Color Club - Alter Ego: Reveal Your Mystery Collection - swatches and review and comparisons

Hi everyone!
You may know by now that Color Club sets are one of my favorite things to buy because when they are available here it is only $12.99 for 7 polishes.
At that price, I buy every set I can get my hands on!
(I once passed up Glitter Vixen and Pardon My French and have since learned not to control my polish hoarding when it comes to things I won't get a chance to buy again!)

Anyway, I had seen on other Canadian blogs that this set was popping up at Winners, so I started faithfully checking on my break at work because luckily for me, I work in the same mall as Winners.
A few days before I went on vacation, I found it!

Mmm, pastels!
I wanted this set really badly because I have had a thing for pastels lately.
I ended up not being blown away by the set because 3 are not very unique but the other 3 are lovely, and I'm very happy to have the set!
And for $12.99, only adoring 3 shades is acceptable.

This set comes with a bottle of Milky White Base Coat.
I have now learned that if a set of polishes comes with a base coat, you should probably use it under those polishes.
I had a bit of a hard time getting the polishes to cover evenly, except the last 2, which I used with the base coat.
Lesson learned. Use the base coat. It really helps the polish level out and be less streaky!

Get A Clue. Pale pink. A bit more gray-toned than other pinks but not by much.
This was 4 coats - these polishes are sheer. Which is why you are "revealing" your mystery with this set I guess! But I wanted to go for complete opacity.
I didn't use the base coat with this one but if I had, it probably would have only taken 3 coats to even out.

Recently I showed you the Catwalk Queen set which included this pink - Vintage Couture.
This comparison shows you the slightly gray tone to Get A Clue.

Get A Clue is also similar to China Glaze - Light As Air, but LAA has a bit more white in it, if you know what I mean.

Revealed. My favorite from the collection! I hate orange but lately I love peach.
Super pretty peach shade with warm pinky peach shimmer. More opaque and creamy than the others, 3 coats.
Totally unique in my collection.

I have another peach with shimmer, Revlon Peach Smoothie, but as you can see it is a more nude peach. Not nearly as flattering.

Speaking of nude colors...

This is Incognito. The absolute closest to mannequin hands that I will ever get. 3 coats.
The flash picture doesn't really show it very well but this matches my skin perfectly. The next picture shows it better:

And it's a jelly so it is even more nude looking than an opaque creme. Very happy to have this in my collection! You never know when you'll need to go nude!
(And my goodness, my nails are so stained that it would be impossible to go actual nude! I honestly think my nails are the worst stained nails ever. I've never seen anything so bad. That's what I get for swatching so much!)

Previously I thought this nude, LA Girl - Secret, was the best nude for my skin tone, but I was very wrong. As you can see it is far too yellow!

Secret Rendezvous. Light purple creme, a bit more blue-toned than others I have. 4 coats, again could have been 3 if I used the base coat.

Hard to tell in this photo, but it is more blue than the others, and a tiny bit lighter.

Sheer Disguise. Blue-toned gray! Very interesting color, unique in my collection. 3 coats over the Milky White Base Coat.

Give Me A Hint. Same old "purple taupe" we've seen a lot in the last year.
Very popular and somewhat flattering shade, but not unique.
3 coats over the base coat.

You may remember that in my Every Shade of Indulgence swatches I showed you that Positively Posh was a dupe for OPI - You Don't Know Jacques!
And once before I compared YDKJ to China Glaze - Below Deck.
Well... here they all are together.

Below Deck, Give Me A Hint, Positively Posh, You Don't Know Jacques!
Two sets of dupes. The Color Club versions are more sheer than the others, but the shade is the exact same.
Never buying a shade like this again! Haha!

Overall, I'm really happy to own this set.
3 of the colors are unique and lovely, but the other 3 are not unique.
And despite the fact that the pink and purple aren't unique, I still like them because I like all pinks and purples.
The taupe/brown just isn't my thing. I didn't like Below Deck after buying it and I don't care for this one either.
The base coat is a bit watery but really does a good job at holding these polishes and making them apply better.

Do you have an addiction to Color Club sets like I do? I want them all!!

More about → Color Club - Alter Ego: Reveal Your Mystery Collection - swatches and review and comparisons

Gosh - Holographic - swatch and review and video!

Hi guys!! Exciting post today.
Gosh Holo!

I got this polish from Martje. She is awesome. I also got the special base coat, Fix Base Coat. It is supposed to help with the application and make it more long lasting.
The base coat takes longer to dry than I would like but I can deal.
Holographic is very deceiving in the bottle, it just looks like a silver polish. But that is certainly not the case at all.

This was done really quickly because I wanted to catch the sun before it went away. But it pretty much did go away before I got outside to snap the photos. However, I discovered that the lights on the range of my stove are basically little suns that I can use whenever I please. Haha!
So despite it being cloudy outside, I have awesome pictures to show you.
(But I will absolutely be wearing this again soon as a full manicure and I will try to get more/better photos.)

There is a smudge on my ring finger but I couldn't see it until after I looked at the photos/video. (Yes, there is a video.)

This is 2 coats of Holographic. My camera flash does not bring out the best in this one as it does in some others. But the stove light... Oh my.
There are really no words for this polish, so I will just show you the pictures.

Those were from the camera flash. Now for the stove light.

Ahhhhhh.

Oh my GOSH, right?!
I just love it when the whole nail is a rainbow.
It's too cool.
And now for the video:



Awesome.

