Tuesday, March 29, 2016

New To Me Indies--brand intro and swatches (Superchic Lacquer, Lacquerlicious, and Polished for Days)

Hello! Today I have more new stuff! These are 3 polishes given to me by a friend that's not polishing so much anymore. All new to me brands! Since I only have one each of these brands I thought I'd combine them all into one little review post.


First is Superchic Lacquer "Royal Pain in the Ice" a sheer cobalt blue glittery crème. This is 3 coats plus topcoat. I'm not sure if this is meant to be a topper or just a jelly type to be layered? I felt like it was still pretty sheer at 3 coats so I stopped. I will try it next over a few different blue shades.
Royal Pain in the Ice

I'm profiling the brushes because it's an important feature to me! The brush here is flat and wide, the best kind (yay)


brush

Look at this crazy bottle though! It's like it's triangle but then it's square! Totally unique. It looks like a superman logo to me, I'm pretty sure that's by design, and since Superman kicks all the other super hero's butts, that's a win for me!

bottle


Polished for Days "Lochness Monster" is a black jelly packed with scattered holo glitters. This is 3 coats plus topcoat. Not anything super original, but sure is pretty!!

Lochness Monster

Flat brush, check!

brush

 
Lacquerlicious "Sweet September" is a gunmetal gray crème with holo glitters. The formula was AMAZING!! I want to try more of this brand if they're all like that! This is 2 coats plus topcoat.

Sweet September
 
Flat brush? Check! Indie brands know where it's at!
 
brush
 
Do yall have any experience with any of these brands? Lacquerlicious was the frontrunner for me, even though this particular color isn't one I will probably wear year round.

Update: my friend Amy of PolishEtc.com reminded me that Lacquerlicious was rebranded last year as Polish 'M! I think this bottle I have was one of the last ones from her old line. I'm so glad I have this relic :) You can find the queen of indie knowledge on IG as @mcpolish!
 

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Loaded Lacquer Swatches and Review (recent haul)

Hey guys! Today I have a little mini-haul from one of my fav indie brands, Loaded Lacquer. One was a gift I haven't posted about here yet and the other 2 were recent purchases!


Toasted Marshmallow is a gray jelly polish. I apply jelly polishes with one thin coat and one thicker coat, that usually works for more opaque jellies like Heather's! Thinner jellies require way more coats. They also dry down a little dull so you definitely need topcoat! This is 2 coats plus HK girl topcoat.


Toasted Marshmallow


Achieve-mint is a mint green jelly I've been wanting for a while, I finally had good enough reason to order it! After 2 coats it was still a little streaky so I added a partial 3rd coat in some places, if that makes sense! Topcoat also helps to smooth everything out. I think there's a trick to applying this type of polish, I haven't quite mastered it yet but I'm getting there!




Achieve-mint




Lastly is the "January Jelly of the Month" which is what it sounds like, Heather is creating a different shade each month in this series. I don't usually get too into "mystery" polishes but this one was calling my name as soon as I saw it. I mean, you guys know me, right? I couldn't NOT get this. So I ordered this and Achieve-mint! January is a bright robin's egg blue, this is 2 coats plus topcoat. Perfection. I wore this for a good long time before I took it off :)

January Jelly of the Month

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

New Sinful Colors textures: Sugar Crushin'

Hey guys! I'm so beyond excited for this post y'all don't even know! I have had these polishes swatches for over a week and it's been hard to wait to publish them but I had others I wanted to publish first! So far I'm really doing well on my goal of blogging twice a week (it's the most I can fit in right now) but I almost snuck this one in!!




New Sinful Colors textures: Sugar Crushin' by Aggies Do It Better

A couple years ago Sinful Colors put out a line of textures, right in the middle of the texture craze (which I'm not over, btw). I never picked them up and I've been kicking myself ever since!! Like seriously my biggest regret that I didn't get!! Especially since everyone who had them said they were great. Then a little over a week ago I found myself at Walgreens for something unrelated and I saw these! They weren't on sale so I paid $1.99 for each, but you better believe I grabbed them FAST! These are also colors I don't have textures of, not that I wouldn't have gotten them anyway ;) I only saw 4 colors, so if anyone knows of more colors be sure to let me know!! 

Prepare for gushing :)



Sweet Tooth is a barely-coral pink texture with gold shimmer. I messed with the picture forever and could not get it color accurate-so you'll just have to trust me. It's not as dark as it looks in this picture. It's friggen gorgeous!!! The formula is perfect! This is 2 coats. 


Sweet Tooth


Sweeten the Teal is an emerald green with STRONG gold shimmer. Man, this one knocked my socks off! And I'm not even a green girl!! This is 2 coats. 


Sweeten the Teal

Surreally Sweet is a darker fuchsia toned texture with purple sparkle. If I had to pick a least favorite it would be this one, but I still love it. 2 coats. If you are wondering how close it is to Zoya Arabella-it's much lighter. And it's also lighter and more berry toned than OPI Samba-dy Loves You. 


Surreally Sweet


Sugar High is a cobalt blue texture. Oh, happy day! How I have longed for a texture this color. I will say, the formula on this one was a little thinner, this 2 coats but I think on nails any longer than super shorties you would need 3. 


Sugar High


I'm freaking obsessed with these at the moment!! I wish there was more than 4 colors. I bought these at Walgreens, but I imagine they will be popping up at Walmart and Target as well. The green is a must have!!! Does anyone else have these yet??



