Holiday Nail Art

Some Polishes May Have Been Provided for Review

Why yes readers, I have done some Holiday inspired nail art. I have rocked a few manis over the past couple of weeks that really got me a lot of attention. I’d love to share them with you! Keep in mind that I’m still new to the nail art world so if I can do these manis anyone can! They just take a little patience and the ability to laugh at your own mistakes!

First up I have a FESTIVE red and white skittle mani

Isn’t it FUN? I loved this peppermint inspired manicure so much! On my index and pinkie fingers I stamped a diagonal candy cane stripe. On my middle finger I used the end of a paint brush to create the large dots. Last but not least on my ring finger and thumb I did contrasting glitter gradients over red and white! This one was really an easy manicure to achieve, you could use a striper to create the stripes if you don’t have the stamps, dots are always easy and the glitter gradient is a really easy technique to master as well.

Polishes Used: Glisten & Glow – Stuck on Blu; Tip Top Nails – Cherry’s In the Snow; Illamasqua – Scorch; Julep – Joelle; Glisten & Glow – HK Girl

I’m really proud of this next one – let me preface by saying this is the second time I’ve tried water marbling and I am utterly pleased with how this turned out. I have been following Let Them Have Polish for like three years – long before I dipped a brush into lacquer to paint my own nails. So I was inspired to do a Merry Pinkmas mani in her honor!

Water marbling is not really for the faint of heart, it can be messy and you might cry a little the first time, but once you get the hang of it it’s so much fun and the results are AMAZING! I learned to water marble by watching video after video by My Simple Little Pleasures (unquestionably the water marble queen!)

I water marbled the pointer, middle, and pinkie fingers and both thumb and ring finger had the fuschia background with the Christmas tree. Before I added the trees I topped everything off with Big Spoon Lacquers Breaking Atavism to give it a frosty glittery look. I used tape to block off where I wanted the Christmas tree and then removed the tape while the polish was still wet to give it a clean line. I then added a pink rhinestone to become the Christmas Tree star!

Polishes Used: Glisten & Glow – Stuck on Blu; Bondi New York – Fuschia-istic; Tip Top Nails – Meringue Surprise; Big Spoon Lacquers – Breaking Atavism; Big Spoon Lacquers – Christmas Tree in a Bottle; Glisten & Glow – HK Girl

So do ya’ll like the nail art posts? I kind of like to break the cycle of swatch after swatch! I rarely just wear a polish plain – I usually do some sort of art or pair it with complementary polishes to create some visual interest! If you want to see any NOTD pictures I often throw those onto Instagram!

I joined a link party so if you want to join you can as well!

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Royal Lacquer and Vynails Review!

Dec14

Provided for Review

Hello my darlings! How are you on this rainy day? Oh is it not raining where you’re at? Well it’s certainly raining here. You know what that means! It’s time to paint my nails! Ok so that’s not much different than any other day but let’s roll with it! I have a fun review for ya’ll today! I was recently approached by a new indie brand who was wanting to get her name and product out there on the blogosphere and she sent me a lovely package to review! So we have new indies and her line of vinyl nail decals which come in a simply huge array of decorations for your digits! Digit Decorations! Quick someone make something and call it that because I’m on fire!

Ok before I can digress any further let me get right down to business and around here that means pretty polish! First up we have Evergreen.

Evergreen is a green jelly based polish filled with holographic micro-glitter, holographic green hex glitters, and metallic gold square glitters! I’m really loving the influx of true jelly polishes lately! Because this polish is a jelly you should expect that it is extremely sheer. These pictures show five thin coats and you can see there is still a very slight VNL in the pictures though in person the VNL was not noticeable at all. However the squish factor on this is through the roof!!! I’m totes digging on the squishiness of this one.

While there is glitter in this polish it is not overwhelming or overpowering. This is good because I did use so many coats. There is the appearance that the glitters are curling, but I assure you those hexes are flat. I did not even need glitter food! If you are deadset against VNL then you could layer this over another polish but if you do so I’d recommend the dabbing method of application so that you can get the amount of glitter that you like on the nail.

Polishes Used: Glisten & Glow – Stuck on Blu; Royal Lacquer – Evergreen; Glisten & Glow – HK Girl

Next up we have Inner Rebel

Inner Rebel is a pristine white crelly based polish sprinkled with tiny hot pink, blue, and green glitters of varying shape as well as a gold holographic flecks throughout. This polish is so delicate and pretty! I think I’m starting to see a trend of dainty delicate crelly-based glitter polishes and I’m a fan!

Application was easy breezy on this one – after the first coat I was definitely expecting to need to do three or four coats but this is actually two coats NO undies! This one did not need glitter food either and a nice shiny topcoat was all that was needed to smooth everything out!

Polishes Used: Glisten & Glow – Stuck on Blu; Royal Lacquer – Inner Rebel; Glisten & Glow – HK Girl

Last but definitely not least was my favorite polish of the three! Allow me to introduce Pearlie!

*Swoon* Yes that is a stunning slightly blackened purple polish right there! What my camera could not capture is the AMAZING unique quality that it has. This purple crelly-based polish is PACKED with itty bitty tiny magenta micro-glitter and teensie tiny holographic aqua flecks. This makes it seem like the polish is glowing from the inside. It is so great!

