Flakie Frenzy!

Because Australia lags horribly behind on cosmetics releases sometimes, we only got the Revlon Moon Candy polishes in stores very recently. If you haven't heard of them, they're a neat little idea - two little bottles in one tube, where one is the plain base colour and the other is pretty foily flakies to go over the top. I think they're stretching a bit to call it "nail art" as they do on the packaging, but I'm aware my definition of what constitutes "nail art" is probably skewed by all the amazing nail artists I follow online. Regardless, they're still quite pretty, and very easy to use.

I've found a lot of Revlon polishes to be a little too thin for my taste - if a polish is a plain creme I prefer ones which are one or two coats, and a bunch of Revlon I've tried have needed three or even four. The plain colours with the Moon Candy sets are surprisingly thick however - I only needed one  coat, and you might need two if you use thin coats. This means you can put the flaky layer over the top without it becoming overly thick.

They're very pretty, however I did feel the flaky polish was a little low on...well, flakes. I put two coats over the top of the base to get this much glitter on, and it's pretty easy to flood the whole thing if you're not careful.

On the whole, they're a neat idea, and I don't have any major complaints. If you're in the US, they're a great deal since they go for $8 RRP, and can be found for much less at Rite-Aid etc because they're a year old now. Unfortunately, I'm not in the US, and this means that not only did I have to wait a solid year for these to be released here, but they are also $16 each.The only reason I got these at all is because Priceline was offering them as a two for one deal, making the per unit price much more reasonable.  But I would never pay full price for these here - they're just not worth it. Because I'm a cheapskate who loathes being overcharged for things, I wanted to show you some alternatives to coughing up too much money for these. I'm going to assume you have plain polishes to go under these, and show you some pretty flaky toppers that you can use to get a similar effect to the Moon Candy polishes.

Missha The Style Lucid Nail Polish Dazzling #8

I'm pretty fond of Missha products, but lord I wish they didn't feel the need to give every product a million names like they're little Catholic children. This polish is officially Missha The Style Lucid Nail Polish Dazzling in No. 8, but let's just call it Dazzling for now. It's very cheap on the scale of things - I paid $4.90 for it at the Missha store, and it's about $6 from the online store. It's also PACKED with glitter - not only does it have tons and tons of flaky foil in it, it's also got a bunch of tiny holo glitter scattered through it as well. These pictures are one very light coat over Max Factor Glossfinity in Navy.

Image courtesy of the Alanna Renee website

Another option is a polish I got as part of my first big leap into indie nail polish - Milky Way from Alanna Renee. It's from her first collection, and I think is actually the only glitter topper she's made so far. Like the Missha polish, there are lots of little glitters in this as well as the large ones. It doesn't have foil flakies in it, but the transluscent, irridiscent glitters create a similar sort of effect. These photos are one coat of Milky Way over the same Max Factor Glossfinity navy I used under the Missha.

So there are just a few ideas. They're not exactly the same, although the Missha does appear to have exactly the same type of foil flakes as the Revlon Moon Candy, but only available in one colour. If you see the Moon Candy polishes on special, by all means pick them up, but $15 is just exorbitant for something that isn't exactly unique. Tweet