Nine Realms by Crowstoes : Nidavellir

Hello ladies! Tonight I have the final post from the Crowstoes 9 Realms collection.  Tonight's polish, "Nidavellir", takes its name from the homeworld of the dwarves in Norse Mythology.

Nidavellir by Crowstoes - natural light (shade)

  Like collection-mates Muspelheim and Vanaheim, Nidavellir is a duochrome micro-glitter polish.  Densely packed with colour shifting glitters this shade shifts from teal blue to purple.  Pictured here in natural light (in the shade) you can see all the colours on the nail at once, but in all other lighting conditions one of the three shades will dominate depending on the angle of the nail to the light source.

Nidavellir by Crowstoes - artificial light

 The microglitter duochrome formula is really intriguing in these polishes....they remind me of pointillist paintings, tiny spots of colour coming together to make something beautiful.  In artificial lighting (below) you can see the lovely jewel tones of the blue-indigo-purple shades in transition.  The bottom of the bottle lets you see the full spectrum in the polish, but the gold tone you see peeking through doesn't translate to the nail (nails aren't as curved as the inside of a bottle!)



Nidavellir by Crowstoes - artificial light

In these pics I'm wearing two coats over black undies, with NE base and HK Girl topcoat.  No issues with formula and application, all Crowstoes polishes are top notch in the quality stakes.  Below you can see the final swatches which are taken in direct sunlight.  Here you can see that the main shade is far more of a teal green/blue than the royal blue shade you get under artificial light.  Also, the end tone is much more of a magenta than the purple you get under artificial light. This polish, like its collection mates, is a real chameleon.  I really liked this one.

Nidavellir by Crowstoes - sunlight

I picked up my bottle for £10.25 from Rainbow Connection (link in the suppliers page).   This is my last post in the 9 Realms collection series, I hope you've enjoyed it :) This is a very special collection, and well worth a look if you can find it in stock.

Nine Realms by Crowstoes : Muspelheim

Hello Ladies! Today I have another of the fabulous polishes from the Crowstoes 9 Realms collection - tonight's offering is the lovely (but unpronounceable) "Muspelheim":

In Norse legend Muspelheim is the flaming inferno volcanic home of the fire giants.  I don't know that I would have picked a blue based shade to represent a fire planet, by hey I'm not the creative at work here.  Muspelheim the polish is a multichrome glitter in a blurple base.  It is packed with teeny tiny glitter particles in royal blue and golden yellow that produce a multichrome spectrum from royal blue to purple.  The golden particles don't really show on the nail as clearly as in the bottle (except in the closeup thumb nail shots below).

Pictured here I'm wearing my customary two coats with NE base and HK girl topcoat.  In the swatches at the top of this post you can see Muspelheim in the sunshine - in the shade is the only time you'll see both colours on the nail at once, otherwise the main colour is either the royal blue shade or the blurple. The magenta shade here is really hard to capture because it's not really seen except at really high angles to the light source.

 

In the thumbshots below you can see all the lovely details of this polish.  Unfortunately these details aren't quite so obvious on the nail unless you look quite closely.  I really did like this shade a lot, but it's one of those that's just not quite as fabulous as it promises in the bottle.

I bought my bottle of Muspelheim for £10.25 from Rainbow Connection (link in the Suppliers page). This is a lovely shade, I think I was just a little spoiled by this point because I'd tried collection-mates Huginn and Muninn, and Vanaheim, right before - and those are bonkers good!  I do recommend Muspelheim, especially if like me you're a big fan of purple/blurple shades.

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.

Nine Realms by Crowstoes : Huginn and Muninn

Hello Ladies! Tonight I have a real treat of a polish to share with you, from a collection that is one of my absolute favourites of 2014 and in fact, ever.  There are two standout collections for me this year - the Picture Polish LE duochromes, and the 9 Realms collection by Crowstoes.  As a brand, Crowstoes stand head and shoulders above the rest for me.  The creativity behind each collection is just on a whole other level, so any new collection is something to get excited about, and boy did I get excited about this one!   Over the next few posts I'll be sharing with you all the polishes I picked up, and I'm starting with my favourite: Huginn and Muninn.

Art Credit: Jarnsaxe@DeviantArt

The 9 Realms collection is inspired by Norse mythology. In Norse legend, Huginn ('thought') and Muninn ('memory') are the raven avatars of the god Odin, they flew throughout the world and brought knowledge back to Odin.  The polish of the same name is a stunning multichrome in shades of royal purple, forest green and earthy brown:

Huginn and Muninn by Crowstoes - 9 Realms - natural light (shade)

Pictured here I'm wearing two thin coats over black, but from swatches I've seen you can achieve the same effect with three coats and no undies. The colour combination on this is strikingly beautiful, and quite unlike any other multichrome in my collection.  The green and purple complement each other beautifully, and the combination really drew to my mind the image of a mystical forest with dark green shade and purple autumn leaves, and the beady eye of a raven peering out from the canopy:

Art Credit: Ninjatic@DeviantArt

The multichrome effect is most apparent in natural light and shade.  Under artificial lighting one colour tends to dominate, depending on the direction of the light relative to the nail surface:

Upper Row and Lower Left: Artificial light, Lower right: natural light (shade)

In the swatch above you can see the gorgeous royal purple, the golden brown and green transitional shade, and the rich emerald.  In the lower right corner is a swatch taken in natural light and you can see the purple and green clearly together on the nail. In artificial lighting, at direct angles (ie most of the time) it's the purple shade that dominates, with the green appearing at higher angles/along the curved nail edge.

