Color Club Spring 2013 Halo Hues Collection - Swatches and Review

Spring time is approaching and that means it's time for some Holo fun! Today I have the Color Club Halo Hues to share with you.

Layla Flash Black Hologram Effect Swatch

Caution while driving! Should be written across this amazing holographic. Today I'm wearing my new Layla polish in Flash Black. It's actually more charcoal indoors, but in the sunlight, or any light, it appears more black with a rainbow center.

I used 3 coats which were enough for full coverage. For base coat, I used GOSH Fix Base #565. I believe it has been discontinued, unfortunately, but I've read that other holographic base coats work well.

I'm very excited to have Flash Black in my collection! I can't stop staring at my nails :)

I purchased Flash Black from Aveyou.com for about $15. At the time they had a coupon for 20% using code ALLCHIC, or $25 off $100 using code GIMME25. You can also order it directly from Layla's website or Ebay.

Thanks for stopping by. Happy Polishing!

Layla Hologram Mercury Twilight

Good morning Nail Divas! Today I have the lovely Layla Hologram to share with you. The name of it is Mercury Twilight and it's an AMAZING silver holographic polish. I missed out on China Glaze OMG so I couldn't let this one slip through my fingers. I do have GOSH Holographic and I must say that this one right here is some stiff competition!

In Layla's promotional video they used a buffer to buff the nails before applying. I would assume so that the polish would grip tightly to the nail. I honestly can't say if it would be beneficial or not. I didn't' use a basecoat or a buffer, but I've heard that other holo bases have worked successfully. The polish was slightly lumpy out of the bottle, but it applied smoothly in 3 thin coats.

Guess what? As part of my Anniversary I'm giving away Mercury Twilight with some other great Layla polishes! How cool is that? Enter my Nail Art Contest for a chance to win this awesome Layla!

The Layla Holograms can be purchased at Aveyou.com or Laylacosmetics.it. Aveyou only has 3 colors currently but they plan to get the rest sometime in March. They currently have Ultra Violet (light purple) and Retro Pink (light pink). The holographic lover in me couldn't let these pass. I'm really looking forward to the charcoal black as well. If you can't wait, you can purchase them now at Laylacosmetics.it but shipping is a beast to the US, approximately 30 euros or 15 euros with a purchase over 80 euros I believe. The Layla Holograms retail for $15.50 per bottle.

Sephora by OPI Glimmer Wonderland Set Swatches

Last week I picked up the Glimmer Wonderland Set. I looked for swatches all over the Internet before I purchased it and couldn't find any, so I thought I'd share a few quick swatches with you today. The set comes with 6 mini polishes in different Holiday inspired colors and finishes.

Bare to Be Different - Nude base that's almost sheer. Excuse my horribly stained nails. I usually put a nail brightener on when doing French manis to hide my stains. I used 2 coats.


Never enough shoes - black base with micro gold shimmer. It's really hard to notice the shimmer in this one but it's there.

No-el If I Know - Holographic glitter topcoat. I really love this one over Never Enough Shoes.

Looks Like Rain Dear - Golden base with medium and micro silver hex glitter. Another favorite. I used 2 coats.

Sample Sale - I only used 1 coat of this one but probably could have used another. Medium red with micro shimmer.

Already Famous - lovely pewter foil but I did had to use 3 coats to make it opaque.

Looks Like Rain Dear over Sample Sale looks great together but it was difficult getting even coverage using Looks Like Rain Dear as a topcoat. Nevertheless they look great together!

I own very few Sephora by OPI's so I was eager to try these out. The formula is thinner than the standard OPI line but I like the small brush for ease of application. My least favorite was Bare to Be Different only because I have so many stains. It would probably look great over stain-free nails. I'll have to look into getting full sizes of Already Famous and Looks Like Rain Dear. These two stood out to me from the 6 in the collection. No-el If I Know was another favorite.

I purchased this set from Sephora.

NOTW: Nails of The Week

Quick spam to share my nails so far this week!

Color Club - Wild At Heart. A long time lemming I got recently. Gorgeous color but I was slightly disappointed with the holo effect. I'm not sure if this is a dud or not???

OPI Silver Shatter over Zoya Sweet.

Revlon - Carbonite. I drove so far out of the way to find this one and then I saw it yesterday at Big Lots for $1.50, lol. I'm not sure how I feel about Carbonite. It's kind of dull in my honest opinion.

That's all for tonight. I hope you enjoyed my mini spam :)

NOTD: Julep Maggie with Spectraflair Holographic Topcoat

Today I'm sharing my nail of the day, Julep Maggie. Maggie is a deep blue-purple with blue and purple shimmer. It appears more blue indoors and the purple is more obvious in the sunlight. I only needed 2 coats to make it opaque. The formula is great on this one and the colors are very concentrated.

Here's a pic indoors. It appears more blue and the shimmer is not as obvious. I have very slight tip wear because this is day 2 of my mani.

