Twisted Panties Test Drive Polishes!

The gals Sarah Rowland and Stephanie Mattis give nail polish a whirl in their product testing article for 24hrs News.  The 24hrs is a free newspaper that they hand out near the Skytrain stations in Metro Vancouver.  Sarah Rowland has been writing 'how-to dating' articles for women for a while now.  Her articles are honest, gutsy, and sometimes offend or attract negative feedback by prudish women and pigheaded males.  I like her, I think she is hilarious.  "Twisted Panties" is basically Sarah and her BFF going out and trying out products and give their opinions.
Check it out!  Tell me what you think of their picks!  (BOOO Essie, animal testing Booo!!)  :P

P.S.  I have never seen Bourjois in Shoppers!  I'll have to keep looking.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs [Pic Heavy]

Hello everyone!  I've been wanting to post these for a while now but so many things got in the way.  Most dismal weather that prevented me from getting any good lighting.  I'm going to break down and buy a light box set soon.

This is the last collection I tried with my "claws".  They unfortunately couldn't last for the entire collection.  I thought it was suiting since this is called Claw Polish! ;)

All photos *should* be clickable.

Bordello - dark pink/silver foil.  ONE COAT!!

I'll say it again.  ONE COAT!!1one

MME Moriarty - blood red jelly!  2 coats.

This looks more translucent in the photos than it did in real life.  Three coats might be required.

Morgause - burgandy with a slight pearl shimmer. 

I have trouble describing this one because it's so different in real life.  The colour is so rich and the pearl shimmer is very faint on the nail but you can tell it's there in the luster.  You can see it in the darker photo in the upper right. You can stick with 2 coats just fine but I did three coats to get the same richness that I see in the bottle.

Destroying Angel - dark chocolate brown creme. 2 coats

So glossy!

Maiden - sheer light pink 2 coats.

I honestly never get sheers right.  I would have loved this if it were a creme. 

Croquet - medium pink creme, 2 coats.

I can't believe I'm going to rave about a pastel pink polish.  This was the perfect consistency.  I have NEVER tried a pink cream in this colour range that wasn't streaky and difficult to manage.  Croquet was a little watery, but completely manageable.  I didn't once flood my cuticles or even fear it happening.  Not at all streaky.  If you like pink, this one is GOLD.

Opium Poppy - hot pink creme.  2 coats

Unfortunately I lost the photos for this one in a sea of pink polish pics that I was clearing out of my polish folder.  If this isn't enough I'll re-swatch this one!  It was as perfect in the application as Croquet.  Unfortunately is was clashing with my skin tone a lot in the photos which is why I might have accidentally deleted them.

Overall these polishes were pretty amazing to me for such an "unknown" brand.  I know BPAL has been surfacing pretty successfully in the nail polish blogging world but otherwise people I've spoken to don't really know about it.  The polish always applied well, dried well, and held up well with wear and tear.  I seriously hope they expand their colour selection because this can easily be one of my favourite brands of polish ever.  That is saying a lot.

The site can be a little tricky to navigate. http://www.blackphoenixalchemylab.com/ You want to go to Trading Post, then nail polish.  As you can see they offer quite a bit from their site.

The direct link to their polishes is here.

I will be showing you more of another colour from Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs in a post of it's own.

Embalming Fluid. So check back next week!

If you have any questions about this brand or any of these polishes leave a comment!

[These polishes were provided to me by the company for an honest review]

China Glaze Awakening Collection

Happy Freaky-Friday, Darlings!

I'm just going to jump right to it since I cannot contain myself.

Ick-A-Bod-Y - Natural Light

 Ick-A-Bod-Y is an orange glitter polish with an olive green jelly base.  I used 4 coats in these pictures to get as much coverage as possible.  You might need to play with gently pushing the glitter around for even coverage.

Some suggestions for different looks might be to try a creme olive green base under Ick-A-Bod-Y for a more sparse green/orange glitter look.  I will try this closer to Halloween and show you.  I think you have correctly guessed that this is my favourite of the collection.  ;)

 

 Zombie Zest - Natural Light

Flash

As a lot of you may know, Zombie Zest is very similar to a couple other polishes recently released.  It is a delightful dark green jelly base with micro glitter that looks gold or green depending on the light or angle that you hold your hand at.  The only down part of this polish for me is that it is a very sheer formula.  This required 4 coats.  (I find that it is completely worth the trouble)

...the name is awesome too.

