NOTW - Duochrome Gradient featuring China Glaze New Bohemian Collection

This is another Instagram inspired (copied) manicure. One of my favorite nail artists on Instagram is @kpandaanails! I started following her probably about 6 months ago and was browsing all her photos when I found this manicure she posted a while back and realized that a) I loved them and that b) I could do them because I have all the polishes and that gradients are easy!
So, I went into my stash, picked out 4 of the China Glaze New Bohemian Luster Chrome polishes that she used and started gradienting away.

The colors I used (from blue to gold) were: Want My Bawdy, Deviantly Daring, Unpredictable then Rare & Radient. I used the sponging technique and sponged over a layer of black polish to make this more vibrant.

I LOVED the way this looked on my nails and wore it for about a week, until one of my nails broke actually, and was so sad after I removed it. 

I'm for sure going to do something like this again, and probably with these colors :)

Also, I'd love some suggestions for colors to use while gradienting my nails! Leave comments on what you all think I should do!

Wicked Polish Wicked Whimsy Collection Swatches - Stabbed By A Unicorn, Fairy Blood Spatter, Expired Pixie Dust

Here are the final 3 Wicked Polishes that I own, swatched for you today.
In very good luck, I was able to get the 3 other Wicked Polishes I don't have in a recent restock on Harlow & Co, so I'll eventually have swatches of ALL the polishes shy makes and feel very accomplished lol.
These 3 are the other colors from the Wicked Whimsy Collection, which I mentioned yesterday. The other color from the Wicked Whimsy Collection is Hung-Over the Rainbow, which you can see here.

• Expired Pixie Dust - clear base with tiny holo microglitters, black hex, black hearts and bright pink squares. This is very much what I made everything themed around in middle school lol. The pink, the black - basically if this existed in 2003, I would've been all over it. The formula is pretty good on this one, not too thick so it layers easily. I did end up fishing the hearts out of the bottle though and placing them, but if I had shaken the bottle up more, I think it would have helped. 
• Fairy Blood Spatter - clear base with neon pink and purple to layer into a crazy bright and fun nail. I fell in love with this after Rylee posted pics of this on her Instagram and had to purchase it. It layered wonderfully and dried down fairly quickly.
• Stabbed By A Unicorn - this one I was most excited for because it's a clear base with a rainbow of neon glitter, then white hex and star pieces as well. Love! This one was slightly thicker, and again, I ended up fishing out the stars to get them on the swatch. It wasn't annoying or anything though, so in practice it'll be a pretty easy polish to use. 

Wicked Polish retails for between $10 and $12 depending on where and when you get them. Currently, Wicked Polish's site is closed down because Rylee, who makes the polish, is moving. You can, however purchase them on Harlow & Co as well when they're in stock. I suggest Liking Wicked Polish on Facebook, so you can keep track of re-stocks :)

Expired Pixie Dust

Fairy Blood Spatter

Stabbed By A Unicorn

Wicked Polish - What Happens In Vegas & Wicked Whimsy Collection Swatches! Five-Oh!, Hung-Over The Rainbow, Drunk In Public

More Wicked Polish today! (And tomorrow)

I have some from her newer collections today, the Wicked Whimsy and What Happens In Vegas collections. To add to Gangrene and Pox, Rylee made some more neon glitter polishes, and I was SO excited to get them when she first posted pics on her Instagram.

Wicked Whimsy (which the rest of the collection will be posted tomorrow) and What Happens In Vegas both have some fun and cleverly named polishes with pretty unique use of neon glitter and different shapes of glitter.

Here are the colors I have today:

• Hung-Over The Rainbow (Wicked Whimsy Collection) - clear base with small and large neon hex pieces. The colors are neon "primary" colors, pink, yellow and blue. Rylee specifically said she only used those two colors so that they layer together to make all the colors of the rainbow. It's great in theory, but I haven't been able to successfully and easily layer the polish so that there's a nice rainbow of glitter. The swatch below, on the very edge of the swatch, I placed a lot of glitter so you can see what it's supposed to look like. It may just be that I have to shake my bottle more. The formula isn't overly thick or anything though so it's not too goopy when you layer it out like that.
• Drunk In Public (What Happens In Vegas Collection) - milky white crelly base with a rainbow of small neon hex glitter. This actually has all the colors of the rainbow in it and is a very pixel like looking glitter when you apply it. The formula was great on this for me - easy to apply, good coverage in 2 coats and it's bright and pops because of the neon. I can definitely see myself wearing this a TON over the summer :)
• Five-Oh! (What Happens In Vegas Collection) - clear base with red, white, blue, and black square glitter, meant to look like cop car lights. It's a unique concept and definitely unique in my collection. I don't quite know what I'm going to use this over, but like the look of the layering of square glitters. The formula was similar to Hung-Over The Rainbow, it's not too thick so layering wasn't a pain.

