Friday, January 30, 2015

Hard to Find Friday: Julie G Old San Juan and Funky Fingers Glitter Matters

Guys, I don't know what's wrong with me.  I don't do neons, brights, or particularly summery colors, but that's all I've been wanting to wear all week.  I think I have a feeeeeeeeeeeva!  :-P



I am wearing to coats of Julie G's Old San Juan from the Summer 2014 Cruise Collection.  It is a very bright orange cream that almost looks neon.  These are the kind of neons I like, bright but not blinding.  The formula is super smooth and you could probably get by with one very careful coat.

My accent glitter is Funky Fingers Glitter Matters from their Neon Glitters trio.  It is a clear base full of hot pink, neon yellow and white hexes in various shapes.  I did not have to do any fishing to get the glitters on my brush, but I did have to make sure I moved them around on my nail or else I would have ended up with lots of clusters of white glitter.


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. ;)

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Untried Wednesday: Illamasqua Radium and Funky Fingers Glitter Explains It All

Happy Hump Day everyone!  I hope you all are having a lovely week so far.  We are a flurry of activity here at LacquerVixen Headquarters, but not for anything particularly exciting.  We've been trying to tidy up the place and had boughten one of those nifty cube organizers from Target, only to find out that it was missing all of the screws and hardware.  After having to tote it back and forth, up and down stairs, and getting a new little bag of tools from Target, we found out that the box we had boughten was a repackaged return!  Some people had already attempted to put it together, wrongly I may add, and had left screws and pegs jammed into the wrong spots.  So right now, Mr. LacquerVixen is banging away trying to force it to work because we are both exhausted with dealing with this.  Moral of the story?  Target Threshold furniture sucks.  Now let's move on to my nails, which we all know why you're really here today.



On my nails I have Illamasqua's Radium which is a bright, lime green cream with a bit of light shimmer.  There are two fantastic things that you have to know about this polish, this bright neon color was achieved alone without the help of a white base, also this is just ONE COAT.  It is a bright, fantastic color that I am very glad to have in my collection.  It is a bit brighter than Finger Paint's Mistful Thinking and Essie's More the Merrier.  It also lacks the blue flash that Sally Hansen's Chartreuse Chase.  I don't own Chartreuse Chase, but The Daily Varnish has a nice swatch.  Also, all of those polishes do end up needing three coats, while Radium only needs one to be completely opaque.  If Illamasqua is ever up on Hautelook again, this is a polish you need in your life.

My accent today is Funky Fingers Glitter Explains It All.  This polish was released in a trio of other bright glitter toppers that were all named after 90's television shows, I don't think they had a collection name, but they are fun to have.  Glitter Explains It All has white, blue, and lime green hexes along with small blue glitters.  After I had painted my nails, it occurred to me that my base was the same color lime green as some of the glitters.  Oops.  Over all the glitter pay off was very nice, and it painted on smoothly on the nail with out the need to place or dab any glitter.


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. ;)

Monday, January 26, 2015

Mani Monday: Rhinestones and Cookies

Happy Monday all.  I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  I have a relatively easy mani for you all today.  I hope you like it.



On all of my fingers, except my pinkie, I am wearing two coats of Color Club's Mad Batter from their Cookies and Cream collection.  It is a off white crelly base with tons of small, matte, black glitters.  The first coat had very little actual color, but deposited a lot of glitter on the nails.  The second coat made it magically opaque.  As the name of the collection says, it looks like cookies and cream ice cream and I have a crazy craving for it right now.  I am sad to say that this is not the first nail polish to cause me to have a craving.  :-P  You can find this polish on Color Club's website, along with the rest of the polishes from the collection.

On my pinkie I painted one coat of my usual  Cult Nails Fetish, which I have mentioned a countless number of times already.  Once my nails had dried completely, I used Nail Vinyls Straights to split my ring and thumb nails.  Now, you can do this entirely with just striping tape or even normal scotch tape, but striping tape is too thin for me to now accidentally paint on the other side, and I could not find my scotch tape.  I painted half black and then used my trusty gel resin glue to adhere the rhinestones on the seam between both colors.

