Mani Monday: Classic Pink with Chevrons and Glitter

Hey all, hope you all had a good weekend.  Mine was uneventful and now it's Monday.  Booooo back to work!  Me with a case of Mondays?  Never!

Today I have a pretty simple and classic mani.  If you were ever to search nail art, this would show up. I'm sure you've seen this in one form or another.  It's a pretty common, but I was feeling something easy and still eye catching to the Casuals.  ;-)

The pink on my nails is three coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Back to the Fushcia.  It is a bright pink cream with a touch of blue shimmer.  It is an older polish, but a good one.  My middle finger is Essie's Beyond Cozy, a really dense gold and silver microglitter.  It took two coats to reach opacity, and the second coat was to fill in the odd bald patch.  For my chevron accent I started with two coats of OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls, a white polish with the slightest touch of gray.  For the chevrons I used my usual Nail Vinyls and Cult Nails Fetish, a one coat black polish that dries to a waxy finish.  Per my usual warning, make sure that your base color is completely dry before you lay down the nail vinyls, or it will get messed up. 

What do you guys think? A good easy, beginner's nail art. Hope you all enjoyed it. 

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Swatch Saturday: Essie Wicked

Hey guys, I just have a quick swatch today.  Now that it's started to cool down I've been pulling out all my dark fall colors.  This is Essie's Wicked.  It a red jellyish polish, so dark it looks black in most lights.    I did two coats for the picture and it did a pretty decent job of covering.  If you look closely at the base of my index finger you can see a small bald spot.  That could just be chalked up to doing my second coat too quickly.   It is a fall favorite of mine, so I'm glad I get to start whipping it out again.  

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Hard to Find Friday: Sephora Formula X Whatcha Nail Callit

Hey everyone, I have something totally exciting for this Hard to Find Friday post.  Well, at least I think it's exciting.  Remember when in 2012-2013 Sephora had been coming out with their Disney Princess collections?  Everything was super hard to find.  There was always a gorgeous decorative compact mirror that sold out right away.   They also released a large eyeshadow palette that was usually lacking quality, but also sold out before I could even take a look at them.  Oddly enough, the nail polish was always available.  Well they came out with a Little Mermaid collection and of course I had to have something from it and lucky for me I found the polish set.  At this point I had become notorious for my addiction of polish and my love of The Little Mermaid.  So for my birthday one of my best friends got me this kit, after I had already boughten it for myself.  :-P

It consists of 6 mini bottles of polish in a .13 fl oz size.  The only place I can find them on sale now is on eBay, so if you're interested check it out there.

Over all,  the polishes paint well and I am mostly happy with them.  I just... don't like the names of the polishes.  I feel that they don't do the polishes or The Little Mermaid justice.  Most of them are just lyrics from Under the Sea.  

This is We're in Luck Here.  It is a warm coral red cream that was opaque in two coats.  I'm generally not a fan of these kind of colors, but they compliment my skin tone well and I like this one better than most others.  But ugg, this polish really should have been called Ariel because of her trademark red hair or Sebastian, or something!

This is Off the Hook.  Just one single coat and you get this awesome purple toned metallic.  I loved this polish.  It was a tad thick in formula, but it painted on really well.  For a name, this one is okay I guess. Hooks are metallic, but then you use a hook to catch fish and that's kind of twisted.  

Have I mentioned before that I love dark almost black colors?  Well Hotter Under the Water does not disappoint.  It is a deep, dark purple that is almost black with maybe a touch of dustiness.  It took two coats to make the polish opaque and that was to cover up the odd bald spot.  Now, am I the only person who thinks this polish should have been a reference to the nefarious sea witch Ursula?  Really Sephora, you guys keep dropping the ball on the names.  

