Freak Show Polish - New Tinted Bases

Hi, guys! I've been gone for more than a month, and unfortunately with my extremely busy schedule, this blog fell on the back burner for a little while. I'm back though, and have some really great indie polishes lined up that I'm excited to share with you all. I won't be able to post as frequently as I was before, but I have many a mani to post from my little hiatus - what, did you think I haven't been polishing my nails this whole time? Lol! For those who follow me on Instagram, you will be seeing a reprise of previous swatches. So without further ado, let's get started.

Today I have for you some amazing polishes from an indie brand Freak Show Polish, which I already have a review on their first five previous polishes. These are maybe, if not actually, the best indie jelly base glitter polishes that I've tried! The formulas are pure perfection!

First up is Circus Elephant a sheer, but easily buildable, gray jelly base filled with a colourful assortment of glitters in different sizes and shapes along with beautiful small translucent glitters than shine golden in the light. This polish totally brings to mind an ornately decorated performing elephant. It's an absolutely gorgeous polish with an even more beautiful application. It goes on smoothly and evenly, with no streaking or patchiness as is the case with some sheer polishes. The glitters also disperse over the nail evenly without clumping together and lay smoothly over the nail surface. Shown in the swatches is 3 thin coats, which were self leveling and required no work at all to look good. This polish would make a great layering polish as well since you get a great glitter pay off in one coat.

Next is Ringmaster, a bright red jelly base with gold, red, white, and black glitters along with the same golden translucent glitters found in Circus Elephant. The jelly base in this is so amazing; it looks exactly like a red lollipop - my personal favourite. Haha. This is 3 coats on it's own, but would look fantastic over any red base. I think it would look perfectly for this fall/winter over an ox blood coloured polish to add a more vampy look to it.

Now for my personal favourite of the three polishes, Mime. This is a stunning milky white sheer jelly base with black and white glitters, some long bar glitters, and again those gorgeous translucent golden glitters. This polish is perfection. Even with the long bar glitters, which I usually don't like because they tend to either curl or not sit flatly on the nail, this polish's formula is perfection. The glitters spread over the nail easily, and there was no need to place or fish out any of the glitters. This is also 3 coats of the polish without a colored base underneath for the swatches, but for my personal preference I would only use 2 because I love how this looks when it's slightly more sheer. Even then, there's no problem with streakiness or patches of colour. Like I said, perfection.

All of these polishes, as well as the 5 others I reviewed previously, are all obtainable on the Freak Show Polish website www.freakshowpolish.bigcartel.com in mini bottles (as shown in the pictures) or full size bottles. Freak Show Polish is also a participating company for The Big Pink Box. Mini size bottles will be included in an upcoming month's box as well as a special promo code for specifically for those customers.

Overall, I am so pleased with these three polishes and how well they performed. I love a good jelly polish, and these just hit it out of the park in terms of performance and overall quality. I'll definitely be excited to see what else Freak Show Polish has to offer in the future.

Thanks as always for reading, and I'll see you in my next post.


These polishes were sent to me for review.

Elle, Très Belle!

Let's just feast our eyes in unison at this beautiful pink and gray combination. This stunning polish, made by KB Shimmer, is the definition of classic with a twist.

Combining a soft gray jelly base with pink and silver glitters never looked so ladylike. This polish has micro pink, small silver and pink hex, small and medium silver square, and large silver and pink hex glitters - such a perfect mix! The glitters applied smoothly and evenly over the nail in one coat. Elle has a pretty sheer base, so as to not overwhelm the nail with too much glitter, I layered it over another gray polish. I used Joe Fresh - Fog, which is a slightly darker, more cool-toned gray creme that was opaque in one coat.

The mix of pink and gray is so subtle and simple, and the variety of different glitters adds such a nice visual texture to the nail. I highly recommend visiting www.kbshimmer.com to check this and many other gorgeous polishes out.

As always, thank you for reading!

Frankenstine Polish Michael Jackson trio

Here is a full review for the trio Smooth Criminal, Billy Jean, and Thriller from the Michael Jackson Collection, brought to you by Frankenstine Polish. They are handmade glitter top coats and can be found through Facebook.

The first polish we have is Smooth Criminal, a clear base with tiny square and large hex matte white glitters, small black hex glitters, and large Lapiz blue hex glitters. The application was extremely nice on this polish; the glitters were densely enough packed that they evenly coated the entire nail with one coat. The glitter spaced out well by themselves and they didn't clump together at all. There is slight curving of the large blue glitters, but nothing too severe. I topped this off with a coat of Seche Vite.

