Aly Loves Lacquer

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! Can you believe a whole year has flown by so quickly? I know I had a pretty good year, all things considered, and I hope yours was just as great!

To celebrate the New Year, I'm wearing a perfectly named polish: China Glaze Blue Year's Eve. China Glaze does a glass fleck like nobody's business, and this is a prime example. Blue Year's Eve is a blue glass fleck polish, very festive but it could easily be worn during the summer as well. In the bottle, it shows a slight purple duochrome. It was there on the nails too, at more extreme angles, but I just couldn't capture it on film!

After a great Green Bay Packer win yesterday, I decided to show you another of my favorite Packer colors: GOLD! I don't own much yellow or gold nail polish, so I was hesitant about Champagne Bubbles. The lovely people at China Glaze sent it for review though, and I am glad they did. It's a beautiful color I might not have tried on my own!

First off, Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! I hope everyone has been having an absolutely lovely holiday season.

In my last Julep Maven box, the same one that had Helena, I also received a gold glitter pot. The idea behind a glitter pot is that it's an easy way to add lots of bling to any mani. You just apply polish normally, wait till it's tacky (not super wet!), and dip your nail into the loose glitter. Since my glitter was gold, and I loooove the Green Bay Packers, I decided to do a Packer manicure.

My base color is Julep Emilie, a lovely green that is a dupe to OPI Jade is the New Black. I prefere Emilie overall though, because it's more opaque and my application went more smoothly.

Hi there, and a special hello to all my new followers! The lovely Traci linked to my blog and I am soooo happy to say that I've reached 400 followers with her help! Thanks so much, girls :)

Today for you I have some sparkly Christmas chevrons. The red is Color Club Santa's Cinnamon, which is your classic jelly red with red glitter -- but this one smells delicious! It smells like real cinnamon candies, you know those ones in the red wrappers? Seriously lovely, Color Club did an awesome job with the scent. On the tips, I used China Glaze Glittering Garland. It's a gorgeous deep emerald with green-gold glass flecks. I freehanded the chevron design, but you could use tape if that would be easier :)

Happy Monday everyone! I am happy to report that I only have one more thing to turn in before my finals are officially over! In celebration, I thought it seemed like a good day for glitter :)

Tinsel Town was recently released as part of the China Glaze Holiday 2011 Let It Snow collection. I know a lot of us went crazy about the re-released Snow Globe, but Tinsel Town deserves some attention too. Tinsel Town is a charcoal jelly base with two sizes of silver glitter. It went on sheer but evened out in 2 coats. Though it looks a bit thin in pictures, it was very much opaque at 2 coats in real life.

Today's post is a little something different. I wanted to show you all an eye look I did for the holiday season. I tried to make this look festive but not crazy or tacky. For this look, I used shadows from the Tarte Holiday 2009 Treasure Chest Palette, which sadly don't have names.

In the corner of my eye I have a silver sparkly shadow, and from that a gold one. On the majority of the lid I have a light burgundy color, with a bit of maroon in the crease and on the outer corner. I lined my eyes with dampened sage green shadow. Finally, I added Urban Decay Heavy Metal in Mullet, which is a glitter liner. My mascara is Maybelline One by One.

The other night there was an ugly Christmas sweater party at SLU. Along with my very tacky sweater, I decided to do a Christmas-themed manicure. I used Holly-Day for the green, Poinsettia for the red, and Twinkle Lights for the glitter. The design was freehanded with a nail art brush, and I used a dotting tool to add Twinkle Lights.

Hi everyone! This morning I received a very exciting piece of information from Julep Nail Parlor. They are starting a new form of referral program, called Share On! The best part?

Currently Julep is hosting a giveaway of ALL 60 of their nail lacquers!

I am a HUGE fan of The Hunger Games trilogy, so when I heard that China Glaze had a Hunger Games-themed collection in the works, I got very excited! Today I received the official promo picture with the names of the upcoming polishes. They look so beautiful, and I think I want every single one :)

Click to enlarge!

A while ago a purchased a TON of different nail transfer foils from Dollar Nail Art. Their selection is gigantic, and you get a full 5 feet of nail foil for just $1.00, but you have to spend at least $25 to place an order. Well...on their site, that isn't hard to do! Needless to say, I bought lots of gorgeous nail foils to show off :) It took me a couple practice runs until I had some that looked "blogworthy." Finally, I think these are worth a look!

This transfer foil is called Aegean Tides. It's a super shiny and holographic blue foil with wave-like patterns. I applied over a blue polish, because that makes any gaps where the foil does not transfer look a lot nicer.

