More Claire's foil swatches, Part II of II

The rest of the Claire's mini foil set. Again, these are unnamed.

Sheer champagne shimmer. This is four coats. Excuse the super yellowness of my nails. You can see the actual color of the polish closer to my cuticle. It's actually a very pretty polish for layering.

Pink foil. Eh. Three coats and still a whole bunch of VNL? No thanks.

Light blue foil. This one was SUPER BRIGHT and it didn't look like there was VNL when I put it on but it showed up in the pic. Make of that what you will. Two coats.

Verdict: wish I didn't buy these. Some of them are okay but I have no more room for polishes that I'm not over the moon for.

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Some Claire's foil swatches, Part I of II

I bought a set of six mini foil polishes from Claire's four months ago for about $6.50 (it was on sale from $12.50). They are unnamed.

Light green foil. Three coats. Some cuticle drag.

Silver foil. Really nice coverage in two coats. Reminds me a lot of the silver Orly Foil FX polish (the name is escaping my memory currently).

Magenta foil. Three coats. Nice but I'm unmoved by it.

The rest of the set will be posted tomorrow. :)

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Claire's Flirty/Shy

I will fall for every gimmick you throw at me. A bagel slicer that takes up my entire counter-top? Sure. A giant food dehydrator when I don't even like dried fruit? Why not!


Hence, the mood polishes. I thought from the get-go that the mood polish series from Claire's would be yet another gimmick I fell for and it would be a miserable experience; happily, though, I have to say that I think I may have been incorrect!

This is my most recent acquisition of the collection, Flirty/Shy... it's an indigo/purple creme polish when cool and an azure blue when warm. I've heard a little scuttle about the ability of these polishes to change color, and I hate to say this, but I think I must have a perfectly balanced body temperature for these! Most of the time, my body must hover in the half warm/half cool state, so it looks as if I am rocking a pretty sweet gradient manicure. Score!

As for the wear, this is where these polishes fall flat. By the end of the first day of wear I was missing more than one ENTIRE nail of polish, which is something that never happens to me. I understand that you often have to trade something in for a good gimmick, but ONE DAY? Have you guys had pretty good luck with these polishes?

Happy day, all!

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Claire's Chunky Gold

You want some bling... I got some bling!

Sometimes you just want an in-your-face color, one that will grab everyone's attention. Thanks to lovely readers Hallmarkjunkie and her amazing daughter The Diva, I definitely have a color that fits that bill - Claire's Chunky Gold! After a quick visit and some nail polish talk, these lovely ladies had a Diva Day filled with a polish hunt (who doesn't love THOSE?) and picked up little old me a few bottles to add to my stash with this little sweetheart as one of them.

Claire's Chunky Gold

Claire's Chunky Gold is a very pale yellow jelly filled fine yellow-gold glitter and silver hex glitter. Like most glitters, this one doesn't have a really opaque nature; it took about four coats to get a good density of glitter, but I might just be really picky about that. The good news is that it dries lightening fast and has a surprisingly non-sandpaper-like finish after a thick coat of SV which is a total bonus. After two days it was a little chipped on me, but I was also working with some serious abrasives this morning, so keep that in mind!

Either way, love this polish as a glamour-rama color! Thanks again, Hallmarkjunkie and Diva!!!

Happy day, all!

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Old NOTDs: Claire's Chunky Blue and Chunky Purple

Some janky NOTDs I did when I was trying the teabag method (a really lazy version of it anyway) to preserve the length of my nails... I had considered just cropping my index finger out of these photos.

Claire's Chunky Blue

I applaud the idea of these polishes. Large hex glitter with small regular glitter suspended in a dark jelly. It's so playful and fun! And I liked how easy it was to get the hex glitter on the nail. Sometimes, you have to fish the big shapes out of the bottle but that was not the case with these. Unfortunately... the hex glitter was not a particularly reflective silver, so it looked dull, almost paper-like. I really wish the hex glitter were light blue instead of silver. Totally ruined the effect of the polish for me. Also, it was pretty chippy on me in a relatively short amount of time.

Claire's Chunky Purple

I got a ton of compliments on this mani. My impressions on this polish are pretty much the same as the ones I had for Chunky Blue. Again fun, but misses the mark slightly. I do have another polish from Justice that is virtually the same... except the hex glitter is magenta. I originally thought they were the same polish, just labelled differently but when I compared them side by side, it appears that the Justice polish is actually colored hex glitter instead of silver. (I might have to go to back to the sad, sad mall to pick a few more up!) What is really impressive about these polishes in a way is how smooth they are for what they contain: you'd expect them to actually be "chunky" but it actually is a pretty smooth surface.

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Claire's Mood color-changing polishes!

About every two weeks on NB, there's a must-have product of some kind that sends people in mad search for it. I didn't have time for the mad search for Claire's Mood color-changing nail polishes. So I sent my SO for them.

A week ago, my SO was complaining that he had a huge three-hour lunch break and nothing to do. My solution: I gave him a bag of Claire's polishes with a receipt and told him to go return these at the local mall he often has lunch at.

Yes, I sent my man to Claire's.

