I Love Monsta Love!

GlitterDaze Monsta Love...
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways....

HAH! Cheesy as mess, I know.
Sooo..... I ordered some of GlitterDaze's Monsta Love from the Birthday Girl collection last week. Birthday Girl is named so because it's in celebration of Sana's birthday. Happy Birthday! *confetti*

First, a clippet of text that's on GlitterDaze's website about her polishes:
"Each GlitterDaze nail polish is individually made, just for you!! We try to use the highest quality ingredients and will never include anything that has been tested on animals!"
Great, right? I'm such an animal lover.

Anyways, Monsta Love is a glitter for layering that's loaded with all types of glitter. There's bar glitter, heart shaped glitter, hex, round, micro, square..and colors of magenta, pink, purple and red.
I tried this polish over white originally to showcase all of the great glitters in this one but the base is tinted a bit purplish so it didn't look great in pictures (but in real life, stunner!) and then tried black but that didn't do it justice for pictures either, even though again, in person, it was awesome; so for these swatches I painted Sally Hansen's "Whisper." Finally, the pictures kind of captured the glory of Monsta Love.

See the heart shaped glitter? Heee. It reminds me of when I painted hearts on my ring fingers for my wedding mani.  The bar glitter in this really stands out and adds a nice touch to any color.  Wear on this was fantastic, even on naked nails. Sometimes I have issues with big glitters like this on naked nails. It tends to peel but this one, no peel-age! I was especially rough with my hands today (scrubbing baked cheese off of a casserole dish, unpacking hundreds of shoes, several hand scrubbings...) and I didn't have the first bit of peeling or chipping. I even had a break on my thumbnail and *gasp* had to BITE it off at work to avoid it tearing up the nail bed. Guess what? Not even that caused peeling or chipping. RARE.

Formula on this was outstanding. The base it's in suspended the glitters perfectly. I had absolutely NO settling during shipping and I didn't have to shake it a million times or turn it upside down or fish around in the bottle for a variety of glitters.  Even the greatest polishes have settling (Revlon Whimsical comes to mind) and the fact that this didn't have any was great. You can see in the pictures that there's a good assortment of glitter shapes and colors on each nail. I didn't have to coax that, it brushed on that well. With a nice coat of Gelous on the top I didn't have any whiskers on the bar glitter which I do a lot of the times with shredded and bar glitter. It was as smooth as glass afterwards.

This is a great glitter for layering. I'm going to try it over Essie's Madamoiselle and as a jelly sandwich with Essie's Marshmallow and OPI's Guy Meets Gal-veston. I really can't wait for the Marshmallow jelly sandwich.

The ONLY thing I didn't love about this was the fact that the base has a slightly purple tint that made layering it over white look funky. That's not enough to make a difference for me though. This is still in my top 3 glitters I own. Woo!

This was my first purchase from Sana at GlitterDaze but I know it won't be my last. I will leave you with a picture of the packaging because I'm SUCH a sucker for great packaging and the sticker on this was just so darned cute I had to share. :-)

For all pictures above I painted one coat over naked nails with a thick coat of Gelous on top.


Finally- it's time for my rating!
Overall score- 4.5/5
Formula- 5/5 (the glitter was suspended perfectly in the base. I had NO settling during shipping)
Wear 5/5 (no chips!)
Personal rating 4/5 (tinted base didn't look good over white, but that's minor)

You can find Sana at GlitterDaze in the following places:
Facebook: Clicky
Blogger: Clicky
And she's got a great storefront! Clicky
With the storefront there's no crazed clicking and hoping like there is on Etsy. There's no excuse not to go out and get one ASAP...because, you know....you should ;)

Until next time,
Happy Polishing!
xoxo Carrie

Rainbow Honey's Hanami :-)

Happy Mother's Day out there! If you're a mom, I hope you're having a great day of relaxation- for all you children out there I hope you give your mom the day of relaxation she deserves ;)

Now, on to the fun stuff!

I ordered Rainbow Honey's "hanami" during her last shop opening and I am SO glad I did. This polish is really something special. It's a pink jelly base packed with pink glitters (fine, hex and iridescent), white glitters (is that shredded? It has the appearance of crushed sea shells- amazing!) and flecks of purple.  First, a closeup: (I got this picture from her facebook page since I'm waiting on my new camera)

Is this gorgeous or what? Let me tell you, it's really a great product when I feel really bad about having to remove a polish to do more swatching.  As soon as I was done swatching a few more polishes I immediately put it back on, and even layered it over a purple jelly on my toes. That turned out fabulous as well, but I won't make you look at pictures of my toes. It's better this way. ;)

I have read a few bloggers who have said they think the packaging is a bit much since they're just going to throw it away but I really appreciate the extra touches she adds to the orders. The boxes are really cute and the bottles are even more awesome. Here's a swatch with the box:

And here's one in daylight:

And one in artificial light:

I can not say how much I LOVE this polish and I am really looking forward to the Equestria collection. If you don't own any Rainbow Honey polishes yet, you should really check them out. Her contact information is here:
Facebook: Clicky
Website: Clicky
Etsy: Clicky

For all of the pictures above I applied three coats over basecoat (I love my glitters extra-thick!) and one coat of Seche Vite. When I re-painted them though I used a coat of Gelous on top and I got a nice, glassy sheen that I was looking for. The formula arrived a bit thick but as she adds in with her instructions, a few drops of thinner made this perfect. I like that she mixes it thick since I like my glitters on the thick side. The glitter didn't need to be fished out or stirred because each dip into the bottle produced a great mix of glitter.

Overall- 5/5
Formula- 4/5
Wear- 5/5 (glitters always wear well)
Personal rating- a big 5/5.


I purchased this polish with my own money for review. I have not been compensated for my opinions and all opinions are my own.



OPI's Guy Meets Gal-veston- Delightfully squishy

Today I have an OPI for you- It is from their Texas collection of what they call "sorbet" finishes- it's really just another word for a jelly finish. I picked up "Guy Meets Gal-veston." This is my first jelly and I have to tell you, I am IN LOVE with these. I want the whole set now!
They are meant to be sheer and look like candy. Guy Meets Gal-veston is bright pink coral with a hint of orange- to me it looks like a strawberry margarita. How fun is that? A great choice for a day at the beach if you're lucky enough to live on the coast like us! All pictures under artificial light since it was so cloudy this afternoon.

It took two coats to achieve opacity, with only a hint of VNL (visible nail line), which I assume is normal for something as sheer as a jelly. At first it went on streaky but the second coat hid any streaks left by the first coat. I saw no bubbling and the wear is pretty good considering I had my hands in hot water scrubbing dishes and bottles. I only got a tiny bit of peeling on my thumb nail. No chips since last night which is great for having done so much with my hands today. There are no pictures of my right hand because I have a nasty cut- my right hand is much sloppier and the cleanup isn't as good. I'm a righty!

I made a dotticure to play up this awesome color. I used Sinful Color's Black On Black for the dots and finished it off with a coat of Gelous to make it even more shiny and jelly-like. I used Sinful Colors as my basecoat. Topped it off with Seche Vite to dry everything quickly.

Sorry about the bad picture quality! I lost the charging cord for my Nikon. Sad day!

Rating:
    Overall: 4/5
    Formula 4/5 (first coat was very sheer and streaky)
    Wear 3/5 (I got some peeling on the thumb nail)
    Personal rating: 5/5
I love this jelly and the color is fab! I will definitely be wearing this again soon!
   
Have a good night everyone!