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 :)

SpaRitual : Spirit Child

Hello lovelies! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, whatever you call this time of year!

Today I'd like to share with you an especially beautiful polish that I wore as my Christmas day manicure - SpaRitual 'Spirit Child', from the Wilde collection released in autumn this year. These are also hopefully the last pictures I will be posting that have been taken with my old camera - I FINALLY HAVE MY NEW SHINY CAMERA!!! Please excuse me while I happy dance all around the room ^.^

Anyway, Spirit child is a berry red shimmer that looks pretty in the bottle, but until now I'd not gotten around to trying it because it didn't 'grab' me like some other colours. Most of the swatches online didn't excite me that much, either. Now I've tried it, I realise it's STUNNING - but quite hard to take accurate photographs of. On the nail, it's a deep, rich, jewel toned, festive red that just... glows. It's extremely beautiful to look at (I got SO many compliments on this one). The shimmer isn't very obvious on the nail but in the bottle it's definitely there. In bright light it takes on a more berry tone, also pretty. When you photograph it, the berry tone seems to take over and it's all you can see. The bottle shot is about the most accurate of these three pictures, just imagine it slightly less berry toned :)

Application is pretty good - here you see three coats, but it was opaque in two. The reason for three coats here? I chipped it (my fault, not the polish) by smashing my finger against a cutlery rack less than an hour after it dried, and was pressed for time, so just repaired the chip and added a third coat everywhere to make it even! You can see the chip on my ring finger. Drying time was actually quite decent - Sparitual polishes can be rather slow to dry, but this one was significantly faster. I added a quick dry topcoat after the 3rd coat, but the 2nd one dried without assistance in a quite reasonable time. Wear was average to good - it was pretty worn and chipped at the end of the second day, but then again it had survived cooking an enormous dinner for 8 people and unwrapping lots of presents.. including the reluctant packaging of lots of kids' toys. (Why do they make it so hard to get those things out of the box?)

SpaRitual Emerald City

Firstly, a warning. This swatch was done with my right hand... the Hand You Never See. Mainly because I broke a nail on my swatching hand, right down to the quick, and it's going to be a while before I can inflict the sight of it upon the world. It's beyond nubbin territory into 'wow, I didn't realise you bit your nails, Opalline'. So for now, it's Right Hand Swatching all the way. Now, I have a skin condition known as Psoriasis, which, as a side effect, makes my nails grow very fast, but with pitting. It doesn't really affect my swatching hand, but it does affect the other one. See the ring finger, there? See how it looks like I dented the polish about 20 times? And that dent in the middle finger? Ignore those. It's not the polish's fault :(

Also, I am still nursing my cuticles. You wouldn't think that these fingers have been lavished daily with all sorts of nourishing treatments, because they still don't look that great, but believe me this is a big improvement to two weeks ago. This hand was much worse than my swatching hand as it took the brunt of the chemical abuse I put my hands through. You can still see on my index finger where it was so bad it drew blood! My poor little cuticles!

Anyway, on to the swatching. Hopefully you won't be too traumatised!

I think I've said before that I love SpaRitual polishes in general, with their eco/vegan/natural vibe and their choice of beautiful colours (this is one of the first brands I reach for when I want something pretty yet muted).

This is one of the many shades I own, Emerald City.

I feel this polish is rather oddly named (I don't know about you, but 'Emerald' in a name makes me think of a darker, richer green, or at least something more jewel toned), but we'll let it off because it's a really pretty colour anyway. In some lights it looks a little teal, in others a little turquoise, but it's not really either - if I had to pin it right down, I'd say it was a slightly minty Spring Green, too vivid to be a pastel and too pale to be a jewel shade. It occupies a niche somewhere in between that's happily not too overpopulated by other brands - I haven't seen many others like this.

Although the bottle states that it's a creme, it's more like a jelly, and the first coat is disturbingly sheer (plus has the effect of giving you rather impressive zombie/swamp/alien nails). This sheerness makes it a three or even four coater: the pictures here show three coats over one of Nail Envy (no topcoat), it's pretty much opaque at three but there's still just enough visible nail line that it could really have done with a fourth. However, this aside, it applies nicely enough and dries reasonably quickly and is nice and glossy once dry.

Bottle shot: this was taken two days after the first. For some reason the VNL is more visible in this picture: it wasn't quite that obvious in real life). You can also see that there is a little tip wear but no real chipping.

Overall this is a lovely polish. The formula could be a little better (less sheer would be nice) but the colour is gorgeous, the finish is nice and the wear is good. Definitely a keeper!

SpaRitual: Sacred Ground

Hey, lovelies... so I still don't have my new camera,, but I've managed to borrow one so that I can get back to blogging, hurrah! Sorry for the long wait!

I thought I'd celebrate by posting a mani I've been waiting to do for a long time now: Sacred Ground, from the Wilde collection at SpaRitual.

SpaRitual is a brand I have a lot of love for (and a lot of bottles of their polish, too). They're an eco-friendly brand who produce wonderful vegan friendly polishes; all their products are free from synthetic dyes as well as DBP and formaldehyde. They're a 'professional' brand, much bigger in the US than they are here - which means you usually only find their products in salons and spas, although you can buy them online in the UK from SpaRitual UK (very pleasant and helpful people, not at all put off by rabid nail bloggers ringing up to order polish 5 minutes before the end of office hours!).

Normally, SpaRitual have their strength in muted, natural colors and subtle shimmers and glitters (although they have their share of brighter blues and such like, you won't find any eye watering neons or garish glitter you can see from space). But when I saw the press release for their Autumn 2011 collection 'Wilde', my heart skipped a beat. 6 lovely bottles of vivid jewel tones, subtle yet gorgeous glitter and Autumn fruitfulness that made me wish it was already time to be standing by a bonfire, watching fireworks with a hot chocolate in hand (gorgeous nails on display, of course).

Of course, I had to buy all six - and here is the first, Sacred Ground.

Sacred Ground starts off with a charcoal grey/gunmetal coloured base that would be pretty on its own, but then they added lots of fine gold and blue/purple glitter and the whole thing became stunning. It's not garish, the glitter is quite subtle, but get it into sunshine or bright light and you'll be spending a lot of time staring at your nails! My camera didn't like capturing the glitter, so here's a very close up picture of the bottle, blurred, to show it more clearly.

Application is wonderful, considering it's a glitter it still goes on beautifully and dries well, I had no chipping after three days and only a little tip wear (the pictures here are after one day and a lot of typing, basecoat and two coats of polish, plus NO topcoat). The brush is fairly standard shaped but works well, I didn't have to do any clean up at all. It dries pretty smooth, not gritty at all. Removal isn't bad either, it takes a little more effort than a creme but I didn't have to resort to the dreaded tinfoil-and-cotton wool nightmare that glitter can demand.

A closeup of Sacred Ground on the nail. It's much prettier in person (curse you, substandard camera!). You can see some of the blue glitter and how it shines purple in some lights - the gold is the more dominant glitter but the blue definitely holds its own.

Isn't it pretty? I'll definitely be wearing this one again :)