Illamasqua Rampage

           Lol, my eyes needed another break. So instead of my customary glitter or shimmer, I have Illamasqua Rampage, from the core line. 

Rampage is a deep forest green jelly. If you happen to see any sparklies or whatever, please disregard them. My topcoat got contaminated by Black Diamond, ugh.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash

Sunlight, no flash.

Ahaha my nails look so thick, no?

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

     Rampage is extra hot. In the sunlight, you get this gorgeous, pure, leafy green. And then in other lights,  it's dark and dangerous-looking enough to send chills up and down my spine, but never so much that one would mistake it for black. I also really like its jelly-ish finish...it gives the polish this depth and gloss that is just mesmerizing. And as an aside, Illamasqua gets a big high five for how they named this polish. Looking at Rampage, I think of forests and wild things. And not the adorable wild things that will make you king when your mom sends you to bed without dinner for being naughty. I'm talking claws and teeth wild things....like jabberwocky wild. And the word Rampage definitely captures that whole...feeling. I love it.

      Application-wise,  Rampage was pretty good. The formula was an okay thickness and went on fairly nicely. It was a bit streaky on the first two coats, but that is par for the jelly course and nothing that moah polish couldn't fix. By the third coat, things were opaque and by the fourth, Rampage was perfection. My nails did turn out a bit thick, but it's not that noticeable, and I kind of like it. Makes it more...jell-o like. 

     

And that's all I've got for today!! I hope everyone is having a great Saturday!

Petites Black Diamond

        For today, I've got Petites Color Fever Black Diamond, from its core line. 

Black Diamond is a charcoal black base with small, coarse holographic shimmer. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash. 

    Black Diamond is just okay. I appreciate how dark it is, because while it is actually pretty close to being a real black, its cousins are more on the grey or brown side. However, I was pretty disappointed in the lack of holo goodness. There is some, and I think you can see it in the pictures, but I really expected more. In all fairness though, I did use topcoat, so that may have dulled it a bit. But I don't think it would have dulled it THAT much, you know? 

  However, the formula on Black Diamond was pretty good. It was a good consistency, and applied smoothly and easily. It wasn't as opaque as some of its cousins, but it was still nicely pigmented, becoming opaque in two coats. The pictures are with three coats though, because there were bald spots that needed to be filled in. That may have been user error though. It also dried pretty shiny...I don't know why I used topcoat on it. Probably force of habit. It didn't need topcoat.

  Anyway, while this is a pretty polish, I'd actually recommend that you do not buy it. LOL. I got mine second-hand and didn't have to pay full price, but honestly...I feel like Black Diamonds is a rip-off. It's $3.99 for .25 oz of a polish that isn't unique. It doesn't even have a truly spectacular holo to save it, and it's too thin to really be effective as a stamping polish. So unless you just really want it, or you need to fill a hole in your collection, please leave this one in Rite Aid and pick up Color Club Revvvolution instead. It's half the price for twice as much product, it's more holo, amazing for stamping, and way more accessible. The only thing is that it's not as dark, but that's a small trade-off to me. 

And that's all I've got for today! Have an awesome Friday! 

Rescue Beauty Lounge Locavore

          Happy December 1st! Before I get on with the polish, I just want to take a quick minute and give a shoutout to Rosa Parks. Today marks the 55th anniversary of her not giving up her seat for a white passenger, which sparked a huge bus boycott, which resulted in a landmark victory for the African American civil rights movement. It's not a real holiday or anything, but I wanted to mention it, because I think it's pretty cool.
     For today, I have Rescue Beauty Lounge Locavore, from the Spring Bling Collection. I've been wearing it since Sunday night, just waiting for the clouds and rain to go away, so I could finally get some pictures. So please excuse any chips or tipwear that you may see.

Locavore is small pale peridot green, fuchsia, and turquoise hex glitter in a clear base.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sparkleh. *_*

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

          For a while now, I've suspected that Locavore was the very best color that Ji Baek ever came up with. But now that I'm wearing it on my hands, I'm 100% positive of that. This isn't to say that other Rescue Beauty Lounge colors are ugly or anything, but as far as I'm concerned, none of them can hold an ember to Locavore. It's pure perfection. The shade of green is unusual, and I like how it looks with my skin. I also love the little pops of color from the fuchsia and blue glitter, especially when they happen to catch the light. But most of all, I love like...the overall effect that Locavore has. It isn't one of those glitters that are ridiculous all the time and don't know how to act. Locavore is a classy bitch. When I was in class or at work, it was well-behaved, sparkling just enough to catch the eye, but mostly just showing off all its pretty colors. However, when I got it into the sun, Locavore unleashed it's inner sparkly freak and made my glitter ho heart sing. It sounded like this:

    Locavore's formula was okay. It went on smoothly and dried quick, which I think is typical of glitters in clear bases. My only complaint is that I would have liked even moah glitter, so that the polish would have more even coverage. The pictures are with three coats of polish, and two layers of topcoat (one Gelous and one SH Insta-Dri - don't sleep on that!) and I still have some bald spots. From far away, you can't see them, but close up, you can. And when I hold my hands up, my tips look like this:

     

No bueno.

 Maybe it would have been better to do four coats, but I didn't want to use up my precious. So going forward, I may try to use this over a base of some kind. Maybe a silver. But on the upside, I really like how Locavore wore...I do have some chips and tipwear, but for three or so days (one of them being travel), it's held up pretty well. 

And that's all I've got for you guys today! Have an awesome night!

