You Mix Cosmetics Magnetic Polishes

These are amazing.  Every single one, I kept thinking "I'll just put this on for now and swatch the rest later."

Sham Rocks (with chevron magnet)

I wanted to try this one with the chevron magnet to try and make it look like leaves. It does a bit, and I love it. Such a beautiful fern green with amazing depth with the magnet. I think this is my favorite on my nails and probably the one I'll actually wear first.

Now, when Sasha (Nihrida) first posted a magnetic polish without a magnet design I thought it was crazy! Why would you do this?! Well, I can totally understand it now. When the color is gorgeous enough to be worn on its own, then sometimes there's no need for the magnetic "frills." So I decided to show these at one coat (before I put on the second coat and used the magnet on them).

Sham Rocks (no magnet)

Sham Rocks is a pretty subdued green shimmer. Very beautiful on its own.

Blurple (with diagonal magnet lined up straight)

This one is really neat because it shows two colors with the magnet effect. The magnetic shimmer is lavender and the magnet brings out navy blue. It doesn't really seem to have the "depth" of the one-color magnetic polishes, but it still so awesome.

Blurple (no magnet)

This one is not quite a one-coater (you can see bald the bald spots), and it only shows the lavender without the magnet.

Teal Abyss (with diagonal magnet)

This one frustrated me in photographs. It's more green than the picture shows. It's a true vibrant, rich turquoise/teal with amazing dept when it's magnetized. Very stunning!

Teal Abyss (no magnet)

This is one that I would definitely wear alone if I was looking for a plain teal shimmer. I don't have anything else like it. It applies nicely in just one coat, too!

Toasted (star magnet)

This is the one I was most thrilled about when I tried them on swatch sticks. The glitter is so amazing in this one, but you have to see it in person to understand. Also, I'm not sure why it appears slightly green in my photo. It's really more of a tan shimmer with brown jelly highlights from the magnet and gold micro glitter throughout. It's incredibly sparkly. On my nails I had trouble applying the star design. It's hard to center it AND get it close enough without touching the nail. So it took a couple of tries on some of them, but it came out nicely in the end.

Toasted (no magnet)

On it's own, Toasted looks a bit dull (although the gold sparkle livens it up a little). The problem is the brushstrokes. This one for some reason just didn't look nice and smooth like the others.


These are available on You Mix Cosmetics and are $8 each. The magnets they offer are sold separately and are $3 (awesome price in my opinion!). I didn't bother to buy the horizontal one because you can actually see the lines on the diagonal one and it's pretty easy to just rotate it and line it up yourself to get vertical or horizontal lines. The magnets are nice and large enough to cover a whole nail very easily.

Overall, I'm extremely impressed and am already planning my next order! I love the glitter in Toasted because it's not gritty and hangs so perfectly in the magnetic designs, so I want to try more of those!

My version of RBL's Piú Mosso

When Michelle first posted about the Firebird collection from Rescue Beauty Lounge (at All Lacquered Up here), I fell head over heels for Piú Mosso. What an amazing navy blue with fiery copper shimmer!

Since I'm not too big on paying that much for polish (although I have a few RBLs that I love!), I decided I'd try to replicate it using some polishes that I already have. Here are the results:

First I tried CND Effects Copper Shimmer over RBL's Dead Calm but since Copper Shimmer is so dense (is showed up as more of a pearl finish), I decided I'd decant some of it into a partially emptied Wet'n'Wild clear bottle. It turned out to be the perfect copper shimmer - exactly what I was looking for. However, because the clear was not a suspension base, it all settles to the bottom and must be shaken for a while each time I use it.  For the blue, I decided dead calm was a little too bright and wasn't quite as inky as Piú Mosso appeared to be, so instead I used China Glaze Calypso Blue as the base.

All in all I think my version came pretty close to the original.  I think the shimmer in mine might be slightly more prominent in low-lighting than in Piú Mosso, but I think it's just about as fiery in the sunlight!  Overall, it's one of my favorite polish combos I've done in a while!

What do you think?  Did I come close?

Funky Half Moon

I came up with this idea just this morning and figured I'd wait to try it until the China Glaze Anchor's Away collection came out (for the navy and the red). As you can see, I didn't make it that long before trying it out.


I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On for the base (plus a coat of SV), then used Liquid Palisade to form the half moons and just painted over with RBL Dead Calm (navy), and OPI Monsooner of Later (red... I know it looks orange here, but it is a bright orange-red in person). One note about Liquid Palisade. It's pretty awesome, but make sure you give yourself an extra "tail" with which to pull it off once you've painted over it, and probably pull it off with tweezers (I didn't do either and got blue and red all over my other hand's fingers...). After I let it dry just a bit, I dotted White On in little dots (freehand with a dotting tool).

I like this one, but it takes awhile and I don't think I have the patience to complete the design on my other hand as well. I think it looks sort of nautical, or like a polka-dotted dress.

What does this design remind you of? Have you tried/do you like the half-moon manicures?