See, easy peasy.  :-)


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. ;)

Friday, January 23, 2015

Hard to Find Friday: LOreal Masked Affair

If you've spent any amount of time as a nail polish junkie and following the community, you've noticed that there is usually one specific polish that everyone is rushing out to get because it has some unique aspect to it.  Whether it is a one coat blue that doesn't stain (RIP Sally Hansen Pacific Blue), a mainstream polish with multicolored flakes (RIP Color Club The Uptown), or something else all together (I still don't understand what the big deal was with Sinful Shine Prosecco), there is always something that us junkies are looking for.  And when we set our sights on something, they become that much more difficult to find.  Right now the current obsession is LOreal's Masked Affair from their Dark Sides of Grey collection.  This polish can be found only in the Dark Sides of Grey displays, and the only stores that have been carrying them are Rite Aid and Walgreens.  The kicker is that the displays only have two of each polish and they do not get restocked.  So if you like this polish, head out to look for it RIGHT NOW.

(sunlight)

(indoor lighting)

Masked Affair is a purple tinged, silver, linear holo, and a very strong one at that.  I used two coats for complete opacity.  The first was smooth and even, if not a touch thin, but the second left everything perfect.  From my understanding, there can be a bit of pulling with the second coat, so I would wait until the first coat is completely dry before adding more on top.

In the sunlight this polish is ridiculously holographic, pretty much to the extent of my Color Club Halo Hues I feel.  To see something like this at the drugstore level is pretty crazy I think.  My indoor lighting picture did not really do the polish justice.  Looking at my nails right now, in my apartment's terrible lighting, I still see a bit of a rainbow sheen and a touch of purple shift.  In the bottle you can faintly see the purple and I could not get this to translate into the pictures.

If you want this polish, you need to grab your polish loving bestie, or your very sweet significant other and go hunting for it.  I think it's totally worth 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. ;)

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Untried Wednesday: Bliss Neapolitan, Starrily Babydoll, Hit Polish Decadence

Happy Wednesday all!  I hope the week has been treating you all very well.  My week has just been flying by, for once.  Here's hoping the weekend brings some fun plans.

Over the weekend I went into an organization frenzy and reorganized my helmer, my desk, and my basket of untrieds.  I managed to pair up a fair amount of my untrieds in combinations that I thought would be good together and today's swatches are one of those.



On my pointer and middle fingers I am wearing Bliss Polish's Neapolitan from one of her mystery polish sets.   It is a white crelly base with white, brown, and baby pink hexes and iridescent glitters.  The formula is nice and smooth, if not a bit sheer, but it was opaque in three coats which is pretty much the standard for polishes crellies or jellies.  This polish is no longer available on Bliss Polish, but I would keep an eye out for the next time Yvette starts doing mystery polishes again.  Yvette's mystery polishes are probably the only ones I would be willing to go in blind.  I have yet to disappointed in her polishes and I do own a fair amount of them.

On my ring finger I have two thick coats of Starrily's Babydoll.  It is a baby pink microglitter with lots of holographic particles.  The formula was easy to work with and I keep getting distracted by just how sparkly this polish is.  Now if you haven't already read my Black Friday Haul and Experience,  just know that buying from Starrily during a big sale would not be the best idea.  They usually take weeks to ship and ignore any questions.  You can check out your storefront for yourself here.

Finally, on my thumb and pinkie nails I have Hit Polish's Decadence.  It is a lovely chocolate brown cream with a linear holo.  The first coat is very patchy, but a second does even it out nicely.  I generally do not see brown polishes too often and I did not have a brown holographic so I was happy to have it.  You can check out Hit Polish's storefront here.


