Swatch: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Spark in the Dark collection & Siren LE

The products in this post were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.

Happy Friday! Today I'm excited to show off an upcoming collection from a new-to-me indie brand, Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer! I was so honored that Julie asked me to review for her!

The Spark in the Dark collection is perfect for winter because it's full of different shades of blue, which made me really happy! Of course, blues are the hardest shades to photograph, so I had to color-correct some of these, and the colors still might not be 100% accurate. So I would definitely look for multiple swatches before purchasing if that concerns you!

A note on the formula: the brand states that their polishes are "designed to be opaque in one to two coats, so they may need to be thinned to your desired consistency." I found that they were definitely on the thicker side but still perfectly workable, so long as I was careful to wipe a lot of excess polish off the brush. I didn't feel the need to add thinner to any of them, but that's just my preference!

OK, let's start with an LE polish called Hypothermia! This polish will ONLY be available if you purchase the entire collection. It's described as a purple holo with purple shimmers, although to me the base color is more like faded indigo.

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Hypothermia. One coat with Out the Door topcoat.

The purple shimmers were hard to catch on camera, but they're definitely there in real life. The holo effect is nice and strong. This polish was a great one-coater!


Next is Bound to the City Life, a dark teal jelly with multicolored holo microglitter. It has great depth and sparkle!

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Bound to the City Life. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

Since this is a jelly, it was thicker than the others and took a little more finesse to apply evenly. I didn't find it unpleasantly goopy or sticky though. 


This is Counting Down Until I See You, which has a clear base packed with pink microglitter, as well as some larger pink glitter, gunmetal grey glitter, and silver reflective beads. Definitely the blingiest member of the collection!

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Counting Down Until I See You. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat (left) and Revlon matte topcoat (right).

  

Since this one's very sparkly, I added matte topcoat to my ring and pinky nails so you can see the details a little better. (Plus I think it looks great matte!) The glitter applied very evenly, and two coats was sufficiently opaque for my taste. 


Next up is It's Almost After Midnight, a smoky dark grey with strong blue shimmer. This is definitely one of my favorites in the collection--it's so moody!

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer It's Almost After Midnight. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

  

This polish was sheer on the first coat but built up well on the second. I couldn't stop staring at my nails. :-D 


Here's Never Danced Like This Before, a navy holo with teal shimmer. It's gorgeous, with a jeweltone-like quality to it.

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Never Danced Like This Before. One coat with Out the Door topcoat.

This was another one-coater. I'm really impressed with how she manages to get such depth and opacity in a polish at the same time! The holo particles here are a little bigger and less dense than in Hypothermia.


Next is She's Electricity, a hot pink holo with pink and aqua shimmers and purple-blue iridescent microglitter. This one feels like a splash of summer in amongst all the blues!

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer She's Electricity. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

The extra shimmers and glitter are visible, but they don't pop out quite as much as I was hoping. Maybe if I added some thinner? The holo effect here is the weakest of the three holos in the collection. 


Next up is The Years Have Been Short, which is a slightly white-tinted base with blue, white and iridescent microglitters, blue shimmer, and silver reflective beads. This polish just screams "snowstorm" to me!

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer The Years Have Been Short. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

  

Again, the glitter applied very evenly and I was happy with the opacity at two coats. I think this would also look nice layered! 


Finally, here's Wanna Fall in Love Tonight, a red-toned purple with golden red shimmer. This dries to a semi-matte finish, so I've left it au naturale on the two left fingers and added topcoat on the two right fingers. (Pardon my huge nail ridges!)

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Wanna Fall in Love Tonight. One coat with Out the Door topcoat (ring and pinky fingers).

Although my nail line is visible here, I couldn't really see it in normal lighting. I probably could've gone for two coats though. As you can see, the shimmer is very fine and adds a luminous quality to the polish. 


In addition to the Spark in the Dark collection, I also received a limited edition polish in the Siren Series, which will only be restocked once. Sirens Are Made For Water, Not Snow is a blue creme with a purple flash that dries semi-matte. As above, I added topcoat only to the ring and pinky nails.

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Sirens Are Made For Water, Not Snow. One coat with Out the Door topcoat (ring and pinky fingers).

  

I was a bit disappointed to find that the purple shimmer is much weaker on the nail than in the bottle. (My camera couldn't pick it up at all because it was confused by all the blue.) This might be another case where adding thinner could help.


