Ebalay Orchid

Afternoon, and, erm, hai... yep, it's me, and contrary to appearances, I'm still alive. Things have been insanely busy at work recently and I've just not had the energy for blogging (more like get home, eat dinner and collapse into bed! BORING).

Anyways I've finally got far enough through the list of things happening that I can draw breath and stay up past 8pm, so back to blogging! And what a beauty I have for you today.

Introducing Orchid, from Ebalay. Just like Golden Green (reviewed here, Orchid is an unassuming colour in the bottle; a shimmery, translucent pink colour with a blue flash through it, quite pretty, but immensely sheer. You'd need a lot of coats to reach opacity; though if you wanted to, you could use it over a pink or white base and it'd look rather lovely. However, I remembered what happened when I layered Golden Green over black, so that's exactly what I did here.

Over one coat of Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris (a basic black creme), a single coat of Orchid is transformed into a gorgeous duochrome beauty, the full effect of which is frustratingly hard to capture on camera, but which in real life is quite frankly amazing. It shifts between a lovely blue (midway between royal blue and denim) and a rich royal purple, metallic, sparkly and shimmery. You will spend a lot of time staring at your nails (believe me, these pictures don't do it justice at all).

The bottle and brush are very similar to OPI in shape and style; this is a good thing, because the cap is easy to hold and the brush splays out nicely to cover the nail, without blobbing the polish everywhere. The formula is pretty thin and runny, but it dries fast and doesn't pool in the cuticles. I didn't use topcoat, which was a mistake: I had tipwear quite quickly, although it didn't get much worse than this, even after three days of wear.

Apologies for the blurry camera phone picture; this was the closest I could get to capturing the blue-purple shift (for some reason my phone is better at capturing duochromes than my real camera, even though the pictures aren't as sharp).

What I liked about Orchid:

- Over black, it's a stunning blue/purple duochrome, very sparkly and eyecatching

- As well as the OPI like bottle, it has a brush similar to OPI too. Application was pretty easy.

- Drying time was fast!

- Wear was pretty good. I got tipwear quite quickly, though I think that was more to do with my base colour than the Orchid, and would have been prevented if I'd used topcoat.

What I didn't like about Orchid:

- It's so sheer that you have to layer it to avoid VNL. Unless you have very short nails, bottle colour without VNL would only be possible if you layered it over a pink or white first.

Overall this is a really gorgeous polish and worth buying for the effect over black alone.

Golden Glow is available HERE from KKCenterHK. It's priced quite reasonably at £4.50 ($7.24),  KKCenterHK also offer a 10% discount until the 31st January 2013 to anybody using the code glitter-mountain at the checkout. (Use of this code does not benefit me in any way)

SpaRitual : Up At Noon

I woke up the other morning thinking 'it's been too long since I had a SpaRitual manicure'.

(Yes, I'm aware that waking up already thinking about nail polish is a sign of obsession, but I'm beyond help so just humour me, ok?)

Anyway. I have a decent sized stash of SpaRitual in my cupboard, so I stuck my hand in at random and pulled out this little pretty here:

Introducing Up At Noon. Ah, those were the days... before I had a child, I could get up at noon every day. Well, okay, maybe not every day... I did still have to work. Weekends, though... weekends were definitely for staying in bed and watching TV or just plain snoozing the morning away. It was wonderful and lazy and it felt so good - then motherhood came along and the rest is history. Let's just say, the day they bring out a polish called 'Up at 6.30am', they darn well better send me a whole crate of it for free. Until that day, I'll just have to wear this polish instead and call it irony.

Up At Noon is, at first glance, a bright pink, shot through with a violet shimmer (which makes a nice change from the far more common blue shimmer you tend to see in other pinks along these lines). That's not all you get, though. The pink shifts to orange at certain angles and in certain lights. I wouldn't say it's strong enough to call it a true duochrome effect, but it is pretty! The first picture above is how it looks most of the time, with the pink/violet effect most visible. The second picture shows the more orange side to this polish. It's more obvious in real life than it seems in pictures, and much more obvious in the bottle than on the nail.