The next polish is Billie Jean, a mix of small light pinky white hex, medium dark red hex, with some small holographic hex glitters thrown in there as well. I would prefer this polish to be slightly less dense than it is, this being one coat over Essie - Lollipop, because I feel that all the small glitters of the same variety just look bunched together. I also feel that the sporadic larger red glitters seem out of place, or lost even, in the snowstorm of the smaller glitters. With that being said, the glitters spread out beautiful over the nail in easy strokes of the brush. With my personal preference set aside, it is a well performing polish. This is topped with Seche Vite.

Lastly, we have my favourite polish from the trio, Thriller. A mix of small hexagonal matte black and red glitters, with the same colours of long bar glitters as well. This is a great polish that can be used with a variety of colours as a base (I've used it with a silver metallic base underneath), and the fact that the glitter particles are matte adds just another special touch. This is two coats of polish, and the glitters spread out evenly and spaced out wonderfully without maneuvering. I left out a top coat so you could see the true finish of the glitters themselves.

This is a must-have set for any fan of Michael just for nostalgia, and I enjoyed the polishes overall, with Thriller being the stand-out for me in this trio. For anyone wishing to purchase these polishes, you can contact Christine, the creator and producer of this brand, at frankenstinepolishes@earthlink.net
These polishes were sent to me for review.

As always, thank you for reading!

31 Day Challenge - Day 11: Polkadots

Yes, I'm pretty crazy about this manicure. Anyone who has been a follower of mine on Instagram (@kimberlymaranan) knows that I'm such a sucker for any pink creme polish. Combine that with glitter? Well, now that is a stellar mani in my books.

I have channeled my inner yogi with this beautiful, universally flattering rosy pink creme from Essie's Fall 2012 Yogaga Collection called Marathin. This polish is so amazing, even though I think that the name perpetuates the "thin is in" mind set, but I digress. Every woman can wear this colour; it's girly and sophisticated, neutral enough to wear every day (which I would if I didn't have so many polishes), and just gives the nails an overall polished look. If the fabulous colour wasn't enough, the formula on this polish is also superb. It's opaque in one beautifully even, leveling coat. This polish also dries very quicky for an opaque creme polish. If you slap some Seche Vite over it, your mani is done in 5 minutes tops.

Now that isn't even the star of this manicure, it's the polkadots of this amazing glitter. Cynthia Rowley brings us this beautiful polish filled with tiny blue glitters with some hot pink and hold glitters thrown in as well. The mix of colours is fantastic and so unique. If it wasn't for the hot pink glitters, this would be a pretty perfect dupe for OPI - Absolutely Allice. The glitters are very densely packed in the clear base, and if applied all over the nail, this polish would be opaque with two thick coats.

For the polkadots, I actually used the rounded end of a bobby pin to dot them onto the nail. It was a pretty perfect tool for the job, giving small even dots. While doing this mani, I found that it is ten times easier dotting with a glitter polish than a creme one. It's much easier to control the amount of polish you are applying to the nail, and therefore you are less likely to get blobs of polish instead of tiny, little dots.

So hopefully you're as swept away by this mani as I am. I know that I'll be sad to have to remove it so I can do tomorrow's challenge, but I'll enjoy it for as long as I can. Thanks as always for reading, and I hope you stop by for tomorrow's mani!

31 Day Challenge - Day 10: Gradient

Since I posted a gradient for a previous challenge, I wanted to change things up slightly. And because I don't think I'm good enough to tackle more than a two-colour look, this is the manicure I came up with.

This angled gradient creates a chevron effect across the nails which I personally have never seen before. Due to my fading lighting (sorry, the sun was going down), I had a ton of glare off the super shiny top coat so please excuse that as it skews your view of the actual design. For this nail look I used Revlon - Posh as an all-over base to start. This is a fantastic bright, summery green with a formula that is to die for. A one-coater, smooth and fast-drying, it's definitely one of my favourites that the brand has to offer.

I then painted some of Posh and some of China Glaze - Smoke And Ashes from the Spring 2012 Hunger Games Capitol Colors Collection onto a sponge. Smoke And Ashes is an almost black green base with beautiful green-blue-gold multi-chromatic shimmers throughout. Obviously these pictures do this polish zero justice to its beauty in real life. I then transferred the polish from the sponge to the nail by dabbing it on the nail at a 45 degree angle, and redoing this step until the China Glaze colour was opaque at the base. I repeated this step for each nail, alternating directions so as to create the chevron. I then finished the look off with a coat of Essie - Good To Go top coat, just to even out the the surface and add a beautiful shine.

