Flakies to franken with

Back around Christmas time, I received a very small sample of some raw flakies from Kaila at TKB Trading.  She wanted to know what I thought of them and whether they should get them in stock.

Cause the sample size was very small, I just mixed a little of each colour provided into a mini 5ml bottle with suspension base.  I then applied it over black. I only took comparison photos against other flakie polishes, as I wanted to show Kaila the difference, and stupid me didn't take a photo of the fully mani!

My bottle mainly comprised of gold and green. I only had a tiny amount of the red and blue flakies, so they don't show up much in this polish, but the red flakes look more pink and purple in my photos. The blue ones are clearly blue, but there aren't many in my bottle.

I was so excited to try these out mainly because until now, I have not been able to locate any raw flakie that you can add to polish and it didn't lose it's colour.  I know MK over at Polish and Pigments has done a huge amount of research on this too.

Anyway, I told Kaila that they should definitly still stock these, even though they are not as bright.  Mainly because there still isn't anything else available as a flake.  I will be getting some more because  they will certainly make an interesting addition to my frankening supplies.

I think these same flakies are also now available from You Mix Cosmetics and Frankenpolish Shop.  I have no experience yet with either of these companies, although I have recently ordered from You Mix Cosmetics so will know in the future.  

TKB Trading now have these in stock and my experiences with them has always been excellent.

Picture Polish Festival over Aphrodisiac and Bombshell

I'm so very happy to share with you today, Picture Polish's new Festival flakie top coat.  I'm so excited to see them release this polish, as it is something very unique in the Australian market.

Festival flakie cover is a multicoloured flakie polish in a clear base.  Now it's really difficult to tell what colour flakies are actually in this, because a number of them a duochrome flakes and change colour on different angles.  But what I can tell you is the colours I see, and they are green, yellow, orange, blue, teal and an occasional purple/pink.

These pictures are three coats layered over Picture Polish Aphrodisiac.

So I know the first thing you're wondering is how does this compare to Cult Nails Clairvoyant? This next swatch shows three coats of Festival on the left and three coats of Clairvoyant on the right.  I did three coats because I wanted to show the difference in the flakie coverage.  In general terms, they both have the same flake colours, from what I can see.  But clearly Clairvoyant has lots more flakies in it.  This isn't a great swatch of Clairvoyant cause I got a really large flake right in the middle of my nail, an then all the other flakes got stuck on it.  Clairvoyant also has more of the pink/purple flake than Festival does.

The other thing I noticed was Clairvoyant had a rougher finish.  Festival is really very smooth,  these photos have no top coat and Festival has a really beautiful cabochon effect.

I love this photo of the Festival bottle cause it looks so much like a white opal!

Here is Picture Polish Aphrodisiac on it's own.  It's very dark indoors, but in the sun you can see what an amazing rich purple shimmer polish this is.  

I also tried Festival over Picture Polish Bombshell, which I have shown on it's own here.

The outdoor reflection in this is pretty extreme, but I was trying to capture some of the multichrome shift.

Over all, I'm really impressed with this polish.  The flake colours are beautiful, the formula is great and finishes really shiny without the need for a top coat to smooth it out.  The only improvement it could have would be a more dense flakie coverage. That way I wouldn't have to do as many coats.

I'm guessing these Picture Polish flakie covers will be quite similar to the new Finger Paints ones that are officially released in January.  But given that Finger Paints are very difficult to get here, in Australia, I'm so glad I have easy access to these beautiful polishes.  I can't wait to get the other new flakie colours too!

These can be purchased from piCture pOlish for $11.90.

Inglot Flakies

The ever so awesome Shatter me Claire also bought me some Inglot flakies and sent them in the recent package to me.  I was just so excited when I opened them all up.  I got 203, 204 and 205, which are the yellow, green and blue ones.  I seriously couldn't decide which to wear, so in true more is better style, I layered all three!!

I started with a layer of black, then the yellow one, green one and blue one.  Topped with a layer of SV top coat.

It was only after wearing this amazing layering for two days that I realised I should have layered Nubar 2010 on it too so I could get a red flake in there.  Then it really would have been like an Australian Opal.

