12 Days of Christmas: Snow Day

This month this blog is going to be holiday all the things!!!! In addition to my normal 52 week challenge, I'm going to do my best to try and keep up with this 12 Days of Christmas challenge from the Challenge Your Nail Art Facebook group!

I just love this Facebook group and had SO much fun doing this challenge last year. Here is the calendar of prompts, and feel free to jump in if you'd like to! Just join us on Facebook!



Today's (well yesterday, but it still counts, we're a pretty chill group of ladies, rules aren't too rigid!) prompt was Snow Day so I broke out some snow flake stamps and went to work on a rather classic snow flake look.



For the base I used Literary Lacquers Blue Stocking Romance.



For the stamping I used a-England Encore Margot as the stamping polish and broke out the new Bundle Monster holiday set for the snowflake images.



The specific plate I used was the BM-S218 plate.



Expect to see a lot more looks featuring those stamping plates! I'm so excited for my month of holiday nails! Love this time of year for nail art!

Don't forget to check out all the other awesome snow day manis in this prompt below!!!


   

    An InLinkz Link-up
   

Battle of the Vampy Holos

You guys ready for a post that will knock your socks off?!? I don't know about you but it is still hot here in California, still very much summer, but I'm longing for the colder weather and the changing leaves of the fall – my most favorite season. And what goes hand in hand with fall – the gorgeous dark and sultry vampy tones. From eggplant to garnet and wine to mulberry – I've got a sampling of 20 different polishes from my collection. So let's get to it shall we?!?!



For my sanity's sake, I'm not going to link to each individual polish here (to be honest maybe one or two of these aren't available to purchase any more) but I'll post to the brand's sites so you can peruse at your own leisure if you'd like. Also I'll just be discussing color and consistency of these polishes, but there were no difficult formulas and I think all were 1-2 coaters!



Welcome to the wine inspired shades, otherwise known as the vampy colors I am MOST drawn to when browsing vampy nail polish.



Ok, this is in order from thumb to pinky and matches the photos below here. First we have Lilypad Lacquer Life on the Dark Side, then we have ILNP Black Orchid, Darling Diva BEWBS!!!, Smitten Polish I Never Drink Wine and Elevation Polish Paris.





As you can see above, in direct light these all look very similar. Life on the Dark Side has golden flakies in it which sets it apart from the rest and gives it a slightly more raspberry hue. Black Orchid, BEWBS and I Never Drink Wine are all very similar, though I Never Drink Wine is slightly lighter in hue. Paris is the darkest and raisin in color.



Welcome to my collection of garnet/hickory type shades.



Now I grouped my vamps together as best I could while looking at these in the bottle, so forgive me if some of the groups aren't as cohesive as the others. From thumb to pink we have Elevation Polish Bog Laurel 2, Colors by Llarowe Obsessed with Marilyn, Bear Pawlish Bathory, a-England Briarwood and Bear Pawlish Close But No Cigar.





Clearly Bog Laurel 2 is the most pink of this whole post, I would even argue it isn't quite vampy enough. Obsessed with Marilyn is more dark raspberry leaning. Bathory is almost an oxblood red. Briarwood has a more scattered holo finish and is a blackened oxblood that leans pretty brown. Close but no Cigar is a warm brown holo – unlike anything else in this post clearly.



Now let me show you my more eggplant/purple leaning vampy polishes.



These shades are more dark purple leaning, sometimes even dusty purple. From thumb to pinky is ILNP Homecoming, Cadillacquer Redwood, Literary Lacquers Rebecca, Always Rebecca, a-England Sleeping Palace and INLP Poetry.





Homecoming is a gorgeous dark royal purple with faint golden flakies which give it a lovely golden glow. Redwood, Rebecca and Sleeping Palace are all similar in color – a dusty eggplant purple – but differ in holo finish. Redwood has a linear holo finish with several matching flakies giving it depth. Rebecca is a linear holo with scattered holo micro glitter. Sleeping Palace is more scattered and opaque when compared with the others. Poetry is the odd duck out in this group, but it is a lovely brighter shade of magenta-leaning purple with matching flakies.



And we'll wrap up this post with the mulberry leaning shades.



This is Painted Polish Vampy Valentine (Holo), Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer Cuts in my Heart, Elevation Polish When the cherry meets the spoon, Elevation Polish Bromeliad and Bear Pawlish Mulbeary Lane.





Vampy Valentine Holo is a linear holo with scattered holo microglitter. It is very jam-like in color. Cuts in my Heart smidge darker than Vampy Valentine and just a tad more plum in color. When the cherry meets the spoon is more sangria colored to me and has these awesome cool colored multichrome flakies throughout and is more jelly in consistency. Bromeliad is the most purple of this set and I would say it is a gorgeous creamy magenta leaning violet with a golden flash. Mulbeary Lane is the most red leaning of this group, but is close to mulberry in color due to its bright violet holo flash.

