Pink Wednesday: matte pink and red jelly sandwich

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Wednesday! Yayyy another pink Wednesday post! I'm going to be burnt out on pink soon... I'm even wearing it today as I type this. Hopefully I'll have that mani to share with you soon, if I can get good pictures!

Today is just a quick one - I've been obsessed with doing jelly sandwich manicures that look like candy lately. OBSESSED. I decided to try this one and add a twist. I started out by frankening a pink jelly, because I wanted it to be obviously pink and slightly more opaque (and darker) than most of the ones I have. I used mostly clear, then added some Essie creme pinks until I was happy with the colour. So, two coats of that, then a coat of LA Girls Glitter Addict Animate, which is sick (I love red glitter - someone told me it looks like a disease but I don't care!) and then two coats of the pink franken over top, just to make it look really submerged. I was happy with that for all of five seconds, so I added two coats of China Glaze Matte Magic to make it reallyyyyyyyy matte. Then I was finally done!

The only downside: as you can see in the macro shot, that was a lot of polish to have dry, so I woke up with some small dents. Boo! :( Ah well, win some and lose some, right?

What do you lovelies think? Is there a colour you're wearing more than usual lately? Mine is pink... so weird, isn't it? I hope the rest of your week is fabulous!

Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Layering with China Glaze Smoke and Ashes

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Tuesday! How are you all doing? There is light at the end of the school tunnel - only two weeks away from classes getting out. I've got three papers to write in that time but it's worth it for the freedom that I will have earned after that, right?

Today I've got the manicure I wore to the midnight showing of the Hunger Games. You all know that I'm dreadful at nail art, so I decided to wear one of the polishes from the China Glaze Hunger Games collection. Such a pretty collection, I adore it. I had filed my nails right down (I think this might be the shortest they've been in the entire time I've been blogging!) and decided that my new nubbins called for a dark colour. Smoke and Ashes was all sexy in the bottle, and it was calling to me, so I decided to go for it.

Now. I know some people are displeased with their bottle of Smoke and Ashes. Mine was actually pretty awesome (I'll wear it on its own soon and report back), so no complaints there, but I had already decided that I was going to layer over it, so there was no turning back.

This manicure is two coats of Smoke and Ashes, an even coat of China Glaze Glittering Garland and a coat of one of the sexy CND Effects I got from Jen, Sapphire Sparkle. I'm totally obsessed with layering lately and this one was fun. This is kind of what I thought S&A would look like based on promo shots... maybe minus the duochromey sparkle, though ;)

The last shot is in the sun. I prefer taking pictures of layerings like this in the shade, I think it shows their... complexity better. :)

What do you lovelies think? I hope you don't mind me chopping my nails down. I could never have real nubbins due to... well, skin, basically, and if you want to know more you can google it haha. But I'm in the mood for shorties lately... hopefully they don't look too shit in pictures!

Have you seen the Hunger Games yet? What did you wear when you went? What's your favourite polish from this collection?

Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Check out my guest post for Sam of Fashion Polish!

Hi my loves! Just wanted to quickly post to let you guys know that I did a guest post for Sam over at Fashion Polish! I was super excited and flattered and nervous when she asked me... she's such a sweetheart and I absolutely adore her blog. You can click the link above or the picture below to be taken to the post... I know you can't see what I did for her, just a bit of my pinky, so I guess you'll have to go over and check! It might involve a matte jelly sandwich... maybe. ;) I hope you guys like it!

Pink Wednesday: Hits Atena

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Wednesday! You know what that means! I'm sorry for my absence again... I know I keep vanishing but it's the last couple weeks of semester and I'm fairly certain that my school is trying to kill me. I'm overwhelmed and really just ready for it to be over!

It's been a while since I last did a Pink Wednesday post and I know that this is more magenta and I know that my love Kellie will note this but... can I sit with you guys anyway? I have a weird amount of pink swatches sitting in my folder of "to be posted" pictures so I asked which one you guys would like to see first and you said a holo, of course!

So, this is Hits Atena. I was sitting there staring at all of the Hits holos I got (thanks to my kickass roommate <3) and I asked Jen what I should wear. She suggested Atena and I'm so glad she did - this is not a colour that I would have reached for right away if I'd been picking on my own (orange, teal, blue, black, red - red holos are the only reds I find super amazing haha) but I ended up loving it so much on!

I used Nfu-Oh Aqua Base coat and three coats of Atena, no topcoat. :)

It's much more holo than my photos show - isn't it strange that photographing the most beautiful polishes is often the most difficult? I also snapped these pictures before a lecture in the middle of "everyone shuffling to their class" time, so I was getting a lot of weird looks that may have contributed to my desire to move quickly and not spend as much time as I usually do trying to show the prettiness. I'm sorry! :(

What do you lovelies think? Do you own any of these? Aren't they amazing? I really just wish they came in bigger bottles...

Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

butter LONDON Disco Biscuit and Bossy Boots

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Tuesday! I've been all optimistic about the beginning of the week lately because it means that I'm nearing the end of this semester from hell... although this week is proof that it is the semester from hell. I can't handle the amount of things I have due this week. Bye bye sleep!

Today I've got two of the spring/summer butter LONDON polishes to share with you. These are my first bLs so I was so excited to try them out. Spoiler alert: they definitely didn't disappoint. The two I've got to share with you today are Disco Biscuit and Bossy Boots.

Disco Biscuit is so awesome. It's a really pretty bright pink jelly with lots and lots of microglitter. I haven't decided if I think it's more blue or more purple yet... maybe it's both! It was definitely a bit sheer, I used four coats for the pictures. If you've got shorter nails you could probably get away with three or even two - I just thought the VNL (which ordinarily doesn't bother me!) was a bit too obvious for the pictures. I wasn't expecting it but this one dried a bit dull - I think it must be all the glitter. I added topcoat for these pictures!

Bossy Boots is an awesome slightly minty pistachio green. I've heard that this one is very similar to Essie Navigate Her. I have a comparison coming up with it soon too - a couple of you suggested a possible dupe when I tweeted a picture of this one :) The formula on this is gorgeous. I've heard awesome things about bL cremes so I was dying to try one... it was perfect. It went exactly where I wanted it to and I barely needed another coat! I used two coats here, no topcoat. Isn't this a perfect springy colour? It gave me lobster hands a bit, but not nearly as bad as some others in this colour family. I think the bit of yellow helps balance it out!

I included the second picture because it shows more of the yellow... it's not quite that yellow in person, obviously! It was a deceptively tricky colour to capture properly!

Overall, I'm super impressed by these. They're still a bit pricey but I think they'll be worth a bit of a splurge at some point, hopefully in the near future! I think I need to try some more of their cremes... the formula was seriously flawless.

You can get butterLONDON polishes from Nail Polish Canada. They retail for $17... like I said, a bit pricey but definitely worth it if you're looking to splurge on some really nice polishes! Nail Polish Canada is also running a contest to give one lucky winner the entire spring/summer collection! You can enter by clicking here. I love Nail Polish Canada, I've always had really good experiences with them (I bought my mom's birthday present from them and had it shipped to her!) and I love how often they run awesome contests! They also offer free shipping over $29... I think most of us can attest to how ridiculous some of the shipping minimums are to get free shipping so I appreciate that too.

So, what do you guys think? Do you own any butterLONDON polishes? What are your favourites? :)

Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

The products in this post were provided to me for review. For more information, see my disclosure tab above.

Nerd Lacquer Harlow & Co. exclusives: Swatches and review!

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Saturday! What are your plans this weekend? I'm sleeping as this goes up (hopefully!) but I had to schedule it because I'm so excited to share these with you!

Today I've got swatches of the Nerd Lacquer Harlow & Co. exclusives. You guys know how much I love Katie and I'm so excited that she carries NLs (and Barry M now - but that's for another post!) and it's even cooler that she has exclusives! And they're awesome. Really interesting and complex and pretty. And glittertastic. I'm sold. There are three of them: Batcave, Han Shot First and Scully. So, less talk, more pictures, yes? I agree.

I'm going to use the descriptions of each polish directly off the site, because I think Amanda does an excellent job of describing her polishes. :)

And ohmygod I just went and looked at a preview of this post so I'm putting everything under a cut because I spammed a bit with pictures!

China Glaze Prismatic Chroma Glitters press release!

Hi loves! This popped into my inbox so I thought I'd share! I've seen these in person but haven't had a chance to look at them properly... I'm waiting on more swatches! They look really fun though! Enjoy!

Los Angeles, CA - (March 2012): Array your nails in a myriad of color this spring with China Glaze®’s limited edition Prismatic nail polish collection!  Inspired by the colors formed by the refraction of light through a prism, Prismatic by China Glaze® combines glitter and holographic particles to create the ultimate eye-catching, 3-dimensional manicure. 

Bursting with color and dimension, Prismatic shades include:

·         Ray-Diant – Greenish-gold shimmer filled with specks of silver, pink, green, orange and blue

·         Polarized – Silver metallic sheen sprinkled with yellow, pink, orange and green glitters

·         Liquid Crystal – Bright blue holographic with purple tint dusted with silver, gold, green, pink and orange

·         Prism – Grape purple holographic gleams with pink shimmer and glitters with pieces of pink, blue, green, orange, silver and gold

·         Full Spectrum – Baby pink bursts into holographic magenta to party with silver, gold, blue, pink and green particles

·         Optical Illusion – Aqua green glimmers with a hint of purple filled with pink, yellow, silver, orange and green flecks

China Glaze® Prismatic will be available April 2012.  Individual shades retail for $8 MSRP.  The collection will be available in a 3-D 12-piece counter display and as open stock colors.

