Nail Art: Art Club Technicolor Doll

Art Club is known for making some of the best nail art polishes on the market. They're what you call 'striper' (not stripper, that's another post for another time) polishes. They're called that because they have a very long skinny brush instead of a normal polish brush and it's perfect for making stripes and other nail art.

Art Club just released the Technicolor Doll nail art kit to coincide with the release of Color Club's Electro Candy collection for summer. The kit includes:

5 Neon Stripers: Technicolor Doll, Psychedelic Dream, Paisley Paradise, Electric Universe, Cosmic Creature
2 jars of sprinkles: Aqua Charms, Fuchsia Charms
3 Self-Stick Decal Sheets: Floral Decal, Heart Decal and Swirl Decal.

They paid so much attention to detail on the packaging on this kit, it's absolutely beautiful. They even made a really pretty handle for it!



The model for the advertisement has such amazing makeup, too. I never remember to take a picture of the advertisement. She has neon yellow and green eyeshadow with black double-winged liquid liner. Gorgeous, I'm going to steal that look this week.


Anyway, there's the whole kit. Let's move on to the nail art.

Anyone can do this nail art, it's not difficult. The only extra equipment required will be black polish and a dotting tool if you want to do the dots.


Let's start off with something extra simple:




I love the combination of neon and black, it reminds me of the 90's. The 90's rocked.


If that design isn't interesting enough, you can spice it up a little bit with your dotting tool:



But if you're like me and want something a little more over the top, break out the sprinkles! I used Fuchsia Charms:



One interesting thing about the charms- if you peel one of them off after your polish has dried, it will leave a flower-shaped hole in your polish. It almost looks intentional, pretty cool actually.


Let's try another design with dots!



A simple, bright look with a base of Color Club Volt of Light.

Not colorful enough? Try adding more colors.



And one more very simple design:

This is neon pink and green, but it came out looking more like Christmas with snowflakes! So, hey, why not sport a Christmas manicure in April? This one used the Aqua Charms.


Now here's something a little more involved.

Marbling. It's really not difficult at all, you just need to work quickly because these neon colors dry very fast. Start with a base of a color you like and then add as many colors as you want to the nail. Take a toothpick or needle (I just used my small dotting tool) and swirl the colors around.

And now that we've seen abstract, let's go back to something more geometric.



In 1995 I had a coat that looked like this.

I also had one that looked like this.

Of course, those designs weren't awesome enough for me so I had to take it one step further...

I added one of the 'swirl' decals (looks more like a butterfly to me) to make it more interesting.

I took these pictures while the polish was still wet, so please excuse the weird thickness of the polish. It goes away when it dries, I promise.


I really love nail art. I wish I was able to do it more often!


The Art Club striper polishes are perfect. The polish is opaque, it dries quickly and the brushes are just the right firmness. Since this kit contains neon polishes, you will need a topcoat if you want them to look shiny. I used Seche Vite, but I bet the Color Club Vivid Color Intensifying topcoat would work well on these too.

Color Club Electro Candy Collection Summer 2009

Hope everyone had a little bit of April Fool's Day fun yesterday :) Sorry about Rickrolling you! I don't think I could ever part with my polish - I love it all too much! - but I am very happy that I was able to lighten the mood with a little laughter!

Anyway, I still have a few more spring and summer collections to post, so here we go! One more awesome collection from one of my favorite brands.

Color Club Electro Candy.

Again, I must post a disclaimer about these images. Neons are impossible to photograph. I took (literally) fifty pictures of each color and only one or two were even remotely close to the real life shade. They do something weird to my camera- the colors get warped and they glow and look frighteningly radioactive. I think my pictures came out okay this time, but in real life these polishes are all brighter and, uh, neon-er?




Electro Candy. Neon pink with turquoise shimmer. Just when you thought there was no possible way to make one more neon pink and try to call it different- they did! It is different! It's outrageous glowing neon pink with fine turquoise shimmer! Electro Candy is right- this looks like neon colored candy with an electrical current running through it.



Pure Energy. Neon blue with green shimmer. This color is the color of a tank full of electric eels. Or... something like that.



Ultra Violet. Neon purple with blue/green overlay. This color is incredible. My pictures do not do it justice. It is bright neon purple with this outrageous blue and green flash that flickers and catches the light in interesting ways. It is a little more purple looking in real life and it is positively mesmerizing. I can't stop staring at it. I'm going to go ahead and call this my favorite of the collection.



Volt Of Light. Bright highlighter yellow with blue/green shimmer. This almost seems to have a touch of green in it as well. I was not looking forward to trying to apply this yellow polish, but to my great surprise, it applied like a dream! Not streaky, not thick, not anything like any neon yellow I've ever worn. It must be the shimmer in the formula that keeps the polish thin!



