Monday, October 24, 2011

I'm still here, I promise!

Hello all my lovely readers! Before I hit the hay tonight, just wanted to let you all know that YES, I AM ALIVE! Things have been crazy busy lately but are starting to wind down and go back to normal again so expect some new posts very, very soon! I apologize for slacking on the blogging lately. Forgive me?

Xoxo

Friday, October 14, 2011

Lynnderella She Lived in a Swamp over Wet n Wild Jungle Fever

Hi everyone! So sorry that it has been so long since my last post. Had a few midterms and papers due this week so I was pretty swamped with schoolwork. I have more midterms next week and the following week (ugh) but since it is the weekend I have some free time to share with you my latest nail of the day!

I started out with two coats of Jungle Fever, yet another polish from the extremely hard-to-find Wet n Wild On the Prowl Collection. Jungle Fever is a pretty yellow leaning olive green-ish foil with a tiny bit of brush strokes showing through. It was pretty thick and runny, so it was a bit of a PITA to apply. Thank goodness for my handy dandy clean up brush! Despite it's annoying application, it's a very pretty color and will safely reside in my collection =)

Then I did two coats of Lynnderella She Lived in a Swamp over Jungle Fever. She Lived in a Swamp may have been my absolute favorite from the first Lynnderella batch that I ordered, but there's a slight flaw that is keeping it from that spot. Unfortunately, the bar glitter in this polish has begun to curl. I haven't had this problem with any of my other Lynnderellas, so hopefully this polish is the exception. She Lived in a Swap is an absolutely stunning mix of light green and dark green multi-sized hex, micro and bar glitter in a clear green base. If only it wasn't for those darn curling bar glitters!

Here is Jungle Fever with two coats of Lynnderella She Lived in a Swamp, one coat of Gelous, and one coat of Poshe quick dry topcoat. Sorry, these pictures aren't the best because I had to take these at night:





And here's Jungle Fever alone (2 coats):



She Lives in a Swamp is the last of the first batch of Lynnderellas that I ordered. I hope you guys aren't too sick of them though, because I have another batch that should be arriving any day now =) As I have said before, Lynnderella is truly a genius when it comes to making glitter polishes and I am so excited to finally be able to get my hands on them. You won't be disappointed when you see the rest of them!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Blood Splatter Manicure with Essie and Illamasqua

Hello everyone, happy Monday!! Today I'm continuing right along with my Halloween manicures. I did a manicure similar to this one at the beginning of summer for the True Blood season premiere. I was inspired by this:

Image Credit

In the spirit of Halloween, I decided to recreate this for you guys today. I can imagine several types of Halloween costumes that this manicure would be perfect for! To do this manicure, I used Jen @ The PolishAholic's awesome splatter tutorial here. Definitely check it out if you are feeling so inclined, it is a great, simple method to get the splatter effect on your nails.

I used two coats of Illamasqua Load for the base. Load is a funny color. It is a yellow-ivory-whitish creme. Usually, I'm a huge fan of Illamasqua polishes, but I had a bit of trouble with this one. It's pretty streaky and gloopy, pretty much like every other yellow or white polish out there. But, I don't have any other color like this in my stash so that is why I allow it to stick around. However, if anyone knows of an awesome yellowy-white out there that applies better than this one, please let me know!

For the blood splatters, I used Essie Bordeaux which is an awesome burgundy red jelly, a good match for a blood effect. To do the splatters, I would dip the end of a straw in nail polish and blow out the other end onto my nail. Very simple! Clean up was a bish with this, so please excuse my reddish cuticles. I think it just adds to the effect here though!

Enjoy!





See you all tomorrow for another Halloween NOTD!

-Jacqui =)

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Lynnderella Very Pretty Vampire over Wet n Wild Buy Me a Drink

Hello again friends! The second part of my post today is another Lynnderella polish =)

For my base layer, I used Wet n Wild Buy Me a Drink from their limited edition (and impossible to find) On the Prowl Collection, again from my friend Krista! Buy Me a Drink is a GORGEOUS burgundy wine shimmer. Ack I love this one soooo much! The formula is a little thin, so I had to do three coats to eliminate streaks and reach full opacity. Love love LOVE it!






On top of Buy Me a Drink, I decided to put Lynnderella Very Pretty Vampire. Another favorite from the polish genius Lynn, VPV is a various sizes of red and black glitter in a clear but murky red base. This blended in really well with Buy Me A Drink, but I think I want to try this again over a more contrasting color to get the full effect. Very Pretty Vampire is more sparse, so it is definitely best as a layering polish. I did two coats of VPV over three coats of Buy Me a Drink. VPV was a very hungry glitter, so I did one coat of Gelous and two coats of Seche Vite to smooth everything out. Here's the finished product:





Not my best pictures today, sorry folks!

Anyways, I will see you all again tomorrow! Have a fantastic Saturday!

