Smitten Polish Neon Flakies Collection Pt. 2

Hey guys, get ready for a super fun week. Not only is it a short work week for me, but I've got some awesome posts set up – starting with this one!

*Press Samples*

Say hello to the Smitten Polish Neon Flakies Pt. 2, plus some comparisons with Pt. 1 later in the post! These lovely new neon flakies will be available for pre-order Wednesday July 1 at 2 p.m. CT for 24 hours.

I'm going to cover the application first, because the formula for this whole collection is very similar. Application is great for this whole collection, most people could probably get away with two coats, but I applied three because my nails are longer and I didn't want even a hint of visible nail line. I love the jelly finish on these, makes the polish look extra shiny and squishy! The formula is easy to work with, the flakies are all evenly distributed and lay flat on the nail with zero drag upon application.







First up we have Smitten Polish Pool Noodle. This lovely is a beautiful neon pink jelly polish with golden iridescent flakies throughout. My photos make it a little less neon than this polish actually is, but it is truly bright, trust me!







Next we have Smitten Polish Jar of Sunshine. To me this is seriously a glass of Sunny D (remember that drink!?!) bottled into a nail polish. I love this neon traffic cone orange neon flakie. This one also has the golden iridescent flakies. This too, was brighter in person than my photos could capture.



I included a these comparison shots with the similar Opalescent Elements warmer shades. Please keep in mind that these neon polishes seriously freaked out my camera so the colors here aren't exactly accurate, but I thought it would be helpful to see them side by side. From right to left : Aer Opal, Pool Noodle, Ignis Opal and Jar of Sunshine. Aer Opal is clearly more purple than Pool Noodle, but their flakies are the same, just different bases. I would say that Pool Noodle is definitely brighter. Now the bases of Ignis Opal and Jar of Sunshine are very different. I would almost say that Ignis Opal is a more pastel type of neon finish that is a great orange leaning coral finish. Jar of Sunshine is clearly a bright neon orange finish. Ignis Opal flakies are green leaning, while Jar of Sunshine has the golden flakies.

 

Now onto the cooler shades of the collection. 







This is Smitten Polish Lazy River. When I first saw this polish my heart skipped a beat. This is just the most perfect color, clearly my favorite here! This is a lovely green-leaning teal jelly polish with green iridescent flakies. This isn't neon like the other two, but a lovely shade of teal and the flakies make it nice and bright.







And finally we have Smitten Polish Ice Pop Paradise. This is a close second favorite of this collection, it is the most stunning shade of blurble (a blue leaning purple). This jelly flakie polish looks purple and blue all at the same time and has green iridescent flakies. I love how chameleon this polish is – sometimes blue, sometimes purple with a lovely green flash.



And now I have the cooler shades of the Smitten Polish neon flakies. From left to right: Terra Opal, Lazy River, Aqua Opal and Ice Pop Paradise. Terra Opal is clearly a neon green with the golden flakies and Lazy River, while green leaning, is clearly teal with green flakies. Aqua Opal is a gorgeous almost cerulean blue with green flakies and Ice Pop Paradise is a blue leaning purple with green flakies, where the blue looks more navy than cerulean.



These are all really great and unique in my collection. Clearly my favorite is Lazy River is my favorite, but they are all so lovely.

So what do you think? Which do you like best? What do you plan on adding to your collection. I really like how they all look together, they would make an awesome set!

Once again these are available for pre-order at the Smitten Polish website on Wednesday July 1 at 2 p.m. CT and will be available to purchase for 24 hours – so no worry about having to hit the order button right at 2, which is always convenient!

Tribal Nails with OPNL Bermuda High

Hey guys, today I have the most gorgeous watermelon holo polish to share with you with a look that is just perfect for summer!



A brand I've recently been loving is Octopus Party Nail Lacquer! The fans of the polish are the most fun gals around – love the octosquad! Anyway Dave, the awesome creator, recently release a set of summer polishes and today I'm sharing with you one of those great polishes.



