Claire's Mood - excited bored

Paints well with a very nice brush. I've got 3 of the Claire's mood polishes. This one probably worked the best for me. Today it was clearly visible with the two colours, but maybe cold weather helps as well as the part of the nail not on the nail bed really has the chance to get cold.

This colour is a salmony pink with the cold colour being the dark coral. It is a matte shade and it chipped like hell without a top coat. So while the matte look is very pretty, if you intend to last the day you will need to cover it up. Top coating doesn't alter it's mood abilities at all.

It goes on very sheer and stripy alas, so take a lot of care putting it on. I needed 5 coats just to get all the patches non visible. It also tends to accentuate nail unevenness, so maybe try a ridge filler.

Orly "Iron Butterfly"

Here's the other suede effect metallic I got from Orly. I applied it before bed time and in the morning it had cracked. It's a pretty frail polish and reacts badly to any flexing of the nail. Not sure how it would go with 2 or 3 coats.

I found it was so heavily pigmented that one coat was even coverage.

So perhaps you can call this pewter. It's charcoal black and has this great silver glitter in it. Again, it smoothed itself out as I painted and I really love the frosted bottle and the brush is AMAZING. I don't think I have ever been much fussed about the brush but I can tell you in my old age, that with the shakes, a good brush that flexes well, with all its bristles working together in the same direction and sticking together... it really helps to keep your paint within the lines.

I wonder if I can use this polish as an excuse: sorry, I can't pick that up/type that letter/get that stack of whatever... it will make my polish crack.

P.S. I just looooved touching this polish on my nails. I really love the texture of it!

Nicole (by OPI) "Dream Maker" (and Orly "Glam Rock")

Nicole is a formulation sold at a lesser price in chemists and so on, with colours targetted at the teen market. I mean, they have had a range for Justin Bieber and Gossip Girl (4 colours: Spotted! green; Too Rich for You blue; Scandals, Secrets and Sparkle silver, and Party in the Penthouse lighter blue.). 14 colours for Justin.

Aaaaanyway. I picked out Dream Maker because it has that crystally glitter that makes me think I dunked my fingers in sugar. The pink was a bits disturbing - I'm not much into cotton candy shades, and this was smack bang princess, lollies and fairy floss.

Fortunately, it seems to achieve the colour in the pot you would really need to paint on several layers. I've out on 3 and its not flagrantly princess yet. There is just that delicious gold and silver all through and its a really easy brush on polish. Nice and flowing, fantastic brush for a budget brand. Very pleased.

Sadly the first photos I took were not in focus and after a couple of days I got round to taking more, but only after I added the Glam Rock.

Orly had a range of metallic suede/matte finish. Glam Rock is copper, I guess. The glitter is also nice and chunky. I dries flat, I was amazed. You need to paint quick because it dries to the matte finish quickly, but I am impressed because it seems to level off by itself. It's not really my colour, but I wanted to see how this matte finish stuff worked.