A dupe comes at a high price: L'oreal Ocean Breeze

When L'oreal released a collection identical to the Essie North Fork collection I thought it would be a perfect chance to pick up the missing shades to my collection.

Today I have L'oreal Ocean Breeze dupe for Shelter Island, a great blue. I love the shade. I lusted after it. But instead of tracking down the orignal, I chose the dupe.

Why does this dupe come at a high price? After all I only paid five dollars for it. Well the formula and the brush are to blame. The first coat is streaky. The second coat is better but a third seems necessary. The brush makes application a challenge. My brush was a defected one. If you want to see the horror brush, scroll down.

All pictures are inside with artificial lighting.

These pictures have three coats plus topcoat to even it out.

The brush at its best.

The brush at its worst.

Well it's a pretty blue. Application was rough. It's not the first time I've used it so obviously like the color enough to wage war with the brush. 

Was the dupe worth it? I'm not sure. Part of me feels like I should have bought Shelter Island at a higher price. 

Anyways, what do you think? Do you own the original Shelter Island? Please tell me it applies better. Do you own any polishes that you love the color but hate the formula? Is it worth the bad formula?

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Hello Kitty Nail Art Tutorial!

Hi! Here is that nail art tutorial I said I would do in the last post! Sorry it's late! I promise I will try to do better with posting in the future. I really want to be able to get 3 or 4 posts up a week on a consistent schedule. Thanks for bearing with me!

Anyways, on to the tutorial!

Warning: It's a little picture-heavy!

In a past post, (inn one of my nail art spams), I did a Hello Kitty nail. The inspiration was from the base color of the design, Hello Kitty (from Sephora) Minty! Since it got such a great response, and I've wanted to do a tutorial, I thought it might be cool to make a tutorial for this design.

This time I opted for a different base color. I choose Revlon Gumdrop. It is a great pale lilac purple that happens to smell like candy! I believe it is a little sheer but it is hard to tell for sure when using fake nails.

 

Bottle picture of Revlon Gumdrop next to my sign. All pictures were taken outside with natural lighting.

This is the finished result of the tutorial. Ready to learn how to do this?

What you need:

• A base color: Revlon Gumdrop (edit: it's scented!)
• A white polish: China Glaze Snow
• A red polish: Revlon Red Hot Tamale
• A yellow polish: China Glaze Happy Go Lucky
• A black polish: Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme

Feel free to change up the colors for a different look.

Also:

• A paint brush
• A dotting tool
• A toothpick

(You don't have to have all of these tools. With just one it would work fine. However, having all three will help.)

 

Be sure to have something to place polish on to work with. I like to use tin foil as my "palette". 

Let's get started!

First Step: Paint your base color. 
Please refer to the bottle picture of Revlon Gumdrop for an accurate color representation. Unfortunately I had trouble capturing the true color of this polish in these pictures.

Second step: Paint a white french tip on the edge of your nail. 

Third step: Using a paintbrush, paint the ears of Hello Kitty with the white polish. They are basically little triangles.

Fourth step: Using a toothpick, take black polish and paint on two little ovals for eyes in the center. 

Fifth step: Take your yellow polish and using a toothpick create a yellow oval. This serves as Hello Kitty's nose.

Sixth step: Take the toothpick once again and using black polish draw three thin lines on each side for whiskers. Getting close to the end!

Close up of whiskers on the side.

Lastly, the bow has to be created!

Seventh step: To create the bow pick up your dotting tool and get some red polish on it. Create one dot on the right ear.

Eighth step: Create another dot on the ear. Make sure to leave a little space in between the two dots.

Ninth step: Create the last dot in the middle of the two to complete the bow.

Tenth step: Clean up your Hello Kitty and make any changes if you wish. I made the bow on mine a little bigger. Now your Hello Kitty nail art is complete!

Thanks for checking out my first tutorial! Hope you enjoyed and found it informative! Is there anything I could improve on? Please let me know!

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Nfu Oh and nails inc Haul

Hi! Hope everyone is having a good week.

I thought I would quickly share the polishes I recently got.

I only got three so it's not much of a haul.

Left to right: Nfu Oh 61, nails inc fitzroy square, nails inc franklins row

First up, Nfu Oh 61! I have waited a while for it to be in stock on Fabuloustreet. It always seemed like it would get sold out before I had the chance to order it. It came in the mail the day I got these polishes so I thought I would include it in this post. It is still in stock on the website if anyone wants it. If you're not familiar, it is a strong linear silver holographic polish. I can't wait to wear it!

Next, nails inc creates these "3d glitters" under a special effects line. I was eager to try one of them out so I went with fitzroy square. Fitzroy square is a turquoise blue glitter polish with different sizes of glitter within. 

Finally, I really wanted to try one of the regular nails inc polishes. One of the Sephoras near me luckily had the nails inc line. You can order from the website but it helps to see the polishes in person. When I got there my heart was set on another polish but it looked too similar to something I owned. Instead, I grabbed franklins row. It looks like a great duochrome purple with shimmer.

I was impressed by nails inc. They look to have a great color range. I appreciate that they put stickers to make sure colors aren't opened before you buy. Between the two polishes, they had different antilock stickers. I included pictures below to show what I mean.

