July 4th - Stars and Stripes!

Happy 4th of July!  I had some more elaborate plans in my head, combining stamping and striping and gradients and um, ya...just a mishmash of everything really.  But I usually like to try to pull off more complicated nail art on the weekends, since I have more time in case I screw something up (which is pretty much bound to happen at least once if not on several attempts).  I didn't get a chance to do my July 4th manicure until Tuesday though, so I decided to keep it simple this year and stick with just stamping.  And I'm glad I did because I think it turned out to be my favorite July 4th manicure ever.

I started out with 3 coats of China Glaze White On White.  The stamp designs are both from
Winstonia plate W107.  I stamped using Konad Special Polishes in blue and in red, then top coated with Seche Vite.  I stamped the blue stars design on my thumb as well, but earlier in the week I somehow managed to snap off the entire free edge of the nail...whomp, whomp.  The nail is so short that my thumb now basically bares a striking resemblance to my big toe.  So ya...I'll spare you from having to see that!

Happy Independence Day!  Have a safe July 4th!!!

The Rain Song - Stamped

I do still have one last Liquid Lacquer polish to show you, as promised, but before I get to that I just wanted to show some stamping I did over The Rain Song a few weeks ago before taking it off.

It's been a little while since I've done any stamping and this one was actually inspired by a similar mani done with nail decals.  Fellow blogger Stephanie from A Little Polish used The Rain Song as a background for some 3D decals from Born Pretty Store.  Once I saw it, I had the look stuck in my head for weeks.  I loved the way the white and yellow looked against the teal in her photos.  I also had just purchased the Pueen stamping plates set and thought that the image on plate 19 would be perfect for creating a look similar to the Born Pretty decals.  I stamped using Konad Special Polish in white and then, using dotting tools, I added the yellow dots using Zoya Pippa.

I really loved wearing this mani.  I loved it so much that I hardly even minded the little smudge and streaking on my middle finger.  I had a bridal shower to attend that weekend and it turned out to be a perfect look for the event.  

Liquid Lacquer The Rain Song and Collide Into You

I have got two more polishes to show you out of the blogger package, which I purchased last month from Liquid Lacquer.  I've grouped these two together because both polishes are great teal/turquoise shades.  The Rain Song is beautiful teal holo shimmer polish and Collide Into You is a teal jelly with pink and gold circle glitters and gold micro glitter scattered throughout.

First up, let's take a closer look at some pics of The Rain Song.  All pictures show 3 coats.  I think most people would be satisfied after just 2 coats, but I just can't seem to resist adding a 3rd coat when it comes to, well, practically every polish I ever wear.

Application was a breeze and the polish seemed to dry super fast.  The holo is a bit subtle but it's a gorgeous shade of teal with what is really just the perfect amount of holo shimmer.  Even though it's not an in-your-face kind of holo, I still found myself constantly admiring the color on my nails.

Next up is Collide Into You, which seems, to me anyway, to be one of the most popular Liquid Lacquer shades around.  And looking at the following shots, I think you can understand why.

This was 3 coats as well, but like with The Rain Song, I think most people would be happy with just 2 coats.  Application of Collide Into You was super smooth.  I had such an easy time with getting the glitter to apply evenly.  There were even a few times where I had a little too much glitter on the brush and just used an extra brush stroke to sweep off a little excess.

One more shade from the blogger package to go!  Be sure to check out Liquid Lacquer's shop to view all of the polishes currently available.

Liquid Lacquer 80's Baby

Today I have the first of 4 polishes I recently received from Liquid Lacquer.  There were a few polishes I had been eyeing, so I decided to apply for Melissa's blogger package.  I thought it would be a great way to order some polishes that I wanted and in the process try out a few polishes that I might not normally have chosen on my own.  80's Baby is a perfect example of that!  I don't think that I would have ordered this glitter on my own, so when I got it as part of the blogger package, I was a bit nervous.  Especially since I don't consider choosing glitter and base color combos one of my strong points.  But after testing out a few combinations, I came across one that just wowed me.  This is 80's Baby over Orly Lucky Duck.

80's Baby is a mix of mostly neon colored glitters: yellow, pink and green, and winter white matte glitters in a clear base.  I went from not being sure about this glitter to wearing this combo for 5 straight days.  I tested this over several different base colors.  Some combinations worked well, some were...well, just wrong.  As in "I'm not even going to show you" wrong.  But 80's Baby/Lucky Duck was a winner and my absolute favorite.  It really looks awesome over white too.  I went with Lucky Duck for this post because it seems neon glitters over white is a common find on the internet so I wanted to try something a little different.  But I will definitely be wearing this over white one day soon because I loved my test swatch of it.  Here's a shot of 80's Baby over Milani White On The Spot, China Glaze Lemon Fizz and Finger Paints Black Expressionism.

Some of the neon glitters really pop over different base colors and some kind of disappear on certain shades, but each combination offers a great look.  The lime green squares, for example, really pop over Lucky Duck.  But see that big translucent neon green hex in the middle of Yellow Fizz?  There is also one on the black swatch, to the immediate left of the big pink hex.  But it just kind of melts into the black background and the same thing happened over Lucky Duck.  But for how great the other colors look, that's a trade-off I'm willing to make.  And they show up just fine over other colors, like Lemon Fizz.

Application of 80's Baby was really smooth, but for the test swatches on the nail wheel it did take about 3 coats to get the glitter built up the way I wanted it.  For my actual manicure, I tried dabbing the glitter onto my nails, instead of brushing it on, and I was able to get the coverage I wanted in just one coat.  I finished off the manicure with one coat of Gelous and one coat of Seche Vite.

