Category: Duocrome

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More Fall Leaves! 

Oh yessssss. I swear I’ve been just waiting for September to come back again so I could pull out my Fall leaf nail vinyls. You know my obsession with nail vinyls knows no bounds, & I love that you can pretty much find vinyls or stencils for every occasion & season. These particular leaves vinyls are from The Base Coat (whose site is currently on hiatus) but you can definitely find a ton of different versions of these Autumn themed vinyls with a quick search online.  Xroma Polish & Vinyls sells these uniquely beautiful Autumn stencils while What’s Up Nails sells the more classic Fall leaf stencil.

  • Base Coat: OPI Natual Nail Base Coat
  • Top Coat: Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Top Coat
  • ACO by Ardene Jacob Green
  • Essie Leggy Legend
  • ORLY Brilliant Boysenberry (aka ORLY Space Cadet)
  • Nicole by OPI Best Pink Ever 
  • Revlon Spidey Sense
  • The Base Coat Fall Leaves Vinyls
  • Latex Free Make Up Sponge

I love the shiftiness achieved by combining all these shades together & I think they look really great over my base of my swatch of Jacob Green. The shimmer of these metallic shades really pops over the dark green base colour. It’s literally Fall on my nails & just makes me wish I had a pumpkin spice latte & plaid blanket scarf to go along with them. 


What do you think of these Fall Leaves? Would you rock this design while drinking your favourite Fall drink? Let me know what you think (& what your drink of choice is!) in the comments below. 🍂

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SWATCH SUNDAY: Wrenn Polish! 

Good Morning & happy Sunday! Today I’ve got a really exciting swatch Sunday post for you featuring three very gorgeous shades from Wrenn Polish. You have no idea how excited I was when my package from Alissa showed up on my door step, & I couldn’t wait to swatch these gorgeous shades to show off to you! 

A little preemptive warning–this post is going to be long & full of pictures of these stunning polishes. 

Wrenn Polish is a subset of Shop Wrenn which encompasses both these beautiful 5-free vegan & cruelty free nail polishes & their hand made Druzy stone jewelry which inspires it. I was lucky enough to receive three shades for review: Passionfruit Pink, Peri*twinkle* & A Pirates Life. 


Passionfruit Pink

Passionfruit Pink is a dusty dark blush shade that is infused with the most vivid gold shimmer. For my swatch, I had perfect opacity in 2 coats. As soon as I painted Passionfruit Pink on my nails, I knew this was going to be a go to shade for Fall. The pink on its own is a lovely, girlie shade but with the gold shimmer it becomes so much more. & unlike a lot of other nail polishes, this shimmer does not hide on the nail. As you can see from my pictures, it’s in your face & just as present on the nail as it is in the bottle! You can easily understand how these are inspired by Shop Wrenn’s beautiful stone jewelry. 

Peri*twinkle*

Peri*twinkle* is a blurple beauty that took three thin coats for full opacity. The formula on this shade was a little bit thinner than the other two, which was the reason for the extra coat, but I feel like if you were just looking for a sheer polish to add a little shimmer to your nails, one coat would be perfect for you. Depending on the angle, you can get flashes of pink, purple or blue & it’s so distractingly beautiful. I also would be very curious to see what it would do layered over some dark undies! The flash of different colours just makes this shade so beautiful & unique. I thought it might be similar to Quo by ORLY Sweet Dream, but Peri*twinkle* has a much more vivid shift & is much more blurple. 

A Pirates Life

A Pirates Life, the final shade I received for review, is absolutely my favourite. That’s two coats for opacity & honestly they went on like a dream. The formula on all these polishes are incredibly smooth & easy to use & A Pirates Life is the most perfect of the three I tried. The flash of turquoise shimmer just makes it the perfect beach blue–you can’t help but think of Caribbean waters when you stare at it (which makes the name very fitting). You can easily see how these shades are inspired by the Caribbean Druzy stone. 


Now I couldn’t not pair all these shades together, so after failing at a gradient I decided my next best option was a colour block! & oh boy did it turn out pretty. I used Essie Sweet Soufflé for my base (because of its own underlying shimmer) & the straight vinyls from Xroma Polish & Vinyls to mark off my blocking. 

All three Wrenn Polish shades went on easily & levelled well even before top coat. The shades are unique & it is so easy to see where they draw their inspiration from! If you’re interested in picking up these shades for yourself, you can buy them from the Shop Wrenn Website. & don’t forget to check out her gorgeous jewelry designs to compliment your nails! 

What do you trying of these Wrenn Polish colours? Which shade is your favourite? Let me know in the comments below! 

*PR SAMPLE* Some of these items were sent to me for review. However, all opinions are my own. 

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Essie Dive Bar 

 I’ve been dreaming about Essie Dive Bar ever since I saw it at Shoppers two years ago on clearance, and didn’t buy it. When I went back to get it because I had to have it it was gone. And I was sad. 

Thank goodness for Marshalls. A few weeks back I spotted it and suffice to say–it’s MINE! And I love it so much. 

