Sally Hansen Minted Metal

Purchased

Good morning! Look, posting twice in one week. I wonder how long I can keep this up. :) Today I have Sally Hansen's Minted Metal from the most recent Color Foil collection. Foils and chromes are coming back with a vengeance and I like them. Sure, application can be a bitch but it looks really cool when it's done right. They are also great for stamping. I only picked up 2 polishes from this collection because they were kind of pricey ($6.99 I believe).

Minted Metal is a blue-green foil. I tried this over base coat first and that was a big mistake. It was really patchy and weird so I switched to no base coat, which worked a lot better. Minted Metal is a weird shade and looks green in some lights and blue in others. This dried a lot lighter than I thought it was going to and it ended up being a sort of seafoam silver. The formula was pretty pigmented and I only needed 2 coats for the swatches here. No top coat used. I don't know if it really would have affected the finish but I didn't feel as if I needed it so I just skipped it.

As with most chromes, application was a bit tricky but if you're careful it should not be too hard to get a smooth finish. Just be sure that your nails are smooth and free of any bumps or even dust, because this polish will showcase all of your nail imperfections. 

 

I haven't tried to stamp with this yet but I plan to soon. This is a very fun polish that requires a bit more work but is worth it in the end. 

What do you think of the new chrome trend? Do you love it or hate it?

Born Pretty Holo #12

Press Sample | Affiliate Link

Happy hump day, everyone. Today I have a really gorgeous holo polish to show you from Born Pretty. I feel like most polish lovers are in two camps - either they love, love holos or they just think they're OK. I, for one, am a huge holo fan. Linear holos are my favorite but a nice scattered holo can be really pretty, too. When Born Pretty contacted me and asked me if I wanted to review a couple of their products, I did not hesitate to put a holo polish on the list.

This is their Holo Polish #12, which is dark green linear holo. Sadly it does not have a better name than #12 but it's still a gorgeous polish. As you can see in the daylight shots below, Holo #12 is a very strong linear holo. In the shade it looks like a dark, murky green but in the sun, all of the rainbows come out.

shade

shade

sunlight

sunlight

sunlight

sunlight

I had no issues with the formula and I used two medium coats for the swatches above. I did not use a special base or anything and didn't have any problems with patchiness. No top coat shown more out of laziness than anything else. I usually use top coat on my holos and have never noticed a dulling effect. The only downside to this polish is that it comes in very small bottles. I'd say they are about the size of the Cover Girl minis. Each bottle contains 4ml of product. Compare that with your average China Glaze which has 14ml. The Born Pretty holos retail for $12.88, which I think it a little high for the amount of product you get. I have seen them on sale before though for about half price. At that price I would be much more likely to purchase.

If you like this shade, the item ID is 6410 or you can find it here. Overall I am quite impressed with this shade. I'd probably wait for a sale but I definitely would not mind picking up a few more of their holo shades.

Born Pretty has been kind enough to offer readers of The Painted Ninja a 10% discount. Just use the code below and shop away. :)

Disclosure: Products in this post were provided by the Born Pretty Store. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

China Glaze Winter Holly

Purchased

Hi, guys! It's Saturday and I am so, so happy for the weekend. This week has been totally brutal. I just started a new commute and I am spending about 9 more hours in the car driving each week than I used to. It's put a serious damper on my life and blogging. By the time I get home at night I am just too tired to do much of anything. I recently set up a light box but I think I need a stronger light. Pics still seem a little dark to me. So I'll be trying to find another light bulb this weekend.

Today I am showing you China Glaze Winter Holly. I actually wore this over Christmas but forgot to post it. I think this was from last's year's China Glaze holiday collection though I am not sure. Winter Holly full of fine forest green and gold glitter in a clear base. The glitter is all the same size and is pretty dense. Below is 2 coats just over base coat with a top coat to even it all out.

I don't remember this being super gritty though it definitely needs some top coat to get it nice and smooth. I like this one a lot. It's Christmas-y but not overtly so. The glitter was really dense and had good coverage as well.