Another shot of the pink/orange/violet shift. You can see the orange most clearly at the tip and edges of the nail, and the violet in the middle by the light reflection.

Formula wise this is pretty great - applied beautifully, drying time was reasonably fast even with three coats. Apart from a bit of tip wear (and a chip near one cuticle that was entirely my fault for being cack handed), the polish still looks perfect three days later. The only fault I can find is that it's very sheer. If you have short nails, you'll get away with three coats, but long nailed girls will probably need four unless you're not too bothered about visible nail line. In these pictures I am wearing three coats, and although you can't see the VNL too badly here, it's a lot more obvious in real life. The next time I wear this, I will be layering it over a pink creme (I am far too lazy and impatient busy to wait for four coats of polish to dry. Just blame it on 8 years of Not Getting Up At Noon Any More).

Pros:

I liked the colour. Almost fluorescent pink in bright light, orange/muted pink in subdued lighting, violet flashes everywhere. Pretty :)

The formula is mostly great - not too thick or thin, applies nicely, drying time not too bad.

Wears well. I'm doing a TON of typing at work at the moment and still only have a little tipwear after three days.

I love the bottle shape and the rubber cap on SpaRitual polishes. The brush is good, too. 

Cons:

It's too sheer for my liking. Needs at least 4 coats to get rid of VNL (or layering over something more opaque)

Stash or Trash?

Definitely stash. I haven't found a SpaRitual polish I don't like yet. I also love this polish as a pedicure :)

Beauty UK Glam Nails : Mauve Flash

Good morning! It's a lovely sunny day here in the UK and I've finally managed to find time for writing a post! I have a couple of things lined up already and I'm really excited to get back to blogging :)

Today I'd like to show you a polish I've actually worn several times now. Beauty UK Glam Nails, in Mauve Flash:

This unassuming, dinky little 9ml bottle contains a raspberry pink jelly that looks just so pretty on the nail... it's not really mauve (so what's with the name, I'm not sure) since it's most definitely pink - but it is on the purple, berry toned side of pink, even more so in real life than it is in these pictures. I don't know why, but in every picture I took, the bottle was a lot closer to the real colour than my nails were: the one above is about the closest of all.

Since it's a jelly, it goes on sheer: it took me four coats to get it opaque, though three coats was alright if you didn't mind faint VNL. It takes quite a long time to dry (typical of a lot of jellies) but this can be fixed easily with a fast drying top coat. I didn't use top coat at all because I had plans for this manicure; all will become clear in my next review :-p

I was surprised to see that Mauve Flash actually dries with a sort of satin, almost rubbery look to it. It also lacks that annoying tendency to flood the cuticles that jellies often have: a definite plus at clean-up time!

Isn't it pretty? It isn't the most unusual colour out there, but I like it. I'm such a sucker for berry shades, magentas and the like. Wear was pretty good, I had a little tipwear after 24 hours but nothing too bad and that's without topcoat. 

The only criticism I have is the packaging. The Beauty UK label is printed onto a clear sticker rather than directly onto the bottle, and on my bottle, it was doing its best to come off; it was bubbling and wrinkled and it looked a bit naff. I suspect I had a duff bottle, though, as the other colours I've got aren't doing this. I'll forgive the label though as I literally only paid £1.99 for this polish and it behaves a heck of a lot better than a lot of my pricier purchases. In fact the whole Beauty UK brand is pretty awesome; it's sold in Superdrug and almost every product I've tried (nail polish, lipstick, eyeshadow pencils, blusher) has been a lot better than I was expecting for the super cheap price tag. 

Have you tried any Beauty UK products? Which ones were your favourites?

Rimmel I Love Lasting Finish : Hot Shot

It's been weeks since I had anything other than plain or nude nails; longer than I've lasted in a long time, but I finally cracked yesterday and broke out the first bright colour I saw on opening my stash drawer: Rimmel Hot Shot.

(Without flash. Please excuse the scratch on my finger; a wardrobe bit me)

Hot Shot is a hot pink creme from Rimmel's Lasting Finish range; in the bottle it's pretty darn bright already but on the nail it dries brighter, almost neon pink but not quite. The above picture is without flash: the colour of the bottle is accurate but the nails are not as bright as they are in real life.

