Cosmos Lacquer review

Good evening again!  I had the hopes of reviewing like a mad woman, but unfortunately the flu and my gallbladder had different plans for me.  Now that I'm recovering from the bug to end all bugs, I wanted to share with you this lovely polish by Cosmos Lacquer.

A few months ago I won a nail art contest.  The prize?  A custom polish!  I love the Virginia Tech Hokies, so I went with their colors for my polish.  White base, maroon and orange glitter, with some black bar glitter thrown in. 

Here is the result!

The label was blank so that I could write the name of my polish down. 

This polish is an absolute dream in regard to application.  It doesn't have the streaking issues that some white polishes have, and two coats easily become opaque.  It's loaded with glitter, requiring a good shakeup before application.  As always, whenever I do shake up a glitter polish, I wait 30 minutes before applying to reduce the risk of bubbling.

I knew exactly what nail art I would do with this polish.  I went out and chose a maroon-ish polish, then went to work on my fan manicure.

Note:  I'm absolutely horrid when using my left hand to polish or do art of any kind, so this was the best I could do.  I admit I was too excited to do any proper cleanup.

All in all, I was so very pleased with this polish.  Cosmos Lacquer is an indie brand worth checking out.  My thanks to Tia and to Diane for sponsoring the contest!

Literary Lacquer review: Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster

Good evening ladies and gents!  I'm so excited to bring you the first of two reviews of Literary Lacquers nail polish.

Amy Milder is the genius behind Literary Lacquers.  I first discovered this indie polish a few months ago and immediately fell in love.  Nail polishes named after books/characters in books?  YES PLEASE!  Books and nail polish, two of my favorite things in the world.

When Literary Lacquers released the Literary Liquors collection, I went nuts over Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.  I absolutely love the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" (it's really five books) and still wonder just what this sci-fi drink would really taste like.  I've been quite tempted to try to make a recipe for it, to be honest.

So when I saw a review photo of this polish, I knew I absolutely HAD to have it.  My favorite colors are blue and green, and PGGB is an amazing blue holo with scattered holo glitter.  I lusted after it until, about two weeks ago, I caved in and bought two LL polishes.  There was a special going on, and I ended up with a mini bottle of the limited edition of A Thousand Christmas Trees, which I may do a review on.  It's a stunning pine green holo polish that is truly worthy of its name.

On to the review.  I'm so pleasantly surprised by how sparkly this polish is.  It's a linear holo that goes on sheer for the first coat, but is opaque in two.  Here I have three coats on, because I needed to see more of that gorgeous blue.

This is an absolutely easy polish to work with.  The formula is excellent, almost comparable to OPI polishes.  Carefully applied, there is little to no streaking on the first coat.  This would make an excellent topper to any blue polish if you want to conserve what's in your bottle.

There's a little bit of visible nail line here, but it's brought on by the flash of the camera.  Since it's going to be warm tomorrow (80 degrees!), and sunny, I plan on taking more photos of this in full sunlight.

I placed my hand right under two lightbulbs in an attempt to get a photo that would mimic sunlight.  I have yet to build a lightbox for better photos, so this will have to do for now.

All in all, I absolutely love Literary Lacquers.  This indie polish maker is now a favorite, and I'll be sure to order more in the future.  Amy, thank you for making such high quality polishes, and indulging both our inner bookworm and polish addict.

Candy Canes and Rudolph and Snowflakes, OH MY!

Thursday night I went with my best friend to see Desolation of Smaug in 3D...at MIDNIGHT.  It was so much better than I had expected, and was worth the three and a half hours of sleep I had.  The next afternoon I went to a friend's house to do her nails for her birthday and for Christmas.  I had a blast doing these designs!

On her thumbs I used a Limited Edition polish from Literary Lacquers, A Thousand Christmas Trees.  It's a GORGEOUS pine green linear holo.  I did a gradient of blues and white on her index nails and added China Glaze Fairy Dust over for an effect of snow in the background for the snowman.  For the candy canes on her pinky fingers, I did two coats of China Glaze White on White, let it dry, placed striping tape down to pattern the candy cane stripes, and went over it with Zoya Delilah (two coats).  For Rudolph, I used black, white, and brown acrylic paint, using the white for his nose, and went over that with OPI Animal-Istic.  I used a blue Orly polish for the background for snowflakes, and used a striper, detail brush, and white acrylic paint.  For the thumbs, I used Sally Hansen Celeb City and dotted on the "tinsel", used a dotter and white acrylic paing for the base of the ornaments, and different polishes to go over the white.  The snowman's scarf was placed using a detail brush and drier red polish that was a bit stringy, making it easier to place it where I wanted for the scarf.

All in all, it took about two to two and a half hours, including drying time, for this nail art.

I hope you enjoyed this!  As I type this, it's ten days until Christmas.  For those of you who celebrate it, have a wonderful holiday!  I'll be back soon with reviews of three Literary Lacquer polishes...as soon as the sun decides to come out.

Snowman and a TARDIS

Recently I've gotten into Doctor Who.  I admit that, when I first heard about the show, I was skeptical and poked fun at friends who were into it.  Now that I've watched a couple seasons, I can see what the fuss is about!  It's a delightful show that has made me laugh and cry, and I just love it.  I've been slowly but surely getting through it, mostly because other shows have taken up my time (looking at YOU, Supernatural!). 

