Essie Luxeffects Top Coat: As Gold As It Gets!

So for the holidays, Essie came out with Luxeffects Top Coats, a collection of glittery, shimmery, beautiful top coats. The collection has 5 polishes and I happened to pick one up a week or so before Christmas.

The polish is a clear base with TONS of gold flakes. I love how the caps say Luxeffects.

(sun)

(shade)

One coat of Gold As It Gets over Zoya Jem. I really like the gold flakes over Jem, it really brings out the gold shimmer that Jem already has. Love the combination of these two. I think a warm base brings out the gold much more than a flat black could. 

Just for reference, two coats of Gold As It Gets over Jem.

Three coats of Gold As It Gets over Jem. 

As you can see this polish is JAM PACKED with awesome gold flakes. They are pretty small but very densely packed, and in three coats it's actually almost opaque. Formula on this is very nice, smooth and the flakes are pretty evenly distributed with each coat. This polish also dries very quickly. I didn't use a top coat in any of these pictures, but you can always use it for an extra glossy finish. 

I thought I'd show you guys some bling for your nails in time for New Years. The other Luxeffects Top Coats are also really pretty, two of them are glitter (silver and rosey colored), one is similar to this but has silver or white flakes and the last is a dupe or Nubar 2010 / Sally Hanses Hidden Treasure. 

Until next time,

The Wicked

China Glaze Tinsel Town!

So those nails inc swatches are a little delayed, I had all the pictures ready, but got a new phone and none of the pictures transferred ugh. I did try to email them to myself before I switched phones...but they didn't send. Double ugh. So instead I have China Glaze Tinsel Town from their Let It Snow collection! Obviously the collection is completely holiday themed, and this was my favorite of the bunch.

Tinsel Town, two coats. This is actually a very interesting polish. It has a blackened base, that has a very interesting blue tint to it. If you enlarge these pictures you can see the slight blue color. I think it depends on the lighting, in day light you can see the blue but when it's darker you can't. So this polish is jam packed with silver glitter. There are smaller pieces and larger hexagonal pieces (that look round in these pictures, explanation below). I love the combination of this silver glitter and the darker base because the overall look of the polish turns into a charcoal glitter, which is awesome. 

Here is a close up bottle shot so you can see the actual glitter in the polish. If you enlarge this (sorry it's a little blurry) you can see that the larger glitter is actually hexagonal! On the nail with the naked eye they just look round, so that's really cool. 

The formula on this is amazing. Even though it is packed completely with glitter it goes on smooth and has killer coverage. It's opaque in one coat, but some spots can come out with less glitter than others so two coats is perfect. One thing to note is that the glitter may settle a little farther down in the bottle, so you need to fully dip your brush in the polish to pick up all the glitter, or just make sure to shake it up really well. The dry time is pretty good. When I first did my nails with this, I thought they were dry and then ended up smudging pretty much all my nails. So make sure to give it enough time to dry (15 minutes didn't work out for me) or use a fast drying top coat to speed up that process. So overall, I really love this polish. It's awesome and sparkly and interesting and super great for the holiday season!

Until next time,

The Wicked