Tangerine Scream. Neon OSHA orange with light colored shimmer. I can't quite tell what color the shimmer in this is- it's silvery white at one angle and kind of light green or yellow at another angle. The color is much richer and more neon than my picture suggests. It's not a pale orange by any means!



What A Shock! Neon green with blue shimmer. Ah, the problem child. The polish that tested my breaking point and my patience! The polish that almost cost me a new camera (because I wanted to throw it out the window). This is a super bright, super glowy neon lime green. For whatever reason, my camera can't pick up that color. It's an awesome color and I wish that I was able to capture its beauty. It is brighter, lighter, more green-green than yellow-green and has a hint of blue shimmer.


These polishes are a little bit on the sheer side, so I did three coats of each color. And since these are neon, they dry matte so I am also wearing Color Club's Vivid Color Intensifying Top Coat in each of these photos. If you like the matte look for these shades, skip the topcoat.

The Vivid Color Intensifying Topcoat (which has a number 10 next to it on the label but I'm not sure where that ten belongs in the name...) seems to be very similar to the Milky White French Manicure Basecoat. It's clear with just the faintest hint of ultraviolet blue tint. Milky White French Manicure Basecoat has a more noticable UV Blue tint compared to this.

The Vivid topcoat is not a traditional quick-dry topcoat like I'm used to. It is fairly fast drying, but the texture is very thin, unlike Seche Vite or Poshe which are very thick. The texture of the topcoat is even thinner than the polishes- almost watery- and dries to a high shine finish.

The formula of the polishes themselves is excellent. Neons are generally known to have a thick, sometimes chalky formula. Some neons, like neon blues and purples, don't have this characteristic, but neon pinks, yellows and oranges often do. The Color Club neons don't have this issue. They are perfect. They are smooth, non-streaky and not too thick. They apply easily and dry quickly. Other than the sheerness of the polish, I had no application trouble.


Color Club has amazed me once again with a unique, fun and interesting collection of polishes. These neons are not like other neons- the blue-ish shimmer in them makes them look ALIVE! They have depth, they have movement, they have sparkle. They are AWESOME. Easily the best collection of neons I own. The combination of great formula and innovative color makes these neons perfect. Especially perfect for a neon-lover like me who is a little tired of seeing duplicate colors constantly being released.


Overall, awesome collection. A unique spin on the done-to-death (but I still love it) neon polish. Improved neon formula is a bonus. I don't think there's anything I don't like about this collection! I just wish I could find a way to photograph these properly....

Color Club Fall 2008 Dance To The Musique Collection Revisited

The first time I posted about the Dance To The Musique collection, I only posted one picture of 'skittles'- one color on each finger and one bottle in my hand. The reason I did this was not because I didn't love the collection- it was because the sun was setting and I needed to get the picture taken in the fastest way possible since I didn't feel like swatching one collection over two (or more, depending on the sun's cooperation) days.

Since is was such an incredible collection, it deserves a real post with real swatches.



After Hours. A shimmery, smoky grey. A lot of other charcoal-grey shades have a strong blue tone to them, but this one seems a lot more neutral.



Electronica. Deep sparkling purple. This color is actually purple, despite how blue it looks in my picture. Purples are just, for some reason, impossible to photograph. They always come out blue no matter what I do!! Anyway, Electronica is AMAZING. One of the best purples ever. It's deep but not too dark or black looking and it's packed with shimmer, miniature 'flakies' and even what appears to be microglitter, though there is no hint of roughness to this polish. Perfection.



Feel The Beat. A coral-copper-orange duochrome. Yes, this is a duochrome. It reminds me a little bit of Misa Bo-Jangles. It's coppery red all over the polish and at the edges it's orangey-coral. I couldn't really capture the full effect of the duochrome, but it's definitely there.


Groove Thang. Blackened vampy purple shimmer. At first, this color reminded me of an OPI- maybe a mix between Black Tie Optional and Ink or Who Are You Wearing?... It has that sort of color-changing 'beetle shell' quality to it. It is very dark, almost black, but any light hitting it brings out a purple glow on the surface of the polish. Pretty unique and ultra hot.




Slow Jam. Warm reddish brown shimmer. This color screams FALL!!!! to me. Is this what you would call 'burgundy' or is it too brown? I'm not sure. Either way, this color rocks because it's one of those 'lit from within' shades I love. It looks like it's dark on the edges and the center is brighter, almost like it's glowing.



Velvet Rope. Red shimmer. You will rarely see me get excited over a red shimmer... But, even if I am not absolutely in love with it, it is still beautiful. Velvet Rope is bold and loud and sparkly. It really stands out against my skintone and it's almost like there's a miniature neon sign above my hand with an arrow pointing down saying "LOOK AT MY NAILS". Very flashy, indeed.


