Liquid Sky Lacquer "Blue Lightning"

Hi ladies!  How has your Friday been? I don't have classes on Fridays, but I have been working ALL DAY on this big assignment that's due Monday, and I'm exhausted!  I really didn't think it would take more than a couple hours, but it took me most of the day!

Today I have yet another borrowed polish, Liquid Sky Lacquer "Blue Lightning"

 As usual, I could not get a picture that really does this justice.  "Blue Lightning" is a textured blue holo microglitter with some larger blue hexes.  I used two coats with a top coat.
 

I think you can see some of the hexes in these last two photos.  This polish is WAY more sparkly in person.  Like disco ball, '80s cocktail dress sparkly.  I almost don't want to take it off, except that I want to try more polish!

This is the first Liquid Sky Lacquer I've tried, and I love it!  Unfortunately this one was a limited edition, and is no longer available :(  I'm going to have to keep my eye out to get my own bottle!

Comparison: Finger Paints "Twisted" vs piCture pOlish "Festival"

Before Gosia and I went to the orchid show the other day, we went through each other's new polishes to see what we wanted to try :)  When looking through mine, Gosia wondered if piCture pOlish "Festival" was close to Finger Paints "Twisted".  I happen to still have her bottle of "Twisted", so I decided to do a comparison!

First bottle shots:

These are both multicolored flakies (red, blue, green, yellow, even a little purple!) in a yellow-ish base.  The base of "Festival" seems a little lighter, and the flakies seem more abundant in "Twisted".

As an aside, aren't the little sayings on the piCture pOlish bottles cute?  "Come together, flake it, flake it!"

Here is one coat of each over OPI Malaga Wine:

"Festival" on the index and ring fingers; "Twisted" on the middle and pinkie.  So you can see the flakies in "Festival" are more sparse, and it looks like there are bigger particles in "Twisted".
Sorry for the messy cuticles here!  You can see I'm not actually perfect! :-P

And here is two coats of "Festival" compared to one coat of "Twisted":

Two coats of "Festival" on pointer and ring fingers; one coat of "Twisted" on middle, pinkie (and thumb in the last picture).

These seem pretty close!  "Twisted" was part of Finger Paints' Winter 2012 collection.  It is discontinued and very hard to find now!  Luckily,   "Festival" is still available.  It can be found at llarowe.com.  It is out of stock right now, but it will be back!

What do you guys think?  Are these close enough that "Festival" makes up for "Twisted"?

Orchids on "Orchids" for the Orchid Show

Yesterday Gosia and I went to the Orchid Show at the botanical garden in town.  The Missouri Botanical Garden is pretty much my favorite place in St. Louis.  I'm sure I'll do more flower-themed manis as everything starts blooming!

Since we were going to the orchid show, I decided to wear one of my new Colors By Llarowe pretties, "Orchids Are Better Than Roses Any Day" AKA "OABTRAD".

"OABTRAD" is the perfect representation of the Pantone Color of the Year for 2014, Radiant Orchid.  It's a warm orchid with almost golden undertones.  The holographic finish absolutely makes it radiant!

This is two coats of CBL's usual perfect formula.

I decided to try some stamping too!  I didn't have anything with orchids on it, but I thought these flowers from MoYou Pro Plate 06 were close:

I stamped using Julep "Harley", which left me pleasantly surprised!  I wasn't sure if silver would stamp very well, but "Harley" was nice and opaque and my images transferred perfectly!

Colors By Llarowe can be found at Llarowe.com and Julep can be found at Julep.com

Here are some pictures of the orchids from the show:

Thanks for reading!

piCture pOlish "Orbit"

Hi girls! 

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week.  The weather was kind of blah, which made me feel kind of blah, and then I had a test to study for, so I didn't have any time. But now my test is over, it's 60 degrees outside, and it was sunny this morning at least!

Unfortunately the sun didn't stick around for me to get these pictures, but the shimmer in "Orbit" is still AMAAAAAZINNNNGGG!!!

This first picture is a little brighter blue than in real life, but these next three are color-accurate:

 

"Orbit" is a deep blue and silver shimmer.  The silver didn't really come out in my pictures, but it is stunning in real life!!

I used two coats of "Orbit" here, but if my coats were thicker, one might have been enough.  This also dries a little gritty, so I used one coat of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food on top, followed by my regular Seche Vite.  Glitter Food is a thick, dense top coat that is good to use over textured glitters to get them nice and sooth.  It does dry to a matte finish though, so I always use a good top coat on top of it!

"Orbit" is another polish that I borrowed from Gosia, and it immediately went on my wishlist! 
piCture pOlish can be found at llarowe.com, as can Nail Pattern Boldness.

Valentine's Mani part 5: WTF Camera!?!

Just a real quick post today because I wanted to post the last of the KBShimmer Valentine's trio, but I could NOT get my camera to capture this color-accurately at all!

