b.i.t.c.h. by jaclyn: Valentine's Day Collection

Press Sample

The Valentine's Day Collection from b.i.t.c.h. by jaclyn consists of one specialty finish, eight holographic polishes, and three glitter toppers. The color palette is quite suitable for Valentine's Day from pink to purple and everything in between, plus grey. Are you ready to shimmer and sparkle? I am!



I'm using the official descriptions for each polish as published in the online store and the additional comments are my own.

Chick Flick is a super fun pink glitter bomb. It's loaded with pink or all shades, sizes, and finishes, creating the perfect topper and it can be layered to full opacitiy in 3 - 4 coats.
I wore one coat over Worst Book Ever. The glitter topper is super sparkly, especially under those round spotlight style lights - it's pretty mesmerizing! No issues with formula or special application methods needed for this effect.






Heartbreaker is a beautiful pink leaning purple holographic polish.
I found this polish to have a subtle holographic effect and a slightly metallic finish. The formula was good and opaque in two coats.





Hearts & Shit is a fun glitter topper with silver holographic hearts, purple holo microglitter, and transparent purple heart glitters.
I wore one coat over Shake It Off for a heart shaped galaxy effect! The microglitters in this topper really add dimension and spark over such a dark base color. No issues to report, I was able to get one to two hearts on the brush with each dip of the brush and no digging or fishing. It applied smooth and easy.





Hottie - aka Jen's Polish because our reviewer from xoxoJen.com didn't want to take this one off to finish swatching the others - is a stunning, bright, royal purple holographic polish with magenta/red shift.
UNF. Yep, this one gets the UNF rating! It's absolutely beautiful in any lighting situation. It has such depth and pow and absolutely glows from within! Have you ever seen a glowy holo? I'm not sure I have before this one. It's my favorite of the collection. If you can only get one polish from this launch, this is it!





Just Red is - well, just red. It's a red metallic glitter topper that is perfect for nail art and creating glitter gradients.
I wore one even coat over Let's Makout. Formula was perfect with this one and I imagine the possibilities are endless. A combo jelly sandwich pond mani would be pretty with this!





Kiss-Off, Bitch is a beautiful creamy flamingo pink polish with holographic sparkle.
A very nice rose pink - not mauve but truly rosy. I love this creamy shade of pink and it's subtle holo sparkle. (more evident out in the sunshine)




Let's Makeout is a gorgeous red-orange creamy polish with holographic sparkle.
Ever see one of those post-it note page flags? The red one? This matches it in office lighting, like, exactly! I enjoyed using the creamy formula which was opaque in just one coat.





Love & Lipstick is a gorgeous pink jelly packed with metallic pink microglitter.
I had saved this one to swatch last so I could wear it for a few days. Little did I know I was going to fall for Hottie the way I did! I finally did swatch and wear it and it's really beautiful. Such a bright vibrant shade of hot pink with a glass fleck finish, quite a special polish! Two lovely coats will make you fall in love with it too! My second favorite of the collection.





Love Me or Hate Me is a beautiful and complex magenta/berry holographic polish with red micro fleck.
Definitely a complex polish and I'm happy to say my camera totally caught it! I was shocked because I am usually cussing it out with red/pink shades. At the top of the nail it looks like pink holo shimmer is floating there, near the sides and deeper in you can see that red micro fleck Jac mentioned in the description it's also present in the first image's bottle. This one is stunning, has depth and is all kinds of pretty! I used two coats for opacity, formula was super smooth and easy to apply.





Sex & Candy is a gorgeous deep berry red holographic polish with pink holo microglitter and black to pink colorshifting flakie.
This one made me say WOW! with the first stroke of the brush. Those purple flecks you're seeing in the image are really there. No saturation, no trickery - for real, legit, there. Those are the microglitters flashing and boy do they flash! The formula was super smooth and opaque in one coat.





Shake It Off is a stunning deep purple holographic polish.
This leans a bit of a smokey purple and sometimes brownish purple in certain lighting. The holo is subtle but sparkles well in full sunlight. I wore one coat with topcoat, formula was good.





Worst Book Ever is the perfect medium grey holographic polish.
Yup, what Jac said! Love this shade, a good medium grey seems nearly impossible to find sometimes! It's name absolutely cracks me up, even though I've not read the book. It is blue leaning and in shady areas where the lighting is more blue, this leans purple! One easy coat and you'll be grey and sparkly!





Well dear readers, what do you think of this collection? Do you have favorites?

You can get yours at the online store in the Valentine's Day Collection section. Don't forget to check for your other favorite polishes and Sample Batches!

Addicted To Holos: February Box

Press Sample

The Addicted to Holos box is brand new bi-monthly polish box packed with holographic goodness from five different polish brands and it's launching for the first time in February. Aren't the polishes pretty? Read on for more images and details about each!



The Polish Bar created Midnight Kiss for us who love shifty holos - they DO have quite the entertainment value! When I was applying it I felt like I was painting outer space on my nails. It's described as a blue-purple duochrome linear holo with silver micro glitter. I have to say though, while I was indoors at work I also saw a beautiful deep shade of teal! I wore two coats for opacity and the formula is one of those that you want to get the first coat down with as few brush strokes as possible, then the second coat glides on smooth and easy.






Literary Lacquers contributed Laughs in Flowers which is a princess-y shade of pink filled with holographic fairy dusts of all different sizes. It was inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem, Hamatreya. Amy says that this polish is like her Tequila Mockingbird and the Always Winter Never Christmas polishes had a nail polish baby. And I have to agree, this one is a real stunner and my favorite in the box! I wore two coats for opacity, formula was perfect as we've come to expect from Literary Lacquers polishes.






