Nine Realms by Crowstoes : Vanaheim

Hello Ladies :)  Tonight we're continuing with the incredible 9 Realms collection by Crowstoes.  Tonight's offering is a simply astonishing polish - "Vanaheim".  In Norse Mythology, Vanaheim is the home of the Vanir, an ancient breed of sorcerer gods.  I don't know much about that, but I think there might be some sorcery involved in the making of this polish...

Vanaheim by Crowstoes  - artificial light

Vanaheim is a glittering fusion of emerald, gold, bronze, and tiny flecks of sky blue.  I'm at a bit of a loss to describe the finish of this one - its predominantly made up of tiny foil glitter particles, suspended in an emerald base, and this makes it a duochrome.  In some swatches here (like the above), you can see this clearly coming across as a deep metallic shimmer, and in others the foil glitter finish is dominant.  However you choose to describe it the effect is simply stunning and this is one of my favourite polishes of the whole year.  For me, this polish was like the skin of a magnificent dragon, the green and gold combined with the iridescent glitter would be perfect as dragon skin.   

Dragon skin

In these swatches I'm wearing two coats over my usual NE base and beneath a generous layer of HK Girl topcoat.  The finish was totally smooth, no bumpy lumps on this dragon.  Application, formula and wear time were also all top notch as you'd expect from Crowstoes.



Vanaheim by Crowstoes - 9 Realms - artificial light

In these swatches (above) you can see the deep emerald shade that dominates in direct lighting (top), and the burnished olive gold (bottom) that appears in side-on lighting conditions.  I really love this antique gold shade, I find that a lot more interesting than a straight gold shade and it works beautifully in transition with the emerald.

Vanaheim by Crowstoes - 9 Realms - natural light

The swatches above and below here show this shade in natural light, which is quite different and equally lovely.  The green is a bright jewel tone that really pops on the nail, and the gold is a much deeper bronze.  This was one of those polishes that I just couldn't keep my eyes off, and I was really sorry to remove.  Usually when I try a new shade I stop noticing it so much after a few days and I'm excited to try the next shade in my untried pile.   But with Vanaheim I could have quite happily gone straight back to it.

Vanaheim by Crowstoes - natural light

I seem to say quite often on here that I'm not really a green person, and it is one of the least represented colours in my stash, but all the greens I post about I then say I really like.  I still don't think I'm a green person, but I think I like the right kind of green, and Vanaheim certainly fits the bill.

I bought my bottle for £10.25 from Rainbow Connection (link in the suppliers page) and I'm really glad I did.  This was my 'wildcard' polish to make my total high enough to qualify for the cheap postage rate and it ended up being my favourite of the bunch.  Vanaheim and Huginn and Muninn would be my two top picks for the collection.

All Hail the Queen - by Butter London

Hello Ladies!  Today is another adventure in nuddy loveliness, and also a brand new brand to me: Butter London.  This is their nude holo "All Hail The Queen".

All Hail the Queen - by Butter London

I'd been somewhat reluctant to try Butter London polish.  For one thing there's the price tag (£12 for 11ml) and for another, there's the whole 'Cool Britannia' vibe.  Since I actually live in the UK the faux-cockney names just don't amuse me like I'm guessing they do the US market.  According to their website "We believe in Rock & Roll. Great Britain. And Fashion. We’re obsessed with colour, unbridled creativity & self-expression.".  What a pretentious load of twaddle. 

BUT when I saw this polish in my local TK Maxx for £5, I just couldn't resist.  This was actually the first nude that I ever bought.  I usually hate nudes.  So I guess the point I'm getting at with all this drivel is that this polish must be pretty special to make me buy a nude, and a nude from a poncy brand at that.

Poncy but Pukka

All Hail the Queen is a soft gold brown beige with ultra fine particle holo glitter finish.  Pictured here is two coats sandwiched between NE base and HK girl topcoat.  This shade is just stunning, its like cashmere for your nails.  Sophisticated, elegant, and very flattering.  The application was smooth and even, formula excellent, and it was opaque in a single coat.  My only complaint is that they have gone down the same route as Chanel and have one of those fiddly skinny handled brushes that appear when you pull off the massive cap.  The brush head is quite skinny too.  But that's my only complaint

All Hail the Queen - by Butter London - natural light

Wear time on this was insane, I wore it for a full week with only minimal tipwear.  All in all I was very impressed with my first experience of this brand, and the colour is just lovely.  This was Chanel level quality, for OPI level RRP.  Can't say fairer than that!

Picture Polish Solar Flare

Hello Ladies! I've got something very special to share with you today..."Solar Flare" by Picture Polish.  This is one of the recent Limited Editions that Picture Polish released in a frenzy of smart marketing. They generated so much hype in the build up to their release that these sold out almost immediately.  Luckily I managed to get my hands on most of them so I'll be sharing them with you over the next few posts...

Picture Polish Solar Flare - artificial light

Solar Flare is a Russet-Gold duochrome polish with a dusty holo finish and scattered shards of sparkly holo particles.  It's astonishingly beautiful. As a duochrome the shift is quite subtle, the polish does have a dramatic colour range, from a russet brown through to an olive gold, but the colours don't appear on the nail simultaneously - it looks one colour all of the time, but that colour changes.  Most of the time the dominant colour is the russet brown seen in the top left picture above.  Each of the three colours are absolutely gorgeous and the scatter holo and dusty finish is stunning. 



