From the Vault

I have a lot of old pictures of my nails from before I started blogging. So, I decided to looks for some of the better ones and post it! I want to try to blog everyday, or at least almost every single day :)

You can tell how old it is by my nail shape! This is Butter London- Wallis. I think people either love this polish, or hate it. It is one of those ugly pretty shades. I happen to love it! I got this when ULTA had Butters for buy one get one free, which in my opinion is the best deal for anything! I had been wanting it for a while, but they are just so expensive considering how much polish you get. This is totally worth it though!

The color is almost a black base, jam packed with gorgeous olive green shimmer. It is just so unique. And the formula is awesome. It really does glide on the nail like butter. I used two coats and topped it off with Seche Vite.

Then to spice it up I applied a coat of CrowsToes- Voo Doo which was from their 2012 Halloween collection. It has orange bar glitter, orange and purple hexagonal glitters, and tiny blue micro glitter, all densely packed in a clear base. I had been wanting to try CrowsToes for a while, but they were always sold out on Llarowe, like most polishes when they first come out. But finally there were enough in stock for me to snatch up!

CrowsToes can be found on Llarowe for $13, Shoppe-Eclectic for $18, and Overall Beauty for various prices. And Butter London can be found at ULTA, Nordstroms, and various other retailers for $14, although I think they are raising the price to $15 :(

Polish Days: Something New

My first Polish Days post! Polly Polish created this challenge where basically a group of bloggers set a theme for the month, and choose a day to post it! I missed out on the bling theme for last month, so I made sure to do a manicure in time for January. Here is what I decided to do:

Sunlight

 

Shade

Water Marble!!! This one is just so spring like! So was my previous manicure. I can't wait for all the Spring collections to start coming out, pastels and cremes are my fav!

I think Water Marbling is the first nail art technique that really made me drool. It also inspired me to get into nail art more. When done right, they are just so gorgeous! This is my second attempt at it, and I must say I am very pleased with the outcome. The first time I tried it was almost a year ago, and it was a little worse than this one. I used too many colors considering it was my first time, and I ultimately destroyed every nail while taking the tape off. I won't even bother with showing you the pictures of it. The only flaws on this manicure really are the air bubbles right in the center of my middle finger, and its a little messed up around the cuticles. Other than that, I love them!

I started out with a base of two coats of OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls, I am learning to like this polish.The blue I used was China Glaze- Aquadelic which was from their Electropop collection Spring 2012. The green is Essie- Mojito Madness from their Summer 2012 collection. And the purple is Wet n Wild- On A Trip from their Megalast line. I used Mojito Madness in my first water marble and it really is a great polish to use for marbling, I definitely recommend it!

I can't wait for next months theme!

Cirque Holographics

Today I finally got around to actually trying out my Cirque Holographic Polishes! Well I actually painted these yesterday, but I managed to finally get decent pictures this morning, so there is minor tip wear in these first photos. Here these beauties are:

Direct Sunlight

Holographics are so hard to photograph! You can really only admire their true beauty in person. These two are especially linear, opposed to the scattered holographic effect of Zoya- Aurora. 

These two polishes are from Cirque's newest collection called: Object d'Art. The green is Cirque- Lonesome George. Gosh I love this color so much! A green holo will be an A in my book any day. It looks a lot like Nubar- Reclaim, but I put the bottles together and Lonesome George is slightly darker. I might do a comparison of the two. But you can never have too many green holos!

The awesome copper color is Cirque- Cypress. I have never seen a holographic polish in this color, which is why I love it so much. Plus its holo effect is crazy! Much more stronger than Lonesome George.

Here are some more pictures with flash that I took yesterday:

Classic Blurry Shot

These last three have no top coat because I was afraid they would take away the holo effect. I added a top coat later and it didn't blur it out at all. The first three photos are with top coat.

The formula on these were pretty great. Lonesome George was a little streaky, but I got an email from the maker and apparently I got a bad batch, so they are sending me another complimentary one. Their customer service is awesome. Cypress was a little sheer, so when I applied a second coat I made sure it was a little thicker. Lonesome George was two coats as well.

You can get these two polishes plus many other gorgeous ones from this collection here. The holos retail at $15, and the other polishes are $13. You can also like them on Facebook for updates!

Nfu Oh No. 56

So I have been dying to try this combo I just did, and I must admit I am kind of upset about it. I thought it was going to be amazing, but it turned out my base color out shined what should have been the star :( Here is is:

 

 

The base color I used was China Glaze- Running In Circles. I freakin love this color, so I figured why not make it even more awesome and add an Nfu Oh Flaky! I applied 1 coat of Nfu Oh- No. 56 after applying two coats of Running In Circles. I guess I forgot this one was pretty sheer, so you can barely see it :( Maybe I should have used 2 coats? I would have if the one coat didn't take forever to dry! Here is one more picture:

 

This one is a little blurry, but you can see more of the flash of duochrome from green to blue that makes flakies so beautiful. I used in door florescent lighting for all these photos. I originally planned on doing these matte, but after I tested it on my pinky on my other hand, it was far less impressive than I thought it would be. I don't like matte nails, but they look so good with flakies. So, I think I am going to try it with the other Nfu Oh flaky I have, hopefully it won't be as disappointing!

As far as formula goes, Running In Circles is flawless. Anyone who has a green fetish needs this in their stash, I can't believe I passed on it at first. No. 56 was pretty good too, aside from the dry time, but my Seche Vite fixed that!

What do you think? Have you tried any Nfu Oh's?

Lush Lacquer + China Glaze

Today I have the first of the two Lush Lacquer holiday polishes that I have. I must say, I am in love! Here it is:

 

Crappy indoor lighting

This is Lush Lacquer- Tree-mendous on top of China Glaze- Running in Circles. 

These polishes were pretty much made for each other. Running in circles is almost a glitter polish, just really fine glitter. I didn't originally pick this one up when I got my first picks from the Cirque De Soleil collection, but then I totally regretted it. I am a sucker for green polishes. I used two coats here.

Then sticking with the Christmas/holiday theme this month, I decided to use some Lush Lacquer. As I mentioned before, they are hands down my favorite independent nail polish brand. They have the perfect balance of glitters in each polish that isn't total glitter vomit, and they are so affordable. Tree-mendous is mainly a finely milled green glitter base which is pretty much the same green as Running in Circles, which represents the christmas tree. Then it has medium sized hexagonal glitters in pretty much every color of the rainbow, representing the lights on the tree. And to top it all off there are yellow stars! You kind of have to work a little to get the stars on your brush which I had a feeling was going to happen, but oh well! I love this look and can't wait to wear my other Lush Lacquer holiday polish. I will try to wear that one next.

Lush Lacquer can be found on Etsy. Their polishes are only $8.75 and always in stock! Definitely check them out.