Wicked Polish retails for between $10 and $12 depending on where and when you get them. Currently, Wicked Polish's site is closed down because Rylee, who makes the polish, is moving. You can, however purchase them on Harlow & Co as well when they're in stock. I suggest Liking Wicked Polish on Facebook, so you can keep track of re-stocks :)

Hung-Over The Rainbow

Drunk In Public

Five-Oh!

Wicked Polish Pestilence Collection Swatches - Black Lung, Frostbite, Priapism, Cardiac Arrest

Today's post is going to be a series of swatches all from Wicked Polish!
My two first Wicked Polishes were Pox and Gangrene, which were the two polishes that put Wicked Polish on the map (as far as I'm concerned). Here I have the rest of, well almost all of the Pestilence Collection which is what Pox and Gangrene are from. The two that I'm missing are Hematoma and Pink Eye, which sold out SO QUICKLY during the restock.
But for now, here are the rest!

• Black Lung - dark grey, almost black, jelly with blue shimmer, scattered holo sparkles and small black hex glitter. The blue shimmer is almost a turquoise. The texture of this one was ok - it's pretty sheer so I'd suggest layering it over a black to get the full effect. You'd probably do best with two coats over black, since one coat doesn't get you all that much glitter mixed in. 
• Frostbite - white glitter and teal holo glitter in a shimmery white glitter base. I was expecting the least out of this one, based off of online swatches and bottle picks, but ended up loving this THE MOST. Which is stupid, because it's a teal glitter, and you'd think I'd automatically fall in love with it before purchasing and playing with it, but the rest of her polishes are awesome so I sort of overlooked this one. The formula is really great, the glitter comes out really nice and not too scattered but not too dense and it's a good mix of teal and white.
• Priapism - hahahahahahahaha. Remember that time I made a video, and said "google what a priapism is?" this is the polish that sparked all of that. I laugh, mostly because somebody finally made a polish called priapism. And well, it's a blue polish. And Viagra is blue. I lol. Anyways, this is a really sheer blue jelly shimmer with a reddish pink flash to it. There's also the rare blue glitter in there. I'd really recommend layering this over a blue because even at 3 coats, it's quite sheer (as it's a jelly).
• Cardiac Arrest - this one turned out quite lovely in person as well. It's a blood red jelly base with red and holo hex glitter. It layers to pretty much opaque coverage at 3 coats. I generally love reds and red glitters, so this was also a no brainer "love" polish for me.

Wicked Polish retails for between $10 and $12 depending on where and when you get them. Currently, Wicked Polish's site is closed down because Rylee, who makes the polish, is moving. You can, however purchase them on Harlow & Co as well when they're in stock. I suggest Liking Wicked Polish on Facebook, so you can keep track of re-stocks :)

Black Lung

Frostbite

Priapism

Cardiac Arrest

NOTW: KB Shimmer Clown Puke

After my custom nude that I created (which was my last NOTW post), I decided to add some glitter to spruce it up a little bit because I just needed some sparkle in my life.
I decided to just go full rainbow and add a coat of KB Shimmer's Clown Puke on my nails. It's a clear base with hex glitter in different shapes in all the different colors of the rainbow. Super festive and has the perfect name!
I wore this on my nails for a good 3 days before I started to have glitter slowly pealing off my nails.
KB Shimmer's polishes are available on their website and I highly recommend Clown Puke if you're looking for a good rainbow polish :)

Lynnderella Haul Part 3 - One Nutty Fuitcake , New Year's Eve Eve, Season's Glitterings

I've split up this haul into 3 parts so this post isn't too heavy and dense, but if you want to see all my Lynn posts, just click on the "lynnderella" tag at the end of this post, as well as in my "labels" sidebar on the right.

