Lush Lacquer Clowning Around

First off, let me just say how much I love Illamasqua Jo'mina. It's a beautiful bright lavender light purple. The formula is heavenly, smooth, and pigmented. I picked it up with my roommate Rach from Stuff I Swatched from Sephora in JC Penney as part of their $7 Illamasqua clearance. I thought it'd be a good base to try out my first neon glitter!
Lush Lacquer Clowning Around is a clear based polish fuuuullll of different colors and sizes of neon matte glitter hexes. I love it. I can't wait to put it over alllll the pastels I have. It's going to be great for the warmer months. This is two coats, dabbed on, over two coats of Jo'mina. Enjoy!

Ciate Trio swatches

Been away awhile again. I wanted to show you all what I've been up to. First up, I got a trio of Ciate polishes from Sephora in JC Penney the other day while I was scavenging for $7 Illamasquas. They caught my eye because they looked like versions of MAC Bad Fairy. One a brighter pink with glitter, one duller duochrome, and one a gold green shimmer with pink glitter. After swatching them, I'm not really thrilled, and they might have to go back. $25 for three mini polishes is pretty bonkers. But I've swatched two of them here for you. The third, Heirloom, was basically like Orly Space Cadet without the teal base, just purpley pink brown.

Ciate Love Letters, two coats over two coats of a Chelsea grey. Pretty duochrome, but basically like Sally Hansen Lava with extra hexes in fuschia and light copper.

And Ciate Antique Broach, one thin coat over Sinful Sugar Rush.

Over all, decent formula, pretty colors, but not worth $25. The only unique aspect of these is the addition of multiple sizes of hex glitters to brighten up the polish. I don't mind the glitters, I was afraid they would get too covered in the shimmer and get that frosty look. But  also didn't think there was enough contrast between the shimmer and glitter. Meh.

NOTDs... past and present

Hello my friends! I am very sorry that I haven't been around in months. Nothing has really gotten my juices flowing enough to bother you all with it. Suffice to say I've had a lot going on: going back to school for nursing, dealing with housing crises of friends, broken NOTD camera and of course, Macy's. I've still been painting the nails, just not taking pics as often as before, and not spending much time on nail art. Well, I'm starting to get inspired again, so we'll see what happens. This post is gonna be a photo dump of some of the manis I have managed to capture on film in the last couple months. These pics are using my Iphone 4, so please bear with me (or bare with me ;p )

I'm gonna say this NOTD was maybe American Apparel Peacock... not positive. All that really matters is that that is Lilacquer Lycanthrope on top, and what a beauty she is. Green bronze shift to blue. So sexy. And for fun I topped it with a franken of mine that's just multi-iridescent squares in clear.

I'm pretty sure this is Hits Artsy, even though at this angle the flash almost makes it look like SH Turquoise Opal. Always gonna be a top 20 polish. Soooo sexy. 

And Zoya Aurora! How I love Zoyas holographic polishes. Just the right amount of fire to keep it gorgeous, but not too much to overwhelm the base color. Aurora makes me start singing the opening theme to Disney's Sleeping Beauty "Hail to the Princess Aurora!" Yum.

Aaaand a not-so-successful dotticure using Zoya Storm. Storm was okay, but not nearly as pretty as my favorite of the collection, Blaze. Not enough sparkle for me. So of course I went overboard and sparkled that shit up. I think I used Jade Mystic Gold and Urban Outfitters Green Holo for the dots. Got tipwear super-fast on this one, but wear time was pretty good for Aurora and Blaze.

If you like old, sorta gramma-y nail polishes, I suggest hitting up your local Dollar Tree! I found some ooold two packs of Almay nail polishes, mostly pinks and mauves and frosts but some had a really cool hidden shimmer. This light beige-y color is called Dusk and it has a pretty coppery pink shimmer. Of course I bedazzled it with Essie Shine of the Times and an accent of Layla Mermaid's Spell.

And that's the end of today's nail journey. I hope to be back soon with more pics of my nail exploits, but my new nursing classes must take priority! Thanks for reading :)