Swatch & Review | Harvey Specter by Colores de Carol

Hello! Man, I feel horrible this week. It's either a severe cold or a mild flu, but I'm pretty sure I'm dying. OF THE PLAGUE. /melodrama

I did manage to get my nails painted once. Because my newest purchase arrived--the limited-edition Harvey Specter by Colores de Carol!

I've been following her blog for ages, and am always awed by her creativity, stamping skill, and the fact that she manages to post every day. So when she first started her own polish line, I knew that one day I'd buy some of her stuff. The time has finally come!

I can't get over how much it matches the sequins on this bag :D

Harvey Specter is a fantastic navy/royal blue, chunky holo glitter in a clear base. It shines in electric blue, pink, purple, and green at different angles. I wish the glitter was a bit more densely-packed, but it's totally fantastic! It looks like my blog background, and I love it to tiny bits.

Half-Moon with AMAZING Indie Polish Glitter!

Hello lovely people!

I had a really fun day today. I got to hang out with Jessie from Nailed It NZ, who is on holiday right near me! I always jump at the chance to make/meet cool new friends--especially nail friends, and especially nail friends I've admired online for ages! (Nailmates. It's a thing. Starting right now.) And, not like I'm bragging or anything, but we're some pretty sexy people, especially when we've been rained on and sweating and roller-coastering all day:

that's me on the left, Jess on the right. Some joker in the middle. ;)

I didn't have a terribly long time to spend on my nail art beforehand, but I knew I had to have on something impressive. Perfect time to try my newest polish from Indie Polish!

*drooooooooooooooool*

Delush-ous Pastel Rainbow Marble

Hiya! today I am very happy to show off my latest polish haul! Well, kinda. I don't have swatches, because honestly, I find plain swatching to be boring. That's why you don't see many posts like that on here! But Cris from Let Them Have Polish! did a wonderful swatch set of the Essence of Summer collection by Delush Polish, and two things happened for me immediately: 1) I fell in love with them, and 2) I got an enormous urge to do a water marble with them. So I ordered, and they arrived a few days ago. You should really check out her swatches, as each shade is BEAUTIFUL and looks stunning alone. But here's what they look like together in a marble!

Nail Wheels for Art Show [pic-heavy!]

Hiya! Today's post will be a first for this blog, and I'm pretty excited about it! But first... *tosses hair* notice anything different? Hehe :) I've been playing with the blog layout and background. I love the blue glitter, and I think the lighter body colour in here will make the pics look better. What do you think?

Okay... *deep breath* here goes!
Last November, the office where I worked held an art show/craft fair. Quite a few of us have artistic hobbies--one lady makes scarves, another does jewellery and metalwork, one of my friends makes the most beautiful soaps, lotions, body products, etc, and yet another friend paints on canvas. There are so many talented people there and it was so much fun!

My contribution was designing some sets of false nails (and sold four of them!), but I also made these nail wheels just for display, and I've wanted to show them to you for a while:

This is a REALLY picture-heavy post (I'm talking like, 15 in total) ... so the rest are after the jump!

Go Pack Go! Packers Football Nails

Hello errbody! Today is Sunday, and around here, Sunday is football day. American NFL day, to be precise. I love this game, and my favourite team is the Green Bay Packers! Today I have a manicure showing off two different Packers-themed nail products I have. Let's check it out!

get ya cheeseheads on!

First, let's talk about that awesome polish on my index and small fingers. Over a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, I have two coats of BadAssPolish's Go Pack Go!, from their "Are You Ready For Some Football?" line :D

There are only a few teams represented there so far, but I got lucky that mine was and snatched up this bottle as soon as I saw it. It's a clear suspension base packed with small green sparkle, a tiny bit of gold microglitter, and the those big yellow-gold hexes! It's very dense--over a green base I'd just use one coat, but over the white I used two. The formula is quite thick and can be tricky to work with, but the upside of this is that you don't have to fish for those big glitters at all. Plus, over a red base it would be a great Christmas look!