Just two, horribly inaccurate photos:

This is Julep "Carrie" with RBL "Mismas" and KBShimmer "U Rock My <3 accent="" nail.="" nbsp="" on="" p="" the="">
Carrie is not the weird putty color it looks here; it's actually a bright bubblegum pink.  I was surprised at how much I liked it, since I'm not usually into "classic" pinks.

Mismas is a darkened purple--it is fairly accurate in these photos.

And lastly, U Rock My <3 a="" and="" black="" different="" glitters="" hearts.="" hex="" hot="" is="" matte="" mix="" of="" p="" pink="" sizes="" star="">
Julep can be found at Julep.com
Rescue Beauty Lounge can be found at RescueBeauty.com
And KBShimmer can be found at KBShimmer.com.  Christy Rose also makes great bath and body products.  I buy one of her bath bombs every time I place a polish order!

Thanks for reading!

Valentine's Mani part 4: Glitter Overload

Hi Ladies,

Today I have another polish from KBShimmer's Valentine's Trio, "Falling for Hue"

 Check out more pictures and a bonus kittykat pic after the jump!

Valentine's Mani Part 3: Burnin Love

Oh my God, Oh my God you guys!  (Read in the voice of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde the Musical)

Everyone and their mother has been restocking and putting out new collections in the past couple weeks!  Last week KB Shimmer debuted her V-day trio, piCture pOlish restocked on Llarowe on Tuesday, and then Colors by Llarowe restocked on Thursday, and then Elevation restocked and launched her new Patagonia collection yesterday!  Oh, and OPI's new Brazil collection came out.  I was going to hold off on that until I saw the mini CopacaBabies set at Ulta, and it happened to include all the colors I wanted to try from the collection.  I'm excited for all the fun nail mail coming my way, but my bank account is not happy!

Here is one of the polishes from KB Shimmer's new trio, "Whole Lava Lovin'":

"Whole Lava Lovin'" is a red holo with pink undertones.  I'm not normally a huge red polish fan (I know-blasphemy!), but the holo and the pink undertones make this extra special. 

I added on some hearts with Rescue Beauty "Aqua Lily" and Julep "Morgan"

The hearts were totally fast and easy.  You just make two dots next to each other (you can use a toothpick or bobby pin to make dots if you don't have a dotting tool), and then sort of drag the polish down and together into a point. 

"Whole Lava Lovin'" was super-easy to apply and covered completely in two nice coats.  My next mani features another polish from the KB Shimmer trio, so be on the lookout for that!

Valentine's Mani Part 2: All You Need is Love

And by Love I mean Julep's "Love" that went out to all subscribers this month!

 "Love" is a super-shimmery gold with pink undertones and loads of red microglitter.  It almost has a gold to pink duochrome effect.  I tried to catch the pink flash in the next couple pictures:

 

To add to the Valentine's-y-ness, I added a pink heart rhinestone from a pack from Sally Beauty.  Rhinestones are totally easy to use.  You just place them on your nail while your polish is still wet, let it dry for a couple minutes, then seal it on with a thick coat of top coat!

  I love "Love" so much!  I hope Julep puts out more colors with this finish.  The formula was a little thick though.  I didn't have any problems with application, but I might add a bit of thinner next time.

Julep can be found at Julep.com.  Julep's Maven program is a boutique nail polish subscription box.  I'll let you read more about it here.  If you want to become Maven, you can sign up through my link and use the code "FREEBOX" to get your first box free!

Valentine's Mani Part 1

I love Valentine's Day, but not for the right reasons.  I think it's silly that we turned a day dedicated to a martyr into a day celebrating love, and I think it's silly to have one day a year dedicated to celebrating love.  We should celebrate love all year round!  But I do love the combination of red, pink, purple, and white, hearts, glitter, and chocolate!

I've ended up with quite a few Valentine's-themed polishes this year, so I decided to dedicate February to Valentine's manis!  Til the 14th at least.  And maybe longer if I have more polishes to use!

So here is my first Valentine's mani of the month:

Find out which polishes I used after the jump!

Elevation Polish "Darkest Storm"

Hi girls!

Has anyone else been having a super-lazy day today?  I've actually somehow managed to get quite a bit done, but I feel like I've just been sitting on the couch all day!  And I certainly don't feel like getting up anytime soon!

Today's post is a couple of new (to me) Elevation Polishes:

 

This is Elevation "Darkest Storm" with "Plumeria" as an accent nail.

 Darkest storm is a dark blue holo, and Plumeria has multicolored and sized circle glitters!  How fun!!

 

 My flash did something weird with the lighting here, but I feel like it shows off the holo nicely!

I tried to take some close-ups of my accent fingers so you could see all the different colors in Plumeria, but my camera was like "nuh-uh", so they're a little blurry.

I love it!  It looks like bubbles!  I did two coats of Darkest Storm, but if you're careful you could probably get away with one.  For Plumeria I used the blob & spread approach--get a bunch of glitter on the brush, blob it on the nail and then spread it around.

Elevation Polish is becoming another favorite for me!  I've yet to try a disappointing color!

Elevation can be found at Llarowe (check out that new site!) and at their Big Cartel Site.

Thanks for reading!