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. ;)

Monday, January 19, 2015

Mani Monday: Rainbow Glitter Tips

Happy Monday all.  I hope you had a lovely weekend and gave a great upcoming week.  We went to an out of town birthday party so I had to throw together a quick and festive mani.  This is what I came up with, and used two untrieds!


I started with two coats of OPIs Hey Baby from their 2013 Gwen Stefani collection.  It is a good, solid fuchsia cream with formula that is easy to work with.  It is not something terribly unique, but a good option if you are looking for a pink, especially since I've been finding it on clearance at Ulta a lot.

I also dabbed Candy Lacquer's Candy Dots on the tips of my nails.  Candy Dots is a glitter topper with rainbow, metallic, circle glitters.  I have plenty of rainbow glitters, but this is my only one that the glitters are circle shaped.  That makes it unique!  There are plenty of glitters in the polish, but they do sink.  About half an hour before I was planning on using this, I did flip the bottle upside down and let it sit that way.  That made it easy to get plenty of glitters on my brush.


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. ;)

Friday, January 16, 2015

Hard to Find Friday: Urban Decay Chaos and Zoya Cosmo

Woo it's Friday!  I'm so excited for the week to be over.  As soon as I'm done with work today, I'm taking a nap.  It's my favorite way to celebrate.  ;-P


Today I have two polishes.  The blue I'm wearing on four of my five nails is Urban Decay in Chaos.  It is a cobalt blue with a lighter blue shimmer.  The formula is really smooth and thick.  The first coat was almost opaque, with just a little bit of balding at the base of my nails, though the second coat left it perfect.  The shimmer in the polish makes it glow.  I adore it.  I bought this polish, along with a few other Urban Decay polishes at Nordstrom Rack on clearance.  I have not seen it anywhere else.  I'm assuming they've been discontinued.  :-(

My accent polish is Zoya's Cosmo.  It is one of the Magical Pixie Dusts, which pretty much just means that it has large holographic hexes in the texture polish, and we all know how I feel about holographic anything. I used two coats for full opacity.  The Magical Pixie Dusts are supposed to have a more extreme texture, but I was not bothered by it at all.  In case you have not already heard, Zoya has retired, not discontinued, the Pixie Dust line.  They did imply that some colors may be coming back later, similar to how they treat the Matte Velvets.  So while they are still available on the Zoya website, will not be there for long and people have been finding them in clearance racks.  Head out and stock up now.



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. ;)


Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Untried Wednesday: Zoya Willa and Dollish Polish A Unicorn Farted in my Polish

Happy Wednesday all! I hope you're all doing well.  Today I have two untrieds to show.  Slowly, but surely I am getting to my 40 untrieds before this no buy is over.  These are numbers 23 and 24.  Woo! Go me!


First off I have Zoya's Willa.  It is a two coat black cream that was released in their 2014 Wishes collection this last Winter.  I received it as part of their Black Friday Mystery Box and Bag, which I reviewed here, along with the rest of my Black Friday/Cyber Monday experience.  The formula is a little patchy on the first coat, but it is opaque with a second.  It dries to a very glossy finish.


I topped off my nails with two coats of Dollish Polish's A Unicorn Farted in my Polish.  Yes, take a moment to appreciate that name.  I love it.  On the store front Dollish Polish says "This glitterbomb consists of every color in the rainbow! Glitters ranging from small to large, in stars, moons, squares, dots, hexagons, rectangles and more!"  I would mostly agree, but I found that my brush only really picked up the white shaped glitters.  I did end up with some yellow stars and a blue heart, the rest of the glitters were white.  I suspect I probably used up most of the white glitters in one go.  For the bigger glitters, I did have to spin my brush around the bottle a bit and place them on my nails to make sure that each nail had some.

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. ;)

Monday, January 12, 2015

Mani Monday: Zoo Nails!