China Glaze is free of DBP, toluene, and added formaldehyde. China Glaze nail lacquers are available through salons and professional beauty supply stores nationwide. For more information, visit: www.chinaglaze.com or follow China Glaze on Facebook and Twitter: http://twitter.com/ChinaGlaze

China Glaze is a division of American International Industries.

About American International Industries

For nearly 40 years, AII has been the leading manufacturer and worldwide distributor of innovative, quality beauty and skin care products for men and women.  Our product lines include Ardell, Andrea, Body Drench, Bye Bye Blemish, Checi, China Glaze, Clean + Easy, Clubman/Pinaud, Duo, European Secrets, EzFlow, Fright Night, Gena, GiGi, Gypsy Lash, IBD, Jeris-Lustray, No Tweeze/Micro Tweeze, 'N Rage, Prolinc, RAW, Seche, SuperNail, Surgi-Care, Waterworks, Winning Nails, Woltra, Woody’s, and Youthair. For more information, visit our website:www.aiibeauty.com.

There we go! What do you guys think? I'm going to have to go back and take another look at these... you know how I feel about glitter! Also, isn't the display picture gorgeous? I love that lip colour! 

Will you guys be scooping any of these up?

China Glaze Stone Cold

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Thursday! I hope you've all been having a good week. I'm currently drowning in schoolwork (what else is new?) so I meant to have this post up much earlier... I apologise for that!

Today I've just got a quick post for you. I know how many of us are excited for the China Glaze Hunger Games collection. I have an order with five of them coming to me. I knew I was going to love most of the collection and I read and quite enjoyed the books, so it's perfect. I can't wait for the movie!

I love how each of the polishes in this collection correspond to a district. Stone Cold is for District 2, which specialises in stone cutting, according to the Hunger Games wiki. Also known as masonry. I think this polish is a perfect match!

I used two thin coats here. It really barely needed the second but you know when a polish is so lovely to apply that you want to just... keep applying it? That was me with this polish. This is far and away the best formula I've used for a matte. It was so smooth and easy to control, not too thick either. I want to wear it again already!

Also - a quick note on the pictures. I've been taking pictures upside down for a while now, and I personally prefer the way that it looks. But I got a comment a couple of weeks ago asking me to take them the other way and I do listen to what you lovelies prefer with stuff like this. I thought about it and asked and generally people liked the way I took my photos but I've decided, hopefully with the result of satisfying the most people with that, to post pictures both ways. As I said, I prefer them upside down, so that picture will continue to come first, but I'm going to keep trying to post both ways now. :)

Loveeeee. I've worn this multiple times since getting it and I finally decided to try it with topcoat, since the sun was out briefly...

Nghhh. What a beautiful polish. I can't even decide which way I like it more!

What do you lovelies think? Have you picked up any of the Hunger Games polishes? Anybody have tickets for the midnight showing? My roommate and I definitely do!

Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

The product in this post was provided to me for review. For more information, see my disclosure tab above.

Spa Ritual Sacred Ground

Hello lacquered lovelies! Happy Saturday! Any plans for the weekend? I'm going to go back to drowning in homework once I'm off work... yep. My life is exciting. On the bright side, only one more month of classes, then exams and then I'm done! My graduation ceremony is in June. :) It's a bit sick to think of but I've been in school for seventeen years straight if you count kindergarten. I feel old! So that'll be it for me... until I go back again. I've got some upgrading to do so I'm going to take a year off and get that all done!

Today I just have a quick post. You know how we often look at polishes and appreciate how unique they are and "normal" people look at them and don't get what the big deal is? Enter Spa Ritual Sacred Ground. The second swatches of this beauty started popping up I knew that I needed it. It desperately wanted to find a home in my stash and I knew I would oblige. So I was thrilled when it finally popped up in a local salon, and I snatched it up instantly. I head back to work, triumphantly clutching my new babies (what? You can't possibly think I only got a single polish) and my coworkers asked what I got. I showed them, and they all seemed wholly unimpressed by this "grey" polish. They were too busy fawning over something else (a glitter, probably) and I kept trying to draw them back to this polish but they weren't having any of it. Fine. More for me, right?

That was a long story. Basically, it's freaking breathtaking and I love it. This was two coats and topcoat.

asd;lgha;sd. I don't get how they didn't see what I was saying but whatever. You guys see why I'm in love, right? Right? This is why I love blogging. I know I won't be alone in appreciating this polish haha.

What do you lovelies think? What's your favourite Spa Ritual polish? I love their brush! I usually hate round bottles but these ones are classy feeling. Weighty. They're also vegan and three free! I just wish they were easier to find :(

Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!