Lacquer Slacker Liz: American Apparel

Showing posts with label American Apparel. Show all posts

Friday, December 5, 2014

CrowsToes Hell Hath No Fury over American Apparel Hassid

Hell Hath No Fury was released by indie polish maker CrowsToes as part of the Halloween collection in October 2012. What's that you say? It's December, time for Christmas manicures? Shoot, honey! As Lauri, Ms. Crow herself, says, "It's ALWAYS Halloween in the CrowBar!" Besides, this red and orange glitterbomb is perfectly festive enough for any holiday. Described by Lauri as a "bright mix of fire red and orange glitters with a red/orange/gold colorshifting shimmer," Hell Hath No Fury has a clear suspension base that is absolutely crammed with sparkly goodness: multi-sized hexes in red, orange and iridescent purple plus orange bars plus the aforesaid shimmers. My favorite are the iridescent hexes, which accent the fire colors with flashes of blue and purple. Awesome!

After seeing this polish featured over black on the fabulous Australian blog More Nail Polish, here, I decided to use the same combo. I chose American Apparel Hassid for my base. Hassid is a user-friendly black creme that provides completely even opaque coverage in one coat. The consistency is fluid and smooth with an easy, self-leveling flow over the nail. Cleanup is easy. Hassid dries in very good time to a satin/rubbery finish. I'm always glad to use this polish, it's so user friendly and I'm quite fond of American-Apparel's long-wanded brush.

So after a coat of Hassid I set to with Hell Hath No Fury. The consistency of this polish is fluid and fairly smooth given how dense it is with components. It is not sticky or gel-like. Glitter payoff is fantastic, with copious amounts of random glitters available in each brushful. Using my plosh and spread method, I managed to get them distributed fairly evenly over the nail with no stick ups and only a few protrusions over the free edge, mostly bar glitters that I either nudged back onto the nail or removed with tweezers. Hell Hath No Fury dries in fairly good time to a shiny textured finish.

Photos show one coat of Hell Hath No Fury over Hassid over treatment and basecoat. I used a layer of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food to smooth the surface and followed with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

CrowsToes Hell Hath No Fury over American Apparel Hassid

Such a gorgeous, chaotic, colorful glitter mix! And very sparkly too. I love the name of this polish. It turns out it's a paraphrase of a line written by British playwright and poet William Congreve (1670-1721). The line as written goes like this:

Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd
Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.

William Congreve penned other phrases that have since gone viral, are often misquoted and attributed to other authors, most notably William Shakespeare. "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast," is commonly used with the word "beast" instead of "breast." He is also responsible for the expression "kiss and tell" with this line: "O fie, miss, you must not kiss and tell." Who knew?

love,
Liz

Saturday, February 22, 2014

American Apparel Mouse

Mouse was part of American Apparel's foray into nail polish, released with other core polishes late in 2009, and is still part of their line up. It is a medium-light taupe creme, nicely balanced between grey and beige.

I have a small herd of American Apparel polishes in my collection and Mouse is the lightest color I own. It doesn't apply as beautifully as the darker ones, in my opinion, but one coaters are a hard act to follow! The consistency is fluid, light and a little sheer, and so goes on sheerly and a little unevenly. Opacity must be built and I used three coats before I was happy with the coverage. In particular, the self-leveling quality of Mouse was not what I'd hoped based on my experience with other American Apparel lacquers, and part of the reason for needing three coats was to bring my nail ridges into submission. Mouse dries naturally fairly quickly to a glossy finish.

Photos show three coats of Mouse over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of HK Girl.

American Apparel Mouse

I think Mouse is a particularly well-balanced taupe and works pretty well with my cool-toned coloring. In keeping with the other American Apparel polishes I've tried, the finish is lovely and is enhanced by the addition of topcoat but it is glossy enough not to need topcoat if you didn't want to use it for whatever reason.

If you're looking for a lighter taupe to balance out some of the darker ones in your collection, I'd definitely recommend this one. It's a nice creamy neutral that's wearable all year round.

love,
Liz

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Scherer Chameleons: C36 Fandango, C38 Nucleus, C22 Blue Sky plus American Apparel Berry, Mount Royal

Ok, I lied to you yesterday when I said I didn't have any royal blue polishes except for Orly Shockwave. It turns out I have two more candidates: Essie Mesmerize (though perhaps Butler Please would be a truer royal blue, no?) and American Apparel Mount Royal (I'll be swatching this one later in the post so stay tuned). I have a feeling, though, that neither of these two will turn out to be a true royal blue... the former a bit dusty, the latter too muted. Feel free to impart your opinions on these two and any other royal blue nominees in a comment!

