Aly’s Dream Polish Sky Blue and Deep Emerald Swatched

This one’s for all of you holo lovers out there. A few weeks ago a friend in a Facebook group started posting holo swatches, in the “which of these colors do you like best that I should make?” kind of way. Another friend said, “well, all of them,” and all of a sudden Aly’s Dream Polish was launching for pre-orders with something like 70 holos. The range is incredible – if you want a light blue, a dark blue, a blue with a little more green to it, but not that much green – it’s all there. My only complaint was that, as a Carolina fan, there was a “Duke Blue” polish, but there was none named Carolina Blue, which, as everyone knows, is a real thing, but Duke Blue is not. When I (mostly jokingly) said something about it, Duke Blue was changed to Duchess Blue. Hee hee, point for me!!

After much back and forth I picked 8 – Sky Blue, and 18 – Dark Emerald. (Disclosure-I purchased these polishes with a blogger discount, but I did pay for the polishes). There were a few limited edition etched bottles, and I opted to get one in the etched bottle and one with the stick on label.

First, Sky Blue #8, this one with the new sticker label. This is two coats, and no problems with application. It went on easily and smoothly.

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And here is Dark Emerald #18, in the etched bottle – equally easy to apply and full coverage in two coats.

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Here are my overall impressions. Both colors were easy to work with, and super smooth – I didn’t use Seche Vite on top of these. I love the range of colors offered; you can pretty much find anything you’re looking for. These are not at holo as some of the super holo colors I’ve tried, like the Urban Outfitters polish, so at $12 a bottle you’re really trading a little less holo power for more color choices. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; I don’t always need an in my face oh my god look at that effect that distracts me while I’m driving, and even without the holo effect, like in indoor lighting, the colors were very pretty. Dark Emerald, especially, is a color that has not been done that much by other companies – holos tend to be pastel-y, so I was very happy to be able to get some deeper shades. The more I look at these pictures in detail, actually, the more I’m in love with the colors. Allergies have made it hard for me to be in love with anything in person this week. In fact, Dark Emerald reminds me of A England Dragon, which is a little bit less expensive, but also comes in an 11 mL bottle instead of a 15 mL bottle. These are definitely worth checking out if you have a particular color you just can’t seem to find in anyone else’s line, or if your favorite shade always seems to be sold out – there may well be a similar color available from Aly’s! Aly’s Dream Polish is available for $12 for a 15 mL bottle here.

Kelara Lacquers Dragon Scales Swatched

Kelara Lacquers is a relatively new indie polish brand. I obtained Dragon Scales from a friend of mine and it arrived while I was on vacation. This is a green with a gold undertone and some flecks to it. It had a slightly rough application on me, which I didn’t mind because, after all, it’s called Dragon Scales so somehow it seemed fitting that it would be a little bit textured instead of super glossy. This color is a lighter green than I usually go for, but I think it’s very pretty and something I could see myself wearing again in the right mood. Dragon Scales is currently out of stock but is available here for $9.

This was two coats. For a second one of my nails looked like it might have a patchy coat on it when I was taking photographs, but I think it was just for the second the flash was going off; I had full coverage in both indoor and natural sunlight.

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Nerd Lacquer Shiny Swatched

I was able to grab several Nerd Lacquers in the first relaunch of this brand a few weeks ago. For those of you not familiar with the story (I wasn’t), these polishes became basically impossible to obtain and were commanding sky high prices of sometimes as much as $100 a bottle on eBay. Thankfully when they can be had directly from NerdLacquer.com, the price is a much more reasonable $10 a bottle, although you’ll need to be online immediately to get them. These polishes are also coming to Harlow & Co and Ninja Polish, but will almost certainly sell out immediately there as well. The good news though is that there is no longer a need to pay top dollar on eBay anymore, and on swap groups Nerds can now be had for about $15 – more than retail, but still reasonable.

