4th of July Stars & Stripes

Happy 4th of July loves! This is my first "blog manicure" I've done since January. My last post was actually photographed way back in January so taking my pics, posing with a bottle again, & getting my pictures blog ready felt awkward. I feel so rusty! My nails aren't in as great shape as they used to be since I now work over 40 hours a week, but I hope they're still pretty enough to look at! I haven't been able to do holiday nails in a such a long time that after I did these, I felt so happy! For my index I used OPI Coca-Cola Red and stamped using MoYou London Back to the 80's 04 XL in Konad White. For my ring and pinky I used OPI Keeping Suzi at Bay and stamped using MoYou London Roxy 04 XL in Konad White. My middle finger has OPI Liquid Sand It's Frosty Outside. Hope you all have a fun and safe holiday weekend! 

 

New Year's Eve 2014 with MoYou London Festive 05 XL

Happy (almost) New Year! Quick post because I'm going to Bass Lake this evening and I still have so much to do! At least I got my New Year's mani done though right? Lol. Here's China Glaze Liquid Leather stamped using MoYou London Festive 05 XL in Color Club Eternal Beauty, Color Club Miss Bliss, Color Club Over the Moon, Konad Sky Pearl, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lively Lilac, and Sally Hansen Insta Dri Presto Pink. I really love how these turned out, but I wish the purple "New" was just a tad more opaque over black. On the bright side, I just got an email notification that I won Manicurator's China Glaze Happy HoliGlaze Giveaway! Super happy because I liked them, but I didn't buy them and was hoping to win them in one of the giveaways going on. Lucky me! Hope everyone had a wonderful year and here's to the New Year--cheers!

Purple Presents for Christmas!

Merry Christmas my loves! Here's a mani I did last week and I wasn't sure if I was going to end up posting it or not. I got my Urban Decay Naked 3 palette last week at Ulta and I was inspired by the plastic bag I got. It's a white to purple gradient with purple and white snowflakes. Since I already used snowflakes for a different holiday design, I used presents! I did the gradient using OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and China Glaze Tart-y for the Party and then stamped using MoYou London Happy Birthday 01 XL and 02 in Color Club Wild at Heart. Hope everyone had a wonderful day! 

Oh, and I got Clarins 230 aka unicorn pee for Christmas!!! I gave hubby his gift a little early last week and he LOVED it so hard that right away he said he wanted to get me unicorn pee. I told him a couple years ago that I really wanted it, but every time he offered I told him no it's okay because it was always around $100 and there was always something else I wanted instead. Well, I found a listing for about $68 and I had a $40 ebay gift certificate from my birthday last month and we got it for $28.50. Now THAT'S a steal. This is a super rare and discontinued polish that nail polish lovers drool over and I'm so happy she's mine now =]

Peppermint Swirl Nails

Merry Christmas Eve! I've been so busy this past week that I haven't had a chance to even edit the rest of the holiday manis I've been working on. Here's one I've been wearing the past few days and I love it! Here's China Glaze With Love stamped using MoYou London Festive 03 XL in Konad White. The red glitter is China Glaze Ring in the Red layered over China Glaze With Love. I have a couple more holiday manis to show you this week and then I'll move on to New Years nail art. Hope you aren't sick of Christmas themed nails just yet!

Pink & Black Snowflakes with Bundle Monster BM-H02

Happy weekend! Today is the nail meet up for San Jose Nail Girls and I wanted to do something fun and bright, but still holiday themed. I decided to do a pink and black snowflake mani! I really like how this turned out. Here's OPI Pink Friday stamped using Bundle Monster BM-H02 in Konad Black and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Presto Pink. The glittery black polish is OPI Metallic 4 Life. After I took pics, I added a glitter in the center of the black snowflake and it really completes the look, but I didn't feel like taking pics again. Well, off to get dressed and ready for some serious nail polish shopping!

ILNP Molly & MoYou London Festive 04 XL

Press Sample

Good morning sunshines! I have another holiday manicure to show you! This time I used a MoYou London plate to do some sweater nails. The awesome thing is that I even have this plate. When I had placed an order back in October it was out of stock. It was the start of a domino effect of hiccups that happened with my order, but when I finally got my package in early December, I ended up getting this plate for free which I was not expecting and overjoyed about! Here's I Love Nail Polish Molly stamped using MoYou London Festive 04 XL in Konad White. This was the manicure I was wearing when my nail broke so my nails are much shorter now. At least I got to use an XL design before the break.

I got I Love Nail Polish Molly in a blogger package. ILNP brand is an indie brand that launched in 2012 and makes boutique nail lacquer. I remember when Barbra first opened shop she specialized in glitter bombs and her brand has really grown and now she specializes in miltichromes and holographic polishes as well. I'll do a full review of the polishes later because I got 8, but this polish is sooo gorgeous. It's a magenta linear holographic polish and I only used 2 coats. It had an amazing buttery formula and great pigmentation and coverage. I can't wait to use the rest. You can purchase ILNP here from Barbra's online shop.

