Animal Print and Liquid Sand

I've been wanting to try some stamping onto texture polishes for a while now.  I see it online quite a bit and the texture always makes the stamped designs looks so interesting.  A few of the polishes from the OPI Bond Girls collection were still in my untried pile and they ended up being great bases for some designs I don't really do often...animal print.

I decided to start by wearing OPI Solitaire.  Once I had it on, zebra print immediately popped into my head.  The design used is off of one of the large Cheeky plates, Jumbo Plate 12, and I stamped using Konad Special Polish in black.  Solitaire went on very smoothly.  I used three coats total.  It took a little while to finish all three coats, but that's only because I waited as long as I could stand to wait between coats, to make sure the polish had dried as much as possible and that the texture was really set in.

Not only did the texture of the polish make the zebra print look pretty damn cool, I think the color was perfect for this.  Solitaire is white but not so in-your-face as a pure white polish.  It seemed to make the zebra print look more realistic.

I wore this mani for a week and then I decided to follow it up with leopard print, of course.  This time, the base color was OPI Honey Ryder.  3 coats total for Honey Ryder as well, but it dried much faster for me than Solitaire did.  The leopard print was from Konad plate m57.  I did a few test stamps first and thought stamping with black polish looked like too much of a contrast, and not really the look I was going for.  The Konad Special Polish in brown, however, stamped way too light over Honey Ryder and I didn't have any other brown polishes that would have worked well to stamp with.  I ended up experimenting and plopped a blob of brown Konad polish down next to the leopard design and then, mixing it with a toothpick, I added just a tiny drop of the black Konad polish.  Once they were mixed well, I used my scraper to push the polish to the edge of the leopard design and then scraped across like normal.  To finish the look, I filled in about half of the leopard spots with a little bit of OPI San Tan-Tonio.

It sounds a little time consuming...ok, really time consuming...but it honestly didn't add much time at all to my normal stamping routine.  And it was completely worth, because it was turned out exactly the way I had pictured it in my head.

I can't believe it took me so long to try zebra and leopard nails.  Actually, I did attempt leopard print nails once before, but it was this awkward combination of a sage green polish and black and brown leopard print that looked more camouflage than leopard in the end and...ya, let's just not go there.  This gold leopard print totally kicked that green leopard's ass.  ;)

Liquid Lacquer Pink Elephant

Alright, so here we are with the 4th and final Liquid Lacquer polish from the blogger package.  This glitter topper is called Pink Elephant.  I have two combos to show.  These swatches have been sitting on my laptop for a while.  I wore a few other polishes in between and I also had a few breaks, hence the longer silver nails and shorter blue ones.  I went back and forth on whether to re-swatch these because of that, but finally decided just to go for it as is because I've put off this post long enough, over thinking it.  And I don't think any of you will mind.  First up is one coat of Pink Elephant over Zoya Trixie.

Pink Elephant is a clear base with different sized hexes and squares in neon pink, black, white and grey.  It does remind me a bit of DIFFERENTdimension Another Brick in the Wall, which I reviewed last month.  Pink Elephant does not have any holographic micro glitter, which I think I prefer that it doesn't.  And I love, absolutely love the grey matte glitter in Pink Elephant.  Both are great glitter toppers but I think I would give a slight edge to Pink Elephant just based on my personal preferences.

I have to say, I'm a little bummed about the way this photographed.  I tried a few times but I could not capture how cool Pink Elephant truly looked over Trixie.  The grey matte glitter especially looked really great against the metallic silver background.  The second combo I have to show you is one coat of Pink Elephant over OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui.  I loved this glitter over a cream base as well.

Check out Pink Elephant and a ton of other great polishes on the Liquid Lacquer shop page.

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.*