Hey everyone! Today I have a quick and fun mani featuring Illamasqua's Faithful from their Naked Strangers collection. It's one of three nail lacquers in this collection and the last of my first Illamasqua haul. After trying them? I. Want. More. I absolutely loved them. I am really lemming the other two colors from this collection, but I'm trying to be good! Let's take a look at Faithful now so I don't go shop!
I decided to wear this with some glitter because I was super excited that my test bottle of brown glitters was doing well after a couple weeks. I crammed some in a little suspension base and had this.
Here's Faithful on its own. This polish is a beautiful dark copper shimmer that looks very warm and creamy. It only took two very even and easy coats to become opaque. The formula was just excellent. I love this color against my skin tone too.
Guh, okay, I may have to go shopping anyway!
I debated adding bar glitter to the bottle, but decided to try it without it first. I've been having a love/hate relationship with bar glitter lately. I like the way it looks, but getting it to lay perfectly flat? Impossible! A corner will poke up and no amount of top coat will hold it down! So I didn't add bar glitter to this until after I tried it.
It's a nice rich color of brown glitter and I think it complements Faithful well. It looks dark most of the time but then it will flash a golden orange. It's super pretty!
I've been pretty busy packing up to move to California for the rest of the summer, but I've got a couple more posts before I go!
Hi everyone! Today I have another favorite polishes post for you featuring an awesome green creme, Orly's Lucky Duck. Let's take a look, shall we?
Lucky Duck has kind of been in the back of my stash lately, but when I was doing swatches, I picked it up and knew I had to feature it. It's a great green, one of my favorite colors when it comes to polish.
I really love this color for its formula as well. Orly polishes wear like iron on me and last a long time, but they can be hit or miss for ease of application. Lucky Duck is a hit! It's smooth, creamy and not too thick or thin. These photos show two easy coats with no top coat. It naturally has a great shine to it!
And here's a wider shot of my bottle, so you can see what my monster dog did when he got a hold of this duck! The hubby and I ran out to make a fifteen minute dinner run one night and my case happened to be left open... Well, Mr. Havoc pulled out several bottles and started chewing on the caps! Lucky Duck got the worst treatment, but he didn't get any of them open thankfully. That was the first and last time my case was ever left open!
I decided to give this a little interest because I wore it for a day. On top, I layered one quick coat of a glitter mix. It's the Pretty in Pastel mix from You Mix Cosmetics in a little suspension base. I picked up a few samples of their matte blends just for myself and made some quick and easy top coats.
Hi everyone! I know I mentioned getting to the Rainbow Honey mystery polishes from the Equestria collection today, so you're getting another post! Let's take a look at Mare of the Moon!
Mare of the Moon is a gorgeous blurple shimmer accented with holographic glitter, the most interesting and unique shape being a crescent moon! It is inspired by Princess Luna, after all!
This polish wanted to photograph very, very purple compared to how it looked on my nails. I actually wore it to go see Moonrise Kingdom and was staring adoringly at it in the car for a long time. I think my very blue experience was due to living in a place without sunlight because the purple came out fine under my lamp!
These pictures show two even coats with one coat of top coat, which was enough to smooth it to the touch! The formula was once again great with no glitter fishing. I did kind of feel that the moons from my first coat were getting covered up, so next time (when I wear this in a place with sun!) I will probably try not to place them until the second coat!
Rainbow Honey is working hard at finishing shipping pre-orders of this collection, so be sure to catch up with any news at RainbowHoney.com or on the Facebook machine to see when the store will be open!
Hi everyone! I've been taking a break from selling Lacquer Convention since last week. I had some things both good and bad that kept me busy, the good being that I was a bridesmaid for two of my good friends in their wedding over the weekend. I was actually playing cake designer and manicurist to the bride too! I sadly did not actually get pictures of the bride's nails because of all the excitement, but I will recreate the art she picked for you. I did take pictures of my nails for the event and I'm going to show them to you today!
Here's a glamour shot! I actually was planning to wear a sheer pink with coral jelly polka dots and I had been planning it because it would have been a fun but not too bright bit of color against my royal blue dress. However, I sat down to play with some new glitters before doing the mani and mixed the glitter test bottle in this photo... and kind of fell in love. I bought the chocolate brown glitter in the first place because I personally wanted a brown glitter like no one's business, so no surprise that I liked this franken. I decided to swatch it so my BFF could give me some name ideas and she told me to layer it over Designer De Better from the OPI Muppet Collection... which I don't own...
I don't know why I don't own it. I borrowed it from her last December and I loved it. I Googled swatches and kicked myself for not buying it. So I decided to try to franken something close. I had some recently cleaned out (from failed curling glitter tests, booooo!) mini bottles, so I only made a small amount... I may have to make a full size some day! (Or search for a bottle of Designer De Better!)
And of course I didn't measure or keep track of my ratios here, so I will have to experiment again. At least I wrote down what I used in it, if not how much of each polish and pigment!
Once I had these swatches done, I knew pink polka dots were out the window. I was wearing this, whether or not with the brown glitter.
I just happened to be super lucky that this glitter blend turned out so pretty. It definitely started as a brown and evolved to include various sizes of copper, orange, gold and burgundy glitters.
