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!

Saturday Spam, Indie Edition! Lynnderella + Pretty Serious

So, I'm trying to spend the whole month with Halloween on my nails. I'm constantly chasing that joy that I felt  as a kid knowing that candy and costumes was just around the corner. I've got my Walking Dead marathon on right now, a few different Halloween frankens in the mix, desk covered in glitter, and I'm definitely feeling the season! My brand new keyboard finally turned up, so I'm able to type without having to press down on nasty, gummy keys. But I'm sure this one will be soaked with acetone and glitter soon enough!

First up for you, I have a really fun pairing: Lynnderella Cauldron Drippings over War Paint Beauty Purple Haze. Purple Haze is seriously one of my favorite polishes, definitely top 20. It's a deep gorgeous jellied purple with fuschia/purple and blue glass flecks. I thought it would give Cauldron Drippings a nice pop, and keep it super Halloween-y. For these swatches I did two coats of Purple Haze, (awesome formula), then dabbed on about 1 1/2 coats of Cauldron Drippings. CD had an ok formula, not too thick, but the glitter was kind of a pain to work with. That is to be expected with these types of chunky glitter though. I loved this mani because I had a sad coworker say that it cheered her up, and a few customers even dug them.

The next Indie polish I have to show you is from Pretty Serious. I lucked into this mani because my new roommate got a package of new Pretty Serious polishes and offered to let me try one. Awesome! And to keep in with my Halloween nail theme for the month, I chose an awesome murky brown polish called Morning Java. This color is so complex! It has a greenish brown/bronzey base with small gold glitters and smaller warmer micro gold shimmer, and I swear there are hints of teeny red/orange glitters in there as well. I only needed two coats for opacity, and it was a little thick, but not too hard to work with. I'm not complaining because there is a lot of goodness happening in this polish.

Glitter Herpes!!! Haha, excuse the mess, you can tell I've been frankening.

I love how it looks warmer or cooler, more green or more golden brown depending on the light! And of course I had to Halloween-ify it, so i added a coat of Orly Godiva, a brown metallic glitter, and a spiderweb decal. Love it! Thanks so much to my roomie Rach from Stuff I (S)watched for letting me borrow it!

Saturday Spam-fest! *lots of pics*

Sorry for the inactivity lately, I've been getting ready to move into a new spiffy apartment! I've got the big move tomorrow, then after that I should be getting into a better rhythm for posting. However, I still wanted to show you what I've been doing lately, because even if I'm quiet on here, the nails are still gonna be colorful.

Layla Cloudy Violet, three coats over one coat of Aquabase. This is what I wanted China Glaze LOL to be, good color, big holo flame. I like.

These were the nails that I did for my first LARPing adventure where I played as a wizard. The base is OPI Paris Couture for Sure, four coats, and then the swirls are painted on with acrylic paint. The stars are from a little Nail Art jar I got from Five Below that had these and green cutout stars. This mani lasted pretty well considering we were very active on the field of battle!

This mani is four coats of Essie Turquoise and Caicos and a new Rainbow Honey polish called Sakura Matsuri. Bah, I did not like the formula on T&C, it was still streaky at four coats. The application might have been better if it had been thinned out. I like the Rainbow Honey on top though, very delicate but colorful. I see lots of possibility for this color over pastels and deep colors like grey and black. I love the flower glitters in this!

Butter London Knackered! I've been waffling on this color since it was released the beginning of this year. I'm so glad I picked this up during the Butter London BOGO sale! The formula is okay, but pretty watery. I foresaw the definite possibility that this polish could turn into a frosty glittery mess because of the metallic shimmer and holo glitter, but I actually like the combination! The holo wasn't too obvious, except in bright light, and the multichrome is pretty subtle too. This could be a good or bad thing depending on your tastes. Now be prepared for entirely too many pictures!

Finger Paints Plum Startled is another polish I couldn't make up my mind about. I have a toooon of purple polishes, but this one isn't too dupey to anything else in my stash. I ended up liking this color a lot, even if my first mani was a fail and I had to do a total redo. I think the bright purple and indigo shimmer against the dusty wine purple base is just super gorgeous. I think Plum Startled also makes a good transition color from Summer to Fall. This was four coats I believe.

 The gorgeous sparkle in this REALLY comes out in the sun. Check out how pretty!

Now this is a random layering I did the other day using a jelly sandwich technique with Revlon Royal and a blue Quirius glitter polish the has red, blue and gold micro glitter. I loved this mani because it reminded me of superhero/Superman themed colors.

Alrighty, I think that catches me up pretty much for the moment. Thanks for reading!!

Indie Monday! - Rainbow Honey - Hanami and Koi Pond

 Hello all! Today I have for you a couple belated swatches from the indie brand Rainbow Honey. I keep waffling over how I want to review these because I haven't been super happy with the service I've received from the site. The polishes are pretty but I don't believe that Hanami was described well, since the description didn't include holographic glitter. Don't get me wrong, I love holographic goodness, but not when I want a delicate layering glitter which to me was what Hanami was described as.

Anways, Hanami is gorgeous, and has the best formula of any of the RH's that I've tried. The Equestria polishes were ridiculously thick, but these two coats of Hanami (shown over Layla Red Taboo) were pretty easy to apply. This polish is really complex and has holo glitters, iridescent glitters, matte white glitter, pink glitter, white shards, and has a pretty twinkling effect.

Next up is Koi Pond. This is another pretty polish, but one that I wish didn't contain holo glitters. To me they just throw off the whole aesthetic, but that's just me being picky!  The pictures speak for themselves, this is a super fun layering glitter. This swatch is two coats of Koi Pond over two coats of Orly Sapphire Silk.

