Aly Loves Lacquer

Hello, everyone! I hope the holidays were good to you and I wish everyone a very happy 2014.

Today, I have two beautiful glitter topcoats from SinfulColors. One of their holiday offerings, the Holiday Tinsel Collection, is made up of many different bar glitter topcoats. Bar glitter seems to be a polarizing type of polish, but I personally love the effect it gives.

The first one I have to show you guys is called Cold As Ice. SinfulColors Cold As Ice is a clear base with stark white bar glitters. To me, it really looks snowy! I can see Cold As Ice looking great in winter nail art. Here I am wearing 1 coat of Cold As Ice over SinfulColors Rain Storm, a dusty blue creme with a beautiful application.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! For me, Christmas is all about family and loved ones, gifting and receiving, and relaxing. Of course, my version of relaxing includes painting my nails, so I put this mani together to get myself in the Christmas mood!

This mani is entirely SinfulColors. I rummaged through my collection and picked SinfulColors Sugar Sugar as my base. It was in my untrieds, but it won't go unworn anymore. It is a vibrant red with gold shimmer and teeny tiny flakes of gold. SinfulColors Sugar Sugar is also a one-coater on me! On top of Sugar Sugar are two coats of SinfulColors Holiday Rebel, which just recently came out. Holiday Rebel is made up of green micro glitter, red hexes, and silver holo hexes. Oh, and it is beautiful. Take a look!

Hello!

I am back from France and starting up on the Mish Mash Challenge! Prepare for an upcoming post of my haul from all around Europe: France, Italy, Latvia... I went a little polish crazy.

For this week's metallic challenge, I was inspired by one of my favorite current trends: chevron. I've been seeing those preppy zigzags all over the place, and I love the look! To put a special spin on it, I hand-painted the chevron strips in little lines. Believe it or not, all it took was a toothpick and about 15 minutes. Easy peasy and so cute!

The base color is SinfulShine Picante, a really pretty coral-orange with subtle shimmer. It took 2 coats to reach proper opacity. Then I striped with a toothpick and Layla Mirror Metallic Metal Chrome. I love Layla Metal Chrome because it truly is mirror-like! It's so shiny and silvery and just fits the very definition of "metallic."

Hello!

Today I have a really pretty blue manicure for you. While shopping here in France, I found a Marionnaud cosmetics store. I felt like I was in foreign polish heaven. I picked up two GOSH polishes from the sale section: Gasoline and Blue Monday.

I decided to layer GOSH Blue Monday over SinfulShine Most Sinful. I used one coat of both polishes. GOSH Blue Monday has tons of pretty glass flecks, plus its base cooled down Most Sinful a little bit. I think this combination is very lovely and so so blue.

Hi, there!

I finally bought myself a DSLR, both for personal use and to take better pictures for this blog that I love so much. I purchased a Canon Rebel T3i, and I adore it so far! I'm hoping to bring you better quality pictures from now on :)

Take a look a this quick swatch of Sinful Colors Most Sinful, from their Sinful Shine line. Most Sinful is a color I'll never get enough of - vibrant cobalt blue. This is only one coat and no topcoat! It really is shiny! I am very impressed by the pigmentation as well. Love it!

Hi, gals and guys!

At first, I was at a loss when coming up with an idea for this week. But then, I was looking through my press samples that I have to swatch, and landed on the most gorgeous lime green crème. Inspired by Barielle Green Apple, I wanted to continue the theme. Over two coats of Green Apple, I added one coat of Sinful Colors Call Me Later for a nice sprinkling of green and gold glitters.

Last Tuesday, I celebrated my 20th birthday! Of course, I had to do a special birthday manicure :) Last year, I did freehand ice cream cones. This year, I decided to go with birthday cupcakes!

Here's a huge picture of them!

I worked hard on these and used lots and lots of different polishes. To see exactly what I used, keep reading!

Sinful Colors is one of my favorite drugstore brands. Their formula is quite good, and they often come out with unique colors. Zeus is one of those original beauties.

Sinful Colors recently released a collection called Cast Away. The whole collection has a Greek theme, and this polish is named after Zeus, the god of sky and thunder according to Greek mythology. I definitely think this polish fits the name, it's like a gorgeous evening sky. Sinful Colors Zeus is a dusty purple with a strong pink shimmer. And it is very, very pretty!

I know everyone and their mother has a St. Patrick's Day manicure to show today, but here's mine!

I'm wearing 2 coats of China Glaze Starboard, followed by 1 coat of Sinful Colors Green Ocean. The Sinful Colors is a mix of blue-green glitters and flakies, all in a pretty green tinted base. Lovely! On my ring finger, I freehanded a four leaf clover with Finger Paints Black Expressionism. Nothing too fancy, but I still really like the outcome :)

I've never done a tribal print manicure on myself before, so I was a bit worried about taking on today's challenge. With some patience, a dotting tool, and a steady hand, I was able to do a pretty good job of it though! I wanted to do a darker colored tribal print, so I went with gunmetal, black and red.

For the base, I used China Glaze Awaken, a deep gunmetal chrome polish. For the details, I used Sinful Colors Black on Black and Essie Size Matters. Black on Black is amazingly opaque -- it's amazing how sometimes drugstore polish is the best! Essie did a great job with Size Matters as well. It's very shiny and opaque, plus the name makes me giggle. I did a different design on each finger, just kind of making it up as I went along. Take a look!

At my local Walgreens, there is a huge Pure Ice Crackle display. Each polish is $3.99, which is great compared to some of the more expensive crackles. I picked up All Shook Up, and pretty purple crackle. I wore this over Sinful Colors Pink Forever, a nice pink crème. I had a bit of trouble applying All Shook Up,  but I think that the next I use it the results will be better. I just needed to get the hang of everything first, because every crackle seems to apply a bit differently.

Here is Pure Ice All Shook Up over Sinful Colors Pink Forever.


So, what do you think? Personally, I am really excited about this line of cheaper crackle polishes. Purple is my favorite color, so I was glad to finally see a nice purple crackle.

- Aly