New Weekly Post: Essence and Indie Tuesdays

So I've recently went wild buying $1.99 essence colour and go polishes and I have a crap ton of indie polishes that I have yet to swatch so I devised a new weekly post to help me along with the swatching process!

Introducing....

Today, is my very first essence and Indie Tuesday and I have an essence polish in one of my favorite colors paired with one of my ultimate lemming polishes, recently acquired.

essence colour and go:  oh my glitter!
indie:  Candy Lacquer Sugar Skulls

First, I applied essence base coat and then two coats of essence oh my glitter!  The picture above doesn't do these polish justice.   Oh my glitter!  is a vibrant purple polish with blue and hot pink shimmers.  It is pretty by itself, dries wicked fast,  and provides the perfect canvas for Sugar Skulls.   You can find essence polishes at Ulta Beauty stores, ulta.com, eBay, and H-E-B grocery stores.

 

I added Candy Lacquer's Sugar Skulls to this manicure and matte glitter overload! Its packed with pink and white heart glitters, white, blue, yellow, and pink hex glitters of various sizes, and yellow daisy glitters.  This polish is a must have if you collect indies.   Its so unique.  You can buy Candy Lacquer polishes here.  

 I have twenty more essence polishes and 100 plus indies so I expect a long run with this weekly post and you get two swatches for the price of one:)  Stay tuned!

Polish Addict's Dr. Franken Review

Hello, ya'll!  I hope you are all having a great weekend.   Today I have another "kitchen sink" glitter polish for ya~

I recently ordered several of Polish Addict's glitter polishes.  You can find her shop here.  I love glitter bombs so Dr. Franken was a must buy.  It has tons of different sized hex, square, and micro glitters in all colors.

Application was easy and coverage was achieved by the dabbing method.  I have just two coats of Dr. Franken over Orly's Viridian Vinyl and its topped off with one coat of Seche Vite.  

Last, as usual, I used my butter London matte topcoat to tone down the glitter polish base so you can see the glitter detail.  

All I can say is wow!  It a fun house, circus, and rainbow party on your nails.  Gah, what is not to love about this polish?!  Its an indie keeper:)

Cosmic Kitchen Sink: one of my glitter mixes!

I've been wanting a gluttony of moon and star glitters in a clear base.  Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of solvent resistant metallic moon and star glitters available so this isn't what I imagined in my head BUT it turned out sooo pretty that I am probably gonna have to make it for some of my polish and non-polish friends.  Here we have Cosmic Kitchen Sink.

Below I have two coats of Essence I Love Bad Boys and two coats of Cosmic Kitchen Sink.

Next, I topped the mani off with butter London's matte topcoat.  I love how mattefying tones down the glitter so that you can really see the detail of the polish!   Probably why I mattefy everything!

 No, its not for sale...mainly because I have no ambitions to sell polish and I'm too busy to start a side business with moving and grad school and life, really ;)  But frankening and polish mixing is a lot of fun so you'll be seeing a lot more frankens and hand-mixed glitter polishes from me.

What do you think about Cosmic Kitchen Sink?  I'm diggin' it!

Emily de Molly The Fifth Element

Today, I have a very quick swatch for of Emily de Molly's The Fifth Element.  Not only is this polish named after one of my favorite movies but its also very striking. 

The Fifth Element has red and teal hex glitters and teal micro glitter in a turquoise base.  The application was easy and full coverage was achieved with two coats.   Emily de Molly polishes are hard to find.  I lucked out and happened upon a restock on Llarowe.  You have to camp out for this brand because its popular and hard to get. 

I will add a bottle shot soon to this post but for now, feast your eyes on...

Fashion Inspired Nails: Altuzarra and Marc Jacobs Spring 2013

Wacky Laki had a fashion inspired nail art contest recently and I made two entries.  I ultimately decided to go with the Altuzarra entry but both of these designs turned out to be some of the best stamping I've done!

I used butter London Wallis and WnW Black Creme to do this design and stamped with Mash plate 39.  I am not a huge fan of Wallis but I love how this design turned out on my nails!

 Next, I have nails inspired by this incredible Marc Jacobs dress.  This is such a perfect mixture of black and white patterns.  I know I could never pull this off with clothes but it made for some very cool nail art.   I used Bundle Monster plates to make this look with WnW Black Creme and Sinful Colors Snow Me White and topped off  the nails with Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor.

No, I didn't win the contest...there were so many awesome entries so competition was fierce!  But I had fun and impressed myself and THAT is the important thing for a stressed out grad student :)

Franken: Starry Kind of Love

I think frankening is a natural progression for any serious nail addict.  I recently set out to dupe Essie's discontinued Starry Starry Night and below is my result, named Starry Kind of Love.   I think its a little too dark a jelly to be considered a close dupe but it turned out so nice I thought I should post it.  

