phallic vs lunar eclipse

Illamasqua - Phallic

Orly - Lunar Eclipse (ring finger)

Surprise! Double post today.

I was too excited to used Phallic and since removing my glitters took me longer than expected, this will be a short comparison post. Pictured here is two coats of Phallic and on my ring finger only, three coats of Lunar Eclipse.

Phallic is a blackened blue (quite like Lady Sings The Blues) creamy shimmer polish. It contains lots of shimmer which flashes silver, blue, a little green and pink to my eye (well only when I hold the bottle up to the sun; it's too deep and brooding on the nail from afar).

Lunar Eclipse is an electric blue duochrome shimmer which flashes deep purple from extreme angles. It's part of the Orly Mineral FX collection which you know I'm absolutely nuts about! It was my least favourite in the collection though, as the duochrome shift is the most subtle compared to the rest of the Mineral FX shades. Well at least I can compare it with Phallic.

Basically they looked pretty similar in their bottles - except the obvious difference that Lunar Eclipse contains duochrome shimmer and sometimes flashes deep purple. I don't really know how to describe this completely and my digicam was unable to capture this in all my twenty attempts of trying... Well if you look closely at the first picture below, the left half of my ring finger is flashing a little bit of purple. Intensify that five times more and you get the idea... yes.

The pictures don't reveal this but Lunar Eclipse is a couple shades lighter than Phallic. Also, the shimmer in Lunar Eclipse make it look lighter as it reflects more light; the shimmers pop. Meanwhile, Phallic contains a more subtle mix which sits and shimmers within the blackened blue base, resulting in a more complex and deep look. Very sophisticated.

Alright, dry time was good on both. It would be nice if Phallic dried a tad bit quicker though. But then again Phallic was amazingly pigmented and dried so stunningly on the nail, the dry time doesn't even matter! Lunar Eclipse dried faster but it's also because it ran rather sheer, hence the three coats. 

And! It has been proven - Illamasqua's formula is unrivaled. Perhaps only Deborah Lippmann can compare. Application was a dream... my goodness it was amazing. It's self-levelling too - I messed up my thumb and had to paint an extra coat over and top it again with Seche. It made those horrid wrinkles at first but two minutes later they were gone - AMAZING. Phallic also has such an affinity with Seche - no issues with frosty tips despite the huge dollop of topcoat I applied on each nail. LOVE ITTT!!!

The only gripe I have with Illamasqua is the square bottle tops... it makes it hard to paint.

I'm also not looking forward to the post-removal staining... but then again, which beautiful blue polish doesn't stain?

WELL, Sephora needs to bring Illamasqua to Singapore. PLEASE!??

Enjoy the pix!

x, Ish

regina spektor

Deborah Lippmann - Lady Sings The Blues

Hello everyone. Merry Christmas! I had some hiccups in swatching the last few days. Anyways! Pictured here is three coats of Lady Sings The Blues with two coats of Seche topcoat.

Lady Sings The Blues is a blackened blue jelly-ish base with large and medium-sized silver hexagonal glitter as well as regular silver glitter particles suspended in it.

I say ''jelly-ish'' not jelly because a true jelly would be more sheer. Lady Sings The Blues' base is so pigmented it actually overwhelms the silver glitter particles a tad much.

Okay I just want to point out that the silver bits that are not covered by blue base at all (in my pictures) didn't turn out like that straight from the brush. The silver particles actually were uncovered while I was applying Seche topcoat and the brushstrokes thinned out the delicate layer of blue base sitting on top of each silver glitter piece, revealing the sparkle. Hence, topcoat is a must!

I think Lady Sings The Blues is especially interesting because it's one of those amazing glitter shades that Deborah Lippmann creates so well. The colours aren't particularly unique - blackened blue and silver - but the outcome is pretty darn PRETTY.

Also, I don't know if this is the real inspiration for the polish but the name 'Lady Sings The Blues' matches the first line of lyrics of Regina Spektor's 'Lady'. She came to Singapore recently, I believe on Dec 22. Here's 'Lady' for your listening pleasure:


Well I feel the whole theme of the polish matches the mood of the song. It's kind of a brooding and beautiful song... and I love how Spektor's vocals really shines through in the track with just a piano accompaniment and the occasional saxophone. Just how the some of the glitter stands out so starkly amidst the blackened blue base. And at the same time, the others remain ''shadowed'' and semi-hidden.

Beautiful song and a beautiful polish.

Application was good, struggled a little with the overwhelming amount of glitter but there's no ''too much'' for me when it comes to glitter! I was quite sad when the second layer of Lady Sings The Blues hid some of the silver glitter from the first layer, but I realised later that it improves the texture and depth of the overall finished look.

Dry time was alright, I think... Just remember to wait a while in between coats and it will be fine. I think I spent more time, like 10 minutes between coats coz I was watching the old Les Miserables movie again. Also don't forget the topcoat! This polish dries kind of rough and you'll definitely want to smooth it out. One coat of topcoat is fine too; I applied two coats simply to prolong its wear on my nails.

This polish was purchased by my mom when she went to the US some time ago. She purchased this at Nordstrom which unfortunately does not ship to Singapore. :-( Well I am so lucky to be able to travel to US with my mom!

Can't wait to post more about my other nail polishes! Especially my butter LONDON ones. :-) Till next time!

x, Ish

Hello, how have you been?

