Purplecat Creatives – Body Butters

Today I have something a little different to share with you all. In addition to indie polish, I am a big fan of handmade indie products in general, from bath and beauty to art prints and home decor. Because of that, I’ve been thinking of broadening The Polish Fox and beginning to work in a review here and there that focuses on indie products outside of the polish realm.

Here goes – my first try at reviewing something other than nail polish! Body butters seemed like a safe place to start. So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Purplecat Creatives:

I am very sensitive to scents – I can’t wear spray perfumes, and often get headaches from floral, fruity, or artifical scents. I tend to do all right with creamy or woodsy aromas though, so I tried six body butters that leaned in these categories, and here’s my impression:

Pumpkin Macchiato: I get nutmeg, mocha, cream, and a hint of pumpkin – it’s a mellow, meandering scent.

Hot Buttered Rum: No. Just, no. I hate this one. I detect absolutely no butter or rum – it has an overwhelming scent of banana, of all things – sickly sweet, like banana laffy taffy.

Raven’s Blend: Chocolatey, but with a hint of something tangy, almost like orange peels. Levels out with the grounded aroma of coffee and hazelnut.

Dreamcatcher: Spicy, fruity vanilla. I don’t know why I detect fruitiness in so many of these that are not supposed to have hints of fruit – maybe something is wrong with my nose. It’s nice, though. Vanilla with a twist.

Twilight Gypsy: This smells like a dentist’s office to me. Like baby powder, and some sort of gentle antiseptic. Not really getting much of a gypsy or a twilight feel.

Bohemian Lager: It opens with a sweet, creamy aroma, like pumpkin laced frosting. It unfurls into something woodsier and oaky. Like nibbling on sweet bread while meandering through an old library. My favorite of the bunch.

The shop descriptions of the scents didn’t really match with how they smelled to me in person, but ordering scents online is always a bit tricky. I did end up being such a huge fan of Boheman Lager that I went back and ordered a giant jar of it (and have already used around half of it because it just smells so good to me).

And I actually get a lot more use out of the tiny sample sizes than I would have expected. The formula is the same for all of them – rich and creamy, with an almost whipped, airy consistency. They also absorb quickly, more like a lotion than a butter, which I loved. 

I always have one in my purse, and I even took a couple of them with me on my trip to the Philippines and they were very handy to have on hand. And on my hands! Ha.

Overall, I would definitely recommend Purplecat Creatives’ body butters – but I suggest ordering the samples first, so you can make sure you find a scent you like.

Purplecat Creatives etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/PurplecatCreatives?ref=si_shop#

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PurplecatCreatives/info

Site (with descriptions of all their scents): http://www.purplecat-creatives.com/

Oh Christmas Tree – Colors by Llarowe

Let’s talk about rainbows for a minute.

Those lovely, fleeting, colorful ROYGBIV’s that unfurl after a rain – they show up for only a moment, and then they’re gone. But where do rainbows go once they’ve vanished from the sky?

I think I know.

Rainbowsplosion, aka ‘Oh Christmas Tree’ under my kitchen lights.

Here’s my theory, and I’m pretty sure it’s 100% possibly true: there’s this leprechaun, and he hates rainbows because they’re basically like enormous, shiny arrows proclaiming ‘BUCKET OF GOLD HERE ~>’ and I think him and Llarowe are in business together. So he stuffs all the rainbows into bottles and sells them to Llarowe, and clearly that’s the only thing that makes any sense here, there is NO other logical explanation, because look at this:

One generous coat with HK Girl on top; with flash.

Seriously, look at it.

Direct indoor lighting.

There has gotta be some crazy hijinx going on to make that much rainbow glide off a lil polish brush.

‘Oh Christmas Tree’ is a darkened green teal, and the holo is insane. It’s even stronger in person. And on top of that, the formula is rich enough to be a one-coater. Nice.

Some of you may remember that I was a little cranky with my first Colors by Llarowe experience because I felt like the polish was different in person than pictured on the site. I can tell you that I have tried two more CbL’s since then (Oh Christmas Tree and Oxen), and both of these have been accurately portrayed and excellent quality. Combine that with her excellent customer service, and I’m definitely still a fan.

In sunlight.

This was a holiday polish that is no longer available in Llarowe’s shop, but it is one of the polishes available in my giveaway. And as of right now there are only 67 entries, so you have not-so-bad odds if you enter!

So, here are some links for those interested. Later, lacqueristas!

– Colors by Llarowe shop

– Colors by Llarowe giveaway

– Llarowe’s Facebook page (for updates, restocks, and the occasional flash giveaways)

– Andddd a random picture of a very happy puppy if you need a pick-me-up.

Nostalgia – I Love Nail Polish

And now I introduce the multichrome to end all multichromes: Nostalgia.

