Nubar Night Sparkle: Glitter Made Glamorous

So remember how in a previous post, I showed you guys how awesome my experimental PVA glue base coat was? Well some of you may recall the nail polish I used for demonstrating the base coat - Nubar Night Glitter! Well I loved it so much, I decided Night Glitter needed its own post!


Nubar Night Glitter isn't really the type of polish I would have bought at first glance, but I received this in a swap, and I'm glad I did! Because it looks so much more impressive on the nail than in the bottle.


In the bottle, Night Glitter looks somewhat boring, compared to the fancy-schmamcy glitters you see nowadays. For one, all the glitter is the same shape. And size. And colour. But once I painted my nails with it, I could totally see why it was the standout of the entire Nubar Sparkle collection. Because it's just so darn friggin' gorgeous.

On the nail, Nubar Night Sparkle is a very pretty royal blue glitter that twinkles and sparkles like the night sky. It always looks visibly blue, and although it sparkles more in the sun, it equally beautiful in the shade. The light reflecting off the glitter is indeed a beautiful sight. It looks like a gemstone on my nails! The name Night Sparkle is quite apt in the case of this polish. Night in a gemstone. Me likey.


I also didn't have any application issues. The texture was slightly thick (like most glitter polishes), but the glitter was dense enough that two costs gave good opacity, and there wasn't much glitter clumping. You don't have to layer these, I think they're really better worn alone.


The best thing I love about Nubar Night Sparkle? Although it was originally released in Spring 2010, it's pretty much something you can wear year round, not just Spring. The glitter is perfect for summer days when you want some glitter that catches the sunlight and don't feel like a neon/bright shade, and the deep blue shade goes well for Fall/Winter too. And heck, it's pretty enough to wear year-round, whether you follow those colour fashion trends or not. Now let me smack myself for waiting 2 years to open my dusty bottle!

DIY Peel Off Base Coat For Easy Glitter Removal: PVA Glue (And the Essence Peel Off Base Coat Dupe)

Remember the Essence Peel Off Base Coat that was launched recently, and got a lot of buzz among the beauty blogger community? Well, it turns out there's a simple, much cheaper dupe for it - Elmer's glue! In fact, not just Elmer's - any kind of PVA glue will do.

It all started with some bloggers reviewing the Essence Peel Off Base Coat, which was part of a travel themed collection called "Ready For Boarding". The idea behind the Peel Off Base Coat is that you paint your nail polish over it, and simply peel it off to remove! No messy acetone or nail polish remover required. The bloggers noted that it looked, felt, and even smelled and behaved like your average craft glue. (No kidding! You can read them here and here.)

Then one astute blogger looked at the ingredients list of the Essence Peel Off Base Coat was the same as PVA glue! (Essentially it was Polyvinyl acetate (PVA) emulsion, water, and preservatives.) Looks like Essence has been repackaging PVA glue and selling it as Peel Off Base Coat!

So I thought, why don't I just use PVA glue, instead of trying to get the Essence version? Cheaper, easier to get, and not LE or sold out. And if you're in Asia, like I am, you don't have to wait months for it to be launched in your locality, only to be ripped off by the fact that it's PVA glue. Score! Turns out, I wasn't the only one with the idea. Other bloggers had tried this out too (in addition to Labmuffin, the original astute blogger, you can see others here, and a DIY version here.) So, in the knowledge that I wasn't the only crazy one with this idea, I tried it out.


I got a small bottle of Elmer's glue, and then, all excited, without further ado, I started work. I was too lazy to decant the Elmer's glue into a nail polish bottle, so I dumped a big blob of the glue out on a sheet of paper, and just dipped a clean nail polish brush in the blob, and painted my nails that way.

When I first painted my nails with my Essence Peel Off Base Coat dupe, they looked like this. That is to say, they looked like I had glue on them (which, by the way, is how the real Essence Peel Off Base Coat looks when you first put it on too, according to the blogs I've read). But when I first saw my nails, I had this "OMG WHAT DID I JUST DO? I PUT GLUE ON MY NAILS!" moment. It felt a little crazy, I won't lie.

But after a few minutes, the glue quickly dries down and becomes clear, and much thinner than I'd expect. I guess all the solvent (which really is just water) has evaporated. It gets dry pretty fast (in 2-3 minutes) but if you want to be cautious, perhaps waiting for 10mins wouldn't hurt. There, all dried out, it doesn't look so crazy now. (OMG, yes, you are seeing my nekkid nails!)