All their polishes are handmade, 3-free, and have those little metal balls in to keep it mixed up. The bottles are 15ml and good-quality, and the brush is nice too. Also, the packaging when shipped is the best I've ever seen! It's wrapped in a little bit of felt and secured in a small cardboard tube. Overall, I'm impressed with this brand*. I wish they had more choices, but the ones they do have are great. :)

In the sun, for sparkles. You can't really see it in these shots, but the words "Are You Ready For Some Football" are actually in the shape of a football going around the polish name on the bottle! Really cute touch.

Indoors with flash. The other side of the bottle, with the name and site URL. Go pick this up now!

On my ring finger, I have three thin coats of Zoya Ivanka, my all-time favourite green polish. Emerald with the best glassflecky beautiful sparkle ever. I need to find backups of this shade. Just amazing.

The thumb and middle finger are two coats of Zoya Darcy, which looks like a creme but in certain lights has a nice subtle yellow-gold shimmer. I really love this daffodil-yellow shade. I've seen it all over the internet and finally picked it up, and I'm already super-glad I did! I didn't have another yellow like it, plus it's a great Packers-gold shade.

On the middle finger I used some nail decals my brother got me for Christmas (thanks, Mark!). The brand is WinCraft, and although they are advertised as nail tattoos and sized as such, they are actually just the same as a temporary tattoo you would use on your skin, rather than a water decal as I first thought. They come on a sheet like this. I like that there are five different sizes, to fit each nail the same way. Unlike using them on your skin, I only had to hold the wet cloth on the back of the paper for a second or two before it transferred onto the nail, so that was handy. Sealed in with Orly Sec 'N Dry topcoat.

One more pic. Kind of blurry, kind of meh lighting, but it nicely showed off those yellow hex glitters. They stand out a lot in person!

Time to go make some food and get ready for today's game. See you next time! xoxo

*BadAssPolish did not send me this product to review, nor are they compensating me in any way for this. I bought the polish myself and am just reviewing based on my honest opinion.

Pirate Polish--Love in a Cold Climate collection: Skittle mani!

Happy Sunday, everyone! I hope everyone is feeling as grand as I am today. It's quite chilly outside (37F, 2C) but super bright and sunny! After weeks on end of grey, rainy weather, I am loving this nice change. It's still cold, so I can totally get away with just now showing off the Valentine-esque collection by indie brand Pirate Polish called Love in a Cold Climate. Most people reviewed these last month, but better late than never, amirite?

I just love that there's a Ninja Polish and a Pirate Polish. Those of you who know me at all know which way I go (hint: ARRRRRR!), and this collection was so cute I had to get it, although I just went for the mini-bottles. Instead of simply swatching, which plenty of folks have already done, I went for a random skittle mani to show different combos together!

They sort of remind me of candy.

There are four polishes at work here:

Be Mine is the soft pink creme. In the bottle there is SO much gold shimmer, but on the nail it doesn't come out as much. It's really nice, though. Two thick coats or three thin ones are enough for this opacity. I used that as the base on the small, middle, and index fingers.

The red base is Cinnamon Girl, which is a squishy jelly red with lots of red and holographic sparkles! I love cinnamon, and I'm pretty sure this was the one that pushed me over the edge and made me order the set. This is three thin coats.

Over the index nail you can see two coats of Lovandula, which is a great glitter topper! Tiny blue and purple microglitters, medium-sized satiny pink hexes, large purple holo glitters, and those fantastic purple satiny diamond-shaped glitters! I think it looks great over Be Mine, but I'm going to wear it over purple next time--I'll bet that will look splendid.

On the middle and thumb nails, you can see the glitter topper Love in a Cold Climate, the collection's namesake, and my favourite of the bunch! I love the mix going on here and how opaque the glitters are--they show up over anything! Tiny squares, medium hexes, and big hearts all in both blue and white, plus white diamonds and square iridescent specks, for some shine. I think it looks so neat over the red! That was two coats, with some fishing needed to get the hearts out, but not too bad at all--the suspension base these glitters are in is GREAT.

Pretty much just put this pic here because it made me laugh. My actual thumbnail is the size that the middle white heart appears here!

I posted the link above, but I'll add it again here: Pirate Polish on Etsy
They have lots of great polishes, including this set which is still in stock!

And with that, I'm off to enjoy this beautiful day. See you next time! xoxo