ORLY Galaxy FX

I saw these on a trip to Sally Beauty Supply, and grabbed two of them right away.
ORLY's Galaxy FX are jelly (or crelly - creamy jelly) polishes that are absolutely jam-packed with glitter. Oh my God the glitter.

This one is called "Gravity Bound"

The polish is a dark blue jelly base with fine blue glitter, small purple hex glitter and large white hex glitter.
This is two coats.

The polish is very thick, so it can be a bit goopy if you don't work fast.

Because of the glitter, it's a bit gritty as well. I had to apply two coats of my fast-dry topcoat that normally smooths everything out in one coat.

The polish is gorgeous, and I couldn't stop looking at it. It really does look like it was inspired by outer space - a nebula and stars.

Only drawback?
I guess the thick glitter and two coats of topcoat caused the polish to just pop right off:

Thankfully, this was after about 4 days of wear, so no big deal.

The other one I picked up is called Intergalactic Space - which I will post photos of another time. I have something in mind I'd like to try with it.

Revlon Selects 3D Jewel Appliques

Ok,
It's been a while since I did a review of a product sent to me by Revlon. I had bare nails and I didn't want to wait for nail polish to dry, so I reached for my pack of 3D Jewel Appliques. I received the Floral Fatale pattern.

This is a very cute and busy pink/white/black/silver pattern. Flowers and silver geometric shapes. It even has a bit of an iridescent shine to it.

The Review:

First up, I read the instructions - pick the right size, apply, fold over nail edge, file off excess. Just like all the other nail strips out there. Easy as pie!
Then I looked at removal. These are not real nail polish, so for removal, you simply peel them off starting at the cuticle.
My heart sank a bit at that, because I have weak nails, and peeling things off of your nails can really damage them.

I elected to apply a basecoat to help prevent damage.

Application was super easy - peel and stick, smooth down.
The only minus here were the small range of sizes. My index, middle and ring fingers are all pretty much the same size - it was tough getting ones to fit. I ended up using a couple of slightly too-small ones. Also, my thumb was in-between the largest and second largest size, so I had to trim that one down - which is pretty normal.

The excess strip filed away pretty easily, but I encountered a slight hitch ... I had stretched one of them to make it fit, but once I filed the end off, it un-stretched and I had a bare patch at the tip of my nail. It was small and the busy pattern on the applique hid it well, so I figured it was ok.

I wore it, went to bed, woke up and had my shower.
This is when it all started to fall apart. They caught in my hair, shifted and lifted. I'm not sure if this is because I used a basecoat, so your mileage may vary.

I peeled them off afterward and they came off really nicely - it looks like the adhesive is gentle enough that it shouldn't damage your nails. It only lifted the basecoat off of one nail. I'm just wondering if they elected to go for a gentle adhesive rather than staying power.

Verdict: they're cute if you want a cute complex pattern without all the work. Probably only good for a couple of days. I personally wouldn't buy them, but I think they'd be great for a lot of people - especially if they wanted a really fancy manicure for an event.

Revlon Selects Nail Polish Reviews

It's been a while, but I finally sat down and played some more with the Revlon Selects products I was sent.

The Nail Art polishes are dual-ended polishes where one side is a base coat and the other is an 'effect' of some sort. I believe the first ones were crackle sets. They also come in Neon (with a white base coat to make the neon shade pop), Moon Candy (flakies!!) and Expressionist (with a smaller detail brush)

I received an Expressionist and a Moon Candy - I'll be reviewing both!

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The Moon Candy polish I received is called Orbit.
This one was hard to get a good photo of - my camera did not like it at all (but oh, if you saw it in person, I know you'd love it!)

The base colour is a super dark purple creme. It's even and opaque in one coat - I've heard the Moon Candy polishes are like this, but I wasn't really expecting it to be THAT solid.
I love it. I honestly don't know what else I can say - it's a great polish.

The other side is a purple/blue/green flakie in a clear purple base. A lot of people complained that the flakies were hard to apply and hung off the edge of the nail. I can definitely see this - I dabbed the polish on, because that's how I'm used to applying most glitter and flakies, and the flakies were a bit on the unruly side, but I was able to place them easily enough.
The manicure was a bit lumpier than I'm used to, so I ended up having to use two coats of my topcoat.

