Nail Art / Swatch & Review

   Working through more of my untried indie glitters, I created this cute manicure to wear to the baby shower that my best friend held yesterday!  It was such a nice party.  These might not look like very baby-themed nails, but I'm not one for baby motifs.  So I went with nice bright colors, instead.  Also, Lush Lacquer is created by a mother-daughter team, so it totally fits!

   All my nails started out with a base coat of white, which was Zoya Purity.  For my glitter gradient nails I used Lush Lacquer Pebbles.  This is an awesome, colorful matte glitter in a clear base.  It looks way better on the nail than in the bottle, where the colors appear muddled because of the tiny glitter size.  On the nail the yellow, pink, purple and blue really pop!

   The glitter coverage was good, too.  My nails are showing 1 coat at the cuticle/top, 2 coats from the middle down, and 3 at the very tip.  Roughly.  I just dabbed the glitter on carefully to make the gradient effect.  My verdict is that this polish is great!

   For accent nails I tried doing fishtail style chevrons for the first time.  They didn't come out too badly, but 4 colors was way too many for a beginner's attempt!  Definitely going to stick with 2 the next time I practice.  I did a pretty good job matching up the polish colors to the glitter in Pebbles, though.  Here is what I used:

Lush Lacquer Pebbles, China Glaze Happy-Go-Lucky, Zoya Sweet, Pure Ice Fairy Godmother and Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!

   What do you think of these nails?  Do you have any Lush Lacquer colors to recommend?  They can be found in the Lush Lacquer etsy shop!  Thanks for looking.  =)

Swatch & Review

   When my nail mail from Different Dimension arrived, chocked-full of nail polishes that I helped name (still in a slight state of disbelief on that), I didn't know where to start.  I felt like I needed more hands right away!  I finally settled on Love Her? I Don't Even Lacquer! for my first mani, since it is the polish that got the ball rolling.

   First off, take a look at the pretty bottle macro!  You might want to click to see larger.  LH?IDEL! is a black and white glitter with a little something extra in the form of holographic microglitter and blue-purple sparks.  You'll find white hearts and tiny glitters, sheer white squares and hexes, and black hearts, squares, and hexes.  This is all floating in a clear base for maximum versatility!

   My base was two coats of Zoya Layla, an insanely-bright-yet-not-neon color that dries to a rubbery finish as seen above.  I don't often reach for such a bright color but I was pleased with how wearable Layla was!  This plain swatch is more accurate of the pink color, as well.

   Now, I know that not everyone likes large glitter on their tips, so the above nails are for those people!  I managed to avoid the hearts not not shaking the bottle at all and using one thin coat of LH?IDEL!  I really liked this look!  Sort of Lisa Frank dalmatian puppy.  Otherwise just leave your bottle upside down for a bit before using to help the heavy heart pieces mix in better.  There are a lot in there, and using that method I ended up with plenty of hearts on my other nails.

   I used the tip of an orange stick to poke some of the unruly hearts into a better place on my nails.  I used one coat of Poshe topcoat on the nails that had no hearts or hearts that laid flat, and two coats for the ones that had more texture.  This polish wore really well and I didn't get a single chip, even when I started picking at it!

   You can get your own bottle of Love Her? I Don't Even Lacquer! from the Different Dimension etsy shop.  What will you wear it with?
   Zoya Layla can be bought from the brand's Online shop.

   Thanks for letting me share this extra-special polish with you!

Swatch / NotD

   This is a simple manicure but I really like it.  When I did my Blue Midnight jewelry nail art I ended up painting my left hand in Pure Ice Ruffled Sheets.  I love silver polish but it was feeling washed out with my other hand being so colorful and fancy.  Here is Ruffled Sheets on it's own at two coats, with no top coat.  As you can see it dries shimmery-matte.  (You can enter to win a bottle, along with two more shades!)

   A very nice type of brushed-steel metallic and it stands out as unique in my collection of silvers.  My eyes kept wandering to my new bottle of Orly Miss Conduct, though.  I considered taking Ruffled Sheets off and redoing my nails with the Orly, but instead I layered it.  This way I only needed one coat of Miss Conduct, which has a jelly-type base that let the metallic of Ruffled Sheets shine through.  It was hard to capture the effect...

