Aly Loves Lacquer

I'm back, and with a crafty title to boot! Finals just ended and I am back home, with lots of pretty polishes to swatch for you all. Get ready :) First, I want to get this post up. I have had these pictures for a few weeks, but was so busy I couldn't post them. But, I do really like this manicure so I had to share!

Recently, I received some press info about the new nail kiosks that are now in CVS stores. The polish I used for my accent nail in this picture is featured in the kiosk, and is part of the Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure line. It's a gorgeous graphite foil called Shoot the Moon. I have heard rumors that Shoot the Moon is a great option for those of us who cannot afford Chanel Graphite (that's me!) and it does seem to be a perfect dupe.

On my other nails, I am wearing China Glaze Exotic Encounters at 2 coats.

Sally Hansen recently released some beautiful glitters under the name Gem Crush. Some were very similar to the Wet N Wild Ice Baby glitters, but some were unique and lovely. Now, I love glitter and I love drugstore polishes. Gem Crush was made for me! :)

Lady Luck is a really interesting glitter. It has tons of burgundy micro glitters and some slightly larger holographic glitters. The burgundy is really great for my skin tone, and the holographic pieces really kick it up a notch.

I was really impressed with the opacity of Lady Luck. It only took me 2 coats to reach a fully opaque look! In these pictures, I am wearing a thick coat of Seche Vite to smooth everything out.

Mm...I just love glitter! I think it is so fun and sparkly.

Did you pick up any of the Sally Hansen Gem Crush polishes?

- Aly

Recently, I realized that even though purple is my favorite color, I don't have much purple nail polish. So lately I have trying to rectify that! This polish is one I picked up recently, after having heard all about it on MUA.

Some people seem to hate on Valentine's Day, but not me! I love all things pink and sparkly, plus I think it is a nice excuse to go on a date. And chocolate is always good!

For this Valentine's Day, I chose to do a very girly skittle manicure. Take a look first, and I'll list the polishes used after the jump.

One of my absolute favorite looks is matte glitter. I just think it is so pretty and so unique. I was feeling a bit uninspired looking at my stash, so I decided to go with a nice matte glitter look.

It's been pretty cold here in St. Louis, so I thought I would do a manicure appropriate for cold weather. Jane, the lovely blogger from Nailside recently posted a tutorial for her cute cloud manicures. I had seen them finished but never knew just how easy it was to do one!

For this wintery manicure, I used Zoya Petra as a base. Petra is a gorgeous purple-infused taupey gray. Creamy formula and applied well in 2 coats. For the clouds I used two foils: Orly Sweet Peacock and Sally Hansen Celeb City. For such an easy mani, the look is very cool! Take a look.

Hey everyone! Now I'm officially 2/3 of the way through the 30 Day Challenge. Feels good :) This challenge is more difficult and time consuming than I had expected, but I am still glad to have taken it on.

I know a lot of bloggers were dreading the Water Marble challenge, but I LOVE doing water marbles. Sure, they aren't the quickest or easiest, but they are fun and I love how they look in the end. Some people worry that it is a waste of polish, but when you have as many as I do, you don't really mind that ;)

For today's marble, I used OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui, OPI Don't Know...Beets Me!, Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, and China Glaze First Mate. First, I put down a coat of underwear, though I can't remember what white I used. Then I marbled in my trusty marbling cup, and this is what I came up with!

Woohoo! I am half way done with the 30 Day Challenge! It seems like I started forever ago, but I am still glad I tried it out. It's definitely made me try some things I normally wouldn't.

For today's challenge, I started with a base of Orly Au Champagne, which was just recently released for the holidays. Can I just say that Au Champagne is beautiful?! It's a super shimmery white that dries to a satin finish. I just think it is gorgeous and very classy. I was sad to stamp over it. Still, the challenge must go on! So I stamped a delicate floral pattern from Born Pretty plate m61 with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Grey Area, which has a lot of brown in it to be called grey... I'd classify it more as a taupe. To top it off, I added one coat of Sally Girl So Disco, a pretty duochrome glitter in a clear base.

When I saw today's theme was rainbow, I thought right away that it would be a great time to try some freehand nail art. I decided to do a cute little rainbow coming from a cloud. For this freehand art, I used a dotting tool and several nail polish colors. It took quite some time to do, but the outcome was definitely worth it! I think these nails just look so happy and bright!

This will be a quick little post as I still have homework to do tonight :( However, I will have to briefly gush a bit about how lovely Sally Hansen Bronze Ablaze is! I borrowed it from my lovely blogger friend Zara from Never Unpolished, who happens to live in the same dorm as me here at SLU. 

It's Wednesday again, and today we have Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Pink Rose Diamond. The Nail Prisms line is long discontinued, but also loved my many of us in the blogosphere. I bought mine from an ebay seller, cassiecosmetics, and highly recommend them. The customer service was great. Pink Rose Diamond is a beautiful pink holographic polish, and the holo shows both indoors and out.

I had no application trouble at all, and with 2 coats Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Pink Rose Diamond looked beautiful. I do have Seche Vite on top in these pictures.

Sally Hansen makes some beautiful blues! Remember Pacific Blue that I swatched before? Here is another gorgeous blue crème, called Blue Me Away! It went on beautifully and was way more pigmented than I expected. It went on in two easy coats.

First I'm going to show you my final product, then we'll backtrack and look at Blue Me Away! on its own. So here is Sally Hansen Blue Me Away! with a coat of OPI Last Friday Night and OPI Silver Shatter on top of that, followed by Seche Vite of course.

Here's another beautiful blue for Autism Awareness Month. This is Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear in Pacific Blue. Whew, what a long name! This is a super pigmented blue. It is hard to describe the color itself; it's a very bright cornflower-type blue. It's a crème, and it applies super easily.  For being a drugstore polish, Pacific Blue is downright awesome. I had no application or drying problems, it's very pigmented, and I love the color!

The pictures are 2 coats of Sally Hansen Pacific Blue and 1 coat of Seche Vite.