Lastly, I'm going to my very first "San Jose Nail Girls Meet Up" tomorrow. I went to the "Eyes on Indies" nail party before, but not to a meet up to go shopping. A handful of nail girls from Instagram will meet up and have lunch and go nail polish shopping at a few awesome beauty supply stores. How fun is that? It's cool seeing how the nail polish community is no longer just an online thing and tons of girls are meeting up across the world. I have seen pics of girls having meet up in Los Angeles, Texas, Sacramento, Hawaii, many other places in the US, but even in the UK! Anyways, I'm sure it'll be lots of fun. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Here's Molly by herself <3 Almost too beautiful to stamp over!

Red & Blue Fair Isle Nails

Say hello to my tiny nails! *Hello tiny nails!* I broke my index nail one day AFTER I trimmed my nails short and now all of my nails are teeny tiny. At least my nails grow pretty fast! So I'm trying to do as many holiday manis as I can by Christmas and here's one of the many you'll be seeing over the next week. I used China Glaze Igniting Love and stamped using Winstonia W120 in China Glaze Scandalous Shenanigans. Check out that blue! I've been holding out on buying Konad Blue since I know there are other blues to stamp with and I feel like I've found the perfect one!

And just a quick reminder, the MoYou London Pinterest contest is still going on so if you could re-pin and like my photo of my Tiffany inspired present nails I would be really grateful! You can vote here and remember, re-pins are worth double so both are super helpful!

Quadruplet Christmas Nails

Hi friends! I took my last final yesterday so I'm officially on winter break! I have a lot of Christmas stamping plates now and I'm trying to get as many holiday manis done before Christmas to get some use out of them and of course to get in the holiday spirit the way a nail polish addict does so well. I did matching quadruplet nails with a few girls on Instagram. We had to do something in which all of us have the stamping plates and here's what we came up with (acutally Swanette came up with it lol). Tada! This isn't something I would come up with on my own and I thought they came out really cute. I used a ton of stuff!

Index: OPI Jade is the New Black stamped using BM 416 in Konad White.
Middle and Pinky: OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls stamped using BM 423 in Konad Red and Konad Green
Ring: OPI Can't Find My Czechbook stamped using BM 323 in Konad White. The penguin was done with advanced stamping using BM 416.

Whew that was a lot to list! You can check out the other girls Instagram feeds: NailStamp4Fun, NailStampFanatic, MissCelinas

Serum No. 5--Swatches & Review

Press Sample

Hey lacqueristas! Today I have some Serum No. 5 swatch spam to show you today. Serum No. 5 is an indie brand that is 3-free and all of the polish is hand-mixed in small batches. Every month, Victoria donates 20% of her profits to charity. She specializes in glow-in-the-dark polishes. Today I have her 2013 Holiday Collection and then 2 additional polishes from her core line. I'll show you the 2 non-holiday polishes first and then the 8 from her Holiday Collection.

Day Glow--3 coats. Wow check out the glow on this baby! 

Sky Lights--1 coat over black. 

And now for the holiday polishes:

Friendly Tiffs--3 coats. Slightly gritty formula. 

Snow in Love--3 coats. Such a cute holiday polish and it has a nice, strong glow. 

Luxe So Good--2 coats. Strong linear holo effect. Smooth formula and it could be a one coater if you're careful. 

Gild Free--3 coats. I really love this one!

Girl's BFF--2 coats over OPI Can't Find My Czechbook.

Girl's Gotta Eat--2 over OPI All I Want for Christmas is OPI

Final Countdown--2 coats over black. The glow on this one was the weakest of the bunch.

Holly Dazed--1 coat over white. Easy application, no fishing required.

My favorites are Luxe So Good, Snow in Love, and Gild Free. You can purchase these polishes here from Serum No. 5's online shop. 

Tiffany & Co. Inspired Present Nails

Good morning! Oh man I'm so glad the weekend is here. This week has been really busy. I finally had some time to do a stamping mani a couple nights ago. I've been doing so many swatches lately that I can't tell you how much I miss stamping--my one true love next to my hubby and nail polish of course! I had this mani all planned out when I first saw this image on a MoYou London plate. I used Essie Where's My Chauffeur and stamped using MoYou London Festive 03 XL in Konad White. The silver texture polish is OPI Liquid Sand It's Frosty Outside. I have one ring from Tiffany & Co. and man that packaging really is gorgeous. If you don't have anything from there, you can always do Tiffany inspired nails!