Huginn and Muninn by Crowstoes - 9 Realms - artificial light

This swatch captures the closeup detail of the two main colours at the opposing ends of the multichrome spectrum.  In the purple you can clearly see royal blue and magenta shimmer, and the green is a combination of forest green, teal and gold.  Quite how they managed to pack so much depth into one polish is a mystery to me.  I couldn't love this polish more, it's utter perfection.

Huginn and Muninn by Crowstoes - 9 Realms - natural light

I can confidently say that Huginn and Muninn will make it into my top 3 polishes for the year 2014. It has as sold out faster than any of the other 9 Realms shades but is not LE so keep your eyes peeled for restocks.  I picked mine up from Rainbow Connection for £10.25.

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....

Indian Summer

Today's NOTD is from my latest Indie haul - be prepared for a lot of picture spam because this one's a doozy!  This is "Indian Summer" by Crowstoes from the new 'Better Late than Never' collection (I also have Hellhound to show you later, which if it lives up to the promise in the bottle it's going to rock!).



Crowstoes 'Indian Summer' - Artificial Light

Indian Summer is a metallic multi-chrome from Indie brand Crowstoes.  Shown here I'm wearing two coats, over NE base and black undies (single coat of No7 'Just Black') with SV to top it all off.  No issues at all with formula or application, both were fab.  I love the bottle design too, the logo is really cool and Halloween-y (I know that's not a real word, but it is in my house). 

Crowstoes 'Indian Summer' - Natural Light

The eagle-eyed among you may notice that this daylight shot was taken in a car - I was parked I promise! Living in Scotland I have very little access to sunlight during winter.  I'm at work for the 5 minutes of sunshine we might get in a day, so I've done my best for you with my crappy camera phone.  The multi-chrome effect comes across best in natural sunlight, as this shot shows.  I'm now going to moan a bit about the multichrome effect so bear in mind that I almost never got to see this baby in sunlight....

I didn't find the multi-chrome effect to be particularly strong with this polish.  It's not like a Hits polish (you NEED to get as many of those in your life as you can by the way - go to Sally Magpies for those).  It is totally gorgeous though.  I would say that 90% of the time this polish appears to be a lovely shade of metallic blurple (and you know how I feel about metallic purples).  At more extreme angles it shifts to magenta.  In the bottle, at the extreme of the inner curved surface, there's gold too but I didn't see that on the nail at all (see pic at the bottom of this post).  I've noticed that all the online swatches suggest that this has a mega-chrome effect (including mine, yeah I know...hypocrite).  What's undeniable though is that multi-chrome or not, this is a beautiful polish.

Crowstoes 'Indian Summer' - Macro bottleshots - Artificial Light

Above: the two main colours are seen here by repositioning my desklamp relative to the bottle.  On the right, the blurple shade, is the dominant colour that you see at direct angles.  The magenta on the left is the secondary colour, which pops out at wider angles.

Looky looky! It's a bottled sunset!

Above, again with my trusty desklamp, with a fair bit of fiddling you can get to a red gold tone that's awesome.  Not sure what angle you'd have to peer at your nails at in real life to see this one but you'd probably do yourself a neck injury trying.  And finally, taking advantage of the curviest part of the bottle you can see the whole range of colours - its a sunset in a bottle!

This polish is absolutely lovely, I highly recommend it.  I picked mine up for £10.25 from Rainbow Connection. In fact they're having an offer right now that orders placed before 2nd December will get you a £3 off voucher for your next purchase.  But sorry, Indian Summer is currently sold out....

Disclaimer: I am in no way connected with any of the shops or brands that I blog about. I'm just a happy customer and nail nerd. All the shades I blog about have been bought with my own hard-earned moolah.

CrowsToes Shoot the Butterfly

Dipping my toes (and fingers) into the pool of great Indie polishes out there with Crowstoes "Shoot the Butterfly" - this is just the second Indie I've tried and I'm impressed! I was unsure what to expect really, in comparison to the big brands, but so far I'm very pleased!

First a quick apology on the swatches - I had significant tip shrinkage here and it's due to my elderly bottle of Seche top coat and nothing to do with the Crowstoes.

 



Crows Toes Shoot the Butterfly - Sunlight

Shoot the Butterfly is a charcoal black jelly base with shiny orange hex glitters, teeny tiny matt white hex particles and microscopic round holo glitters.  Shown here are two coats atop black undies (No7 "Just Black") with NE base and Seche topcoat.  From swatches I've seen online (and even these pics actually) I was expecting that in real life it would have more of a jelly look than it seemed to have.  I think that next time I'll use a paler undie - perhaps a charcoal grey for a smoky look...

Crows Toes Shoot the Butterfly - Artificial Light

This polish is just so so pretty, and perfect for Autumn.  I know that it's meant to be inspired by monarch butterflies, but for me the orange and black reminds me of Halloween, of pumpkins and bonfires and fancy dress.  It's enchanting, and this is officially the polish that I have received the most compliments on.  I have fancy nails all the time, but this polish really caught everyone's attention and even garnered compliments from MEN! Can you imagine? Boys that notice nail polish? Miraculous!

Crows Toes Shoot the Butterfly - Artificial Light - Macro

I bought this lovely from Rainbow Connection for £10.25.   It won't be my last Crowstoes polish that's for sure (now I want Boat Drinks, My Favourite Amazon.....sigh, how long till payday?)