My Favorite Polishes of 2016

Happy 2017 everyone! I haven't had too much time this holiday season to blog, but I wanted to fit in my favorite polishes of 2016 for you all. Some of these are no longer available, but I just had to share!



There's the collage/sneak preview. Read all about these pretties below!



Dreamland Lacquer – Burnt Jam in Vermont: I don't own a lot of thermals, but this one totally stole my heart. Vampy and gorgeous both warm and cold. And the flakies remind me of flames.



Painted Polish – Mystery Holo Duex: This gorgeous berry holo is so strong and completely stole my heart. It was love at first sight!



Dreamland Lacquer – Out, Damned Clot!: This is the most stunning red holo I own, Noelie really knocked it out of the park with this one.



Literary Lacquers – Stars Walk Backwards: This was a lovely darkened blue-green teal holo polish that reminded me so much of a beautiful night sky.



Literary Lacquers – Salmon Enchanted Evening: This creme is everything I am looking for in a fun bright creme that is perfect for spring and guaranteed to make you smile.



Literary Lacquers – Soul Within Me Burning: The warm toned purple feels like it was created for my skin tone, I am in love with this. Both beautiful and vampy without being too dark. A show stopper.



Dreamland Lacquer – Dragonberry: This polish made me fall in love with purple again. The holo flash in it was one of a kind. Despite the pigment problems, Noelie made it right with all the Hella Holo customers and I can't respect her or be in awe of her talents more.



Anchor Heart Lacquer – Vacationland: This was my first polish from this brand and it did not disappoint. Summers were made for bright neon corals like this and the subtle violet sparks and subtle scattered holo really set this one apart.



Literary Lacquers – Tonight's Adventure. This was the ultimate pink leaning linear holo polish that exudes nothing but happiness. It had a lovely tribute story behind it, you should totally check that out.



Ever After Polish – Month of June: I love a soft sea foam green polish and the cooler colored multichrome flakies and gold holo microglitter make this one a standout!



Emily de Molly – Shadow on the Moon: I've been drawn to more neutral polishes with a special something lately and this one fit the bill.  This is a lovely stormy grey linear holo polish packed with larger microglitters for a scattered holo effect and then packed with dark pink flakies to create an awesome red leaning pinkish glow.



Great Lakes Lacquer – Lake Michigan: Inspired by one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, this color is everything. This is a bright bold teal linear holographic polish with multichrome flakes that shift from deep blue to light green and a shimmer that mimics the flake shift.



Indigo Bananas – Creme Bluelè: This is a gorgeous lightened cobalt blue that reminds me of the summer sky on a super hot tropical day.



ILNP – Interstellar: This is the most beautiful polish ILNP put out this year hands down. It is a gorgeous teal polish that shifts to a dark navy almost indigo blue with scattered holo flakies. It is essentially a galaxy in a single polish!



Illyrian Polish – Blue Moon: I just tried out Illyrian Polish this year for the first time this year and boy am I sorry I waited this long. This polish had me at first stroke. It is a gorgeous purple leaning dark grey holographic polish with the most amazing golden sunset shimmer.



Ever After Polish – The Pumpkin King: This has a grey holographic base filled with red to copper to gold multichrome shifting flakies with aqua microglitter to boot. This is a complex but such a lovely fall polish. Ever After does flakies SO well! 



Fair Maiden Polish – Shadow of Your Heart: This is THE ultimate fall polish – vampy and metallic and totally a standout. I am SO in love with this polish, it is a must-have for sure!



Great Lakes Lacquer – Bleeding Teal: And I can't leave out the custom Mariah of Great Lakes Lacquer created for me. She captured the perfect San Jose Sharks teal and this polish is also sprinkled with beautiful golden to bronze multichrome flakies. 



Emily de Molly – All the Feelings: Iridescent glitter really had a moment at the end of 2016, but my favorite rendition of it was in this Emily de Molly polish which I could choose to layer over any color and really love this nude combination. 



Girly Bits Cosmetics Astoria: I love shimmer and holo combos and Girly Bits really knocked it out of the park with this beauty. This is a gorgeous muted purple polish with a stunning copper shift that is really beautiful in the sunlight!

I'm Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

Ok more holiday looks for you today! Pinks have been calling my name lately and I thought I'd integrate the not-so-Christmas colors into a few holiday nails.







This is a super simple but delicate look featuring silver snowflakes over Emily de Molly Heavy Aura. The accent nail is one of my absolute favorite bling-y holiday silvers – B Polished Silver Bells a Blinging.





Next up I really wanted to wear bright pink, I didn't necessarily want to do holiday nail art with it, but tis the Season I guess. I really liked how these turned out! The base is Smitten Polish Date Night (now Dreamland Lacquer and good news, this may be rereleased for Valentine's Day!).

Then I used various tree-related stamps to pull the whole look together.



Warning though, the pigment in Date Night is strong and it overpowered my aqua Color Club Blue Ming stamping because of the quick dry top coat, though the a-England St. George still stamped great as a topper!

Anyway I have one final look to share with you and I hope to get that up sometime tomorrow!

Hope you're all having wonderful breaks, I'm still at work but things are winding waaaaay down!

Snowflake Nails

Hey everyone! I've got another quick holiday look to share with you today!



Tis the season for me gravitating toward not the most traditional holiday colors. I really like how this turned out!!!



The base is Emily de Molly Crystal Crown – a gorgeous white holo with a golden glow.



For the snowflakes I broke out Color Club Blue-ming (the aqua), Essie Go Overboard (the teal) and B Polished Red-y for the Holodays (one of my favorite classic Christmas reds). I used Bundle Monster BM-S216 for all the snowflake images. I then took a dotting tool to add to the snowflakes and tie the colors together!