For today's post I'm going show you three Sherer Chameleon polishes that I've had in my collection for a while now, having been seduced into bidding for them on ebay by some clever photos of the bottles, holographic labeling and claims to duochrome-dom. I actually swatched one of them on its own last summer with terrible results including epic bubbling and it so put me off the brand that I'm ready to donate all three, but I'm going to give them one last chance to win me over.

First up is Scherer Chameleon C36 Fandango. Fandango looks to have a grey tinted translucent base packed with green/aqua blue duochrome shimmer. On the nail the predominant color is a shimmery mallard green. At certain angles, a shy shift to a greenish aqua blue can be seen.

I applied this over my Orly Shockwave manicure from yesterday. The consistency is fluid, oily and dense and other than showing brushmarks and a little running when I swiped a cuticle I had no problems with application. Fandango dries naturally in good time to a shiny finish that needs a topcoat to protect it as it is very susceptible to scratches even when dry.

Photos show two coat of Fandango over Orly Shockwave (at three coats over treatment and basecoat plus topcoat) with a topcoat of HK Girl.

Sherer Chameleon Fandango over Orly Shockwave

Next up is Sherer Chameleon C38 Nucleus. I decided to swatch Nucleus over American Apparel Berry, a deep mulberry/claret creme with a hint of brown to it. Berry applied beautifully, the consistency was fluid but dense and went on in a smooth, even, self-leveling manner. I just love these American Apparel cremes, they are so easy to get along with! Berry has very good pigmentation with complete opacity in two coats and dries naturally in good time to a glossy finish.

Photos show two coats of Berry over treatment and basecoat with no topcoat.

American Apparel Berry

Scherer Chameleon Nucleus has a sheer brownish-tinted base packed with shimmery duochromatic pigments. The color shifts between a dark reddish purple and turquoise and it is very pronounced on the nail. In fact, both colors are present pretty much all of the time, which is cool. As with Fandango, the consistency of Nucleus was fluid, oily and dense. Brushstrokes were very apparent. HK Girl topcoat helped a lot to soften the look of the brushstrokes but didn't diminish them entirely.

Photos show two coats of Nucleus over the Berry Manicure above with a topcoat of HK Girl.

Scherer Chameleon Nucleus over American Apparel Berry

Last up is Scherer Chameleon C22 Blue Sky. I decided to swatch Blue Sky over American Apparel Mount Royal, a dark sapphire blue creme with a slightly muted quality to it. Mount Royal was consistent with Berry in application ease, consistency and pigmentation. I was a little all over the place applying it, though, and ended up with some uneven places and used a topcoat with this one to help level them out. Mount Royal dries naturally in good time to a finish that is a touch flatter than Berry but still shiny and smooth.

Photos show two coats of Mount Royal over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of HK Girl.

American Apparel Mount Royal

Scherer Chameleon Sky Blue is a shimmery violet/aqua blue duochrome with strong color shifts that are very visible on the nail, like Nucleus. I think this is my favorite of the three for its coloring, but it's the fussiest of the three in application. The consistency was fluid, oily and dense and it had a very dry feeling going on. It does dry incredibly fast, and I felt I had to overload the slender Scherer brush to have enough polish to cover the nail without it beginning to dry and pull. Again, brushstrokes were very apparent and topcoat helped a lot to diminish the effect. Sky Blue dries naturally very quickly to a comparatively unusual satin finish.

Photos show two coats of Sky Blue over the Mount Royal manicure above with a topcoat of HK Girl.

Sherer Chameleon Sky Blue over American Apparel Mount Royal

Well I have to say that these Sherer Chameleons go on with much less trouble in cold weather than they do when its hot. No bubbling, hooray! The color shifts are strong in Nucleus and Sky Blue while Fandango lags a bit in this respect. All three show brushstrokes. To recap, I've swatched all three on a palette, two coats each, on their own with no undies.

l to r: Fandango, Nucleus, Blue Sky, two coats each


l to r: Fandango, Nucleus, Blue Sky, two coats each

After my experience last summer I didn't even contemplate trying these alone without a base polish underneath, but you can see from the swatch palette that they could probably be worn that way provided you have smoother, more regular nail plates than I do. But there are so many polishes out there that I like way better than these frosty duochrome shimmers that don't need a base to look presentable. You know what I mean? These feel kind of dated to me. I mean, we have spectacular stand alone multichromes from our beloved indie polish makers now!

Anyway, perhaps this will be helpful to someone contemplating a Sherer Chameleon purchase. It's tempting because these are inexpensive polishes. My opinion: unless the color and finish really really REALLY speak to you, you can do better.

love,
Liz

PS I just found this post on NouveauCheap.com from last July bearing the news that Sherer Cosmetics is no more. Apparently they made two other polish brands, CQ and Petites, in addition to Chameleon. I guess that means these are beauty culture collector's items now.