• One Nutty Fruitcake - clear base with black microglitter, then a ton of different colored pieces of square glitter. I LOVE this one. I didn't think I'd like this one as much as I do, but the black against the different colors mixed in is awesome. It's pretty densely packed, but not soo much that it looks black on the nail. 
• New Year's Eve Eve - clear base with every shape and size and color of glitter mixed in. Literally the confetti you see on the ground in New York. This one had a slightly thicker base which made the glitter apply not as densely as I would have liked but it still looks very nice after applying one coat. 
• Season's Glitterings - clear base with a more silver based glitter; silver microglitter, and holo pieces of silver in different shapes. There are also different colored pieces mixed in as well. This one spread onto the swatch more easily than New Year's Eve Eve. 

These three polishes I was very excited to purchase and play with. New Year's Eve Eve and Season's Glitterings were both polishes that were recommended to me by Radha.

Lynnderella polishes are expensive at about $23 a piece, and can be purchased on eBay. I really quite love these glitters, because they're so unique, but I highly recommend looking through various available colors and thoroughly researching the colors before committing to buy them, especially if you're not a collector like I am.

I will say that if you have one of these, you may not need the other two.

The swatches down below (in the photo with the 4 swatches, from R-L) are on it's own, over white, over black then over Essie's In The Cab-Ana

Lynnderella Haul Part 2 - Beleaf is Magic, She Lived in a Swamp, Parfait d'Amour, Sugared Violet

The post right before this is part 1, which included four colors that I recently purchased. I've split up this haul into 3 parts so this post isn't too heavy and dense, but if you want to see all my Lynn posts, just click on the "lynnderella" tag at the end of this post, as well as in my "labels" sidebar on the right.
This post includes some limited edition colors from Valentine's Day as well as just this year's Spring collection. You can probably still find some of them on the eBay site she sells off of now.
Here are the 4 colors in this post:

• Beleaf is Magic. - translucent grass green base with green microglitter, then lighter yellow green, red and darker green hex pieces all mixed in to a very earthy but springy shade. This one is pretty densely packed so you get a good amount of coverage in one coat.
• She Lived in a Swamp - slightly swamp green tinted base with a loosely packed swamp green string glitter. There are also some more swamp green hexes, as well as some blue rhombus shapes. 
• Parfait d'Amour - red tinted base with red and purple hex glitter and red hearts. This is very densely packed glitter so you'll get a pretty good amount of coverage with this polish in just one coat.
• Sugared Violet - almost clear base, with a slight purple tint to it. There's a lot of pale lavender type microglitter, then random pieces of pearly white glitter, lavender hearts,  and then some hexes in blue, purple and that pearly white again. This is less densely packed than Parfait d'Amour.

Lynnderella polishes are expensive at about $23 a piece, and can be purchased on eBay. I really quite love these glitters, because they're so unique, but I highly recommend looking through various available colors and thoroughly researching the colors before committing to buy them, especially if you're not a collector like I am. 

If you have Nosegay, you may not need Sugared Violet. 

The swatches down below (in the photo with the 4 swatches, from R-L) are on it's own, over white, over black then over a color.

For Beleaf is Magic. - Essie First Timer

She Lived in a Swamp - Essie First Timer

Parfait d'Amour - OPI Funky Dunkey
Sugared Violet - OPI Funky Dunkey 

 

Lynnderella Nail Polish Haul Part 1 - Chocolotta Love, Kabbalah Bracelet, Boy-Girl Party, Blue Rouge

More Lynnderellas today :D
I got these about a month ago and just didn't have the time to edit all the photos, so I'm going to post them all up for you today!
I've split up this haul into 3 parts so this post isn't too heavy and dense, but if you want to see all my Lynn posts, just click on the "lynnderella" tag at the end of this post, as well as in my "labels" sidebar on the right.
The four colors in this post are:

• Chocolotta Love - clear base PACKED with brown microglitter, then bigger pieces of brown in various sizes of hexes. Mixed in are turquoise, purple, red, yellow and green square pieces. The glitter in this is very very dense so you only need one coat to get a good amount of glitter on your nail, which is always a plus.
• Kabbalah Bracelet - this is a reddish orange tinted base with a lot of stringy red glitter, and then a mix of blue, green, yellow, red and orange hexes mixed in. This is perfect for the name. For those of you that grew up in the 2000s, I hope you remember that whole Kabbalah fad. 
• Boy-Girl Party - slightly purple toned reddish tinted base with a mix of red, blue and purple glitter in various sizes and shapes. This has a very dense packing of glitter as well. 
• Blue Rouge - very similar in texture to Chocolotta Love in that it's a clear base packed with a ton of periwinkle microglitter, then a mix of that same color in slightly bigger pieces. There's a pale blue larger hex. And if you look really closely, there's a very slight red microglitter as well. It's most apparent over black.

Lynnderella polishes are expensive at about $23 a piece, and can be purchased on eBay. I really quite love these glitters, because they're so unique, but I highly recommend looking through various available colors and thoroughly researching the colors before committing to buy them, especially if you're not a collector like I am.

I will say that if you have Forget You Not, you may not need Blue Rouge. 

The swatches down below (in the photo with the 4 swatches, from R-L) are on it's own, over white, over black then over a color.

For Chocolotta Love - OPI Suzi Says Da

Kabbalah Bracelet - OPI Color So Hot It Berns

Boy-Girl Party - OPI Funky Dunkey

Blue Rouge - Essie Boxer Shorts

Illamasqua Nail Polish Duo - Viridian/Glitterati Swatches!

Until recently (well, until I purchased this duo) I never owned any Illamasqua polishes. They've been raved about online and I've had like 5 in my wishlist on Sephora for ages but I never bought any because they're $17 each. Which is a lot for a brand that isn't part of the "Big" high end brands (Dior, Chanel, YSL, Lancome etc.).
However, Illamasqua released a duo of polishes for just $25, so I put it in my cart, but I ended up not purchasing anything so it just sat in my cart for a while. Then Sephora reduced the price down to $19 and I was SOLD lol. $19 for two full sized Illamasqua polishes? Perfect.
Also, the duo included a color that I had wanted for a while that I originally saw on Temptalia. Viridian was released with a color called Scarab a few years ago and I had my eye on it for a long time. So, this duo was just an all-around win for me.

• Viridian - shimmery blackened teal. This is a very deep, mysterious peacock like color. It was opaque in 2 coats.
• Glitterati - deep red base with a mix of holo hex pieces of glitter. This is opaque in 2 coats.

Illamasqua polishes definitely lived up to the hype for me - they applied so well and had a great texture. Although they are expensive, these two definitely opened up the doors for me and I look forward to purchasing more of them in the future.

Have you guys purchased any Illamasqua polishes? Any recommendations?

Viridian

Glitterati

NOTW: Custom Nude

I've recently started appreciating the look of nude nails much more than I had before, so I went looking through my stash for the perfect nude.
Unfortunately, each one of the ones I had pulled too peach, or pink, or beige so I decided to mix up a color of my own :)
I used one coat of Deborah Lippmann's New Flesh from the True Blood Trio, one coat of OPI's Sweetheart and then one coat of Color Club's Who Are You Wearing. The combination blended together to become a slightly greyed out fleshy color that looked more grey in some lights and more nude in others. I loved it!
This was worn on my nails for about 4 days before I added some glitter (which is going to be the next NOTW post).
Do any of you have a favorite nude polish? Let me know in the comments below!

Maybelline Summer 2013 - Color Tattoos! Waves of White & Cool Crush

Maybelline recently released their summer line of Color Tattoos and they were first spotted at Bed Bath & Beyond, so I mosied on over there and found the collection and bought the two I thought would be most unique to my collection.
There are 6 colors in the limited edition collection, and they're all multichromes :D Multichromes in makeup are always fun so I was pretty excited to play with these.
In general, the Maybelline Color Tattoo formula is great - crease proof for drier eyelids (I have to use a primer but I have incredibly oily lids) and they set all day. They're creamy and don't dry out in the pot too quickly, which is always a plus.