I admit, I wasn't holo-crazy at first, I didn't really get the hype. But lately I have been bitten by the holo bug and I wish I had more! Haha.

I will be showing you this again in the coming weeks, whenever we finally get actual sun for more than 2 minutes.
And I won't be so rushed next time because my mind won't be half concentrated on my melmer decorating project! I'm about to go check if my test drawer worked well.
If it did, you can expect a post on pretty melmers soon :)

I feel like this post was all over the place. Sorry!

More about → Gosh - Holographic - swatch and review and video!

OPI - Burlesque collection glitters - swatches and review

This was a very good day for me so far so I decided I would make a nice glittery post for you guys, and show you all the glitters from the Burlesque collection. And do 2 comparisons.
This is super pic heavy.

(Yeah that picture has the Alice glitters in it too but you get the point.)

Before we get to the swatches:
Why has today been so good?
I got German nail mail. 18 bottles of it.

Martina was so sweet that she even included 2 color&go's from my wishlist. Thank you again, Martina!!

They were all  wrapped up in German flyers in this big box of packing peanuts. It was like a nail mail treasure hunt!
Swatches to come in the upcoming days, I'm sure!

And then I got awesome blink tickets. Awesome ones.

I'm in row 11 of section 201. I'm pretty sure the 100 sections are going to be open floor.
So. Delighted. So much closer than the last time I saw them!! :D

Okay, now that's out of the way.
Keep reading for the glittery goodness!


You're probably wondering how I was able to swatch 6 glitter polishes without going crazy, but I didn't just swatch them. I wore each one for a few days! You can't just swatch glitter. It is too precious/difficult to remove.
I did wear them on my right hand only though because I was still swatching stuff on my other hand. So the pictures aren't my usual but I think I did an okay job at photographing my right hand.

I'll start with my least favorite, Extra-va-va-ganza.

Orange is my least favorite polish color, so it makes sense that this is my least favorite. But despite it being my least favorite, I still love it. You can do no wrong with glitter.

All but one of these glitters are a total random mix of glitter, with one dominant color. This one is orange with basically every other color mixed in.

Here is a close up!

This is 4 coats of glitter.
The more you use these polishes, the thicker they get, and you can use less coats.
This was my first time wearing this one so it was 4 coats and it is still a bit patchy in photos, but that is invisible in person.

Up next is Glow Up Already!

Glow Up Already! is mostly green-hued glitter, again with every other color mixed in. It is a really golden shade of green.

This one was also 4 coats because it was my first time using it.

I just love these glitters.

See all the colors?

This is Simmer And Shimmer.

This one is a light blue glitter, again, with tonnes of other colors mixed in. This one is a bit silvery.

This one is three coats as I have worn it before, so it was a bit thicker.

Love.

Now we have Sparkle-icious.
This one is a bit different from the others.

This one is made entirely of gold, blue, and fuchsia glitter.

It's still totally awesome though!

Loveeeee it.

Here we have Show It and Glow It.

Fuchsia glitter with all the other colors mixed in. Perfection.

I love this one sooooo much. This one is almost a 2-coater for me now because it's been used like 5 times between me and friends. (Meaning it also has the most gone from the bottle which makes me saaaaad.)

So awesome.
This one is tied for my fave of the collection.

This color is a bit similar to Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Rockstar Pink. Here is a bottle comparison:

Show It and Glow It has more silver in it while Rockstar Pink has a larger amount of blue and red.
Rockstar Pink is a really good, cheap alternative to these Burlesque glitters! The formula is basically identical.

And this is the other one tied for my favorite - Bring On The Bling.

This one is mostly gold, again with all the other colors mixed in. 3 coats.

It's a more muted shade of gold than you usually see.

I really can't pick a favorite between the last two.

I have another gold glitter - Milani's Gold Glitz. How do they compare?

Gold Glitz is much brighter and more yellow which shows you how Bring On The Bling is a bit muted.

One coat of Gold Glitz (these are not one-coaters as the bottle suggests) vs 3 coats of Bring On The Bling.
When I got Gold Glitz in a giveaway I was hoping I could use it as underwear for BOTB so it could last longer but it doesn't quite work.

It ends up still being brighter. This is just one coat over it though, so 2 coats might make it fine and then I would save one coat of BOTB! Hahaha.

One last thing: How does glitter look with Silver Shatter?
Not good.
Tiffany on the Polish-aholics Anonymous group asked what it would look like so I did it for her.

This was over a very dry coat of Seche Vite. And it did not look good.
The ladies on PAA suggested trying it over slightly wet polish, as that was successful for some of them.
So I added a fresh coat of glitter to my un-shattered thumb, and added shatter before it totally dried:

But it was worse.

I think shatter might work well over slightly wet SV? I have yet to try that. I'm sure it could work over glitter but it takes some experimenting.

Also I want to mention that glitter is a pain in the ass to remove. However, I don't use remover. I just pick it off. With a little bit of coaxing, these glitters will usually pop right off your nail in nail-shaped sheets. Haha!

But sometimes, that happens when you don't want it to. Through wearing these six glitters, I found that it stays on better without base coat, and without topcoat. (But some people will need to use topcoat to smooth out the glitter, but it isn't actually too gritty for me so I don't mind.)

Okay! That took forever! Did you make it this far?!
I hope you guys liked this post :)

More about → OPI - Burlesque collection glitters - swatches and review