Happy Monday!  I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, I know that I enjoyed mine.  Mr. LacquerVixen and I spent Sunday morning at the San Diego Zoo.  We got a year membership to the Zoo and Wild Animal Park, so we decided to take advantage of it, considering there were some football games going on and a pretty heavy drizzle going on in San Diego.  Not only was no one at the Zoo, but the animals were out and about.  We had a blast, but now I'm at home, cold and with a headache.  In honor of our little day trip, I themed my nail art and tried my hand at stamping again.  You can check out my last attempt, that I was not happy with at all here.


On my index and middle fingers I am wearing two coats of Zoya Jules.  It is a champagne taupe with gold shimmer.  The formula was smooth and easy to work with, if not a touch sheer.  The second coat did make it completely opaque.  Apparently, Jules is a warmer dupe of Sinful Shine's Prosecco that so many nail polish junkies had been in desperate search of at the end of last year.  I never bought it, but I am perfectly happy with Jules.  

On my ring finger I am wearing OPIs What Wizardry is This? from the Oz, the Great and Powerful collection that they released in 2013.  I have already done a full swatch of it here, just ignore how red my fingers looked.  It is a brown Liquid Sand with gold shimmer that was opaque in one coat, but a second coat darkens the color.  

Finally on my thumb I am wearing Zoya Tomoko and on my pinkie I have China Glaze I'm Not Lion.  I had chosen both of these expecting I'm Not Lion to be a stronger gold color, but it ended up being pretty much a dead on dupe for Tomoko, just with a touch of holographic glitter sprinkled in.  Both were opaque in two coats.  I don't think that you necessarily need both of these polishes.  I will be holding on to both though, because I adore Tomoko and since Zoya retired their Pixie Dust line (yes retired, not discontinued.  They did say that the Pixies may be popping up again in the future.), I will keep I'm Not Lion around to replace Tomoko, when I finally finish it.  


This is the final result of my new stamping attempt.  A lot better this time I think!  To prepare for the stamping, I did alternate Gelous top coat and HK Girl on top of the texture and glitter polishes to create a smooth surface.  All three of them are top coat hungry polishes, so I ended up having to go over them twice with the top coats.  On my pointer and middle fingers I just painted on two coats of HK Girl, in case I messed up a stamping and had to swipe some acetone on my nails to start over.  This way the colored polishes wouldn't be cleaned away.

For all of my nails I used the Wistonia W101 plate from the first generation collection.  I used the giraffe print on top of Jules with Revlon Perfumerie in Autumn Spice.  It was a bit sheer, but I like the effect it gave.  Oddly enough I do not have very many other brown polishes, I guess I'll have to remedy that later.  ;-)  The sides of my finger are a bit puffy, so I had to make sure to pull them back to be able to stamp my full nail.  But this time the image transferred over  very well.

On my thumb and pinkie I used the small paw print on the same Wistonia plate along with Cult Nail Fetish, which we all know is my go to black polish.  In case you had not heard, Cult Nails is going out of business and had been selling out the last of their stock.  Unfortunately they had already sold out of it by the time I made my way to the storefront.

Over all, I am happy with my stamping.  This success makes me want to stamp all the time!


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. ;)

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Swatch Saturday: A England Tristam

Hey all, I just have a quick swatch for you guys today.  This is one of the many great polishes I got for the holidays.  When I pulled it out of the layers of tissue paper and bubble wrap, I squealed.  This one has been on my wish list for a good long while.


A England's Tristam is described as a "rich, deep blue with smooth holographic particles".  Well mine is dark blueish purple.  The formula was thick, almost a touch too thick.  It was completely opaque in one coat, but clean up with particularly difficult, as you can see from my picture.  I don't know if it is because of the strange cold spell that we've been having in San Diego, but the formula of Tristam was not quite on par with the other A Englands I have tried in the past.  I am hoping that a bit of thinner will even this formula out and make it easier to work with.   The holographic particles were very dense and did give that lovely rainbow arc that we all know and love from a linear holo in the sunlight.  Unfortunately, the weather here in San Diego hates holo swatching.

You can find the Llarowe listing for this polish here.