This is Nerd Lacquer Shiny. A good friend of mine had an extra from a recent restock, and kindly offered it to me at her price. I wasn’t sure I’d love it, but thought, well, it’s blue and silver, and I like those colors, and I’ve liked all the Nerds I’ve gotten so far, although I’ve yet to use any of them, so I’ll grab it. I came back from New Orleans with a hangover, exhausted, all of that to have it sitting in my mailbox, and tonight Shiny became the first of my Nerds to actually make it onto my hands.

Shiny went on in two coats. It was hard to get an even first coat, and though it was mostly even with two coats (and would have been if I’d been more careful on the first), I had a bit of a thin spot on one finger that probably should have taken a third coat. But, but, this is Nerd Lacquer, so I’m not going to use a single bit more of it than I have to.

For some reason I had a really easy time applying this polish. It stayed put, and stayed wet long enough for me to move it around as I needed to get coverage but not get it all over the place. This was the first polish I’ve used in a long time where I didn’t need to go back and take it off of the cuticles of my right hand later. 

The color itself is amazing. There is a blue micro glitter and varying sizes of larger silver glitters, and I love the icy, wintry look it gives that will carry over to spring. What I did not like was that I just took out a bag of trash and three nails of polish just sheered right off, which I don’t mean as a criticism because I really should have used Bonder, and now I will next time.

On to the pictures!

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Chanel Taboo Swatched

I have a love/hate relationship with Chanel polishes. When Chanel does something right – cough Peridot cough – they hit it out of the park. Lately though, probably because it’s spring, the colors have been blah to me – orange, coral, pink, snoozers. I did get the lovely Skyline blue polish, and ordered Western Light (more on that later) but for the most part it’s been a while since Chanel has really lit me up.

A friend of mine asked me whether I had ordered Taboo yet, and I blinked – what? I have a pretty good hookup at Nordstrom who takes sadistic glee in showing me each new collection months before it is coming out and watching my face fall as I calculate the damages on my credit card, and this had not been dangled in front of my nose. I went online and – poof! There it was. So I emailed my local Nordstrom friend, and ordered one from online just in case, and the next day the email reply was “We just got it in, and we didn’t know anything about it until it was here.” 

I was at the store approximately seven minutes later, five of which was spent waiting at red lights. And here it is for your shopping pleasure. I was told this is NOT a limited polish, so you need not rush right away to get it – you can stop at red lights if you need to. At first I thought it looked like Metallic Vamp from online, but it is lighter and more wine-colored than Metallic Vamp. This is one of my favorite polishes Chanel has put out in a long while.

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Taboo is available here for $27 with free shipping. 

China Glaze Holographic Collection

On Friday my order of the entire China Glaze Holographic collection arrived. These are available to order online from Sally Beauty for about $10 a bottle; $9 each if you have a Sally Beauty Club Card. If you spend over $50 shipping is free, and code 555272 will get you another 20% off, so after all of that I spent about $7.70 a bottle shipped. Since the pictures of the bottles weren’t up online, I ordered blind and figured I would take back anything I didn’t want. I haven’t had time to swatch all 12 for you, and wasn’t sure I was keeping them all, so I just did bottle pictures for you here. The color is more true in the pictures without flash, but without flash the bottles are showing zero of the holo effect, so I’ve included both. Here are the first six, with the next six to come tomorrow.

OMG a UFO. This looks like a really dirty yellow/gold with some green to it. It looks darker, more grey in the bottle than on the GC swatches:

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Not in This Galaxy is one of the many pink colors:

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Don’t Be A Luna-Tic is the lightest of the many blues in the set:

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Infra Red is a deep, reddish pink:

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Get Outta My Space is a very light purple lilac:

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Astro-Hot is a medium pink, between Get Outta My Space and Infra Red:

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I’m not super keen on any of these, mostly because I’m just not a fan of pink. I think more of tomorrow’s colors will be on my favorites list – including a purple and the rest of the steel/blue colors.

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