Peaches ♥ Cream - Lime Crime & Bejeweled - KB Shimmer

Hello!

Hope everyone is having a happy Halloween? I am not so much... If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen that 15 mins before my biochem exam today, I had an ovarian cyst rupture. Not the best timing let me tell you! Luckily they could get some morphine into me at the doctors so I didn't have to go to hospital this time :) Anyway the moral of the story is, I am currently in bed in a fair amount of pain, so I might just keep this short and sweet.

I didn't do a Halloween mani, as I just haven't had time, but what I have to show you is orange at least. And never mind that, the polishes today are freaking GORGEOUS!!! On the bottom = Lime Crime 'Peaches ♥ Cream'... Also this is the debut of my nubs on the blog, since I gave 'em all the chop due to my middle finger peeling like no ones business. I am actually kinda loving this length. I'm gonna let them get a bit longer, but these are nice and easy to manage. What do you guys think?

'Peaches ♥ Cream' is a right little bugger to photograph. This is not quite colour correct, but it's about as close as I could get. It's a little bit whiter if that makes any sense. It reminds me of sherbet. There is top coat only on my top two fingers and you can see that it dries ever so slightly matte without top coat.

Then this happened. This is KB Shimmer 'Bejeweled'. I saw this on Chalkboard Nails and knew that I had to get it. Boy-oh-boy am I glad I did. It is delicious! The coppery gold glitters get a little lost in these pics, but I am LOVING this combo. These polishes were just sitting together on the table after they arrived and it was actually The Boy who said "you have to wear them together". Man does he have good taste or what?!

So formula-wise... Brilliant. Two fantastically opaque coats of 'Peaches ♥ Cream' with a thin coat of 'Bejeweled' on top.

I got these both from Harlow & Co. KB Shimmers are $9USD and Lime Crimes are $8.50USD or get the whole set of 7 for $49 (I may or may not have done this after trying this one!). AND I have just checked and all the Lime Crimes are currently in stock so GO GO GO! And the bonus of it all... Free shipping if you spend $50 :)

Royal - Revlon & a bit o' stamping with Rare and Radiant - China Glaze...

How are you all? Kiwi's - how are exams going? Mine start on Monday and I'm currently in hibernation, only I'm studying all day every day instead of sleeping... I have a quick post today of a mani that I did with a couple of polishes that I received in my AMAZING package from Mimi...

This is Revlon 'Royal' stamped with China Glaze 'Rare and Radiant'. I used my new LeaLaC XL - B stamping plate (which I absolutely love).

This was fairly subtle in lower light but it really popped in the sun. It was so hard to photograph though, especially the multichrome effect of 'Rare and Radiant'.

I absolutely love 'Royal' and I'm so glad that Mimi got it for me. I love the way it looks with 'Rare and Radiant' too. 'Royal' was so easy to use. I can't remember for sure, but I think I used three thin coats. In these pics you can see a tiny bit of VNL, but that really wasn't obvious at all in real life.

The stamping plate is not currently available, as far as I can find, but I got it from Llarowe. Hopefully they'll reappear on the site sometime soon.

Sneeze Breeze - The Hungry Asian

I am currently DROWNING in exam study so the next few posts might be a little shorter. Also I have a problem child right now, by way of my middle finger on my right hand (the one you see) that has decided to have the peeling tantrum of all time and started to grow out a bit weird. So today, I've had to chop them all! Shortest they've been in years. It feels so strange to feel my fingertip above my nail! Oh well, a bit of TLC and hopefully they'll be up and growing in no time.

Today I have the wonderful 'Sneeze Breeze' from The Hungry Asian...

'Sneeze Breeze' is a mixture of blue and black matte glitter in a clear base. So simple and yet absolutely freaking amazing!

To me, 'Sneeze Breeze' is like summer in a bottle. It's so vibrant and happy looking. I love it. As you can see, it's quite dense. I used two pretty thick coats and it was fairly opaque, but I have one coat of OPI 'No Room For The Blues' (speaking of gorgeous polishes) underneath.