 

Shaboom

Shabow

holy cow

That’s right. Nostalgia is a multichrome, shapeshifting beast of a polish that will mesmerize and hypnotize. I would not recommend this polish to professional magicians. It would make sleight of hand impossible.

2-3 coats (can’t remember for sure) with Seche Vite on top

Nostalgia is made by I Love Nail Polish, a brand I hold in very high regard. Their polishes are excellent quality, they’re shipped promptly, they handle launches BEAUTIFULLY, and they’re very involved in the polish community.

You can find Nostalgia at their website, www.ilnp.com.

Happy New Year everyone! 🙂

Colors By Llarowe Giveaway!

Hi all! I was gone for a few weeks in the Philippines, but now I’m back…with a GIVEAWAY!

Due to a site glitch, I was accidentally sent some extra Colors By Llarowe polishes. When I contacted Llarowe, they said I could use them as a giveaway for you lucky readers – woohoo! So thanks to Llarowe’s generosity, you have the chance to win Oxen, Oh Christmas Tree, and Gunfighter!

Oh Christmas Tree, Gunfighter, Oxen

Some of you might remember that my review of Gunfighter was not completely positive – this was because it appeared different in person than it did in the swatch photo on Llarowe’s website. I am happy to tell you that this is not the case with Oh Christmas Tree and Oxen – both of them rich in color and holo, and exactly as they were pictured. Also, Gunfighter is still a beautiful polish that’s worth getting excited over as a giveaway prize (my frustration had mostly just been over its difference in person).

The Polish Fox is not a very big blog, so I was touched that Llarowe offered to let me use these polishes for a giveaway. They really do have amazing customer service – it’s what keeps me going back to them again and again.

So hop on over to my facebook page to enter for a chance to win! Because my blog is not self-hosted, I can’t put it directly here on my website for you all. If any of you do not wish to like my facebook page in order to enter, just email me at nailpolishfox@gmail.com and I’ll enter you into the raffle manually. 🙂

National Geographic, here I come!

So enter here if you’re interested, and good luck! And a big thank you to Llarowe for the generous donation!!

 

Nightcrawler – Polished By KPT

It’s a thermal. It’s a duochrome. It’s Nightcrawler by Polished By KPT and it’s seriously awesome.

I’m not even going to blab on like I usually do because you guys just need to see this.

Nightcrawler in transition; two coats + seche vite.

This is one of those times where I wish I knew how to swatch like other nail bloggers do because I can’t do this polish justice with my pictures. You can get an idea of how awesome it is, but it sparkles and shifts so much more beautifully in person.

Nightcrawler in warm state.

In its warm state, Nightcrawler is a delicate, sheer blue that shifts purple at certain angles. It’s soft and ethereal and almost seems to glow.

Cold state.

In its cold state, it becomes a rich, deep blue with light blue shimmer, and still maintains the duochromatic shift to purple. The duochrome effect is subtle and well-balanced. Sometimes you want to have a lot of duochrome, but with this polish it would distract from all the other gorgeousness going on.

Nightcrawler is currently sold out, but you can follow Polished By KPT on her instagram or facebook for restock updates. Also, you can check out other Polished By KPT colors at her website. In addition to Nightcrawler, I own Country Road (which is still in stock, by the way), and I would totally recommend both. Come to think of it, I believe they’ve become the two most top worn polishes in my stash, that’s how much I like them.

Polished By KPT website – http://polishedbykpt.bigcartel.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KPTranPolish

Instagram: http://instagram.com/polishedbykpt

Gunfighter – Colors by Llarowe

Sigh. This polish totally bummed me out.

‘Gunfighter’ is the first Colors by Llarowe I’ve ever tried. Her polishes sell crazy fast, and I had been lemming after this one for a while ever since I first came across it on Llarowe, but it was sold out for a long while and I couldn’t find blogger swatches of it anywhere. But it looked amazing in the listing picture – a rich, deep green jelly with sparkles of red shining through the dark depths. I hadn’t seen a combo like it before, so when the next restock finally came around I picked it up and couldn’t wait for it to arrive in the mail.

Maybe I built it up in my head, but when I finally got the package and unwrapped it, it was a total ‘meh’ experience seeing it in person. It didn’t look very similar to the swatch picture I had seen on her website, but I had hope it might look different once I finally tried it on.

This is the picture of Gunfighter on Llarowe’s listing:

This is Gunfigher as worn by me, in indoor lighting with no flash:

Two coats Gunfighter with one coat Seche Vite on top.

Oh. Well, maybe I just needed to go into direct sunlight to get the intense shimmer as described and pictured in the listing.

Direct sunlight, no flash.

Um…kind of?

