Black Crackle Comparisons

Hello my lovely followers and new readers! How are you all doing today?

Today I am here to answer the age old question: Are all crackles the same? (Okay, maybe not age old, just since every brand started releasing their own crackle)

I have three black crackles in my collection: China Glaze Black Mesh, OPI Black Shatter, and La Rosa black (sent to me by NailDeRoyale).

I applied them all over OPI Extravagance to see the differences, using the same technique of applying like a normal polish (from cuticle to tip in three separate strokes, one center, two sides). Here are the results:

As you can see, China Glaze is a little more linear, and created lines in the direction of the brush but not many horizontal lines. The OPI (which, by the way, dries out in no time and was chunky as h-e-double hockeysticks when I broke it out to try this, which reminded me why I never use OPI's shatter) broke up into smaller bundles of crackle, appearing more like a leopard print pattern. Finally, La Rosa broke up pretty evenly, leaving the gaps in the polish but the overall look is black. La Rosa was actually my favorite because, as you can see, China Glaze and OPI require some coddling (special techniques, thinner) whereas La Rosa just applies like a dream. Its consistency is quite similar to a normal polish and isn't thick, so you can work with it pretty easily.

Which one do you prefer?

xoxo,
Amanda

China Glaze Virtual Violet (Tronica) & OPI Black Shatter

Hello there! Today I have another NOTD I wore from the China Glaze Tronica collection, Virtual Violet. I saw this in my unworn bin and wasn't immediately impressed; it wasn't my favorite of the collection. I thought "Well, I'm not really going anywhere, might as well get this one out of the way". Boy, was I wrong! Don't just a color by its bottle, ladies! I ended up loving this one. It showed the holo really well, even in normal lighting (which is perfect, since it's nonstop snow here in Massachusetts and natural light is out of the question). I also loved the color... so I ended up actually wearing it two days so I had a reason for someone else to see it. I used two coats (three if I did a shotty job applying on that finger) and no top coat.

With flash, to show some of the holo in the light.



 Well, right before I took it off, I decided to experiment with Black Shatter to see what it looks like over a holo polish. For some reason, it broke into very thin strips on every nail, despite different application styles. Maybe the holo polish has some quality that makes the Shatter do this, but I still thought it looked neat, although it really looked more black than anything so it's not a good idea if you want to show off a holo polish.



So that's it for tonight! I'll be posting my NOTD tomorrow since I have a snow day (my school canceled for tomorrow at noon today!) and maybe I'll even sneak a picture of the ridiculous amounts of snow we have here. It's about three feet right now, and we're getting almost another foot tonight!

xoxo,

Amanda

Black Shatter = Nail Polish Rescuer

Hey all! Today I have two manis I wore recently, both with Black Shatter over the top. The first is China Glaze's Fiji Fling, from one of their old summer collections.

My boyfriend actually picked this color for me to wear, but I must say I wasn't overly impressed. It was sheer (sigh, we all know how I feel about sheers) and therefore, I thought I might take it off immediately after he left (don't want to hurt his nail-polish-picking pride!). But I decided to try black shatter over it and I loved it! It really rescues any polish! Unfortunately, you can see my carelessness applying Fiji Fling underneath and I took the whole sloppy mess off after about a day.

Next, I decided to try Black Shatter over a glitter polish. OPI's Simmer and Shimmer was my victim, and the results were amazing! The glitter shows through, but the Black Shatter gives just enough intrigue to it to make it interesting. (Sorry for the random flecks of glitter on my cuticles, it's a real pain to clean up glitter!)

My original intention was that thick glitter like this tends to peel right off my nail, and it drives me nuts. I thought Black Shatter + topcoat would stop this... and it did, until it came about time to do this post and a small chunk (a piece of free edge with just glitter, where Black Shatter left empty), came right up! I use Nail Life Gripper as my base coat, but nothing seems to help grip glitter to my nails! Do you have any suggestions?

xoxo,

Amanda

Katy Perry and Black Shatter Swatches!

Hey ladies! As promised, here are the Katy Perry and Black Shatter swatches.

