Thermal Flowers

 First post of the New Year! Woo!

I love thermals. They give such an effortless umph to your manicure. It's like a free gradient/french tip in a bottle for you!

I managed to snag a few polishes from Polished by KPT in her end of the year sale. This beauty was one I had my eyes on for a while, Kelvin Bleu. It's a gorgeous polish that is a translucent light grey/blue color when warm and a deep blue almost blurple color when cold. It's also got a scattered holo finish which my lightbox wasn't bright enough to capture. Trust me it's gorgeous though!

Tips are cold, nails are warm. Props to those who capture thermals so well!

Warm

Cold

I was really aiming to stamp white over a thermal after seeing Natalie's gorgeous post here, but sadly I don't have an opaque white to stamp with! So I settled for some water decals from the Born Pretty Store. I think they sufficed well enough.

I also love water decals because they can give a complicated look in less than a minute. That's my type of nail art. What do you think?

New Year's Eve Pinwheels

Happy New Year! Well, eve still. I was totally uninspired for nail art and I didn't have any firework stamps in my collection, but I still wanted to go with the idea I had in my head of black and holographic polish. It screams festive to me a little louder than black and gold does.

So I decided to go with some pinwheel nails! I started with a black base and then used Color Club Cloud Nine and Over the Moon. This whole thing is stunning in the sunlight.

A more direct shot under my lamp to see the holo :)

I used tape to cut out five triangles and placed them accordingly on my nails. It was surprisingly challenging to get them to equidistant but I think it came out nicely for a first try! The points were a little off centered but that was fixed quickly with a single clear rhinestone. I remembered seeing that idea here on the most perfect blog ever. *bows down* 

What are you wearing on your nails for the occasion? Hopefully it's nice and sparkly. Have a good first start to the year!

Welcome Back + Cosmic Forces

I'm back! Hopefully this time for good. Heller to whoever is reading. I got an awesome new camera for Christmas (Mom is the best) that will be a good incentive to keep me blogging. Bear with me as I get lightning situations figured out. The camera is such a higher quality than I am used to, so I am still playing around with things. But I feel these picture are good enough to share, and I'm all about progress so why not! 

I have a new to me polish to share today. The gorgeous Emily de Molly Cosmic Forces! Took me two attempts to catch this in a Llarowe restock. And it was definitely worth it!

It's a stunning deep purple berry color that leans red, and it's got these amazing small lilac round and hex glitters in it. Most notably are those large holographic circle glitters too! Mmmm those had me sold from day one.

I think what sets this polish apart is that while it's a jelly, it's buildable in 2-3 coats AND still lets all the glitters shine through the layers. Insta buy, right? The polish does remind me of something cosmic. I feel when the light hits certain large glitters it looks like Jupiter or Saturn. But that may be the NyQuil finally hitting in.

What do you think of the new photos? Yay or nay? I hope they look nice on whatever screen you are viewing from. Definite improvement in my eyes and I'm hoping to keep on! Especially with my blog layout. I am such a n00b on graphic design so I'm trying to keep this page eye catching but simple. Excuse all the changes you may see!

Noteworthy: my uncle calls this one Crystal Berry Elegance. Ha! Spot on.

Shop Eighty4! Swatches+ Review

Hello to whoever is reading this :) I was in a rut for a while in the Blogger world. I'm more active over on my IG, but these polishes took me out of my funk and I wanted to post about them!

Fefe Duran from Eighty4 polish so graciously sent me 6 polishes to swatch and review for those inquiring about the brand. So onward to some photos!

P.s All swatches were finished with two coats of Out the Door. 

Dragon Lust: is a gorgeous magenta to plum thermal with a pretty prominent scattered holo for a thermal. It comes out a lot in my photos despite being in a lightbox! This is two coats. The first went on a little patchy (but that could be my error since it was a little cuticle drag) and the second coat leveled everything out perfectly. 

Candy Corn: If USPS hadn't delivered my package to the wrong place, I totally could have had it before Halloween. This is the perfect color! It is a yellow to orange thermal with a scattered holo finish as well. This is quite sheer, and my swatch is at four thin coats. But it doesn't feel thick on the nail at all! And I have pretty visible VNL so it may be a different case for others. I would suggest layering over white as well.