This also happened to be the first time I tried using PVA glue as a base coat. This is such a genius idea and I love whoever thought of it! If you want to read more about PVA glue as a base, hop on over to Lab Muffin or Pretty Purple Polish. I'm not sure who originally came up with this idea (if anyone knows, please let me know so I can put a link), but I looked at the two blogs that I've linked. Also the lovely Kirsten from Glitta Gloves gave me some handy hints on Twitter (thanks!!). Anyway, all in all, the PVA glue as a base coat thing was a HUGE success!! So easy and makes me want to wear glitter every day of my life. Granted, I don't think the wear time was as good as normal for me personally, but it just means I can effortlessly change my glitter more often :) (and when I say not as good, it still happily lasted a couple of days, so not bad at all).

For those of you who haven't seen it in action, this is what it looks like when peeled. The first hand broke up a lot, but the second hand I just ran under warm water for a minute and they peeled off so easily in one piece (going from the cuticle end always).

Kiss The Sky - Takko Lacquer

Hi!

I'm up to the last of my Takko Lacquer polishes to show you guys :( But fear not, the new collection is being released tomorrow at around 1pm EST (more details at the bottom) and you can be sure that I'll be popping by to order some! Anyway, today I have 'Kiss The Sky' to show you...

Oh boy! This is one pretty polish. It's like Max Factor 'Fantasy Fire' on steroids! 'Kiss The Sky' has a sort of royal blurple base and is then packed with that shimmer that I have grown to LOVE from the Takko Lacquer polishes. The shimmer shines red in most lighting, but we will soon come to see that it is so much more than that...

The shimmer in 'Kiss The Sky' shifts to a burnt coppery gold colour on the way to....

... green. The green itself is chameleon-esque too. Sometimes it can appear as a bright lime green whereas other times it shifts to a beautifully serene aqua green. LOVE!!

This is what I like to call the summary of the shift! haha. You can sort of see how it shifts as you move across my fingers.

If you can look past the pretty shimmer for a second, the base itself is absolutely gorgeous. It can appear as dark regal purple (as in the top photo) or as a vivid blue purple.

Just because I can't help myself, I just had to add one more photo. I love this one. The base looks so indigo in this pic. Is 'Kiss The Sky' delicious or what?!


Right, on to the formula... Great! I used 3 regular coats. 'Kiss The Sky' is ever so slightly thinner than the other Takko Lacquer polishes I've shown you, but is really easy to work with. It does look like you can see a smidge of VNL (visible nail line) in my pics, but that's just the joys of my macro camera settings and my lighting. I promise this isn't visible in regular life.

You can buy this beauty from Sheryl's Etsy Shop. Keep an eye on her blog or twitter (@takkolacquer) to find out about restocks. And don't forget that the new collection comes out tomorrow! Jump on over to Nails and Noms to see swatch photos of them by the beautiful Rie.

The Electric Apple: NYC - Takko Lacquer

HI!!

It's Takko Lacquer time again! I've got another GORGEOUS shimmer to show today by the name of 'The Electric Apple: NYC'...

'The Electric Apple: NYC' is a grey polish with a metric truck load of shimmer in it. Just like 'Wanderlust', the golden shimmer is far from shy and is visible in most lighting.

I love the clean concrete grey of 'The Electric Apple: NYC' and I think the shimmer warms it up just enough for me to wear it easily with my ghostly white skin. Basically I think this is a really versatile polish.

Look at that shimmer!! The colour of it is just perfect, with an almost green hue to the yellow gold. I love this polish so much!!


Another piece of good news? 'The Electric Apple: NYC' barely needs more than one coat! It's incredibly opaque which is amazing for such a pale colour. Just like 'Wanderlust' though, the opacity clearly doesn't hide the shimmer. I used two coats for these photos just to ensure that everything was nice and even. 'The Electric Apple: NYC' is reasonably thick, but not unmanageable at all. It does dry to a matte finish so a lick of top coat is needed to really make that shimmer glow.

Takko Lacquer is available from Sheryl's Etsy store. All the polishes are vegan, 3-free and not tested on animals. Check out Takko Lacquer blog for updates on restocks etc.

Dorian Gray - a-england

It's Gothic Beauties installment number 3 tonight and this time I have 'Dorian Gray'. I think I'll mainly let the pictures do the talking...