(with flash)

This flash shot more accurately captures the brightness; it's not quite this purple toned in real life but it's definitely this intense. If you imagine something this bright but with a colour closer to the first picture then you're there!

(without flash)

Formula wise this polish wasn't quite as good as some of the other Rimmel Lasting Finish shades I've tried; it's a little on the thick side and difficult to apply nice thin coats, and it tends to apply a little streaky: watch out for bald spots. It's not unworkable; just needs a little more care over application, and you'll need two coats for sure. Drying time wasn't too bad, although after the second coat I did use Orly Sec'n'Dry to hurry things along.

(with flash)

Wear was okay... I had tipwear by the end of day two but not unbearably so, and there weren't any chips. 

Overall, I would wear this polish again; I didn't love the formula, though it's not unworkable, but the colour is really nice (and this is coming from someone who doesn't wear that many pinks) and I enjoyed wearing something so bright and summery even though everything outside is icy and cold!

NYC Expert Last : 165 Carrie'd Away

Things have been a little quiet here at Glitter Mountain : I had some offline drama to deal with and it took me away from the computer (and from polishing my nails) for a while. Sorry about that; I'm back now!

Today I'd like to share a new-to-me brand: New York Color, or NYC. This brand has been around for ages, but it's only recently that I managed to find a shop that stocked it - and how excited was I to discover their polishes are all as cheap as chips, yet there were some really nice colours amongst them! My nails were a bit stained at the time, which made it hard to go 'bare', yet I knew I wouldn't have time to look after my nails much for a while, especially anything that takes as long as buffing out stains. What to do?

Enter NYC Expert Last, in Carrie'd Away. 

This pretty shell pink/nude colour was supposed to cost the princely sum of £2.48, hardly bank breaking in the first place, but I got it on special offer so it worked out about £2. I wasn't expecting too much from anything that cheap, but when I got home and tried it out, I was amazed! 

Firstly, the bottle and brush. I wasn't too keen on the shape - the top is bigger than the bottom, which made it look a bit odd and wasn't too comfortable to hold, but it wasn't unbearable. The brush was reasonable: nothing fancy about it, but nothing unpleasant either. It held the right amount of polish, didn't splay too much, wasn't too stiff etc. It did the job it was meant to do.

Secondly, the formula. This polish is very sheer: don't come calling at Carrie'd Away's door if you're not a fan of seeing your nail line, but I don't count that as a bad point since this is the kind of colour where you're supposed to have VNL. It's like a french mani, but more subtle, without the full on white tips. (It'd also make a great polish for an actual french manicure; just add white tips and you're away!). Pictured here are three coats over nail envy:

I like the colour a lot; it's close enough to my skin tone to look nice and clean, not too pink, not too peachy, and I can see me using it a lot as a palate cleanser as well as for when I want that bare nail look without actually having bare nails. 

Since it's sheer, it also tends to be a little runny; watch how much you're loading on the brush or you'll flood your cuticles, but as long as you use a moderate amount and aim for thin coats, it's not a big deal. Drying time isn't bad, and as you can see it dries nice and glossy (this picture was before topcoat). 

The real surprise for me with this polish was how long it lasted. I kid you not; it stayed completely free from any signs of chipping OR tip wear for a whole week!! SEVEN DAYS! In the end I had to take it off because it started lifting around the cuticles (out of sheer old age!), but still not a single chip or flaw on the tips. I'd used a coat of Orly Sec'n'Dry as topcoat, but I use that for almost all my manicures and whilst I'll admit it does make things last longer, I work in a job that requires a LOT of typing and even with the Sec'n'Dry, the only time I've achieved more than a couple of days without at least a bit of tipwear was with Essie Bordeaux. For a polish that costs so little, I find this utterly amazing; I'm excited now to try the other colours I picked up along with this one!

Color Club : Jack 'n' Jill

Today I have an especially fun manicure to share. Fun for me, anyway, because it's my first Color Club polish and I'm in love!

