Tag Archives: Ulta3

CND Effects Sapphire Sparkle + Ozotic Elytra 529 = Blingy Goodness

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I’ve not played about with nail art and layering and glitters sandwiches or whatever they’re called much at all yet. Am still too busy discovering what I like and trying to get more polish on my actual nails than I do on the skin surrounding them:). It’s not that I’m not interested but rather that I just haven’t really got there yet.

But the other day I tried on an Ulta3 cheapie I’d come across at the local chemist store called ‘Midnight’. Midnight looks like a basic black creme in the bottle but on opening it you see that it appears to have a very dark purple tinge to the black. However, on the nails that purple tinge disappears and it dries semi matte, very reminiscent of Illamasqua’s Scorn. I haven’t got any pics of Scorn handy but here is two coats of Ulta3 Midnight without top coat.

Ulta3 Midnight

Excuse the dodgy cuticle on the middle finger:(. Ulta3 polishes are bin dive lovelies that cost between $2.00 to $3.00 AUD depending on where you find them. Generally the formula on these, as far as I’ve found to date, is pretty good although the brushes could be better. But for the price they’re great. Midnight wont be getting binned anytime soon.

Anyway, I decided to play about and slap on CND Effects Sapphire Sparkles which I’d bought off eBay a month or so earlier.

Ulta3 Midnight & CND Effects Sapphire Sparkles

So having come this far, I decided to drag out one of the Ozotic Elytra polishes I’d bought a while back and not yet christened. Cue Ozotic Elytra 529.

Ulta3 Midnight & CND Effects Sapphire Sparkles & Ozotic Elytra 529

The Ozotic Elytra polishes are multicoloured glitters in clear lacquer. Ozotic 529 has blue and red glitter. It also has quite a duochrome effect which must be inherent to the glitter. If you like the look of Ozotic 529 you need to get a wriggle on as they are being discontinued along with the rest of the Ozotic 500 series. As of today they were still available on the Picture Polish website. I can’t comment as to what availability there might be internationally through Picture Polish’s network members but if you’re keen go now!:)

Ulta3 Midnight & CND Effects Sapphire Sparkles & Ozotic Elytra 529

Ok, it’s a weird shot, mostly featuring my palm, but I wanted to show the variance of colour. This was two coats of Ozotic 529 over the rest of it, plus a coat of Seche Vita.

By this stage CND Effects Sapphire Sparkle is clearly a little overwhelmed by Ozotic 529 but I think the effect is still there, even if it is the subtlest polish on the nail by this stage:).

It was fun mucking about with these. The most I’ve tried previously is a flakie or glitter coat over one colour. Hannah of Polly Polish has arranged for Polish Days, including a coordinated glitter sandwich mani day in early July . I thought I’d participate to make myself try something different so I’m looking forward to mucking about some more with some glitter and jellies for that.

Thanks for reading and tolerating my very amateurish attempts at layering:). Do you have any layer combinations you particularly love?

xx

Blue Monday: Ulta3 Blue Marlin & comparison

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Early on in my fledgling lacquerhead life – like about four months ago:) – I was bemoaning my efforts at applying a dishearteningly thick and gluggy Chanel Paradoxal in a review on MUA when I recieved a message from another MUA member about a dupe for Paradoxal by a cheapie brand stocked by the Terry White Chemist chain, amongst others, here in Australia. That is when I first learned of Ulta3 polish.

I’ve only tried a few polishes by this brand but each of those have amazed me. First was the Paradoxal dupe, a polish called ‘Twilight Fever’. Next was one called ‘Midnight Fever’, a dupe for Chanel’s Blue Satin. Now dupes are  pretty much par for the course in polish-land. And even spot on dupes are not that unusual. But spot on dupes that cost less than half a skim cappuccino that you have to go ‘bin-diving’ for are a less common occurrence. I’ve not got around to posting these two dupes but I swear I cannot tell them apart from the Chanel polishes, both of which I own.

So that was my introduction to Ulta3. Recently I was scouring ‘drugstore’ polish world for anything interesting, new and noteworthy. Unfortunately in the Australian market the pickings are a bit scarce which led me to revisit Ulta3. And I’m happy that I did because there appear to be some interesting new colours about. Now by bin diving I mean that these polishes are not stored on a shelf in some orderly display. Ulta3s really are just chucked into a bin, all mixed up and you have to rifle through to see if there’s anything of interest. They cost about $2.50 AUD (which is roughly the same in USD at the moment) and not every store will have exactly the same colours. You’ve just got to hunt about and see what you come up with.

So in keeping with my new found love of blue nail polish, when I came across Ulta3 Blue Marlin I grabbed it.

Ulta3 Blue Marlin

Now this brand proves the old adage that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Here we have a really very ordinary and cheaply presented bottle of polish, complete with dodgily applied clear plastic label.  However, there haven’t been too many polishes that have made me go ‘Oh wow’ the moment I apply to the first nail. Blue Marlin is without doubt an ‘Oh wow’ polish.

Ulta3 Blue Marlin

Ulta3 Blue Marlin

I’m pleased to say that the colour in the pics is spot on. But so that you can get a sense of where this colour sits relative to some better known, and frankly pricier polishes, I did a comparison.

L-R: Ulta3 Blue Marlin, Dior Electric Blue & Illamasqua Force

I had thought Illamasqua Force would be a closer match to both of these but was surprised to see it wasn’t. Mind you, whilst I think the pics have captured the blue of both Blue Marlin and Electric Blue, Force doesn’t look as pale as that to the naked eye in my view. I think the camera is playing silly buggers with me again. Here they are on the nail.

Pinkie = Ulta3 Blue Marlin; Ring Finger = Dior Electric Blue; Middle Finger = Force; Index Finger = Ulta3 Blue Marlin

I’m not sure what was going on with Illamasqua Force but it wrinkled up slightly after I applied the Seche Vita top coat. I’ve not worn either Force or Electric Blue before applying them here so I will have to experiment with Force to see whether I have further issues.

Pinkie = Ulta3 Blue Marlin; Ring Finger = Dior Electric Blue; Middle Finger = Force; Index Finger = Ulta3 Blue Marlin

Please forgive the horrid cuticles. Despite daily cuticle cream applications, the winter climate seems to be playing havoc with my skin. That and I’m still photographing my left hand whilst I wait for my right middle fingernail to regrow. I always have problems with the cuticle and surrounding area on left top side of my left middle finger as it is the spot that pens rest when I write so it gets fairly tough and almost calloused.

Formula-wise, Ulta3 was a little prone to some bald spots on first coat but it could be a one-coat polish if you did a careful thick first coat. I’m not overly careful so this is two coats. I had the same bald spot issues with the Dior polish, although the very wide, curve-tipped brushes Dior polishes have makes a difference. All three of them had good formulas. Illamasqua Force is a possible one-coater but I used two. Brush on the Ulta3 polish was pretty bog standard. No worse or better than the Illamasqua one. But for $2.50 Blue Marlin is dead set amazing.

I don’t know who makes Ulta3 or whether they’re in anyway related to the Ulta brand. The bottle says ‘Made in PRC’ so I’m guessing they’re not free of any of the usual undesirable ingredients. But given the colours, there must be a bit of trend-spotting going on by the makers. I’m not sure what else could account for the couple of dead-on dupes on high-end polishes and a range of interesting colours untypical of other bin-dive or low-end brands.

xx