Nail Art with Shimmer Polish in Jennifer & Color Club Cherubic

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I recently tried my hand at a little bit of nail art. Those of you who do this well make it look easy. I found it to be nothing of the sort!

Glitter toppers lend themselves perfectly to extending a manicure from either regrowth at the cuticle or to use as tip wear camouflage as I did long ago HERE with Wendy that consists of purple, copper & multicolored various sized glitter.

Let me just show you a quick picture of one of my favorite Shimmer Polish colors - Jacki - which contains fine glitter in violet, navy & maroon. Again, an early picture but quite lovely. I prefer fine glitter as it is easier for me to work with.

indoors under OttLite

 

On to the nail art. I used 2 coats of Color Club Cherubic holographic polish as a base. Then I thought I would play around with various shapes and a bit of fine nail striping tape. I hope you enjoy my first attempts at playing with polish using Shimmer Polish in Jennifer which contains soft blue, periwinkle, gold and other various colors of glitter. Just look at those amazing close up bottle shots ☼

Color Club Cherubic (indoors under OttLite)

outdoors

outdoors

 

 outdoors

 

 

outdoors

 

outdoors

 

bottle close up outdoors

 

 bottle close up outdoors

 



indoors under OttLite

To look at Jennifer directly:
Jennifer

Buy Shimmer Polish on her lovely Etsy site here:
Shimmer Polish

For her stunning line up of different blogger's pictures of all colors & endless possibilities, visit:
shimmy shimmer

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Literary Lacquers 84, Charing Cross Road and Sidewalk's End

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More beautiful colors from Literary Lacquers ☼

 

As before, these holographic polishes are from the Community Collection. The series of 10 are blogger collaboration polishes. You can look at the varied collection & the collaborative minds behind each color here: Literary Lacquers

 

Application for both are as follows:
1 coat Nailtiques Formula 2
1 coat Essie Fill The Gap
3 coats Literary Lacquers polish

 

Let's begin with 84, Charing Cross Road. It is described as, "a sepia taupe subtle holographic nail polish loaded with silver glass fleck." As with all hand poured Indie Brands, slight batch variations occur and mine turned out quite mossy green. It has beautiful flashes of purple and gold. This is a perfect Autumn color.

 

 

outdoors direct sunlight



 outdoors direct sunlight

 outdoors direct sunlight

 outdoors direct sunlight

indoors under OttLite

 

 

Please to enjoy, Sidewalk's End, described as, " a semi-sheer grey holographic polish with multicolored glass fleck." This beauty has surprising blue/purple glass flecks throughout. It is beautiful indoors as well as outdoors.

 



 outdoors direct sunlight

outdoors direct sunlight

 

outdoors direct sunlight

 

outdoors direct sunlight

 

outdoors indirect sunlight

(notice the blue/purple glass flecks)

 

 

The shop (located on Etsy) is long overdue for a price increase so if you love these colors, or all the others for that matter, I suggest you hop to it NOW! Go take a look. Her newest collection has some stunners ☼

Literary Lacquers

 

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Literary Lacquers Love You Forever

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My nails have finally grown out after months of splitting, breaking and flat out ornery behavior! I am pleased to show you a long over due manicure featuring a beautiful summer blue.

outdoors direct sunlight

Literary Lacquers in Love You Forever is a medium blue crelly holographic polish from the Community Collection. The series of 10 are blogger collaboration polishes. You can look at the varied collection here: Literary Lacquers

For the inspiration behind this polish, please read the direct link to the polish where you can purchase it on Etsy for a very reasonable $10 for a 15ml bottle: Love You Forever

outdoors direct sunlight

Application:
1 coat Nailtiques Formula 2
1 coat Essie Fill The Gap
3 coats Literary Lacquers Love You Forever

I adore Indie Brands and this polish did not disappoint. It flowed easily for coverage on my small nail beds and wore very well for 5 days until normal tip wear and slight dulling occurred. I could have extended the wear by using a top coat after a couple of days. I will be showing you a few others from this collection ☼

outdoors direct sunlight

 

 

And I can't help myself...I must share with you the most adorable packaging I have ever seen. Not only is it earth friendly, but who doesn't love Washi tape?

expertly packed ☼

 

Literary Lacquers 

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Sweet Heart Polish O'Connell! over Sinful Colors Why Not

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I ♥ turquoise so imagine my delight upon opening this package sent from the lovely Cassandra at SweetHeartPolish! It is described as a "holographic light blue shimmer polish" but it is so much more. Because it is sheer, you can manipulate your final effect.

I chose to layer it over a base of Sinful Colors Why Not which is readily available at most chain stores. I wanted to accentuate the turquoise that I saw in the bottle so this blue cream was a perfect base to coerce the turquoise out of this polish.