I used suspension base,  Sinful Colors Queen of Beauty, TKB blue jelly pigment, and a couple drops of WnW Black Creme.

I love to buy cheap sets of Color Clubs at Ross, Burlington Coat Factory, and TJ Maxx just for frankening:)

This is two coats plus 1 coat of seche vite.

This is the above manicure matted with butter London's matte topcoat.

If you haven't tried frankening, I think you should!  You may be surprised at what you can mix up for yourself from your stash. 

Chirality Holos

Last night I sat down and had a massive swatchfest of Chirality's gorgeous holographic polishes.

Below I have Bloodshot, Just Before Dawn, Katydid, Kale, Cu2+, Apollonia, and The Symbiote.  Chirality polish are 3-free and are available in size 15ml and 7ml bottles with stainless steel mixing balls.

Bloodshot is a juicy red with subtle holo.  Frankly, I blame my photog skills on this pic because it doesn't do this polish justice.  Its very depth-y and striking on the nail and you don't see red holos like this every day.

Next I have Just Before Dawn.   I asked around my some of my nail polish FB groups during Halloween for a very orange holo and was pointed to Chirality.   This polish is bright, holo-ful, and you won't be able to stop looking at your nails.  Orange typically isn't my color due to my complexion but I think this orange would look good on anyone.

Up next is Katydid, a vivid green holo that has a million sparkles.  I generally avoid this shade of green but like Just Before Dawn, Katydid would look great on anyone.  And I kinda love it.

I waited to buy Kale last, but not before I was inundated with pics of wonderment from nail polish friends that bought this polish.  It is super green with an incredible holo finish.  Kale is a must have.  I don't think you will find a holo of this color anywhere else and one really should have a holo polish in every shade!

Another polish that kept plaguing me with gorgeous swatch pics was Cu2+.  This is MY. FAVORITE.  Hands down.  Its all teal-ly and has amazing holo craziness going on.  If you can only get one Chirality holo, I highly recommend this one.   It needs to be on your shelf.

I am always a sucker for purple so Apollonia was one of my first Chirality purchases.   It does not disappoint.  Its a lovely deep holo purple and the rainbows shooting off your nails will mesmerize you periodically.   Purple holos are something I've made it my duty to collect and this one should be in your purple holo collection.

Last, The Symbiote is a black holo polish that rivals Cu2+ and Apollonia for holo sparkle.  I own a couple of other black holos but The Symbiote's holo is so gorgeous and understated that I am much more likely to use for everyday wear than my other black holos.

Coverage: All of the Chirality holo polishes provide complete coverage with two, thin coats.

Price:  Very reasonable

Viscosity: Not too thick or watery, perfect application

Quality and Consistency:  For the coverage and price alone these polishes should be purchased but in addition, they are each resplendent and extraordinary on their own.

Verdict:  Run over to Chirality's shop and buy some!

Prepare to be overcome...I have Ninja Polish's Alexandrite to show you!!!

I was very fortunate to catch the last restock of Ninja Polish's Alexandrite.  Ninja Polish says that that one of the pigments used to make Alexandrite has become difficult to find so it may not ever be sold again :(  which is tragic because Alexandrite defies imagination.  The colors shift from emerald to teal to purple with every slight angle change.  This polish is a-freakin-mazing and I hope for the sake of polish addicts everywhere that it will continue to be made.


On to the pics!

 I wanted to showcase just the polish so I used a shimmery nude, Orly Nite Owl for my base color and I have two, thin coats of Alexandrite.

Stalk Ninja Polish's website and fill out their request form to be notified when this polish is back in stock.  When I ordered, the email had only been out for a few minutes and people were already complaining that Alexandrite was out of stock.   Good luck, ya'll.   This is a polish you must have.  Gah, I love it so much I want to sleep with it nestled next to me. 

My Ten Friends Space Sauce

So with the ongoing hiatus of Nerd Lacquer, my pretty--nerdy polish obsession was severely in need of some new polishes.  I found MyTenFriends on etsy a few months ago and was immediately enamored with her polishes! 

Today, I have MyTenFriends Space Sauce for you.

Space Sauce is a sheer blue base with silver micro glitter, small and large silver hex glitter, and silver shard glitter.   Because its pretty sheer, it would probably take several coats to get full coverage. 

I have Space Sauce on top of Milani 3D Holographics Cyberspace so any holo you get is from the pic is going to be from that...I repeat, Space Sauce is not holographic! 

Still, it is absolutely gorgeous and would be a perfect topper for polishes.

You can buy MyTenFriends here and you should, you REALLY should ;0)