Review: Revlon Moon Candy in Orbit (280)

I have returned from my hiatus and I've got a ton of product reviews just waiting to be written. Apparently I have a half finished draft of a mascara review that's been waiting to be polished and published for a few months. Coming shortly! Next on the docket is a special haul. My first chance to try NYX products! Are you as excited as I am? Probably not... ;)

Orbit’s base coat is a cream finish which applies well and is opaque in just one coat. The formula is thin but not watery or runny, and it spreads well across the nail for a flawlessly smooth finish. The base coat has your typical polish smell, and slightly perfumed. The odor is relatively faint.

The brush pleased me.… I noted that it appeared somewhat small, without being too small, and was not at all tedious to work with. The bristles were laid in such a way that you could paint a thin line with the “edge” of the brush, or quickly coat your nails with the wider, flatter side. The bristles struck me as being somewhat shorter than those included in some other bottles, which allowed for good control. While there’s really nothing special about the brush itself, it performs well, and I appreciate that!

Immediately as I painted the first streak onto my nail, the words “richly pigmented” came to mind. This base coat seemed to be dry to the touch in a short amount of time. I did read that the top coat tends to “eat” or melt the base coat if not completely dry, leaving unsightly bald spots. I took this into consideration while electing to lay down only one coat of base colour. After the application, I attempted to let the base coat dry thoroughly. This is damn near impossible for me. I’m impatient with my nails and for that reason; I cannot live without Seche Vite.

The base colour itself is a blackened plumy purple. My crappy cell phone camera does this polish no justice so I've "borrowed" pictures from a blog I've linked below. Imagine! A beauty blogger without a digital camera… Call me a starving artist; I sold my camera for groceries months ago. I must make it a priority to purchase one soon. Anyway! The base colour is something I would consider wearing on its own without the flakie top coat. (Keep reading to understand why I may skip the top coat!) In store, the top coat is what caught my eye; It seemed to be glowing! It really stood out under those bright white lights. Well played, Target, well played…

I ended up distracting myself with The Following and Bates Motel (Monday night TV kind of rocks) so I managed to leave the base coat to dry on my nails for about an hour and twenty minutes; A record for me. As far as I could tell, it was completely dry… Then I attempted to apply the top coat. Like most glittery things, this flakie coat had a stronger odor than the base coat  It was thick and gloopy. I tried to apply thin layers with precision but it did indeed melt the base coat and cause some balding/streaking. To make the most of this polish (and it’s really the only option I can see that wouldn't destroy the base coat  I had to gather a thick bead of top coat onto the tip of the brush and quickly slick it across my nail in just one or two strokes. The flakie application was uneven and because the pieces are jagged, some of the edges stick up and are impossible to lay flat... Unruly little devils. It was definitely not a smooth application. Some gurus have used a product called “Gelous” over top of this and a coat or two of Seche Vite to make it smooth. This gives the look a beautiful glassy finish. I am not fortunate enough to have a bottle of Gelous, but if anyone knows where I might be able to purchase it, please leave a comment.


To get a stronger flakie effect I applied two coats of the top coat, which was thick and sticky, somewhat difficult to work with. I finished it off with a generous coat of Seche Vite. I think if I’d been prepared for an application that requires patience, I could have pulled this off a little better. It’s a bit tricky in the application, given the sticky-uppy flakie edges and unevenness that the top coat causes to the base coat. If you didn't have a product to accelerate drying time, I imagine it would take forever with the thickness required to get a good effect from the top coat. The two thick coats of top coat used in this one manicure left a noticeable dent in the bottle. By this, I mean, it used up a lot of the product. I’d guess that you could get about 7-8 decent manicures with this top coat, and then you’d have some of the base left over. Despite all of this, the end result is beautiful, if not a bit lumpy! I didn't have the skills or product required to get an application quite as striking as the picture below. For the most part it looks the same, but mine is nowhere close to smooth.

Narcissistic Nails has applied Orbit beautifully

The price was about $12 CAD when I purchased this at our new Target store. (I was so excited to see NYX in Target! I picked up a few things I hope to review.) I wish the top coat had performed a little better for the money I spent on it, but that’s a standard price where I live. I’m seriously jealous of American cosmetic prices. American ladies can pick up products for just a few dollars, which we Canadians often have to pay three times as much, at least! I definitely do intend to purchase most of the other colours in this line. I’m somewhat infatuated. I’m dying to get my hands on that brick red with gold flakies!