Anyway, he asked if I wanted him to pick up anything new and I told him to stay on the lookout for the Mood polishes. Several hours later, I get a call from him from Claire's, asking, "There are five different ones. Do you just want one of each?"

Hells yeah!

I haven't had much time for swatching these days but I wanted to play with these. They turned out to be kind of bad polishes but INCREDIBLY awesome with the best temperature-based color-changing effect I've seen in polishes. Apparently, they have two names each: one for each color!

Claire's Happy/Earthy

Isn't that awesome? I know daydream222 already showed it off during the weekend but I think the awesomeness deserves to be repeated! :D Neon yellow when warm, grass green when cool! This one had a slightly weaker effect than the next one I'm showing you but still, it's pretty strong! The neon yellow usually is a bit more clearly yellow but I was using my lightbox and the lights had already been on for about half an hour (thus raising the temperature). I had to wait a little longer for this one to change while putting it on though. These things dry satiny and take many coats to get non-streaky; I think I used only three coats here.

Claire's Daring/Innocent

This one was amazing. (Ugly but amazing.) As soon as I brushed a coat on my nail, the color changed. It was hard to actually see how well I was polishing the base of my nail because the color immediately became this peachy-beige that wasn't so different from my skintone. Dries satiny and was the biggest PITA to get non-streaky: five coats! I'm hoping the other ones won't be as bad...

I have three more of these that I hope to post by the month's end. :)

In the meanwhile, I have some promising preliminary results on one of... three studies I have in the air right now. Now all I have to do is do some actual work on it so I can tell the good-esque news to my lab tomorrow morning.

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Old NOTD: Claire's Dream Catcher

This polish satisfied my lemming for Chanel Jade. Thank goodness. (I also swapped for the Charlotte Russe Jade, which I hear is even more dupey. But that's still in my untrieds box[es].)

Claire's Dream Catcher

I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE this polish. Claire's has been severely hit-or-miss for me: some polishes are magnificent and others make me want to stab my eye with the nail polish brush. (Ouch. The image.) I've heard a lot of complaints about this polish being hard to apply but it applied beautifully for me: it was even a little bit on the thin side and needed three coats. Either way, it went on like a dream. The above is two coats with Diamont topcoat; the picture is about a day into wear (with no shrinkage or tipwear). Such a lovely minty green with green shimmer. I don't want to backup polishes that often but I kind of have the urge to buy a backup of this one.

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NARS Purple Rain vs Others

Since I have a million of these stupid purple shimmers I thought I would do some super quick comparison pics for those of you trying to resist (or perhaps needing an excuse). These are not perfectly accurate as the photos were taken w/ flash.

I like Purple Rain. It has really gorgeous depth and I much prefer red-ish purples to blurples ("reples"? "purpeds"?). The pigmentation is great but I found the application to get a bit thick once reaching the second coat. It is also arguably very similar to others I have. However, it is super beautiful and glowy and I'm glad I have it. I hope this helps you make a decision!

The Middle and Index finger are static; they are swatched with Purple Rain throughout. Every swatch was two coats.



Zoya Yasmeen


In bottle and on the nail - the closest is Yasmeen, imo. They have very similar color tone but the shimmer is finer in PR. It's quite a bit deeper as well.

Essie Sexy Divide


Too blue.

Makeup Store Lea


Blue jelly base makes this not close at all.

Illamasqua Baptiste


The other very close one is Baptiste. The texture, depth, darkness, and pigmentation are very similar (with Baptiste's application a smidge better). However, Baptiste is Purple Rain's blue big sister. (Sorry for the terrible pic - like I said, I did these quick.)

Claire's Magic


Probably should have done a third coat but hey I'm lazy. At any rate, you're not close to PR at all - again that blue jelly base makes it completely wrong.

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I moved today - Claire's Dream Catcher

***DON'T FORGET TO ENTER OUR BANNER CONTEST. THE PRIZES ARE REAL! THE FUN IS ACTUAL!***

I went apartment hunting as soon as I got back from Christmas holidays in Canada (early January).

It was a tiring three days but I think I found a great apartment for myself.

I'm excited to check out the neighborhood and this time I even have a balcony. Perhaps some photos of my polish in the sun will happen? Fingers crossed!

I was wearing Dream Catcher when I found my apartment. Hopefully it brought me luck.

(3 coats)

Probably needs 4 coats for you sticklers out there. But I was fine w/ 3. It dried nicely, and this photo was taken after about 24 hours. The wear was ok. Obvious tipwear on index, but overall pretty good. This isn't chalky at all.

I got several compliments. Everyone should pick this one up!

***DON'T FORGET TO ENTER OUR BANNER CONTEST. THE PRIZES ARE REAL! THE FUN IS ACTUAL!***

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Claire's Stardaze

I'm just WAITING for somebody to get this concept right. The creme and shimmer 3-layer "mixables" that I've gotten from Claire's before have been pretty disastrous: usually, it's a nice color but it's a single color and it's usually hard to apply. So when I saw this, I got really excited: how interesting to throw the glitter in! With the clear polish and glitter, the polish seemed to stand a better chance of getting a marbling effect.

