Aly Loves Lacquer

My 19th birthday is Sunday, and I had family over for a little celebration a few days ago. Because my mom made delicious homemade ice cream cake, I decided to try a little ice cream nail art. This is my first ever attempt at doing freehanded nail art, and I think it turned out pretty well. One of my favorite flavors of ice cream is mint chocolate chip, so that is what I tried to paint.

I used SpaRitual Living in the Moment, a nice creamy taupe color for the base. Then, I added criss-crossed lines in Finger Paints Sketchy Character, a deep brown, to mimic the waffling on a cone. After that dried, I used China Glaze For Audrey to outline the ice cream shape, and China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint for the ice cream itself. After that, I added dots in Sketchy Character to look like chocolate chips. Then, I topped it all with a coat of Seche Vite.

It's Wednesday again, and time for another beautiful pink. This week I have Butter London Twee, a bright pink jelly with lots of silvery shimmer. The bottle is larger than most Butter London polishes and has special labeling on the front that indicates it is a jelly. Twee is my first ever Butter London lacquer, and I like it a lot. Since it is a jelly, it took a good 4 coats to be opaque. I absolutely LOVE jellies though, so I was fine with doing that. The finish is squishy just like every good jelly should be.

These pictures show 4 coats Butter London Twee, and 1 coat Seche Vite.



This color made me feel very girly. I love a nice jelly finish, and the shimmer really kicked it up a notch. I definitely will be investing in more Butter London polishes after trying out the lovely Twee.

- Aly

I'm really excited to show off one of my first ever NARS polishes, Orgasm. NARS Orgasm is a beautiful peach polish packed with golden shimmer, just like the blush and lip gloss by the same name. The peach color was very nice against my tanned skin, and the shimmer is absolutely gorgeous. Application was a breeze -- 3 easy, even coats. The brush was nice and easy to work with as well. I guess you get what you pay for in a designer polish!

OPI The "It" Color is part of the Brights collection, and I bought it from a recent blogsale. I had been curious about this particular yellow crème for a while, and I am glad to have finally picked it up. The "It" Color is a very pigmented yellow crème. It had the typical application issues of a yellow, but looks beautiful and streak-free after three coats. This is the type of color that really looks nice on tanner skin, and I think I will only be wearing it during the summer.

These pictures show 3 coats of OPI The "It" Color and 1 coat Seche Vite.


I used to really hate yellow nail polish, but OPI The "It" Color is so pretty! It also seemed to make my hands look even tanner than they actually are, which is always a plus.

What's your favorite yellow?

- Aly

P.S. I just made my first ever NARS purchases :)

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.

Hi everyone! It has been a few days since my last post, and it feels weird to have such a break in between. Sorry about that -- I was super busy with work and social stuff. But I am back! Today you're looking at my first Tronica by China Glaze, Gamer Glam. I LOVE the name of this polish. I like video games, though I am not particularly good, and the name really put a smile on my face. The color is a lovely light purple with a subtle scattered holographic effect.

Take a look at 2 coats of China Glaze Gamer Glam, without Seche Vite on top.



And, for those who are curious, here it is indoors.

This is the final polish from the Inaugural Collection by Cult Nails. Living Water is an incredibly deep teal with beautiful light teal glitters. The base color becomes almost black, and the glitter brings it to life. The application of Living Water was just as lovely as that of the other Cult Nails polishes I tried. It took two easy coats to reach opacity.

I know it is Pink Wednesday, but I wanted to continue showing you my new Cult Nails polishes. Today we have My Kind of Cool Aid, a super greyed out lavender with gorgeous silvery shimmer. Once again, the application was great -- two easy coats. This color is very interesting and pretty, and so nice in the sun. My only problem was that Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid gave me total lobster hands. It is a great color though, and I am sure it would look even better on some different skin tones.

This is the second polish I have tried from the Cult Nails Inaugural Collection. Quench is a beautiful red jelly-crème. It covers well in two coats, but still has that squishy looking jelly finish. Cult Nails Quench is ladylike, but with a lot of sass too. I can see the old Hollywood stars wearing a color like this. Once again, application was a breeze. Two easy coats for beautiful even coverage. 

I recently purchased the Cult Nails Inaugural Collection, which includes the first four polishes released by Cult Nails: Iconic, Quench, Living Water, and My Kind of Cool Aid. The first one I tried out is called Iconic, and it is a beautiful burgundy polish packed with golden shimmer and gold flakies. Iconic is completely unique to my collection, and I think it would be unique to anyone's really.

Application was great. It applied beautifully in two coats. I am seriously loving Iconic. Cult Nails has just jumped onto my top brands list. Here we have 2 coats Iconic and 1 coat Seche Vite.

Here is another reader request: China Glaze Watermelon Rind. This was released in the Summer Days Collection of 2009, along with the famous Strawberry Fields and Grape Juice. All of the polishes in Summer Days have a beautiful glass fleck finish, which China Glaze does incredibly well. Watermelon Rind is a deep green glass fleck polish with some blue in the formula.

This is 2 coats China Glaze Watermelon Rind and 1 coat Seche Vite.

I had a request to see the new Orly polishes I bought at Sally Beauty, Frolic and Fresh. Frolic is a gorgeous one-coat purple crème. It is very vibrant and quite unique to my collection. Fresh is a bright green crème that takes two thicker coats to be completely opaque. I decided to wear these two together, so I did a fun polka dot mani.

I am wearing one coat of Orly Frolic on all nails but my ring finger. On my ring finger, I am wearing two coats of Orly Fresh. I did the polka dots with a dotting tool. I added one coat of Seche Vite on top, to even things out and aid in drying quickly.


I hope you like it! I was really in love with this mani, so much so that I have done the same pattern again with Orly Charged Up and Orly Lollipop. What do you think of these new summer colors?

- Aly

I received lots of nail mail today, and wanted to show you all my recent purchases and swaps. Let me know which ones you would like to see swatched first. All polish names will be given left to right. Okay, here we go!

From Rachel Marie's Blogsale:




 From a swap on MUA:

From Cult Nails :
 From Sally Beauty:


 From Walgreens:


From Target:

It's Wednesday again, and this week I have one of my favorite polishes for you: OPI DS Reserve. I purchased this one from transdesign on a whim, and I am really happy I picked it up. DS Reserve is a soft pink polish with a weak scattered holographic effect. Though this polish isn't a linear holo, I love the way the holo particles look. It looks like there are mini diamonds in the polish.

Application was great, typical of OPI DS formulas. It also wore really well. I know some may consider this color to be a little boring or grandmotherly, but I think the sparkles really add to the color itself. It is work appropriate, but with a nice twist.

These pictures are 2 coats OPI DS Reserve.

What do you think? I like how the sparkles really add a lot to an otherwise very dupable color. OPI DS Reserve is definitely one of my favorite DS polishes. Which one is your favorite?

- Aly

Here is the second Pure Ice Crackle polish I picked up, a shimmering turquoise called Strike a Pose. I like the Pure Ice chose creative names, as opposed to just "black crackle" or something similar. Strike a Pose is beautiful because it has a lot of shimmer and depth to it. Here I am wearing it over OPI DS Reserve, which I will be showing you tomorrow for Pink Wednesday.

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

It is almost Fourth of July, but I can't post tomorrow as I will be celebrating up North at my cabin. I wish all my American readers a lovely long weekend! So here we have one of my favorite water marble designs I have done so far. I used OPI Dutch Tulips for the red, OPI Dating a Royal for the blue, and China Glaze White on White.