It may be that these polishes don't look great together, or together as a gradient, but whatever it is, this definitely is not one combination that I'll be trying again. I do love both polishes separately, so we'll experiment with them in different looks for the future.

Thanks as always for reading, and be sure to check out my post for tomorrow because I'm completely enamoured with it!

31 Day Challenge - Day 9: Rainbow

Darn, and I was doing so well with posting one every single day! Oh well, hopefully this one was worth the wait. I chose to feature a rainbow confetti glitter for today's challenge, and this one is gorgeous.

A shot in direct sunlight

Nancy's Birthday from Whimsical Ideas by Pam is a multicoloured glitter of varying sizes in a cool pastel pink jelly base. There's silver, hot pink, sky blue, kelly green, orange, and sunny yellow glitters in there. This nail polish is basically a party on your fingertips! Application is a breeze, with a tone of glitter in every stroke. You don't need to do some strange dabbing technique for the glitter to be placed evenly over the entire nail, so that's pretty terrific. To top that off, the amount of glitter on my nails is achieved with only two coats! The base colour is still slightly sheer, with a hint of visible nail line showing through, which I personal like. If you want it completely opaque, just add a third coat.

A shot under indirect sunlight

With such large, chunky glitters, you would think that the surface of this polish when dried would be extremely bumpy and uneven. Well compared to some others with this amount of glitter, that is not so. The glitters actually do a good job of laying flat on the surface of the nail minimizing the uneven texture. A thin layer of Essie - Good To Go top coat and the surface is smooth like glass. I think this would be a great polish for many skin tones, because although the base colour leans slightly cooler toned, it's still a very flattering colour on warm skin-toned gals like myself.

Whimsical Ideas by Pam polishes can be purchased through her from her Facebook page, just search Whimsical Ideas by Pam. Shipping only provided for the US. Stayed tuned for my next challenge mani a little later today, and thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge - Day 6: Violet

A beautiful, dimensional polish from Whimsical Ideas by Pam is the feature for today's nail challenge. I didn't feel the need to do any nail art or add anything else to this polish, well because let's face it - it's stunning.

Peanut Butter and Jelly is a gorgeous plumy purple creme base with a cooler toned purple sheen with micro and large hexagonal gold glitters. This was opaque in two coats, although under full direct sunlight, it does look somewhat patchy.

This picture is under indirect sunlight and it looks much less patchy. I am very impressed with the quality of this polish. The glitters dispersed on the nail evenly and there was absolutely no need to push or place the glitters around the nail. Application was smooth and easy, no streaking or patchiness at all, and the polish dried evenly with no grittiness. As with all my manicures, I used Seche Vite as a top coat for maximum shine and durability.

All in all, this is a great polish and the quality is extremely impressive. These polishes are available for purchase from Pam on her Facebook page, Whimsical Ideas by Pam. Unfortunately, these are only available for shipment within the US, but a friend was kind enough to mail these to me since I live in Canada.

31 Day Challenge - Day 5: Blue

This is another one of those manicures that is more beautiful because of its imperfections. A gradient using foil polishes is anything but easy; especially the clean-up, now that was a pain. Hopefully though, you think it's as worth the hardships as I do.

I used two polishes from Color Club's Fall 2011 Foiled Collection called Lumin-Icent, which is a light, icy blue metallic foil, and Cold Metal, a mid-tone cobalt blue metallic foil. Both of which were nicely opaque and only need one coat in a regular manicure. It's best to take you're time when applying them however, since like most foil/metallic polishes, they can be very streaky if not applied carefully.

What is a foil nail polish? Basically it's like if a metallic polish and a shimmer polish ever had a baby, a foil polish would be it. Another example would be if you have ever seen a sheet of metal leaf (used primarily for crafting), a foil polish, when dried down, gives the same effect. It's just as finicky as a metallic polish when applying, since you see every mistake and imperfection on your nail. It also shines like a shimmer polish, not as pronounced, but just as pretty. Foil polishes also tend to have a silver shimmer base to them, as these and all the others from this collection that I have do.

Since I chose to create a gradient using the sponging technique (I explain how to do this in my Goodbye Summer Gradient mani), the texture of the sponge left a kind of "crumpled" look to the polish. As if you had balled up a bunch of aluminum foil and then tried to smooth it out again. You'll never get it perfect, but the texture that's left is gorgeous.

I'm so pleased with this manicure, and I'm excited to try it with some of my other foils polishes in the future. See you tomorrow for my purple mani. I hope everyone had a wonderful Wednesday!