Despite three of the six shades being red or almost-red, this was still one of my favorite collections of 2008. I would wear (and have worn, multiple times) every single color in this collection. Electronica is so breathtakingly beautiful you can't help but want to stare at it all the time. Sometimes I just take out the bottle to look at it! It's that good. And Groove Thang, same with that one. There must be some color-obsessed geniuses working at Color Club because they consistently release awesome and adventurous shades. Even their sheers/pale/french manicure shades rock!!

The formula on these is perfect. Even though Color Club isn't as popular as one of the 'big brands' like OPI or Essie, their formula could pass as high end any day. It's pigmented, smooth, even-textured, fast drying and long wearing. It's not too thick, not too thin, not at all runny. The bottles and brushes are great- no weird shaped bottle to knock over and no defective bristles. They do have a tendency to get stuck shut- I mean really, really stuck... I have a bottle of Yell-Oh! that I haven't been able to open for over a year. Nothing I do seems to work, I think I just have to buy another bottle. So, make sure the necks of your Color Club bottles are clean!

One of the best things about Color Club is the price. I think the average price for these online and in nail supply stores is around $2.50 each. With a quality just as good as OPI and even better than some other higher-priced brands, it's truly a bargain. Low price, high quality, amazing shades. They make nail polish accessible.

Overall, incredible collection. Fantastic sexy vampy fall shades, great formula, great price, gorgeous makeup on the model that appears on the packaging.... You can't go wrong with Color Club! I hope they continue to release fun, funky colors that appeal to everyone- not just the salon consumer but us, the hardcore nail junkies!

Red Glitter

I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's Day! I did. I ended up keeping my Nicole I've Got The Power topped with Love Your Life mani from my previous post. I love it so much, I'm still wearing it. This polish wears like iron- I did my mani with no basecoat or topcoat and three days later it barely has visible tipwear and is still smooth and shiny. I'm impressed!

I was thinking about doing a red glitter manicure for Valentine's Day. I am not really a red person, but I love red glitter. There's something about it that's just so pretty and interesting.

One of my favorites is actually a Maybelline polish: Red Comet.




Isn't it pretty? You might need to view it in full size to see the glitter.


Another favorite of mine is Color Club Ruby Slippers:



Not to be confused with another lovely red glitter, Essie Ruby Slipper:




Most red glitter polishes seem to come out around Christmas time, but this one was made for Halloween:



Fright Night Claw Polish Spellbinding Top Coat in Voodoo.

Some of my most favorite red glitter polishes take it to the next level with holographic glitter instead of red glitter in a red base.


Ulta Jingle Bell Rock.



L'Oreal Bijou Crystals B. Daring.


Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Golden Tourmaline. Technically it's a straight holo and has no glitter, but it's sparkly so it counts, right?


These are just a few of the red glitter polishes in my collection. They're just so beautiful, I can't resist them! They look like fire on your nails, or glimmering rubies. They're fascinating. If you're like me and not really into plain red, you might feel differently about red glitter.

Color Club Spring 2009 Collection: Femme Fatale

Part two of Color Club's spring collections for 2009! In case you missed the previous post, Catwalk Queen is part one.

(Also, be sure to check out The Nailphile's swatches of Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale and The Polish Addict's promo pictures for Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale. )

Femme Fatale is meant to be a racy, seductive and freakin' sweet collection of French manicure shades. Here's what they say about it:

"The French Manicure gets revolutionized with dark to light duo-tones from Color Club."

Now, if you know me at all or you've read this blog for five minutes, you'll know that I am not a fan of the French manicure. However, when it's done with fun colors or different finishes, I'm all for it. I've heard this referred to as a "Funky French."

This collection would be perfect for that. It's also perfect to wear each color alone, which is what I did.


Femme Fatale. This is really nice. A sheer polish with pink/red crystals. It's different than just a plain shimmer, and while it looks similar to Ready To Wear from the Catwalk Queen collection, it's quite different. The shimmer particles are what make this polish really special. They're like... little... balls? Shimmer balls. Tee hee!


Oooooo La La. Beautiful, clean, crisp white pearl. A white that's opaque without being chalky, it's softened by the pretty pearl finish. Very wearable even by itself.


Oui! Oui! Oui! A sheer, shimmery silvery/green/blue duochrome. Another seashell type color that looks incredible over black. Like its Catwalk Queen Cousin, Runway Muse, Oui! Oui! Oui! reminds me of OPI Think It's Pink?/Sea The Change?.




Revvvolution. Yes, three V's. I like saying it... Revvvvvvvvvolution. Hehe. This is a stunner. A heart-stopper! A true black holo, like OPI My Private Jet but BETTER! It's so dense and smooth that you can get away with one coat, whereas My Private Jet needs three or four. I have a feeling this is going to be a huge hit. It's too beautiful to ignore. Color Club did an amazing job on this shade.