I'm so glad that I signed up for the blogger package.  I would probably not have thought to order 80's Baby myself and I would have really been missing out on a great neon glitter!  I'll have some more Liquid Lacquer polishes coming up soon.  In the meantime, be sure to check out all of the current Liquid Lacquer polishes available on Melissa's shop!

DIFFERENTdimension Another Brick In The Wall

Today I have the second Echoes Collection polish from DIFFERENTdimension that was sent to me for review.  Another Brick In The Wall is clear base polish with hex and square hot pink glitters in a few different sizes, black and white bar/rectangle glitters, black and white micro glitter and some holographic micro glitter.  I layered one coat of Another Brick In The Wall over Revlon Aquamarine from the Chroma Chameleon collection.

I love this combo!  I hate to give myself a little pat on the back but I will, because I'm usually so bad when it comes to picking a good undies color for a glitter topper that I can't help but be thrilled with how great I think this turned out.  I really need to experiment more when it comes to glitters and base colors and start trying out combinations that I wouldn't normally put together.

I was happily surprised with the application of Another Brick In The Wall.  I only needed one coat and was able to get a lot of glitter in just the one coat.  It actually wasn't that hard to get out the super large hot pink hexes.  My only issue with them is that my nail beds are so high and narrow, with such a big C-curve in my nails, that the big hexes are a bit too wide to fit well on certain spots of my nails.  But that's a completely personal problem because of my nail shape and I have that same issue anytime a polish has extra large glitters.  In spite of that, I just can't resist the mega glitters!  I love them.

Revlon Aquamarine is super thin, in case you were wondering.  I wore it once before and it took about 5 coats at least to be opaque.  Instead of dealing with that nonsense again, for this manicure, I layered just 2 coats over 1 coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism, which has rapidly become my favorite go-to black polish.

You can check out all 6 shades from the Echoes Collection on the etsy page for DIFFERENTdimension, plus a ton of other great looking glitter polishes and holographic polishes made by Missi.

*Polish sent for honest review.  Review contains only my personal opinions.*

DIFFERENTdimension Hey You

I have a review for you of a very pretty polish from DIFFERENTdimension.  DIFFERENTdimension is a brand I've been eyeing for a while now and I recently got the opportunity to have two polishes sent to me for review.  I'll be starting today with Hey You from the Echoes collection.  Hey You is a lavender base with several different sizes and shapes of glitter in shades of purple and some fuchsia circles.

Let me start by saying I really loved wearing this.  I had it on for a full week and it wore like a champ.  I had no chips and very little tip wear.  Depending on how thick of a coat you apply, you can definitely get way with two coats.  I had just a hint of visible nail line after two coats though, which no one else probably would have even noticed.  But I applied a third coat just to even out the coverage.  I applied one coat of Gelous before adding a coat of Seche Vite top coat.

I think this would be a great polish to layer over different shades of purple as well.  But on its own, the overall look is so pretty and very delicate.  The base of Hey You reminds me of the OPI Ballet Soft Shades Collection.  Its formula is similar in consistency and in opacity.

Be sure to check out DIFFERENTdimension on etsy.  Coming soon, I'll have another polish from the Echoes collection to show you called Another Brick In The Wall.

*Polish sent for honest review.  Review contains only my personal opinions.*

Born Pretty Glitter Powder

Today I have another glitter review for you from Born Pretty Store.  This time it is a super fine loose glitter that is a fairly new add to the Born Pretty Store lineup.  It was added to their site only about a month and a half ago.  It was hard to decide which color to pick, but I chose #9 to sample, a blue/teal metallic color.  Shortly after I received the glitter from Born Pretty for review, I also received the bottle of OPI Taylor Blue that I had ordered online.  By chance, I placed the bottle of polish out on the table next to the glitter and realized they were a perfect match!

I decided to keep it simple and created a design similar to a manicure I had included in my very first post, where I used Holly and Rina from Zoya's Gems & Jewels collection, and applied the glitter to half the nail diagonally.

Since this was a loose glitter rather than a glitter polish, application was a bit different than my Zoya mani.  After 2 coats of Taylor Blue dried completely, I taped off my nails diagonally with scotch tape.  Then, one nail at a time, I applied a coat of Taylor Blue and poured the glitter onto to the wet polish, shook off the excess over a paper plate and then lightly patted the glitter left on my nails to make sure it stuck well and peeled off the tape.  I top coated my right hand first and noticed a few glitters were finding their way onto the brush and then getting deposited onto the top half of my nail where I didn't want any glitter.  For my left hand, I applied a thin layer of top coat diagonally over the plain polish part of my nails, then the same to the glitter half.  Once that dried, I was able to apply a second layer of top coat normally, without picking up any stray glitters.

The glitter has a very fine texture to it.  I think there are a lot of possibilities to be had with this type of glitter because of how tiny the particles are.  It also made for super easy removal.  I was actually kind of shocked how easy the glitter came off when it was time to change my manicure.  The plastic bottle has a rubber top with a small capped opening.  This work wells to poor out the glitter in a more controlled manner.  It did occasionally get clogged but a quick tip of the bottle cleared that up.  And the entire rubber topper can also be carefully removed to poor out more glitter at once or to be able to pour any excess glitter back into the bottle for use later.

There are 12 colors in total to choose from.  You can get one color for $4.19, or there is an option to buy all 12 colors for $37.19.  To read more about the glitter, visit the product page here.  I can definitely see myself ordering some of the other colors available to experiment with.  Don't forget, use the coupon code, JYL91, to get 10% off your Born Pretty Store order.

OPI Taylor Blue is a collaboration between OPI and the Taylor's Gift Foundation to promote organ donations.  To learn more, visit TaylorsGift.org.

*Glitters sent for honest review.  Review contains only my personal opinion.*