Polish All the Nails

Some of you mind have seen the post I made the other night, showcasing all the lovely indie polishes I received this week.  I'm doing my best to work through them, even if it means posting while being a little drunk and listening to dubstep to keep me awake.  All for you, dammit!  Anyway, let's take a look at some pictures I took when I wasn't drunk, of the lovely Pretty & Polished Jawbreaker.   I pick polishes to swatch based on how much I like them so it says something that I picked Jawbreaker first.  I've seen swatches of this one around the webs so was super psyched to try it myself.  Jawbreaker is a white creme polish packed with red, yellow, blue and green glitter and it really does look like a Jawbreaker on.  I love polishes with a ton of glitter and a non clear base, the layered look is so interesting. The Verdict:  Exactly as advertised by the name and I love it.  A lot of the more popular indie polishes are hard to find right now bu

So after the success of yesterday's snakeskin stamping mani I had to try something else.  A long time ago I had fun layering the same stamp in different colours and I wanted to try that again.  I wanted something a little subtle, a little girly so roses it is! Starting off I added two coats of my new favourite neutral Orly Pure Porcelain.  Using plate BM14 from Bundle Monster, I rolled on the roses.  I found that after my thumb it was best to start with the light colours first.  Using Joe Fresh White, I added two roses to each nail.  Next, the same with Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Silver Sweep.  Finally, Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme.   The Verdict: I love how this came out, despite most of these being overexposed cos my camera hates neutrals almost as much as it hate reds and neons.  Super girly, it makes a nice change from my usual mega glitter :)

Ahhhh INDIE POLISHES EVERYWHERE YAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAY! So I've had quite the good couple of days in the mail department, just had to share with you lovely ladies.  This week I've received shipments from Dollish Polish, FEVERLacquer and Pretty & Polished and you just HAVE to see all these. NO MORE TALKING MORE PICHAS! Pretty & Polished Jawbreaker and Able Pam.  I've been lusting after Jawbreaker for a while now, can't wait to try it! Pretty & Polished Candy Coated and Valentino.  I've been on a black and white glitter kick lately, am excited about Valentino. Dollish Polish Random Dancing and Does Barry Manilow know you raid his wardrobe?  OMG LOOK AT ALL THE GLITTER IN RANDOM DANCING SQUEEEEEE! This is my first shipment from Dollish Polish, can't wait to try. Dollish Polish I'll have what she's having and Zombie Flesh.  Tons of glitter, can't wait.  Finally, a new seller, FEVERLacquer Annie, Are You OK? and Dirty Danc

I was quite excited this afternoon, the Sephora in the Eaton Centre here in Toronto finally got a "Nail Bar"! While that might not sound that exciting it means I don't have to go super far out of my way to see the higher end brands like Illamasqua, Dior and NARS.  It's probably for the best that they were out of the way as I tend to buy them otherwise.... anyway, I managed to grab the very last Illamasqua polish on the bar, a pretty peacock green duochrome called Viridian. I was really excited to try this polish. I've tried one Illamasqua before and been happy with the result and the wear.  This one, however.....*awkward face*.  First up, this is suuuuper sheer.  I needed three coats to get opacity.  Then, once on, all that pretty duochrome you see in the bottle just kinda disappear and it's just an uneven-looking green polish.  Finally, the wear.  I did my normal steps of base coat, three coats, two coats of top coat (using Out the Door at the moment) a

Oh stamping.  Made to look so easy  by bloggers everywhere, seemingly impossible for me to accomplish.  Every time I try, the stamp doesn't transfer properly.  I was reading a post on /r/redditlacqueristas and someone mentioned to ROLL the stamp on the plate rather than the pressing down I was trying.  I gave it a shot and I have to say, it worked a whole lot better. For this mani I started off with two coats of Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme as my Rimmel Black Satin is getting a little thick.  It's decent, not quick as good at the Rimmel but did the job and was opaque in two coats, which is really all you can ask for.  Once dry (completely dry, otherwise the base will stick to the stamp and you will be sad), I used Bundle Monster plate BM-215 and Nfu-Oh 61 to stamp on the snakeskin pattern.  I've had the silver holo for a while and I'm constantly disappointed with it.  It just isn't that holographic.  It's reasonable thick though so does make for a good

I find that a night, when I do my nails, I'll play around with a couple of different techniques to varying levels of success.  Take last night for example.  I had my heart set on a black and holo snakeskin stamping thing but I kept not waiting long enough for everything to dry and it just wasn't right.  Of course, by the time I gave up, it was laaate so I did what I do every time I run out of time - indie swatches!  There's always so much glitter in Nerd Lacquers, Lacquistry polishes and so on that I can bang one out quickly.   Which brings me, finally, to Nerd Lacquer Cyance Friction! Cyance Friction is just the most gorgeous shade of turquoise and packed with all types of copper and aqua glitter, topped off with a pink sheen, just like Entirely Unlike Tea.  Application was really nice, I only needed two coats to be happy with the opacity.  As an extra touch, and to keep it with the stone roots, I added a matte top coat.  Such a pretty colour and looks really interest

Gotta keep showing you lovely ladies something different all the time so I present to you another experiment: using a sparkly foil polish to do a gradient.  I initially saw this idea on one of the bigger blogs (can't remember which, dammit) and had to try it for myself.   First up, I added two coats of Revlon Midnight Affair, a nice, if unexciting midnight blue followed by a coat of Seche Vite, cos I'm impatient.  Next, using a makeup sponge, I sponged a layer of Orly Lunar Eclipse from the Cosmic FX collection three quarters of the way down my nail.  Finally, I added another coat, this time of Galaxy Girl, to the tips to get that extra colour pop.  Man, did this come out pretty.  The sparkly glass foils make for a really interesting, subtle gradient.  The duochrome in the polishes just made it so interesting to look at. The Verdict: Yep, foil gradients are awesome, definitely using them more.  On their own the Cosmic FX polishes are tricky to work with a