Whew, you guys, that was a ton of effort and I am spent! Just finished my glass of wine and I am ready to head to bed. This heat wave has totally zapped me of energy so I'm acutally pretty proud of myself for slugging through this.

So please, reward me for my hard work and share with me your favorites from this epic showdown in the comments section. My favorite vamp family is the wine colored family which I covered first and I just love all five of those polishes I show cased there (I can't choose between the ILNP, Darling Diva and Smitten Polish). Some others that stand out to me are INLP Homecoming, Literary Lacquers Rebecca, Always Rebecca and Elevation Polish When the cherry met the spoon.

Another Quick Nail Art Post

I'm going back into my vault for this fun look, but resurrecting it because the design vaguely reminds me of Easter eggs and I thought, why the heck not, with Easter being Sunday and all!



This fun skittle look was designed specifically around KBShimmer Make My Gray, which is this super fun gray-ish crelly with coral, holographic aqua and gray glitter pieces!



I wanted to pick other polishes for this design that would match all the awesome that is going on with Make My Gray, so I added another KBShimmer, You're So Shellfish and then paired that with Smitten Polish Himalayan Blue Poppy.

For the base of the chevron design I used a-england Encore Margot, a soft scattered holo polish. And to tie in the whole design together, I used three dots at the base of my thumb and pinkie design.



There is something so beautiful about a good skittle nail and I really do just love this design. I'm not so much into glitters anymore (as they are the biggest PITA to remove), but they make a great accent and wonderful inspiration for a fun skittle such as this!

So what do yo think? Do you like skittle nails? I'm thinking of picking up a few more KBShimmer glitter polishes just so I can create some more fun skittles just like this!

L'oreal Masked Affair vs. Indies

When I set out to write this post, I think I was going for a whole, look at how much better indies are than this mainstream polish everyone is going ga-ga over. Somewhat of a negative place to start off with.

After actually editing the photos though, Masked Affair actually does stand out in my collection.



I mean just look at it in all it's glory. That is some really gorgeous holo! I think the thing that bothered me most about it was it dulled significantly with top coat. Now I've tried this with several kinds of top coat, so I know this isn't a top coat specific problem. Take a look:



It was the dulling of the holo and the patchy-balding application process which required three coats to be perfect.

So I went to my ever growing wall of indie polishes to see how Masked Affair, with top coat, did against some other indie holos I have that look pretty similar to the color family.



For the polish I chose for this comparison post I have a-england Her Rose Adagio (thumb), a-england Princess Tears (middle), Liquid Sky Lacquer Sugared Berries (ring) and LynBDesigns Make Your Life Spectacular (pinkie).

Here are the colors side by side without direct lighting.



I have to say, Masked Affair stacked up pretty well against these indie polishes. A disclaimer: I don't typically buy polishes in this color range because I'm not a huge pinky-purplish fan, so I am sure there are better examples of why indies that stand up better against Masked Affair, I just don't own them.

I guess the morale of the story here is don't be too down on the polish without comparing it side by side with the other polishes that are similar that you own. In the end, I was actually surprised at how much I liked Masked Affair. Also though, I like a lot of my indies better for how special and unique each one is. Just look at that pink flash in Make Your Life Spectacular, and check out the beautiful creme-y holo in Sugared Berries!

I think I'll keep all of these polishes, but I don't think Masked Affair is a must-have. I know there are so many ladies out there clamoring for it, but stop, take a look at what you have. You might find a special gem in your collection that is similar, but special in a different way!

Purple and gold single chevrons

I own quite the collection of a-England polishes and awhile ago I thought they weren't getting the right amount of love! So I pulled out Lady of the Lake and decided to do a nail art look with it.



I am truly in love with nail vinyls, they really make doing fun things like chevrons super easy. And it's a quick easy way to get a nice finished nail art look.



a-England Lady of the Lake is a beautiful scattered purple holo. I thought it was very regal and royal looking so I paired it with Zoya Ziv, a beautiful gold foil nail color. Because the gold foil make Ziv look a little textured, I don't think this manicure looked as good as it could. I think it might have been paired better with a smooth metallic gold to match the soft look of Lady of the Lake.



To give the look a little more depth I alternated the directions of the single chevron and made accents of the opposite colors.



You can purchase nail vinyls at a number of indie nail polish companies, I recently got a variety pack from NailVinyls.com, which is where these single chevrons came from.

So far I've only done single chevrons, lightening bolts, lines and regular chevron designs, but there are a lot of super cute nail vinyls out there. What are your favorite nail vinyls?

Nail stamping with a-england Sleeping Palace and Essie Chinchilly

I know it's pretty silly to say but when I first went to photograph this manicure under proper lighting, it took my breath away. It is so beautiful!

