Beauty: Favourite Holo Taco Combos

Now that I’ve had time to play with quite a few polishes and multiple different combinations of them, I wanted to document some of my absolute favourite combos that I’ve worn, mostly so I could come back to them later. Having added all the images below, it’s not lost on me that all of them are taken of my ~oThEr HaNd~ lol.

My other hand painting skills still need improvement so bear with me, but that doesn’t change how I adore these polishes together.

Everything is from Holo Taco, of course. Currently I still purchase from this brand exclusively.

On the left I am loving: Blue Ain’t Slick + Aurora Unicorn Skin (excuse the Rory hair!)
On the right I am super into: Missed Shift + Cosmic Unicorn Skin

I’ve also tried Blue Ain’t Slick + Sonic Unicorn Skin but I’ve found that the two are little too similar, which ends up making the Unicorn Skin topper a little too subtle for my taste. It’s still lovely, just not one of my favourites. Aurora Unicorn Skin, however, provides the ideal pink contrast over the blue-purple shifty multichrome base. When the sun hits it, you see it glowing yellow, orange and even a hint of lime green. Ugh, stunning.

The combo of Missed Shift + Cosmic Unicorn Skin was not one I was expecting would look that good. I don’t like Missed Shift on its own so I threw on a random topper I thought would work and oh my. I can’t quite put my finger on what it reminds me of, but it’s such a beautiful combo. It looks so Eastern… like Spring in Japan, with sakura petals floating amid a sea of teal. It’s breathtaking and I can’t and won’t get over it lol.

Multichromes have got to be my favourite Holo Taco formula. With a Unicorn Skin on top? Perfect.

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Beauty: My Peely Base Mani Lasted 7 Days

Hello! Or, I should say: holo. I promise the Seattle posts are still coming, one has been in my drafts for 5 days. I’ve just hit a bit of a writer’s block and there’s too much to write about so I’m overwhelmed. Plus the sheer level of busy that I’ve been lately is… insane.

Anyway, it’s been almost exactly 2mo since I received my first ever Holo Taco order. I have since, um, ordered so much more that I’m already Holo Royalty lol. That said, a solid 75 points came from bonus ways to earn. I realised a couple of days ago that I could have just signed up for SMS messages and become Royalty before a bunch of recent Holo Royalty surveys were sent out so I totally missed out on those.

But with the new launch releasing this week, I’m glad I’m now Royalty and able to receive advanced teasers woo! And yes I’ll be buying more polish this weekend, lol. I guess let me know if you want me to actually review everything else I got from Holo Taco too. So far, I’ve been purchasing polish from them exclusively.

In my first Holo Taco review, I mentioned that I used Peely Base and it lasted a total of 5 hours.

After I followed the tips and tricks from Cristine’s video about how to make your Peely Base/mani last longer, I was able to make my Peely mani last 3 days… then 4-5 days… and most recently, a full week or more, if we count the day I did my nails as day 1.

Above shows days 3 and 7. I was already getting bored of this mani and was planning to get rid of it soon anyway, so it deciding to yeet itself came at the perfect time. Oh dang look at that nail growth… and this boomer finally learned to start watermarking lol.

Allow me to share how I did this with more progress pics below. And the weird ridges in my nails will be explained as well. If you only care about the tips & tricks, click here.

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Beauty: Bliss Kiss Hydrating Oil Review

Hello hello. I promised Seattle posts and have I delivered? Ehhh… not yet. But they’ll come eventually. I’ve been in a bit of a rut, largely in part because of how uncomfortable I’ve felt in my surroundings lately, as well as with some of my failing electronics.

Long story short: I purchased some new organising items (some of which my hubby helped to put up around the house), moved furniture around in my office and purchased a new USB-C hub for my MacBook Pro. I am thrilled with how the updates we’ve made to the house and my new hub is working exactly as intended. I can’t wait to get some of the stuff done that I’ve had planned for a while.

Let’s start with the review of a new nail oil I acquired: the Bliss Kiss Simply Pure Hydrating Oil with Vitamin E and Jojoba. (I started writing this post before my Dark Rainbow review but it’s taken longer to get out because I needed a solid few days to review it properly.)

Why

Oh boy what a nail journey! I know I mentioned that I tried Simply Nailogical’s nail oil idea and it totally worked initially, but I noticed that, after using nail polish for a while, my nails were starting to get very dry, brittle and flakey again.

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Beauty: Holo Taco Dark Rainbow Review

Mmmmhmmmm… I promised a Holo Taco Dark Rainbow review and here it is. I managed to purchase the Dark Rainbow Collection with the box on launch day and had been looking forward to receiving it since I made the purchase.

The colours looked stunning on the website and via Simply’s launch stream. As a self-professed non-fan of holo, this collection was enough of my vibe for me to justify it being my first foray into the Holo Taco linear holo formula that I’d heard so many good things about.

Don’t come for me, but after having had it for about a week and the initial novelty has worn off, I must say… I don’t love it as much as I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong, I still like them a lot! But at present I feel like these are probably my least favourite polishes out of all the Holo Taco polishes I currently own, and allow me to explain why.

Positives

Let me start with the positives: the packaging was great – my box arrived in perfect condition.

The colours themselves are very pretty.

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Beauty: Holo Taco Review Update

Okay. Right. Guys…

Remember in my previous post about Holo Taco I mentioned how I took Cristine’s advice on nail care with the nail oil and such? It actually made such a massive difference that I am now in love with the shape of my nails. Well, I mean, I like them a lot more than before. And my nails are actually able to grow out. For the first time ever, I have long nails and I like them.

I sent this before and after to my sister, and honestly I was shocked.

The ‘before’ image was cropped out of a photo where I’m cuddling my cat back in March. I literally don’t have many photos where my hands are really visible since I disliked the look of my nails. They were thin and grew out sideways or all sorts of weird directions. This was about as long as they could get before I had to cut them out of discomfort.

The ‘after’ photo was taken on 16th August, not too long after I received my first order of Holo Taco. Doesn’t it look… insanely different? My nail shape has changed, my cuticles are so much healthier and my nails are growing out in the right direction. Literally you wouldn’t believe it’s the same hand. I’m wearing a thin coat of Holo Taco’s Smoothing Base in that photo.

I’m not sure if using nail oil itself actually helped to change my entire nail shape – I first noticed it’d stopped growing sideways after I got my first ever gel manicure in early June. (That was a whole other story altogether – I have minor regrets about being upsold into it, but that’s beside the point.)

I wonder if sealing it with gel polish under the UV lights after the nail technician had aggressively filed them down was what caused it to remain in that shape? You can actually still see some of the remnants of the gel polish on my nails in the after pic.

Whatever it was, I know that using the nail oil plus changing to a glass nail file has helped a lot with my nail health after the gel started peeling off (ugh), and my nails have developed a stronger C-curve, which I feel is a highly desired outcome.

Anyways! All that is to say… I now adore my nails, and after using Holo Taco for a few weeks, I absolutely love it.

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