Showing posts with label Massini. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Massini. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Nubar Prisms swatches, Part I

Eep! Eep! Holos! A collection of holos! Eep!

As I mentioned yesterday, Nubar's PR sent me their new Prisms collection (due out New Year's Day, 2010... omg, it's practically 2010). The Prisms are made up of four chunky holos and four smooth holos. The smooth holos somewhat resemble a dusty pastel version of the China Glaze OMG collection (though with more scattered holo) while the chunky holos resemble holos like Massini Slammin' Red and some of the new China Glaze glitter polishes like Mahoganie. They are not that much like Nubar Reclaim, which is sad because that is one of my favorite polishes.

Nubar Spark



Spark is a good example of a subtle, work-appropriate color (golden beige) that is non-holo in most lights but turns beautiful when the sun hits it. I had to swatch this twice yesterday. The first time I swatched it, it was overcast out and I barely got ANY holo anything. Then, right after I finished swatching for the day, the sun came out! GRR! I quickly re-swatched Spark during this time and caught a video of it. Three coats, great application. One of those polishes you could apply half-asleep in the dark. It's more saturated and sparkly than its close cousin, Color Club Love 'Em, Leave 'Em, a light champagne holo with very little holo to speak of.

Video of Spark
Spark was my NOTD yesterday afternoon and dried lightning quick with Diamont. (I did three hours of housework about half an hour after putting it on. I got a couple of bubbles because layered on too much Diamont but besides that, the mani was impeccable the rest of the day.)


Nubar Treasure



Smooth light purple holo. A little sheer at three coats and could've used a fourth. Like Spark, it also has a cousin in the Color Club Wild at Heart collection: Wild at Heart. Except this is the weaker cousin this time: more sheer, less saturated, less in-your-face holo. When not in the sunlight, the color is actually more like a dusty lavender.

Nubar Gem



I think this is my favorite one of the collection. There's something really unexpected about this polish. First of all, it looks like it's a cool champagne-mauve duochrome shimmer base with chunky holo glitter. What is this color? Who knows! It changes with every sort of light: not only is the glitter color not stable, the base color isn't stable either. And I LOVE it. It's so wonderfully weird. But even though it's chunky holo, it's fairly smooth (all these photos are without topcoat). It glitters like crazy no matter what light you're in. Three coats, could've used four.

Video of Gem


And finally, the polish that made me squeal when I saw it in the bottle:


Nubar Prize



A prize indeed! A chunky cherry red holo! This is what I wanted Massini Slammin' Red to be like: I wanted it to be pretty and for it to be red. For those who have followed the blog for awhile -- can you believe it's been only five months? -- you might remember that one of my first posts was Slammin' Red. And slammed it I did: it was a dull bumpy nightmare. Three, four coats of topcoat didn't do a thing to even that sucker out. Nubar Prize, however, was a tad chunky but nowhere near as lumpy as the Massini and it does gorgeous things even in low light. It does need at least one coat of a thickish topcoat because it does dry a bit bumpy but that's normal for this type of glitter. SQUEE! Red holo! It's as true a red as I've seen a holo be (which is to say a teensy tad pink, but nowhere as pink as the other red holos out there).

Video of Prize

That's it for today! Because of the overcast conditions yesterday and my little access to sun, a lot of my photos came out dull. I'm hoping that today will bring sunnier skies and that I can reswatch the second half. Either way, the other four polishes will be reviewed tomorrow! I did my nails in the blue holo, Absolute, last night and I'll have some thoughts on how it wears as an NOTD with the next post. :)
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Tuesday, July 21, 2009

NOTD: Massini Slamming Red

I am so grateful to the MUA swapper who threw this into a recent mystery swap package. It looks beyond amazing in the bottle: shining, shimmering, splendid holo EVERYWHERE, suspended in a sea of rich fuchsia glitter.

I loved it when I saw it.

Now, not so much. This is one of the hardest polishes I've ever tried to apply. I almost don't want to post the pictures, my mani looks so messy. There's a reason it looks like it's all glitter: it is, in fact, all glitter. It comes out like thin, sparkly, fuchsia Elmer's glue and the rather long and flexible brush picks up a ton of it at a time. This'd be great for someone with big nails but I have little nails. Little nails, big mess. All over. Pain in ass clean-up. And CHUNKY. I mean, it looked clumped on my nail and rather dull clumps too. Putting a coat of Nubar Diamont helped gloss it up and smooth it out slightly except the glitter ATE the gloss and it became dull in an hour. I went outside with it and though it was pretty and sparkly in the sun, it looks dull and dark indoors. And clumpy. So clumpy. And because it was a glitter polish, it took about twenty minutes of hard scrubbing with acetone and felt to remove.

I'm sad because I've heard tell of Massini glitter polishes (some of which are direct dupes for Color Clubs) and some of the photos are stunning. This one... fail. Big fail. Ugh. Here it is. (Lookit how pretty the bottle is! Look at the bottle! THE BOTTLE. NOT MY FINGERNAILS.)

Massini Slamming Red


I still have hope for Massini though (especially since I really like Color Club polishes) and will get another shot at them very soon...

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