Thursday, March 17, 2016

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri: Brand review and swatch

Hello and Happy St.Patrick's Day! I thought I'd do another little brand review, a mini one this time. I think at this time I only have one of these Sally Hansen Insta-Dri's. This polish was a gift and I've been meaning to use it for a while! The name of this polish is "I-rush Luck" so I thought it would be perfect to review today!


I-rush Luck

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Untried Green OPI spam for St. Patrick's Day!

Hey guys! More swatches today :) A lot of people post about their favorite greens around St. Patrick's Day but I feel like since haven't even worn all my greens I shouldn't do that yet! A while ago I was on a major buying spree of older OPI's when I found them on sale or at a grocery store. Some Publix's around here have some really old hard to find polishes! Fast forward to now, my OPI collection is a little out of control and I'm not even buying that much anymore! But it's my favorite brand, what can I say. I will always be buying OPI ;)

I thought I'd go through the greens and pull out any that don't have my little stickers on the caps. I'm pretty sure I've worn at least one of these, but it was before I started cataloging them here so they aren't marked. Enjoy!


Thursday, March 10, 2016

Zoya Petals Collection for Spring 2016 swatches and review

Hey guys! Today I have the Zoya spring collection for 2016 called Petals. It includes 3 strong shimmers, 2 soft shimmers, and a topper. I just realized I don't have the topper in my collage, oops!
 I have a lot to say about these, so lets just get to it!


Petals 2016

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Floss Gloss Brand Review and swatches

Hey guys! Today I have yet another brand review as I continue to work through my stash and untried! These 2 Floss Gloss polishes were a gift from a friend :) This is my first experience with Floss Gloss so I wanted to do a full post on them.  Look how completely awesome the packaging is! Those shiny gold caps! Heart eyes. I've been wanting some for years :)





Saturday, March 5, 2016

First Monthly Fave Five on 5! February 2016 edition

Hey guys! This post starts a new series I've been wanting to do for a long loooooong time. Monthly favorites! I'm not promising to do this every month but hopefully I will be able to! This will just be a round up of five things I've been loving for the past month and using every day or almost every day. It could easily be way more than 5 but I felt like these posts don't need 100 thing bc no one wants to spend that long reading a blog! Most of the time it will be newish products as well-I'm trying lots of new things lately! I apologize for my pictures not being that sexy just yet but I'm going to work on it!

I need to calm down with the exclamation marks, geez.

February 2016 Fave Five

Thursday, March 3, 2016

What I wore January & February 2016 (swatches and nail art spam!)

Hey guys! Here's the latest installment of my mani-round up blogs. I started this at the end of the year last year as a way to move away from blogging every.single.mani I wear ( who has time for that?) especially when for the time being I am focusing on swatching and cataloging my collection. Sometimes I will be combing months like this one if I don't get around to wearing a lot of manicures for myself! This is mostly just for my own records, haha. I'm also trying to keep them concise because a) I can get wordy and b) these aren't really review posts!

For past posts click the "what I wore" tag at the end of this post!

Only mani I wore in January! Thanks pneumonia! OPI Taupeless Beach. Perfection as always.


Taupe-less Beach

Zoya Lake with OPI 50 years of Style (gold), Honey Rider (gold texture) and matte topcoat. Watermarble  with Pipe Dream Polish Clearwater.




Loaded Lacquer Clark, Glitter's Full! (and untried! What!)  and OPI Tiffany Case (blue texture)





This was my Valentine's mani: Orly Hawaiian Punch (untried-pink crème) and Miss Conduct (unblogged)  and Zoya Arabella.
 



China Glaze Let's Chalk about It (light pink) , Chrome is Where the Heart Is, OPI Make Him Mine (texture) , Zoya Aurora (purple holo)


OPI Pussy Galore (pink texture), That's Hula-rious (green) and some embellishments.



Last but not least is the mani I wore last weekend! This is OPI Give me Space, one of my recent finds at a Sally  clearance sale! I paid like $1.80 for this! This was the main polish I wanted from OPI's holiday collection last year, but since I have Zoya Dream I never did. I heard the formula was much better on the Zoya...and it is. That said, DANG YALL this is pretty! This is 2 coats plus one coat of Gelous and one coat of Seche Vite. I did these nails on Thursday and we were going on a little weekend family trip and I needed them to last. I've also not tried Gelous on a crème for this purpose yet!




I took this Tuesday right before I took it off. 5 and 1/2 days, not too shabby!! My right hand looked a little worse, because it's my dominant hand.


There you have it! See ya next time!

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Morgan Taylor Cinderella 2015 Collection Swatches (and Brand Review!)

Hey guys! Today I have another new-to-me brand that I've been sitting on for a while! Morgan Taylor came out with a collaboration collection for the live-action Cinderella movie that came out last year. I'm obsessed with all things Cinderella so I knew  had to have them! I drug and drug my feet, not knowing much about the brand (I think you can only purchase them online but I'm not sure) and then I wound up winning them in a little contest (a twitter chat called #nailglossip that happens every other Sunday-ish....check it out!) Can you believe that?! I was beside myself.

This collection consists of 6 polishes and has a little bit of everything. I checked the website and I'm not sure its available anymore, sorry about that! I'm sure you can find them second hand or around the internet somewhere. I've had them for a while but never wore them. One of my goals this year is to buckle down and get caught up swatching, cataloging, and documenting my polishes. I'm also still destashing like crazy! This is the second in my unofficial new "Brand Review" Series where I'm finally getting through some of the polishes I have from brands I've never used before!


Morgan Taylor Cinderella Collection