Well Howdy

Hey guys. Long time no write huh? To be honest there isn't a real reason I didn't blog for almost three weeks. I was finished with school (although summer semester has just started), I didn't move or start a new job or anything like that. I just needed a bit of a break. I think I was wearing nail polish for this blog's sake and not because I love it. So...yeah, needed the time to just paint my nails at my own leisure. Wear a color for a few hours or up to a week. Wear a color again if I wanted to. Stuff like that. I needed to be selfish with my polish wearing.

And with that selfishness I wore quite a few polishes. They're below, with a few notes.

Man Glaze Lesbihonest-My first Man Glaze polish and holy crap I love it. I need to get a few more in my life. It's a bright fuchsia matte with shimmer. I can't even begin to explain how much I love this one, and you guys know pink isn't my favorite color (polish or not) in the world. Two coats and it was perfect.

Zoya Marina-I wore this after it had been overcast and cloudy for days in my part of the world. Lots of summer storms (and already two named tropical storms. Yay summer) already. Marina matched the cloudy, greyish dark skies. I got this polish in a swap with Refined and Polish, who is one of the sweetest people ever. She taking a break to finish up her doctoral degree, but her blog is one of the best out there. If you follow this one, you HAVE to follow hers. Two coats as well.

Hits Hera-Honestly, I just wanted to wear one of the few holos I have backlogged in my untrieds box and we had like one day of sun. Woo. This is a teal holo. It's so pretty and the picture doesn't even begin to show how beautiful the holo is. I did three coats of this one, but they were thin coats. Dried relatively fast and no top coat.

Zoya Jancyn and OPI Servin Up Sparkle-I also have quite a few Zoyas backlogged as well and wanted to get another one out the way. Jancyn is a bright almost tangerine orange. I've wanted this one since it first came out a few years ago. Unfortunately I didn't love the formula. It needed three coats and it went on funky and just...bah. I think someone with more patience who like orange would love the color. I put on SUS to add a bit to the orange creme. I actually really liked that look after SUS was added.

Zoya Jo-Talking about a polish I've wanted forever. And I looooves it. It's a cornflower blue with lots of blue shimmer. Much more than what you see in the picture. I did three coats of this one as well, but it dried quickly and I didn't have any problems with the formula. Now I know why everyone loves this polish. I think it's a must have for a collection. It's not terribly unique (nowadays) but it's a basic color you should just have.

Sinful Colors Athens-I just gushed about Jo and now I have to go to this. I don't like this polish. I didn't like the color once I had it on my nails, I didn't like the formula. It looked better in the bottle than on me. Meh. No need to really talk about this one more.

A-England Order of the Garter-A denim blue with glass flecks. Yes. Just a beautiful polish from a great company. OotG is from the latest A-England collection, The Legends. It's the one non-holo and what a non-holo polish it is. I needed three coats, but other than that it was great. Drying time was a bit slow, but I don't know how much of that is the polish or the fact that I used three coats, with the second and third coats being relatively thick. But other than that it's a great polish.

So as you can see I did indeed wear a good bit of polish during the past three weeks. I also wore IKB again because, well I could and it needs to be worn as often as possible. I don't know how blogging will go from now on. I guess when the mood strikes me. I might do a post with just one polish, I may do one with seven again. At least I'll have an excuse this time? Anyway, I hope things have been going well with all of you. Any plans for the summer? I hope it's more interesting then taking summer classes like me.

Hits-Ares

I know I'm ridiculously late with this, but oh well. This was my Valentine's Day mani. Something simple and easy and somewhat in the spirit of the day, even if I consider it a farce.

Ares is another holo from the Speciallita No Olimpo collection from Hits. It's a cherry red with a linear holo finish. I'm not a fan of red. At all. And I've told you guys that before. But I love this. I think if I was to like red it has to be something bold like this. The holo isn't as strong as others, but it's definitely noticeable. I wish I had better pictures, but it's been overcast and rainy all week here in Charleston and I had to use flash.

The formula on this one was thick and...gelly. Not like universal fave jelly polishes, but like an actual gel gelly. It was weird. But two thick coats and I was good to go. It dried okay. Not as fast as other Hits polishes or other holos I've used before, but still pretty good. 

And there we go. This right here is my favorite red polish. And as I don't go to red all that often (read: never) I'm pretty sure this will be one of two or maybe three reds in my collection. Yep.

Julep-Megan and Hits-Hefesto

Megan is a shimmery light blue. Kind of ocean blue to me. It's very pretty, but it seems like something that's already been done before. The formula was okay and it dried okay, not fast but not slow. It chipped quickly, but I'm beginning to notice that Julep doesn't last on me as long as other brands. Oh well.