   Miss Conduct dries shiny and with Poshe topcoat added my nails turned into little glass jewels.  The glitter is fantastic: holographic microshards such as found in the Milani 3D polishes and Zoya Aurora and Storm.  It helped bring out the Ruffled Sheets accent nail made shiny with topcoat.  Miss Conduct is now among my favorite pink polishes because of the awesome color and perfect formula.  Ruffled Sheets has proven itself to be good for nail art and good for layering.  So, I'd call this left-hand-mani a success!

NotD / Nail Art

   It dawned on me as I prepared this post that this will be the first water marble I've shared on my blog.  Actually, it's only the second one I've ever done.  So, I'm very proud of this post!

   This post also marks the first time I've used the "orange" color tag on my blog.  Orange isn't something that I'm usually drawn to, but when I saw these four colors next to each other I knew that I would have to do a marble with them some day.  They are just so happy and bright!  These swirls bring to mind limes, lemons, oranges and (my favorite) pink grapefruit!  Or blood oranges; those have a wonderful color too.

   I started with a white creme base to make the colors pop, and my water marble colors were all from the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear line, because as of yet they are the only ones that I have been able to get consistent results marbling with.  (Hey, I said this is only the second marble I've done, not my second attempt!  Lots of trial and error!)  The colors are Fuchsia Power, Sun Kissed, Mellow Yellow, and Green With Envy.

   I had tragedy strike when I applied topcoat, though.  There was some dragging, which is quite upsetting.  =(  Fortunately I noticed it right away and was able to save my designs for the most part.  Then I ended up with a small black fuzz on my thumbnail, which I had no way of getting out without causing further damage.  >_<  These things aren't noticeable unless you look very closely...  I got over it pretty quickly.  =P

   I'm entering this design in Smashley Sparkles water marble contest.  That is one of my favorite blogs - check it out!  As soon as she announced the contest I knew I had to enter.  I had been wanting to do another water marble anyway; this gave me extra incentive to practice and get it done.  Still, I don't envy her job of choosing winners - everyone who entered has such a gorgeous design, they are all so unique!  You never know exactly what you'll get with a water marble, and I think that is part of their charm.  =)

   I picked one nail polish out with my last Forever 21 order.  I'm always drooling over their accessories and every so often they have some neat polish up for grabs.  I don't have a F21 store nearby, so I just chance it going by Online descriptions, and get to be surprised when it all arrives.

   When I was unpacking this bottle I was at first afraid it wasn't going to work for me, seeing all the orangey-yellow sparks in the bottle, but then I looked closer and I realized it is something special.  This nail polish has no real name - the label just says Blue/Clear; Online it is listed as "Blue Stars Nail Polish".  But when I looked at it in person, saw the flashing aqua-blue stars and unusual iridescent glitters, to me this polish is Sea Stars.

   More about the glitter polish after the jump.  I have to say that last week was really, really rough for me.  I was having a bout of being depressed, sad, whatever you want to call it, and after a week I really wanted my usual chipper demeanor back.  (So did my family and boyfriend, it was rough for all of us.)  So when it was time for my nails to be refreshed I went for the happiest color I could.  China Glaze Happy-Go-Lucky was my yellow creme base - 2 coats.  It actually looks better on my skintone than these pictures suggest, but it is pushing for me, I know.

   Fortunately my mood did pick up yesterday, along with the sunshine.  These nail pictures are taken in full sunlight, no flash.  (Love my new camera - I took these in a moving car!)  If you'd like to see glitter bottle shots keep reading!

   I wanted to play with one of my new flakies for my last manicure!  I picked Glass Slipper since it is a clear polish and I didn't want to alter the color of Nyx Dusty Pink - one of my untrieds.  Actually... this entire manicure was made of untrieds!

   I used Nyx Girls in Dusty Pink (2 coats), Sally Hansen Glass Slipper (1-2 coats), China Glaze Frosty (2 thin coats), and Zoya Purity (1 coat).  I had intended on decorating each nail with some sort of design but never got around to it...

   Today my nails are done royally in purple!  After a dreary grey week the sun is out again so I thought it would be a good time for nail pictures.  Instead the sun immediately went behind a cloud when I pulled the camera out.  These few shots turned out the best.

