Born Pretty Store Holographic Nail Polish

Hello all, recently I was contacted by Cynthia from Born Pretty Store seeing if I was willing to review some products from them. I already shop at this store and have plenty of products that I bought myself so I was really excited to do this review as I already enjoy a majority of their products. I was able to pick out the items for review and all the opinions expressed are my own. I received three items to review; two stamping plates and a holographic polish. For a review and details on the stamping plates please see my Instagram page and for the polish just keep reading!

The polish I am reviewing is item #6410, it is a 6 ml bottle and the shade is a lovely holographic teal. As per usual I conducted a wear test with no base or top coat to truly test the quality of the nail polish in question.

 Three coats 

The formula of this shade was alright overall, I was not completely happy that it required three coats for full opacity. However while I was applying it, each coat went on really smoothly and left no streaks so I enjoyed the formula overall.

Day three of wear.

My first chip was three days after my initial application on my middle finger. This is pretty much usual for me as the middle finger is the longest it seems to always chip first. This does not surprise me and I felt as though the polish was holding up nicely with minimal tip wear.

Day five of wear

After day five my manicure started to look very worn down, the chips on my middle finger had expanded and I got a chip on the side of my index finger. I kept the manicure for one more day after this update and found there was no change but I did remove it after six days.

Overall, I thought the quality of the nail polish was fairly average as I would hope for my manicure to last me five days and look decent. I did however really enjoy the color of this holographic polish, compared to my collection it was unique in tone and I did get complimented on the shade various times. All in all, I would definitely pick up some more of these holographic nail polishes for their color variety and decent formula. Born Pretty Store is fairly good with their pricing and does run plenty of sale but if you find a regular priced item that you would like, you can use my discount code ANNSW10 for 10% off. Hope you enjoyed the review!

Essie Gel Couture

Hello everyone, no doubt you have all seen or heard about the new Essie gel couture line and today I have review of it for you. Personally, I have seen so many reviews and I really just wanted to try it out myself and see how it holds up. Some basics behind this two step system is that it comes with one color coat and a top coat. The main claims behind this line is that you are supposed to be able to get 14 days of wear and an instant gel-like shine. Which means it is another nail polish system that is supposed to give you a gel-like manicure without the need of a UV or LED light. An interesting feature behind the polish is that the barrel and brush are completely different from what you normally see from Essie. The brush is very wide so that you can do your whole manicure with a few easy swipes. In addition, the barrel is supposed to be curved in a spiral so that any polish on the barrel is deposited onto the brush in a way as to not flood your cuticles. 

Before talking about the formula and wear test I want to mention my experiences with the features of this line. The spiral barrel was only on the color coat which was really disappointing to me because it ruined the continuity of the bottles for me. The top coat can still flood your cuticles and cause your manicure to chip or peel from the cuticle line. So I did not understand why they did not keep the same barrel. In addition, while doing research on the line, I found that one of the reasons Essie chose the brush was that so it could form to different nails. You are supposed to be able to compress or flatten the brush by wiping it on the bottleneck to get the shape that you need. I felt that was really hyped up, the brush did not show any particular flexibility nor did it hug my nail spectacularly enough for me to attribute to this Essie brush only.

Two coats of hang up the heels

The formula of the nail polish was really lovely. It absolutely glided onto the nail and applied pretty evenly. This shade in particular is a gorgeous black with a green shimmer. The green is visible in direct light but this shade looks black otherwise. The top coat was a great success for me, it did not disturb the layer of color I had underneath and dried fairly quickly. I really loved the shine that the top coat gave me, so much so that I would use this top coat separate of this system. 

Day nine 

I did not make it to 14 days, but I really feel like this color would have lasted nicely up to that point. My nails first chipped in the morning of the ninth day of wear. Usually when I get a chip, the polish will just continue to chip away at that point, however I wore this polish until day ten and found that the chip did not spread. The tip wear you are seeing on my other fingers started being prominent around day four or five. But the tip wear was not enough to make my manicure look bad.

The reason I did not take a picture of day ten wear was because it looked the exact same as day nine. I only decided to end my wear test because I was tired of the color and the space between my cuticle and the polish was getting too big for me. Also, once it chipped I just wanted a fresh manicure. Overall, this polish lasted beautifully for me and I would 100% recommend it to others. I don't want to compare this to the Wet n Wild one step wonder gel because that is an unfair comparison considering this is a two step system. But in comparison to the Sally Hansen miracle gel, I enjoy this line ten times better. While both the systems last fairly similarly over ten days in terms of chips and tip wear, the miracle gel cracked on me. The Essie gel couture did not crack and in addition, the top coat for this line performed very well. Whereas the miracle gel top coat actually ruined my manicure. So if you are wondering which between the two works better as a system and overall, I would recommend the Essie gel couture. 