The One That Got Away, Teenage Dream, Black Shatter, Not Like The Movies, Last Friday Night

Last Friday Night, Not Like The Movies, The One That Got Away, Teenage Dream

I must say, I'm not too impressed with these colors. This was three coats of each, and three out of the four are barely built up, if at all. LFN and TD are more suited to be layered, if you ask me (and I hate layering polishes!). NLTM makes my fingernail look diseased here! If I had been patient enough to do more coats, they may have built to opacity better, but I think for 3 coats, they should be better than this! Maybe it's because my bottles are mini? I'm not sure. The colors are nice, but not by any means "must haves" or even that unique. My favorite is The One That Got Away, which is unusual since I'm not usually a red/deep pink person, but it is really pretty. What do you think?

Black shatter to the rescue! These look much improved to me with the shatter over them to give them depth and interest. To experiment with the design of the shatter, I used different techniques. The leftmost finger (my pointer, with LFN) I used a very thin coat and actually dipped the brush back and forth to leave very little on the brush. NLTM and TOTGA (middle and ring finger) I used one dip of the brush with a drop on the end and spread it out on the nail in one step. On the right (my pinky, TD) I used a middle sized drop in two swipes. As you can see, if you do it in one swipe, you get the "scraped off", cheetahish look, and multiple swipes seems to give you very small cracks. Both, I think, are pretty, but it would depend on how much of the color you wanted to show through on which technique you should use.

What do you think of Katy Perry and Black Shatter? I'm a big fan of Shatter. I can't wait until China Glaze comes out with their line of Crackle to pick up other colors! 

xoxo,
Amanda

January Hauls! (Pic heavy)

Hi ladies, this post is just to show you the hauls I've gotten in the mail recently. I still have a few Zoyas coming in and I'm going to post Katy Perry and Black Shatter swatches in a bit (tonight or tomorrow). These are various smaller hauls I got in recently. First, here's my 3 free polishes from Zoya:

Gloria, Veruschka, Ki

Same order as above, this is two to three coats each with no top coat.

Here is Veruschka with top coat... gorgeous. Do you like it better matte or with top coat?

Next, I ordered Katy Perry and Black Shatter from a website called MBeautyLounge. They specialize in the popular and hard to find collections, although their prices can be steep (due to high demand, but low supply - hey look, economics did come in handy!):

The One That Got Away, Teenage Dream, Last Friday Night, Not Like the Movies

(Yes, I got the minis - I didn't love any of the colors enough to want full bottles, plus I never get around to using up a whole bottle of anything). I'll have better pictures and swatches of these later.

Finally, I ordered from DollarNailArt.com, which I highly recommend. They have a minimum of $25 order, but everything you see here I got for $25.50! Plus, they're currently having a hearts sale, so all the little hearts are buy one get one free (you order whichever colors you want, they will automatically double whatever you have - so if you order 1 silver heart, they will send you 2 - don't order two unless you want four, get it?) until February 15. Better go stock up! They also had super fast shipping, I ordered this Wednesday and had it by Friday!

These are little, flat hearts you can stick into wet polish. (Pictures are clickable if you want to make them bigger)

Here's a close up of "Capri Blue Hearts", perhaps my favorite color of them all. Each package has 100 hearts in it, so I got two of each!

Same deal, except these are all stars instead of hearts (note: stars are not currently the BOGO deal, so don't get confused if you order!).

These are the other 4 colors. I got the 10 packages for $8.50 deal which included all the colors!

I also got some loose glitter, either for frankening polishes or sprinkling onto my nails for some added glitter. :) These were $1 each but they also had a bigger case of tons of colors, as well as pastel and various sizes of glitter available (these are the "micro glitter" style). On the left you see "laser lace" which is a sheet of lace-type metallic material that you can cut into smaller pieces to use for nail decor.

So what do you think? Do you plan to order from MBeautyLounge.com, Zoya.com or DollarNailArt.com? Which polish or nail decoration would you like to see me try?

xoxo,
Amanda