Cuts in My Heart is made by Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer and is an ox blood red linear holographic with silver and red holographic microglitters. It may dry a bit textured due to the glitters in the polish. In one coat this was opaque and it stamps beautifully over lighter shades. I'm seeing a lot of the gold from the holo rainbow flashing around in the bottle which makes for a lovely effect! The formula was on the thick side and I usually like it thick but with the glitter in it, I decided to thin it out just a wee bit so that it was a little more fluid. It's beautifully done with such a rich color while keeping the holo strong.






Candied Violets is made by Sweet Heart Polish and is a frosty violet mega linear holo with silver holo micro glitters. I often catch a pink shimmer in this, but it's not listed in the description. Is it there, or isn't it? The world may never know the true answer but my eyeballs say yes! I wore two coats for opacity. The first coat seemed very sheer, but I had full coverage after applying the second coat. The formula was fluid and easy to use as with other Sweet Heart Polishes.






Fortunate Rainbow was made by Philly Loves Lacquer and is a blue-ish green linear holo with a gold flash and gold and green flecks. This one proved challenging to photograph! It wanted to lean blue and not show the gold, but I hope you can see that it does have a gold flash in at least one of my images. I wore two coats for opacity and I think I probably should have done a third just to get a more even coat on the sides of my nails. The formula for this one requires as few brush strokes as possible to insure a smooth finish.






So what did you think? Do we have winners here?!

I think one of the cool things about this box is that it's going to be available for preorder for a whole week - with no sell outs or rushing to order. Stress free shopping! Yay!

The preorders will be open from 2/9-2/16 at addictedtoholos.bigcartel.com which is a shared shop between the five polish artisans. Each time they launch a box, they will rotate who manages the shop. Now if that isn't coordinated teamwork, I don't know what is!

The Addicted To Holos box is $60 plus relevant shipping for the above five exclusive indie holos.

That's a wrap! Mark your calendars and bookmark the link - the next box after this one won't be until April so there's lots of time in between to enjoy your new polishes and plot out shopping for the next one!

Nail-aid Remover Gel: Does this thing really work?!

When I found this new remover gel by nail-aid at Walmart, I immediately had the idea to do a blog entry inspired by Bunny from Youtube (grav3yardgirl). She's awesome and I love watching her videos!
This is, for the most part, a pictorial review - if you have any questions feel free to ask in comments and I will edit in the details!

The pink jar and yellow jar have the exact same ingredient list other than red colorant in the pink jar, so I only bought the yellow jar. I then submitted a contact form on the nail-aid brand website a week ago to ask if there were different percentages of each ingredient and have not yet heard back from them. As far as the ingredient list on the jars, these look like the same formula packaged two different ways - one pink and one yellow. The instructions on the jar are also the same except for step 2, which is a difference in the length of time to let the gel sit on the nail (45 seconds vs. 4 minutes).





Let's try a much more dense glitter shall we? This is two coats for full coverage, it's glitter packed!



You can read more and see product photos at http://www.norubgel.com/, unfortunately, they do not list the ingredients on the webpage. So here they are for the yellow jar:
Acetone, Water, Carbomer, PEG-15 Cocamine, Linoleic Acid, Dimethicone

The pink jar is the same exact list, except for a red colorant which is at the end of the ingredients list.

I emailed the address on their no-rub webpage since I had not gotten a reply from the brand website, and within a few hours I had a response from Jeff about the ingredients and formulation:

"YES. The ingredients are almost the same as you note, but the proprietary formulation differs. "

He didn't say how the formulation differed or offer any other details, but there you have it.

I found the formula to be super sticky, so you'll definitely want to use a paper towel to wipe and immediately wash your hands with warm soapy water. I found that I really needed to scrub and washed my hands twice, once with a foaming sugar scrub.

I would not recommend this product for a few reasons: It's not effective for heavy glitter polish. I had to wash my hands aggressively to get the sticky film off. And that made the whole removal process take longer than using a peel off base coat, a scrubby tub (better known as the A.V.) or the foil method.

Thanks for stopping by!

Questions I've received!
Q: which one did you try or did you try both??
A: I only tried the yellow jar since the ingredient list was the same with exception of the colorant. I did not feel the need to have them both.

Q: What does it smell like?
A: chemically and sharp - similar to other acetone removers.

Q: What does it feel like?
A: The gel is a lot like an aloe gel in texture. When worn it felt really cold on my nail and after wiping it off, it had a sticky feel. You'll definitely want to wash your hands after use.

Q: So....do you like it better than just regular remover? It seems like it takes just as long.
A: I kind of have mixed feelings about it! I think I may prefer it over the foil method since the gel doesn't need foil to work - so that's less trash/mess to deal with. That is really the only advantage I can quickly think of.
I often use a peel off base coat, so I don't use the foil method very often, but for my non-swatching hand where I use regular base coat, I've avoided glitters - I may start wearing them again since discovering this though! I think I want to experiment with leaving it on longer, and see if it works better than my above experiment for the high density type glitter polishes.

Q: Do the different yellow and pink jars get the same result?
A: I didn't purchase the pink jar to try, but I have seen a review of it and based on that blogger's photos, it looks to me like the results are similar.

Q: Does the remover gel also remove gel polishes?
A: A dear reader, Libby, wrote in to answer this question for us, as I don't have experience with gel polishes.
She says, "I had great results and would do it again."
Libby sent a breakdown and photos to me to illustrate each step and I have to agree, it worked really well for gel polish removal! Thank you Libby!