On the bright side, one cool thing about Gunfighter was that at certain angles it would flash a brilliant green, like this:

But again, that wasn’t described in the listing and it wasn’t what I was expecting.

I mean, it’s a pretty polish. But the shimmer, while a pretty burnt orange color, is not as bold in real life, and in low lighting it gets completely swallowed by the deep green. And the formula was rather difficult to work with – it was thick, a little gloopy, and the first coat applied streaky in some places. Jellies in general can be a little more difficult to work with, but it was the cherry on top of my initial disappointment.

I think if my expectations for this polish had been different, I might have enjoyed Gunfighter overall.  I don’t think Llarowe was trying to be misleading with the listing (I have done business with her company several times and she always has amazing customer service), but I think the polish does appear different in person than it does in the current listing, and ultimately I felt a little like Hercules:

only less dramatic and without the goatee.

So, I don’t think I would recommend Gunfighter. However, I DO have a couple more Colors by Llarowe coming my way and I have high hopes for them, as they are holos instead of jelly and I’ve heard that’s where Llarowe really shines. Gunfighter didn’t do much for me, but I am still impressed with Llarowe’s dedication and creativity in general, and have heard her holos are some of the best around.

View Colors by Llarowe on her website. They sell out quickly; follow her on facebook for restock updates.

Lunairetic by Rainbow Honey

How is it already November 25? Thanksgiving is coming up, Christmas stuff is already EVERYWHERE, and Black Friday deals are on every corner. I love the holidays, but for some reason it seems to be overwhelming me a bit this year. So I decided to fight back by putting on the glammest polish I know of – Rainbow Honey’s Lunairetic.

Lunairetic – direct sunlight

Now if I start to get overcome by an onslaught of holiday ads, I can hold up my hands and ward them off with a shining sparkleball of light. Kind of like a glitter form of Hadouken.

Get BACK, ye marketers and commercials!

Lunairetic is from Rainbow Honey’s ‘Chrono Cross’ collection, and it’s an oldie but a good, good, goodie. It can serve as a topper, but it also goes opaque in just two coats. I’m wearing two coats in these photos, so you can see how opaque it gets. It goes on thick, but that is only because it is PACKED with glitter. And it’s an enormously manageable sort of thick – molasses-ey, but spreads easily and quickly.

It does dry rough, so if you want to smooth it out you’ll have to use topcoat. It’s glitter hungry, so the next time I use this polish I will probably put Glitter Food on top and then one coat of Seche Vite. You could  just do 2-3 coats of a regular topcoat though, too. *Edit – One of my readers also suggested Gelous as a glitter feeder, which can be found at Sally’s Beauty Supply. Thank you, Cindy! :)*

I also used Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter A-Peel as a basecoat for this mani so I wouldn’t have to struggle with glitter removal. If you’re the kind of person who likes to paint their nails every few days or who dreads removing glitter polish, Glitter A-Peel is awesome – it peels right off, easy peezy.

Lunairetic in the shade

It had been a while since I broke out any of my Rainbow Honeys, and I forgot how excellent the quality of the polishes are. I had this one sitting under my sink for close to a year now, and when I pulled it out it was as if I’d just bought it. Usually my older indies experience some glitter sinkage or separation, but this baby was in tip-top shape.

It’s a gorgeous blend of colors and glitters. For some reason, it reminds of an old era Venetian Masquerade – I think it’s the harlequin diamond glitters that give it that sort of feel. There is NO fishing, and it spreads evenly.

So if you’re into glitterbombs, I highly recommend Lunairetic. I feel like it’s such an unappreciated beauty – Rainbow Honey polishes gets lots of (deserved) love and praise, but I hardly ever hear about this one.

You can find it in mini and full size at Rainbow Honey’s website. And that’s that! If I don’t post again before Thanksgiving, I hope it’s a wonderful one for all of you who celebrate. 🙂

Indian Summer by CrowsToes.

I can’t even. I’ve got CrowsToes ‘Indian Summer’ on right now and…holy moly cannoli, people. I can’t even use the words good anymore. You think I’m messing around here? You think I’m kidding? I’m not kidding. Indian Summer is glow-freaking-amazeballs.

Direct Sunlight. You can see a bit of the microtwinkle you get in the sun here.

Oh snapppppp.

I love this polish.

Sometimes painting my nails makes me feel a little better when I’ve had a long day. So even though I got home late last night and was exhausted, I wanted to do some lacquer-therapy before I went to bed. I threw on Indian Summer while half-asleep, by the dim glow of the television; squinted at my nails and thought, ‘hm, looks pretty neat.’ Then I stumbled into bed and promptly conked out.

Fast forward to this morning. I yawn and kick the blankets off, then see my nails in daylight.

