Pimp My Pride – KB Shimmer

Happy Memorial Day if you live in the States! We’re celebrating our long weekend a few hours away with my mom. This is always a fairly meaningful holiday in my family. So many of us have served or are serving in all branches of the military – uncles, both grandpas, cousins.

A rare snap of my stoic paternal Grandpa smiling in his Air Force uniform.

In honor of the holiday, I put on this patriotic crelly glitter from KB Shimmer.

Just like most crellies, you can get it opaque in 2-3 coats – this is 2. Obviously I needed 3. Great, smooth self-leveling formula.

Pink Tourmaline – KB Shimmer

Shall we talk about nails you can see from space? This full-coverage glitter is so freaking twinkly. It’s opaque in two easy coats.

Ripe For the Pink-ing – KB Shimmer

Twinkly!

There’s a lot of KB Shimmer on this blog. I’m okay with that! It is, hands down, my favorite indie nail polish brand. This spring they came out with the Mega Flame collection full of gorgeous scattered holo polishes.

This one is the perfect rose color and the rainbow factor is astronomical.

I got it opaque in 2 coats. I tried a third coat on one of my fingers thinking it might deepen the color, but it really didn’t. For me, this is a solid year-round color and I’ll get a ton of use out of it.

Temple Bar – Square Hue

I subscribed to Square Hue back in January and I’m just now getting around to trying some of the polishes. This particular one is a warm orange. Now, as you can see, orange is really not my color. But it is, however, my baseball team’s color and they have been doing very well lately. So I’m willing to take the orange bullet for today.

I was worried at first because the formula was very chalky and streaky at first, but the second coat covered everything pretty well. It dries slightly darker than what’s in the bottle.

My Gramma’s kitchen was this color. (We are truly paragons of taste in my family.)

Which is probably why I put some glitter on it.

Upside Round by KB Shimmer

Actually, I think it broke up the orange enough so that my skin doesn’t look quite as sallow. Yay!

This was a surprisingly okay formula for an orange. I’m looking forward to trying more from this brand!

Celeste – Julep

Celeste is a full-coverage glitter that contains mainly greens, blues, and bronzy golds. There are a few flashes of other colors here and there, which increases its versatility. I can see using this with a beachy sandy color, either as a topper or an accent nail.

I thought I had this opaque in two, but the photo makes it clear I should have used three!

January 2016 – Nine Zero Lacquer

I have been crazy for holographic lately, and this new indie brand does it up right. I got this deep rose opaque in two coats. It did chip on me after a couple of days, but almost everything does. It was well worth the sparkle.

Brrr-tiful Dreamer – KB Shimmer

This greyed-out dark purple is my jam. It’s a crelly formula that’s thick enough to only need two coats, but is still sheer enough for the glitters to work. It’s the usual fabulous KB Shimmer formula.

991 – Girlie Bits

This one is another polish from a mystery pack. It’s a very pretty rose jam packed with holographic glitters. Best in 2 coats.

Tanuki – Rainbow Honey

I love a deep purple any time of year. This one is full of silver microglitter and is opaque in 2-3 coats.

Ulta-violet – China Glaze

Without flash & with flash.

I have been moving away from mainstream polishes lately, but this one was actually fairly unique to my collection when I bought it. 

It’s another pink-based full-coverage glitter that’s opaque in 2-3 coats.

A few weeks after this one came in, I tried a few things from new-to-me indie brand, Girlie Bits and ended up with an accidental almost-dupe.

As you can see, Witch, I’m Fabulous is a bit twinklier and holographier (which is totally a word!) than Ulta-violet, but on the nail they come off almost identical.