Renaissance Cosmetics: St. Clair & Rose-Osie

Press Sample

I have some more Renaissance Cosmetics today! I meant to post Thursday... but I'm still technically keeping up with twice a week so I'll take it. You can see my RenCos post from earlier this week here. I have to start by saying these two polishes were impossible for me to photograph. I actually swatched them twice because I hated my first set of photos. I did however get some instagram videos posted which I will link you to with the swatches. Be nice though... these are my first instagram videos and they are pretty rough. And shot in my new bathroom because I like to keep it classy.

Renaissance Cosmetics - St. Clair
Excuse the funky lighting, it shows off the shifty sparkle best!

First is St. Clair, a blue shimmer with aqua and fuchsia sparkle. My photos do not do this justice, I suggest checking out my video of St. Clair on instagram instead so you can see the color and sparkle! My lighting is way funky, ignore the skintone and just look at the polish.
My swatch shows two coats of St. Clair with Glossy Glam on top. This polish had a tendency to pool on me, but then again I was doing coats thicker than usual. Keep an orange stick handy to clean up as you polish along. This was also a toughie to clean up because of all the shimmer. Just take your time painting in the first place to minimize the sparkle herpes. Also, you won't be taking close-ups of your nails so a little herpes is acceptable, and after a handwash or two it'll be all gone.

Renaissance Cosmetics - Rosie-Osie
Bow charm from Daily Charme

Second is Rosie-Osie, a super-saturated red jelly with red shimmer along with red, gold, and silver holographic glitters. When I got this polish on my nails my eyes almost fell out of my head. I mean, it's too beautiful to even take an accurate picture of (or at least beyond my skill). Again, check out the instagram video instead!
I have shown just two generous coats of Rose-Osie. The jelly is so saturated but all the shimmer and holographic goodness shines though. When I was cleaning up, Rosie-Osie tended to stain my cuticles even though I painted carefully--and you will need to paint very carefully. Usually I use Zoya's Remove Plus since it's gentler and less drying, however I did need to use pure acetone for this baby. When I took this off a day later I didn't have any nail staining. But, I do recommend the tin foil method to protect your cuticles and then use acetone or cuticle remover to get any leftover red tint off.

Final thoughts: Both of these polishes require some babying. I know for some the application and clean-up needs might be a deal-breaker, but that's the beauty of a review. You know your polish strengths, limits, and desires. For me personally I know I will be wearing Rose-Osie for the holidays and a mid-winter pick-me-up, I'll just plan for a weekly cuticle removal afterwards. For me the payoff of this beauty is worth it!

Check out RenCos on instagram and facebook for more information about the brand, or just head on over to the shop which I have conveniently linked for you below. Sorry, you will only find enabling here.

Products:
Renaissance Cosmetics

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Renaissance Cosmetics Review: Nightshade & Emerald Envy

Purchased By Shelby Lou & Press Sample

I have some absolutely gorgeous polishes to show you today from Renaissance Cosmetics. After I reviewed Curio/Curiosity (my holy grail black & white glitter) I was contacted by Meghan to do some more reviews for her. RenCos, as I have affectionately nicknamed it, is made by Meghan from Will Paint Nails For Food. She is a true artist and, as it turns out, her vast experience with polish has made her into quite the indie maker!

First I have Nightshade from the RenCos debut line. Nightshade is a deep blue jelly with golden shimmer (it takes on a gold-green shift in the blue jelly) with gold, copper, teal, and wine glitters. I feel like I see some holo or iridescent finishes in there too, and the wine glitters are the perfect touch. This one is like instant galaxy nails! I would love to try a galaxy mani over this one....

Renaissance Cosmetics - Nightshade

In my swatch I have shown three generous coats and one coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top. Surprisingly, this polish applies like a buttery creme. There is a lot of pigment and sparkle in here, so keep an orange stick handy to clean up any flooded cuticles as you go. Also looks to be a little stain-y, so double-up on the basecoat. I originally had just two coats but wasn't quite happy with how it photographed and felt like I was missing some of that fantastic shimmer I saw stuck to the sides of the bottle. I went back and scraped the sides down with a toothpick, stirred it up, and shook it--Toothpick Method works every time! My third coat had more glitter and I love the depth it made.


Next is Emerald Envy from the Wunderkammer Collection. Emerald Envy is an emerald green holo with teeny holographic lime and gold glitters as well as gold shimmer. My swatch leans more teal than it looks in real life. I kind of love green and this polish made me faint a little. I am pretty seasonally snobby but I can see myself wearing this polish for late summer (which I totally am today), fall, winter, and of course March. I also must note, my husband was sitting next to me while I was swatching both polishes and he exclaimed, "Wow! That is a nice polish!" when I had this one on. See? It's man- and mani-approved.

