Catherine Arley - 672

Mmmmm, most mauve. :-) A while back JJ sent me 2 boxes of Catherine Arley hologram polishes, bless is little mammalic heart. I've already reviewed a few so pop into the polishes by maker bookmarks to see them.

672 is a delicious pale mauve. It paints B E A U T I F U L L Y. It is a dream to paint and a dream to behold and it looks amazing on black cardboard since I was busy making a bird at GoMA at the time. (our modern gallery has activities for children, but adults can do so too. Current adventure is "Fly Away Home" where you are given a blank bird cutout of different colour cardboards, and you decorate it with a variety of things they give you).

This is a really lovely colour to have on for me. Went with everything. the holographic sparkles glitter in the sunshine, winking at everything and everyone.

OPI - My Private Jet

There was one of those fire sale counters in the mall and they had OPI on half price. Old stock because most of them were from the India range. I got Private Jet (not part of the India range) and Yoga-ta get this blue. Mused over Moon over Mumbai but decided it was too much like the other whites I have.

Ok... My Private Jet. It's a dark, cool brown metallic. Chestnut. It has holographic specks. It's fantastic. Well, in an understated way. Formula was ok for this cut price colour. Holograph hard to see unless directly under light.

Catherine Arley - 806

Like the gold one, this orange one the colour was interfering too much to be able to see the holographic effect. It must be something about that part of the colour spectrum. It just does not bounce off, no one can see it unless they stick my hands right under their eyes.

Formula - spot on. Never any trouble with the 3 Arley's I've tried so far. Doesn't need a special base coat like the Make Up Store one did. So gorgeous to work with, its a dream. Very tangy orange colour. Not really my colour range, I think it makes my hand look very orange toned.

Can't wait to try out the rest.

My holographics

Got my nail wheels this week so have set about cataloguing my colours.

Got started on my holographics. You know, despite all my griping about Make Up Store's formula, it's polish turns out the best in terms of holographic effect. Also I went back in today to the MUS stand and discovered that there is actually a special base you have to use for the holos to make it grip properly. !!!

Special thanks to my friend JJ who sent over the Catherine Arley ones!!

Catherine Arley - 807 - straw gold holographic

In the gift pack I got 2 golds. The other is a warmer, more sunflower yellow. This is the whiter, cooler gold. Application was good and the colour quite opaque. In this picture you can see the one on the left has one coat, and the one on the right has two coats. Can you tell the difference?

In dim light you can't see that it is holographic. But under direct light, wow, just fantastic. This polish didn't disappoint. See the other Catherine Arley post I did for rave reviews on its consistency and colour.

However, I think that the golden colour interrupts the holo visuals. I find it hard to distinguish that it is a holo at all. Comparing the bottle against the toffee coloured CA, you can clearly distinguish the toffee is holo glitter, but the gold looks more like silver glitter.

So sadly I have to report this is not a knockout the way 668 was but I am still pretty pleased with the formulation and how gorgeous it is to paint with.

Many thanks to JJ who sent this over as a gift all the way from USA!!!

** Amendment - I've done this on a nail wheel now and it reminded me of the trouble I had when I was putting it on. It's much more visible on a plain white surface. This gold, suffers the fate of many a frost gold.. It streaks.

Catherine Arley - 668 - toffee holographic

Welcome to my first Catherine Arley post! A while ago you would have seen how I was sent several of these by my friend in the USA. AWESOME! Catherine Arley itself is a brand from Turkey.

This was a fantastic first try. I pored over the colours and finally decided on the demure toffee colour, seeing as I still had to go to work. Application - - OMG, perfect. Perfect consistency, amazing soft brush, nil streaks. After the hassle I experienced with Make Up Store's holographic, I wondered "maybe its this kind of glitter**" but boy was I wrong. Every finger I did I was bowled over by how smooth and even it went on. I mean the bottle itself is no great shakes - it seems to have the most awful, cheap looking handle and the whole thing looks like it came out of a $2 shop.

(**I've since found as well that Sally Hansen holos were quite good - sorry Make Up Store, but your holo sucked in comparison!! The glitter just feels and drags heavy, like sand particles and seems nigh on impossible to get a good looking finish)

I should absolutely add at this point that no cosmetic company has ever given me free product to blog about, so take this as my disclaimer that I so often see on other blogs about being endorsed and whatever. I got no endorsement, no freebies and no family or friends who work in the industry. I buy all my own polishes (well aside from the ones I get for christmas!)

Anyhow! Amazing x 3000. People who saw it commented how awesome it looked. I almost feel embarrassed how effort-free it was to get a good finish. And because it looks so good, I feel the need to add a few different photos. Enjoy it just like I did!