Now to discuss prices; I have seen the individual color coats and top coat retail for around $12-14 CDN. There is also a set which includes a top coat and a color coat for around $24-26 CDN. It is an investment to make but I do think you will be pleasantly surprised by the wear of this line. If you have tried out this line, leave me a comment about how you found it!

Pretty Woman Bamboo Cream nail treatment

Hello all,

I did receive the nailmedic treatment, bamboo cream from Pretty Woman quite a while ago and have been testing it out for you for a month! This bamboo cream is supposed to be a hydrating cuticle cream that can also help to strengthen your nails. Now the main claim behind this product is that it will hydrate your cuticles and improve the appearance of brittle and dehydrated nails. This product comes in a traditional nail polish bottle so you can brush it onto your cuticles and nails. Then you just need to massage the cream into your skin in circular motions.

The cream itself is not too thick and does not leave behind an oily residue. My favorite part about this cream is how quickly it sinks into my skin! I had just applied the product before taking this picture but it sunk in so quick. The cream always feels very cooling on my skin and smells very lovely and spa-like similar to their other products.

Most of the time, when I take the time to moisturize my cuticles, they get dry usually later that day because of how often I use and wash my hands. No big surprise there. But while using this cream, I noticed that the moisture lasted longer throughout the day.I really appreciated this because I felt like it really helped protect my cuticles from all the acetone remover I use. My favorite way to use this product was for my pedicure since they kept my cuticles hydrated for a longer amount of time.

As far as strengthening went, I felt like this product really helped my nails but did not make them too stiff. They were still flexible and hydrated, providing me with a nice way to maintain my nail health.

As always, Pretty Woman offers free shipping on their website for all orders so you can try out this product without worrying about shipping fees. It retails for $8 US and even after using it for a month, I have not made a large dent in the bottle so it will last you! If you do decide to try it out, I would love to know how it worked for you.

Pretty Woman Foil Effects kit

Hello everyone,

Today I received a nail art kit from the brand Pretty woman which contains a black gelogic lacquer and four different pots of nail foils. The retail price for this kit is $7.99 USD which is the same price as buying an individual gelogic lacquer so the value is amazing.

The pots contain a silver, gold, copper, and multi-chrome foil and have 2 grams of foil each. In my opinion this is a great deal of foil to do your nail art with. The foil itself is very soft which I was not expecting. It does not break in your hands if you are trying to smooth it out and since it is soft, it molds very nicely to your nail. An added point of interest is that while handling the foil, my fingerprint was easily transferred to the foil creating a lovely effect. You can use scissors to cut the foil but I found using my fingers and nails did a well enough job. I did try to use a paper punch to see if I could cut the foil in the shape of a flower but the foil was too soft and it just ripped.

Now the instructions say to apply one coat of the gelogic color and let it dry then to work one finger at a time; applying a coat of gelogic and then adding the foil. This worked perfectly well as the shade in the kit, black, needed two coats to be opaque and the time to put the foil on the nail was very quick. I used a cuticle stick to transfer the foil onto the nail. Once the lacquer had dried, I attempted to push the foil flat but it was not perfect so I used two coats of top coat to keep it smooth. However, at one coat, it is still smooth enough that the foil is sealed and would not catch on anything so it is up to personal preference.

Two coats of black with the copper foil.

You can create really easy and amazing looks by mixing the foils, changing the color of your base and even how much foil you put on the nail. Removal can be tricky depending on how much foil you use. For the picture above, I found that the foil method was the best option to removing the foil without damaging my nail. I used my silicone nail clips with a cotton ball and nail polish remover and removed everything under five minutes. The leftover pieces removed easily enough with the cotton ball or even my cuticle pusher. If you applied less nail foil, then I found that the foil removed easily when I rubbed a cotton ball against the nail.

Overall, I really think the value in this kit is amazing since the price is the same as buying a gelogic lacquer or any other nail polish from Pretty Woman. You get a lot of foil, including a nice color variety, which is fairly easy to manipulate. Also this foil is something that works well with any kind of nail polish, you could even add it on top of a fresh clear coat to change up a manicure you were already wearing.