Okay, So I'm Extremely Tardy For the Party

           But whatever, I'm still gonna say it. Happy Thanksgiving!! ^_^
I know it's been pretty dead around here for the past week, but between fighting with bus coordinators, cloudy weather at home, forgetting my bottle of acetone at school, helping to cook dinner, spending quality time with the people I love and doing my damndest to avoid the ones I don't, there just wasn't much time for nails. However, I do have pictures of the mani that I've been wearing...here it is in all its raggedy four-day-old glory. 

To do this, I used:

1 coat of Rescue Beauty Lounge Under the Stars

1 coat of L.A. Colors Aqua Crystals

1 coat of Zoya Ivanka

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

      I wasn't really going for anything in particular when I put these together. I wore RBL Under the Stars home because I was planning on re-taking the pictures for it on the next day.But the next day was cloudy + I had to go to this party.You can't go to a party with no glitter on your nails, so I slapped on the first stuff I could grab...you can kind of see how rushed this was, because the coverage is so uneven. In any case, I don't really like it. I don't think it's ugly, but I'll still be glad to see it go.

   I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgiving and Black Friday weekends!

Hard Candy Lava

           For the past few days, I've been craving red. I hate red, but man...I just wanted to wear it! I tried a few days ago with Zoya Sarah, but that ended with bubbly nails and me in a rage, so I forgot about wearing red. But last night, the desire returned with a vengeance. To appease it, I put on Hard Candy Lava, from what I think is the core collection. 

Please excuse the little white fuzz. Totally didn't see that until editing time.

But anyway, Lava is composed of tons of small, flat, metallic, ruby pieces of shimmer in a sheer ruby red base. The overall effect is that glittery-foil finish that has been so popular lately. In the bottle and in this picture, there are also golden flecks, but looking at my nail, I don't see that at all. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

My hand looks so ashy here, ew.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

      Lava is a really beautiful red polish. And when I say beautiful, I mean back-up worthy beautiful. It has this crazy intensity to it, and in the sun, it looks like its actually on fire. But I like it best in natural and low light, because that's when it takes on this awesome inner luminescence that just kind of comes from nowhere. It's like it's creating its own light. I can't really put it into words, and the picture of it in natural light is not so good, but trust me...it's gorgeous. You can definitely see why they named it as they did.

    I really liked Lava's formula as well. It was smooth, easy to apply, and was fully opaque in two coats. For the pictures, I used two coats of polish and one layer of topcoat, and looking at my nails now, there's no VNL. However, if I orient my hands in a certain way, I can see through my tips... my index finger in the last picture is a good example of that. But that doesn't happen often, so it's whatever to me.

    My only real gripe about this polish is that the bottles are too small...you pay $5 for .34 oz. I don't understand that at all...for $5, the bottles should be bigger. Or the price should be lowered, if the bottles are gonna be so small. This is highway robbery for reals. :(

But that's all I've got for today. Have an awesome night, guys!!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Anne

           For today, I have Anne from Rescue Beauty Lounge's the Real Housewives of the Tudor Dynasty Collection. I actually wore this for a few days, and then took it off to try out Revlon Perplex. But since I had time and nowhere to go today, I put it back on and finally took pictures.

Anne is a murky, deep olive green base with multi-sized gold and fuchsia shimmer. 

The base color here is way too dark, but it was the only lighting where the shimmer accurately showed up. The other pictures are color accurate, but unfortunately, don't really do this polish justice.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

       I don't know how many of you guys are fans of Showtime's The Tudors, but if you are, then you might remember a quote from a scene between Tom Boleyn and Anne. In it, he says, "There's something deep and dangerous in you, Anne. Those eyes of yours are like dark hooks for the soul." This polish immediately brought that quote to mind for me. It's dark and dangerous looking, but at the same time, it's so beautiful and complex that it immediately attracts you and doesn't let go. The base color is one of those confusing ones that can look green, brown, or grey depending on the way that the light hits it, and while subtle, the shimmer is wonderful. It mesmerizes in sunlight and in lower lighting, it gives the polish an incredible depth and sense of opulence that just makes me want to stare all day. I really love Anne the polish. Like...for real. Anne the person was my second favorite Tudor wife (which is what pushed me to purchase this color), and Ji did an absolutely killer job interpreting her. It's gorgeous, and I don't even care that it looks not so good on me.

      Anne also boasts a perfect formula. Some of the reviews on the site complained that their bottles were a little too thick, but that wasn't a problem for me at all. Anne was the perfect consistency and applied smoothly and easily...there was no dragging, bubbling, or other sorts of polish tomfoolery. And it was extremely well-pigmented, being perfectly opaque in two coats. In the pictures, there are two coats of polish and one layer of topcoat. Also, this is another one where you will want to break out your shiniest, glassiest topcoat, as it will really showcase the polish.

    I did buy Anne in the sale, but as many of you know, it wasn't actually on sale, which means it was listed at $18. I still feel like I got a bit of a discount, because if you divide the amount of polishes I got by my order total, it comes out to about $12 per polish. But even if that hadn't been the case, I wouldn't have regretted this purchase at all. $18 is a shitload of money for one polish, but to me,(and I can't believe I'm saying this) Anne is 100% worth it. If you've been lemming it and know that it would make you happy, I'd actually recommend grabbing it, maybe as an early Christmas present to yourself. Especially since according to Ji, Anne is almost gone. 

That's all I've got for today though. Have an awesome Sunday night, guys!