Also, I entered these into MoYou London's December stamping contest for a chance to win some plates. Please re-pin and like this pin. Re-pins are worth double. You can vote for me by re-pinning and liking HERE. Thanks in advance! <3

Laquerlicious New Year's Collection--Swatch & Review

Press Sample

Happy Friday! Wow it has been so cold these past couple of days. I'm having a hard time typing this post because my fingers feel like icicles! Yesterday I reviewed Laquerlicious's Christmas collection and today I will be showing you Laquerlicious's New Year's Collection. It consists of 4 glitter toppers. 

Bottle of Bubbly--1 coat over black. 

Out With the Old--1 coat over silver.

Confetti Aftermath--1 coat over white.

Countdown to Midnight--1 coat over hot pink. This one is my favorite of the bunch. 

The polishes had a strong smell to them that gave me a headache when I used them. The big circle and star shaped glitter required fishing, but other than that, these are all perfectly suited for New Year's and I liked the variety of shapes, sizes, and colors of the glitter. You can purchase these from Laquerlicious's online shop here. Her shop is currently closed, but will re-open in a few days on Monday, December 9th. You can also check out Laquerlicious's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Laquerlicious Christmas Collection--Swatches & Review

Press Sample

Hi my polished pretties! Michelle of Laquerlicious sent me her Christmas and New Year's collections to swatch and I have a ton of glitter to show you today! I think I'll go ahead and show you the Christmas collection today and show you the New Year's collection tomorrow. Laquerlicious--without a c--is an indie brand that specializes in glitter bombs. The Christmas collection consists of 6 glittery polishes: 3 with colored bases that build up to opacity on their own and 3 glitter toppers.

Naughty List--3 coats. Thick formula, but no application issues. 

Lead the Way Rudolph!--2 coats. Smooth formula. 

Mistletoe Kisses--3 coats. Applied easily. 

Twinkling Lights--1 coat over a black base. Got a little carried away on my ring finger, but I think next time I'll use this over a silver base since it's pretty dense. 

Crazy Christmas--1 coat over a white base. This one required fishing for the big glitters. 

A Letter From Santa--1 coat over a pink base. This one also required some fishing for the big glitters. I love how this combination turned out.

I thought these glitters were really cute and fit the Christmas theme perfectly. I didn't mind fishing for glitter because that's expected with big glitters like these, but the smell was very strong and gave me a headache. You can purchase these from Laquerlicious's online shop here. You can also check out Laquerlicious's Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  

Thanksgiving Cornucopias

Happy Thanksgiving loves! I just finished this late night Thanksgiving manicure. I missed out on doing birthday nails and I didn't want to miss this occasion too. I have so many stamping plates with images that can pretty much be used once a year so you can imagine how missing an opportunity would frustrate me. I did some simple tan and gold nails with cornucopias on them. I used OPI A-Piers to be Tan and stamped using BM-H13 in Essie Good as Gold. The gold nails have OPI Liquid Sand Honey Ryder. I opted to use topcoat with this liquid sand this time around, but I wear textured polish either way. How do you wear textured polish?

OPI DS Luxurious & Bundle Monster BM 413

Happy Halloween! How did everyone spend their day today? I relaxed at home with my hubby and we got our favorite snacks and watched a few movies. We decided to watch at least one scary movie and my hubby decided on Sinister. It was good--scary, but not too scary. Not like that terrifying movie The Conjuring that took me a long time to get over because I'm a huge scaredy cat. Here's my Halloween mani that I actually wore a couple weeks ago. I used OPI DS Luxurious and stamped using BM 413 in Konad Black. My ring and pinky have OPI Liquid Sand Emotions. I really loved the black Liquid Sand polish from OPI's 2013 Mariah Carey Holiday Collection. I can see myself using it a lot!

Bunny Nails HD-C & HD-C Stamping Plate Review

Hi friends! I am supposed to be doing my research paper that's due tomorrow, but it's really hard to focus when you have new stamping plates and naked nails! Today I have new Halloween themed stamping plates from Bunny Nails. They're plates HD-C and HD-D and they have tons of designs on each one. Each plate measures 14.5 x 9.5 cm and full nail designs are 2 x 2.5 cm. I added my scans of the plates below. Click to enlarge so you can see all of the cool designs up close. I already did 2 manicures using these plates!

Here I used OPI My Vampire is Buff and stamped using HD-C in OPI Skyfall and Konad Black. I loooove how it turned out! I can also see myself using the background splatters a lot to do a mess free splatter or water-spotted mani. 

Here I used China Glaze Liquid Leather, Color Club Almost Famous, China Glaze Igniting Love, and Color Club Puccilicious and stamped using both HD-C and HD-D in Konad Princess Apple Green and Konad Black. How cute are these?! 

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first tried the plates out because this was my first time trying Bunny Nail's stamping plates, but I was pleasantly surprised and 100% satisfied with these. There is a wide range of images and themes on the plates that I wish Halloween was just a little further away so I could have more time to play with them. I had no issues picking up or transferring any of the images. You could purchase each plate here for $16.99 with free worldwide shipping on HD plates.