NOTD: Rising Spirit by SpaRitual

 Lady Luck smiled on me twice in January when it came to winning beauty products in some blog giveaways, and today I have a new polish from SpaRitual to show you as a result.

Beauty Undercover partnered with SpaRitual to offer 30 readers their choice of one of the four polishes from their Vegan GOLD collection "Rise", plus a bottle of their new flexible topcoat. I chose the soft gold shimmer Rising Spirit, and it's a beauty.

This new polish formula has quite a few claims behind it, such as: applying 75% faster yet removing 85% faster than gels, drying 60% faster than a traditional manicure and containing a smudge-repair technology that is both self-leveling and correcting. Sounds kind miraculous, doesn't it? At least when it comes to nail polishes.  

I'm on day 4 of wear and so far I have no chipping and minimal tip wear, even after bathing Lulu, which requires 3 separate sudsings with a medicated shampoo. The polish did dry relatively fast but I still managed to ding and smudge two nails on my right hand. I was impatient and decided I wanted to make breakfast not long after I painted them, so my bad.

Overall I'm happy with Rising Spirit and the topcoat, so thank you to Beauty Undercover and SpaRitual for the giveaway!  On another note, the tulip trees are in full bloom here in Mobile, and the azaleas as starting to bloom.  I guess we are in for an early spring this year, which I have mixed emotions about. It's 76 degrees outside today, so I'm hoping for at least a few weeks of cooler weather before the heat and humidity starts their unrelenting onslaught. We shall see, as February is usually the coldest month in this area.

Nail of the Day: Revlon Whimsical

Revlon Whimsical

This looked like spring in a bottle to me, quite appropriate given the murky rain this week that is punctuated by the bright azalea blooms Mobile is known for.  Revlon's Whimsical is a newer polish that is supposed to be a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Glitter in the Air, which makes Whimsical's price of $4-5 quite appealing versus Glitter in the Air's price of $18.00.  However, I wasn't aware of that when it caught my eye, just that I thought it was pretty.

I've seen this polish described as a light blue gray, but mine looks more sea foam green to me.  Medium size teal and pink hexagon glitter, small silver hexagon glitter, and micro teal and blue glitter provide visual interest.  This is a sheer polish, so to get close to the color in the bottle I had to use 4 coats.  Even with four coats the glitter is not dense, so with fewer coats it may be hard to get even glitter distribution.  In the future, I'll layer this over a light aqua or a muted green.  I've got to say I like it better in the bottle than on me, as I'm not sure the color complements my skin tone.  Layering over a more vibrant color may solve that problem, however.

Revlon is currently 40% off at RiteAid, so I got this polish for $2.99.

Nail of the Day: Tyin' the Knot in the Spotlight

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, I thought I'd try something in that spirit.  However, looking at my pink and red nail polishes did not inspire me, as they felt too bright and spring like.  My eye was drawn to a bottle of Sally Hansen, and when I looked at the title it was perfect - Tyin' the Knot.  Now, the color is a gray with a brownish tint, so not quite sure how that ties into weddings, but it felt right to me.  If you click on the macro photo, you can also see flecks of teal, pink, red, yellow and green.  I topped it off with a coat of Sally Hansen's In the Spotlight, which is a holographic bar glitter.

Tyin' the Knot, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength

Tyin' the Knot wasn't the easiest to apply, as it was both streaky and easy to get too much on the brush at the same time.  However, two coats smoothed things out.  In the Spotlight had the problem of getting plenty of bars on one nail and hardly any on the next, so you have to work with it to get an even application.  Not sure how I feel about bar glitter yet.  Turned out to be something of a moot point, as I badly smudged a nail and started all over with a completely different look, including ultra short nails.  But I do like Tyin' the Knot and will wear it again!

Nail of the Day: Whirled Peas

Flaky or flecked nail polishes are hot right now and Finger Paints just released the Special Effects limited edition collection of five different flaky polishes.  Available only at Sally's Beauty Supply, I went to several different stores as they were already a bit picked over, and ended up getting three of the five - Twisted (pictured), Asylum, and Motley.  If you want to see how all the polishes look, the PolishAholic has some great swatches.  Coveted by many nail polish lovers, flakies make great top coats, especially over darker polishes.  Flakies also have the extra appeal of not being as hard to remove as most glitter polishes.

Maybe because it's been rainy this week, I was drawn to the army green murkiness of OPI's Uh Oh Roll Down the Window from the Fall 2011 collection.  Nice formula and two coats achieved opaqueness.

While I wasn't sure how Twisted would look over Uh Oh as I didn't try any test swatches, I only used one coat and the flecks do show up nicely!  I'm not sure how long the Finger Paints Special Effects will be available, so if they appeal to you, best look for them now.  I paid $5.99 each for mine.

Nail of the Day: Flesh Wound After Dark

I think after my last pastel manicure I was in the mood for something a bit more dramatic.  So, I chose a base coat of OPI's iconic Lincoln Park After Dark, which I recently got as one of 10 mini-bottles in the "Best of the Best" collection.  The first coat had me seriously doubting, as it was streaky as all get out.  By the second coat, however, I was a convert.  Holy vamp city, batman!  I see why it's a favorite now - we've got a seriously glossy blackened eggplant going on here.  Sadly, I have no photos of that as I was too impatient to try out It's Just a Flesh Wound from Nerdlacquer on top of it.  

 As described at Nerdlacquer: "It's Just a Flesh Wound is a fierce black base with small and medium black, red, and copper hexagonal glitter, plus black and charcoal microglitter and big silver hex glitter. This color always triumphs, and will still look fearsome even if a passing king lops one of your arms off. Looks amazing as a top coat over black or red. Also might challenge the other polishes in your collection to a duel; best to store it separately."  This makes me smile.


Hence my name for this manicure - Flesh Wound After Dark - a combo of two coats each of Lincoln Park After Dark and It's Just a Flesh Wound with one coat of OPI's Rapid Dry top coat.  You probably didn't need me to spell that out, but I felt bit compelled.  Amanda from Nerdlacquer also included the cute pom-pom ring in my order - nice touch.  All photos can be clicked on to enlarge for more detail.

Nail of the Day: Zoya Kendal with Strobe Light

I received the Zoya polish Kendal as part of my January Birchbox. I've read great things about Zoya but had not tried any, so was excited to see this in my box! The color was not one I probably would have bought on my own, but it's actually quite nice - described as a light periwinkle, but to my eye it's a light grayed out lilac cream. The formula was very nice - great consistency and opaque in 2 coats. I decided to top Kendal with Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear in Stobe Light for a little bling, and I really like this look.



Here is a magnified shot to show the holographic glitter detail in Strobe Light. I did get a bit distracted driving in to work looking at these, which is one mark of a pretty polish in my book.