For fun I decided to take it up a notch and added a Spectraflair topcoat (1/2 bottle of Wet N' Wild clear polish and a pea size of Spectraflair). I love the result! I've been lemming DS Glamour since forever and surprisingly this came out really close. There is a trick to applying Spectraflair. If it's applied too thickly it changes the color of the base to more appear more silver. Only a very thin layer is needed to create the holo effect.


Here you can see the thicker layer of Spectraflair on the index finger changed the base to appear more silver. I used a lighter layer on the other fingers which added a holo without overwhelming the base color. So the other nails remained blue after the topcoat was added.

This was a fun and easy way to jazz up my mani. So far I've only tried it over blue but I would imagine it would look great over several colors.

What Spectraflair color combinations have you tried?

Random Frankens

A couple of Frankens I made last week. I guess the first doesn't count as a Franken since I decanted Nic Sticks. I couldn't get the holo to show up in this pic but it's there.

WnW nocturnal + WnW clear + SpectraFlair over MaybellineBlue Jean. One of my major lemmings is DS Glamour so I tried to create a similar look. It's not as holo as I wanted but still pretty.

A more recent Franken. Konad green is a little too dark and mint green a little too light so I mixed them both for a grassier green. If you try this out I recommend adding at least 2 balls because these polishes are extra thick.

A few bottles I cleaned out yesterday.

That's all for now. Have a great Sunday!

Catherine Arley #674

Hello everyone. How are you doing tonight? I'm so happy I just finished two tests and now I have some free time to relax. It's definitely gonna be a TV Night for me. My brain cells need some rest and relaxation!

Here's a mani I did back in February. I'm not sure why but I originally didn't like the color. I think I was slightly disappointed that it wasn't a linear holo, but when I look back at the picture I notice how beautiful it is. Has that ever happened to you? Sometimes you don't know a good thing when its staring you in the face =)

Catherine Arley #674. Five coats.

And here she is compared to China Glaze 2Nite.

CG - Pointer & Middle, CA - Ring & Pinky

That's all for now. Hopefully the sun will pay me a visit soon so that I can post more holos!

Fun Dusty Hunting

Happy Friday! Hope you all had a great day. Last week I had a chance to go Dusty shopping. If you're not familiar with Dusty-ing, its where you shop Hair Salons, Beauty Supply Stores & Nail Salons for old polishes that are no longer available retail. I've only been twice, but the second time I went I had a bad experience so I shied away from it. Well last week I felt the urge to give it a try, so I set out for a little Dusty adventure.

To my surprise, everyone was really nice. I think it helped that I went early in the morning, before they were swamped with customers. I only looked for old China Glaze polishes because they are easy to spot due to the silver handle.

Here's what I found:


I'm so happy everything went well. As I get more comfortable I'll explore other polish collections and maybe even try to negotiate prices. The shops that I went too only sold China Glaze and OPI. I knew I could quickly spot the OMG's and make a run for it. I almost fainted when I thought I spotted Grape Crush, but it was Crystal Ball instead.

Part of me feels guilty for buying up all these gems, but if they've been sitting there for 2 years I guess they were meant for me. I'll definitely try this again now that I know to go during slow hours. I encourage you to try it also, but if you do, be sure to wear comfortable clothes. Most likely you'll have to squat, bend and peak through a looking glass to find the beauties you want :)

I almost forgot to post pics. I had to try IDK first because I've been wanting a purple holo for a very long time!

Thanks for stopping by!

Camouflage & Holos

I was in the mood to do a foil the other day and this is what I came up with. The first time I tried this foil I used SH Going Green, but it was a little too bright as underwear. For this mani I used Avon Olive Green and it was the perfect match.


Here's Olive Green alone. OMG, this is some thick stuff. I only used 1 coat and it was totally opaque. It's has a muted out green effect that I'll have to get used to.

As promised here's swatch of Catherine Arley's 805. My first black holo! I'm very excited about this one. I was hoping it had more of a linear effect, but its still beautiful.

I'll post more swatches of the holo's soon. Have a great evening!

My Catherine Arley's Are Here! (Pic Heavy)

After a 2 month delay, my polishes have finally arrived! I ordered 10 Catherine Arley's after seeing Emerald Sparkled's detailed post about them. They are all really beautiful but my surprise favorite is 803, the army green holo. This color is definitely not for everyone. I like to call it a pretty-ugly color. Pretty to some and ugly to most =)

All of the polishes I ordered are holos. Some of them are not as strong as I had hoped but overall they are still beautiful and definitely worth $3.50 a bottle. I'm not sure why the package was delayed. For whatever reason, the Bulgarian post office held the package for 30 days before shipping.

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Here's a quick look at 803.

I stamped over it using Bundle Monster plate 21. The effect reminds me of Grandma's curtains :)

Just to let you know, over the next few days I'll be updating my blog. If you see any "test posts", please ignore them. Thanks for stopping by!

Color Club Revvvolution Swatch!

One word to describe this is AMAZING! I can't believe I waited so long to buy this beauty. I hear there are two versions, one with less holo effect. Looks like I got the good one! Do you agree? This is the perfect fall shade.