Claire's Stardaze in the bottle

Claire's Stardaze

Three coats (which includes one coat where I had to go fishing for stars). You've gotta look pretty closely but there IS a slight marbling effect going on here (yay!) and the polish ends up jellyish because of the clear polish diluting the shimmer ones. There are three types of sparkle in this: shimmer, glitter and star. The shimmer is pretty. The glitter is pretty. The star... is surprisingly flat. And thick. Thick to the point where it sticks up off the nail. I wonder why polish manufacturers don't use a more flexible material for these things. And why Claire's didn't choose a more reflective star! They looked like they were made out of cardboard.

Close-up of Stardaze

See, a little bit o' glitter, a lot bit o' jelly, a pretty dusty blue... and a big honkin' cardboard star. I'm so waiting for the next generation of these types of polish. Imagine how awesome they could be!

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Old N-Art-OTD: icy gradient using BB Couture Electric Avenue, ChG Nova and Claire's Hollywood

I'm flying to New York tonight so I thought I might post a pic of a mani inspired by cold, ice and snow. I've tried a few gradients before but this was the first that turned out presentable. It was so hugely thick by the time I was done with it, it looked like I had fake nails on.

Indoors with flash:

In the lightbox:

Outdoors in the sun:

I used BB Couture Electric Avenue (a icy pale blue jelly that took five coats to even start to resemble opaque), Claire's Hollywood (a mix of fine silver glitter and small holo glitter) and China Glaze Nova (big hex glitter mixed with small holo glitter). I messed up a couple of times so I kept on having to paint new coats of everything on top of what I had already done: by the end, there were at least a dozen coats of polish (including base and top). Took forever to dry and I got bubbles but I loved this look and kept it on for over 36 hours (which is a lot for me these days!) Just long enough to wear to my SO's work's holiday party at least.

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I love Polish Swapping

There are two reasons I love MUA.

1. The Nail Board - Countless swatches aka "spam", tips and tricks, support, and the occasional hilarious character
2. The Swapping Community

On MUA you can swap your unwanted or ignored polish with others. It's a great way to try different polishes w/out the guilt.

Sometimes, I acquire a long sought after polish like Claire's Magic. (Which I put on my "wish list".)



(So nice I posted it twice. 2 coats.)

Or Sinful Colors' Daddy's Girl

(No Flash. Comparison w/ Milani's Totally Cool. DG = Middle and Pink, TC = Ring and Index. DG = 4 coats, TC = 3 coats.)


(Flash. Comparison w/ Milani's Totally Cool. DG = Middle and Pink, TC = Ring and Index. DG = 4 coats, TC = 3 coats.)

Or recent must-have China Glaze's Atlantis

(2 coats.)

Other times generous swappers include "extras" not discussed in the original swap agreement, like Maybelline Express Finish's Crimson Cramoisi

(2 coats.)

Or Fasville U.S.A. Vitamin Hardener's (lmao) Rose Wine

(2 coats. I think this is such a pretty color.)

Once every blue moon you can even get your hands on the occasional HTF like OPI's *holo* My Private Jet
...


...
(OK - sorry, too lazy to swatch this one. Plus you've seen it a million times!)

I'm still working on building up my swapping cred (w/ positive tokens) so other swappers will trust me more. Flinty, on the other hand, is a veteran swapper and actually the very first person I ever swapped with! Zoya's Nina is only one of the polishes I got from dearest Flint.

(3 Coats. This color makes me excited for work to start!)

SWAP SPAM!

Maybelline Express Finish's Purple Passion

(2 coats. Frankly I didn't like this one as much as I thought I would. Back into the swap drawer?)

OPI DS Fantasy

(1 coat bitches.)

Orly's Star of Bombay

(3 coats.)


All my MUA swappers hola at me!

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feeling hot hot hot

Wow it's been a blazing few days here!! So incredibly humid and hot! That means lots of sun and lots of BEACH!

I have a few past NOTD. First two are purple! I was feeling in the purple mood, I think my longer nails looks best with purple nail polish on. I could wear purple any day, any occasion, any length honestly. I think its my fav nail polish color! Both of these purples are super pretty with subtle shimmer that makes them glow and really makes them diff from other purples.


NYX Wild Child



Claire's Magic

Yesterday I had my first GMAT prep class so I put on a cheery Finger Paints Ripe Peach. We took a diagnostic exam to see which areas we need help most on. Honestly I need help in all areas. The real test is four hours long. Yesterday's diagnostic exam was only three hours long, we omitted the essay section. I couldn't even sit through the three hours bc i was getting serious ADD and kept staring at my nails and got restless after only 15 questions. I don't know what I'm gonna do when I take the actual test!! :(


Finger Paints Ripe Peach

When I woke up this morning I saw a box outside my door from Sephora and quickly opened it. Behold, DARK ROOM! Looks kinda blue in the bottle, sorta like a super dark teal, but after i painted my nails with it, it's DEF green!! Super dark green, but still very pretty and perfect for fall! Formula was great for me, it was a little more runny than I'm used to, but manageable.


Sephora by OPI Dark Room

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