• Cool Crush - cool slightly purpled blue with a silver sheen at some lights, then a bright blue in others and sometimes even a pink. When swatched, the blue shimmer comes through really well. 
• Waves of White - shimmery white base with a bright minty shimmer at one angle and almost a purpley pink in another.

I swatched both of these at different angles so you can hopefully see the full effect of the multichrome.

They're really pretty in person - I definitely recommend at least going and looking at them in person (through the packaging of course!) before ruling them out :)

They were both about $5 each at Bed Bath & Beyond but will probably retail closer to $6 or $7 at drugstores like CVS. 

 Cool Crush

Waves of White

Waves of White (Top) Cool Crush (Bottom) w/ Flash

Waves of White (Top) Cool Crush (Bottom) w/ natural light at an agle

NOTW: Graphic Pink & Silver Inspired by Leah Light

I've said this before, but Instagram is one of my favorite places to go look for nail inspiration, and one of my biggest inspirations recently has been Leah Light. She's a celebrity manicurist located in New Zealand. She posts almost daily and has some of the most awesome gel nail art creations on her instagram. Go check her out! Here's a link to her FB Page.

A LONG while back she did a pink and silver manicure look and it completely inspired me to do this.

Admittedly, I did this manicure a long while back as well, and I'm currently playing catch-up with my NOTW posts, but this has still been one of my favorite manicures I've done recently.

The pink I used was OPI's That's Hot! Pink, which is a bright Barbie pink creme. For the silver stripes, I drew them on with a thin angled brush. I used Urban Outfitters Silver Holo, because I wanted it to have a little bit more dimension than just being a shiny silver. She uses striping tape in her manicures, which you can purchase on Ebay. I don't have any, so I had to go through the painstaking task of drawing on super straight lines.

The glitter I used was Black Cat Lacquer's Let Them Eat Cake on my middle finger, which is a pastel assortment of glitter mixed in with some smaller white glitter. I then used Deborah Lippmann's Some Enchanted Evening, which is a salmon pink glitter on my ring finger.

I love the way this manicure ended up and quite liked the mix of textures and shapes.

I used OPI's Nail Envy and Poshe Fast Dry Top Coat. This manicure lasted about 4 days before I removed it, but it had minimal tipwear or chipping.

New Video!

Enjoy 

♥ 

Maybelline Spring 2013 - Color Goes Electric Lipsticks: Infra-Red, Pop of Cherry

Maybelline has a full line of bright, bold lipsticks called their Vivids line. It has a full range of colors.
However, they also had a few limited edition shades they released with their Spring Color Goes Electric line and I basically just discovered them while going to go pick up some of the permanent colors.
My CVS had gross, touched, tainted permanent colors, so I went searching elsewhere and found these limited edition colors in their display that I had probably walked by a million times and NEVER paid any attention to.
There are 4 lipsticks in that Spring collection, and I bought the two red ones because I was looking for the permanent red ones and decided these will do.

• Infra-Red - primary red color. Against florescent light, it can look blue toned, but under flash a lot of orange comes out. 
• Pop of Cherry - more of a lighter red, with a slight pink undertone when swatched but looks sort of orangey in the tube. A nice vintage red, perfect for the summer. Again, when under flash lighting, the warm tones come out very strongly, but under florescent light it pulls more cool toned.

The formula on these was great, as with the other two Maybelline Vivids colors that I have in my collection already. They go on incredibly opaque and have a sheen to them. It's like a natural "gloss" but it isn't sticky. They colors do bleed a tiny bit but nothing that lipliner won't deal with. They feel comfortable on the lips and aren't drying like a lot of bold lipsticks can be.

I don't know if you can still find these really easily, but I know they'll be in stores until they sell out. All the stores in my area still have them in stock.

If you can't find these particular ones, just get the regular reds in their permanent line - as far as I can tell, they're very very similar, so you don't need both these and the permanent colors.