I've been meaning to pair a creme and a holo finished polish for stamping for some time, and I had a-england's Sleeping Palace on my list of polishes to finally try. Boy am I happy I did!



The above photo was literally the first shot I took with my phone and all I could utter was wow. It was so amazing.



Finding a holo and a creme polish that go well together can be quite a task, I didn't know if I wanted to pull on the plum or brown undertones of Sleeping Palace. I settled on Essie's Chinchilly as a base, because of the violet undertones it has in it. The pairing was absolutely stunning!

The only criticism I have of this manicure is that I think it might be more perfect as a great fall manicure, but I rocked it hard during the spring and still received many compliments on it!



To stamp, I once again used MoYou London's Sailor 04 plate for the curvy design! I was really proud of how the stamping came out. One of my best stamping jobs to date!



Application: Essie's Chinchilly was a little on the watery side, but evened out after two thin coats. a-england's Sleeping Palace is a beautiful one-coater that is perfect for stamping. If you haven't stamped with a-england polishes yet, do so right away. Their formula is amazing and totally made perfectly for stunning stamping jobs like this! I can't wait to try out Sleeping Palace by itself, it looks like such a beautiful color, even on its own.

Where to purchase: Most a-england polishes retail for about $10 and you can order them on Llarowe or Color4Nails, I have purchased them from both sites. a-england is a polish maker from the UK, so Llarowe and Color4Nails are two US retailers of their polish.

Review a-england Briar Rose with a-england Encore Margot stamping

Have I told you all lately how much I love a-england polishes? Well, it's true, they are among my favorite polishes I have now. And I now own 13!!! And I love them all.

Recently I tried out Briar Rose, a beautiful deep pink with a soft holo finish. The thing I love most about a-englands are how subtly beautiful they are. They still have the happy holo glow I love, but it's more refined and less in your face than other holographic polishes are. I guess I feel more mature wearing an a-england, than I do wearing an in your face linear holo (but don't get me wrong, I love those too)!



I was out of town on a girls weekend, and wanted to bring a polish I would like but that I didn't need to add to to enjoy. This color was just the ticket. Perfect for our adventures out in San Luis Obispo, where it's subtle holo was shining in the beautifully sunny weather.



When my girl's weekend concluded, I came home wonderful nail mail from the a-england sale I took advantage of earlier this month (in honor of the a-england owners' cat Tristam). So to liven up my manicure I decided to stamp (using XX plate) a-england Encore Margot on top of Briar Rose.





The results were stunning. The finishes are similar, but the colors were different enough to tell the difference between the two polishes.



Application: As usual, the a-englands are all almost one coaters, making them perfect for stamping. The forumlas on these were divine.

Where to buy: You can buy a-england polishes (in the US) from Llarowe and Color4Nails. They retail for $10.

Looking ahead: I wouldn't mind using these polishes for stamping in the future, but I think a pairing an a-england holo stamp over a similar creme shade would be gorgeous. Will be working on that in the future!

a-england Ascalon review, swatches and stamping

a-england, one of my favorite brands, has some amazing polishes with scattered holo finishes. This week I decided to try on a-england Ascalon, which has that amazing subtle holo and has a bit of a duochrome feature.



I hope you'll bear with me, I had to get a lot of shots of this amazing polish. I figure when I stare at my nails a lot, it means I need to show you all what I find special in the polish.



The polish is a dark grey with scattered holo and a beautiful pinky-purple color shift poking its head out at various times!



In the sun the holo finish likes to sparkle and say hello, above, and when in indirect light the pinky-purple comes out to enhance the polish!



I also wanted to stamp this manicure, but I was at a loss as to what color to put on top. This isn't my best stamping job, but wanted to add something to it anyway. I have to say I was a bit distracted when I did this because my packages which were stuck in USPS purgatory for weeks finally showed up unexpectedly!





To stamp this I used Zoya Keiko, after trying some lighter lilac colors didn't really show up well. I used Bundle Monster plate BM406. It's not the greatest combination, but it works.

Application: I find that all a-england polishes are almost one-coaters, and probably could be, if I wasn't such a perfectionist. I used two thin coats for this application and tested out HK Girl Fast Drying and Super Shiny Top Coat for the first time. More on that top coat in a later post when I get to use it more!

Where to purchase: Most a-england polishes retail for about $10 and you can order them on Llarowe or Color4Nails, I have purchased them from both sites. I think Llarowe has a lot of their amazing colors in stock right now. a-england is a polish maker from the UK, so Llarowe and Color4Nails is one of a few US retailers of their polish.

Coming up: My polishes which took the scenic route (i.e. they went from Northern to Southern California three times over) made a surprise appearance in my mail box yesterday! I was so excited to see them! Below is a preview of the pretties, I'm sure I'll be wearing these soon (and I may even be wearing one now, check out my Instagram for the preview!) I'm only missing one more package and I think that one is on its way to me now!