Sally Hansen Miracle Gel

Hello, hello everyone,

I have a review for you today on the Sally Hansen miracle gel system which includes a wear test. Now I know that this system has lots of reviews, some sponsored and some very negative ones. As for myself, one of my very close friends uses the miracle gel polish and the Sally Hansen insta-dry top coat. She works as a lifeguard and regular nail polish does not last on her as long as the miracle gel does. So I thought it was high time for me to test it out. I picked up the shade Pretty Piggy and I got the regular miracle gel top coat, not the 2x volume top coat.

This set typically retails for $15 to $17 CDN in various stores. The main claims behind this system is that you can get 14 days of color and shine without a light to cure it. Also it is supposed to be more chip resistant that regular nail polish while being easy to remove. I have prepped my nails using Pretty Womans nail detox and will be testing two top coats as well as no top coat.

Two coats of Pretty Piggy

The application for this shade was really lovely, it has the same brush as their complete salon manicure line so it covers the nail very easily. This particular shade was really opaque on the first coat and fully opaque on the second. The polish itself dried very quickly and with ease. Now, because I wanted to give an in depth review, I put the miracle gel top coat on my thumb and middle finger. On my pointer and ring finger I have used seche vite. And lastly, on my pinky I have no top coat.

So starting with the pinky, you will notice a crack near the tip and that was due to user error and does not reflect on the polish itself. The shine was a very good amount, the same as the miracle gel top coat in my opinion. As for the pointer and ring finger, seche vite dried very quickly and has a high shine finish. The miracle gel top coat on the other hand, did not work out so well. In the bottle I had noticed it was very thin and heard that it can smudge your nail so I applied a thicker coat so as to avoid smudging. It did not work at all. No matter how dry my polish was underneath, the miracle gel top coat smudged it so badly that it created patches if you look up close. Also even though my base color was dry, my brush still got stained pink. Dry time was fairly long, when I had thought it was dry I could still leave fingerprint marks and then smooth them out. The shine was also fairly nice.

Day three, my right hand (my dominant hand).

Day three, my left hand.

By day three my manicure was still looking very fresh with minimal tip wear on my right hand. On day four however, I did notice that the polish had started to crack on my left thumb and both of my middle fingers, which all had the miracle gel top coat. On day five, the cracking had also shown up on my right thumb and both my pinkies which had no top coat.

Day eight, my right hand (my dominant hand).

 Day eight, my left hand.

 By day eight, I had noticeable tip wear on my right hand and minimal wear on my left. While my manicure looked nice because there was no chipping, the cracking was really noticeable and ruined the manicure for me. It looked worn out even though the shine was still prevalent. And it was on all my fingers except for my pointer and ring which were topped with seche vite.

Day ten, my right hand (my dominant hand). 

Day ten, my left hand.

I did not make it to day 14 because the chipping on my middle finger kept spreading and the cracking of the nail polish just looked horrible in person. Overall, even after ten days, I thought it had held up nicely especially when topped with seche vite. The color was still vibrant and there was still a good amount of shine on all of my fingers. It also did remove easily.

The miracle gel polish itself, is definitely something I would recommend. Looking at the polish itself, I did not have any issues with it until day five which is pretty amazing considering I had no base and top coat. The color popped and the shine was still there to make it look like a gel manicure. To extend the life of the manicure, I would recommend you use either seche vite as I did or try your own top coat. I think if I had used seche vite on all ten fingers, I would have made it through 14 days without my manicure looking horrible.

As for the miracle gel top coat, save your money and effort. The top coat smudged my nail color to the point where it reduced the opacity of the coat I already had on; so it would be horrible for nail art. It also took longer than the nail color to dry. The worst part is that on me, it caused my manicure to crack two whole days before my finger that had no top coat! So save your money on the top coat and just buy another color you like.

I will for sure buy more miracle gel colors because I was impressed with the formula and wear time. When I want my manicure to last I will reach for this and my own preferred top coat. If you've used the 2x volume top coat or have used this system, I'm curious to see how you found it so leave me a comment below!

Pretty Woman NYC

Here are the last of the polishes I received from Pretty Woman NYC, I do want to take a moment to thank the brand for their generosity. I had tried their polish on my own and fallen in love with their product so I am very grateful to have this opportunity to share just how great this brand is. 

I have five different polishes to share with you today and there were was one thing I wanted to bring to your attention. If you read my original post about Pretty Woman NYCs polish called "Pouty" you would know that one of the reasons I loved the polish was because of the brush, it was a medium sized brush but it was very dense and applied the polish quite easily. The story is not the same with these polishes unfortunately, I do not know if their standard brush is as dense as Poutys brush was or if they are all of regular density. If you own any polishes from Pretty Woman NYC, leave me a comment down below about their brush!