  

 Started off with two coats of perfection (aka Dive Bar) and topped with top coat. I should have taken a picture but whoops! After it was dry, I grabbed my gold Stripr Rite striper and created a few geometric stripes.  I then Sealed everything in  with top coat again, and then thought “I bet this would look beautiful mattified”. I had to  grab my L’oreal The Matte Velvet top coat and… 😍. You can see the end result. 

Even more perfection! Is there anything that matte top coat doesn’t make more beautiful?! 

  

 

I even (unintentionally!) matched my dress to my nails because I’m cool like that.   
 
What is #1 polish on your I Need To Own That list? Now that I finally own Dive Bar I’ll need to find a new one! I’ve been on a serious quest for Essie Bell Bottom Blues from their Fall collection and it keeps slipping out of my grasp! I want it so bad! Let me know yours in the comments! 

Have a lovely day! 💗

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SWATCHES GALORE! (What I’ve been wearing)

again with the unplanned hiatus! I’ve been busy busy busy with work with no time for much else! However, I can never go polish free so I thought I would share a few swatches of the polishes/polish combinations I’ve been wearing the last couple weeks.  

  

Hard Candy Sky (topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust) — I picked up a few of the Hard Candy 20th anniversary polishes at my local Walmart last month and obviously this one had to be in the bunch! Love love love! This polish makes me think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her pretty pastel nails which is exactly why I feel in love with polish in the first place! Sadly my Fairy Dust didnt want to show up for the camera but looked pretty in person as always. 

CND Vinylux Dazzling Dance—Duochrome! Purple! Holo glitter! 💜 I picked up this gorgeous polish at my local Winners for $3! I’d been watching it for months, and finally realized it was waiting for me to take it home. This was 4ish coats with still visible nail line so next time I’ll add some undies. But even still… 😍  

  

ORLY Mirrorball — I’m kind of on a holo kick lately and Mirrorball is perfection. Just look… Words are not even needed. 🙀 (you will definitely be seeing more of this beauty later 😉) 

  

ACO by Ardene 80s Prom Dress — (layered over China Glaze Seas the Day)  bright fushia pink with camera shy micro glitters. Definitely a perfect Summer colour! Again it’s pretty sheer on its own so undies were a must. I’m curious to try it out with a darker shade. 

  

Nubar Absolute — Blue holo. Seriously I’m holo obsessed right now and need them alllllllll. I tried my best to capture the holo in the sun, but don’t worry in person it cannot be missed! I also realize that I’m going to have to spurlge and pick up a few more Nubar holos because damn they’re so pretty! 

  

ACO by Ardene Crystal Fog layered over Hard Candy Zombie. Zombie is another 20th anniversary release from Hard Candy that the Mr. picked out for me, probably because we’re obsessed with iZombie lately! It’s a gorgeous purple on its own, but add a coat of Crystal Fog by ACO by Ardene and it turns into the most amazing duochrome. I don’t usually wear dark polishes in the Summer but this is definitely going to be an exception! 

 

Joe Fresh Quartz — it was not easy to capture the shift of this polish on camera…. Just kidding!  the above shot says everything you need to know. I literally spent all day staring at my fingers moving them around.  Shifty gorgeous duochrome PERFECTION! I have a few Joe Fresh polishes in my stash but this is definitely my new favourite. It’s just so perfect. 
So what polishes caught your eye the most? Are you team duochrome or team holo? Also what’s your favourite polish to wear when you just don’t have time for nail art? Let me know in the comments below! 💜💜💜

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China Glaze “Choo-Choo Choose You” and a comparison.

 

 

Today I have one of the polishes from China Glaze’s All Aboard collection, which they’ve released for fall. When I first saw swatches of all the polishes, I fell absolutely in love with all the gorgeous colors, so I knew that I needed to check these out. In stores, when looking at the bottles, my eyes were immediately drawn to the polish below.

 

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China Glaze Choo-Choo Choose You in almost indescribable. But according to the press release China Glaze released for the collection, it is described as purple grey smokey shimmer. When I was checking out the polishes at my local Chatters, I wasn’t sure which one to get but my eyes kept coming back to this one. The polish was just so striking and gorgeous! And I had to have it.

 

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Choo-Choo Choose You is definitely a one of a kind polish when it comes to my collection. The different flashes of color remind me of almost an oil slick on my nails (in a good way). I couldn’t really think of any other polish in my stash as beautiful as this polish, or similar. So naturally I had to go looking. =)

The only other polish I have in my stash similar to Choo-Choo Choose You is Essie For the Twill of It. Naturally, I had to swatch the two side by side to see how similar they were, and you can see below they’re not as similar as I originally thought. On my pointer and ring finger I have For the Twill of It, and on my middle and pinky I have Choo-Choo Choose You. For the Twill of It pulls much more blue/grey while you can really see the purple of Choo-Choo Chose You while the two are side by side. As well, you can seriously see the brush strokes in For the Twill of It which is in part to my own application, but still… Choo-Choo Choose You does not have the same issue. Actually, the application was absolute perfection.

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Of the two, I definitely think I prefer Choo-Choo Choose You, but that could be because I’m a sucker for purple. And the polish itself is just so different from anything else in my stash. It makes me understand why it’s been a popular choice recently. It is an amazing color for fall and I am so, so glad I choo-choo chose it. (haha sorry).