-Jacqui =)

Lynnderella Cauldron Drippings over Revlon Royal Cloak

Hi everyone! So sorry I've been delinquent on blog posting the last two days. I am back with two posts for you today! First up is Revlon Royal Cloak smothered in Lynnderella Cauldron Drippings.

I was stumped for a while on how I wanted to wear Lynderella's Cauldron Drippings. It is quite a unique glitter polish, with a base of orange hex, square and bar glitter with green, purple and gold glitters of different shapes. I tried it on its own, and it was pretty but I prefer layering the Lynnderella glitters so I am not using a ton of them at once. I kept seeing swatches of it over orange polishes, but since the majority of the glitter in it was orange it would get lost among the background. So when I tried it over Revlon Royal Cloak, I knew I had a winner! It stood out amongst the purple and the orange glitters were able to shine! Plus, it feels very Halloweenish to me.

Revlon Royal Cloak is from Revlon's limited edition Masquerade Collection fro Halloween. It is definitely my favorite polish in the collection. Royal Cloak is a dusty blue-leaning purple with flakies! I am a huge sucker for flakies, so I had to try Royal Cloak. The application was very good, and I just love how thin Revlon's brushes are because it allows me to do precise, thin coats of color. Two coats was good for complete coverage on this one!

Over Royal Cloak, I did one coat of Cauldron Drippings. Application was pretty standard for Lynnderella polishes - I had to be a little more careful than usual to get the glitter to disperse evenly, but other than that it was perfect.

So here she is! Lynnderella Cauldron Drippings over Revlon Royal Cloak:








These are all photos of my right hand, which is not my default swatching hand so please bear with me as my left hand photographing and polishing skills are not 100%. Plus, my right hand looks weirdly red and yellow today. Odd.

Anyways, here is two coats of Royal Cloak alone:




Thanks for stopping by! Stay tuned for part two of today's post!!

-Jacqui

Thursday, October 6, 2011

In the News: Nail polish replaces lipstick as women's favorite luxury product

Good afternoon my lovely readers! Today, I am taking a nail polish break and letting my cuticles recover from Acetone-gate 2011 yesterday. For today, I wanted to show you a few articles I have come across in the news:

From the Daily Mail UK: As sales soar 54 per cent in a year, how nail polish replaced lipstick as women's favourite recession-proof luxury

From Good Housekeeping: Nail Polish - An Afforable Splurge

For me, 2011 was the year of the nail. I have always loved nail polish but this year I really  took it to the next level and started becoming involved in the nail polish community. When I started searching for my bottle of OPI Black Shatter early this year, something clicked inside of me. I thought how amazing it was that something as inexpensive as an $8.50 bottle of nail polish could bring me so much happiness and excitement. And I soon learned that I was not alone in that excitement.

The Daily Mail columnist Tamara Abraham discusses in her article a phenomenon known as the "Lipstick Index," which is a trend for increasing sales among high-end cosmetics while the rest of the economy declines. Simply, if a women can only afford a limited amount of luxury products under a failing economy, a tube of lipstick is far less expensive yet equally as rewarding as a trip to the spa or a new outfit.  However, according to US trends, nail polish has actually replaced lipstick as that inexpensive luxury object that women seek.  As Estee Lauder chairman told Time Magazine: "Nail polish has become the heir to lipstick in the recession." Nail polish sales have increased 54 percent in the last year, whereas lipstick sales have only risen 14 perfect. 54 percent!!

I believe there are several factors that may have attributed to this drastic increase in the past year. Perhaps it can be attributed to the fact that more celebrity names have been putting their stamps on polish collections this year, such as Katy Perry and Justin Bieber. Also, several new nail trends such as the shatter/crackle phenomenon, and even magnetic polish (though it is still so new) have been taking center stage lately. I even said myself that my search for OPI Black Shatter is what started my recent nail polish obsession. I believe that many people look at nail polish as another fashion accessory. While it may be too expensive for you to go out and purchase new shoes or a new scarf during these difficult economic times, a new bottle of nail polish to compliment your outfit is always an inexpensive treat.

Whatever may be the reason for the recent increase in nail polish sales, it is very exciting! The nail polish industry continues to grow with more companies and more innovations in product lines. If people keep buying, they'll keep making it! I have seen so many of my "muggle" (read:non-nail polish-obsessed) friends painting their nails more often these days and becoming interested in what I'm doing with mine. I've even got some of them trying DIY nail art! So for me, I definitely see the trend of people moving towards nail polish in real life.

Nail polish companies, if you're reading this: keep on trucking! People are gonna buy your stuff! Throw in some holos, flakies, and duochromes and we can all be happy. I'm so glad to see nail polish forging ahead in the beauty world and I hope this is a trend that will continue for years to come.

So what do you all think? Do you agree that you have seen nail polish rise in popularity this year? Do you think that trend is here to stay?

Hope you are all having a fantastic day! See you all again tomorrow with a brand new Halloween manicure =)

-Jacqui

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Pink Wednesday - Spiderwebs!

