Illamasqua Phallic

Illamasqua Phallic is quite an interesting color.  The company describes it as a shimmering midnight navy, which is pretty darn accurate.  I haven't seen a bottle of Essie "Starry Night" in person, but this is what I'd imagine it would look like.  Illamasqua's website shows Phallic to be lighter than it is - it's definitely a DARK color.  I'm calling this a glitter since it has glitter in it - more so than a shimmer.  The polish was very easy to take off as well.  I wore it overnight and didn't have a problem with color bleed on my cuticles when I was removing it.


The squared off bottle is a little hard to work with but I preferred it to the actual brush top, after I removed the square top.

I used Seche Retain as my base coat (trying to keep my nails strong!), 2 coats of Phallic to cover all bald spots, and a top coat of Seche Vite.  The formula on this polish was quite nice - I didn't have any pooling into the cuticles and but it wasn't too thin either.


Shade pictures just wouldn't work here, so instead I have 2 sun pictures for you.

This one shows you more of the blue in the bottle - while this picture is color accurate for the blue, it's definitely not what you see mostly on your nails.

This is more like it.  Very dark dark navy with a hint of blue glitter.  It's still very pretty but not a good spring color by any means.  ^_^  I'm interested in trying more of this line - the application was very nice.


For those in the States, you can purchase Illamasqua from Sephora [official website] for $14 a bottle.


Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Zoya Nail Polish Exchange

It's back!  Zoya kicked off their Nail Polish Exchange on Earth Day, and this will last a whole 2 months!  I still can't get into the site myself, but from what I have seen from others and from Zoya's Twitter [official Twitter page], there is NO MAXIMUM for this, but there is a minimum of 6 bottles per order.  Additionally, you have to include $3.50 per bottle.  You can send Zoya your old top coats, base coats, polish (even mini bottles!) but you can only order Zoya polish for your exchange.


From Zoya:  Zoya Nail Polish will exchange your old, out-of-style, unwanted nail color and replenish your nail polish supply with fresh Zoya fashion colors. Simply send in six or more bottles of old polish - any brand other than Zoya, Qtica or Nocti, new or used - and we'll send you the new Zoya colors of your choice in a bottle-for-bottle exchange.


To start exchanging your polish, please click [here] to go to Zoya's website.  *In case of crashing, please wait and try again.

Essie "Color Me Delicious"

[Please click on image to see full size]

Essie can be purchased on their website [official website] or etailers like Head2ToeBeauty [official website] or TransDesign [official website].

Color Club Pucci-licious

Color Club Pucci-licious was a neon purple from the Poptastic collection.  Like most neons, it dries matte, and it nearly impossible to photograph, although it was a problem of my camera seeing purple and thinking BLUE.  I was able to color correct my pictures to show the true purple of this color.


I've been having hit or miss problems with Color Club, and this was another one.  I used Seche Natural as my base and my first coat of Pucci-licious was very hard to apply, but I'm going to chalk that up to being a neon.  I went thicker than normal to try and make sure I didn't have bald spots, and then used a second (still thick) coat to even out any lumpiness.  I did not use a top coat to keep with the matte.  I did, however, totally screw up the polish on my thumb before walking outside to take pictures.  Go figure.

It looks nice on the nail once it's all said and done though - almost a cornflower purple blue?  Either way, it's unlike anything I have, and I like it.

I had a peek of sun, and tried in vain to get a good picture but this just makes it look glossy instead of matte.  I assure you, it's a matte finish.

Color Club is located on several etailers, including Head2Toe Beauty which has it for $3.00.  You can also Like them on Facebook and Follow them on Twitter.

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

Barielle Myrza's Meadow

Barielle Myrza's Meadow is being called a light lime green with silver glitter but really it's multicolored glitter in the bottle.  This was one of the special colors from the Wildflower collection that Barielle was donating 100% of the proceeds to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.  Now, I recently saw this color featured as one of the "pretty ugly" colors on another blog, and while I can't quite call this color "ugly", I am slightly reminded of weird baby vomit when I see it.  Blame my kid.

I used Seche Natural for my base, 3 coats of Myrza's Meadow and just for fun, I did not use a top coat.  As you can see, it definitely leaves the nails a bit gritty from the glitter.

I'm sure if I had a coordinating dress or maybe a nice white button down shirt (?) that I wanted a pop of color with, this would work out.  I almost wish that Barielle had left the glitter out of the color, and then I think this would have been a perfect color.


Barielle retails for $8/bottle.

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.