Feb 28, 2014

Rockjewel nails are alive with Zombies Need Holo Too byThe Devil Wears Polish

A good friend presented this brand to me a while ago. She said she just stumbled upon it when browsing aimlessly, but I know better. She is becoming a licensed polish'o'holic who knows how to find these things on the endless internet.
I know that she was very intrigued by the brand name: The Devil Wears Polish, and also by some of the polish names. I understand that, and agree. :-)

This one has a nice name: Zombies Need Holo Too. And of course they do! 
It's kind of a dirty olive color with a quite strong linear holo. I like these colors that normally are regarded as ugly. Especially when they have some holo or shimmer in them. :-) It's like an extra nice surprise when you catch the shiny effect in the sunlight (if there are any...)

This brand is a pleasant surprise! We bought about ten different colors, mini bottles. I regret this, I want full bottles now that I have seen the polishes IRL. They are really beautiful, all of them! 
The formula is maybe not the most perfect one, you need to work quite fast and apply rich, or else it gets a little gooey. No big problems though, it is worth it!. 

I hope to introduce this brand to more polish nerds in Sweden / Scandinavia. I will post more swatches here in the near future.




Feb 27, 2014

Rockjewel twinkles with Lilypad Lacquer Nightsky Rift

Lilypad Lacquer Nightsky Rift is the second Femme Fatale exclusive. It's a blueberry-aubergine colored polish with steel blue holo to turquoise flashes. The holo is mostly linear but I would say that there are som scattered holo too. It's a stunner in the right lighting, and beautiful all the time, never dull. It appears a bit less aubergine in the photos that it really is. 

Excellent formula, two coats is perfect. It is really lovely and shimmering!


Feb 23, 2014

Rockjewel connects Australia and Canada: Girly Bits and Lilypad Lacquer

Stretching across oceans and continents! OK, not so much... But at least combining two beautiful polishes from opposites sides of our globe. Very appropriate on this the last day of the 2014 Olympic Games.

I wanted to try and get a deep glitter feel with Girly Bits Into The Night. It is a black/grey base with small holo glitters that shine in all colors of the rainbow! 
I think it might be opaque in three coats, but I wanted to try with "undies" and only one or two coats of Into The Night. I did not want a pure black polish so I chose Lilypad Lacquer Rainbows in Space, a black, linear holo polish, as base. Two coats of that and one coat of Into The Night on that. Both polishes behaved very well, easy application, no problems at all.
Topped this with two coats of Orly Sec'N Dry. Exactly the effect I wanted! I get a feeling of more depth with this holo under than with a plain black polish. In the right lighting it is absolutely stunning. 

These pics do not live up to how it looks in real life, not even close! I think I managed to capture some of it though. What do you think? 


Rockjewel celebrates the Swedish Olympic participants!

OK, we didn't win against Canada in the Olympic hockey final, but silver is also a precious metal to be proud of! And Sweden have done the best Olympic winter games ever, 15 medals!! Most of them to the cross-country skiing-team, but also medals to the curling teams, Anna Holmlund in ski-cross and as said the hockey-team. Well done!!

I celebrate with a fantastic blue holo nail polish from Lilypad Lacquer: A Balt Out Of The Blue, a gold holo from Jade: Mystic Gold topped with a shimmering polish with glitter from Darling Diva: Stripper Pole.
I will probably do a full manicure of all each one of these three polishes so I will not say anything specific about them at this point, except that all three are fabolous! 





Feb 21, 2014

Rockjewel rocks with deep purple, ILNP Grape Alicious

And then came Molly. No, that one I have already blogged about here. Now it is time to show the other holo polish I bought at the same time. The brand is I Love Nail Polish - ILNP. It is probably most famous for the wonderful multichrome and multichrome-holo polishes, but there are lots of other beautiful polishes from that brand. Grape Alicious is one of them.

The base is a very deep aubergine (ok grape) purple. It is a color I like very much, even as a cream polish. This looks like a cream polish in ordinary indoors light, and grey outdoors daylight. But there is a holo effect hiding underneath it all. It is a little bit like Lilypad Lacquer Wild Orchid in this behaviour, but they are still quite different. WO has a darker base, leaning more to black, GA is a bit lighter (or less dark maybe...) and seems to have finer grained holo particles. Both are true beauties!

