Polish All the Nails

I was contacted a little while ago from Iona from StickyNails Nail Stencils about trying a new product she was working on.  I like to try new things so I gave her custom nail decals/stencils a shot and look!  Her package included a few different patterns of nail stickers but I'm always partial to a good chevron or zig zag so after pulling out the brightest colour combination I could find - Claire's Neon Orange and Pretty & Polished Boombox - I went to work. 

You know it's going to be a good day when my hands and fingers look just a little bit grey.  That means we have an incredibly bright neon, hooray! I got Pretty & Polished Beach Bunny in the mail the other day and holy melted eyeballs, batman, its it bright.   I underestimated the amount of orange in the base jelly here so my choice of Orly Passionfruit wasn't exactly spot on, but it was close enough in terms of loudness.  After two coats of it, on went Beach Bunny with its very pretty matte white glitter in various sizes.  The jelly was more opaque than I was expecting and now I'm itching to see what it would look like on its own, without the base colour.  Doesn't matter; is awesome either way. 

I'm not American nor do I live there so I see no problem posting a red, white and blue polish with a name like Freedom Calling on June 25th.  In fact, it's the same colours as the Australian flag so to hell with it, yay Australian nails!  Let's take a look at one of Pretty & Polished's new colours, Freedom Calling.  Don't faint, you can actually sometimes buy this one! Freedom Calling is a mixture of red, white, blue and silver glitter in a clear base.  You've got all kinds of glitter in there - bar, hex, matte, shiny, all without the micro glitter which I love.  I didn't, however, love the application.  It's almost impossible to get the glitter out the bottle.  I had this sitting upside down for an hour and still, nothing but big clomps of base came out.  I'd have liked more glitter on each of my nails but one coat was all I could do as it was so thick already.  Even then, the glitter didn't even a bit sit flat.  I'm used to ro...

Sometimes, you have a vision in your mind of how a mani will look.  People gasping, cameras flashing, being the talk of the entire world.  Sadly, today is not one of those days as everything about what I did the other night is just sad and fail. My first brilliant idea was to use an Urban Outfitters polish called Blood.  I had this picture of it being viscous, deadly looking, dangerous as it really is the most true blood red I've ever seen in a polish.  Unfortunately, it also makes my cuticles look like they're bleeding as apparently after all this time I still can't paint my nails neatly.  Being more of a jelly polish, I used three coats and got decent coverage.  My next bright idea was to apply a glitter stripe down the middle to hopefully distract from the mess I made.  I managed to convince myself that the beautiful matte glitter Sand Art from Pretty and Polished tootttallly went with the red.  NOPE.  I'll be coming back to review th...

Anyone who's read a few posts around these here parts will know I'm something of a fan of matte glitter.  There's just something about the effect that is very visually pleasing to me.  When I find one beach-themed, which makes me yearn for the time I just spent in tropical northern Australia, you have a nostalgia-filled winner! To start, two coats of Sally Hansen Navy Baby, the ever reliable navy base colour.  I've used this one so many times, it's just such a good alternative to black.  Next, two coats of Pretty & Polished Beach Bum.  This polish is so pretty, a mix of matte blue glitter and a ton of different sparkly blue too.  Application was really good, despite me only managing to get two of the larger hex pieces out of the bottle.  The mix of the matte and shiny glitter just makes the whole thing more interesting.  Combined with the navy base, it reminds me of the ocean in the moonlight.

My, did I get a pretty polish in the mail a little while ago - funnily enough from Pretty & Polished.  So sparkly in the bottle, I felt I had to honour the beautiful summer weather Toronto's been having recently and do it justice with the goldiest gold gold mani I could come up with.  When none of my current gold polishes would suffice, why not a summery yellow?  Why not also try a reverse glitter gradient? Let's do it! First up, I started with two coats of Orly Spark, a lovely lemony yellow.  I've had this one for a while but it wasn't until the horrible green stains grew out of my nails that I've actually been able to use it without getting sad.  Application wasn't great on this.  There was cuticle dragging and streaking, even after two coats.  That's partly the reason I decided to go for a reverse gradient - to try to cover up the drags.  Apart from that, I love this colour, so summery.  Next, I applied a coat of Pretty & Poli...

My other post today had a tiny bit of complaining about running out of ideas to do, and how I too often resort to indie polishes.  While what I'm about to show you is resoundingly this, it's so different that I have no  problems posting it on the same day.  Let's take a look at Pretty & Polished Phoenix.   The hardest part about this polish is what to pair it with.  The polish itself is a matte yellow glitter with a orange tinted base and shiny red glitter.  I wasn't entirely sure of what this would come out like so I chose the twin to base of my last post - Revlon Gold Coin.  Sitting the bottles together, they looked like they went so off I went.  Gold Coin is a nice, subdued gold, nothing too sparkly or outlandish.  Then, two coats of Phoenix.  I haven't paired a foil base with a matte glitter between and let me tell you, the outcome is very different.  We're used to a flat base and sparkly glitter so the reverse is quite...