Three coats of Neverland Chrome

This polish if from their chrome collection and it is fully opaque at two coats, however the third coat does deepen the color a good amount. The formula on this was a little thicker than the usual consistency of polish but it was still easy to work with.

Three coats of Fairy Chrome

This stunning polish is also from the chrome collection and is absolutely beautiful. I really love green chrome and this one is no exception. Similar to the one above, this is opaque at two coats but the third coat deepens the color. It was fairly hard to photograph but the polish does have a pink, almost fuchsia shift to it.

Three coats of Pale Yellow Ceramic

Pale yellow ceramic has a "ceramic" or demi matte finish to it, so it is not a flat matte. Matte polishes are always fairly hard to work with since they dry so quickly that you don't have enough time to make your strokes even. I found that while two coats made the color fairly opaque, the third coat was really needed to make everything nice and smooth. I do want to make a disclaimer that the bristles on my brush were slightly bent which made it a little harder for me to get rid of the streaks. So you might be able to get away with just two coats. And this is from the ceramic collection.

Three coats of Relationship Goals

This bright bubblegum pink is from their valentines days collection and is stunning. It is very vibrant and I did not have to layer it over a white for it to be bright. This is a lovely color and I just love the way it contrasts with my skin tone.

Two coats of Cherry Bean 

I like to save the best for last and this polish from the Nude collection really stuck out to me. First of all, I enjoy the concept of having a nude collection and while this is not the "proper" nude for my skin tone I find that it still flatters it very nicely. This is almost a smokey taupe, it has more grey than purple and some brown as well. This had a great formula and was really easy to apply. 

Overall, even with the difference in brushes, I still enjoyed these polishes. I would have to say my top two colors have to be pouty and cherry bean they are fairly unique and have amazing formulas. If you have tried any Pretty Woman NYC polishes that you think I should try, leave me a comment down below.

Pretty Woman nail polish

Hello all,I hope you are having a great day. So in my April Ipsy glam bag, I received a beautiful fuchsia nail polish called "Pouty" from a brand named Pretty Woman. And I have to tell you, I was blown away when I saw the polish. On Ipsy's website, the color looked similar to another color I owned and simply wasn't exciting me. However, when I got the polish in my mail, I fell in love. Pouty turned out to be a bright fuchsia that practically looks neon on your nails and screamed summer.

Two coats of Pouty

Lets talk about the application of the polish and the formula. I have tried plenty of nail polishes before but I feel like the brush on this one was fairly unique. In terms of size, I would say it was a medium brush but to me, it felt more dense than a typical nail polish brush. This density helped the brush fan out a bit more so that you could coat most of your nail with one swipe. Something interesting I noticed about the formula was how much it reminded me of a neon. But if you visit Pretty Woman's website, this polish is not specifically labeled as a neon.

However, after the first coat I noticed that the polish dried down matte similar to a neon. And so I tried layering this over a white base to see if the color would change, however it stayed the same. Therefore I would have to say Pouty is a bright fuchsia that borders neon. This polish was opaque in two coats for me and surprisingly it dried shiny. In some lights or angles I could still see my nail line but I was alright with it.

As for the wear of this polish, I did conduct a wear test on my Cinderella hand. Some things to keep in mind as you view the pictures is that to truly test the quality of the polish itself, I wear no base or top coat. In addition, this is my dominant hand and I don't wear gloves when I do the dishes.

Day three

After wearing the polish for three days, I only had tip wear on all of my nails. This is fairly natural and doesn't speak against the quality of the polish.

Day four 

My troubles with this polish began on day four. I found my first major chip on my middle finger. Now since my middle finger is my longest finger, the fact that it chipped first was not surprising to me. However, it is important to note that the polish chipped four days into my manicure. As you can see in the photo, I also broke my middle nail but that is not related to the nail polish.

Day five

I ended my wear test on day five because I was unhappy with my thumb, pointer and middle finger. Now I did file down the nail on my middle finger which left some tip wear but it just seemed to keep chipping off, even after I took my picture. I had a chip near the middle on my pointer finger that also kept increasing and too much wear on my thumb. 

Overall, I would say that the Pretty Woman nail lacquer in Pouty is good. The color is fairly unique and application was very easy. This polish did last five days on my nails by itself, if you used your favorite base and top coat you would probably be able to get a longer wear. Now these polishes retail for $7.99 USD but they offer free shipping on all orders which is amazing and is something I don't see often. However, if you are a part of Ipsy, you can get these beauties for $5.99 USD! If you aren't signed up for Ipsy, feel free to use my referral link here. Hope you enjoyed this review, and if you have a favorite Pretty Woman nail polish, tell me in the comments below.

