Elevation Polish Forest Collection Swatches and Nail Art

Hey lacqueristas,

Press Sample

Today I have my monthly installment of Elevation Polish awesomeness.  This month's collection is called the Forest Collection and it features a host of soothing deep rich colored polishes that are sure to spike any polish lovers' desires.  As usual Lulu has done an outstanding job of creating a collection that has a little something for everyone.  The Forest Collection is packed full of neutral shimmers, devastating crellies jammed with iridescent glitter and of course holographics.  Coming hard on the hills of the Summit 2 Collection the Forest Collection feels like a twist in the usual offerings we see over the summer i.e. neons, neons, and more neons with a little matte glitter thrown in for flair.  I have to say I throughly enjoyed the change of pace.  Now let's get started...

Pointless Forest 2

Described as a teal glitter polish by Lulu which vastly understates the deliciousness and the rich depth of this polish.  What we have here is a scrumptious deep green crelly finish that leans teal.  It is also packed with gold, blue, purple, and more square shaped iridescent glitter.  

It's hard to look at it directly because the polish feels like it shifts with the light.  It is by far my absolute favorite of this entire collection and is the very definition of complex perfection. I regretted taking this mani off the minute it left my fingers.

Mani-louge

Basecoat/ Topcoat: Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter-A-Peel / Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

Stamping polish: Mundo de Unas #1

Leadlight polishes: Homemade blends ;)

Stamping plate: MyOnline Shope Jr 16

I tried to capture the subtle hints of glitter glimmering through the polish along with the pastel beauty of a garden.  

Avenue of the Baobabs 

A gorgeous taupe polish packed full of deep raspberry pink shimmer that subtlety shifts depending on the lighting.  Oh my! I cannot tell you how I love polishes like this!  And of course because the base is taupe and essentially a neutral it's immensely flexible as a base for nail art.

 However, because I was so in love with this color I decided to play it nice and soft for the nail art here. If you look closely at the enlarged swatches you can see the shimmer including these intense blue flecks that I didn't notice until after I started editing my photos!

Mani-louge

Basecoat/ Topcoat: Duri Rejuvacote /Sally Hansen Diamond Flash

Stamping polish: China Glaze L8G8, Sally Hansen Color Foil in Titanium Flash

Stamping plate: Konad M63 and M64

In the end I think I still overwhelmed the base color a bit despite keeping the art relatively spare.

Shilin Stone Forest

A dusty grey black flecked shimmer mixed with holo pigment. I love grey polishes! I think they work well as neutrals to high contrast color nail art.  In this case Shilin was so soft it seemed at times to be easily overwhelmed by any change.  The holo pigment itself was difficult to capture lurking even in the sunlight, and as you can see from my photos I got the best depiction indoors in my lightbox.  I choose to keep the nail art for this one exceedingly simple as once again I fought not to overwhelm the delicacy of the polish with too much art. 

Indoors

Outdoors

Mani-louge

Basecoat/ Topcoat: Duri Rejuvacote /Sally Hansen Diamond Flash

Stamping polish: Mundo de Unas #1 

Stamping plate: MoYou London Pro 04 XL and Pro 07 XL

Hinglajgarh Forest

Described as a bright green I think this polish actually leans toward sage green with a strong linear holo.  In my opinion the richest representative the Forest Collection.  I love this one as well! Then again what's not to love? It also happens to be a very near one coater which is always winning in my book. 

Indoors

Because this is the Forest Collection I tried to capture that same feel in my nail art.  I'm not sure of my success, but I love how this one turned out.  It was jungle themed.

Well jungle themed and tribal. I love how this came out!

Outdoors

Mani-louge

Basecoat/ Topcoat: Duri Rejuvacote /Sally Hansen Diamond Flash

Stamping polish: Mundo de Unas #1 and #7

Accent polishes: Elevation Polish Aconcagua, Streetside NYC, and Puncak Jaya

Stamping plate: Winstonia W02

So what do you think?  A rather different collection than we are used to seeing in the summer right? I'm glad to see some pretty neutrals for the summer as well!  The Forest Collection will be available for purchase on the Elevation Polish Big Cartel site on July 7th at 10PM EST and July 22 at 10AM EST. Pricings typically ranges from $8.50-14 USD.  Don't miss out on another great Elevation Polish collection!  I hope you enjoyed the swatches and art and I'll see you next post...

These polishes were sent for my honest review which I honestly would have purchased anyway.  For more information please see my Disclosures Policy.

PolishTBH Anniversary Collection Review

Lovely lacquer ladies,

I had an honor bestowed on me these days! You know I am fairly humble when it comes to blogging and my nail art too.  It's because I look around and everywhere I see ladies with some crazy and amazing talent.  It's hard even think I match up so when a polishmaker takes the time to send me some of their products or ask me for opinions I take it really seriously, and I'm also extremely touched to be chosen.  Today I have that privilege as I'll be sharing a very special collection with you from PolishTBH from Chrissy's one year anniversary collection.  Just a warning this post is pretty pic heavy!

I discovered this brand thanks to Mimi of MakeupWithdrawal.  Because of her swatches I've clicked "add to cart" more times than I can count, and that's how I discovered the awesome splendor of the PolishTBH Diagon Alley Collection and the amazing cuticle oils she makes.  See my Harry Potter inspired nail art here.  I have a few more coming down the pipes so stay tuned, but today I'm just totally blown away.  I have three unique beauties for the 1 year bash and each one is somewhat a homage to the incredibly talented and still shockingly sexy (yes I said it) Britney Spears.