I topped Hotter Under the Water with Life is in the Bubbles.  It is an iridescent glitter topper with iridescent flakes scattered through it.  The glitter is dense enough that it paints evenly on the nail, but don't ever think that it could become opaque with a reasonable number of coats.  The flakes were a nice touch, but too difficult to get evenly on the nail.  You can see that I don't even have any on my pointer finger.  I wish that the had been more flakes in the polish, but that could also be caused by the small bottle and short brush.  Out of all the polishes, this is the only one I don't really have an issue with the name.  ;-)  It does remind me of bubbles.  Life is in the Bubbles was also the BoyToy's favorite polish of the set.  

This bright blue beauty is Devotin' to Floatin'.  This polish is my favorite.  It's that mermaid color without being too teal.  I got this color with two coats.  The first coat was patchy and disappointing, but the second one give it that gorgeous glowing color you see.  In the bottle you do see a bit of purple duochrome, but it didn't transfer to the nail at all.  As usual, the name was meh. 

 

The final polish I have for you is the mermaid's namesake, Ariel.  It is an iridescent glitter in a teal base.  It painted on well and the glitter dispersed pretty well, but I don't think it is all that unique of a color.  It reminds me of Sinful Colors in Nail Junkie.  I can only assume that it was named Ariel because it looks like a mermaid's tail, but I don't think it does her justice.

Overall, this is a pretty nice collection for any Disney nut and polish junkie to have.  If you can find it on eBay for a decent price, I say go for it.  

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Untried Wednesday: Funky Fingers Jawbreaker

Hey all.  Today I have for your a smaller drugstore brand of nail polish.  Funky Fingers polishes can only be found at Five Below stores, which only really exist in Texas or the East Coast.  Recently people have become obsessed with Funky Fingers polishes on Instagram or in the big nail polish groups, like Polish-Aholics Anonymous.  So a lot of people that are not so lucky to have a Five Below in their town, have been doing a lot of Funky Fingers shopping on Storenvy or have gotten themselves a polish mule.  I asked my cousin who lives in Texas to hook it up.

So in case you did not already know about this Funky Fingers trend, their appeal comes from the unique colors and glitter mixes along with their inexpensive price tag.  3 for $5!  Yeah they're a steal and they're so pretty!  I got seven Funky Finger polishes so far, with two more on the way.  So expect a few mini collection post and single swatches coming soon!

Today I have Jawbreaker for everyone.  It is a white crelly base with large yellow, orange, and purple hexes, medium teal and darker purple hexes, and tiny red and orange hexes.  Now a white crelly with a rainbow glitter mix is not that uncommon.  This polish though does have three sizes of glitter, most of the ones I have only contain two.  This mix also leans towards blue and purple, instead of an even rainbow.

I used three coats in my pictures, but two probably would have been enough.  I'm just a sucker for insane glitter manis that are going to suck to remove later.

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Mani Monday

Good news everyone!  My computer finally works again.  Originally my track pad wasn't working and my computer would freeze up on me, and then finally the hard drive just died.  But now both the hard drive and the trackpad got replaced.  The future Mr. LacquerVixen is very happy I'm not stealing his computer anymore to sporadically do my blog posts.  Now we can get back onto a normal blogging schedule and my near daily polish changing isn't me being crazy, but being committed to you guys!  ;-) So here we go!

I am not big on team spirit.  I don't do the matchy matchy thing. But when my manager told me, very seriously, that I was expected to be "part of the team" for a work event I kind of had to.  So what do I do?  I pull out polishes in our team colors and some nail art.

Our team colors were orange and teal, so I started with three coats of OPIs Call Me Gwen-ever with is an orange cream.  On most people, two coats would have been perfectly fine.  The formula is smooth and painted on without a problem.  Unfortunately, because my nails are long and there is a large amount of white tip area, I could still see VNL with two coats.  The third coat made it perfectly opaque for my high standards.  Call Me Gwen-ever is from OPIs 2012 Amazing Spider-Man collection, so it would be considered a hard to find polish.  I did buy this polish when it was readily available in most stores, and since then I have only seen it once in a random mom and pop beauty supply shop.  Would I say it is a must have polish?  Meh?  I'm not the hugest wearer of orange polish and I'm sure other brands have more readily available options.  If you happen to come across it at a decent price, go for it, especially if you are a comic book lover.  

