Lacquistry Cotton Candy - Swatches and Review

In the past few months, the nail polish world has seen a major influx of indy polish makers. These small companies like Nerd Lacquer, Dollish Polish, Lacquistry, and Nail-venturous (to name a few) are all created by fellow polish lovers who create unique, handcrafted polishes and sell them on sites like Etsy. People are rushing to buy these awesome polishes left and right, and they are selling like hotcakes!! Some of the more popular shops have to close down the same day they open to fill the 1000+ orders they receive within 24 hours of opening. They are selling out for good reason - these polishes are truly amazing, and most of them unlike anything that you would be able to find that is produced by traditional big-box brands such as OPI, Revlon, Butter London and the like.

I am absolutely thrilled at the outpouring of new and exciting polishes coming from indy companies lately. Unfortunately, there may be a lacquer base shortage on the horizon so the future of several of these brands is uncertain. Hopefully, these companies can find a new base supplier and keep on creating these wonderful polishes. While a lot of new collections coming out from major nail polish retailers have been making me yawn lately, I know that there will always be something new and exciting coming out from my favorite indy brands.

Today I have for you an indy polish made by Jenna over at Lacquistry on Etsy. The name is Cotton Candy, and was inspired by Jenna's love of Bubblicious Cotton Candy gum. It is an amazing blue glitter in a hot pink jelly base with fuchsia hex glitter scattered throughout. This is probably one of the most unique polishes that I own, and I absolutely adore it!

As amazing as Lacquistry Cotton Candy is, the application process is a bit more tricky that your average nail polish.  I actually had to remove my first try at painting my nails with this polish because I was just not loving how it was turning out. Because of the different sizes of glitter in the polish, the large hex glitters tend to clump together and you have to sometimes manually place where you want the hex glitters to go. It was actually pretty frustrating, and I'm no stranger to difficult-to-apply polishes. But it's just the nature of these types of glitter polishes and with a bit of patience I was able to get a much better application the second time around.

The blue glitter in a sheer hot pink base gives such a cool effect to this polish, and the hex glitters really add something special. The pictures tend to exaggerate the pink jelly base, whereas in real life it's not quite as noticeable. My pictures seem to make the blue appear more purple than it really is, perhaps because of the pink base. In real life, it is the perfect, bright medium blue color with no purple tone to it. My sad photographing skills just could not capture how blingy and glowy it really was. It definitely reminds me of the pink and blue swirled Bubbilicious Cotton Candy gum!

All in all, Lacquistry Cotton Candy is an amazingly awesome and unique polish that requires a bit of patience to apply. But once you get past the tricky application process, this polish will smack you in the face with awesome. The first two pictures are natural light and the rest are artificial light indoors. Don't forget to click on the pictures to enlarge. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by!

St. Patty's Day Glitter Layering

HI MY LOVELY FOLLOWERS!! Finally a new post, I'm so excited to be posting again =) My lovely blogger friends have been on my ass lately to start posting again (as they should!) so I figured spring break was the perfect time for me to get cracking again! Today I have for you a super blinged out glitter manicure for St. Patrick's Day. I can't stop staring at my nails, I am so in love with this layering combo!

I started out with two coats of an old vintage Wet n Wild. The polish has no name, but a number (416A to be exact) and is a lovely medium green color with phenomenal golden shimmer running throughout. I will have to do a post on this color by itself one day, it is such a fab green. I know, a vintage green polish - so typical of me!

Then I layered two coats of Orly Here Comes Trouble on top, which is an awesome grass green glitter. You could probably get full coverage with this after about 4-5 coats, but I wanted to layer it over a green that was a bit darker to add some depth.

The pièce de résistance in this manicure is the one coat of Essence My Sparkling Acrobat that I added on top. I am obsessed with this polish!! I acquired this Euro-only color in a lovely swap with Caroline from Good Lack, Nail! and I have used it in at least 3 manicures so far, it is that awesome. My Sparkling Acrobat is a dual-ended polish that has a great black creme on one end and a gold glitter on the other. This is not your typical gold glitter, however. It is gold square and micro glitter in a clear base. SQUARE GLITTER! Is there anything in life better than square glitter? I think not.

Anyways, here's the glitterbomb! The layers are as follows:

- base coat
- 2 coats Wet n Wild 416A
- 2 coats Orly Here Comes trouble
- 1 coat Essence My Sparkling Acrobat
- top coat

The first two pics are natural light, the rest are artificial light indoors. As you can see, my photo skills are a bit rusty so please bear with me! Enjoy =)

Guest Post from Amanda at Nail Polish Enthusiast

HI MY LOVELY READERS! So sorry for being so MIA lately, I have been a busy little bird. Lots of family events going on lately, plus school starting up again and lots of other fun things, so I apologize for my absence.

Anyways, my lovely friend Amanda from Nail Polish Enthusiast offered to do a guest post for me today. Amanda has come to be a great friend of mine through the lovely Twitter nail blogging community, so I am pleased to have her here today! Don't forget to check out her blog =)

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Hi ladies, Amanda here! It is my pleasure today to post for Jacqui! She's such a great person and when she said she was struggling to have time to blog, I knew I could step in! I had the opportunity to swatch for you one of Lynnderella's beauties, courtesy of Erin. Erin and I did a group order in hopes of meeting up since we're less than a state apart, but our schedules wouldn't work out :( She told me I could swatch hers before I sent them off to her, so I gladly partook and did a quick gradient swatch of Mercury's Rainbow before I ship them off to her :)

I started off with Maybelline Matte Gray before adding Mercury's Rainbow to the tips of my nails and using Orly Smudge Fixer to create the gradient. Then, I added top coat to make it shiny and voila! Instant glitter gratification.