It might not have been exactly summery, but it was an evening wedding, and hey, no one should have been looking at my nails, and they weren't after what I painted on the bride's!
My BFF's verdict for a name? Polka Dots and Moonbeams! I really dig it. At first I thought that would be better suited for something more bright and girly, but as I thought about it, I really, really, liked it! The song isn't really cutesy like that, it's more warm and rich and dreamy. So there you go! Here's the version of the song by Sarah Vaughan!
This was just a test bottle for myself. I would like to offer it in my store at some point, but I have been testing the brown glitter for any solvency issues. It's been sitting in some base by itself for a while, but I just couldn't wait to play with it any longer!
This was a big hit with a lot of cashiers I ran into over the weekend. They loved the combination and were all so surprised when my husband would butt in and tell them I made it, ha ha. He's really getting into this whole "nail polish thing."
Here are a couple bottle shots of Polka Dots and Moonbeams.
Hi guys! It's been a while since I've done a pink Wednesday mani post on the blog, so it worked out perfectly that I still needed to show you my Pinkie Promise pictures!
This is my favorite polish from the Rainbow Honey Equestria collection, partially because it is inspired by my favorite pony ever, Pinkie Pie!
While I was snapping pictures, my hubby handed me the souvenir he picked up from a Vegas road trip with his dad a couple weeks ago. I took a couple pictures with it to show you just what a girl I am. I love pink! And Hello Kitty... and My Little Pony and pretty things... My husband always tells me, "You're such a girl." I don't mind. I like what I like!
However, I am actually shy of pink nail polish unless it is a more bold, bright or neon color. And even then, I have trouble liking a lot of shades on me. I think it's my color weakness, I don't love just any pink on my nails!
Pinkie Promise, however, is a definite winner though. For these photos, I used three thin coats with no underwear. There is a tad of visible nail line in the photos, but it didn't show up in real life. It had great coverage and the formula was even and easy to work with. I really enjoyed it this way, but I am dying to wear it over a bright and fun pink some time! Or a gradient from the cuticle! (But I PROMISED that I wouldn't do that with the rest of these pony polishes, lol!)
This time, I just have to link you to a quick Pinkie Pie video so that you can see her and why this is the perfect Pinkie polish.
I just love how sparkly and fun this is. It's a party in a bottle! The golden shimmer really kicks it up a lot.
Rainbow Honey is working hard at finishing shipping pre-orders of this collection, so be sure to catch up with any news at RainbowHoney.com or on the Facebook machine to see when the store will be open!
We're almost to the end of the Equestria collection, but I have the two secret polishes to show you still, Celestia and Mare Of the Moon! They're coming up tomorrow!
Hi guys! I've been doing a lot for my store lately and it occurred to me that I actually haven't worn my polishes a whole lot lately. I mean, I have so many things that have gone untried, I get caught up in doing manis with those, but the reason why I started frankening was because I liked to make things that I liked to wear! Today, I'm showing you a bright and fun mani that I wore using two polishes that are normally available in my shop. It's on vacation at the moment, but both polishes will be available again soon!
Red Light District is a bright, in your face red with a fine golden shimmer that gives it a very orange tone. For this manicure, I used three coats of it as a base and then topped it with Sour Patch Kids, a glitter polish inspired by my BFF's favorite candy. The red and the orange glitter got a little bit lost in the pictures, but they contrasted a little more in real life. Let's take a look, shall we?
Hi there! The other day, we finally got some sun here and I was super excited to try one of the latest bottles of polish I bought, OPI's DS Extravagance.
I admittedly have very little to say about this polish because it is so gorgeous that I just want to stare at these pictures of it! It's another one of my longtime lemmings that I would pass up on for something else, but I blame that entirely on almost never having sunlight around here. The beauty of its scattered holo leaps out in the sun, which is definitely a reason to be super excited to be going to California this summer! I am definitely busting out the holo top coat soon!
But enough about me, let me spam you a TON of pictures of DS Extravagance. Enjoy!
Hi everyone! I've been completely swamped with things since Saturday, but I'm determined to finish showing you this Rainbow Honey collection this week! On Friday I've got a wedding rehearsal and Saturday is the wedding itself of two good friends of mine. I'll be showing you my manicures for both days soon! In the meantime, let's take a peak at A Little Kindness.
For this mani, I decided to layer A Little Kindness over Zoya Skylar. This polish is inspired by Fluttershy, who happens to be my husband's favorite pony ever. I mean, he's totally wrong, Pinkie Pie is cooler, but Fluttershy is adorable too. In any case, this polish is also my second favorite in the collection, right after Pinkie Promise, which I am so wearing tonight when I get home!
These photos show one coat of A Little Kindness. In other swatches, I've seen several coats look pretty opaque on its own, but I really wanted to see the pink shimmer in the base contrast with something underneath it. I think Skylar ended up being a little pale though because while the gold and pink hexes stand out, the very soft white ones don't. You can kind of see them here and there though.
All in all, this is some seriously beautiful glitter. It's got a real depth to it that I love with the assortment of shades in it. The formula is awesome to work with yet again, easy to get a good helping of glitter on each nail!
