Stash: flakies & some topcoats

A pause from normal glitters to talk about other things (which are still pretty glittery).

I have another whole small box full of topcoat-ish things, besides these. This bunch is mostly metallics, and my small but growing collection of flakies - plus a couple of things that don't really belong here, but somehow snuck in with this batch.

While I'm on the subject, let me say how thrilled I am that flakies seem to be back in fashion again, because I love flakies. See how empty the Chloe bottle is just below this? That's my second bottle. And I would have bought a third one if Zoya hadn't already discontinued this line before I got around to it.

top row:

• Pearly Whites (Triple Shine) - As you may can tell, this was marked down at K-Mart. It's a shredded flakie. I'm not really a fan of shreds so we'll see how I end up liking this.
• #51 (Nfu Oh) - This polish is legendary and I never thought I'd own it. It's a really insane flakie - it's like the Zoya flakies in that it lies flat and removes easily. It does better with something underneath it - it seems to have a purple base so that would be the obvious choice. It's a duochrome that shimmers with all sorts of colors depending on the light, though - it's hard to completely pin down. (Here's a mani that shows the base color.)
• Fairy Dust (e.l.f.) - this is what I consider a "normal" flakie, because it's like Chloe, except without the pink base. (Note that my bottle was unlabeled. Luckily my receipt told me the color name or I would still be trying to figure it out. I have gotten the impression than this is fairly common with e.l.f. polishes.) (mani from 2013)
• Chloe (Zoya) - an orangy-pink flakie; the base is slightly tinted pink.  I wore and wore this a couple of years ago, with all kinds of colors, but especially over bright pinks. I liked to use multiple coats of it, which is why I went through so much of it! (examples from 2012)
• Maisie (Zoya - these two are both from the same Zoya line - Fleck Effects - and they are both discontinued) - Maisie is greenish and reads more glittery than Chloe does, in my experience. (This may have to do with the size of the flakes? I'm not sure.)

second row:

• Hot Couture (Color Club) - this may not be a flakie, actually, but it and Snowflakes look so much alike in the bottle that it confuses me. Pink holo glittery thing, definitely meant to use as a topcoat over other stuff.
• Snowflakes (Color Club) - this is called a flakie, but this one seemed more like the Maisie glittery thing to me. But other people's swatches seem to look like a run-of-the-mill flakie, so maybe it's just my imagination.
• Elle's Spell (Barielle) (and a layering combo here) - this is sort of in the Nfu Oh 51/Fowl Play ballpark - it's sheer and flakie and shifts around, and according to several swatchers has a red base. I haven't tried it lately so I'm not sure, but I would have said it was purple. Obviously I need to reswatch this!
• Roxy (Zoya) (this is one of the mis-sorted ones, as are the two textures below it - this one is a jelly-ish glitter, so it's definitely neither a flakie nor a topcoat) Purple glitter in a sheer red-violet base - maybe it was the sheerness that led me to put it here!

third row:

• Plum Chunky Glitter (Orly Color Blast) - it was on sale and I wanted to try out this brand, but as far as I can tell this is utterly dull. (I can't even find any swatches, so this link is to a seller.)
• Gold Rush (Cover Girl Boundless Color) - one of the older polishes in my collection, a fairly sparse bright-gold topper.
• Crushed Candy Sugar Rush (Julie G Gumdrops) - first of all, this shouldn't be in this category. I need to go back and look at this bottle, clearly, but this is not a flakie or a topcoat, and also I had written down Sugar Rush - which is orange, so it's definitely not. It's also not Sugar Plum Fairy (which was my first thought about where this confusion might've come from), which is a dark purple. Despite what I wrote down, I think this has to be Crushed Candy, although in my spreadsheet it says lavender, which this definitely ain't. However, it could be construed as red-violet, so this is apparently the right one. For some reason these names have always particularly confused me. Anyway, Julie G's version of Gumdrops has two different finishes - I think this is one of the more textured ones, in which case it belongs with Blueberry Fizz and Rock Candy. I'll try to remember to report back on this!
• Liberty (Zoya Pixie Dust) - also shouldn't be here, don't know what I was thinking. This is the bright cyan blue, in the original Pixie Dust texture formula, so it ought to be with the rest of the Pixie Dusts. In any case, Michelle of ALU notes in that link that she had staining problems with this, and so did I. It's the only reason I haven't worn it more, because it's gorgeous. I need to double down on basecoat and try it again soon. (more swatches)

bottom row:

• Fairy Dust (Khroma, as opposed to the e.l.f. Fairy Dust above and the several other Fairy Dusts that have been in existence at one time or another, most notably China Glaze). Note here that Khroma, the original name for the Kardashian sisters' makeup line, no longer exists. As I understand it, there was a lawsuit by some other company calling themselves Khroma, and the Kardashians lost, which is why these polishes are now called Kardashian Beauty. (I think they were technically supposed to have been pulled from sale. But the CVS where I bought this still had a couple the last time I looked. You also may find some with a new label slapped over the old one.) - Anyway, this is actually a nice gold topcoat, although nothing spectacular.
• Silver Glitter (Barry M) - I got this in a blog sale, but it's apparently actually an LE polish that was only sold in Boots stores, so I found when I looked it up. (One way to tell this from other similar Barry M glitters is that it says "limited edition" on the cap, where others seem to say "special effects" or the like.) Here's another swatch of it.
• Black In Mirrors (Color Show Brocades) - actually I wasn't thinking of this as one of the mis-categorized ones, but looking at the swatches, I think it might be. It looks pretty damn opaque.
• Arsenic (Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics) - since I'm kind of into showing how obsessive-compulsive I am in recent entries, let me note that OCC apparently uses the same bottles that Studio M does, only with different caps. Arsenic is sort of the silver version of the Khroma above, but not so sparse. And it's got a sort of "antiqued" look to it - maybe it's blackened a little? that is really cool
• (above that) unlabeled pink glitter - this could go with the top-coats, I think, it's very pale and sheer
• Cougar Attack (Spoiled) - another example of my old favorite, copper glitter in a brown base. It's really glitter-packed and I really wish I had gotten my hands on a backup bottle of this. (It's apparently a fair dupe for Lippmann Superstar, which I had forgotten if I ever knew!) (mani from 2013)

Here's a question related to this subject - aren't holos and flakies actually more or less the same thing? I mean, obviously they don't look the same, but I have gotten the impression along the line that they are both variations on the same material: mylar, which is a plastic. It may be a question of how thick or thin the mylar is and how it's processed - whether it's chopped into glitter or shredded up, for example. (I don't know anything at all about how they do this but clearly some kinds are shaped differently than others.) (It's so hard to find clear answers about this kind of thing. For example, the very last use in a long list in the Wikipedia entry about BoPET - which is the generic name for Mylar - mentions nail polish, more or less in passing.)

(This Etsy video tells a little about the making of glitter - they don't use the name Mylar, but the process they describe is similar. Almost all modern glitter is metallicized plastic, basically. Glass glitter still exists but I know from my various forays into crafting that it's usually hard to find.)