“IT’S SO GLORIOUS!” I cry, holding my hands up in front of me.

It took me like two minutes longer than it usually does to make my first cup of coffee of the day because I was so distracted by my nails. A polish that distracts me from caffeine? So rare. So wow. So Indian Summer.

Two coats Indian Summer with one coat Seche Vite in low-light/shade.

Now, I don’t even like the color purple. My favorite color is green. My least favorite color? Purple. But this polish had been making its rounds in my newsfeed, and it keeps selling out super quickly. So I finally broke down and bought it the last time it was restocked at Llarowe.

Purple-haters, listen up. This is one of those rare purples that will make you frown, cross your arms and grumble, “fine, I don’t hate ALL purple.” It just glows with life. It’s rich and vibrant. And it’s not just purple – it shifts to blue and magenta and orange-red. It’s a crisp, cold autumn night with a scarf wrapped around your neck and a chill reddening your cheeks, and the evening sky a range of colors as the sun sets.

Indirect lighting/indoors.

Yeah, I’m a fan. Could you tell yet?

You can find CrowsToes at several online retailers, including Llarowe. Llarowe is the only one of the retailers that I’ve had experience with and can personally recommend, so it’s the only one I’ll link to here. But for a list of other places to get CrowsToes, you can check her facebook.

Man oh man. I’m going to go back to staring at my nails, now. Maybe I’ll make another cup of coffee, too. Woo boy. It’s going to be a crazy Saturday.

Cult Nails Masquerade

So, it’s been a while, but I’m back(ish)! My posts will probably be more sparing now, but I’m easing into things with a crazy gorgeous polish that is also, um…kind of not available anymore. And I didn’t even realize it until I started this post, so I’m sorry! But it’s a gorgeous polish, and I’d already taken pictures, and maybe if we all ask Cult Nails nicely, they’ll make more of the Masquerade collection? 

Whew. So after that longwinded intro, let me introduce you to Masquerade: 

Three Coats masquerade with one coat Seche Vite on top.

The base color is a deep teal jelly that leans green, and it glows with a purple-green-gold shimmer. Sophisticated with a bite.

I didn’t have any direct sunlight when I was photographing it today, but even in undercast lighting, you can still see the shimmer at play here. It jumps from purple, to pink to gold, and even green. Stunning. 

And now for something completely different. Introducing Masquerade: the animal edition!

I was taking a picture of one of my sloth buddies today, and realized I’d gotten my nails in the shot. And then suddenly I thought, well, why not showcase nail polish and animals all in one? Because yeah, I get really distracted at work and these are the things that go through my head. 

So if you were curious how Masquerade pairs with, say, armadillo, then wonder no longer. 

Priscilla Dilla, the armadillo who loves food more than anything.

And Beetlejuice (my favorite bird in the whole wide world) was a big fan of Masquerade. Okay, so really he was just happy to be getting a neck rub. I’m not even sure if birds can see colors, now that I think about it. Moving on. 

And you might think Big Nose the sloth was just interested in jicama here, but you’re wrong. Really, she was like, ‘dang, those nails are awesome!’ But she thought it really slowly, because, you know, she’s a sloth.

And there you have it! It’s been a while since I’ve written a nail polish post, so I apologize if I’m a bit rusty. But overall I’m a huge fan of this polish! It was my first experience with Cult Nails, and I’m impressed. Went on smoothly with no streaking, dried quickly, and looked gorgeous. It wasn’t quite as durable as some of my other polishes, but not enough to be a dealbreaker for me. 

The Masquerade Collection is currently sold out, but Cult Nails has a lot of other stunning polishes AND free shipping in the US! Check out their website to learn more. 

Until next time, indie polish fans! 🙂

Um, hi.

Hi guys. I kind of disappeared for a while there. I’m hoping no one noticed, but if anyone did…well, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I just vanished like that, and didn’t give any word.

If it’s any consolation, I work with a real live fox now. His name is Snickerdoodle, and he’s still a pup and kind of a butthead. I’m currently trying to teach him to get comfortable with hand-feeding, but he’s more interested in bouncing around and making little yipping noises.

If I just paint his nails, he’ll be a real polish fox!

I wanted to come back and say hi, but the longer I waited the worse I felt and the more I felt like I couldn’t say anything because everyone probably already hated me for disappearing. But I took a deep breath and decided to check in on my facebook page this week, and received so many supportive comments. I’m always astounded by the kindness I encounter in the nail polish community!

So, I’m hoping to have a post up in the next hour or two, just kind of easing back into things. I probably won’t post as regularly as I used to, but I’ve missed you all and I’ve missed sharing indies with you! I’m sorry again I dropped off the face of the planet for a while. But I’m looking forward to starting things up again, if you’re all alright with that! 🙂