Evil Shades Cosmetics is the company created and run by Andrea who also has her own polish blog Black Nail Polish and Lip Gloss. Back in August of this year, she created and reviewed this custom franken she made called Nightmare which was a blue teal purple holographic duochrome... Let me just say I really wish this was available in full bottles everywhere. Because it was her own custom color, I never thought I'd see it anywhere, but she ended up splitting her own bottle up and making mini-bottles for sale. I didn't realize that at the time, so I bought 4... one for me, and 3 to giveaway. Oops. Sorry guys for stealing your Nightmares (heh).
This was not the easiest to photograph, and even then I didn't get the best of pictures. I used a base of Seche Natural, 3 coats of Nightmare, and a top of Seche Vite. Either I didn't wait long enough or this is just one of those polishes, but it didn't play nice with the Seche and wrinkled on me. I have several other brands of top coat to try, so eventually, I'll find one. First, bottle pictures.
Can you see all that holographic and duochromy goodness? Loves.
Sun picture - just beautiful.
Shade picture reminds me of wispy smoke. It's funny because I used to work at a hard rock radio station, and we saw many a CD cover with blue and purple wispy smoke. It's almost a staple!
Now as I mentioned, I purchased 4 bottles. While looking at them all, I noticed that it seemed like they were slightly different formulas - one had more duochrome look and the other didn't.
I emailed Andrea who said that she's not too sure what happened but that this was both from the same formula that she made. Because it's a custom franken color that she made, and not some big batch of polish, there's bound to be some differences. It almost looks like my bottle on the left was from the bottom of the frankened bottle (where the duochrome had settled in) and the bottle on the right was from the top of her frankened bottle. Here's the difference on the nail:
Without the purple duochrome, the color base color is lighter but still holographic (you just can't see all the rainbow sparkles). So what I've done is I'm keeping these two bottles and the other two (which contains one duochromed bottle and one non-duochromed bottle) went into my 500+ readers giveaway. Have you signed up yet?
I purchased my Nightmare for $3 a bottle but it has now been discontinued. Check out other makeup from Evil Shades at her website.
In the just released 2010 Winter collection "Flame", two different reds were released, both with pretty interesting descriptions. Sarah was called "possibly the prettiest sparkling red metallic ever!" (exclamation point included) whereas Lisa was called a "celebration red sparkling metallic." Okay, what? On the actual press release, Lisa was shown as much more pink than Sarah, but as you can see above in the sun picture, the colors don't look that different. I used a base of Zoya Anchor, 1 coat of both colors, and a top of Zoya Armor. Lisa looked a tad thin on the nail this time because of Sarah but it was fully opaque for me.
Even here in on the nail, there's not THAT much difference other than Sarah is slightly darker than Lisa. But wait, there's more!
As always, the truth is in the shade. You can totally see these are different - with Sarah being at least 4 shades darker (not a scientific measurement). Also Lisa looks more like a liquid metal to me, where Sarah is much more of a blackened red (in comparison to Lisa only).
Here you can really tell that these are two different colors and depending on the look you're going for, you'd want to choose carefully. Are they both totally worth it in the collection? For me, the answer is always yes but I also have a collection problem and normally want complete collections. While I would have liked to see a green in Flame (for winter), Zoya has put out a lot of greens lately, and they have all been super pretty, so it's a win/win situation in my book.
Zoya [official website] can be purchased on their website for $7/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.
Happy Sunday! Here are 3 more blogs.
On top of loving nail polish, I also love fonts. Obsessively so - I have well over 3000 of them. I can't even have them all installed on my computer because it crashes several programs, but one place that I constantly go for fonts is Amanda's Font for Peas. She features some of the best handwritten fonts I've ever seen, and even allows you to submit your own handwriting sample for consideration. She's also helpful with blog design, and that's where I got my custom signature (that's my handwriting by the way) to post on each of my blogs, as well as some other design features.
Second blog today is F-YeahPrettyNails. As you can see, they actually use the entire F word, but I'm being semi responsible in not saying my favorite curse word. This is a tumblr account that only features other people's nails (unless stated). You can submit your nail pictures to her website directly or you might find your handiwork is already there. There isn't a way to search which I hate, but overall it's super neat to see all the pictures. Mostly, they are nail art of some kind, but I have seen a few plain jane nails.
Last today is Glitter Millie. Blog owner Millie was rated one of the top 50 nail blogs by SpaBeautySchools.com back in August 2010. She has what I'd call long nails and does a lot of konad and nail art on her nails. She also has a lot of chatter about her cats, but as a huge cat fan, I love it. Millie does franken some of her polishes as well and does a great job with her creations.
Enjoy!
Zoya Lisa is the other red in the Winter 2010 "Flame" collection, listed as celebration red sparkling metallic. I will actually have a comparison post tomorrow showing the difference between Lisa and Sarah but the easiest way to say it is that Lisa is a lighter red. Hard to tell huh? It is in the sun - I'll say that much. I actually had to study my bottle pictures when editing because I thought I mislabeled them. Fun times.
I used a base coat of Zoya Anchor, 1 fully opaque coat of Lisa, and a top coat of Zoya Armor. As with this entire collection, the formula was smooth, not runny or thick.
Bing! One sun picture, done. The pinkie LOOKS like this polish is gritty, but it's not - that's just the light bouncing around, not the texture of the polish. Good to know if you like smooth nails.
The bottle has a bit of an orange looks on it but honestly, I think that was a reflection of my tree (oops). You can see how it's a bit more pink than Sarah did, but again it's just such a smooth looking polish. I almost see a bit of light purple in there too near my pinkie.
Zoya [official website] can be purchased on their website for $7/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 Sarah is one of 2 reds from the Flame 2010 Winter collection, listed as "possibly the prettiest sparkling red metallic ever!" Seriously, that's straight from the press release. Unlike China Glaze Ruby Pumps or any of the other red glitters, this has such a fine microglitter in it, and is actually listed as a metallic. Now, I asked the head fairy over at Zoya about the name on the bottle, which clearly says Sara, without the H. She replied that it was just a printing mistake and that all future bottles would include the H. (This was also later mentioned on their website for the release.) Sarah or Sara, this is a really pretty red.
I used a base of Zoya Anchor, only 1 fully opaque coat of Sarah, and a top of Zoya Armor. I'm still not in love with Zoya Armor - it dries too slowly for me, but because of the actual formula, Zoya polishes do not play well with Seche.
In the sun you can really see how pigmented this color is. There are going to be a LOT of reds this winter season, but this gives a bit of a metallic look to the classic red creme.
In the shade, you can see how it looks similar to a red glitter but unlike a glitter, this is much easier to remove - no scrubbing necessary.
Zoya [official website] can be purchased on their website for $7/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.
