Essie's Action: Summer Skittles Makes Lacquerista's Happy

Hey lacquer lovers,

Friday was quite the productive shopping spree for me.  All drama aside, I got my virtual hands on some lovely HARE polish pre-orders! I'd been lemming these polishes for so long I was so happy to see the shop open again and can't wait to receive my polishes! So now I'm in the mood to celebrate with a fun and funky mani  Recently The Nailsaurus posted a look that has been plaguing me since I saw it - the Sandy Skittle.  To say it was exquisite would be an understatement.  She took one color and put her spin on it in 5 different ways.  I wanted to do the same but not necessarily in the same way so here's my translation using Essie's Action, a bright orange jelly polish released for their Poppy Razzi Neon Collection.

Nail Art Key
Thumb - Tiger print freehanded with Kiss Nail Art Striper in Black.
Index - Microbeads of multicolors.
Middle - Jelly sandwich comprised of two alternating layers of each polish using Lush Lacquer's Lite Brite and topped with Essie's Matte About You.
Ring - Leopard print french tip freehanded with Orly Liquid Vinyl and Kiss Nail Art Gold Glitter. CND Effects Gold Shimmer is also over the base coat.
Pinkie - Gradient using China Glaze Harvest Moon stamped with cG passion using  BM20 (Series 1)

Can you say jelly? Lol! I haven't been this impressed with a neon orange polish since Color Club's Wham Pow!

Isn't the mattified sandwich here so juicy looking? The more I look at Action the more I realize I need absolutely every color from the Poppy Razz Collection. I'm only missing Bazooka so game on!

Close-up's of Lush Lacquer's Lite Brite

The microbeading on this gave me so much trouble. It's my first time using them in this manner but jeez it was quite a bit of work to get them placed properly.

Ultimately, I'm happy with how things turned out.  It's like a small jungle in here :)

This is definitely funky and not for the faint of heart!  My favorite nail is the matte jelly sandwich closely followed by the glitter leopard.  This was fun albeit time consuming. The final result is so upbeat this would be perfect for a night out. What do you ladies think? If you are interested in Lite Brite and other amazing glitterbombs find you can find Lush Lacquer on Etsy.

Song stuck in my head today: Nighttiming by Coconut Records. All about cheating hearts minus the angst - lol.

Anyhoo, thanks for reading and toodles!

Lush Lacquer & Elemental Styles Jelly Sandwich

Hey polished prisoners,

I don't know about you but these days I'm starving for jelly! Luckily I have just the right indie polish "fixings" to whip up a very lady-like sandwich. Yum, yum, yum! But to make a good sandwich you need some great glitters and I chose two awesome ones.  The first is Elemental Styles Xenon: Warrior Princess (50), a matte glitter polish consisting of magenta, white and dark pink small sized glitter. It has zero element of sparkle and all my love! Xenon gets a 10 for formula and ease of application - it's a winner all around. I also chose to use one of my newest Lush Lacquer polishes.  Chubby Checker is gorgeous pastel pink glitter with loads of ultrafine holographic shimmer and small black and white squares, hexes and round glitter. Chubby gets a 8 for formula because it's a sinker.  It's nothing that ten minutes upside down and a few shakes of the bottle can't fix, but I disliked how quickly the settling reasserted itself.  Nevertheless the sparkle on this bad boy was fierce so 8/10 all around. Finally for the the main ingredient I chose Essie's Sugar Daddy a very light pink super sheer jelly polish.

My recipe: One layer of Essie's Sugar Daddy followed by one layer of  Xenon. Then another coat of Sugar Daddy followed by a layer of Chubby Checker and finally one last layer of Sugar Daddy.  For my ring finger I just put Xenon at the top and added a layer of CND Effects Copper Shimmer.

This is outdoor lighting unfortunately when haven't had much sun so the light was low, but this is true to color.

You can still see a bit of VNL even with so many layers, but I love how the hexes and matte polish peeps through sugar daddy.