Solar Flare - this russet brown shade is the dominant colour on nail 

In these pictures I'm wearing two coats of Solar Flare on top of two coats of 'Just Black' by No7.  Using a black undercoat on any duochrome polish really makes the colour shift pop.  I also have NE base and HK Girl topcoat to finish this off.


Solar Flare - the gold shade pops at more extreme angles relative to the light source

I'm absolutely in love with this polish.  Application is flawless, and the finish is just incredible.  It dries naturally as glossy looking as the HK topcoat you see here, but I added topcoat to extend the wear time.

The finish really reminds me of an A-England polish with extra scatter holo shards I did a quick in-bottle comparison of Solar Flare with a couple of my favourite A-England polishes; Briar Rose and Briarwood.



top (l-r): A-England Briar Rose, Picture Polish Solar Flare, A-England Briarwood
bottom (l-r): Picture Polish Solar Flare, A-England Briarwood

The dominant shade in the Solar Flare looks to me like a cross between Briar Rose and Briarwood, although of the two I think it's most similar to Briarwood.  The A-Englands are two of my favourite polishes, so having Solar Flare embody them both, PLUS be a duochrome, PLUS have the big sparkly scatter chrome particles is almost too much excitement for me to handle.

This polish is utter amazeballs.  I can't recommend it highly enough.  And if you think this is swatch porn just wait till you see collection-mate Aurora....

I bought my bottle of Solar Flare from the lovely Sally Magpies for £13.50 (link to the shop is on my suppliers page).  These shades should be getting a restock soon, so keep an eye out.....


Hellhound by Crowstoes

Hello ladies! Today's mani is from the "Better Late than Never" collection by Crowstoes (so named because it was a Fall collection that came out closer to winter!).  It seems quite apt since that's also my approach to blogging my manis....Check out my review of its collection-mate Indian Summer here.

This is the gorgeous 'Hellhound' which is described by its indie brand maker as 'Berry to Orange to Gold glass fleck colour shift in a burgundy base'.  That description is accurate, but doesn't really translate the magical effect of this polish when you see it in person.  It's a multichrome glass fleck polish with a finish like a foil, I don't think I've seen that trick from any other polish brand.  It certainly makes this a very unique looking polish.  I have no idea what its relation to hellhounds is - are hellhounds berry and orange and gold coloured? They sound cute!

Hellhound by Crowstoes - artificial light

I'm wearing two coats with NE base and SV topper, although that opacity of this polish is ridiculous so that second coat was only to fix my mistakes, you could do it in one if you have a steadier hand than me.  The polish on its own dries to quite a matte finish, so it takes a nice layer of topcoat to really bring all that sparkle to life.

Hellhound by Crowstoes - artificial light - bottle shots

I'm a big fan of this shade, it's really pretty.  The colour shift on-nail isn't quite as dramatic as in the bottle, most of the time it appears a pretty berry-purple shade, but there's those flashes of gold that come through when the light hits it just right that makes this a  really interesting shade.

Hellhound by Crowstoes - so pretty!

I picked up my bottle from the lovely Rainbow Connection UK for £10.25 (see store link in Suppliers page). The shop has been closed for a wee while, but is reopening tonight with a sale! My aim for a January no-buy is not looking good....

Dreamer - Hits Mari Moon


My mani this week is the utterly gorgeous Hits Mari Moon "Dreamer" from the MultiGirl collection of multi-chromes.  This is a stunning multi-chrome, and like all the Hits polishes the effect is really strong (see my post on "Unconventional", another incredible polish from this collection).  This is a picture heavy post as I tried to capture all the colour variations, but its one of those shades that really has to be seen to be believed. 

I apologise for the state of my nails...they are sad little nubbins, I had to cut them all off to take up climbing!  I also apologise for the terrible state of my cuticles.  I'm going to have to find a way to mix adventure and proper hand care...



Hits Mari Moon "Dreamer" - Sunlight

And now for the science....as with all proper multi-chrome polishes, the colour that you see depends on the angle of your nail relative to the main light source.  The dominant shade in "Dreamer" is the electric blue shown in the picture at the top, this is the shade you see viewing your nails straight-on.  At slight angles either side of this a strong purple appears, that blends into magenta as the angle increases.

 

 

I started out with Nail Envy basecoat, an 'underwear' coat of Rimmel Black Cab, two coats of Hits Dreamer, and finally a coat of Seche to finish.  The formula on the Hits polish is fantastic.  I'd guess that on its own it would take at least 3 coats to be opaque, but with a coat of underwear you could easily get away with a single coat.

 

 

At the most oblique angles to the light source this polish takes on the colours of a beautiful sunset - shades of gold and red.  What I was trying to capture in the pics above and below is that at certain angles you get a mix of all colours and it looks like a beautiful oil slick of red, blue, purple and gold.  For some reason the moment that this perfect show of colour happens most is when I'm in the middle of driving and that's really not the best time to be snapping pictures so you'll have to make do with my best attempts stationary....

I picked up my Hits polishes from the fabulous Sally Magpies, which I highly recommend for finding fabulous exotic overseas brands and indie polishes here in the UK.