What do you think?

Hare Afterglow on steroids

I finally got my first Hare polish! I picked Afterglow because all the other ones seemed to have a lot of the same glitters in them with different base colors. But Afterglow is just gorgeous. It has a deep blue jelly base, slightly dusty, with purple microglitter and pink, purple, and orange small glitter hexes. I do wish it had more of a variety of sizes of glitter, but other than that, I like it!

The formula was a little on the thick side, but no more so than some of my other indie polishes, easier to spread than most. The glitter didn't always disperse evenly however, so I did end up having to do four coats to get a good opacity and glitter spread. Also, the blue base seemed to kind of grey out the glitter under the surface of the blue, so you don't get that awesome jelly sandwich effect that you usually get from these types of polish.

So being me, I had to glitter this suckah up! I layered a coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell as well as a layer of my franken green to red color shifting shimmer topcoat. Enjoy!

Sexy beast! I actually wore this for two days!

Indie Polish Monday! Lynnderella and Lilacquer

As I'm packing for my move in September... I see just how much nail polish I have. Lots... But my indies are definitely some of my favorite and most loved. Lynnderella Very Pretty Vampire and Bride of Franken are probably two of my most used colors. After all the dramz with Lynn's ebay craziness, I decided I didn't really want to spend that much on her polish. However, I managed to swap for the only one I wanted from her new collection, Sweet Somethings for a Summer Solstice, Glass Houses! Glass Houses is all the things I love in a polish: glitter, duochrome, and deep orange magical goodness!

I wanted to layer it over a contrasting color, so I layered it over a deep blue creme by Jessica called Solar Eclipse. Solar Eclipse is one of my favorite layering bases because it's super opaque and smooth and gorgeous. This is two coats of Solar Eclipse with one coat of Lynn's Glass Houses brushed then dabbed on to fill in blank spots.

This polish make me want Halloween season to be here so BAD. (Even thought that's how I feel all the time ;)

Next up is a polish I just got in the mail yesterday and just had to throw on. Lilacquer is an indie polish brand currently available on Etsy. So far I am digging Lilacquer because her shop usually has polishes in stock, which is nice since some stores are always empty, restock for five minutes, then empty again. Her shipping was also super fast, the polishes wrapped carefully, and so beautiful!

This polish is full of awesome, Lilacquer Schrodinger's Catastrophe: multichromatic microshimmer (green to violet), multichromatic small glitter, and then larger blue, green, and aqua color iridescent hexes that all shift to blue to purple. So pretty and ethereal! Like the easiest galaxy or under the sea manicure ever. I also wanted to use a different color than I usually would as a base, and knock out an untried at the same time, so I used two coats of Cherimoya matte-n-a- in the color Documentary, a super dark matte brown. Then I layered a coat and a half or so of SC by brushing then dabbing again glitter where there were holes.

MMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmm. I freaking love iridescent blue/purple glitter. Best impulse purchase ever! Check out Lilacquer here at her Etsy shop.

Rainbow Honey - The Worst Possible Thing

Here's my last Rainbow Honey polish to show you: The Worst Possible Thing! The name to me is pretty funny, because of all the Rainbow Honeys I got, this has the best formula. Whereas the other three had thick, gooey, unspreadable formulas, this one, while thick, spread nice and even. The only time it got difficult was when a couple flakes would snag on eachother. Because guess what folks, this polish not only has iridescent and holo glitter, it also has iridescent flakie bits in it! I layered two coats of TWPT over two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Grea Area.

I love that this polish has iridescent purple and blue glitters in it, those types are my faaaavorite. I could have done without the holo bits but it does give the polish a very fun feel. And the fact that these are named after My Little Pony Friendship is Magic just makes my day.

In this last picture you can see how the flakkie bits overlap and cloud the base polish a bit. Still pretty though! Next time I'm gonna try it over a pastel or a dark blue.

You can by Rainbow Honey at RainbowHoney.com, $10 for 15ml or $5 for 7ml minis.

Smitten Polish Hydrangea & Aquarius

I finally took the leap and got a few Smitten Polishes! Smitten Polish can be found here. As far as the indie polish craze goes, I've tended to gravitate towards the super glitter bombs. But I do like the color combos in some of the Smitten Polish, and how you get the sparkle of the glitter without it overwhelming the base color of the polish.

This is three coats of Hydrangea. I looove the color of the jelly base. The only thing that made me a little sad was that the formula was kind of gummy and shrank when I put on the Seche Vite topcoat, but it's still pretty!

Hydrangea:

And Aquarius is another pretty one. A soft aqua teal jelly base with green, blue, and purple glitter. I loooved the base color of this one too, it seemed to make my pale hands actually look a little tan. The only thing I would have liked to see is some variation in sizes of the glitter, but it's still beautiful! I would totally recommend these Smitten Polishes by Noelie, they're so soft and lovely!

Nail-Venturous Floam! + Giveaway Continues!

Oh man, I've been lemming this polish for months! This polish is soooo awesome. Almost opaque in two coats, the formula is fantastic for a glitter polish. What I love about this polish is that the glitter in it is MATTE. Not super shiny, just bright, speckled goodness. And it reminds me of a color blind test, or a Monet painting. Up close you can see how gorgeous the blue and yellow glitters are, and from afar, it makes your manicure look like a light blue/green. So pretty! I did two coats of Floam over a light blue H&M polish I got forever ago for a buck, "U Must Have This". Which is quite appropriate, you must have Floam! I got mine at Ninja Polish!

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