I will definitely wear each of these on their own too.  They are such gorgeous flakies and I love that they are in a clear base, so you can layer over absolutely anything.  They are also such thin fine flakes that they are totally smooth on the nail.  

I wish I were able to find this sort of flake in dry form, so we could franken with them, I just couldn't bare to franken with these precious little bottles.  Every type of translucent coloured flake I've bought always bleed and lose their colour in polish.

Covered in Diamonds

Some time last week, I spotted this polish over at Polish This. I instantly fell in love with it and promptly went off and purchased it. 

This is Color Club's Covered in Diamonds.  This is an old school flakey to me, exactly like my old Ulta 3 Wild and Crazy.  What I mean by old school is that these flakey bits are irregular and rough, and much larger pieces than current flakes seen in the Nfu Oh or Inglot flakies.

This is one coat of Ulta 3 Midnight with two coats of Covered in Diamonds, then two coats of top coat. Photo taken indoors.  I was really worried it was going to be seriously rough, but what I did after the first coat of top coat, was press down on the nail gently, pressing all the rough bits of the flakey into the soft polish.  Then the second coat of top coat really smoothed it out, leaving it almost smooth.

Here it is in the sun.

I did find this polish really gluggy, in fact I added about 10 drops of thinner to this brand new bottle, otherwise I would never have been able to get it on my nail.

There are so many colours in this flakey polish, blue, green, orange, yellow.  I personally think it looks best over a dark colour, just like all the other flakies.  I will have to try with different coloured bases.

Plucking chickens

Today I'm sharing with you OPI Meet & Jingle with Nubar 2010 layered on top.  This did look very pretty, but I'm afraid I have a problem with red polish, and it goes back to my Granddad.

My Nana (my Mums Mum) who passed away more than 20 years ago, had beautiful nails.  My mum always comments how I inherited her nails.  Nana loved to paint her nails, and unfortunately I never got to share that experience with her. But one thing I do remember is what my Granddad used to say to her when she had red nail polish on.  So what was it?  "You've been plucking chickens again".  Isn't that just awful!

So now, whenever I wear red polish, it kind of jumps out at me and I always think of that phrase. So I'm just not sure that I like it on me.

Anyway, here are a couple of up close pictures to show the beautiful flakies in Nubar 2010.

I'm looking forward to applying 2010 over some other dark colours, probably blue tones though.

Nfu Oh #56 flakey

This is the last of my Nfu Oh flakey polishes.  Unfortunately I don't have #51 so I just have to make do with the less popular ones that I can actually buy here in Australia.

This is #56 which is an amazing rich emerald green, with a green shimmer and green flakies.  On some angles it also has a blue duochrome effect on the green flakes.  Again, it's too sheer for my liking to wear on it's own.  And for some reason it makes me feel like the wicked witch of the west wearing it. Why is that?

Up close of the pretty green flakies.

And here is some magic over black.  I felt like mixing it up a bit, so I did one coat of #56 on all nails, but then added one coat of #43 with the orange flakies too.  This pic in the sun is hard to see all the beautiful colours.

Indoors you can see the colour contrast and you can see the multi colour effect of the blue and green on the index finger.

And even closer. Soooo pretty.

So while I pretty much hate my Nfu Oh flakey polishes on their own, I absolutley love them layered over other colours.  

It's such a shame that these polishes aren't more easily available in Australia.  As far as I know there is only one distributor and they have a total monopoly on the market and often charge around $30 for a single bottle, especially of the popular polishes.

Nfu Oh flakies #55 and #57

Here are some more of my Nfu Oh 'on sale' flakies haul.  I certainly can't rave about these polishes on their own.  At least they are wearable (unlike the yellows), but the colours are non descript and so incredibly sheer.

#55 is a sheer green polish with a green shimmer and orange flakies.  This swatch was three coats. Reminds me of bottle green.

Up close angled shot to see the orange flakies.

#57 is similar to the above polish except it is a lighter green tint.  Same green shimmer and orange flakies. Three coats.