Overall, I think this is a really solid collection, especially with all those gorgeous blue polishes! My favorites would have to be It's Almost After Midnight, Never Danced Like This Before, and The Years Have Been Short. Which do you like best?

All these polishes will be released on January 12 at Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer's shop! You can get the entire eight-piece Spark in the Dark collection for just $67 (13 ml size) or $37 for minis.

Be sure to follow Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest to stay up-to-date!  

The products in this post were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own. 

An ode to brown polish

Hey there! Fall is almost here, and that means pumpkin pie, apple cider and brown nail polish!! I love brown polish of all shades, but I know that's a pretty unpopular opinion. I see a lot of comments like, "that's a nice color, but I never wear brown."

But I think brown gets a bad rap. Think about how many shades of brown there are; you are bound to find one that you like and that goes nicely with your skintone (don't forget that nude/off-white shades are technically brown too!). Brown polish can work as a great neutral/work-safe shade, or a super vampy shade that's a little less harsh than black.

I have over 30 brown polishes in my stash, and I picked out a range of them to show you how versatile brown can be. Join me, won't you??

(I apologize in advance for the yellow stains on my nails in some of these photos. I accidentally got Yellow #5 all over my fingers!)

Swatch: Mentality Gale

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Happy Sunday everyone! Before I show you today's mani, I just want to point you to my brand new storefront! It comes with a rewards system I call Pooch Points, meaning you can start earning discounts when you shop there! You also may have noticed that the URL of the blog has changed--if you find any broken links around the site, please let me know!

OK, on to my mani! I was so busy last week that I didn't get to do my nails at all until Friday. It feels good to have polish on again! I'm wearing Mentality Gale, a new acquisition. Mentality makes amazing matte polishes, so I had to grab a couple when they were having a sale!

Gale is a matte polish composed of tiny flecks of grey and red, which give the polish a slightly purple tone.

Mentality Gale. One coat.

The polish was nicely opaque in one coat! The formula was on the thick side, but not annoyingly so. I tried to minimize the number of strokes on each nail to avoid brushstrokes, because the particles in this one are prone to showing everything the brush does. Dry time was pretty quick.

I'm not seeing Gale on Mentality's site right now, so I'm not sure if it's still available. But they have plenty of other beautiful matte polishes for sale!

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

The Neverending Pile Challenge: The Lady Varnishes Lothlorien

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Happy Friday! I have another pretty swatch for you today from an indie I've been admiring for a long time. For today's Neverending Pile prompt, green, I wore The Lady Varnishes Lothlorien. I mean, Galadriel is one of my favorite characters from The Lord of the Rings, so I basically HAD to buy this polish, right?

(Apologies for the lobster hands!)

The Lady Varnishes Lothlorien. Three coats with no topcoat.

Lothlorien is a minty/seafoamy green matte polish with silver and gold microglitter and green shimmer. This color is exactly up my alley--very dreamy and magical, just like the elves! As you can see, it's fairly sheer, as my nail lines are still visible under three coats. The formula was thick but manageable, but not 100% self-leveling. The polish dried slightly gritty due to the tiny particles in it. Dry time was nice and fast, always great for a matte.

I wore this polish with a topcoat too, and I think I actually prefer it this way because it lets the shimmer really pop!

The Lady Varnishes Lothlorien. Three coats with Out the Door topcoat.

Lothlorien is available at The Lady Varnishes' Etsy shop ($11 for 15 ml)!


Total untrieds tried: 63 + chevron decals + 3 stamping plates


 

The Neverending Pile Challenge: matte gradients

Hey folks! Today's Neverending Pile Challenge prompt is gradient. Another great excuse to use multiple untried polishes! For this one I decided to go all neutral and all matte (I have a surprisingly large number of matte neutrals!). I think this is the first time I've done horizontal gradients. I made each nail carry on one of the colors from the previous nail so each blends into the next.

I'm not sure what this reminds me of--TV static maybe? (Do you guys remember static??) The polishes I used were Maybelline Mod Moss, Julep Noelle, Julep Nora and Julep Amber. Interestingly, I tried this mani with a topcoat and didn't like it--I think it accented the different colors and made the mani look kind of confused.


Total untrieds tried: 45


 

Swatch: Julep Mae

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Today I'm wearing one of the polishes I got in my latest Julep Maven box. This month Julep put out several matte and matte shimmer polishes, which I love, so I had to take the box. Mae is a dusty lavender "satin finish" polish, which is Julep-speak for a plain matte creme.