Because my cell phone camera pictures were virtually useless, I had to do a Google Image Search to find suitable pictures for this blog entry. I made sure to find pictures that were appropriately watermarked with the source and in no way take credit for these. Do yourself a favor and check out Narcissistic Nails. :D

(I will add an update about any troubles I may encounter while removing this polish, as it is a flakie and most glittery polishes tend to require foiling or some serious elbow grease.)

-H.Cat

Shopping Day! WCW & Nail Polish!

Chloë and I were on the go yet again today. We paid our bills and did some nail polish shopping, had lunch... You know how it is. I grabbed a few new polish brands to try- specifically Sinful Colors, and Barelements. They were about 3 bucks a piece and at that price, if they suck I'll just use them on Chloë's toes. They're too small to really chip or show streaking. I gotta say, I needed a little shopping trip. I could go again, actually... but I'm going to buy even more groceries first because I love nothing better than a house full of food. Except my kids, of course!

My daughter looking gorgeous in her pink and red Baby Phat embroidered tracksuit. (Look at those adorable quilted pockets!)

Chloë's new Carter's romper. I want a matching one! For whatever reason, this picture didn't save my rotate. I am too lazy to fix it :D

These are our new polishes. We've swatched them and we are very happy!

 And for reasons unknown to myself, I decided to photograph what I could find of my growing nail art collections:

O.P.I, Sephora by O.P.I, Nicole by O.P.I

Random other good quality stuff- Gosh, Essie, MAC, Seche Base, various magnetics. I love those little Kiss paints 

Some more "affordable" products. 3rd in on the bottom row is my "Frankenstein" polish that I made with clear polish, pigments, and glitter. I will say more about it in an upcoming post

Sally Hansen & Random other glitters

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear. I love these so much! The quality is fantastic and the price is even better. These can often be found for about $2 CAD (and that says a lot, because they rape us on the price of cosmetics in this country)

Stick ons, glitters, stencils, rhinstones, dotting tools, nail art brushes galore!

 Now I get to do something I've been putting off that I actually really enjoy. Budgeting! I rock with money. I get to figure out how much I have, my expenses, the balance, and the fun we can afford to have <3 I know two boys who are in need of some serious spoiling!

-H.Cat

Nail: Scale/Snakeskin (Magnetic Polish)

Magnetic polishes have been around for a while, but they’re new to me. I picked up one at Sephora last month and was fortunate enough to find that Rexall had another brand  on clearance for $4. I picked up only one colour, but I’ve been dying to go back and get the rest.

You could achieve this look with a plain metallic polish, but I found the magnetic brought the magic.

For this look I used:

• Wet’n’Wild base coat
• Layla Magneffect in “09 - Golden Bronze”
• O.P.I “Glitzerland”
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear “Ivy League”
• Kiss Nail Paint in Black
• Fing’rs Top Coat

Annnd thank you, Chad, for being my lovely model tonight :D If a man truly loves you, he’ll let you paint his nails if you pout long enough. 

After applying your base coat, apply your magnetic or metallic shade. These magnetic polishes dry quickly and you have limited time to achieve your effect, so you’ll need to apply a quick coat and hold the magnet over top for a few seconds immediately after. Take care not to get the magnet in your wet polish.

For the hand that was already finished, I took the pale golden colour, Glitzerland and applied a stripe near the edge of the nail and placed a stripe in the same place in each nail, sort of like a highlight. I did not do this with the green colour, Ivy League, until the “sample nail” for photos because it was quicker. Initially, I had just filled in random scales with Ivy League. To save time for photos I just applied a stripe on the opposite side of the Glitzerland stripe. Does that make sense?

Now you’ll take your black, or your darker colour for drawing on the scales. If you don’t have a polish with a long skinny brush you could try a nail art brush, paint brush, or even a Q-Tip. A Q-Tip will work but you have to work carefully. The pictures illustrate how I drew the scales to be overlapping.