Anyway, things are winding down here at work, and I'm in twidling thumbs mode. I have one more holiday look I hope to get on the blog before Christmas and I should probably do my actual Christmas nails tonight. Or just pray the look I'm currently rocking lasts through the holiday!

Ugly Christmas Sweater Nails

Hey hey hey everyone! Today I've got the busiest, most obnoxious red and green nails to share with you! All in the holiday spirit!



There is SO much going on in this look, I kind couldn't actually wear it out (I usually do wear my looks out, this one was just too much). So let's start with the gorgeous bases. The red is Dreamland Lacquer Out, Damned Clot! and the green is Literary Lacquers Leaves of Grass. Perfect Christmas red and green holos if I do say so myself!



Now lets get to the stamping specifics. Double stamping for the win always, but seriously, too much red and green! Anyway the first layer is KBShimmer Eyes White Open, my go-to stamping white polish. The top layer was Painted Polish Woodland Whimsy. The stamping plate on this was Bundle Monster BM-S215.



Once again this nail started with a layer of KBShimmer Eyes White Open. Then I broke out my Octopus Party Nail Lacquer Universal Loner from the first Creme a la Mode box to stamp the red on top. The image was from an old Winstonia W120 from a bundle I got a long time ago.



So these are bright and obnoxious, but I'm sure Christmas is like that for a lot of people so this is an apt depiction, no?

Anyway, I've got a few more holiday looks I hope to get up before Christmas, so stay tuned!

Simple Christmas Dotticure featuring Polished for Days

Today I have a simple holiday look I've been sporting on my nails all week. The base polishes are to die for, I just knew I had to pair them together.



The two main polishes here are Polished for Days Twinkle and Polished for Days Grandma Got Run Over by a Unicorn (from the December For the Love of Polish Box).





Let's talk about these beautiful base polishes. This is Twinkle and it is a gorgeous teal leaning Christmas green holo polish with a red shimmer and red to gold shifting multichrome flakies. This polish has so much going on, shimmer, flakies and holo! It is so beautiful. Opaque in two easy coats.





This is Polished for Days Grandma Got Run over by a Unicorn and it is everything. This is a beautiful mulberry holo polish with a gorgeous teal/blue shimmer and copper to green to gold shifting flakies. This polish is so unique and so full of rainbows, I love this! Opaque in two easy coats.





To bring this look together I did simple polka dots using KBShimmer Eyes White Open and then on my accent nail I stamped a wreath (from the Bundle Monster holiday plates) using a England Saint George and Cupcake Polish Blood Hound (very opaque holos which I knew would stamp and match the beautiful base polishes).



I looooved the antique-y beauty of this look, it's not the typical red and green look, but it is understated and classy I think. And the contrasting shimmers in this polish were PERFECT. These polishes looked like they were made to go together like this!

The Pines at Midnight Nail Art

Hey everyone, how are you all doing?! I hope you're well. My life has been super busy as of late, between work, Sharks games and volunteering at a Christmas tree lot, I've had zero time for nail art, which makes me sad. This is the perfect time of year for festive nail art, and I've zero chances to create something special.

But today I'm sharing with you a look I created earlier in the fall when I visited Lake Tahoe, quite possibly my favorite place on earth. Since pine trees are slightly seasonal, I thought I would share these now.



I call this look The Pines at Midnight, because just look at the gorgeous sky scattered with stars.



Anyway to get this look, I started with a base of ILNP Interstellar, which is the perfect name for this polish since it basically is the night sky! It is a multichrome that shifts from teal to indigo with scattered holo pieces, which totally look like stars to me. I think this is opaque in three easy coats.



To create the trees and their shadows, I broke out my UberChic plate 2-02 and used Painted Polish Midnight Mischief and Essie No Place Like Chrome and a clear stamper to do layered stamping.



I really liked this final look, really reminds me of a cold winter sky. The high here in the Bay Area is 53 degrees today, and for California that is mighty cold. So this look seems appropriate for today.

Now concerning holiday nails – what do you think I should create – once I get an evening to myself?!

Tis the Season for Charity

Hey everyone! I know I put a dent in my wallet during the Thanksgiving weekend but today I wanted to share one polish with you that goes toward a great cause.



This is Polished For Days Dear Santa. I purchased quite a large order from Polished For Days and once I read about this one, I knew I had to purchase it.

This polish retails for $10, and $7 of that goes toward Jacob's Heart Adopt-a-Family program. Jacob's Heart provides services for families of children suffering from cancer. This specific adopt-a-family provides money for toys and items families need during the holiday season. 70% of the cost of the polish going toward a great cause, it gave me all the warm fuzzies.

"We hope to be able to impact the lives of a few families impacted by this horrible disease," the store listing states. Well I'm all for that which is why I wanted to dedicate a blog post to this one individual polish.







This polish is a bling machine. Dear Santa is a silver holographic micro glitter polish with red-copper-bronze, green-purple-blue and blue-green-gold multichrome flakies. So in addition to the mega holo glow of this polish, you have every color of the rainbow flakies so it shines inside and out! My kinda polish FOR SURE. Two coats for this opacity, easy to work with formula.

This is perfect for that holiday party, or even good for the office if you want to have a little bling on the nails during this fun season.

Anyway, if the charity behind this polish pulls at your heart, I hope you'll consider purchasing Polished For Days Dear Santa. Not only is it for a good cause, it is also sure to turn heads once you've got it on your nails too!