 

This is was shot indoors. Unfortunately I had a very hard time getting the lighting right and the pink here is much darker here than it actually is.

What do you think? It's another first for me. I'm getting rid of an awful lot of firsts these days.  Maybe I should change the name of my blog to Cherry Lockdown, but oh my what would the readers think?!?  The truth is as obsessed with jelly polishes as I am these days I expect to be making many more sandwiches in the future.  I'm on a quest to find lots of great jellies and since I have so many glitters they would come in handy.  Do you ladies have any favorite jelly finish polishes? If you're interested in the glitters I used you can find Lush Lacquer and Elemental Styles on Etsy.  Thanks for reading and for now I'll bid you adieu and bon appetite!

Indie Polish Haul Bottle Spam + Ebay finds!

Man there are a lot of great indie brands out there and more coming every day.  However, it can be a bit overwhelming - polishes in limited supply due to hard to attain base for polishes as well as glitters and pigments, limited staffing/personal time, long wait lists, and stalking stalking stalking.  It can be exhausting and annoying, but it can also be extremely rewarding when you finally get your hands on a hard earned lemming.  I mean - I'm still dying inside for some Nailventurous and Dollish polish and a few others but I know when I get them it'll be worth the wait.  My recent haul includes some real beauties too as well as a few Ebay finds so let's get this post rocking!

 Red Carpet Lacquer
I recently posted about the my incendiary lust for CTD especially when combined with deep bloody red glitter - which is exactly what Toro for me was (see post here).  In any event I also took the opportunity to grab up some Mastermind and Mrs. White with a couple more awesome polishes on my radar.  Jaime, the creator behind this brand, has some beautiful packaging and the polishes come in a lovely organza gift bag packaged in silver confetti wrap - classy.  Best yet these polishes are packed with glitter and have easy spreadability.  I haven't struggled to get the glitter fully mixed with the base as I have some other brands.  Overall this brand's a winner.  Check her out on her Etsy store here for more great polishes - just leave some for rest the of us!

From left to right: Toro, Mastermind, and Mrs. White

 Lush Lacquer
Damn damn damn!  I don't have words for this brand.  I literally got knocked speechless. Karen and Lexi of LL have so many great polishes it will make your head spin!  Endless combinations of glitter and shimmer enough to spark any lacquerista's imagination.  Certainly, they grabbed my attention with some of their wonderful creations. I picked up two great polishes Salt N Peppa and Party Rockin'.  I haven't done any swatches yet, but stay tuned. They are both insanely dense glitters with moderate to easy spreadability and no settling issues here!  I have great plans for Party Rockin' and Salt n' Peppa is an instant winner.   You can  find these polishes and more  here on Etsy.

Left to right: Party Rockin' and Salt N' Peppa

Tina and Lucy
This creator is sweet with excellent communication.  I ordered two polishes from her and there was a mix-up with inventory.  She noticed immediately and sent me an alternate plus two smaller samples one of which I was really lemming.  I have to say that good customer service and communication goes a long way with me and this creator has both.  However, a couple things drove me crazy in a not so good way.  First, one of the polishes I got sent looks completely different from the photo's posted in the shop.  I mean it's entirely 5-6 shades darker than the listing.  Second, the glitters in these polishes seem to settle and I mean settle heavily making application frustrating and more than a bit annoying.  Applying Jade I would shake until everything was mixed up.  The instant I stopped shaking glitters were settling deep into the bottom of the bottle and unfortunately the color began separating too - not fun!  I'm still on the fence about these polishes and I'll have to try out a few more before casting a final decision.  It is worth saying though that she has some truly beautiful neutral shades in her range which is unique for indie glitters.  Find more polishes and info here on Etsy.

Stamp Stamp Stamp - Ebay Finds :)
I found these cute little plate while searching around on the 'bay for something oh so Hello Kitty cute!  These fauxnad plates are adorable KD01 and KD03.  I can't wait to do something fun with these check out the cute little bunny kitty on  KD01!

Thanks for reading and please let me know if you've also found some cool indie companies or products that you're trying out!