Olivia Palermo x Ciate London Nail Polish

Hello all, today I will be reviewing a Ciate polish which is from their Olivia Palermo collection. I received my polish from my February Ipsy bag but the polish is also sold at Sephora and directly from Ciate London.

This is two coats of "Hutch- my go to red" and I have to say, this polish is beautiful. First, even though this is a mini bottle, the brush is large and perfectly rounded at the tip. Application was amazing, there were no streaks, no patches, it applied evenly. It was almost opaque on one coat, but I did have to do two. The polish also dries down darker than when you apply it.

I did a wear test to test out the quality of the polish and so I wore it without a base or top coat. I kept this on for 6 days with regular tip wear and the only reason I took it off was because I had to clean up a nail polish spill. The quality of this polish really impressed me and the only downside is that I found it took longer than normal for the polish to dry down. This can be easily solved with a fast drying top coat or some dry drops. Overall, I would definitely recommend this shade and hope to try out more Ciate nail polish.

Leave me a comment down below about what your favorite Ciate nail polish is, or which one you really want to try! If you are interested in signing up for your own Ipsy bag, feel free to use my referral link:  https://www.ipsy.com/new?refer=vfxwa 

OPI Suede

Hello everyone, today I am going to be reviewing three OPI suede polishes that I bought on sparklecanada.com. I purchased Ink, Russian Navy, and Lincoln Park after Dark and conducted a wear test along with swatching them. Now when you buy an OPI suede, there is a tag on it telling you it is a suede finish and some general "rules" about the polish. First, it says that the suede polishes will not last as long as their original nail lacquer. Second, it advises you not to use a top coat or any drying products which I can understand. However, the information tag tells you not to use hand lotion while wearing suede, which I think is pretty unreasonable.

So while I was conducting my wear test, I applied the suede polish on five of my nails without any base coat and I added top coat to three nails. While wearing suede, I did keep two nails devoid of top coat as well as drying products but I did still use hand lotion. At the end of day one, both of the fingers that only had suede showed significant tip wear. However, the fingers that had top coat did not show tip wear until day three. Day two was not any better for the suede polish as it had serious wear and was very faded.

Overall, I feel like while the suede finish looks beautiful, it is not meant to be a long wearing polish. A base coat might help prolong the wear of the polish but on it's own, it feels like more of a one night polish. Top coat will definitely extend the life of your manicure but take away from the suede finish so you could use a matte top coat after. Again keep in mind that a matte top coat will not mimic the suede finish. In the end, I do like these polishes and think they are worth the buy, so without any further ado, here are the swatches.

Shown above is one coat of Russian Navy suede. The application for these polishes are beautiful, opaque in one coat and really fast dry time!

Russian Navy suede with a glossy top coat.

One coat of OPI Ink suede.

OPI Ink suede with a glossy top coat.

One coat of Lincoln Park after Dark suede.

Lincoln Park after Dark suede with a glossy top coat.

I hope you enjoyed the swatches and my review on these polishes. Also don't forget that my 5% coupon code (Anusha) for sparklecanada.com expires on March 3rd. This is not an affiliate code and Sparkle Canada does ship worldwide. Please leave me a comment letting me know which is your favorite and if you prefer the suede finish or glossy.

OPI Push and Shove

Today I am going to be reviewing OPI Push and Shove from the Holiday 2014 Gwen Stefani collection. This polish is marketed as a one night wear polish and comes in a duo set with a mini of lay down that base, base coat. The method behind this polish is that it will only work with lay down that base and it is supposed to be worn without a top coat. However, I have found that if you apply this polish on your bare nail, it will apply perfectly and you will be able to achieve the metallic foiled effect in just one coat. Furthermore, adding a top coat does dull the polish.

I did a wear test and I started noticing the polish disappearing around the 16 hour mark. It doesn't chip off, it just wears away like you've been wearing it for weeks. After 24 hours, the wear was definitely visible in the sense that I had lost half of the polish I was wearing. Overall, I highly recommend Push and Shove because I think it's very unique and since it is marketed as a one night polish, the wear time is pretty decent. Also, since it is opaque in one coat and the formula is wonderful, I think the polish is quite enjoyable.

I purchased my bottle of Push and Shove from sparklecanada.com. They do ship worldwide they have provided me with a 5% discount code "Anusha". This is not an affiliate code.