(partial shade)

Jack 'n' Jill is a pretty, bright, blue toned fuchsia pink with a fine blue shimmer (which proved very hard to photograph; the blue is much more obvious in real life, especially in the bottle and in direct sunshine). Bright and cheerful, it's a really fun colour, not so bright it's neon, but bright enough to get noticed, and definitely made me smile - and this is coming from someone who doesn't wear a lot of pink normally (though having tried this one, I'm tempted to explore the world of pink a little more!).

(full shade)

The formula is almost to die for: beautifully fluid, even and non-streaky, with a brush that picks up just the right amount and doesn't make a mess of your cuticles (no clean up has been done in any of these pictures). It's a little sheer, needing 3 coats to be opaque, but it more than makes up for this by being very quick to dry and of course since it's not too thick, each coat is thin enough to discourage chipping.

(direct sunlight)

Wear was great; barely any tip wear after three full days. The blue shimmer in the bottle translates on the nail into more of a blueish 'glow' when in direct sunlight, which makes for a nice effect, bordering on duochrome.

A nice touch for me was the cute flower adorning the top of the lid. It's little things like this that make a difference to me (I know, I'm fickle, but ya gotta love cute packaging, right?)

I'm really pleased with this mani and I'm looking forward to trying more Color Club polishes in the future: the formula is just so nice, and as an extra bonus, the Color Club range contains all sorts of really pretty and unusual colours not seen elsewhere.

Random fact of the day: Originally, I only bought this polish because of the name. I'm a play-by-post roleplayer and two of my writing partner's characters are called Jack and Jill. Sad? Probably... but I don't care, hehe. Look what a great discovery my writing addiction led me towards!

Rimmel Lycra Pro : Oyster Pink

Today's mani is an unusual one for me: I'm not usually a pink polish person (and when I do wear it, it's usually more at the fuchsia end of the spectrum), so you won't be seeing too many posts like this. But never let it be said that I don't enjoy pushing the limits of my comfort zone! Oh, and excuse the somewhat bizarre pictures and lack of cuticle preparation: I didn't plan to take these until the following day, but half way home from work the sun came out! It's been so overcast recently that taking any sort of swatch pictures has been alnost impossible, so I of course screeched to a halt and took swatch pictures right there in my car at the side of the road. Good job too; it poured with rain 5 minutes later and for the rest of the day!

Rimmel Lycra Pro (anyone noticed yet that I have a lot of Rimmel? I have a LOT of it. I love Rimmel, plus it has a display right there in the shop I get all my groceries from. It's just too tempting. I'll be reviewing other things too, I swear!) is the earlier formulation of what is now called Lycra Pro Colour Memory, and shares its 10 day finish claim and awesome mistake-free maxi brush.

The shade I'm wearing today is called Oyster Pink, a shimmery frosted pearly pink that looks kind of salmon colored in the bottle, but lighter on the nail. When I first bought it, I was a little concerned that it would turn out to be a little.. well... grannyish. Is that even a word? When I saw it in the bottle I was reminded of the old fashioned frosty pinks my grandma used to wear, back when nail polish came in pretty much two shades: tarty red and nondescript frosty pinkish-salmonish-beige. I decided to try it anyway, and I'm glad I took the risk.

Shown here are three coats over one layer of base coat. It's pretty sheer; you'd have to use a lot of layers to make it opaque, but then it isn't really supposed to be. To be honest two coats would have been enough, there was very little difference between the second and third (except for me being in a hurry to get finished and leave for work, thereby rushing the 3rd coat and introducing the horrendous bubbles on my middle finger and the strange line on my ring - ignore those, it's my fault, not the polish!).

Drying time was pleasantly short and application was a breeze, I didn't do any clean up at all and yet the result was pretty tidy (especially considering the speed I was working, about a minute per hand!). The frost finish was less pronounced on the nail than in the bottle - sometimes frost can mean obvious brush marks and frosty looking 'smears' where the pearl pigment isn't evenly spread, but here it translated to a nice, even pearlised glow rather than an obvious frost. I'm sure the wide brush helped matters here, only having to swipe twice per nail leads to far fewer brush marks!

Wear was good although I only wore it for one day; I took it off that evening because my red hair dye stained the polish a strange rusty colour!