First up is Teal the World Ends.  The name is a a play on the song Til the World Ends.  This is a teal creally-ish polish sprinkled with white and black matte bar and hex glitter with holographic teal hexes interspersed throughout with spare holographic microglitter.  You want to know the greatest part about this polish (even though Chrissy has hit on two out of my four polish turn-ons right now) it's a THERMAL!!!  This little pretty transitions from the deep teal color to a pale blue when warm.  I honestly own nothing like this in my collection and I have a lot of thermals!  Opaque in two coats and stealing my heart in transition.  Thin coats with time to dry in between works best to minimize glitter drag.

 Warm

The gradient here is Essie Sweet Talker and stamped with Essie

No Place Like Chrome using Dashica SdP 47 and Fab Ur Nails Fun 2 plates

Transitioning

Almost to my nadir

Cold (or the natural state of my nails)

Brithday Tutu.  Is a pink gelee glitter topper packed with iridescent pink hexes and microglitter.  This one was a bit tough for me because I couldn't figure out what kind of base to pair with it.  Ultimately I think it worked best in a jelly sandwich layered to show off its beauty.  Pictured here layered between and over Colorama Espuma.  A little goes a long way with this one as the base was thicker than I expected.   It's necessary to be patient between coats otherwise you may not achieve the seemingly delicate effect I got here. I love how this one turned out the best!

I stamped over this polish using Color Club Eternal Beauty and Konad Special White for the Ballerina.  I used Konad plates M63 and S8

Finally I think I saved my favorite from the collection for last! Fantasy Anniversary Edition made me gasp when I took it out of the wrapping.  Liquid fire in a bottle! Almost too hot to maintain eye contact with.  This is one of those complex polishes that will flash fire at every angle that you move your nails.  Fantasy is a brownish-blackened jelly polish crammed with gold holographic hexes and microglitter.  Opaque in 3 thin precise coats.  Fantasy you are my everything.  I could not take it off nor did I dare create art over top of it!

So now you have my honest thoughts on this collection.  I think if you could only afford a couple you must definitely get Teal the World Ends and Fantasy Anniversary Edition.  Although in all honesty I think Birthday Tutu is the most versatile of all three.  Chrissy said TtWE will likely be her last thermal polish, which I think is a shame, so don't hesitate to pick it up!  The Anniversary Collection has already released.  You can purchase PolishTBH  here.  And while you're over there seriously consider trying the cuticle oils.  I loved the mini I got when I purchased the Diagon Alley collection so much that I immediately went back and bought 2 in the full size! Thank for reading and stay tuned for some awesome follow up nail art!

In case you didn't get it above these polishes were sent to me for review.  My opinions however are entirely my own!

Gray Matter Abstracted...

Hey lacquerista ladies,

Having seen the yumminess of Pound of Glitters' Gray Matter I knew I had to create a little magic on top of such an amazing polish!  I think I might slightly be getting over my phobia of stamping over glitters and it's really for the best.  I should have listened to NailsIT about this long ago.  Oh well.  I did find however, that stamping over a polish like this requires a bit of pickness about the colors for stamping since this polish was overwhelmed really easily when I tried it with darker colors,

Lord look at the depth on this!  Love it!

Mani-louge

Base color: Pound of Glitter Gray Matter

Stamping Polish: China Glaze TTYL and Color Club Cold Metal

Stamping plate: Konad M63 & M64

Fire! The subtle way TTYL is peaking out is awesome :)

So thoughts?  I absolutely adore the way this came out, but I may be a bit biased ;)  I ultimately chose to layer a holographic polish over this holographic glitter and then use a foil to contrast.  For those of you that don't know the Foiled Collection by Color Club are some of my most reached for bottles when it comes to stamping along with the China Glaze OMG Collection.   Amusingly these two Konad plates were my first real stamping plates.  I fell in love with the patterns and had to have them thus began my obsession.  So my love affair with stamping and holographics continues.  Speaking of holographics those who follow my Instagram might know a little about what's up my sleeve next ;)  Thanks for reading and see you next post!  Toodles...

Holy Holographic: Dandy Nails Look Around + Color Club Twiggy & Nars Zulu Gradient Konadicure

Hey polished prisoners,

In case you didn't know I'll tell you now that I love love love green!  It's probably a tie with blue and purple as my all time favorite shades.  So when I saw Dandy Nails Look Around, a forest green holographic polish, I clicked Add to Cart at the speed of lightening.  Mine mine mine and now yours for the viewing.  You probably only need 2 coats for opacity, but I used 3 here.  The formula on this was amazingly smooth with even distribution of the holographic particles.  The only downside to this polish is that I disliked the brush in the polish.  It reminded me slightly of those NOPI "perfect brushes" that drive me insane. Other than that everything else was WIN!

For an accent I also painted my index and fourth digit with Color Club Twiggy and then used Nars Zulu to create a gradient. Finally I stamped these nails with Konad image plate M63 using Konad Special polish in black and stamped over that using Shany 2012 plate SH20 and Konad Special polish in pastel green. FYI, I also tested Look Around out as a stamping polish but it's a bit too thin to be quite effective. Now onto the nails...

All this green makes my head swoon!

Close up of my creation.

Color Club Twiggy before the gradient was added. I actually painted this over Essies Blanc first so that the color would really pop.

Bling bling!

I really love how the pattern turned out.  I'm surprised too at how Zulu became re-translated when I used it for a gradient.

 Sickening, no? I was worried about the shallowness of this pattern on the Shany plate but it came out very clearly. Wanna hear something outrageous? This is my first holo manicure ever! How is that possible?!? Even I don't know how, but now I want lots and lots of holos after seeing this mani come to life!  Do you ladies have any recommendations for holo's that make you forget to breathe? You can find Look Around and other great polishes at Dandy Nails. She's planning another sale during the last week of June. Thanks for reading and happy Saturday!