Aly Loves Lacquer

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."

Hi, guys!

Today I have a really cool review for you of some gorgeous glitter sequins from Born Pretty. This type of sequin was brought to my attention by Sammy at The Nailasaurus. She has many gorgeous manicures using these glitter sequins, which she calls glequins. According to Born Pretty, these are Item 3103 12 Colors Nail Art Shiny Glitter Powder Sheets Tips Tool. What a name!

For this look, I used Illamasqua Lament as a base and did an accent nail using the glequins from Born Pretty. I picked a lime green color because it really pops with the pinky coral base. I hand applied each sequin using a dotting tool. In order to get the glequins to stick to the dotting tool, I put a tiny bit of top coat on it to make it tacky. This technique takes practice but it looks so cute!

Hi, there! Here I am, once again almost a full week late on the ABC Challenge. Boooo, Aly! Good thing I have tomorrow free because of Spring Break -- I'll definitely be posting my "J" manicure then.

For "I", I went with one of the coolest (in my opinion, of course) brands of nail polish: Illamasqua. Sadly, I only own 3 Illmasquas, but I love all of them. Plus, I purchased them at the Sephora in Times Square with my dad, which adds a little sentimental value.

The color I chose is called Lament, and it is a bold pink that definitely leans towards coral. I like the formula on Illamasqua Lament -- it's thin, but in a workable way. I used 3 thin, easy coats and this polish was super shiny!


So creamy and pretty! I like Lament because it manages to be somewhat "appropriate" while still being a bit bold. It stands out without veering into "Oh god, what is she wearing?!" territory. I find this shade to be very chic!

Do you have a favorite Illamasqua polish?

- Aly

P.S. Don't forget to check out the other ABC Challenge bloggers' posts!

Hello!

I am currently smack dab in the middle of Midterms Week here at SLU. Though exams are rough, I decided to take a little study break to get back up to date with the ABC Challenge. I actually did these nails on time, but couldn't get around to posting them till now. But I am really loving these, so I hope you like them!

All I could think of for "H" was hearts. I tried to make the simple idea a little more interesting by stamping hearts in neon polish over white for a very bright, eye-catching manicure. My white base is a plain white crème from Kiss. I borrowed it from my roommate since I couldn't find my favorite white crème, and this polish was a disaster! It was streaky and smelled terribly! I do not recommend it at all.
For the stamping, I used BM03 from the Bundle Monster set released in 2010. The bright coral hearts are China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, one of my favorite neons. The hot pink is Rei Momo by Mattése Elite, another gorgeous neon! Finally, I added more traditional red hearts with Essie Aperitif.

A couple months ago, butter LONDON announced the launch of some lovely lip glosses called Lippy. Each shade of Lippy matches one of butter LONDON's nail lacquers. I have never even thought of matching my lips to my nails, but I think it is a really cute idea. It would definitely make you look very put together!

First up is Teddy Girl, the polish version. Teddy Girl is a very light, delicate pink crème that takes 3 coats to be opaque. To be honest, it looked very pigmented so I thought that 2 coats would be enough. But, 3 coats is not bad and I think the outcome is very classy.

A week or so ago St. Louis had some amazing spring-like weather. People were wearing shorts in January and February! To celebrate the lovely weather, I opted for a cheery polka dot look. The perfect shades? Three Illamasquas.

I wore Illamasqua Lament as a base, and used a dotting tool for polka dots. The green dots are Illamasqua Milf and the purple ones are Illamasqua Jo'Mina. All three colors were just lovely to use. They each dried very quickly, so I had no problems with drag when I applied top coat.

We finally had a day with some sunshine, so I was able to get some pictures of Orly Peachy Parrot for you! Peachy Parrot is a peach colored frost that was recently released in the Birds of a Feather collection by Orly. While it isn't my favorite color ever, it is still a nice polish.

In these pictures I am wearing two coats of Peachy Parrot and 1 coat of Seche Vite.

This week was rush week at SLU, and I was incredibly busy! I am a ZTA and I must say I am loving the new pledges :) One of the shirts we wore this week is a bright blue tank with Zeta Tau Alpha written in neon letters. I decided to do a matching manicure with neon colors. 
The idea for this manicure from Jane at Nailside, who does absolutely lovely tape manicures. That link will take you to a great tutorial Jane has done, so take a look if you'd like to try out this look!

Zoya Rica is another polish from the Sunshine Collection that Zoya recently released. All of the colors feature golden glitters. Zoya Rica is a perfect coral color, filled with bright gold glitter. I think Rica may be one of my favorites in the collection. For me, the whole Sunshine Collection was a winner -- all of the polishes are so gorgeous!

Zoya Rica took 2 coats to opacity. These pictures are without Seche Vite, so you can see the polish's natural shine.



I think Zoya did a great job with the Sunshine Collection. They all really look sunny and beautiful. Zoya Rica goes on beautifully, and looks great. The only problem I had with Rica was that the removal was a bit difficult, even with Zoya's Remove+ remover. Nonetheless, I really like this polish.

What do you think? Anyone else have trouble removing this?

- Aly