I hope there are some of you out there that understand the torture of ordering polishes off the internet and then "having" to go on vacation before they get there.  Pretty and Polished released a few new polishes before I left for Australia and of course I had to order them, mostly because of the number of them that had matte glitter.  Oh how I love matte glitter.  Let's take a look at the stand out for the bunch, Hearts & Daggers. Hearts & Daggers is a clear polish packed with black and white hexes, diamonds and bar glitter and large red hearts.  I had the hardest time choosing what this should go over.  I'd normally choose a blue or yellow but nothing seemed to go quite right with the red hearts.  So of course I settled on fuchsia.  That goes well with red, right?  So to start with, two coats of American Apparel Neon Purple.  Then two coats of Hearts & Daggers.  As is often the problem with these thick g...

Oh, my camera.  First neons, then fuchsia and now more reds, it just can't cope.  I've tried setting the white balance, the shutter speed, changing the lighting, all to no avail.  Bare with me with the pictures?  The thumb shot is probably the closest to real life, if that helps. Anyway, let's take a look at the beautiful Pretty & Polished Swing while I take my camera to counselling. Swing is a really beautiful polish, a red jelly with black, white and pink glitter smattered throughout.  It wasn't the easiest thing in the work getting the glitter out of the tiny bottle though so I did things up with a middle layer of Pretty & Polished Valentino as I just love black and white glitter so very much.  Application of the polish itself was good - this is three coats with one of Valentino in the middle - but the glitter was so hard to get out.  I just love how much of a jelly this one is.  You can see all the layers at various leve...

One day I'll swatch regular polishes but I feel that the indies are under-represented in the blogger microcosm and need a voice.  I WILL BE THAT VOICE, EVEN IF IT MEANS SHOWING YOU INDIE POLISHES EVERYDAY, HURTING YOU AS THEY ARE QUITE HARD TO FIND!  A hint - Etsy "Notify me by email" is your friend.  All I do to find these polishes is to turn on the notification and wait, and be prepared to drop the cash when needed.  Anyway, on to Pretty & Polished Valentino over the painfully-hard-to-photograh China Glaze Pool Party. Before we go much further, it might be worth you checking out another review of mine featuring a black and white glitter in a clear base - Cover Band Sticks 'n' Stones .  Both hard but not impossible to get if you're quick off the email, they're kinda similar.  Valentino doesn't have the bar glitter Sticks 'n' Stones does, and has smaller micro glitter.  Whatever, I'll take 100 different kinds of these, I just can...

Onwards to review all the indie polishes!  I've got another from the haul I received last week to show you today, this time Candy Coated from Pretty & Polished.  Look at that, my shorted segue into actually talking about the polish yet! Candy Coated is a pretty baby pink with a ton of purple and silver glitter smattered throughout.  As a side note, I'm really having to get creative lately with my use of adjectives.  There really is only so many ways to describe glitter in a polish :).  Anyway, application for this was really good, this is three coats as I'm not quite done growing out the terrible green stains on my nails.  The glitter distributed itself evenly which is always nice. 

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 a...

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...

My quest to try as many indie polishes as possible is making my wallet sad :(  What with the one day openings that people like Pam's Girly Bits and Dollish Polish keeping having and the general unavailability of Lacquistry and Nerd Lacquer polishes, anything that I can get my hands on means wallet pain.  Polishes which are a little easier to get a hold of but no less awesome are Pretty & Polished...polishes.  That was a lot of the same word in the one sentence, oh well.  Anyway, I ordered a bunch a while back so let's take a look at two of them, Elvis' Pink Cadillac and Power House, two coloured glitters. First up, Elvis' Pink Cadillac is a soft baby pink with a ton of black glitter and let me say, the combination is greay.  Application was really nice with opacity in three coats.  What I liked about this polish is not only the black glitter which is always welcome but how the layers of polish means that the glitter peaks through at different ...

I make it my mission here to try as many different indie polish makers as possible. Whenever I come across a new etsy seller, well, sorry bank account, you're just going to have to suck it up.  I received a shipment recently from Pretty & Polished  and am really liking how different her polishes are.  I'll be reviewing more in the next couple of days but first let's look at a really pretty polish, Party on My Yacht. Party on My Yacht is a creamy white polish filled with a rainbow of pastel glitters in both small hexs and bars.  It looks like donut frosting, I love it!  Application was really good, these picture are two coats and is completely opaque.  I just want to eat my nails!  Not that that's really the goal but whatevs!