 Mummy May I - Natural (overcast) Light  Ahhhh nubbins!!

 With Flash

Mummy May I is a dark purple base with purple chunky glitter.  It is probably my least favourite of the collection, but still an excellent Halloween polish.

Did my nubbins frighten you?  Good.  This is a Halloween collection, you know.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o!!

Thank you China Glaze for another lovely collection!  

[This collection was provided to me by the PR company for an honest review... my opinions are always honest.  kkthxbai]

Justin Beiber collection from Nicole by OPI.

I'm probably going to lose some fans here, but I have to vent.
I just read the comments on Scrangie's post about Justin Beiber's polish collection and just about vomited in my mouth.

How you HATE a little boy who has done nothing negative.  He hasn't harmed anyone.  His music might annoy you, but you can easily ignore it.  I'm not a JB fan but I find the pure hatred towards this kid disgusting!  IT'S A NAIL POLISH COLLECTION FOR HIS FANS... OH NO!!  HE IS HURTING THE WORLD OF NAIL POLISH.  /sarcasm

Another example:


WTF?  Who throws a solid object at a person's head?  This guy isn't preaching hatred to the masses... he isn't having unprotected sex with your daughters...  He is singing age appropriate music for young girls.

I think the worse part of all this is that harming someone you don't know is considered hilarious to people.  They get off on hurting and insulting others.  Look at the comedy on Fox TV, most of the funny parts are based on insulting and hurting someone.  I wish people realised how much this sort of attitude is hurting society.  People are afraid of each other and what people think and look what it is doing to us a society.  Just look at the news.

/hops off her soapbox and has a Friday doughnut

Fight like a Woman Collection

Today I'm showing you the Fight Like a Woman collection from China Glaze.  (And yes, I'm late.)

Encouragment - Natural Light, Two Coats

A baby pink how *I* image a baby pink would be.  Nice and pale.  Encouragment has a very pretty shimmer to it but I cannot nail down if it is a glass fleck or just a pale pink micro glitter.  Regardless it is very pretty.

Did anyone else get a bottle that was spelled wrong? Isn't it spelled Encouragement?  Oh well.

 

 Empowerment - Natural Light, Three Coats

Pastel pink creme.

 Endurance - Natural Light. One Coat

Medium-dark pink with glass fleck shimmer.

So here it is.  My first review for a while!  These polishes were of good consistency that I have come to expect from China Glaze.  I'm a little stunned that I got a one-coater out of these!  I have never had a once coater from China Glaze before.  Bravo!  The pastel was pretty typical of pastels, slightly streaky but I managed.   You might have noticed a slight bubbling in Encouragment and Empowerment, well, that was my fault.  I didn't realise it until I was editing these photos and I know why it bubbled too.  I was helping my friends move that day so my blood was pumping a little harder and it heated my otherwise corpse-like cold hands.  So FYI, the bubbles are not from China Glaze, they are from *gasp* exercise!

I've gotta talk about the names now.  You've noticed the theme.  Was I the only person who thought that calling the Pepto-pink "Empowerment" was totally weird?  Personally I would have swapped the names for Empowerment and Endurance.  It just seems like a better fit to me.

And now I come to the part where I talk about how breast cancer has touched my life.  Fortunately breast cancer doesn't run in my family.  Cysts and lumps in the breasts yes, breast cancer, no.  My Grandpa's second wife, "Grandma Jean" was hit by breast cancer pretty hard.  She had a double mastectomy when I was younger.  It had either spread to both breasts or she was high risk for getting it in the second breast so they removed them both in one go.  My Grandma was so brave.  I remember her joking about getting a Dolly Parton mastectomy bra for when she went out for parties.  She wanted "variety".  :P
I had my own little scare with breast cancer, thankfully it was just a big benign cyst and I had it removed because it felt like the size of a walnut on the upper side of my right breast.  I don't care about the visible scar at all, but now I'm feeling scar tissue develop on the inside of my breast and it makes me paranoid because I can't tell if there is a real lump there.  (I'm a bit paranoid)

ANYWAYS...  heres to the woman and men who who continue to fight for their lives against breast cancer.

Wassail!

[The collection was sent to me for an honest review by the PR company]