I know it's not the holidays anymore but I love wearing glitter polishes all year round. Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful weekend!

Zoya Chita

Hi, everyone! This week has totally gotten away from me and I can't believe that it's Thursday already. It's been unseasonably warm here in California and I finally painted my toes after a long hiatus ( OPI in the Cable Car-Pool Lane). I hope that all you readers on the east coast are staying warm and safe.

Today I have Zoya Chita, a beautiful forest green textured polish. Like the other Pixie Dusts polishes, it's got very even, fine glitter, given it a really sparkly but not too chunky finish. This one was super pigmented and I did 2 coats here though I might have been able to get away with 1 if I was careful. Shown without top coat.

I continue to be impressed by the Pixie Dust formula and color selection. I know that Zoya has some new ones coming out this spring that have holo glitter in them, and I am interested to see what they are like. Did you guys order from the recent Zoya promo/ I did at the last minute and am just waiting for my polishes to come. :) 

Thanks for coming by. Hope you're all having a wonderful week!

Maybelline Emerald Elegance

Happy Friday, everyone. This has certainly been quite a week and I am glad that the weekend is finally here. I am going on vacation tomorrow and am looking forward to just chilling out. I am just visiting my parents so I will be driving. I had the hardest time trying to figure out what nail polish supplies to take. I don't want to take a lot but then I do want to take advantage of being on vacation to get some swatching in. I'll probably go polish shopping while I am there, too. :)

Today I have another polish from the Maybelline Brocades collection. I love this collection so much! Emerald Elegance is a gorgeous, deep yellow-toned green with tons of green hex glitter. I love the richness of the base color and I really like how the glitter lays. It reminds me of fish scales. Below is two easy coats with Poshe top coat. All of these swatches were taken outside in the shade except for the last picture which was taken in the sun.

Isn't this shade gorgeous? I love how the gold glitter peeks out to create a really rich base color. I am still missing 3-4 polishes from this collection though I have all of my favorites. I am keeping a lookout for the displays though because I will totally buy the others if I see them. :)

Hope you're all having a wonderful Friday. Do you guys know about the Rescue Beauty Lounge sale this coming Sunday? 5 hours only and RBL polishes (with exclusions) will be 50% off. I totally have my cart ready. Have a good weekend, everyone1

Wet N Wild ATTEN-Hut!

Good morning! Hope your Monday is off to a good start. I had a jam packed weekend and could use another day to recover but that's not going to happen so I'll just have a big cup of coffee. :) Today I have a polish from Wet N Wild called ATTEN-Hut!  This is from a new collection called Tough Girl.  I actually had no idea that this was a textured polish collection when I bought this. I don't know if I just didn't look at the display that well or if it wasn't noted, but I really had no idea and it wasn't on the bottle anywhere. I saw some swatches on another blog before I had tried mine and that's when I realized it was textured.

ATTEN-Hut! is a lovely olive green with gold shimmer. The formula on this was nice and I used 2 think coats. I have to say though that I really don't like the brush on these Wet N Wild bottles. They're really short and kind of fat. The cap is also really wide, making it somewhat hard to maneuver. 

Just for kicks, I decided to add top coat to this manicure to see what it would like. I don't usually top coat my textured polishes (because that seems to defeat the purpose) but I was curious. 

This was pretty gritty and I used 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat to get it smooth. I like this look though not as much as I liked it as a texture.

I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Even though I didn't know it was a textured polish when I bought it, I really like it. I have one more polish from this collection that I picked up and I am hoping it's as pretty as this one. Thanks for coming by today!

Orly Sparkling Garbage

Happy Friday, everyone. I was so tired last night that I did not even have the energy to schedule this post. So I am doing it right now. Pardon if it feels a bit rushed. Today I have Orly Sparkling Garbage from I believe the Mish Mash collection. Sparkling Garbage is a pale, almost seafoam green with a crapload of scattered holo glitter. Originally I wasn't super sold on this shade because I had heard that it was really sheer. But I kept seeing it around and the holo kept calling to me and I finally picked it up when Ulta was having a $5 Orly sale. I am really happy I did, too, because look at this crazy disco ball goodness. All photos below taken in natural sunlight unless stated otherwise.