As the usual kind reminder, while I did not purchase this polish with my own money, it was given to me as a gift from a friend.  I am not cool enough to be sent stuff to review.

Friday, January 9, 2015

Hard to Find Friday: Deborah Lippmann Million Dollar Mermaid

Happy Friday all!  Boy am I glad for the weekend.  This week has just been dragging and it needed to be over on like Tuesday.  I bet some of you feel the exact same way.


This is Deborah Lippmann's Million Dollar Mermaid from the Summer 2013 "Mermaids" collection.  It is a light tangerine micro glitter with gold shimmer and small orange hexes.  The formula was easy to work with and was smooth.  I used three coats for full opacity, but two would be fine if you are not as finicky as I am about VNL.  

I am not a huge fan of oranges, I own like three and one of them is entirely just for nail art, but I like this one.  With my skin tone it almost looks neutral.  But then it is

a Deborah Lippmann polish that references mermaids, so of course I have to love 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. ;)

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Untried Wednesday: Bliss Polish Shake It Off

Happy Wednesday all.  I hope you're all having a lovely week so far.  Today I bring you an indie polish that is no stranger to LacquerVixen.  Bliss Polish is defiantly the indie I own the most of and it is no shock why.  The colors are always fantastic, formulas are great, and Yvette is so great.  As a warning though, this polish is a holo AND a duochrome, so it was difficult for me to be able to show both of those aspects in my pictures.



This is Shake It Off by Bliss Polish.  It is a purple to blue duochrome with linear holo.  The formula was smooth, if not a touch sheer, so it took me three coats for full opacity.  It reminds me of Enchanted Polish's Mystery Polish for August 2014, or what I had wished it had been.  I have already reviewed it here, but in case you had not read it, I was extremely disappointed that it had not been a holographic polish.  It was like the polish gods had known and sent me Shake It Off to appease me.  Even though this had been sitting, untried, in my helmer for a couple of months before the Enchanted Polish came into my life.  

If you are interested in Shake It Off, it is currently sold out, but make sure to follow Bliss Polish on Instagram for any and all future restocks and sales.  

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. ;)

Monday, January 5, 2015

Mani Monday: Red and White Polka Dots

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all have been having a lovely year so far.  I'm finally back.  The holidays always keep me super busy going back and forth between my family and the in laws, so I wanted to give myself a break and make sure I could start the year off right.  Now I'm all refreshed and can't wait to get back into the swing of things.


I am starting off today with one coat of Illamasqua's Throb.  Yes, you heard me right, one coat red cream.  It was smooth, opaque, and easy to use.  In case you did not know, Illamasqua is a UK brand that is only available on their website.  They used to be at Sephora, but no longer are available there.  One of the downsides of this polish, is that after exchange rates, they come to about $25 a bottle.  It's about the same range of other high end polishes, and down right cheap in comparison to the infamous Loubiton polishes that most nail junkies are freaking out about right now, but as we all know, I am cheap.  Recently Hautelook did have a sale on Illamasqua polishes, which is where I got this one and a few others.  They were on sale for $7.50, so I had no qualms swooping them up.  If you are not already signed up with Hautelook, you can totally use my referral link.  ;-)  I think they're a great place to pick up some high end products, whether it is beauty, home goods, or clothing.  It's where I got all my the Balm palettes.


I loveds this polish so much that I could not make myself do anything particularly elaborate on my nails.  For some reason, red polish always calls out for white polka dots to me.  I don't know if it is the Disney kid or the vintage gal in me, but I love red with white polka dots.  I used OPIs Alpine Snow for my dots.  It is not a one coat white, so I had to make sure my dots were super dense.  Unfortunately, that means I should have waited a little longer to top coat them, as you can tell by the slight streaking on my ring finger.  I topped off my pointer and pinkie fingers with a thin coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.  It is a cult classic scattered holo topper.  There is no way of making this opaque, but it is a lovely way to spruce up a basic cream.


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. ;)