For the rest of my mani I used Essie Comfort Zone and Sephora's Formula X in Zing.  On a whim, I also grabbed my Ciate Flower Manicure kit.  I painted Essie Comfort Zone on my ring finger as an accent.  It is a silver and gold microglitter that is pretty dense and painted on in two coats.  It is from Essie's Winter 2012, so you can't really find it in stores too easily, but it is available on Essie's website.  For the polka dots on my pointer finger and pinkie, I used Sephora's new house brand of polish Formula X in Zing.  It is a great teal blue cream that is actually opaque in one coat.  *gasp!*  Shocking I know.

Now for my super interesting thumb and middle finger.  I used the Ciate Flower Manicure kit which comes with real pressed flowers, a mini bottle of Candy Floss (a standard pink cream), and a full sized bottle of fast dry top coat.  According to the instructions, you paint your nails as normal and while the top coat is still wet, you place the flowers on your nails, then brush another coat of the fast drying top coat.  Now, I hate opening a bottle of top coat when I'm already in the middle of one.  I don't like having multiple open bottles of something so standard, so I used my usual HK Girl instead of the Ciate top coat they had supplied.

At first I thought that it had worked just fine.  My nails looked pretty damn cool and I was excited to show them off at work.  But the next morning while I was in my shower, the top coat peeled off.  The flowers became exposed and fell apart in the water.  It totally sucked.  I don't know if they always do that and this kit is meant more for a one day use kind of thing, or if their top coat really makes all the difference.  I will have to try it again and report back my findings.

As a side note, when I removed the flowers with nail polish remover, they stained my fingers like crazy.  I suspect it has more to do with the color of the flowers than the product itself.  I don't think the lighter colored flowers in the kit would do the same thing.

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Hard to Find Friday: OPI Meet Me on the Star Ferry

I have recently discovered that I love destash swaps and sales.  I've found some really unique hard to find polishes and some extreme lemmings in destashes.  The baby I picked up in a destash, not knowing anything about it other then I thought it was pretty.  When I looked it up online, I found out exactly how HTF it was.  Meet Me on the Star Ferry is from OPI's 2010 Hong Kong collection.  What??  I randomly found a pretty polish from a four year old collection?

Oh be still my polish beating heart.  Meet Me on the Star Ferry is a mauvey purple shimmer polish with maybe just a touch of frost.  The formula is amazing and was opaque in just two coats.  Considering how long my nails are right now and the shimmer of the polish, the fact that it is only two coats for opacity is crazy.  I adore this polish.  I've owned it for about a month and I've already worn it twice.  I don't own anything like this in my collection, so at least for me, it's super unique.  If you can find this for a reasonable price, get it!  Don't even think twice.  

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Untried Wednesday: B2 Lacquer Purple Unicorns

Happy Hump Day everyone!  Today I have a pretty nifty indie to show you all.  I may have mentioned it before, but I love unicorns, mermaids, fairies, and other fantastical creatures.  So when I opened a mystery
destash bag and found B2 Lacquer's Purple Unicorns I squealed like a little twelve year old girl on a sugar high.

Purple Unicorns is a dusty purple crelly with a scattered holo and a green shimmer.  It is a very pretty polish and if the sunlight hits your nails, it is gorgeous.  I actually had a customer compliment it and asked what brand it was.  I got to explain indie polish to a casual, she was shell shocked, it was kind of awesome.  Now, I love this polish, but I have some VNL.  It's not super obvious, after three coats but you can especially see it on my index finger.  Purple Unicorns is a really pretty, delicate kind of color.  I may pull this out again for a special event.