Renaissance Cosmetics - Emerald Envy

Emerald Envy is thick but in a good way, I didn't have to add any thinner and you know I love my thinner. I have shown two coats, leave plenty of drying-time in-between for best results. I also think this could be a one-coater for the careful painters and those with shorties. There is major staining potential here, so again keep an orange stick handy and clean up as you go. And double-up on the basecoat.

Has anyone else tried RenCos? I continue to find RenCos polishes to be unique and so perfectly formulated, they are quickly becoming one of my fav indies. Check them out on instagram and facebook for a look at their classy new labels and swatches of six new polishes (of which I'm already plotting my purchase). Shipping is from Canada so it might be a little pricier for those outside the country, I recommend a group order with some nail buddies ;-)
I will have two other RenCos polishes later this week to show you so stay tuned!

Products:
Renaissance Cosmetics

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Pahlish August Duo: First Day Of My Life

Purchased By Shelby Lou

With the end of summer fast approaching I have a few more summer manis to share. Fall is easily my favorite season, but I'm not quite done with summer yet! Here is the August Duo from Pahlish, First Day Of My Life.

First Day of My Life is a duo "inspired by the end of summer and the last few days on the beach." This set sold out so fast the first Friday it was available, I feared I might actually not get my hands on it. Shannon, the maker, heard our pleas though and has kept it well-stocked since!

Pahlish Duo for August 2014
"First Day of My Life"
Meet Me in the Morning and Blankets on the Beach

The base polish is Meet Me in the Morning, which is a bright blue creme with copper microflakes for shimmer. This is the quintessential Pahlish polish finish that makes me keep coming back every month for duos. This polish was a little thick and prone to dragging. To fix this I added a few drops of thinner and did three thin coats, letting it dry well in between. I find this is the case for most of my Pahlishes of this type but it is easily fixed... hence I have almost a full melmer drawer haha!

The glitter is Blankets on the Beach, a topper made up of gold, turquoise, and copper in hexes, squares, and dots as well as gold flakie shimmer. I did a glitter gradient, my tradition pretty much since I started buying duos in April 2013. I used only the polish brush and painted the top third, then the top two-thirds of my nail. Quick and easy!

This is one of my favorite Pahlish duos ever. Meet Me in the Morning is such a classy polish all by itself and is totally glam with Blankets on the Beach. Every month I am amazed by Shannon's creativity and understanding of color.The duos are very affordable (only $16.00 plus $3.00 shipping in the US) and are such a good mix of colors that one could be satisfied by these alone (if one were able to control oneself, but I won't name names).

Pahlish restocks every Friday at 7pm Central. This is the last week the August Duo will be restocked, make sure to log on if you want it. There will also be a special pre-order for six Bespoke Batch colors from 7pm-8pm Central which were originally never to be made again. Make sure you check out Pahlish on facebook or instagram for more details!

Products:
Pahlish

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Zoya Entice Collection for Fall 2014

Press Sample

I have a huge post of stunning cremes from Zoya's Entice Collection for fall today, so I'm going to jump right in! Entice is a set of six cremes which make up half of their fall offerings for this year.

*Edited to add: See the other half of this fall's collection, Ignite, here.

Formula was pretty standard across the board. Two buttery coats of color is all you need, some of them could even be careful one-coaters. I need to note though that these have major staining potential. I highly recommend careful coats and don't even get this stuff near your cuticles. If you slip, keep an orange stick handy to dip in remover and immediately scrape it off. I'm not happy with my clean-up of some swatches, and in another I used pure acetone instead of the gentler Zoya Remove Plus and it dried me out pretty bad--see what I do for my dear readers? Also make sure you use a generous coat of base coat. For removal after long-term wear, just use the tin-foil method to keep from getting color everywhere (cuz ain't nobody got time for that!). Going into application knowing it may stain is half the battle, and I would say for the payoff it is totally worth it. Clean-up for stamping was average though since there were only thin lines of color instead of pools of polish, which is good because I love my stamping.

For all of my swatches I used one coat of Zoya Get Even Ridge Filler Base Coat, two coats of color, and Zoya Armor Top Coat. For all of my accent nails I have a base of two coats Zoya Taylor, a warm nude from the first Naturel Collection--I loved the Naturel Deux set I received for review so much I went back and bought the first! I can't get enough nudes lately. All of the stamping is done with various MoYou London plates that I will note with each swatch.

Zoya Nyssa
Accent nail: Zoya Taylor, MoYou London Pro XL 02

Zoya Nyssa is a rich brown creme. It has a yellow tone to it but is still wearable.

I love how the rope stamp looks with it!