This is Bermuda High and it is a lovely watermelon shade of pink with the most gorgeous linear holo finish that flashes a lovely violet color making it really shine in the sun!



The formula on this polish is a lovely two coater, not too thick or thin, applies like buttah! I put this polish on after a pretty busy/rough day at work and it really did perk me right up.



For the stamped images I used Bundle Monster BM-605 to stamp these fun tribal images. I really like this plate! I used my favorite black, Rica Blackout to stamp the image.



Anyway, it's been a long sleepy/slow week at work and I am so ready for the weekend, what about you?! I've got some great stuff coming your way next week, I'm so pumped to show you what I've got coming up around the corner!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend! I'm going to try disc golf for the first time ever. That and I'm going to get caught up and prepared for some blogging. I'm going on vacation to Southern California to visit my family for an extended holiday weekend next week – so I've got a lot of swatching and prepping to do!

Fair Maiden Purple Nail Art

So I think I mentioned already that I went away for the weekend this past weekend, well I put on some Fair Maiden Polish and today I'm going to share with you the simple yet stunning look of Fair Maiden Polish Glory of the Galaxy over Fair Maiden Polish Reach for the Sky.



Reach for the Sky, which was a kind gift from the makers of Fair Maiden Polish, goes on opaque in two coats and dries to an almost rubber/satin type finish.



In the photo above, I did try to photo edit it, I might have made it a smidge warmer than it actually is, but purples always want to go more blue when photographed and I wanted to show how purple it actually is. I topped Reach for the Sky with Glory of the Galaxy.



Glory of the Galaxy is a gorgeous holo top coat with beautiful blue glass flecks which give it a unique blue flash in the shade and give the whole top coat extra dimension.



I stamped the design my pointer and ring finger using KBShimmer Leggo My Mango and my Born Pretty Store plate BP-L005. Now I took about a bazillion photos of this so I will leave the rest of those here! This look wore like iron, through a day in a chlorinated pool, an epic night of bowling and all sorts of old fashioned fun.





And because I can't just leave you with a post of one look, I've got another fun Fair Maiden Polish look I put together using Fierce, a Facebook fan group custom with the same KBShimmer polish. Just a fun and simple polka dot look!



Fierce is an amazing dusty purple holo with this amazing orange flash. It is the ultimate purple holo in my collection. I just absolutely LOVE it. Also perfect winning formula, two coats for opacity and applies smooth as buttah!



Anyway, I hope you like these looks and if you haven't checked out Fair Maiden Polish yet, I suggest you get right on that because the makers are the sweetest, the fans are awesome and the polishes are also top notch always with something extra special!

What have you tried from Fair Maiden?! What do you think of my new curved watermark? Just something I'm trying out – I'd love your feedback! :)

Neon and Nude Aztec Nails

Today I've got a neon pink holo and awesome nude flakie combo that I put together. I'm going to keep this post brief as I have just spent the weekend away, spent the last few hours swatching some new polishes and am a little spent on the verbal side!



For this look I paired the lovely Smitten Polish Date Night, the neon pink holo polish, with the beautiful Digital Nails The Dude Abides.



For the thumb, middle and pinkie nails I started with two thin coats of Date Night and for the index and ring finger I started with three thin coats of The Dude Abides. Then I used Aztec nail vinyls from VinylBoutique to create the aztec looks.



Both of these polishes are AMAZING. The neon pink holo finish in Date Night pairs so well with the flakies in The Dude Abides.



I loved this look so much when I originally wore it I never wanted to take it off! Coming up soon I've got some amazing new neon flakies from Smitten Polish and some more fun nail art as usual. Hope you all have stellar weeks!

HPB Presents: Beach Blog Link Up

So I had originally planned this as just a Stamping Saturday post but then realized it fits perfectly with a Facebook group link up, so thought I'd throw it together for that as well! So hi Hobby Polish Blogger friends!!!



I'm also throwing this up online before Saturday because I'll be in a cabin in the woods with mobile only internet access over the weekend, so I wanted to make sure to share with everyone while I was still in front of a computer.