↑ With flash | Without flash ↓

   I did one coat of China Glaze Grape Pop and one coat of Milani 3D Holographic Hi-Res on all nails except my ring fingers, which got 2 coats of Hi-Res.  The pictures of course do not capture how they are all fantastically sparkly.  Here is a shot of when my nails were at the one-coat stage:

   Last night after work my nails were in sad shape.  The lacquer on them was chipping, I had broken a nail at work, and I needed to correct that.  Finally I'm feeling well enough to paint my nails again!  At first I was thinking of doing OPI Mermaid's Tears as a simple mani... but...  I've been looking at colors like that come out of my nose for the past few days, so...  (Sorry.)  Instead I wanted something lovely and vibrant!

   Inspired by the tutorials of doing a design (crackle, stripes, animal print) over a rainbow of horizontal stripes, I wanted to make it my own.  I've never tried doing horizontal stripes, as far as I can remember.  I'm usually not that ambitious....  So, I grabbed China Glaze in 108 Degrees, Senorita Bonita, and Blue Iguana.  These are gorgeous glass-fleck shimmer polishes.

   I stayed up way too late painting these stripes on my nails.  I did it freehand just with the regular brush in the bottle.  I'm actually super pleased with how it turned out!  So pleased, in fact, that I'm leaving my "base" bare for the day!  Maybe I'll add something on top later.  =)  So, it's not perfect and they are a couple spots where my lines are sloppy, but that's a-okay with me...  I was planning to just smother it all anyway!  See:

   Hello everyone.  Here is a color that I wasn't sure was really right for me, but I picked it up because it looked so pretty and bright in swatches Online.  I was afraid this color would be too warm for my skin tone.  The camera did not want to get an accurate shot of this no-way, no-how.  It is more vibrant and a tad warmer in real life.  I'd call it a bright coral-pink.  It dries deeper and brighter on the nail than it looks in the bottle.  The formula seemed just a tad thick.

   Two coats, no top coat, indirect sunlight and flash:

   In the interest of organizing my blog better I'm creating more specific tags, or labels.  These are so you can find a certain type of polish quickly.  Brand name tags have already been put in use.  All nail polish tags will begin with "np-", and the types will be defined as follows:

   ~ Finishes ~

Creme - also known as cream, but hey, that's a color!  Creme polishes are pigmented, opaque, shiny colors.  True cremes contain no shimmer or glitter.  Think of shiny enamel paint.
Effect - what I'm dubbing the crackle, shatter, and graffiti colors.  Also includes color-changing, glowing, and magnetic polishes.
Flake - contain larger, odd-shaped and usually iridescent reflective pieces.  Think of fish scales.
Frost - or pearl, these polishes can usually be identified by their brush-stroked look.
Glitter - polish containing glitter!  Often meant for use as a topcoat.  Sparkly!
Iridescent - polishes that change color in different lighting, or have "flashes" of a color in them.  Other terms can be lustre or duochrome.  Think of soap bubbles, insect wings and oil slicks.
Jelly - these polishes are sheer, yet have depth and look almost squishy or wet.  Very shiny, good for layering.
Matte - flat color with no shine after it dries, which is quickly.
Metals - polishes with a metallic, mirror, foil or chrome quality.
Prism - or holographic nail polishes contain special glitters that reflect a whole rainbow of color.
Satin - polishes that dry to a sheen somewhere between a creme and a matte.
Shimmer - these have smaller, fine microglitters or "glass fleck" particles that sparkle faintly.  May only show in strong light.

   ~ Colors ~

Bright -  vibrant colors, and neons.
Dark - deep, dark colors of any hue.
Light - all pale or pastel shades.
Mid - any mid-range color that doesn't fall in with bright, dark or light.

   ~ Other ~

B3F - stands for "Big 3 Free".  Polishes that do not contain Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Formaldehyde, or Toluene.  Besides those chemicals posing potential health risks, polishes that do and don't contain them often don't work together well.
B3+ - my term "Big 3 Plus".  Not only are they b3f, they also exclude other risky ingredients.

   This is my list, made up according to how I describe things myself and usually see things described as.  It may be updated or added to from time to time.  I do try to be accurate, so if anyone would like to offer corrections, suggestions or refinement please comment below.  I really hope that these tags can be of benefit in the future for anyone searching for specific types of polish I have posted about.  If anyone else wants to use a similar tagging post on their blog go right ahead, but if I inspired you a link back here would be great!