This is quite different from the other polishes in this collection, but still seems to fit perfectly. 'Dorian Gray' is a pewter grey colour that has a ton of shimmer in it giving it a somewhat metallic look.

'Dorian Gray' can be a bit of a chameleon and like a lot of a-england polishes, the shimmer is not simply one colour. Apart from the silver/pewter colour, I can see coppery gold shimmer predominantly and though it's not particularly obvious on the nail, it gives the polish a real depth (you can catch a glimpse of it on my pinky finger).

In keeping with the rest of the collection, 'Dorian Gray' has its blackened side too. I love this veiled look of 'Dorian Gray', I feel as though it gives it a real sense of mystery, as though there's something more to this polish that you can't quite put your finger on.


The formula of 'Dorian Gray' was also in line with the other Gothic Beauties - in other words it was really opaque and 2 thin, easy coats gave perfect coverage. I was originally a bit worried that it may appear brush-strokey, but this wasn't at all the case. This isn't my favourite polish of the collection, but that is absolutely not to say that I don't like it. In fact, I really do like 'Dorian Gray' a lot, I just happen to like the others more (I love a collection where I still adore my least favourite of the bunch). If the other Gothic Beauties seem a bit dark for you, then this is definitely the one to look at getting as it is dark enough to still have the gothic feel to it without ever appearing anywhere near black.

a-england polishes are available from a range of places online now, I have always ordered mine from the a-england site.

If you haven't seen them, have a look at 'Lady of Shalott' and 'Jane Eyre' too.

This product was provided for review. This is my personal, unbiased opinion.
For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Inspired by... Jean Paul Gaultier

I have something a little different today and it's something that I quite like. We all know that I'm a little lacking in the art department and to be honest the thought of it scares the living daylights out of me still. I think a main problem of mine is that I'm not a very creative person and so I think to myself, I should do some sort of nail art today... Then I'll sit for an hour desperately trying to think up a brilliant idea, meanwhile I've thought up a million reasons why I shouldn't do it and I end up painting my nails with one plain colour... So here's what I am trying to do now - I'm trying to find inspiration from what's around me, which is where todays mani comes in.

Sitting up on my bookshelf was one of Dan's old empty Jean Paul Gaultier bottles and for once I was hit with inspiration. So I grabbed my bottle of the same summer edition for Women (I think 2006?) and got painting.

Please excuse my over-zealous top coating, will I ever find the key to not smudging stamping?
I used Color Club 'Wicked Sweet' as the blue base (over white) and Nicole 'Paparazzi Don't Preach' for the peach accent (also on my thumb). I then used the saran wrap technique to dab on the clouds using OPI 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls'. I added OPI 'Stranger Tides' to tie in the green of the kites with a tiny piece of sponge, then stamped using Konad Special Red polish. I used BM02 (I only used half of the image).

Alright, laugh it up!! I'm still getting my head around holding polish bottles and not looking terribly unco. Let's just say holding torso shaped bottles is not one of my best skills!

I love how this turned out and I think this inspiration thing is the way to go. Between The Boy and Me, we have a fair number of different editions of JPG perfume bottles and I am so much in love with every single one, so you will be seeing some more of these for sure.

Wanderlust - Takko Lacquer

How has your weekend been (or is it still going for those of you in the rest of the world)? I have had such a lovely day today, painted my nails, been to the movies, had amazing campari and orange sorbet and now watching Formula 1, Suzuka Grand Prix. That's pretty much a perfect day in my book. Anywho, I've got an absolutely gorgeous polish to show you today, sent to me by Sheryl from Takko Lacquer. This is 'Wanderlust'...

This polish is quite simply breath-taking. As soon as it arrived I was all ooohhh and aahhh just looking at the bottle. I put it on and it dried slightly matte. Skip forward to top coating time... It was like magic how the shimmer suddenly appeared with the shine of the top coat!

The shimmer in 'Wanderlust' is certainly not shy. It's incredibly prominent even in lower lighting. The shimmer is so complimentary to the slightly dusty lavender colour.

