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 =)

Lynnderella Love Potion 99 over Illamasqua Baptiste

Happy Sunday everyone! So I'm on day 3 of the nubs and I'm starting to regret it. I miss my long nails already. Ahh well, the good thing about nails is that they will grow back. I'm not the most patient person though and I'm thinking about running about to Sally's and getting some sort of growing potion.

Speaking of potions, today I have for you an amazing polish from the one and only Lynnderella! For those who don't know, Lynnderella is a polish making goddess! All of her polishes are handcrafted from several different types of glitter. Her collections are very limited edition, as she only opens up shop every once in a while for an extremely short time window. I was lucky enough to squeeze in and snag some of these babies for myself!

The one I have for you today is Love Potion 99 from the Early Halloween Collection, which has medium purple hex glitter and smaller holographic glitter in a sheer purple base. It is phenomenal! These glitters tend to go on a bit thick, and once they dry they are a bit rough. It is advisable to do at least two layers of top coat to get a smooth and shiny finish. With my limited photo skills, I wasn't able to capture the true beauty of the polish, but I did my best! Hopefully, I will be satisfied with my picture taking skills one day =)

So here is 2 coats Lynnderella's Love Potion 99 layered over 2 coats of Illamasqua Baptiste. So sparkly! Also, please excuse my cuticles today. I forgot to moisturize last night =/

Artificial light

Artificial Light

Natural Light to show the glitter shapes better.

The last two shorts are of Illamasqua Baptiste. Illamasqua is a British brand currently only available in the US on Sephora.com (as far as I know). I love, love, LOVE my Illamasqua polishes! They apply so smoothly and the colors are so rich and beautiful. They wear like iron too! I currently have around a dozen Illa polishes, and they are all well-loved. 

Baptiste is a gorgeous shimmery dark purple. In certain lights, it looks almost black. It has awesome red and blue shimmer throughout, making the purple tone stand out in bright light.  Those photos are two coats.

Thanks for stopping by!

-Jacqui