Zoya Claire
Accent nail: Zoya Taylor, MoYou London Pro XL 01

 Zoya Claire is a deep, dark burgundy creme. It looks like a dark spiced wine which is perfect for fall.

You can see how deep the color is compared to the stamping. 

Zoya Veronica
Accent nail: Zoya Taylor, MoYou London Pro XL 01

Zoya Veronica is deep red creme. This might be my favorite of the bunch!

I wish I had a tan and red sweater in this pattern.

Zoya Margo
Accent nail: Zoya Taylor, MoYou London Sailor 05

Zoya Margo is rich red-toned plum creme.
Basically this is a red-violet Crayola crayon. You know, that color that was always confusing as a child. Lovely here though!

Zoya Veronica
Accent nail: Zoya Taylor, MoYou London Pro XL 02

Zoya Ryan is a dark indigo creme, it looks like a true navy in my stamp. I smeared my stamping image during top-coating but my cuticles would not survive one more redo, sorry guys :-/

On Zoya's website it notes that this one was originally released during New York Fashion Week for 2014! I love Zoya's NYFW polishes.

Zoya Genevieve 
Accent nail: Zoya Taylor, MoYou London Pro XL 02

Lastly is Zoya Genevieve, a very dark cool gray creme. 

This stamp looks like chain mail!

These beauties are already available for pre-order on Zoya's website. I continue to be so pleased with Zoya's cremes not only for color but also for stamping, they are so pigmented. I recommend setting aside some polish money for these, especially if you are a stamper!

Products:
Zoya Entice & Ignite

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Guest Post at Polished to Precision!

I am guest-posting over at Polished to Precision today! Did you know her blog was one year old on August 1st? If you haven't checked Tiffany out yet, please take this opportunity to do so and celebrate fabulous nails.

Sneak peak!

Click here to see my post in full color at Polished to Precision

Zoya Naturel Deux: Part 2

Press Sample

Oh man, I seriously almost screamed and ran out of work on Monday. Everything about it was just absolutely horrendous and all my coworkers agreed. I swear it was that full Moon that was also a super-Moon as well as a Blood Moon Sunday night.... On the plus side, I went to the  Erie County Fair on Saturday with some friends. I of course had to get some henna when I saw it--I adore henna and wish I could tattoo it all over my body. You can see my IG pic of my henna here. Ok, I think that's enough links, I just like people to know what I'm talking about in my rambles haha!

Today I have the second half of the Zoya Naturel Deux Collection. These three polishes all had the same formula so I'll make my notes here. In all of my swatches I have two medium coats with Zoya Armor Topcoat. They were so glossy already I thought about not using any TC, but I always use TC on my polish when I wear it so I added it. The lightest shade, Madeline, was a wee bit patchy on the first coat but was perfectly opaque after the second. I was worried this one might give me trouble like Spencer did, luckily this was not the case! They all self-leveled perfectly and went on like buttah. I also notice that when I swatch Zoyas I don't cough like some of my other polishes make me do since they are 5-free. With all the polishing I do I'm really appreciative of that!

The accents I added in my swatches are all from Daily Charme. I recently spent way too much money there. But look how lovely the gold is with these colors! Please ignore my various skin colors in these photos. The polishes are color-accurate, promise.

Zoya Madeline
Naturel Deux

Madeline is a dusty rose creme.

Zoya Aubrey
Naturel Deux

Aubrey is a deep mauve creme. This has a wine feel to it for me!

Zoya Marnie
Naturel Deux

Marnie is a deep plum creme.
I feel like this is has some purple and red undertones that make me think of a red-velvet mocha.
Yes, this whole collection makes me think of food.

Even six months ago I don't know that I would have appreciated how beautiful these polishes are. However I have come to appreciate a good neutral creme for what it is. No, they are not shimmery or holo, but day-yum they are chic! I felt so sophisticated swatching them and can't wait to rock Aubrey and Marnie, especially at work. I am already planning on doing some art with gold accents for these, stay tuned for that later this week!

You can see my review of the first half of the Naturel Deux Collection here.

Products:
Zoya

Have you loved your cuticles today?

HARE polish: For Margot Tenenbaum & Comparison

Purchased By Shelby Lou

Hello all! How about some Hare Polish love? Hare Polish is my favorite brand EVER. I am on a mission to post more of my Hare manis--I wear them often, I just don't ever want want them to be even a little like work by blogging them. Here is a quick mani I wore this week with a polish that doesn't belong to any collection, For Margot Tenenbaum.

