Monday, August 27, 2012

Watch Your Language, Yoshi

Today I have the last of the beach manis, a great manicure that I kept on forever (and lasted forever at the beach, which is impressive!)  I wanted to cry when I started getting tip wear because I loved it SO VERY MUCH.  

I started off with two coats of Spoiled Watch Your Language.  Great formula, terrible brush.  It is like a dog lapping on your fingers!  Then I applied one coat of Dollish Polish Dino-Mite Yoshi, one of the great polishes from her Mario line.  I loved the blend of colors in this so much.  Then, for fun, I decided to use Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love to matte the entire thing.  The end result I was giddy over.  I felt that this one was really a home run.

As with all of Dollish Polishes, the application on Yoshi was amazing.  I have quite the collection of Dollish Minis and yet I always seem to be able to find more and more to buy!  She is easily one of my favorite indie polish makers.

I originally wanted to put Yoshi over green, but that looked very Christmasy to me, here I think it really brings out the blend of colors and makes them pop!


Prepare yourself for epic picture spam...

Watch Your Language by itself:


With Dino-Mite Yoshi, no top coat:




Matted:



Macro - LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!

You can purchase Dollish Polish at her Big Cartel Site.  Spoiled polishes can be found at CVS.

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Friday, August 24, 2012

The Girl with the Best Smile is Ba-Roque

Today I have a combo that I was thrilled with how it turned out.  I started off with two coats of Spoiled Ba-Roque, a bronze polish with silver shimmer in it.  The first coat is pretty sheer, but two is all you need for full coverage.  This polish is awesome, but that brush.  OY.  That brush is a crime against polish.  It is so hard to work with!  It is worth it to get some of these great polishes though and a reasonable price.

Then I put on one coat of Windestine The Girl With The Best Smile, a great polish with purple hexes, pink squares and gold glitter in a clear base.  The end result is really breathtaking.  Girl pumped up Ba-Roque just a notch and made me love it even more.   

Gorgeous!


I love the color blends here!

Macro to see all of the colors:

Windestine can be purchased at her Big Cartel store.  Spoiled can be purchased at CVS.

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Thursday, August 23, 2012

I Don't Want to Glow Up

Today I have another unique to my collection polish - Sonnetarium Never Glow Up.  This is a soft pastel green polish packed to the gills with flakies.  It is extremely sheer and I wish I had a suitable base for it with me at the beach.

Here you see three coats of polish on the nail, covered by one coat of Seche Vite and two coats of Essie Good to Go in order to smooth it out on the nail.

You can obviously still see the visible nail line, so I think a nice soft green would be a perfect layering polish for this and it would conserve the beautiful Never Glow Up.  

I thought this polish applied like a dream on the nail and was very easy to put on evenly and easily.  Be sure to scroll down through all of the photos to see what makes this baby so unique!  



Macro:

Added bonus - it glows in the dark!  Look how cool!  My kids went gaga over this when I was putting them to bed.

Sonnetarium polishes can be purchased at their Etsy store.

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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Kate Loves Sal-Mon

Today I have a newer indie polish to show you, Liquid Lacquer (formerly 2Chix) Not 4 Sal-Mon.  A jelly salmon base with white and dark salmon colored glitters suspended in it.

On its own this polish is very sheer, so I decided to layer it over a white to make it pop.  I chose Julep Kate - a beautiful white shimmer - as the base.  As with all white polishes, it needed quite a few coats (3 I think, I lost track) before it was opaque.  I probably should have just stopped at 2.  Then I put 2 coats of Sal-Mon on top to get the depth of color I wanted.  

This is another really unique polish in my collection.  

Please excuse the white outline, my clean up brush went belly up at the beach and so I was forced to make due with an older one (my "good" one started leaking black paint off the brush and getting all over my nails!  #NailPolishProblems).  

Shade - this is the most color accurate of the final result:

Full Sun - it was not this light, but in the full sun it washed it out a good deal.

 Up close:  I love the distribution of the glitters.  I did this outside, so that is why it is so bubblelicious.  Completely user error!

2Chix Lacquers can be purchased through their Etsy Store.  For a limited time you can use the code GRAND10 to get 10% off your first order on Etsy!

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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Aquanet is Charged Up!

Today I have a fantastical polish from Hot Mess Lacquers (the name alone is full of win) called Aquanet.  Being a child of the 80s, I'm deeply familiar with the brand Aquanet, the only hair spray able to allow my hair to defy gravity on a daily basis.

I started off with 2 coats of Orly Charged Up.  Now this was a mini and it blew.  I assume it was because it was a mini polish?  I don't know, but what a giant pita.  Streaky, hard to be opaque, etc.  If I had been home I would have gone with a different base, but I was limited to the polishes I brought with.

I put one coat of Aquanet over top (at least I think it was one, it may have been two, being a beach bum has fried my brain). What a beauty this baby is, look at those large squares and hexes.  It is suspended in a purple jelly base, but I wanted some underwear to conserve this beautiful polish.