Mac Baking Beauties Haul - Spring/Summer 2013

I just realized how long it's been since I've bought something from Mac - I just had to make the tag "Mac 2013 Collections". It's just that Mac collections haven't been wowing me recently. It's not really like Baking Beauties wowed me either, but they had a few products that I knew I'd like so I picked those up, as well as the products from the Winter that I wanted to pick up months ago.
Mac's Winter collection was called Apres Chic and had a full range of products from mineralized face to lips. The only products that I really wanted from that collection were the Mineralized Tinted Lip Balms, which are really just glorified lip balms.
They have a slightly stickier texture, which is similar to their tinted lip balms from last year's summer collection. They do have a pretty good conditioning feel to them though, and they haven't dried out my lips like I had expected them to, as a lot of Mac's lip gloss type formulas do. These are very much in-between a lip gloss and balm. The colors are all pretty sheer, even the darkest color I bought had just enough color deposit to give a healthy look to my lips.
Here are the colors I bought from the Apres Chic collection:

• Pure & Tender - warm melon pink type of color when swatched. In the tube it comes off much more salmon like. The tubes, by the way, have a gold shimmer, but it is NOT incorporated into the gloss itself.
• Rosy Romance - berry toned red with a very slight shimmer. It looks pretty dark in the tube but applies very sheerly and again, give just a healthy look to the lips.
• Slightly Nude - more orange toned than Pure & Tender. This one hopefully will apply over other coral like colors and will help ease me into the world of orange toned products, which I tend not to wear very much.
• Stay Warm! - light warm toned pink. This has an obvious coral undertone, but just swatches like a warm pink sheer gloss. I've already used this a few times as an easy lip color on the go.

I bought one other Mineralize Tinted Lip Balm from the Spring Baking Beauties collection:

• Cheery Cheery - bright bubblegum type pink that swatches very light and milky. I don't love these types of colors on me regularly, but again since it's on the sheer side I feel more comfortable wearing it.

Bottom line about the Mineralize Tinted Lip Balms - they're just an average (not outstanding) tinted lip balm. Slightly stickier - I find that products like these are a great way to edge into a certain color group. You definitely don't need to splurge on Mac for colors like this though. I just happened to purge a lot of my stash before this collection was released so I felt a little more comfortable buying tinted lip glosses from Mac. If I hadn't done that, then I probably wouldn't have purchased these. I do like them, but they're not a "Must Have" type product.

The other products I purchased from the Baking Beauties collection was a few of the Paint Pots. I guess at some point Mac relabeled them as "Pro Longwear Paint Pot". Who knew? I feel like they last a really long time anyways so adding "Pro Longwear" doesn't make all that much more of a difference. But oh well.

These always perform wonderfully for me. I use these most as eyeshadow bases. They're a cream to set product in various tones. They have quite a few in their regular line. The ones released in Baking Beauties were limited edition, however they are easily dupable. I have been able to get a good 4 to 5 hours of wear without creasing with these if I don't use a primer. If I use a primer, these last all day on my lids with no creasing whatsoever.

• Eclair - this is apparently very close to Constructivist. It's a darker bronze shade with a shimmery finish. This one has great pigmentation and is an awesome base for your standard neutral shadow look. 
• Fancy Frosting - this is a shimmery white base with a slight chunky to it. I think Benefit may have a color similar to this in their cream shadow line. If not, I'm sure Maybelline has one. And then again, if not, there is most definitely a NYX Jumbo Eye Shadow color with this base, just make sure you use a primer underneath those because they crease. This has the same finish as the group of paint pots that were released a few winters back that had that slight gold glitter in them. This just has a pearly glitter in it instead. Very pretty on it's own :)
• Mooncake - this has a champagne base with the same pearly glitter infused into it. I love this one. It's a wonderful color base, and the glitter doesn't fade away or fall out. I've sort of been waiting for a product like this from Mac. Bare Study has a cooler base and no glitter in it.

Baking Beauties was released about a month ago, but you can still purchase a lot of the products online, if not in store. It's a full collection of springy pastel shades, if you're into that :)
Hopefully Mac's summer collection will be more enticing, but we'll see.

Did you guys pick up any of these products? What do you think?

Swatches:

For the Paint Pots - the swatches are with flash on the right and with artificial light on the left!

Eclair

Fancy Frosting

Mooncake

Cheery Cheery

Pure & Tender

Rosy Romance

Slightly Nude

Stay Warm!

With Flash

Cheery Cheery / Pure & Tender / Rosy Romance / Slightly Nude / Stay Warm!

With Artificial Light

Cheery Cheery / Pure & Tender / Rosy Romance / Slightly Nude / Stay Warm!