The biggest difference between these polishes is the formula. Nicole at Lilypad seems to have found a base with fantastic qualities. ILNP is actually quite good, but you get spoiled when the first indie polish you buy is a Lilypad with this exceptional formula. 

Enough with the Lilypad praising, I bore you to death with this!
As I hinted above the application of Grape Alicious was a little bit tricky. Nothin alarming, I will not discourage anyone from bying ILNP polishes, but the first coat gets a bit gooey and leaves some bald spots. Nothing that the second coat could not repair. 
As said, the holo effect is a bit shy, but when it shows it shows. A beautiful, strong, fine.grained, linear holo. 








Feb 20, 2014

Rockjewel is a sweet tooth with Lilypad Lacquer Chocolate Truffle

Presenting a Femme Fatale Cosmetics exclusive Lilypad Lacquer today. I got both of them, Nightsky Rift and Chocolate Truffle. Both are really beautiful! 
Today it is Chocolate Truffle on display. It is a dark rich brown, like dark, bitter chocolate, with a strong linear holo that flashes in many colors. 

No need to mention the formula, impeccable as always. Could be a one-coater but i used two. Sally Hansen Hard as nails as base coat and Orly Sec'N Dry on top. I have found that this combination works very well for me and my nails.


I took photos with both one and two layer of diffuser to try and catch both the beautiful chocolate brown color and the stunning holo.















Feb 18, 2014

Rockjewel toughens up with Darling Diva Bitch Panties

The last of the Darling Divas I ordered from Norway Nails is Bitch Panties. Love the name! :-)
It is almost impossible to decide what color it is. It's a quite light polish with pale lavender, light blue, beige and the faintest hint of light green. 

The formula is ok. It dries a bit fast so it gets a bit gooey almost immediately after applying it. It is a a bit sheer, but I think it will be opaque with three coats, maybe even two if applied rich. Here I have put on "undies", my favorite nude, Kiko No 372. After that two coats of Bitch Panties and Orly Sec'N Dry on top.
As the other Darling diva polishes I bought I like it a lot. There is both a quite strong linear and a little scattered holo effect. I will certainly buy some more Darling Divas in the future.













Feb 16, 2014

Rockjewel lusts for more green with Lacquer Lust Peridot

I think I have always loved green, almost all kinds of green. Lacquer Lust Peridot is a green that I love very much.
When Lacquer Lust Birthstone collection was released at Harlow & Co I was quick to order and got all I wanted except Garnet. I placed the order an immediately after paying I noticed that I had missed Peridot, one of the top three I wanted most. I immediately emailed them and asked if that could be added too, and they said yes. Love that kind of personal customer service :-D

Peridot is a soft limeish green, linear holo polish. It lives up to its name, it is really a peridot color. The holo is really strong but strangely enough it appears quite soft anyway, sort of infe-grained.

The formula is excellent, two coats is enough, with longer nails maybe three is needed.

















Feb 15, 2014

Rockjewel hesitates but still shows Dance Legend Red Show No04

I wasn't going to publish this. Everything was against it. I wanted to have a red polish today. Preferably a shimmering one. I had Dance Legend Red Show No04 in mind. It's a lovely polish, quite dark red with just enough shimmer that it can be used as an everyday polish (as if I am ever guided by that) but still glittery enough in the right lighting to make you happy.  

OK, started to put it on. A bit gooey formula so it was a little bit tricky. I put on two coats, got some on my cuticles here and there. Started to clean but messed up one of the nails a bit and put on a third coat on that nail. The clean-up was not too successful, lot of red stuck in cuticles. 

Since I had a third coat on one nail I decided to put on the top coat before taking the photos.
Putting Orly Sec'N Dry on polish that still is a bit sticky makes it shrink more. Not happy at all.
Still went on with the photos, thinking that I maybe could get at least a few OK photos. 

Then i looked at the photos... Really lousy! The beautiful shimmer was almost totally not there. The messy parts looked even messier and the red on the cuticles was even more visible.
Decided not to publish...

Looked at the photos again and decided to go ahead anyway. It IS a beautiful polish even if it doesn't look that way here.