My camera actually had a hard time focusing on my nails in these shots but it does show off the holo quite well. Warning - this polish is very sheer. I used 4 thin coats to get this look. You might be able to get away with 3 but I wanted the color to really come through and thought the 4th coat just gave it a little more dimension.

I love this polish. I am a huge holo freak and normally prefer linear holos but this scattered holo is just so sparkly and eye catching. I can't remember if I used top coat for these swatches but I usually do so let's just go with that.

lighting: shade

You can see the glitter a little more in the shade. Even without the sun it's still quite glittery.

And here is a picture in the sun that is out of focus but that shows all of the rainbow awesomeness in this polish.

Recently I spotted some 2 packs of Orly at TJ Maxx that included Sparkling Garbage. The packs retail for $6.99 which means that each polish ends up being less than $4. That's a steal, people, and this shade is definitely worth it.

Thanks for coming by today. Hope you all have fun plans this weekend. It's a bit cloudy here so I hope to spend some quality time indoors with a cup of tea and a book. :)

Maybelline Sage Staple

Happy Friday, everyone! I am really looking forward to a long weekend. Hopefully I will get a lot of reading and knitting time in. Maybe a bad movie or two. I would like to get some swatching done but it's seriously going to be 100 degrees here so I don't know if the sun will be too crazy to get decent pics. We will see.

Today I have a new polish from Maybelline's recent Vintage Leather line. I spotted the polish display at Target about a week ago. There were polishes missing but I did manage to grab 2 that looked interesting to me. This is Sage Staple, a medium sage green.

So the finish on this is pretty interesting. The polish is matte (obviously) but also contains little flake like glitter that are supposed to, I think, add a leather-like texture to the finish. It's kind of an interesting finish. I don't know how much like leather it looks like but it's definitely different. The flakies do not give it an actual texture that you can feel (it's still smooth) and just adds to the "leather effect."

The formula on this was kind of thick and I was having issues with patchiness on the first coat. The second coat helped a lot though and I only needed 2 coats for the look above. I did't try this was top coat as this actually chipped on me the day after. So yeah, I am on the fence about this one. I have the plum polish in this line as well which I will give a try. However, I don't love this look. I prefer a straight matte if I am going for matte.

Anyone else spot these yet? What do you think - yay or nay?

Have an awesome weekend, everyone!

Topshop Eclipse

Happy Monday, all. Hope your weekend was great. I spent a lot of mine indoors hiding from the heat. :) So a few weeks ago, my awesome friend L sent me a package out of the blue. L isn't a blogger but knows I have this blog and she ordered me a couple of polishes from Nordstrom. The first polish she gave me is Topshop Eclipse. Eclipse is a gorgeous blue-green duochrome shimmer. The formula on this was nice and I used 2 coats on the photos below, no top coat.

lighting: sunlight

lighting: shade

As you can see, in the sun, this polish looks like a pretty teal shimmer. It's nice, but not spectacular. However, the duochrome really comes out in the shade and you can see how the edges pull really blue.

lighting: sunlight

lighting: shade

This shade reminds me of mermaid tales and the ocean. If you like these types of shades, you'll probably like Eclipse. You can see more of the pretty duochrome in the bottle shot below. Thanks, L, for the polish present. I love it and am glad to have it in my collection. Thanks for visiting, everyone!

OCC Fragmented Lip Tar

Hi guys! You may remember that, a few weeks ago, I mentioned going to Comic-Con. Well before I went I saw that OCC was going to be debuting a new lip tar based on Gail Potocki's Fragmented Alice art. I am not usually one for super unconventional lip colors, but this was too fun to pass up.

This was the display set up at SDCC. They were at a gallery booth that was displaying the art. I like how they are all lined up, ready for the taking.