A few days ago I decided to try my hand at a Christmas-y Doctor Who manicure.  I used China Glaze White on White as a background for four nails, and Literary Lacquers' Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, a GLORIOUS blue linear holo polish with scattered holo glitter in it.  A swatch and review post on that and two others will be coming soon. 

Here's the photo of the manicure (taken with phone's camera, since my digital camera is down):

I used black acrylic paint and a striping brush to paint the wires for the lights, then used a detail brush and polish to paint the lights.  Black, gray, and white acrylic paints were used for the TARDIS and the snowman (isn't he adorably evil?).  I let it all dry, then topped it off with Orly's PoliShield. 

I hope my fellow Whovians have enjoyed this.  More coming soon!

Joe Boxer nail art

I'm sure you've all seen the hilarious K-Mart commercial for the Joe Boxer holiday print boxers, right?  If not, here's the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PVhIMr4ScI

I entered another Facebook nail art competition hosted by Nailshine Journey and Polish Yer Hooves.  The theme is "Favorite Christmas Songs" and can only be done using nail polish.  Jingle Bells is my favorite of all Christmas songs; it's easy to remember, plus there's the Batman parody of it.  I looked up photos of all the Joe Boxer prints used in the commercial and recreated them on my nails.  I took a bit of artistic license and didn't do the "ugly sweater" print.  Choosing only five of six prints was hard, but the following won out.  It's all polish using detail brushes and a dotting tool, and took about two hours. 

Hope you liked them!  I've got a couple more manicures queued up to show you, so stay tuned!*

*I've been busy with my advanced nail classes and work.  I'll be trying to update as often as I can since my classes are all finished.

Nightmare Before Christmas

Hi again!  I had to schedule this post since I'll be working in the morning.  I'm excited to have landed a job at a gorgeous spa, getting to pamper women and do what I love.  I started last week, and everyone there has been very nice so far.  I joke that the only drawback is that I have to wear color (black is what I wear 99% of the time). 

I did these nails for a Halloween nail art contest on Facebook.  If you'll recall, a few months ago I did Jack Skellington nails for a challenge I was in, for "Inspired by a tuturial".  This time, however, I chose to go with two more characters and a jack o' lantern. 

I mixed different polishes to come up with the colors for Sally's patchwork dress, used China Glaze In The Limelight for Oogie Boogie, and Sally Hansen Sun Kissed for the jack o' lantern, as well as China Glaze Liquid Leather for the thumbnail, and China Glaze White on White for Jack Skellington's face.  I put a coat of Pure Ice Free Spirit (a beautiful glow-in-the-dark light green polish with blue shimmer) over In The Limelight, used China Glaze Celtic Sun for the jack o' lantern's eyes, nose, and teeth as well as on the moon behind Jack, and then used China Glaze Ghoulish Glow over Celtic Sun.  The entire manicure took me three hours and some change, mostly to wait for the polish to completely dry before painting on it.  I'm actually a bit pleased with how this came out, so on with the photo!

I had to angle the camera a bit to make sure Zero was included (he's on the thumb).  I used a detail brush that I had flattened, and used the tip to create Jack's outline.  Orly Skinny Dip was used over white acrylic paint for the sides of the hill, and then a dotting tool plus Sun Kissed created the pumpkins on the hill.

I hope you enjoyed this!  It was fun to create and time flew by as I was doing it.  I'll begin posting my manicures for the weekly Rainbow Challenge soon, and will be keeping a spooky theme since it's October.  Have a great day!

Almost four months later, I'm back!

I've had a VERY long absence from this blog, and I want to apologize for that.  In between dealing with a chronic illness, finishing requirements for school, starting classes on becoming an Advanced Nail Technician, AND GETTING A NEW JOB (yay!), things have been hectic.  I've also been sick with strep throat and bronchitis, and now am dealing with pain that's possibly from my gallbladder.  All in all, things have been going well, even with all the ups and downs.
I finished the ABC Challenge sponsored by Erica of Erica's Nails and More, won a nail art contest (woo hoo!), and now am participating in another nail art challenge.  I want to push myself and exceed myself regarding nail art, especially since I've gotten a bit of a reputation at school for being good at what I do.  Please forgive me if that sounds like bragging; I'm not.  To be completely honest, I view my nail art as simplistic and not really that good.  I do love what I do and want to exceed myself every time I do a manicure with nail art.
That said, I want to say a heartfelt THANK YOU for following me.  I'm going to do my best to keep this blog up and running.

Now...I want to share my contest-winning manicure with you.  I did this for Week X of the ABC challenge.  I love comic books and The Uncanny X-Men have always been a big favorite.  I especially love Gambit; who WOULDN'T love a charming, charismatic character with the ability to kinetically charge inanimate objects, throw them, and blow things up?  With this in mind, I had to do X-Men themed nails.  It was an absolute blast!

I used China Glaze Celtic Sun, OPI Animal-istic, an unnamed brown, and an unnamed purple L.A. Colors polish, as well as China Glaze Liquid Leather, a mini red polish, and a gold Nina Pro polish.  Detail brushes and a dotting tool were used to add details to the characters' costumes.  This was quite fun to do, and I wore it for about a week.  Stay tuned; I'll be showing my Nightmare Before Christmas nails tomorrow!