[NOTD] - Million Styles Topcoats

It's going to be very quiet here for a while. My work placement unfortunately leaves me no time to do lots of nail-related stuff - at least not while there is light to make good pictures ;) Which is probably just as well, because my cuticles and nails are in sore need of some pampering that doesn't involve daily application of polish remover!

I did find a little time for a nice mani last week, using two of the new Catrice effect topcoats from the Million Styles limited collection. I only got these two, Godfather of Pearl and Return of Space Cowboys, the others seemed somewhat boring...

Left: Godfather of Pearl
Right: Return of Space Cowboys.

When I first tried them, I was extremely disappointed: despite the completely different look in the bottle, they seemed to be very similar when applied over a dark base. They both contain the same duochrome teal-purple shimmer in a transparent base: Pearl's is milky and almost clear and Space Cowboys' is a murky dark grey. At a closer look there are some differences. Apart from the duochrome, Godfather of Pearl also contains lots of silver microglitter and it has more of a in-your-face, shiny! sparkly! glitter effect whereas Return of Space Cowboys is more subtle. Also, Pearl can be used over light colours. Space Cowboys' dark base creates an unpleasant dirty effect when used over anything lighter than the base itself. I'd also say that the duochrome effect is more pronounced in Pearl.

A few words about quality: the topcoats are a bit runny, but still manageable and the mani lasted for three days with no chips before I took it off. It takes some effort to remove the stuff, but whichever method you use on glitter will work just fine on these. You don't necessarily need a glossy topcoat, but I dare say most of us use a quick drying one anyway.

I already posted some mishappen swatches in my last Saturday Swatches post and today I want to show a mani with which I tried to showcase the two topcoats' similarities and differences. I used H&M Sweet Blue Dreams, an indigo / purple one coater as a base:

1 Coat of H&M Sweet Blue Dreams

I then applied two coats of the two topcoats on alternating fingers.

Index & ring finger: 1 Coat of H&M Sweet Blue Dreams + 2 coats of Catrice's Godfather of Pearl
Middle & little finger: 1 Coat of H&M Sweet Blue Dreams + 2 Coats of Catrice's Return of Space Cowboys

And here is my right hand, with only one coat of the Catrice polishes. It was very hard to capture, but the difference is that the base colour is shining through much more and the differences between the toppers are somewhat less pronounced.

Aaaand, more after the jump. Beware of gratuitous picspam \0/

Saturday Swatches

Has it really been a week? Here comes the 2nd instalment of Saturday Swatches.

Catrice Million Styles Limited Edition - Godfather of Pearl. One coat over blue, purple & black.

Catrice Million Styles LE - Return of Space Cowboys. One coat over blue, purple & black.

P2 - Just need style! Two coats with TC. What are those cuticles? OMG.

Every Saturday, I'm posting manis, swatches and other assorted nail-related pictures taken during the week that didn't make it into a post of their own. If there's some polish here you're particularly interested in, drop me a line and I'll write a more detailed blog entry about it.