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Hard to Find Friday: Julep Sophie and OPI The Living Daylights

Fridays are always exciting aren't they?  You have a weekend to look forward to and hopefully lots of fun plans, or just the single plan of sitting at home marathoning the current city that you are obsessed with of Real Housewives, playing with some new pretty polishes, and having a nice cold cider.  At least that would be my perfect weekend plan.  :-P

Today I have two polishes for your viewing pleasure, Julep Sophie and OPI The Living Daylights.  In the strictest sense, The Living Daylights is the only HTF polish here today, but I had gone searching for Sophie on Julep's website only to find that it was sold out and on sale.  If it hasn't been discontinued already, I suspect it will be soon.  So that counts as HTF right?  Though I had originally picked it because I thought it would look good as a base for The Living Daylights.

Julep's Sophie is a mushroom gray taupe cream that was opaque in two coats from the Trina Turk Fall 2012 collection.  The second coat was mostly to fill in a couple of bald patches, but it did paint on pretty well.  I think it is a good solid neutral color to have, but it may not be all that unique.  I bet you could find something similar pretty easily, but if has not been discontinued and you can find it on sale, it would be a good color to pick up.  In case you did not already know this, Julep polishes come in .33 oz bottles which is about the same size of a normal mini polish.  The usual Julep polish runs about $14 a bottle.  Now there are ways of getting it cheaper, like Mavens get their bottles for $11.40 and they do run some good sales that leave the bottles any where between $3-5.  Normal priced, these bottles are too expensive and the Maven prices are a bit much for me.  Secret Sales are the way to go with these polishes. Julep does have some amazing one coat cream polishes, so if you are looking for any, hold out for a sale!

OPI's The Living Daylights is a glitter polish full of turquoise, silver and copper hexes from the James Bond Holiday 2012 collection.  It is pretty unique and I feel like I don't really have anything quite like this in my collection.  I got a fair amount of hexes on my brush in one go, so no fishing for glitters here!  I did find that as soon as a hex touched my nail it was near impossible to position it around my nail.  They stuck on pretty quickly so the ended up clustering on my nail a bit.  The clear base was a little bit thick, so maybe if I thin it out it would be easier to use and place the glitters a bit more to my liking.

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Untried Wednesday: Purple Panic

So I have a lot of untried polishes, well I feel like they're a lot.  Other nail junkies with collections that are a lot larger than mine will let me know that my untried polish basket is a joke.  The idea of having so many untouched, pretty babies makes me sad, so I always try to use as many as possible. Today's mani has three of my untried polishes, so that makes me happy.  I did get a ton of compliments on my nails today at work from men and women, especially on my accent nail.

The polish on my thumb and middle fingers is OPI's Skating on Thin Ice-land from their current Fall 2014 Nordic collection.  It is a dark plummy purple jelly  that is opaque in two coats.  I find it difficult to call this a true jelly though, no jelly is completely opaque in two coats!  It is a gorgeous color though and I'm glad I got my hands on this color from the collection.

On my pointer and pinkie fingers I am wearing VIP from who else but Bliss Polish.  Honestly Yvette's polishes are the indie I have the most of.  It's gotten a bit ridiculous, but I have no plans of stopping this trend!  As usual, VIP is amazing.  It is a lilac crelly with lavender, dark purple, and gold glitters.  Like the previous polish, it only took two coats to be opaque.

Finally on my ring finger I have Funky Fingers Sand and Stilettos.  If you did not know, Funky Fingers is a brand of nail polish only available at Five Below stores, which are mostly only in Texas and the East Coast.  I got lucky and have a cousin living in Texas who has a Five Below right by her home.  Sand and Stilettos is a gorgeous silver glitter with a bit of purple tint and holographic glitter.  Following today's trend it was opaque in two coats, so awesome!  I have heard that a good dupe for this polish is Color Club's Sugar Plum Fairy.  I don't own it unfortunately, but if you have access to one you probably don't need the other.  I do adore this Funky Fingers polish and if the others that my cousin sent me are anything like this one, we're in for a bit of trouble.  :-P

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)