Hello everyone, it's been a while.

It's December already! Happy December!

Picture credit: Hannah's December album

The last time I posted was all the way in August... My goodness. School, hall life and the rest of my life in general have really been keeping me so busy. It's not that I haven't been painting my nails or scouting for good polishes (I don't think I'll ever stop scouting at least... :-P) I just haven't been blogging.

Well I will start blogging again this month, coz I'll be home a lot more now :-) And it's the holiday season, so I'm really excited to try out some new polishes my mom grabbed from the US for me (thanks momma) and some others I got locally or already have on my shelf.

Sneak peek of what I'll be swatching soon (or if you're bored, you may skip to the bottom for swatches):

Illamasqua

My wonderful mom got these for me while she was in NY. I wish Sephora would bring such awesome nail colours to the stores in Singapore too; only then will I make my virgin purchase.

Illamasqua is known to have perfect formulas. The price really warrants genuine quality! Their polishes are supposed to have shades comparable to Chanel's and with better application. CAN'T WAIT TO TRY.



Illamasqua - Milf



Illamasqua - Phallic



Illamasqua - Viridian

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butter LONDON

Well, I was genuinely sad to sell away my butter LONDON's earlier in August before even trying them on... So obviously I had to go get new ones!!? I know where to find All Hail The Queen again, but the price tag is really large on these babies. Guess the application of these polishes below will determine whether I will go get All Hail The Queen or not!

These are from Christmas collections - the former from 2012 Holiday and the latter two from 2011 Holiday collections. Those who know me well will know I've been lemming for the 2011 duo F O R E V E R. They sold out so freaking fast last year I just sat in front of my laptop screen weeping because not only were these shades wildly popular, it's so hard to even get butter LONDON shipped to Singapore. (At that point - and now, still - Nordstrom didn't ship polishes to Singapore...) Well anyways, here they are now!
















butter LONDON - Jack The Lad

(Purchased only to satisfy my lemmings for Orly's Under The Mistletoe, which looks terrific with my skin tone. Hopefully this will be good... or better!)



butter LONDON - The Black Knight & Tart With A Heart

(Can't wait to have me some effortless Cosmic nails!)

~

ciaté

These boxes contain some really wonderful baby bottles of varnish and Caviar pearls to create a Caviar manicure for yourself at home! These, by the way, cost a freaking bomb so my mom really does love me. A little more about Caviar manicures soon. (Real soon, promise!)

ciaté - Mini Mani Month

ciaté - Caviar Mini Bar

~

I have SO MANY MORE but I'll release them slowly. :-)

You might already be bored, so here are some quick images of swatches I have from the past week! They're actually all snapped with my iPhone's camera so I apologise for the lack of quality or clarity. And if you follow me on Twitter you would have seen some of these already:

ciaté - Knickerbockerglory 

ciaté - Headliner

ciaté - Candyshop Caviar pearls

Yep, I was serious about giving you a little more on Caviar manicures soon. But there's too much to talk about here so I'll just show you how it looks like now! Please feel free to enlarge the image of the pearls. They are just so damn cute and pretty.

Left hand: Mini roses

China Glaze - For Audrey

ciaté - Mistress

OPI - Dulce de Leche

OPI - Jade Is The New Black

Right hand: Polka dots

China Glaze - For Audrey

OPI - Alpine Snow 

I created the roses with dotting tool... so they ended up quite large, not intricate and hence not that pretty. Truly not advisable to create delicate designs with a dotting tool. Someone buy me a mini paintbrush. I did polka dots on my right hand instead coz that was all my left hand could manage at 3am. A bit messy but visually more pleasing than the roses.

OPI - I Have A Herring Problem

OPI - I Don't Give A Rotterdam!

OPI - Alpine Snow

Did alternating dusty blue polka-dotted nails for the past few days. I actually wanted to do a mini comparison between the two blues from the OPI Holland collection - I Have A Herring Problem (index & ring fingers) and I Don't Give A Rotterdam! (middle & pinky). You might not recognise I Don't Give A Rotterdam! anymore coz of the dots, though... It just looks like a bluish-gray colour beside a darker bluish-gray colour. So yeah my plan kind of back-fired. The difference really isn't noticeable from a small distance.

From a glance at my fingers right now, the difference is that I Have A Herring Problem is a darker Air Force blue compared to I Don't Give A Rotterdam! (more details about the lighter polish in the post link). Also, I noticed there is no obvious difference in the glass-fleck colours on the nail - they're both gold and very very very slightly holographic (unnoticeable unless you squint AND stare). The shimmer looks silver in the bottle of I Have A Herring Problem, though.

Application of I Have A Herring Problem was not great... very sheer and thin, which means it requires more coats to build up to the dark, opaque hue it's supposed to be. Doesn't do anything for my skin tone either. Kind of drab. Thank goodness I didn't not purchase I Don't Give A Rotterdam!...

Okay I'm done with my lengthy post. BUT WAIT ONE MORE THING.

Random trivia: Did you know 'formulae' is usually only used in mathematical contexts? Or just anything which requires a working or equation (chemistry, physics, etc). 'Formulas' - lists of ingredients - is what I should be using for the context of nail polish.

I really do things to amaze myself every day. I love you, Dictionary.

Life is good. B-) Ciao and stay tuned for more exciting stuff!!!

Picture credits:
illamasqua.com
butterlondon.com
ciate.co.uk