I’ll be honest – after the first coat I was slightly worried that it was going to take several coats to reach opacity. Readers, I was wrong!! The second coat brought the opacity and leveled out everything! This one does dry to a slightly matte finish and the teensie tiny glitters leave it with a somewhat gritty feel. Because of that and that cute little owl I did use glitter food to give it a glass smooth surface! Let’s talk about that owl! Isn’t it adorable? That my beloved readers is one of the Vynails decals! Super easy to apply – literally I grabbed a pair of tweezers, peeled it off the sheet, poked out the eyes and belly with a toothpick, and slapped it on the nail! Easy peasy! You can also use many of the designs that they have (there are scads of designs) as stencils by placing the negative space on the nail and painting over it then removing it before the polish dries to ensure a clean line. I foresee tons of manis in my future featuring cute little decals!

Polishes Used: Glisten & Glow – Stuck on Blu; Royal Lacquer – Pearlie; Vynail – Vinyl Owl Decal; Nail Pattern Boldness – Glitter Food; Glisten & Glow – HK Girl

Let me save you the trouble of hunting down these lacquers! You can find out all the happening news on their facebook page and you can purchase Royal Lacquer and Vynails in their Etsy Shop! Also since this has been posted Tiffany has kindly offered a 10% discount to my readers! Just enter BOOMSHAKAWESOME at checkout to receive the discount!

Tip Top Nails

Nov27

Provided for Honest Review

This is a bit different for me I know. I recently reached out to Tip Top Nails, a nail polish company in South Africa because I had read some wonderful things about their polishes from international bloggers and I was interested in seeing if these were polishes I could get in the states. They very kindly emailed me back and offered to send me a package of their products for me to try out.

I got four delicious polishes, three cremes and one metallic/shimmer finish polish and they also sent me their Toughen Up Maxi Growth Base and Top Coat. I cannot begin to tell you how great these polishes are. As a blogger and a nail polish aficionado it is necessary that I have great polishes to use for nail art and stamping and undies! Who wants to put on two coats of undies on before a glitter topper? Not this girl. With these Tip Top Nail lacquers there will be no need to put on two coats!

The formula is the same across the board. Every single one of the colors they sent were ONE COAT WONDERS!!! That’s right my lovelies sound the alarms! Furthermore the creams had no balding, no streaking, and they were beautifully SELF-LEVELING! I took a picture of the light pink color, Meringue Surprise, on its own because it is pastel and pastel cremes can be notoriously tricky to apply. Not this one…just look!!

These pictures show ONE COAT of Meringue Surprise with the Tip Top Topcoat (say that three times fast). *Squeeee!* it’s so shiny and just perfect!!

When I realized how beautifully they applied on the nail I thought to myself, “Self, stop watching re-runs of the Emeril Lagasse show and try these polishes for stamping looks…” I was completely and utterly blown away. These polishes are perfect for stamping and I believe they would be perfect for nail art looks as well! I’m going to show you a few different stamped looks:

Welcome to the Zoo:

Don’t Houndstooth Me:

Random Pattern Skittle:

Polishes used in these manicures: Tip Top – Maxi Growth Basecoat, Meringue Surprise, Purple Reign, Cherry’s in the Snow, Cha-Cha-Cha, and Maxi Growth Topcoat.

Seriously – even the pink stamped cleanly and clearly. I am so excited about these. I emailed Tip Top Nails and while there is not currently a retailer in the US or that exports to the US if you contact them directly they would be happy to sell them to you and ship them out. You can view there product lineup on their site!! You can also visit them on facebook!

Throwback Thursday!

Nov14

Nothing to disclose

You may be asking yourself…how is this a throwback when this is a new manicure that I just did this week. Well I’ll tell you. THESE polishes that I used for this manicure are what started me down the path of polish addiction! It was because of a well placed Julep ad while I was lurking around a nail blog wishing I was talented enough to paint my nails the way that the blogger did. It was just around the first of the year so I decided then and there that I was going to make my New Year’s Resolution to do SOMETHING with my nails as I have been genetically blessed with very healthy, strong nails!

I immediately signed up for Julep and got some dotting tools and some other nail art goodies and started down the path of nail polish and I haven’t looked back. Then I started following LOTS of blogs. One of the first manicures that I saw on the blog Manicurator really struck me as a classy way to do a french manicure that isn’t boring or ho-hum in the least. So for this throwback manicure I’m using the first two “grown up” nail polishes I ever bought to create a manicure inspired by this one by the Manicurator!

First up I did a plain shot of the base color for this manicure. It’s called Alma and it really is a lovely color but yellow is not really my color as you can see in this plain swatch. This is two coats with HK Girl Topcoat and I do not ever have any problems with Julep’s formula and I find them really great for nail art.

I jazzed up the tips with a taped off funky french manicure! I love how tailored and classy this looks! The tip color is Julep Michelle and is a deep dark teal-leaning navy blue. This is one coat on the tips and then the whole thing is topped off with HK Girl Topcoat.

PROOF that I can polish my right hand! I always feel like I’m showing my “swatch” hand and that people may believe that I only polish four fingers all the time but this is not true! I have a complete manicure 99% of the time!

I hope you enjoyed this funky french nail art, I think it would be an ideal way to make a classic french manicure a little more edgy while still maintaining an office-appropriate palette and style!

You can sign up for Julep’s Subscription Service here (referral link). It really is a great value and you always have the option to skip a month or they offer you the ability to send that month’s shipment to a friend which is a great way to gift a fun little pick me up to your bestie or send a birthday gift to other polish aficionados!! The boxes always come gift ready and are packaged very nicely.

Boom Shaka Lacquer

For Indie Nail Polish Addicts, by an Indie Nail Polish Addict

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Holiday Nail Art

Royal Lacquer and Vynails Review!

Tip Top Nails

Throwback Thursday!