Showing posts with label liquid sand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liquid sand. Show all posts

Friday, November 8, 2013

Enchanted Polish Tenderheart

Today has been a super busy day of making polishes and working on blog stuff.  I'm super excited to announce that my polish line's November Duo is up in the shop for preorder.  Go and check those out here!  There will be a proper restock of the duo as well as everything else in my store (minus the Nail Polish Frights collections) on 11/18.  If you order your polishes now, though, you can get free shipping on orders $20 and over by using the discount code NOVEMBERFUN.  So, get on over there if you've been looking to try my polishes out!

Tonight, let's take a look at Enchanted Polish Tenderheart worn over OPI Liquid Sand The Impossible.


*I was not financially compensated for this post.  All items in this review were purchased by me for my own use.  The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.*

Color: Clear based polish with iridescent shreds, silver holo diamonds, red holo hearts, and various sizes of red hexes.
Finish: Glitter Top Coat – glitter in a clear base to be worn as a top coat.


Bottle / Brush: Rectangle bottle – The wand is the standard length, but the brush is a little too thin to pick up large / shaped glitter without fishing.  The brush's width is also an issue for spreading.  It doesn't fan out and pretty much requires you to dab polishes that are densely packed with glitter.


Opacity: Glitter topcoat – not designed for full opacity.
Glitter Application: Hard – difficult to dig the glitters out of the bottle, spreads well with the dab method, but pools at the cuticles and bubbles when dry.


Consistency: Super thin – runny and floods the cuticles easily.
Overall Ease of Application: Hard – applies with some pooling and bubbling.


Stampability: Not designed for stamping.
Dry Time: Long – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in over 8 minutes.


Overall Thoughts: As much as I wanted to love this polish, it was kind of a pain in the butt to apply.  The base to glitter ratio was way off meaning that there was much more base than there was glitter creating a very sparse look on the nail.  If I wanted to get enough glitter on my nail, I either needed to use several coats or attempt to load up on glitters in one coat, which caused pooling and bubbling.  Stupidly, I went with option two and gobbed one super runny layer onto the nail, which took forever to dry...  Otherwise, I really liked this combination.  The bright pink undies worked really well with the red glitters.  I also like how easily you can see the iridescent shreds, which were my favorite part of the polish.  It was surprising how well it went over the liquid sand texture, but I do wonder if that attributed to the long dry time.  Either way, though, this combo is quite pretty.

Sadly, Tenderheart and the rest of the Love A Lot Glitter collection have been long discontinued.  You can still find them on blog sales and ebay, though, if you're in the market!  Purchase other Enchanted polishes at her store.  Follow Chelsea on Facebook and Instagram for news and updates on new releases.

*I was not financially compensated for this post.  All items in this review were purchased by me for my own use.  The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.*

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Oldie but Goodie: OPI Liquid Sand The Impossible

Ok, I'm going to be dredging up a lot of photos that I took a loooooong time ago for the next month since I won't be painting my nails as often.  Some of these are from back before I moved in May, so there will be a different lighting scheme going on.  And of course, my nails were much longer and healthier back then for sure!  Either way, I hope that you don't mind the older photos, which also means older polishes, as I work through my No Polish November.  More details on that and a giveaway for those participating in the challenge will be up later this week.  Also, don't forget to get your donations for I Need a Lighthouse for my Depression Awareness Giveaway by 10/31!  Check out the info on what do do here, here, and here for instructions on how to pay with PayPal if you'd rather do that.  Ok, let's get into some polish, shall we?!

Tonight, let's take a look at OPI Liquid Sand The Impossible.  I have the mini bottle, which has a few distinct differences from the larger bottle.  Let's take a look!  Photos are with and without topcoat in indoor lighting.

*I was not financially compensated for this post.  All items in this review were purchased by me for my own use.  The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.*


 Color: Bright hot pink with small and medium hot pink hexes.  Leans more red/orange when topcoated.


Finish: Textured – a polish designed to be worn without a topcoat and to have a rough finish once dry.  Finish is gritty and almost sand-like.


Bottle / Brush: OPI Mini bottle – designed as a miniature version of the larger bottles.  The shorter handle and wand make it hard to handle.  The brush is also not as wide as the new pro-brush.


Opacity: Medium – achieves opacity at three coats.  First coat is streaky, but builds well with subsequent coat.  Here, I've done three coats to ensure full coverage for photos.
Glitter Application: Easy – Spreads evenly without much manipulation.


Consistency: Medium – applies easily and doesn’t flood the cuticles.
Overall Ease of Application: Medium – applies well with minimal pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads well without much manipulation.


Stampability: Not tested for stamping.


Dry Time: Long – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in over 8 minutes.  This is my only problem with this polish.  It takes FOREVER to dry.  I think part of that is due to the fact that I'm used to instant gratification with quick dry topcoats, and Liquid Sands are typically worn without a topcoat.  It's not a deal breaker, but it wasn't awesome when I dinged it pretty badly 15 minutes after painting.


Overall Thoughts:  The first thing you'll notice is that the mini bottle's brush is a lot thinner than the standard bottle's wide brush.  Couple the thin brush with the smaller handle, and you get a bottle that's relatively more difficult to handle.  While that was irritating for sure, it didn't completely kill my opinion of this polish.  The second thing you'll notice is that the mini bottles don't contain the cute stars that are in the full sized bottle.  Now that made me sad.  When I started seeing swatches with the stars in it, my heart sank.  I totally would've gotten the big bottle if I had known it had stars that weren't present in my mini!  Ahh well.  C'est la vie!  Otherwise, I really enjoyed this polish.  Dry time was a huge miss for me, but the fact that it's textured means that you couldn't tell that I dinged pretty badly on my ring finger since I was able to manipulate the polish to cover the ding.  Boooyah!  I also really enjoyed this polish with a topcoat.  Tomorrow, I'll show you what it looks like with a glitter topper.  Hint hint: it's hot.

This polish came out last year, but you should still be able to find these where OPIs are sold.

*I was not financially compensated for this post.  All items in this review were purchased by me for my own use.  The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.*