Gratuitious bottle shot



Ooooh, pretty... you know, besides the smudges of gray on my pinky's cuticle and my cuticles being a hot, dry mess...anyway....





Since my nails were small to work with, I did the gradient on my thumb which showed it much better!

 

Mercury's Rainbow is a beauty!I'm not sure I'd recommend it for gradients in the future unless your nails are longer than mine, since the swatch just kind of looks like I applied it regularly! Erin is a generous gal to allow me to swatch this before sending it off to her :) Thanks sweetie! Also big thanks to Jacqui for featuring me today!

xoxo,

Amanda

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Thanks Amanda!!! This mani is absolutely gorgeous, and I think it was so brilliant of her to use a smudge fixer as a gradient medium. I'm going to have to try that trick one day!

See you all soon!! 

BLOG SALE UPDATE: Next batch of packages being shipped out tomorrow =)

Blog Sale Preview!

Hi everyone and Happy 2012!! Long time no see =)

Just wanted to let you all know that I am working on a blog sale and I hope to have it posted by Sunday evening. It will include TONS of polish, perfume, makeup and Scentsy bars. I am trying to streamline my stash and I just have so much stuff that isn't being used.

Here is a quick cell-phone camera pick of everything all lined up and ready to be photographed:

I will see you all very soon!

-Jacqui

Christmas Glitter Vomit featuring China Glaze Party Hearty

Hi there everyone!! Christmas is just around the corner, so I figured that I would do a festive mani for you guys today! Sorry I've been in and out lately, for some reason I've been ultra critical of my pictures lately (I feel like they get worse as I go along) so I just haven't been posting much.

Anyways, for the base of this manicure, I used Essie Mint Candy Apple from the Essie 2009 Winter collection. This polish is actually the one that really got me started into collection nail polish again so although MCA is kind of a streaky mess, it holds a special place in my heart because it was one of my first polishes! MCA is a gorgeous light mint green cream, and since it is a bit sheer and streaky, I did three coats here.

Then, I layered on 2 coats of China Glaze Party Hearty from the 2010 Tis the Season collection. Ahh! I love this polish so much! It has small round green glitter, medium sized red hex glitter and micro gold glitter. This is probably the best Christmas polish ever. I wanted to add a little bit more sparkly goodness so I added a coat of Essie Golden Nuggets over Party Hearty. Golden Nuggets is the perfect gold microglitter top coat. I love how dense the glitter is in this, but not too dense to still let Party Hearty shine through!

Here is my Christmas Glitter Vomit manicure. Hope you enjoy!!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope all of those out there who celebrate the holidays are enjoying themselves and have completed all their shopping! I, of course, have a lot more shopping to do. Ugh! I always wait until the last minute, you think I would have learned my lesson by now.

Anyways, see you all again soon!

Butter London The Black Knight

Hi everyone! Thanks for all of your love on my last post, I hope to respond back to all of you soon! Today is going to be a quick post.

Lisa over at Shades of Magick sent me this absolutely stunning polish in a Secret Santa exchange. Thanks Lisa! I was having major camera issues today, unfortunately, so I wasn't able to capture the true beauty of Black Knight.

Butter London Black Knight is a black polish packed with blue, magenta and gold glitter. It was a bit sheer, but was thick and goopy so 2 coats was enough. I did two coats of top coat on this, as it was a "hungry glitter" and dried pretty gritty. I am totally in love with this color! It is from their limited edition holiday 2011 collection, so snatch it up now before it's gone.

So here's 4 terrible photos of one amazing polish, Butter London Black Knight.

Ugh, terrible, horrible photos today!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend!

Hits Zeus and a Thank You to My Followers!

Hello my lovelies and Happy Tuesday to everyone! I completed my last final of the semester today so it is a lovely Tuesday indeed!

Over the weekend, I hit 100 followers and I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of my awesome blog readers. So, THANKS SO MUCH YOU GUYS!!! I never, ever thought I would hit 20 followers, let alone 100 and it really means the world to me! Whether you just come to look at the pictures, whether you read every word that I write, whether you are a blogger yourself or just a fan of nail polish in general, I want to thank each and every one of you! The reason I do this blog is for my insane love of nail polish, and I really enjoy sharing the love and chatting with all of you wonderful people. Just to know that you guys are riding along on this journey with me warms my heart. You guys seriously rock!!! I'll stop before I get too mushy, but I want to let you all know that I do have something special planned coming very soon to thank you guys. So stay tuned!

Anyways, today I have another awesome Hits holo for you all! Hits Zeus is almost too amazing for words. It is a KICK ASS (pardon my French) charcoal with a strong linear holo effect. Again, this polish had an absolutely outstanding formula. Last time I used my aqua base which is meant for holos, and this time I used my regular base coat (Barielle Hydrating Ridge Filler) and the application was still FLAWLESS. Had the same jelly-like consistency of Hits Atena. The polish is thick but super easy to apply, and I didn't have to do any clean up whatsoever for these pics. So good news - no special base coats required for these Hits holos! On to the pics - no words can describe how truly stunning this polish is!

I did three coats here, as it was a bit sheer. So here's 3 coats of Zeus, with my normal base and top coats. Enjoy!

Again, thanks for all the love and support everyone!!! I will see you all tomorrow for Pink Wednesday!