Up close it's very similar to #55.

Again, over black the magic happens.  This shows #55, then #57, #55 and #57.  As you can see, over black both these polishes are identical.

Same in the sun.  Notice how these flaky polishes are really much prettier indoors than in the sun.   You loose all the flaky bits in the sun.

Finally a zoom in, #57 on the left, #55 on the right.  You can clearly see the green shimmer and the orange flakies, but notice here you can really see a duo chrome effect in the flakies and they go from green to yellow to orange.  Very cool.

Anyway, gotta run. Survivor Heroes v Villains final episode just started and I'm tragically addicted to the show.

Nfu Oh flakies 41 42 43 58

Seriously - pass me a bucket, I think I'm going to barf!

Here I'm showing you Nfu Oh flakies #41, #42, #43, #58.

First up, #41.  This is a yellow jelly with and orange flakey.  It also has a yellow shimmer to the polish.  After I swatched this I couldn't believe how disgusting it looked.  It made my nails look stained and as though I was suffering jaundice.  Three coats.

Here is an up close, where you can see the shimmer and the flakies.

#42 is another yellow jelly with orange flakies, but no shimmer this time.  The yellow in this is also stronger.  I still wanted to puke with the colour of this on my nails. Two coats.

Up close of this yellow hideousness.

And the hits just keep on coming with #43.  This is an orange jelly with orange flakies. Two coats.

And the barfness up close.

#58 looks so pretty in the bottle, but still pretty meh on the nail.  Certainly better than the three above.  I'd call this a burnt toffee colour with orange flakies.  Two coats.  It's another ugly colour in my opinion, but at least this is wearable on it's own.

And now, just like the ugly duckling, the polishes turn beautiful.  They just needed to be layered over black.  These pics actually show all four polishes.  You can see the shimmer in the index finger which has #41 on it.  Then #42 on the middle, #43 on the ring finger and #58 on the pinky.

Layered over black, #42, #43 and #58 are basically identical.  Which made my mum super happy, cause I gave her the bottle of #42.

Please tell me, has anyone ever actually worn these polishes on their own and not layered over anything.  I think on their own, they are truly the most hideous and unappealing polishes I own.  But layered they can be incredible. 

OMG I found it

When I posted my other Ulta3 flakey I said that I used to have an orange one which I thought I threw out. Well..... my mum came visiting with an awesome little baggie with some old Ulta3 polishes in it.  Included amongst them was Crazy.  I think I went a little crazy when I saw it.  It was a little thick so I added some Seche Restore and BAM, it's like new again.

This is two coats of crazy over two coats of Ulta3 Chocolate cake, then two coats of Seche Vite.

Most of the time the flecks are orange, but there is a lot of green highlights amongst them too.

Let me say that this polish is a real pain in the bum to apply.  I really had to fish out the flakey bits and try to get them positioned on the nail.  It's also really hard to get a smooth finish because the little flakey bits don't lay flat. I had to use a tooth pick to press edges down into the polish.

And a close up.

I really wish Ulta3 had a dark green creme.  I think this flakey would look awesome over green.  Unfortunately I don't own any dark green cremes, I think I better work on that!

Here are some bottle pictures of the two 'old school' Ulta3 flakey polishes.

Sorry, I know these aren't available anymore and its mean to share polishes that are discontinued, but I just had to share, cause I live in hope that Ulta3 will make them again.

Old School Ulta3

This is actually a super old Ulta3 polish called Wild.  This was three coats over one coat of Ulta3 Midnight.  Then a coat of Seche Vite.  It's so magnificent that I just keep looking at my nails. 

My mum and I had always overlooked this polish, as it's a little hard to get the flakies out of the bottle and it usually just looks - meh!  But over midnight blue WOW.  Mum wants me to try it over a deep red, to really get the whole opal thing going.  I promise I will mum!

Here is a close up.

I'm sure I used to have an orange Ulta3 flakey polish too, but I threw it out (oohh the shame!) because it had totally dried up.  (If only I had discovered Seche Restore back then).

Please Ulta3 - bring back the flakey polishes.