It's been a few days, time for another Nerd Lacquer review! This particular polish has been a lemming of mine for a while now.  Every time a store would get more stock, I'd just miss out.  NOT THIS TIME. Finally, in my last shipment from the Nerd Lacquer Etsy store, Warrior Ethos! Warrior Ethos is a blood red jelly packed full of all different kinds of glitter - red, black, large, small, you name it, it's in here.  Like most of the Nerd Lacquers I've tried recently, application was really good.  The pictures below are three coats but you get almost total opacity in two. Upending the bottle helps to evenly distribute the glitter but I didn't have to do much to get it to spread out.  Once applied, it gets that wonderful layered, deep look that only Nerd Lacquers seem to be able to create.  As the base is semi-sheer you can see all the layers of glitter - it's great. The Verdict:  As always, Nerd Lacquer Warrior Ethos doesn't disappo

Ok, so as I've been often reminding you, I'm running a giveaway at the moment .  One of the ways to enter is to suggest an type of mani to do and I've been doing my best to work through them.  I'm totallllllly not bribing you guys for ideas, that's tooooooootally not something I'd do :D.  Anyway, a technique that's been suggested a couple of times that I haven't tried yet is dry marbling, or pin marbling.  As I'm not one to put a lot of thought into things, I grabbed four neon colours and went to town! First up, I retrieved four of my favourite neons, American Apparel Neon Yellow, Neon Orange, Neon Red and Neon Purple.  Then, after adding a base coat, I slapped on a thick stripe of each colour and used a pin to drag patterns through all the stripes.  Be warned, this goes EVERYWHERE, hence the less-than-stellar cleanup.  However, the effect is actually pretty cool!  Neons work well as if all else fails, at least it's colourful! 

Two experiments with things I don't normally use today: nude colours and silver foil!  I recently received Orly Pure Porcelain in the mail from the lovely Kitty at  kittypolishnbags  mostly because it was there.  I never get super excited about nude colours but this was cheap so I threw it in.  I've also had a little pot of silver foil sitting on my desk for a while now, the complement to the gold foil I tried out a few weeks ago .  Why not try both?  First up, omg  Pure Porcelain is the most amazing nude colour.  The lighest beige with a hint of pink, it seems to work perfectly with my skin tone and cover nicely in only two coats.  It's going to be my polish underpants from now on, it's so good.  Once I'd added the two coats, I carefully smoothed and cut out the silver foil, added the tiniest amount of top coat to the corner I wanted to add the foil to and stuck it on.  Even using a cotton pad, I just couldn't get this to be as smooth as I wanted it to be.

I've been blogging for a while now - Wednesday will bring me up to three months!  Hot damn have I come a long way.  Chronic cuticle biting, bad camera, you name it.  One of the very first posts I made was for the fabulously sparkly Claire's polish, simply called Glitter Topcoat.  As I've been wanting to try this one out again, I thought it would make the perfect "look Ma, I'm better at blogging now!" post.  The Glitter Topcoat, as I first reviewed it, still stands as one of the most sparkliest polishes out there.  Micro silver holo glitter in a clear base, it actually forms linear rainbows, albeit not quite as smooth as the traditional holo polishes. Because the glitter is larger, it means it catches the light and throws rainbows a lot more often. What you seen in the pictures below is three coats over Sally Hansen Celeb City.  Application isn't the easiest but it dried reasonably quickly with some drying drops that I've been playing with recently

As you might have noticed, I'm running a giveaway at the moment to win Revlon Whimsical, Nerd Lacquer and a couple others.   IF YOU HADN'T, CONSIDER THIS ME RAMMING IT IN YOUR FAACCEEE .  Anyway, I need new ideas and one of the ways to enter is to give me yours, mwhahahahaha.  Common themes thus far have been more mermaid/mosaic/sequin nails and neon.  DONE AND DONE.  On my trip to Buffalo yesterday I picked up the ear-burningly bright Orly Passion Fruit which just happens to help me fill these two criteria. Orly Passion Fruit, like a lot of the Orly neons, isn't the easiest to work with as it's very sheer.  I do have visions of using it for a glitter sandwich though, really gotta try that soon.  Anyway, to start this off I added two coats of my new favourite neutral, Orly Pure Porcelain.  It's a really pretty nude that covers great and it'll be featured in a post either tomorrow or the day after, if you're interested.  Over the top of that, I added one

I tell you, it's really getting hard to keep up with all the indie polish these days.  Every time I go on twitter there's someone else selling beautiful, sparkly polish!  I'm really going to have to start rationing myself, I REALLY CANNOT BUY THEM ALL.  Anyway, I still have plenty filtering through the mail system so let's take a look at another polish from AllThatGlittersNails, this time Spotty Dottie Dark. I'm a giant fan of black glitter, it's like the quickest way to get dots ever.  Thus I could not be expected to restrain myself from buying Spotty Dottie Dark as it's a great combination of large black hex and bar glitter, with nary a piece of micro glitter in sight.  I love a statement glitter that doesn't feel the need to fill in the polish with tiny glitter pieces.  Another good thing about this polish is that the pictures below are just one coat, which works for me.  Underneath the black, OPI Simply Smashing, a sparkly olive-lime foil.  This