31 Day Challenge - Day 4: Green

This is not the best I've ever executed a manicure before, and the type of polish is partly to blame, but this colour combination... now that is something I am proud of. A deep chevron scotch tape mani is what I chose, and I feel like it shows off these two colours spectacularly.

Both polishes are from Color Club, but unfortunately I do not know the names of them, yet again, since they were ones that came in a set. The base of three of the nails is a golden blonde nude metallic (I found out the name! It's called Antiquated from the Fall 2011 Foiled Collection). Very pretty colour, but extremely streaky as most metallic polishes are. Every mistake I made was highlighted and emphasized further with this polish, so that was a big downside. I'm sure this would make a great stamping polish though, since it's opaque in one coat.

Now the green for today; wow. It's a dark blue-toned emerald green shimmer. I'm so in love with this colour, I can't even begin. Now because this colour has a blue tone to it, my camera is making this colour more teal rather than emerald. But trust me when I say, it's stunning in real life. This too was a one-coater, with an even, smooth-like-butter application. Too bad I don't know the name of this polish, because I would suggest everyone own it for the upcoming fall season!

To create the chevron cut-out, I just placed a piece of scotch tape cut as close to a 90 degree angle as possible, and placed the corner at the center of the nail pointing downwards. I gently pressed down the edges of the tape, so as to remove all gaps and bubbles from the edge (to prevent bleeding through of polish) and then quickly painted a coat of polish over the area that the tape did not cover. I then remove the tape immediately, pulling in one direction. You need to pull the tape off while the polish is still wet because if you pull as it's starting to set, the edges will pull up along with the tape and the line will not be clean and crisp. You can also play around with the positioning of the tape; move it up or down the nail bed, and even turn it over for an inverted chevron. If you are successful, you will create the perfect chevron.

I guess you all can tell by now that I am completely into fall with the colour choices I have been making for this challenge. Autumn colours are always my favourite. So rich and luxe; the jewel tones make my heart flutter and I don't think I'll be turning back!

See you all tomorrow with my blue mani! Thanks for reading! Xx

Re-done and I feel like the quality on this one is much better than the original from earlier. Much less streaky and no balding on the ring finger.

31 Day Challenge - Day 3: Yellow

I'm absolutely loving everything about this manicure! It's a great transitional design to do with the seasons about to change. The tribal/Ikat nails and print were huge this spring/summer, and the colour theme is very summer appropriate. The mustard yellow colour is also a huge trend for this coming fall season, so it would be easy to wear this any time in the next few months as well.

I started with a base colour of China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss from their Fall 2012 On Safari Collection. It's a smooth and opaque creme polish, really fantastic formula on this one, that is a great nude with very yellow undertones. The name suits it extremely well since I think of desert sand when I see this polish. I used two coats for this look, but you could really get away with just using one.

On top of that sandy base, I painted two coats of Matisse Ellite - The One on only half the nail. You want it to be as even as possible, but this need not be perfect since I covered the middle where the two colours meet with Kiss black striper polish. For this I used small thin, feathery strokes to create that torn fabric look at the intersection of the two colours. I finished off my design with a fast drying, high gloss top coat: Seche Vite, which I use to seal all my manicures with.

I'm really happy with the turn-out of this look, and it was so easy and simple. It didn't even require perfection since the little mistakes in the black feathering add interest to the overall effect. I hope you give this mani a go!

Happy Labour Day, everyone! Have a great day off from work ;)

31 Day Challenge - Day 2: Orange

I had a much easier time with this mani than I did with yesterday's challenge. Don't you just love it when you have an idea in your head, and it turns out looking exactly as you had planned it to look? Yeah, pretty awesome feeling.

This is a "jelly sandwich" technique, where you literally sandwich a glitter polish between an opaque polish as a base and a jelly polish on top. The effect it creates is one where the glitter looks suspended under a gelatin surface. I used Essence - Wake Up! for the base colour, a mid-tone bright orange creme which was opaque in pretty much 1 coat, but I used 2 here just for full opacity.

To that, I then added a coat of a Color Club polish which I don't know the name of since I purchased it in a duo set and those never seem to have the names on them. It's very much along the lines of OPI - Rainbow Connection although in this one, all the glitter pieces are the same size. This glitter was a little difficult to work with. Although a lot of glitter was distributed on the nail in one swipe, the glitters tended to bunch up together as you stroked the brush on the nail creating two edges of glitters on each side of the brush. I had to push around and place the glitters a fair amount to redistribute them evenly across the entire nail bed. If anyone knows the name of this polish, please post it in the comments below!