Julep Mae. Two coats.

I love how serene Mae is. It would make a great workday polish!

The formula was typical for a Julep creme: somewhat runny, and hard to get thin coats because the brush is so long and it's impossible to wipe all the excess off. Consequently the polish dried slowly, which isn't great for a matte because you can't add topcoat. One option is to use drying drops, like Julep's or Zoya's, which don't add gloss to your mani. I also note that Mae was pretty much a one-coater for me (although I did two), which is impressive for such a light color!

Mae is available at Julep.com ($14 for 8 ml, $11.20 for Mavens). Click here to become a Maven for free!

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Today's mani: Quick and dirty holiday nails

Merry Christmas Eve! I've been enjoying my vacation so far, visiting with various relatives and eating lots of food, and tonight I'm looking forward to presents and Christmas cookies! (We even got my Jewish husband to help put ornaments on the tree!) I didn't really bring any nail polish on our trip, but of course I ended up buying some new stuff the other day...just can't help myself. I thought the two polishes I picked would be good for a general Christmas/New Years mani.

These polishes are both from the Sally Hansen Satin Glam collection, which must be new because I'd never seen it before. They're matte with lots of sparkle. I used Go Gold and added a freehand stripe of Silk Onyx over about 1/3 of each nail. They were both opaque in one coat!

My freehand skills aren't perfect (and you should see my other hand!) but I really like the matte finish on these polishes--I think they're really classy.

I hope everyone who celebrates has a wonderful Christmas...and to those who don't celebrate, go eat some Chinese food for me!

31-Day Challenge #17: glitter

For today's prompt I barely had to think at all before I knew what I wanted to do. I love the look of full-coverage glitter with solid-color accents; I've seen the idea on several blogs (I think on Accio Lacquer most recently).

This is two coats of Deborah Lippmann Superstar with Revlon Stiletto on the tips. I mattified the accent nail, then I decided to make the whole mani matte:

I think both versions are pretty classy! Which do you like better?


Don't forget to admire all of today's sparkly nails!

Today's mani: the rusty skunk

OK, I know that's a weird name for a manicure. Just sit back and listen to my story, dear reader, and everything will become clear...

On Friday night the hubby and I were watching TV (Michael Palin's Around the World in 80 Days, if you want to know). Suddenly we smelled the familiar scent of skunk, but much stronger than we had ever experienced. The stench filled our apartment in a matter of minutes. It was so strong I thought something might be on fire outside...but no, it turned out our landlord's dog had been skunked just outside the house.

When it was time to take Trudy out for her evening pee, I figured the skunk would have left the scene of the crime. But when we came out, it was still sitting there, ten feet from us with its tail up! Naturally both of us freaked out, and I pulled Trudy behind the house. Back there it's just a little dead-end alleyway, but I thought we might be able to escape somehow.

While fumbling around in the dark, I stepped on an old board with some nails sticking out...can you see where this is going? Yep, a nail went right through my flip-flop and into my big toe. Now I was panicking and also gushing blood from my foot. I knew I had to make a break for it, so I grabbed Trudy and dashed for the door, right past the skunk. Luckily we didn't get sprayed--wouldn't that have been just perfect? I called my husband, who was a bit freaked out at the sight of my bloody foot, but he did a good job cleaning me up.

Naturally, we decided it would be a good idea to pay a visit to the hospital, where I got a tetanus shot and some X-rays. They found that the nail had actually nicked my bone, which apparently is a risk for some bad infections, so I got a prescription for antibiotics. For the past two days I've been pretty much immobile. But it's a fun story to tell at parties, right??

To commemorate my first visit to the ER, I decided to create a mani...and thus the Rusty Skunk was born.

See, white stripes like a skunk? And the dots are like...drops of blood? Yep.

Polishes used: Maybelline Porcelain Party, Revlon Stiletto, and Julep Minka. Minka is a matte metallic; I absolutely love this finish. On the nails where I used Minka, I did one coat of polish, one coat of topcoat, then another coat of polish. This is supposed to make matte polish last longer. I also used Revlon's matte topcoat on my accent nail.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the skunk was apparently sick or injured, because it lay in the same place for several hours, then mysteriously disappeared. It may still be out there somewhere...