It was looking pretty plain the next day so I decided to add Hits Hefesto. Hefesto is the holo topcoat in the Speciallita no Olimpo collection. I love this top coat. It covers nicely and it dried super quick. I did one coat here because I didn't want the pretty color that Megan is to be overshadowed. This mani screamed summer to me (particularly something that would have fit right in to the summer collections from last year). Too bad the weather finally decided to remind us that it's actually still winter. Boo.

Hits-Powerpuff Girls Elemento X

Quick post tonight. Guess who has to read all of Don Juan by Lord Byron by tomorrow? Yay.

Elemento X is another polish from Hits, this time from their Powerpuff Girls collection. This is the only one that really caught my eye. Let me say now, this polish looks so much better in person than in these pictures. These pictures suck in comparison, but I adore this polish so I had to make a post.

Elemento X is...I actually don't know how to describe it. A black polish with tons of green shimmer? A dark hunter green with lots of the same color shimmer that leans black? I don't know, but I will say that it looks black (or dark green) the majority of the time and when a light hits it it glows green. It's so damn awesome.

Formula was pretty good. Thick, but I've come to expect that from Hits polishes now. I was able to work with it easily though. The bristles in this was okay. Not as bad as in Cool, but not perfect. (After checking Llarowe's Facebook page I see several of the Mari Moon polishes had funky brushes. Booo Hits.) This dried really fast. Much faster than I expected, especially considering I did a pretty thick second coat for this mani.

Again, I love this polish. Pretty awesome. This is one you have to see in person to get why it's great. If you're a lover of green nail polish then I highly recommend this. I'm trying to think if there is a dupe of this out there somewhere and I can't come up with anything. Pretty unique and, again, awesome. I got this from Llarowe, per usual.

Hits-Mari Moon Cool

Well hellooooo duochrome nail polish! Its been a while since we've been together. I had to get out of my SpaRitual funk, so I decided to wear this over the weekend. Let me tell you now, this polish frustrated the hell out of me. But in the end it was so worth it. So very worth it.

Mari Moon Cool is a green/blue duochrome shimmer. You guys know with duochromes, how it hits the light is the color you see. It's mostly green, but you will see the blue. I love this combination so much. I love the lime/electric green it gives off and quite frankly would love a creme color of something like that.

The formula on this is thick and streaky. You can try to get by with one coat, but I wouldn't suggest it. Two even things up for me nicely. But seriously, it's much thicker than I expected or even used before. Kind of strange. Yes, you can see bubbles on my nails, but that's me. I had to shake up the polish before using it and that was the consequences of that. Oops.

horrible shot, but this is to show the blue

This dried ridiculously fast. Almost matte polish fast. It pleasantly surprised me. One thing I have to bring up is bristles on the brush. Now, maybe it was just my bottle, but the bristles were all over the place. I had to cut off about four because they had just gone haywire. And a few more look like they want to stick out as well. Plus, this did chip kind of quickly, even for me. After about a day of having it on I had a few chips one three fingers.

hoping this one shows both

But with all that-bad brush, thick polish, quick chippies-this polish is still a winner for me. The duochromeness is awesome and it dried fast. I love it simply for those two reasons. I'd highly recommend it. I got this from Llarowe for $8. I say well worth the money.

Specillitá Hits-No Olimpio Demeter

Well hello everyone. It's not two weeks later so I'm making progress! I bought this one a little before Thanksgiving and I just never wore it (remember, I had my nails naked for damn near two weeks). But you guys. Orange holo. I love orange. I love holo. Best of both worlds, right?

indoors, flash

Right! Demeter is a linear orange holo from the Hits No Olimpio collection. Hits is a Brazilian brand that is becoming bigger and bigger outside Brazil in the nail polish community. And for good reason. Demeter was awesome to put on. What you see in these pictures is three coats, but they went on like a dream. No dragging, no bald spots. I used a regular base. Pretty great.

indoors, artificial light. somewhat of a close up.

The dry time wasn't as quick as some holos, but better than a lot of other polishes. Like I said above, I used three coats, and while I could have stopped at two (and thought about it) the VNL was driving me a bit crazy there. You can still see a bit of it at three really.

indoors, artificial light. hoping you can see the holo a bit.

These are crap pictures, I know. I could not take a good picture of this polish for anything. It's a shame because the polish really is beautiful. The holo effect really does need to be under a light source with this polish to really see the beauty in it. I don't think it's the strongest holo you'll ever see, but I don't think it has to be. Orange holos are rare (speaking of, does anyone know of any other orange holos?) and the effect is definitely there. So much more than what you see in my pictures.

blurry close up to see the holo effect.

I love this polish. Love love love. I got mine at llarowe, but I know you can order it from the Hits website directly. The reason I got mine from llarowe was because I'm pretty certain that with currency rates and shipping from Brazil, $10 is be the cheaper route (that's the price at llarowe). At least for those of us in the USA. However if you're doing a big order maybe it's better to get it from the company themselves? Up to you, but if you want an orange holo, get this one and don't think twice. You won't regret it.

flash