Now you can fill in scales with different sections of colour, shade or detail however you like. You could even use blues and greens to go for an aquatic/mermaid look. Maybe some oranges and golds for an exotic oriental dragon motif. There are about a million colour schemes to choose from. Just have fun <3 

-H. Cat

Nail: Peacock

Update:

This is what they looked like after sleeping on'em and applying a top coat. They tend to clean themselves up a bit, which is why I don't bother.

This is my pilot attempt at Peacock nails. The colours I have are perrrfect. My technique? Not so much, BUT I learned a thing or two. Besides- Nails are FUN.

  

I applied a base coat. Mine is from Walmart and it was cheap cheap. 

Wet'n'Wild Base Coat

I applied two coats of my deep green.

Peacock feather hair clip and first of two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Emerald City"

Because there are so many layers to this look, I thought this was the best solution so that it would actually dry this century. The key, and where I faltered a bit, is to make sure the qtip is saturated in nail polish remover when removing your circular section. That way it will dissolve the polish rather than push it to the edges, creating sort of a well. It's best if you can wait for each layer to dry, but I have 3 children and no time to wait for anything- which is why mine is messy.

I forgot to snap a picture of the 2nd green filled in, but anyway I filled the empty space in the deeper green, and removed an even smaller section of the lighter green. 

Lighter Green is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Ivy League"

 Fill in with gold, hallow out gold with remover soaked q-tip.

It's repetitive. I'm sure you've had it figured out for a while... I did something a bit different with the lighter blue, but since I did it after the dark blue, wait for it....

Golden colour is Sephora by O.P.I in "Rumba Romance"

This blue is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Blue Me Away!"

I applied the dark blue (Revlon's "Midnight Affair") in almost a heart shape, but with a more rounded bottom... After that I took the lighter blue and traced a small amount of polish around the bottom of the dark blue shape. I took a toothpick and dragged the light blue out onto the gold in a half-assed feather effect. Just little lines.

And the final result:

It just wouldn't be me if I wasn't too lazy to clean up my the edges <3

-H.Cat

Nails, Nails, Nails!

I'll start this entry off with a picture of my Clovermeleon! Chloë is almost 5 months old.<3

I've been sidetracked. Every time I have a child I lose a talent. I like to think I'm transferring it down to them, but we'll see! With Rhett I lost my ability to draw. With Cailum I lost my culinary skills. With Chloë I seem to have lost my ability to apply makeup. Maybe I just need to make time for these former talents. 


In any case- I had a bad makeup consultation and it threw me off. My application was good, I think. It was my inability to pick up cues from the client. They were all there, but I didn't take the hint and I applied a classic pinup face on a client who is afraid of makeup. The terror in her eyes! I've never failed to please and it's not something I want to feel again. 


While I've been building up the nerve to get back on the proverbial horse, I've discovered a new passion. Nails! I'm a bit sloppy and I don't have all of the tools and colours I'd love... but that is quickly changing. I've ordered nail brushes and dotting tools galore from eBay, I'm practicing like crazy on everyone I can get my hands on. Without further ado, I present to you some of my musings:

Misc.

Watermelon

Bride of Frankenstein

Water marbling

Scale

Argyle 

Purple Leopard

Corset

Two Tone

Gradient

Next I want to try Peacock. I've actually got a super long list of things to try. Good thing I've got 10 fingers and 10 toes! I will also be working on perfecting these designs and creating tutorials for this blog. As you can see, I haven't been bothered to clean up my manicure before photographing, but you get the idea. 

I've also been painting Chloë's nails. Her last manicure was a glossy black nail with silver tips. It was ferocious! I am loving having a daughter so sooo much! <3

If you're looking for brands to try, I highly recommend Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear. The colour selection is stellar, the quality is good, and the price can't be beat. They can be found just about anywhere (Shoppers Drugmart, Walmart, Zellers, etc.) I use those and O.P.I. I am hoping to get my hands on some China Glaze, Essie, and Zoya in the near future. I will also be experimenting with artists acrylic paints. There is a brand called Kiss that offers 3 packs of nail paint with stencils for $16 CAD. These paints are AWESOME. I will write up a review soon!

I'm concluding with this adorable picture of Chloë enjoying the unseasonal sunshine :D Isn't she darling!?