I started this look out with two thin coats of OPI Thanks A Windmillion and then used a-England St. George to stamp the images on top. I just love a-Englands for stamping, they are too perfect.

For the middle three fingers I used my Mo You London Sailor 03 and 04 plates and for my thumb I and pinky I used Bundle Monster Sun Kissed Collection plates.



This image, from my Sailor 04 plate was the first image I picked and it is one of my favorites, it just screams beach to me!



So what do you think? I just love the combination of creme and holo and I often stamp over holo and I like switching it up because I forget I have some holo polishes that stamp very well too!

As usual during any link up, make sure you visit some of the other great bloggers in HPB Link Up, listed below!
   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Recent Elevation Polishes Review

A brand I just can't get enough of lately is Elevation Polish and since there is a restock around the corner (Monday June 22 at 9 a.m. CT), I thought it would be a good opportunity to give a little review/gush over some of the recent purchases I have made from the brand.



I originally discovered while reading some of my favorite blogger's 2014 best of lists (I'm looking at you Lavish Layerings and Pointless Cafe). Each of the Elevations I have purchased have that something special and their formulas are pretty great too!





I'm going to start with Grand Teton Sunset. Here is a note, I don't typically edit photos for color but I did for this polish because it is stunning but it tries to hide how stunning it is in a photo. Just look at how bright that purple is!!!

This applied beautifully in two thin coats and has it's own built in top coat. I think it is just stunning, however since it has it's own top coat, I hear that it might not play nice with another top coat (might cause streaking or the color to darken) I didn't experience that and I did top it with another Elevation Polish which I will show you next!





This is one coat of East London over Grand Teton Sunset. This topper is AMAZING, I can't say enough good things about it! It is a holo topper with gorgeous cooler colored multichrome flakies! Because I really wanted to show off the flakies a little better, I put East London over a lighter color to show just how gorgeous it really can be!







This is one coat over Julep Shelly and it truly shows off just how stunning the flakies and the holo combination is! This is a MUST HAVE in my opinion!

Application was a breeze, the flakies dispersed perfectly and were the ultimate balance between flakie and holo! Just enough to give it a sparkle and intrigue both indoors and outside!







Next up is for all you vampy lovers out there! This stunner is Paris. Paris is a lovely prune colored holographic polish. It is just dark enough that it is vampy without looking black. It almost could be a one coater, but I ended up using two. One note, this polish was a bit thicker than the other Elevation Polishes I have worked with, it was not too difficult to work with, but the formula did seem to be a bit different.

Love this one so much, it just screams fall to me so definitely expect to see this again!









This is When the cherry met the spoon, and it is a gorgeous raspberry jelly polish loaded with extras. I almost didn't get this polish and I am so glad I did because just look at it! It has a soft holographic finish to it and has flakies throughout as well. It is complex and looks great indoors and outdoors. It is vampy in it's own right, but more on the cheery side if you don't like polishes that get too dark!

This applied easily in two coats, formula was great to work with.







And finally I will end with a polish I just tried out yesterday, and threw in at the last minute. This gorgeous polish is Uluru, and is so just what was I was looking for. I wanted a bright fun color for summer that wasn't neon but leaned coral but not too pink. This was JUST the ticket.

It is a gorgeous orange red that leans just a tad pinker than my photos capture, the macro shot is probably the closest to capturing it accurately. Part of what makes it so special is the gold and violet flecks in it. It just sparkles in sun and looks gorgeously bright in the shade.

The formula on this one was pretty thick, and I thought I had a good opacity at two coats, but added a third and it was just too much. Application tip (on the site which I didn't see), allow for some drying time between coats. I should have heeded this information but it was like 12 a.m. when I was putting this on the other night.

Anyway, a restock is around the corner, but as of last night all of these were available in the shop except for Uluru. So what are you waiting for?!?! If you haven't tried out Elevation yet you definitely need to! The polishes I showed here retail from $8.50 to $11.50, and I don't think anything on the site retails for over $12.50!

Let's gab about Elevation in the comments, which are your favorites? What first tempted you to buy from them?!