not sure if it's a win on my skin tone, but I like it a lot.

Part 2  soon!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Soft Spring Shades from Chain Stores

Pretty simple, it's just a couple of shades that feel soft and easy to use.

American Apparel Cotton

Three coats, beautiful pale butter yellow. Almost an off white, but definitely in the yellow camp.

Probably could do two coats easily, too.

I love this baby. Very hard to fault. Doesn't self level perfectly, but on par with my favorite formulas. Nice!

This was from a huge job lot that I found on eBay from the batch AA came out with that had unannealed bottles.

H&M Miss Stone Heart

Soft medium gray, two coats, nearly a one coater. Have worn this twice and it's really quite a great gray. 

Pure and simple!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!