The 3d special effects glitters only have the barcode sticker with the name to "lock it". The sticker lays smooth when unopened. My sticker looks a little crinkled because I opened it after buying. It was perfectly smooth before.

The regular line has a clear circle sticker to prevent opening. The barcode sticker (with the polish's name) is on the top of the bottle. I prefer this way more. That way the name of the polish stays securely on and doesn't get wrinkled.

I took these next pictures to try to show how pretty franklins row looks in the bottle. I hope these pictures help you get a feel what it looks like. Can't wait to wear it! I'm wearing Color Club Gossip Column.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll have my first tutorial up either today or tomorrow. I decided to do a tutorial on the Hello Kitty nail that was a part of my Nail Art Spam Part 2. I hope you enjoy it! While I came up with this design on my own, looking around I know I'm not the first to do it. However, I wanted to show how I do it.(Edit: Tutorial is now posted!)

Here's a preview picture!

So, has anyone tried out nails inc polishes? What did you think? Did anyone else snag Nfu Oh 61? Are there any other nail designs that I've done that you would like a tutorial for?

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Nyan Cat Nail Art

Have you seen this video? 

This internet craze, the poptart cat traversing the galaxy leaving behind rainbows, is the subject of today's nail art.

I know I'm not the first to do this design but I thought I would put my own spin on it. I did look to this video to get inspiration on how to create this look.

This nail art was done on Color Club Gossip Column.

Everything was done freehand, but with acrylic paints instead of nail varnishes. I've always wanted to use paints to see what it was like. This seemed like the perfect design to test it out.

All photos were taken outside (except for the last one)and use natural lighting.

Tips for Nail Art using acrylic paints:

• The paints are mostly water based. If you wait for the base coat to dry you can easily clean up mistakes with water or just wiping away.
• Some colors are more sheer than others. Go over the nail art with a second coat to intensify it.
• It is easier than nail art with actual polish. However, a topcoat must be used to seal in your design. Otherwise your design will likely be washed away when in contact with water.

I chose to paint Nyan Cat on my ring finger with rainbows on my middle and index finger (like the video). My pinky and thumb have the stars in the background from the Nyan Cat video. I have seen people put Nyan Cat on the thumb and then have the other fingers be rainbows.

Close up of one of the "star" nails.

Close up of Nyan Cat. I think I applied my topcoat too thick because it bubbled like crazy unfortunately. Luckily, in real life the bubbles are not noticeable.

Here's a shot of all the paints used to create this look.

So, what do you think? Are you a fan of Nyan Cat? Have you ever tried nail art using acrylic paint before? I would love to hear your opinion! 

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Color Club Gossip Column

Hi! Are you enjoying the weekend so far? Today I will hopefully be going to Sephora to check out some nails inc polishes. There might even be a haul post on them if all goes well!

What's on my nails now? Well, it's Color Club's Gossip Column. It is from the Rebel Debutante Collection. A staple teal blue at a good price and a good formula.

Amazing pigmentation from my experience. I could have used one coat but decided to apply two here.

All photos are inside with artificial lighting.

This polish has sat in my untrieds section for quite some time. I'm glad I took it out though. I will be sure to use this again sometime soon. I'm sure it is easily duped but I have nothing like it in my collection.

This color can appear darker with different lighting.

I got mine for about three dollars off of Transdesign

Have any favorite teals you think I'd enjoy? Leave them in the comments. 

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Essie Braziliant

Hi! Hope all of you are having a great week! I for one am so glad that it is the weekend now.

I apologize for not posting this week. I had photos for posts but didn't get the chance to write something up. 

Anyways on to the polish! It's Essie Braziliant from this year's summer collection!

I picked up Essie Braziliant at a Rite Aid for $4.00 (on sale 50% off! :) ) earlier this summer. So, it is in one of those retail bottles with the sticker on the front. Before I went away I decided to put on this polish.

All photos are inside with natural light. I apologize for the quality. I wanted to get quick photos before I left. 

Essie Braziliant has great pigmentation. I believe this is two coats but I'm not sure I needed the second one.

Essie Braziliant is a great orange with slightly pink shimmer that flashes in the light. Truly fitting for the summer.

Have you tried Essie Braziliant? It is my favorite orange now (I do only have about three though). 

Hope you stop by again! I will have two more posts this weekend (that were suppose to be this weeks posts). 

Thanks for stopping by! What's your favorite orange?

On To The Next Polish,

Katie

Nail Art Spam Part Two

This is part two of a nail art spam on fake nails. The last post was part one if all went well with scheduling.

I'm not going to say much because I'm tired from the last four posts I just wrote. Enjoy and comment if you would like a tutorial or a full manicure. Or if you would like to know what I used to do any of these please let me know.

#9

#10 I realized this would look good both directions (starting at the base and starting at the tip) so there is an extra picture.

#11 I have no words for this

#12 Triangles all over

#13 Hello Kitty french or at the base. Hello Kitty is so awesome, she deserves three pictures.

#14 This is what I started with and it turned into...

#15 A Zipper Design!

Colors are inaccurate. It was lightened to show the design better.

Hope you enjoyed my spam of nail designs! I would love to know your favorites! Hope the scheduled posts went well!

On To The Next Polish,

Katie