Mani Monday: Glitter, Polka Dots, and Mint

Happy Monday everyone!  Did you all have a nice weekend?  I'm super excited right now because tomorrow I'm going to go pick up my wedding dress.  Whaaaaaaaat??  But LacquerVixen, you're not getting married for ten months!  Well yeah, but it wasn't supposed to be ready until January/February and then I got an email two weeks after ordering it that my dress had come in.  Apparently they happened to have my size in the warehouse.  Yeah, so here's hoping it looks all nice and new.   Cross your fingers for me y'all!

Today's mani was originally inspired by those Caboodles Nail Valets that are super nifty.  They have compartments to fit your polishes so that they do not wiggle around in travel and different areas for extras, including brushes and dotting tools.  And they look like this:

Now I love me some black with white polka dot, so I have been wanting this one for so long.  So my nails started out looking like the box, then I started adding extras.  What do you all think?

On my thumb and pinkie I have OPIs My Dogsled is a Hybrid from their Nordic 2014 collection.  It is a mint cream that was nearly opaque in one coat, I added a second to cover up a few bald spots.  Seriously, this is a great polish and it is still available in stores.  If you don't own it already, go out and buy it now.  I topped my thumb with Sephora Formula X in Chaotic which has black and white hexes and black bar glitter.  Now this Formula X is from Sephora's first and short lived launch of their store brand polishes.  I found this at Big Lot's for less than two dollars, so it's not particularly easy to find, but there are plenty of other brands that came out with the same kind of thing.  China Glaze and Hard Candy are the first ones that come to mind.  On my pinkie, I just have a coat of ORLY's Shine on Crazy Diamond which is a sparse holographic topper.  The glitters are slightly larger than China Glaze's Fairy Dust.

On my pointer finger I have two coats of Nails Inc in Noho which was from their Leather Effect polishes.  It is slightly textured and is probably my favorite black, glitterless texture polish.  I also added a silver square shaped stud on the base of my nail.  In the past, I have always just used a dot of top coat to glue studs on, but they would only really last about twelve hours before they popped off.  So today I used brush on Gel Resin.  So far it has lasted through a shower, sleep, and cooking, so it works pretty well for me.  

My middle finger is just two coats of Essie's Hors d'ouevers.  It is a dense gold glitter polish with silver hexes.  Finally, on my ring finger I painted one coat of my much beloved Cult Nails Fetish then made my dots with OPIs My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  

I am pretty happy with the over all result and I hope you guys like it too.  :-)

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: Celeb Siren

Hey all, I hope your Monday is going well, but why lie?  It's Monday so it sucks.  :-P  Today I felt uninspired so I thought I'd do an easy mani.

I started off with Picture Polish in Siren Song on my index, middle, and pinkie fingers.  Picture Polish released it as one of their 2013 Blogger Collaboration shades and this one was designed byRebecca Does Nails.  It is a seafoam green cream with a silver shimmer running through it.  It is a very pretty polish, but I have had issues with the formula every time I have used it.  I painted three coats for the pictures and that is because it painted on very patchy.  Also it was surprisingly difficult to clean up my edges with this polish and I was using my usual pure acetone and french brush.  I don't know if I got an off batch because the other reviews I have read did not mention having any formula issues.  If you are interested in trying out Siren Song, or any other Picture Polish, for yourself you can check out their storefront.  Picture Polish is an Australian indie brand, so if you don't live there it would be really expensive to ship.  I usually go to Llarowe.

On my thumb and ring fingers I used me go to silver polish, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Celeb City.  It paints smoothly in one coat, is good for stamping, and only costs $2.49 at the drugstore  What's not to love?  I topped it with Essie Set in Stones, which is a silver, reflective glitter topper that has small and medium sized hexes.

To finish it all off, I used my dotting tools and made two dots at the base of my nails with Celeb City.

So what do you gals think of my easy, lazy, uninspired nail art?  :-P

As the usual kind reminder. These products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have people send me products for review. 

Julep Maven March Box

It's that time of the month again!  Julep Maven boxes are being delivered and I got to play with my new colors last night.  The March colors were inspired by a childhood favorite, sidewalk chalk.  The colors are pretty pastels that are great for Spring. 

I chose It Girl this month, partially because I really like Simone and Shanae, but mostly because I didn't want the Rock Star hand cream at all.  I just can not stand floral scents, they just all smell gross to me.  The box ended up including Simone, Shanae, and Teri, along with a Strawberry Mint lipbalm. 

Simone is a lilac color with the barest hint of a blue shimmer.  It's visible in the bottle, but on the nail, the shimmer dissapears.  Shanae has the same shimmer, but in a pastel mint color. Teri is different from the others, only in the sense that it is not quite as pale.  It is creme, coral color.

When I first opened my Maven box, I knew that I had to do something involving all the colors.  Eventually, I decided on just doing diagonal stripes.  First I painted my nails all in Teri, then did a line of Simone, Shanae, and painted the very tips in Teri again.  To give it that complete chalk look, I added Julep's matte top coat and called it a night.  Teri painted on solid in one thick coat.  Simone and Shanae took two medium coats.  I love the way the colors ended up looking together.  Maybe next month I'll use all three again and braid them together. 

To finish this post off, I thought I'd throw in my most prized piece of sidewalk art.  When my mom found it in our backyard, she was annoyed.  But whatever, I regret nothing!!

Deborah Lipmann Mermaid's Dream

So I have a Bachelor's in Creative Writing specializing in Fiction and my writing tends to stick to fantasy for the most part.  Like any proper girly girl, I love unicorns, mermaids, fairies, and all sorts of fantastic creatures.  Hence, why when I see nail polish with "mermaid" in the name I have to have it.

Mermaid's Dream is my first Deborah Lipmann.  I spent far too long comparing the different colors I wanted until I finally decided on this one.  After all of my blues and mermaid colors, this one is still different from them all, which makes me glad I invested the $18 on it.
In real life, it is actually a touch more mint green and little less teal.  Mermaid's Dream is a thick glitter with specks of holo glitter that I did not actually notice until I was in the sunlight.  The holo was a nice little sparkly surprise.  There are also navy blue glitters running through it.  I layered one coat of Mermaid's Dream over Sinful Colors' Mint Apple, partially because both were perfect matches for each other, and partially because I did not want to have to attempt to remove three coats of solid glitter.
The last thing that I love about this polish is how forgiving this formula is.  It completely filled in the still healing ridges I have left from my six month stint with acrylics.