The final effect is a soft scattered holographic finish that looks a bit metallic and shimmers more than holofies. Yes, I am making up words! It would be fun to experiment with different base coats to see what other tones of the polish emerge. Next time, purple as a base.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog. Please join if you like what you see ☼

Sweet Heart Polish

 base coat Sinful Colors Why Not (indoors OttLite)

2 coats Sweet Heart Polish O'Connell! over SC Why Not (indoors OttLite)

 

 

2 coats Sweet Heart Polish O'Connell! over SC Why Not (indoors OttLite)

 

 

2 coats Sweet Heart Polish O'Connell! over SC Why Not (direct sunlight)

 

 

2 coats Sweet Heart Polish O'Connell! over SC Why Not (direct sunlight)

 

 

2 coats Sweet Heart Polish O'Connell! over SC Why Not (direct sunlight)

 

 

Sweet Heart Polish O'Connell! bottle shot (direct sunlight)

 

 

If you are a VNL kind of woman or you have shorter nails, you can apply 3-4 coats without a base. The swatch stick on the right best shows the results achieved without a base.

 

4 coats Sweet Heart Polish O'Connell! on clear swatch stick (no base color used)

 

 

 

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1st post redux Yellow Stopper pop off Lynnderella When the Moon Was a Star glitter bomb jelly sandwich

I heard the call of the fabulous Jen at xoxojen to recreate our first ever blog post. My oh my how things have changed. I am almost exclusively into holographic finishes so to revisit glittah bombs was a hoot!

This is a pic heavy post with a step by step pictorial of how to build my favorite glitter bomb polish that POPS OFF in 2 days tops. This is great if you do not want to use the acetone, cotton square & foil method. I cannot stress to you the importance of not tugging at your nails. They will pop off on their own but you can cajole them if there is no resistance. Be careful.

So here we go:

1. Start with 2 coats of American Classics Yellow Stopper Top Coat (sallybeauty). Incidentally, this is my go to lazy day manicure. No one sees in macro mode so this looks like a French manicure without the fuss. If you want to do the quickie French mani, these are the steps so they don't pop off: base coat of your choosing, 2 coats of Yellow Stopper, one coat of favorite top coat (HKG for me). Done!

Yellow Stopper (2 coats)

 

Yellow Stopper (2 coats)



2. Base of jelly sandwich is one coat of Cirque Colors Tibetan Nights

Cirque Colors Tibetan Nights (1st coat)

 

3. The POW is Lynnderella When the Moon Was a Star

 

Lynnderella When the Moon Was a Star

 

4. Now add another coat of Tibetan Nights

 

Cirque Colors Tibetan Nights (2nd coat)

 

5. Top it all off with the glitter friendly, depth & gloss producing best-ever top coat made by Glisten & Glow named Hong Kong Girl (or other iterations of the same product under slightly different names)

 

2 coats HKG top coat

 

Some pics of the finished product:

 

outdoors

 

outdoors

 

indoors under an OttLite

 

And now for the fun part - this sandwich will literally POP OFF in a day or two. Amazing! No clean up whatsoever.

 

 

 

And the old pic - no laughter allowed - well, if you must ☼ 

 







I hope you enjoyed the redux of the very first post I made. Check out Jen's blog for the most comprehensive list of Indie Nail Polishes. You will be gob smacked at the selection: xoxojen

 

I'd love to hear from you. And please join my blog. It's always a pleasure to meet new people and follow them in return. Happy polishing ☼

Colors by Llarowe (CbL) Beat It

Colors by Llarowe (CbL) Beat It

A super holo that looks blue, teal, grey, rainbow - shifts like crazy.
Leans dark grey rainbow holo indoors.

Just the pics ma'am ☼

Llarowe

outdoors

 

outdoors

outdoors

 indoors under OttLite

 



Zoya Jelly Nail Art

The lovely and uber talented UK nail blogger, Sam, is sharing one of my posts with her community. Yay ♥ Take a look at her witty blog, Polished Art and join her site for fantastic nails and tutorials. You know you want to ☼

My contribution to *cough*cough* my rough interpretation of nail art involves Zoya Jelly Professional Lacquer in 3 shades of supremely buildable colors that would do wonders in the hands of just that - a professional. Funny thing - I don't do nail art!

Initially my intent was to just wear these colors alone so I did a skittle manicure to test the colors. After 3 coats, it still didn't feel right because they are so sheer and my nails were getting dangerously thick so I decided to try some random nail art "blobs" instead. Not a pretty word but the manicure turned out to be quite lovely at a distance. I am showing macro shots so you can see the different colors but the effect was much prettier IRL. I received many compliments because no one looks at another person's nails in macro mode!

Here were the steps:

Zoya Paloma, a sheer deep fuchsia-berry as an overall base color followed by Zoya Katherine, a sheer, dark, red-toned aubergine/oxblood with Zoya Frida, a sheer, dark, warm-toned teal blue randomly blobbed about. The always puurrrfect Hong Kong Girl top coat made them shine like glass. The manicure lasted a good 4 days without any tip wear.

The colors are actually gorgeous and would be perfect for jelly sandwiches. This was a fun experiment but as most of my readers know, I like my thin nails and tend to get frustrated by the amount of build up required for a novice at nail art. Don't let that dissuade you. 

A big thank you to Sam. I will be watching and learning from you, my dear ☼