Nail mail I've been waiting for - and it's just perfect.

I took a plunge recently and decided to get some more fun holos.  They abound now, but I found some fun ones that weren't too expensive.  Meet Perfect Holographic.

This is a Bulgarian line of polish, and based on reviews around the intertubes, it seems pretty amazing.  I did unfortunately break a nail (I knew it was coming, but it wasn't on a nail I expected) so for now there are no swatches.  I will probably start throwing them up a few at a time and just use my non dom hand (I'm fairly mixed handed so I do prefer my right in photos) but in the mean time here are a few bottle shots, along with info on how to order these bad boys.

I decided to include a few photos of these beside a mini (this is a Sephora by O.P.I.) and a full sized polish (China Glaze) so you could fully see how small they are.  They are actually almost twice the size of the mini S. by O.P.I., but they don't look that much bigger.  Brush size is exactly the same as the sephora polish but the handle is longer so I imagine there will be better control. The bottles themselves are very cute, a little like a mini Cover Girl, but probably smaller.  I have a thing for square bottles, I just wished they were a bit bigger.

There are currently 8 colors in the line.  One thing I noticed about these which I hope you can see in these photos: the color and holo seperate, a lot.  Shaking these for a little won't do, you'll have to shake your hiney off to get these to mix well.  I managed to mix up two of them really well and they look great, nice and holo in the bottle.  But heed the warning label and shake well!

The ingredients look fairly benign, and I will post that list (there's only like 4 ingredients!) with the first swatch photos.

So a little about the ordering process.  I did a little research, and while you can get these in other places (Ebay, mainly) it is cheaper to order from the original site directly.  Located at http://beautycosmetic.biz/, you'll find a list of their best sellers.  Perfect Holographic polishes seem to always be in that list.  I ordered these and totally missed this the first time, but there is a currency converter at the top of the page.  Shipping is pretty expensive for these and was actually more than the price of the 8 polishes combined.  My total was a little over $23 at the time (currency does fluctuate so check pricing) with shipping at 9 euros.  Shipping seems a little slow, but I was able to follow it once it hit USPS.  NY isc really slows shipping.  I'm not sure if that is customs or just sorting, but it stayed there for about a week before moving again.  When you do order, I believe you're to use COD option.  Once you've placed the order, they will email you; just reply to the email for them to invoice you through Paypal and pay them that way.  They'll email you around a week later telling you it's been shipped.

I'm honestly thrilled by these.  I don't have many holos to compare but I'm still going to have fun with them.

Interested in 3-free brands?

Wanted to make a quick post about my list of 3-free or better polishes.  It is an ongoing project, but do please check it out!

An Essie favorite

Hey folks, today is Essie's Bikini so Teeny.

Low lighting

LED lighting

This is a pretty light (sky?) blue, with a lot of teeny weeny silver glass flecks.  They're small.  And here's a fact: you're not gonna notice them on your nails unless you're centimeters away from your eyes.  It's still pretty, but honestly, I don't get the hype over this one.

Formula is fine on this one.  Unfortunately, I can't remember how many coats this is, but I'll bet that it's two.  It's an easy polish.  If you've got something similar, you could always layer a silver glass fleck top coat (Glass Slipper by Sally Hansen, for instance) on and give it a better effect than what this has alone.

Sunday Toppings - You've seen this one before

If you said to me, "Layla, you can only have one polish topper.  What would it be?" I wouldn't hesitate (well, maybe I would, because there is Essie Shine of the Times) to tell you it would be Essie's As Gold As it Gets.  This is a gold flakie top coat from the Luxe Effects line. I don't think this is discontinued (unlike the other Essie I mentioned).  It's very pretty and will give a little pizzazz to any old polish.  It's subtle, but it's great in that way too.

This is one coat over Wet n Wild's Private Viewing.

Another Wet 'n Wild

The most incredibly work appropriate color.  Wet 'n Wild Private Viewing.

As you can tell, I've used this one a lot.  It is too salmon for my tastes but I'll keep using it because it's the most bland, worky looking color.  Hard to even notice it on.

It's streaky and over time, has gotten thick and difficult to work with.  It's a slow dryer, at least on me.  I need three coats to get it truly opaque and not patchy.  I'm meh on this one, but like I said, I'll keep it until I've run out of it.  Won't repurchase.

Did I just find my new favorite polish?

Another hologram today.  This time Layla's Ocean Rush.  And I have to say, this is easily top 10 material.

This is a beautiful mid toned blue, with a ton of holographic sheen.  Gorgeous indoors and out.

Application was terrible.  It's incredibly patchy and I blame this largely on me not prepping the nails like Layla recommends as well as not having an aqua base.  I'm not filing my nails down though, they're already paper thin.

I did three coats then a top coat.  A fourth coat covered all the left over patchiness.  I did wear this for about a day and a half but this isn't something I can wear to work, plus it was getting a little worn looking so off it went.  This polish does seem like it would wear down easily, however I am tough on my hands.  I washed dishes, swept, mopped, did laundry and moved furniture with this on.

Photos don't do this justice!  It's really holo.

I am in need of an aqua base because 4 coats every time will make this disappear too quickly and I love it too much for that.  It might be my favorite polish (at least for today).

Sunday toppings

Today is all about pink.