Catherine Arley holographics!

Can you imagine my surprise today when these arrived. How awesome are they? Each one is a hologram polish. Maybe I need to do every finger a different colour!!!!

Sally Hansen Nail Prisms - Pink Rose Diamond

Lucky me - I found 3 of the Nail Prisms in a discount basket in a
pharmacy. They have holographic glitter in them, so love love love!!!
I've only done one coat in this pic, but added another coat today. The
polish is a bit soft - a bit of problem getting it dry. I put it down
to age. Afterall, these came out ages ago. The holographic effect is
top grade though. Even better than the one I paid $20 for!!

Nail Prisms!! Sally Hansen

I was quite excited to find three bottles of this discontinued line of holographic nail polish in Ashgrove today!! Sadly my nails have been flaking and I am giving them a rest for now.

Missha Crystal nail polish - HKH01 (gold)

I was so excited to go to Sydney as Brisbane has no Missha shop. what heaven. This is the store in the QVB building. There were 3 ranges to choose from but I was most excited by the crystal range. I got four. This one I had an excuse to try the next day because my Sugar Baby had chipped. This one is a heavy bronze gold. It is unfortunately quite textured and even after two top coats feels bumpy. Under dim light it is a semi matte finish. Under direct light you will then see the red, green and blue sparks of the holo glitter. There is otherwise also gold glitter in the darker base colour. I am just not really sold. Its just a bit dull and the glitter is not that Wow even under good light. The brush is one of those flat and rounded broad strokers. The bottle is adorably heart shaped. Some of the bottles even have an airbrushed colour on the lid. Because of the heavy glitter content I found it clumpy on the end of my nails during application. Missha is a Korean brand and retails for around $7.95.

Make Up Store - Madeleine (holographic) 001

I think there are about 4 or 5 different holographic colours they have. Make Up Store is in Brisbane Myer. Madeleine is a pinky beige tone. It was a pain in the ass to apply, and did that lifting up of the last coat so I ended up with so many bald patches. Also it was absolutely unforgiving of any dips and ridges.

What can I say about this formulation? Well, its not glitter, it's particles and to get an awesome undisturbed rainbow effect you need all your particles to sit flat and even. I discovered that it was not looking good where you need to cross over somewhere already painted. Get out your ridge filler. This also dried out to a really thin layer and what was even more annoying, I did top coat on 2 fingers and find that the extra 1 micrometer of glaze affects the refraction of light. The top coated fingers just didn't have the same brilliance. Overnight a few fingers already had chipping. So what to do? Does one just handle hands with care saying: sorry, cannot possibly do ANYTHING, must preserve awesome hologram finish. Or does one top coat and accept something not as awesome?

At work, definitely something to brighten the day. Bored with paperwork? Stare at nails for a few seconds. Any time is play time. I got a different hologram polish by Colour Club off Ebay last week, so I will find some time to try that out and see whether it is any better than this one in terms of staying power and easier to apply.

Oh, the little lipbalms are from my aunty and come from Sasa, a chain store for cosmetics in Hong Kong and China. Are they cute or what!!!!

Wet n Wild - Blue Wants to be a Millionaire

So this is the Wet n Wild range that distorts a few tv show names to be funny. Ha ha. This polish was happily sent over from USA by my mate Jeff who said that he got a few funny looks as he pored through the nail polish section, examining each bottle closely. In the bottle, you can see a lovely medium blue colour but I am thinking you might need several coats to achieve it. On my nails is already 3 coats and it is still a very soft powder blue. The holograph glitter is lovely though. Brush is bristly unfortunately, and splays out at odd angles. I noticed this in all the Wet n Wild bottles that came over, but HEY what do you really want from a $2 nail polish?! So yeah, hard plastic bristles is a little bit of a let down but we are not getting into a Chanel $32 polish are we???

Holograph glitter... *sigh* if only this kind of thing was around when I was 10. I would have gone nutso.

** addition - I've now put this on a nail wheel along with my other holographics, and sad to say I don't think this is a true holographic. It is more like blue with holo microglitter. Compared to the others, it just doesn't do that awesome visual effect. A true holo should give you stark bands of colour like a rainbow that shift when you move your nails.

Butter - All Hail The Queen

Well straight up I've decided the Butter formula is not so great. I found it hard with this one to spread it evenly, worse than the purple one I reviewed earlier. The shade is just divine though. I read a few that said they found it ho hum, but its a very cool toned fawn. The shimmer you can see gold and dark pink, but there is also a holographic element to it. Inside its very refined, and outside in the sunlight its just perfect.

I really liked the colour, but its a let down that its hard to put on. Only 2 of my nails worked out perfectly, so I can't see this as my go-to polish ever.