Hare Polish
For Margot Tenenbaum
Shown over China Glaze For Audrey
Accent of Nicole by OPI Carrie'd Away

For Margot Tenenbaum is a dusty minty green jelly with gold circles, hexes, flakies, shimmer, and iridescent glitters. I love these colors together in summer! So lovely and shimmery, and one of my favorite things about Hare is the hidden shimmers. In my swatch I have two coats over one coat of China Glaze For Audrey. I chose to layer this because I have some damage from a fight with fakes (don't ask) and jellies alone just ain't gonna fly right now! Nice formula, but as with all jellies patience, thin coats, and a light touch is required. Accent is Nicole by OPI Carrie'd Away, a lovely and shimmery yellow-gold texture. Quite a plain mani for me but I love it!

I also thought a Hare comparison was in order for the curious. Here are some of the other Hares you might think would be similar. You be the judge.

Hare Polish comparison (From Left to Right)
For Margot Tenenbaum (2 coats) over China Glaze For Audrey
For Margot Tenenbaum (3 coats)
Bisbee 2.0 (3 coats)
Bisbee (original formula, 3 coats)
Read My Biorhythm (3 coats)

I might need to have a weekly Hare Day. Check out Hare Polish's blog for all the infos on new releases, social media, and restock news!

Products:
Hare Polish

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Renaissance Cosmetics Curio / Curiosity

Purchased By Shelby Lou

Sunday morning I woke up late with nekkids and needed a quick and cute mani for a Sunday family gathering. It seems like all I want lately are nudes with a pop of color, so I started with a basecoat of OPI You're So Vain-illa from this summer's Coca-Cola Collection. Gorgeous nude, love it. And next, because I realized it matched my dress so well, I grabbed Renaissance Cosmetics Curio/Curiosity a.k.a. The Life-Changing Black & White Glitter Topper.

Renaissance Cosmetics
Curio/Curiosity
Shown over OPI You're So Vain-illa

This topper from RenCos (my own abbreviation) is so freaking fantastic... I just can't. Curio/Curiosity is a glitter topper with matte black and white shards and squares, as well as iridescent glitters and purple-gold shimmer. I see rainbow sparkle! The matte black and white glitters are so graphic and then to add in the subtle shimmer just pushes me right over the edge. This is one of those polishes that I've never seen anything like and which makes me put it on the must-have list.

I did my glitter gradient with the polish brush. I painted and dabbed the top 2/3 of my nails and then went back a second time on the top 1/3. I smooshed some of the smaller bits down and the larger bits up which I think adds to the visual gradient effect. The polish is thick but nice and workable--I was able to push my glitters around but they didn't slide down my nail. Pretty much no fishing, and this bottle has been sitting for awhile (*hangs head in shame*). How does it all stay so perfectly suspended?! I finished my nails with two coats of KBShimmer Clearly On Top, in another coat it would have been perfectly smooth but I was happy with the look. So easy, so simple, BIG impact!

So umm, go get this. I really think I have reached black & white glitter fulfillment. The creator of these polishes is Meghan (as in, the Meghan of Will Paint Nails For Food fame). She has an incredible knack for polish formulas. Plus, I know from my contact with Meghan she is a genuinely lovely person!

Products:
Renaissance Cosmetics

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Zoya Naturel Deux--Owl Chevrons

***Press Sample
***Purchased By Me

I just finished working a 6th day in a row and I am exhausted! I had no idea I was also about to be typing up my 100th blog post this week either. Go me! I do have plans to be more consistent through August with posts. I think I do need to get back to posting the looks I wear and enjoy on a regular basis, which is how I really started out and what I enjoy the most. I've also been thinking of switching to actually wearing the color for my swatches and posting several times a week instead. We shall see what August brings!

Here is a look I did with the browns from the Zoya Naturel Deux collection. I had a tough time coming up with something for the browns. These shades are gorgeous but totally out of my comfort zone--which was good because I needed a challenge! Of course I needed some gold to accent these lovely chocolate shades. I haven't worn my little Hex Nail Jewelry Owl yet, which is a shame because he is adorable. I also decided to use the browns in a very graphic, color-blocked kind of way to show off the colors the best and not end up looking like a grandma mani--like in a bad way.

Owl Chevrons
Featuring Zoya Spencer, Chanelle, & Emilia

On my pinky I used Emilia with a lilttle gold stud accent.
For my ring finger I used a base of Chanelle with the owl charm from Hex Nail Jewelry.
For my index and middle finger I chose a base of Spencer. I used a chevron nail guide and painted Emilia on, making sure to wrap the tip. Then I used a striping brush to freehand the second stripe in Chanelle. I know I wasn't pumped about Spencer when I was swatching, but she sure works well for nail art!
If you are interested, you can see my swatches and review of the Zoya Naturel Deux chocolate shades here.


I am pretty pleased with what I ended up with! Trust me, there were many redone nails in this process.

Products:
Hex Nail Jewelry
Zoya

Have you loved your cuticles today?