I then topped it all off with OPI - Y'All Come Back Ya Here? from the Spring 2011 Texas Collection. It's a jelly polish, or what OPI likes to call them "sorbet" polishes, which lends a stained glass-type effect to the nails. This is two coats, and the polish gives a translucent, stained look without being streaky or patchy. I personally love jelly-finish polishes.

Overall, I really love the end result of this mani. Because I put the translucent orange OPI polish on top of the multi-coloured glitters, it gave the glitters almost a duo-tone look of green and gold glitters only. It lends this manicure a very fall-time theme instead of looking like confetti at a birthday party.

I hope you all love this look as much as I do, and I'd certainly love to hear your feedback on it. Thanks for reading, and see you all tomorrow with my yellow-themed look!

31 Day Challenge - Day 1: Red

The 31 day challenge is definitely just that - a challenge. It takes you out of your regular niche and makes you choose colours, styles, and patterns that you may not necessarily try or do otherwise. After many a failed mani, I landed on this one for the first day; a simple glitter gradient that is perfect for the upcoming fall season.

So after putting on and removing maybe three or four colours before this one, I finally decided on a shade of red that didn't look too trashy on me. Unless I'm in the mood to wear red, I feel like certain shades on my skin tone and with my length of nail, it just looks inappropriate and gaudy. So this one is Essie - Fishnet Stockings. This has a great formula; it's a one-coater! The colour is a darkened brown-toned brick red. I feel that even though this colour is very vampy and sexy, its without being too over the top and trashy-looking. It's the perfect colour to rock for the fall and winter seasons.

Instead of just doing a simple colour swatch for my first day of the challenge, I added in a little glitter gradient for some extra interest and to break up the red a little bit. I threw on Klean Color - Tango, depositing the polish onto the tips and dragging slightly upwards in soft strokes so as not to pull up the large holographic hexagonal glitters. I felt that leaving those at the bottom instead of working their way up the nail added more of a gradiation to the glitter.

With that is the first manicure for the 31 day challenge! It's definitely not my best and brightest, but at least the designs and manicures can only go up from here! Leave me a comment with any suggestions of what you think I should do for a certain day.

Have a good Septembrrrr, everybody! Xoxo

Goodbye Summer Gradient

With back-to-school where I live starting on September 5th, this will undoubtedly be our last day at the beach this summer *tear*. So in celebration of such an event, I did a simple and easy sponged gradient with a twist using all Essie polishes.

I first started off this manicure with a coat of Blanc to act as a clean base for the colours I use on top to be better shown off. If you want a light, bright, or neon polish to be even more vibrant, just put a base of white "underwear" on beneath the coloured polish!

After the underwear has fully dried, I put a generous swipe of both Navigate Her (pastel pistachio green creme) and To Buy Or Not To Buy (light white-base pastel lilac creme, with purple shimmer in the bottle but those mostly disappear once on the nail) on a makeup sponge directly beside each other.
I slowly apply the sponge to the nail bed, with the center of where the two polishes meet with the center of my nail. Then I move the sponge in the slightest up and down motion on my nail to gently blend the two colours seamlessly. This should give you a perfectly blended gradient effect, and you can stop there with a coat of fast drying top coat.

To add an extra bit of oomph, I topped my gradient of with a coat of Pure Pearlfection top coat from the Luxe Effects Collection. It's gives just the right amount of subtle silver sparkle without being over the top.

I hope everyone had an amazing summer... I know I sure did! So who else is really looking forward to wearing dark, vampy, and rich colours for fall/winter?

Girly & Edgy: Ballet Meets Black Magic

This manicure is prima ballerina mixed with punk rocker. Pretty and feminine, but with enough edge to make it interesting.

A base of OPI - Care To Danse? from the NYC Ballet Soft Shades Spring 2012 Collection. It's a sheer but buildable, very pale lilac with a white base; it seems more pink-toned on the hand as apposed to the more purple hue in the bottle, but very pretty none-the-less. It took 3 coats to build the color up to this opacity - still not fully opaque, with visible nail line showing in direct sunlight. It dried quickly and leveled-off very nicely on its own.

On top of that, we have an indie polish, XOXO Nails - Black Magic. 1 coat displays the small square, and medium and large hexagonal glossy black glitters perfectly. The glitters are suspended in a clear base, and spread out evenly with minimal pushing and placing of the glitter particles. When dried, the glitters are slightly raised from the surface of the nail. However, with a coat of Seche Vite, it smoothed that out to a shiny, glossy finish.

And with that, is the conclusion of my first blog post *phew*! I'd love any and all feedback with regards to the "voice" I've taken with this blog, what you would like to see in future posts, etc.

I hope this was a happy ending to your Monday blues!