I can't stop looking at the colour shift.

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The Expressionist polish I received is called "Vincent Van Gold"
I guess my camera doesn't like dark purples very much, because this one was hard to photograph as well.

The base colour side is dark purple with a blue shimmer - super pretty. I used it on it's own first, and it was a little too sheer for my taste.
For this manicure, I first did a coat with the base from the Moon Candy polish, then applied the Expressionist polish over top. I think this one is sheer, because it's a shimmery polish - I'm sure the ones with the creme polish base will be similar to the Moon Candy base polish.
Anyways, the colour is gorgeous and the application was nice and smooth.

The detail polish is a bright gold.
For the design, since I was doing this later at night after a busy day, I wanted something simple, so I opted for stripes - I did two vertical on one side of my nail, then two horizontal near the top of my nail.
I only had to do one coat to get solid coverage, which is essential with detail polishes.
The brush isn't as thin and long as some of the detail polishes you can find, but it's nice and flexible. I actually find the slightly shorter length to be a benefit - there is less room for wiggling if you've got shaky hands! It's easy enough to shape the brush against the mouth of the bottle to get a thinner line if you want it.
I think the thicker brush will allow you to do dots a lot easier - I'll have to give that a shot some time.

Glitter Polish and Revlon Selects

First up - my first Revlon Selects review!

I received Revlon's ColorStay Ultimate Suede Lipstick in Backstage - a burgundy shade.
I was happy to receive this colour - It's probably the one I would have bought.

Packaging: The lid is secure and the tube clicks a couple of times when twisting it. I've had a few lipsticks in the past that have popped open in my purse (yuck!) and some that have twisted up and smooshed in the lid, so I'm a fan of both of these features.
I store my lipstick upright in a box, so the clear lid is handy.

The lipstick applied very nicely - smooth and not quite sheer. I was a little worried that I would have to keep reapplying it all night.
After a few minutes, the lipstick set. Some longwear lipsticks dry out so much that you have to keep applying lip balm to prevent your lips from cracking. The Ultimate Suede was a bit dry, but I didn't feel like I had to do anything extra.

I wore it to my company Christmas party and am happy to say that it lasted through the entire night. I think I had it on for about 8 hours (through dinner, drinking, etc).
When I got home and wanted to remove it, I had some lip balm ready to soften it, but wanted to try just a tissue first. I was very surprised when it all came off with just a couple of swipes.

I think this is going to be my go-to lipstick from now on!

Unfortunately, I didn't take any after photos (I was too sleepy to think of it), but I've got another party on Friday, so I'll try to remember then.

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 Now for the nail polish!

Reddit challenge this week was "Glitter"
I decided that I was going to try the white glue basecoat to see how well it works for removal.

Some people put the glue in an old cleaned polish bottle, but I just put some onto a piece of scrap cardboard and painted it onto my nails with a brush. Once it was dry, I added my base colour - OPI Black Onyx - and my glitter - one coat of Wet n' Wild Rest in Pieces.
I really like this polish. I've seen a lot of reviewers put on multiple coats, so you end up with this sort of grey-red mess, but I think one coat over black shows how pretty this one is.

The glue removal method? I'll do it again! It worked so well - just peel the polish off from the cuticle and wash your hands well to remove any residue.

I only did my thumb, because I had to do my nails for my company Christmas party, and I didn't want to do a whole manicure just to take it off.
I'll share that manicure a little later - I've got another challenge and another party - so many manicures!

The next challenge is "Inspired by a Song"

Revlon Selects

Last week, I entered a contest put on by Revlon Canada on Facebook - it gave 500 people the chance to win products for review.
I didn't think I'd get selected, because I've never really won anything before, but it doesn't hurt to try.

I came home from work today ready to relax after a hectic week; opened up my email and ...

Once I get the package, I will do separate reviews for each product. You're going to get to see something other than my nails for once - hah!

I'm super excited.

Oh yeah ... I created a facebook page and finally started using my twitter account - check the links on the right.