This is Color Club Poptastic, a really great neon pink.  I decided that Sally Hansen's Wool Lite would go with this.  And I think I was right.

This is two coats of the fuzzy coat.

A couple of observations on this polish.  It is insanely (INSANE) difficult to remove.  The polish itself is thick and kinda gloopy.  It is unfortunately very humid here so I experience this problem frequently, but when a formula is thicker it is much more prone to problems in humid conditions, imo.  It covers quite nicely at one coat, and I bet you could reach opacity at around three (maybe four).  It doesn't make me think fuzzy, but it does actually remind me of feathers.  The final texture is just that; it is not glass smooth but I'm sure that can be achieved with a coat of top coat or two.  I am really into this craze right now.  I'm sure in about 6 months, it will be so passe that you won't see anybody wearing it anymore, but for now, I'm going to keep on putting it on!

Color Club Poptastics

Today up for show is the entire collection of Color Club's Poptastic set.  I usually do one color at a time posts, but I'm getting a back log of polishes and just decided why not do all of these in one?

I got this set at Beall's Outlet.  Let me clear this up though for those of you who are from Texas or Louisiana.  This is not the same store as the Beall's you see around town.  I'm from Texas, and when I moved here, I thought they were the same; they're not.  However, if you do live in the land of Palais Royals (which owns all those Beall's in Texas and Louisiana), have no fear because you still probably have access to Beall's (of Florida) stores.  Just look for the name Burke's outlet.  I love these stores, not so much for the clothing they have, but that they have a ton of drugstore cosmetics and it's really cheap.  Alternatively, I've seen these CC sets at TJ Maxx (and they're likely at Marshall's and Ross as well).  I paid $8.99 for the whole she-bang.

First up: Almost Famous.

Almost Famous is a real yellow.  It reminds me a lot of Milani's Yellow Mark, just without the texture. It doesn't really strike me as neon.  The formula is thick and goopy.  It absolutely needs three coats, otherwise it looks patchy and ugly.  However, I bet once I thin it, it will be a lot easier to work with.  With three coats, dry time was pretty good.

Next: Wham! Pow!

What can I say about this?  It's bright...unspeakably bright.  This is like orange highlighter for your nails.  Easy application, two coats was pretty good coverage.  Great pedi color but I'm a little scared of this one.  Apt name.  Dries to a semi matte finish as expected, so use a top coat on this. I also wanted to mention that this made my hands (along with my led lamp) look dead...purple, zombie flesh color.  When I turned the led off, that went away, BUT the led alone has never made my hands look like that before.  Very weird and totally off-putting.

Number 3: The name sake, Poptastic

What a great color.  Very bright, cheery neon pink.  Gorgeous.  Decent formula, used three coats.  Would have stopped at two, but I messed up the pinky nail (touched it before topcoat-oh no!); overall result was that it looked a little better at three, though I don't know if it's worth the extra time.  Again, dries semi-matte so needs a topcoat.  But it's a keeper for sure.

Number 4: Warhol

Notice the bottle difference from what's on the nail

Similar in the bottle to Poptastic, it appears only slightly darker.  This one is actually comes out on the nail looking pretty different, so what you see isn't what you get. It's very neon and it's also really pretty.  Great one coater, but I've used two here for good measure.  Had to use flash to get the camera to pick up a color close to true.

The purple: Pucci licious

This is more like a burple.  My camera had some trouble with Warhol, but this is the one where things started really going downhill.  From here on out, lighting changes will be apparent.  It pulled very blue, and I tried a lot of lighting changes.  Camera just really hated this one.  No top coat here, it stayed fairly shiny, though I would top coat if I were wearing out.  Two coats.

The green: Twiggie

This one looks really different with different lighting settings.  Can look really neon or not at all.

Hard to describe.  Neon pistachio color.  Needed two coats.  Camera liked this one better than Pucci licious but not much more.

Last: Chelsea Girl

Great blue!  Probably my favorite out of all of these.  Neon and jelly.  Goes pretty opaque at two coats, but probably would look a little better at three.  Camera had a lot of trouble with this.  Finally settled on just led light but it pulls slightly more purple than it looks irl.  It's another winner.

Last thoughts.  Fun set, but no names on the bottles!  I hate that about CC sets at the discount chains.  It's a really great bargain.  I'm now realizing what a value those sets are.  It's gonna be real hard to resist these in the future.

Layla - Coral Glam

I had to get some Layla's.  It seemed wrong that I owned none, and Hautelook made sure I fixed this.  The other two Layla's I got will be coming up soon but for today, I've got Layla Coral Glam.

This is a gorgeous peachy pinkish nude with a lot of linear holo.

Couple of things about this polish.  The holo is fantastic.  Any light will show the holo, all of these photos are actually indoors.  I am not terribly fond of the formula but it's not bad.  It's really runny, like water but still it doesn't pool.  It is so thin though, that I needed 4 coats.  At three it would have been ok, but it was showing bald spots so I top coated, and then did another coat.  It does dry extremely quickly so the 4 coats were not painful.  I don't own an aqua base (though I hope to change this soon) so I had to use a matte top coat as a base.  The first two coats of this were soooo matte, and I think it was because of this.  With all that said, I was expecting a terrible formula, unworkable from reviews.  It was surprisingly easy even without an aqua base.  I cannot wait to use the other two.