I had no application issues with Aquanet.

I'm definitely a fan of Hot Mess Lacquers!  I plan on more of their polishes being part of my polish family very soon.



Close up!

Hot Mess Lacquers can be purchased at their Etsy store.  I have also seen a few of them on Copious! Orly can be purchased at Ulta or Sally Beauty Supply.

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Monday, August 20, 2012

Lannisters - The good (Tyrion), the bad (Jamie) and the ugly (Cersei/Tywin)

Today embarks the first of many of my "beach manicures", which is those I did while I was on my beach vacation with my kids.  I was lacking most of my stash and clean up tools.  

I let my kids pick out the polishes for these and they picked out Metametics Lannister Gold, a really cool orange jelly polish with various gold glitters suspended.

I think this one may have looked better with underwear (you know I'm not a fan of a VNL), but it was so unique and gorgeous, I loved it anyway.  Plus, this way you get to see the beauty of the polish by itself.

As with my other Metametics, it applied perfectly, no issues getting the glitters to distribute well.  It is really set apart from almost anything else in my collection.

Sun:

Shade:

Macro:

Speaking of the clan Lannister, can I profess my undying love for Game of Thrones?  I love it.  Tyrion is the absolute bomb in both the books and the show.  I love him so very much, I think what I love most of all is he is imperfectly perfect.  He is cast to perfection by the magnificent Peter Dinklage.  Jamie, who I have to admit is growing on me with his jaunt with Brianne of Tarth, is that perfect mix of bad boy who you think you can somehow "convert".  Cersei and Tywin, on the other hand, are assholes.  Although I will say both are also cast to perfection.  That scene where Cersei gets hammered during the battle of blackwater and lashes out at everyone?  Ouch.  

Having read the books I know that justice will come to one of the Lannisters but soon.  I can't freaking wait!  If you love Game of Thrones as much as I do I'd love to hear about it on the comments!

Metametics can be purchased at their Etsy Store

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Saturday, August 18, 2012

Bottoms Up with Rum Runner

Today I have an amazing jelly polish - Aphrodite Lacquers Rum Runner.  This is a raspberry red jelly with multiple types of glitter suspended in the base.  

This is absolutely stunning on the nail.  It applied like a dream and you see two coats below with no underwear at all.  I loved the formula on this polish so much I bought two more from her.  If you love jelly based polishes, run to her Etsy store to pick them up!

Shade:


Sun:



Aphrodite Lacquers can be found at her Etsy store.

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Friday, August 17, 2012

Reserved Party Girl Cuts Footloose

Today I have a two-fer for you.  The first is OPI DS Reserve.  Sigh.  I want to love this, but this color on me is crap.  It just blends in too much with my skin tone.  Not.a.fan.  The polish itself is very pretty though.  I have decided to send this baby off to a new home with someone who may appreciate her more.

Shade:


 Sun


Macro:


**Caution - Foot Photos Ahead**


For my toes I went with Deborah Lippmann Footloose (hahaha) with Candy Lacquer Party Girl on top.  It seemed beach bum appropriate.  Unlike its mate - Almost Paradise, Footloose was a great polish.

Candy Lacquer I'm over the moon for, great polish and easy wear to it.  I loved it!  My pedi application techniques suck, I know this, but I do the best I can!




Candy Lacquers can be purchased at their Etsy Shop.  OPI can be purchased at Ulta.  Deborah Lippmann can be purchased at HSN.com or Nordstrom.

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Thursday, August 16, 2012

Cherry Blossom in Paradise

Sorry for the delay in blogging, I've been on vacation and haven't had time to get a post together!

Today I have a stunning polish to share - Amy's Nail Boutique Cherry Blossom over Deborah Lippmann Almost Paradise.

I knew I wanted to do a green base for this polish to really show off the softness and beauty in Cherry Blossom.  Cherry Blossom also imparts a stunning shimmer to the polish below.  

Sadly, Almost Paradise wasn't even close to paradise.  It was a disaster.  It went on streaky and chalky and this is three coats and it STILL had bald spots.  UGH.  But the finished product is pretty, so I guess that is all that matters.

Cherry Blossom, like all of Amy's Nail Boutique polishes, goes on like a dream.  It is very easy to get from bottle to nail.  Cherry Blossom is easy to spread along the nail and distribute the glitter.  It has several shades of pink and white hexes in a shimmery base.  I loved this.  I can see this working over lots of different bases (I want to try red next)!  I finished it off with my standard glitter topping top coats - 1 coat of Seche Vite and 1 coat of Nails, Inc Kensington Caviar.

Full Sun:



Shade:

Argh, ignore the stupid bubbles.  I think those were from Seche.

Macro to show off the shimmer:

Amy's Nail Boutique polishes can be purchased at her Etsy store.  The entire floral inspired line is absolutely stunning!  

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