Speaking of the shimmer in 'Wanderlust', it sometimes appeared blue, as in this photo...

... and at times could appear quite green-leaning teal. This is one of those polishes that you really have to see in real life to fully appreciate.


On to the formula... 'Wanderlust' is surprisingly opaque, which was unexpected for me, considering how well the shimmer comes through. I needed only two coats for full opacity, though I have to admit I have three on most of these fingers as my left hand decided not to play nicely in the polishing of them and I had to fix the cuticle area with the third coat! 'Wanderlust' is fairly thick and for the last coat I actually added just a couple of drops of thinner (definitely not a biggie though).

I just have to take a quick second to say that the customer service that Sheryl provides is genuinely fantastic. I had a minor problem with a previous order and I just emailed her to let her know. She replied quickly and was so lovely about it and the problem was quickly rectified. I really appreciate this level of service and it makes this brand just that much more appealing.

Takko Lacquer is available from Sheryl's Etsy store. All the polishes are vegan, 3-free and not tested on animals. Check out Takko Lacquer blog for updates on restocks etc.

This product was provided for review. This is my personal, unbiased opinion.
For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Jane Eyre - a-england

It's that time again... Time for another a-england Gothic Beauty. Todays beauty is 'Jane Eyre' and a beauty she is (but then would we expect anything less from Adina?)... I'm just going to get right on with the photos.

In the same style as 'Lady of Shalott', 'Jane Eyre' has a black base, but this time with pinky red shimmer absolutely piled into it. I originally saw the bottle and thought, oh yeah red shimmer, but now I can't decide what colour it is... Red? Pink? Pinky-purpley-red? Who cares? All that matters is that it's gorgeous.

Also following in the footsteps of 'Lady of Shalott', there is a colour shift in 'Jane Eyre's' shimmer. This time it's a shift to a copper/bronze.  You can also see the more red shine to it on my middle finger.

'Jane Eyre' has a very blackened side to her in certain light, but I just love the depth that the shimmer gives her. The coarse shimmer gives these Gothic Beauties such a beautiful depth.

This is kind of a nice summary photo of 'Jane Eyre'. At the top, you can see the black veil that she often wears, but then you move down to the pinkie finger and you can see all the colours in the shimmer (yes you are seeing purpley-blue)!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love a-england polishes. Each one I wear makes me fall just a little further in love with them. Whether you want something brooding (any of the Gothic Beauties), something clean, something holographic... well you get the point. These Gothic Beauties are so complex and there is something so enchanting about them. Once again, the formula was fool-proof. Two easy coats for full opacity. The shimmer is fairly course so I used two thin coats of top coat, but it really is a small price to pay, believe me.

The Gothic Beauties are available now from a-england with free worldwide shipping :)

Deep Space - Candeo Colors

I have for you today a polish that I don't think I have discovered the full potential of just yet... 'Deep Space' by Candeo Colors is a polish that looks absolutely amazing in the bottle but just wasn't quite what I expected. It is gorgeous, but I think it could be even more so. I have one coat over black in these photos.

'Deep Space' has a most wonderful emerald green to blue shift in the shimmer and it's this that I feel can be even more amplified over a slightly different base... Haven't quite thought of what yet but I will have to have a little play.

'Deep Space' has little holo hexes as well as larger ones. The little ones were easy to get enough on the nails, but I didn't mix my bottle really before i used it, so the larger hexes were a bit more few and far between. I didn't mind though.

This polish would be perfect for galaxy nails and speaking of which, I have made a mission (after a little push from the lovely Ally over at Reach For The Polish) to try galaxy nails when life gets a little less hectic :)


So there you have it. Like I said, gorgeous polish, no doubt about it, but I think maybe I'll try it over a navy blue or something. Maybe over something like a-england 'Lady Of Shalott'...

I purchased 'Deep Space' from Candeo Colors for $9, but it can also be purchased from Llarowe for $11.

Edit: I have taken a new photo of 'Deep Space' that much better shows the duochrome shift. This is over black again. (How freaking long were my nails before!!)

MMMMmmmmm I love that bright blue shift that you can see on the index finger. This does look awesome with other colours too by the way. I need to eventually take some pics.