Hi everyone! This is going to be a quick post today, as I have a migraine and am not really feeling up to a full blog post.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the month, this October is my first wedding anniversary.  Since I've been feeling nostalgic about my husband's and my relationship these days, I decided to base this manicure on a tank top that I wore on our first date =) It's kind of ironic because this shirt has spiderwebs on it - perfect for October!

Here is the shirt:


As I base, I used Essie Can't Filmfest, an old non-3-free blue-leaning magenta pink. It went on perfectly in two coats and the formula was awesome. They don't make them like this anymore, folks. I used Can't Filmfest partly because it matched the shirt, but also because my husband is a videographer and often makes films and submits them to filmfests =) Can't Filmfest is a play on Cannes Film Festival, which is the most prestigious film festival in the entire world. Here is Essie Can't Filmfest alone:




Stamping with black polish is always a bit of a pain because the black polish will often stain the cuticles. So I apologize in advance for the staining and yucky cuticles. I stamped using Wet n Wild Black Creme and a plate from BF-beauty.com.



Ugh. This would have been really cool if the black didn't stain the crap out of my fingers.

Have a great day everyone =)

- Jacqui

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Kleancolor Metallic Orange: Swatches and Review

Holy crap, you guys. This is probably the most amazing orange nail polish I have ever seen in my life. It is so wonderfully shiny and glowy, I can't even handle it. It's a perfect orange for Halloween season as well. This orange is part of the Kleancolor Metallic line, which has taken a spot in my top 5 collections of all time. All of the metallic polishes that I have tried in this line are outstanding, I can't wait to show you the rest of them. You will be amazed.

I have a lot of nail polish. Really, I do. More than you probably think I have. So it really takes a lot for me to be amazed when it comes to nail polish these days. Most of the collections that people are fawning over these days (coughOPIMuppetscough) fail to impress me even the slightest bit. The fact that Metallic Orange made me gasp when I was applying it, really says something about this polish. It's truly unique, amazing and a MUST HAVE for your collection. In fact, every Kleancolor Metallic I have tried is a winner. And again, for $1.75 a bottle, what have you got to lose?

The application on this polish was flawless. FLAWLESS I TELL YOU! I did two coats because I was photographing, but in real life this is definitely a one coat polish. These photos are no cleanup at all. No cleanup!! Thats how smoothly and evenly this stuff went on. The only gripe I have with this polish is that the dry time is very long. It definitely does not have normal dry time, even with a quick dry top coat like Seche Vite. I'd say it was dry to the touch in 5 minutes, and a good 20 minutes before it was dry enough for me to start using my hands again. And yes, that was with my quick dry top coat. But for how awesome this polish is, I really don't care how long the dry time is.

Lots of pics in lots of different lighting situations so you can get a good idea of what it really looks like:










This is my perfect, glowy autumn orange and it is perfect for Halloween!! Hope you enjoyed the 80 bajillion pics I took of Kleancolor Metallic Orange =) Have a fantastic day everyone!

- Jacqui

Correction Tape Manicure TAKE TWO!

Before I removed this manicure, I wanted to snap a few pics outdoors to show you the true colors of the glitter in Correction Tape. Today it FINALLY stopped raining, and the sun has actually come out as well. It's an October miracle!

Anyways, here's a few pics for you. Please excuse the skin dehydration =)



Macro Shot

Monday, October 3, 2011

Wet n Wild On The Prowl: Correction Tape over Funky Fingers Cheshire

Hello my lovely readers! Just wanted to drop in today real quickly and show you my NOTD. I decided to try out Correction Tape from the elusive Wet n Wild On The Prowl collection. This collection is almost impossible to find! A friend of mine (Krista over at Starlet's Nails) was able to find the collection where she lives and was kind enough to send me Correction Tape! On the Prowl is Wet n Wild's core Halloween collection. I know Correction Tape doesn't look very Halloween-ish, but I decided to throw it in my October mix since it is part of a seasonal collection.

I did one coat of Wet n Wild Correction Tape over 3 coats Funky Fingers Cheshire. Cheshire is a neon blue-based purple, and application was pretty streaky. By the third coat, the polish was becoming super thick and will probably need thinner before its next use. However, I don't have a neon purple quite like this in my collection, so I will keep it around just for the color. However, I'm still on the hunt for my perfect neon purple.

Correction Tape wasn't exactly easy to apply either, but it wasn't terribly difficult. It just requires a bit of skill and patience to get the glitter to go where you want it to. The glitter in this is phenomenal! It has gold, pink, blue and black square and hex glitters. I don't know about you, but I am a huge fan of black glitter so I was super excited to see that this polish had some in there. One coat worked perfectly for this manicure, and I feel that this polish works best for layering.

This looks way more awesome in real life, I had a hard time capturing the different colors of the glitter. Perhaps that is why I have so many pictures for today. Hope you guys at least are able to catch the essence of amazeballs that is Correction Tape. Don't forget to click on them to make them bigger!







Thanks for stopping by the Scholarly Nail today! Hope your Monday hasn't been too terrible so far. See you all tomorrow =)

-Jacqui