The good thing about using PVA glue is that if you make any mistakes with the base coat, you can clean it up with water, or just wash it off entirely with water. So in a way, it's even easier to handle than your normal base coat.

Anyway, seeing how this was a peel-able base coat, I decided I would absolutely HAVE to use it with a glitter polish. So I picked out Nubar Night Sparkle, part of the Sparkle collection sometime back. I've had this for years but haven't worn it yet...


I know, gorgeous, right? The best part? The easiest glitter removal ever - just peel off the entire polish right off your nail! I was really psyched at being able to just peel off the polish - it's even more convenient than the foil method!


Generally, I got pretty good removal - if you can peel off all the PVA glue base, then you're peeling off all the polish. Unless you polish outside of the PVA base (as I did near the cuticle area), then you'll have to use a little bit of remover to take off whatever is left behind. Still, this is great for me - a clean, convenient method of glitter removal! Just look at that! (Yet another nekkid nails shot.)


One of the questions I had about using PVA glue was the water resistance of the glue. After PVA glue is water soluble (so is the Essence Peel Off Base Coat), so I was worried that even after the glue had dried, the manicure would still come loose when I showered or washed my hands. Other bloggers had mixed results - some reported 4 days without incident (here and here), while others had only one day before chipping (here). That's something I've yet to try out, since I haven't tried wearing the PVA Glue base coat for a few days yet. Still though, if it lasts, it would be fantastic. Updated: I tried out the PVA glue as a base coat for an NOTD wear test, and it did great! Check out my Elianto Burnt Umber NOTD post for more details!

Another thing to note of course, is safety. Based on the ingredients list in the Essence Peel Off Base Coat, a mixture of PVA emulsion and water (found in the Essence version) probably won't harm your nails if you use it topically. So I imagine most PVA glues would work. Just don't use superglue! And if you are unsure, check the ingredients before buying or trying on your nails. The good thing? It's washable with water, so if you try it and don't like it, just rinse it off.

So, would I ever try out something as crazy as using Elmer's glue as a base coat? Well, to be honest, I actually think I would! I can see how a peel-off base coat would be useful for glitter manicures, elaborate nail art that would be a pain to remove, and also for swatching, especially swatching of multiple glitters in a row. Basically, if it's going to be a pain to remove, and I don't intend on wearing it for all that long (say maybe 2-3 days), I'd use the glue method. But for plain ol' creme manicures, I'd probably just use a normal basecoat.

NOTD: Nubar Twilight Kiss and Revlon Grapefruit Glimmer

Nubar Twilight Kiss is one of those "in-between-the-season" colours - it's not too dark or dusky for summer, and it's not too light for cooler weather. And when overlayed with a sheer shimmer, I think it looks pretty good. So that's today's NOTD is! The layering polish is a really old (and probably discontinued) Revlon goodie, the Grapefruit Glimmer from their ancient Glimmer Gloss range.



Nubar Twilight Kiss is a dusky light purple, and I think it's actually a pretty colour, and quite wearable to work. I kind of think it's one of those colours you can sneak into the office. Revlon Glimmer Gloss in Grapefruit Glimmer is definitely an office colour - it's a sheer pink with very fine, faint shimmer. Honestly, it's so sheer it probably won't look like much by itself. But I think Grapefruit Glimmer has a lot of potential over darker colours.

Here, I'm trying it out over a light colour, and I think it looks quite good. Just imagine the possibilities this one has with dark colours! In fact, I think that if you layer it over a dark grey-purple, you'd get a shimmer similar to Chanel Paradoxal. I mean, it does have that similar faint sort-of-pink shimmer, no? Not identical, but close enough, perhaps?



Application was pretty good for both - but then again I'm partial to Nubars and Revlons, they are some of my favourite brands. The brush size, shape, texture of the polish just works for me. Lasting power is average, these lasted for about 3-4 days before chipping, which is normal for me.



I like Twilight Kiss well enough, but I personally think Nubar has more exciting colours (like their awesome duochrome shades). Twilight Kiss by comparison is one of their more subdued shades, although it's still pretty. And Glimmer Gloss is a great work shade for someone looking for a slightly more interesting pink sheer. Not a bad combination altogether.

Nubar Purple Beach: Duochrome, Triplechrome, Multichrome Awesomeness!