Lobster hands or what?! Oranges make my camera freak out I'm sorry. I promise this is color accurate though. :)

Pink Sugar: Three thin coats of this gorgeous barbie pink holo. My top pick from the bunch. It's so flattering on my skin tone and I can imagine it's one of those pink shades anyone can wear!

 Tang: This is seriously the brightest, most eye-searing orange neon polish I have ever seen. So be aware neons are notoriously hard to capture! My camera is making it come off as a deeper orange than it is. But oh my gosh you could stop traffic with this, I love it! This is three coats (no undies!) It is opaque at two, I just have really visible VNL all the time! My Instagram has a slightly better color accurate photo.

 Galaxy Green: a deep green with a black base with a pearlescent finish. This is two coats, watch out for brush strokes!

Colorfett: Neon. Glitter. Does anything else really need to be said? This fun mix has squares and hexes of bright blue, lie, red, and pink colors. It would look amazing layered over any color but I've chosen to show two coats of Colorfetti over O.P.I My Vampire is Buff.

 Class & Sass: A pleasant mix of white, turquoise, and lilac hex and square glitters. I've layered one coat of it over Wet n Wild Teal Slowly and See. I'm imagining this looking pretty over mint as well!

Class & Sass at 1,2, and three coats

Colorfetti at 1,2, and 3 coats

 And everyone loves macros! I thought these looked too cool not to share. Especially Colorfetti!

Overall I am very impressed with the quality of all of these! I can't wait to try more of the thermals I didn't get my hands on. I also really loved working with the glitters. My top picks are Candy Corn, Class & Sass, and Pink Sugar!

Eighty4 polishes can be purchased here, and they run $8-$9 which is a pretty good deal! :)

Thanks for reading! Hopefully this post gets me back into the swing of blogging. Especially since I rebuilt my lightbox! Bare with me as I adjust.

*Products provided in exchange for an honest review

A-England Fated Prince

I was tempted to just name this post "perfection," because that's seriously what this shade is. I don't know how Adina does it but her polishes are absolutely gorgeous AND they apply like a dream. Sorcery I tell you!

Fated Prince (Burne Jones Dream Collection) is the most stunning light charcoal grey color with a surprising holographic addition that flashes olive green. I swear I was staring at my hands all day when I was wearing this. How can a polish have so many different color elements in it yet still blend together so flawlessly!?

 *trumpets and fanfare* DAT HOLO. If I haven't convinced you to buy this... you should after seeing this photo. This is definitely one of my top favorites now. Oh A-England, I love you!

Also. My topcoat. TOO. SHINY. Thanks Glossy Glam!

Quick post: Halloween Nails!

Hi! Wow. It's been a little too long for posting and I feel like I should have a big fabulous post to welcome myself and whoever reads this blog. But I promise I have some good things in store coming up! Lots more swatches and I play on doing more simple art in November. So for now take this!

Some simples monster of Frankenstein stitches, and chevron accents. I love love the way this came out! 

The green is Barry M Key Lime, which is a gorgeous color and an amazing formula as always! 

Here's a swatch of Key Lime before I started the manicure. So pretty and shiny on it's own! 

Also did my mom's nails. She wanted everything different actually so I went to town! It was nice because she works at a preschool so I'm sure that'll be fun for some kids to see. 

Guess this wasn't much of a quick post! Sorry if this post seems wonky, I am posting from my phone!

O.P.I - Alcatraz...Rocks

Below I have a swatch of one of the liquid sands from the new O.P.I San Francisco fall collection! I am so in love with this liquid sand. At first glance it looks like just a dark glitter but there are so many colors in it it's amazing. Even if you aren't into liquid sands you sure will need this!

indoors

 Alcatraz...Rocks is a gorgeous dark navy/purple (dare I say blurple?) color with tons of gold shimmer in it. At different lights I catch lighter purple, pink, dark blue, and even some green shimmer. It was too much for my camera!

These two out of focus photos show the other shimmer colors hidden in there a little better. 

Definitely one of the prettier liquid sands in this new collection! I got this at a discount store luckily, but I'm hearing people have to do some store hopping for this hot item! So go get yours. Like now. Yesterday even.