Where's the Soiree? The only disappointment in this collection. From the Polish Addict's promo pictures, this color looks like it was supposed to be a black with shimmer or glitter, somewhere along the lines of Misa Wishing On A Star. But, unfortunately, Where's The Soiree? is just a plain black creme. It's a nice black creme, but not what I was hoping for based on the promotional images. Maybe they had to change it at the last minute. Ironically, this is the only one that gave me trouble with application- it was rather runny and watery and kept pooling at my cuticles. Had to redo it three times.





Worth The Risque. Gorgeous. It seems like I'm repeating myself a lot with these collections: gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, spectacular, sexy, fantastic, wonderful. All of the above are true for any polish in both Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale, so it bears repeating. This is a perfect silver holographic polish that's much, much more dense than any holographic polish I own. It's perfect and beautiful, and like the other Color Club holos, blinding.


And, because they were just begging to be layered, here's the sheers from Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale layered over Where's The Soiree?





Index: Runway Muse
Middle: Ready To Wear
Ring: Femme Fatale
Pinkie: Oui! Oui! Oui!

See how spectacular they are layered? It really brings out all the colors of the duochrome polishes and makes the shimmer in the sheers stand out.


I can not even express to you how positively thrilled I am with the new Color Club holos. This is the first time I've ever seen them do a holographic polish and they totally nailed it. Perfect in every way. I hope there are more Color Club holos in the future! They rock!!

Application on all of these was perfect, with the exception of Where's The Soiree?, which was watery.

I haven't used the holos with Konad yet, but they seem like they would be perfect. I'm going to try it as soon as I can find where I left my stamper....


Overall, both Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatal are awesome. Amazing. Breathtaking. Color Club saves spring! They've delivered us from the usual blah colors and given us something new and interesting. I think it's my top spring collection. Zoya Twist and Misa Living On The Fast Lane are tied for a close second. But, it's hard to compare this collection to the other spring collections because it's so different. I love different.

If you've never tried Color Club before, you really must. They're such high-quality polishes and they have some of the most unique and amazing colors (Glitter Vixen, Dance To The Musique, Neons, remember those??) but they are extremely affordable. High-end quality for a low-end price. You can't beat that.


*sigh* So pretty....

(With a spring collection this amazing, I'm dying to see what they have planned for summer!)

Color Club Spring 2009: Catwalk Queen

All of these spring pastels are really depressing. Year after year after year we get the same old boring, lifeless pastels for spring...

Luckily, we have Color Club to save us!

They've released two collections for spring that literally made me jump for joy. Sure, there's some pastels, but they're different. Different and awesome.

Take a look for yourself, you'll see what I mean!



Catwalk Queen. Good gravy, this is one of the hottest purples ever! It's a rich, dark, vampy purple with dense particle shimmer. Super sexy, not at all spring-like and right up my alley! I'd say this is a must have for purple lovers- it's a dark purple that still looks purple and not black!



Fashion Addict. Different lighting and angles to show just how insanely holographic it is. HOLO!! FOR SPRING!!!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!! Fashion Addict is an amazing light purple holo. It's extremely dense and blindingly prismatic.



Front Row Diva. A lovely, unique light grey with a tiny touch of purple and a beautiful pearl finish. For those of you confused about the difference between frost and pearl finishes, this is a perfect example of a pearl finish. It looks like expensive grey pearls on your nails!




Ready To Wear. A sheer, pearlescent pink/grey near-duochrome. Very dreamy and romantic. This picture is three coats, and you can tell that it's nearly opaque. One more coat might have made it totally opaque, but I actually like the sheer look of this. It even looks nice with just one coat.


Runway Muse. It's not really obvious from my picture, but this is a strong aqua/pink/silvery duochrome. Very seashell-like. Gorgeous. Reminds me a lot of the rare, discontinued OPI Think It's Pink?. It gives me the impression of a layer of sheer, dreamy fabric. Fairy colored. This is extremely pretty on it's own, but it's even better over black. I'll get to that in part two.



Vintage Couture. A mod lilac-baby-pink creme. Very pretty and delicate, but kinda 'edgy' at the same time. It's so stark and strong that it's very unusual compared to the types of pinks you usually see.


This collection is amazing. I'm floored by it!! I'm so utterly impressed with Color Club- they tend to be more daring, more fun and definitely not afraid to take a chance with their colors. I love them for that. And this is only one half of what they've released for spring!

Application was perfect. Great formula on all of them. The only one that gave me a little trouble was Vintage Couture, because after I applied the second coat, it kept wiping away a spot of polish at the cuticle and leaving a little bald spot. This was fixed with a third coat. A little annoying, but not a deal-breaker for me.

Fantastic collection, I love every single color.

Aren't you curious about part two? The second Color Club spring collection? Stay tuned :)