Nubar ranks number one on my list of "most underrated nail polish brands ever". I don't know why they aren't conquering the world like they really ought to be doing. Their polish has near flawless application, they retail for less expensive than OPIs, they have one of the longest staying power for nail polish I've seen (on me, at least), and they make some of the best colour effects I've seen - duochromes, glass flecks, mattes, suedes, you name it - they have it. I just don't think they have a holo, but I may be wrong on that.

Anyway, one of the biggest draws about Nubar is that their duochromes are AWESOMELY DUOCHROME. It's not one of those wimpy duochromes that are like, "hey I'm a duochrome, but you have to tilt me at an 89.95 degree angle to see a slight flash of blue in the upper right corner of your nail". Noooo, Nubar duochromes are shameless little things - they scream "I'M A DUOCHROME AND YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO TILT YOUR NAIL TO SEE IT!" That's why I love them so much. Sometimes, you even get a colour that is called a duochrome but is far more complex than that.

Like Purple Beach. This one is billed as a purple/green duochrome, but I'm going to show you that calling it a duochrome isn't quite doing the polish justice. I prefer to call it multichrome (and I just made up a word, woo!)



That's Purple Beach straight on in natural lighting. Notice that you don't have to turn and twist your hand into awkward angles just to see a hint of duochrome. I love purples, and I love duochromes, so this makes me VERY happy.



In this photo above, you can really see the green duochrome. And some brown. Woohoo, so this thing flashes brown, green, AND purple. Tri-chrome goodness!

Want to see more duochrome? I knew you'd say yes, so here you go:



And lastly, here is a picture of Purple Beach in indoor lighting. This one really brings out a different side of it. Here you can see it's primarily bronze/brown, with some flash of green-gold at the sides. Really gorgeous.



This lasted for almost a week before chipping, which is a record time for me! I'm absolutely in love with this shade. I love duochromes, and Nubar is my newfound love!

NOTD: Nubar Petunia Sparkle: It's Freaking FUSCHIA?!

I bought Nubar's Petunia Sparkle, thinking it would look like a nice bright purple. Because that was what ALL the swatches I saw on blogs showed me. Purple. Straight-up purple. Nevermind that Nubar's own swatches showed a pink - I was thinking, bloggers don't lie, right? And they're usually much more accurate than lousy website swatches.

WRONG. In this case, all of you lied to me! :P But I don't blame you guys - it's just one of those polish that's a major PITA to photograph accurately, as I soon found out for myself.

See, when I took my photos of Petunia Sparkle, they all turned out like this:



Looks purple, right? That's the colour I saw in all the blog swatches I was reading, and that's the colour I thought I would get when I bought it.

But noo, it doesn't look like that at all - definitely not on me, at least. On me, it's more of a hot fuschia colour. Like, bright fuschia. Almost-neon-but-not-quite-but-still-full-of-bling fuschia.

This is how it REALLY looks like on me. And while I rarely edit my photos (I never photoshop them, although I do occasionally edit indoor photos for colour accuracy) I had to colour-edit this one picture below, because it was necessary. Despite my 2343252523 shots of Petunia Sparkle, it just kept showing up purple on my camera. But on me, it's not purple at all. It's really a lot more pink, a lot less purple, but still really hot.



See, see, see? I told you it was necessary, right? I know purples tend to photograph blue most of the time, and usually I can visually compensate for that, but somehow for this colour, it photographs so much bluer that the colour seems to be a different colour altogether! Of course it's still one hot sizzling colour - but when I bought it, I was really expecting it to be purple, not pink.

And it's really funny, because there I was thinking, "All those bloggers lied to me!" But when I tried to photograph it myself, ALL of my shots turned up purple, forcing me to resort to colour-editing. But I colour-edited them because I just wanted to show you guys what the colour really looked like on me. I don't want anyone who might buy nail polish based on my photos thinking it's a purple, because on me it's definitely fuschia!

(Before anyone starts thinking that I'm one of those bloggers who photoshops my cuticles and erases my pimples, I'd like to state my blog policy on photo-editing. My policy on photo-editing is that I do it to enhance colour accuracy, and that's it. I don't edit anything other than colour, period. I don't make my cuticles look neater, or my face look more contoured, and if you look my photos I think that's pretty obvious. It's a distinction I'd like to make clear, because I am indeed aware of the controversy that could potentially surround a post like this.)