Hey, everyone! Today I have a polish I am really excited about. I bought it from Dollish Polish on Etsy. She makes all sorts of beautiful movie and book inspired franken polishes. I purchased a couple from her, and today I wanted to show you the first.

This is called Expecto Patronum, and it's named after the Patronus spell in Harry Potter. I think she did a great job of capturing the colors of a Patronus. Expecto Patronum is a milky white with lots of turquoise shimmer and glitters. It also has some sparse flakies that add to the magical look. It was easy to apply in 2 thin coats, though I do recommend giving it a good shake before applying. Click these pictures for an even closer look at its beauty :)


For reference, in case you haven't seen Harry Potter (in which case, go watch it!), here is a gif of Hermione and her patronus.


I think the Expecto Patronum polish really captured the beauty and magic quite well! I purchased it in a mini bottle from Dollish Polish's Etsy shop for only $4.00. I am very impressed with it. What do you think?

- Aly


P.S. Today is the last day before the start of final exams here at SLU. I am not happy about that AT ALL, and I might be slow to post during the exam time. Lots of studying is going on in my dorm room, and not much nail painting. Wish me lots of luck!

Today we have a full review of the Jolly & Joy Holiday 2011 Collection released by Dr.'s REMEDY. This collection consists of 5 lacquers, each one very appropriate for the season. This was my first experience with Dr.'s REMEDY and I have to say I am wholly impressed!! First, let's take a look at the swatches. Then I can rave about the formula :) All swatches are without base or top coat.

Happy Wednesday everyone! Now that I think of it, I haven't done Pink Wednesday in quite some time. I will have to get back on track once I finish with the 30 Day Challenge. Today was called "Inspired by a Color," which I found a little confusing. So, I decided to just go with a color that is absolutely gorgeous! That's inspirational enough in my book :)

Here I have 2 coats of Julep Helena, with 1 coat Julep Fast Dry Top Coat.

I am such a huge fan of the Maven program. I think everyone should give it a try! You know I am telling the truth because I don't even have a referral link yet :P Honestly, it's such a great deal for such beautiful, high quality products. Let me know if you try it out!

- Aly

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!

Today's challenge is the galaxy manicure. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to make a nice looking manicure, because this look comes off as incredibly challenging. Still, in the spirit of the 30 Day Challenge, I was encouraged to give it a try. To those who are going to try this out: be warned! It is beautiful but it is rather time consuming. In the end though, this gorgeous look is 100% worth it.

For this manicure, I used 10 different polishes: NARS Zulu, Essie Going Incognito, Zoya Mitzi, Orly Spark, OPI Planks a Lot, China Glaze First Mate, Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, Sally Hansen DVD, Orly Space Cadet, and China Glaze White on White. The description of how I did this is a bit complicated. Basically, there was a lot of sponging involved! For the spiral on my ring finger, I used the very tip of the sponge so I could aim a bit better. If you want a tutorial, let me know and I'll get to work on one. In the meantime, take a look :)

Today's challenge is Half Moons. I've always thought this was an elegant look, but I hadn't tried it out for myself until today. To be completely honest, this was harder than I expected! I tried using paper reinforcement stickers as little guides, but it just wasn't working. Since I am right-handed, I always do my left hand first as practice. Trust me, you do NOT even want to know how ugly my left hand turned out. :P Luckily for you, I always photograph my right hand. I guess that is a little backwards, since that means I am always showing you the painting and freehand skills of my non-dominant hand... Oh, well. I'm in the habit now and it seems silly to switch. By the time I got to my right hand, I decided to just freehand the half moons. They could be better, but I still like the look just how it turned out.

Anyway! I was really in a purple mood when I did this mani, so I chose OPI Pamplona Purple as the base. Pamplona Purple is a very red purple crème released in the Spain Collection, and it is one of my favorite go-to colors. For the second color, I chose Orly Rococo A-Go-Go, which was just released in the Mineral FX Collection.

It's Glitter day! Luckily, the polish companies have been inundating the market with tons of glitter this holiday season. I am a big glitter lover, so that's a welcome development as far as I am concerned :)

China Glaze Snow Globe was a re-release that was recently promoted with their newest holiday collection, Let It Snow. Snow Globe is a clear base filled with two sizes of dense iridescent hex glitters. It is absolutely beautiful in the bottle, and I couldn't wait to get it on my nails. In these pictures, I am wearing it over L.A. Girl Disco in Hustle, a bright purple crème that glows under blacklight.

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!