Lush Lacquer Seas the Moment – Swatches

Another gorgeous Lush Lacquer gifted to me on my birthday by my Sister V… squee! This is Seas the Moment – blue, green and white matte and satin glitters in a clear base.

But first – the ‘undies’ – my base colour. This is actually a polish my mother made, a gorgeous toddler blue with holographic shimmer. Toddler blue? Yeah, not really as pale and soft as baby blue, just a touch more grown up. 😉 Two layers of this – it was a bit runnier than I expected, and so flooded me nails. And left shimmer behind when I tried to clean it up quickly. Sorry about the mess, I obviously wasn’t feeling all that conscientious!

Now, this is Seas the Moment.

Pretty, huh! One thin, easy, lovely coat of Seas the Moment. Inside, under light 🙂

Macro…

And then, of course, I matted it with Essie Matte About You.

Macro of THAT 😀

And because I was dying to try out the 3 way Nail Art Pens again, I added a quick and nasty flower on my ring finger with the pink and black pens, and there is a little black rhinestone in the center of the flower. I like those black blingies, because they are really quite satin, not all that glittery at all! Something different…

Have a lovely day!

Ami 🙂

We Made Our Own Polishes!! Hugely Picture Heavy Post.

Whoop! This is so exciting. My mother and I managed to get hold of some suspension base, and glitters, pigments, micas, dyes. And. We. Went. To. Town.

It was so much fun, setting up testers, finding out what worked and what didn’t, jumping around in excitement when we took the polishes with holographic shimmers and glitters outside into the sunshine. (hah, what am I saying? Almost all of them had some type of holo shimmer, glitter, or Spectraflair!). These are the four we liked the best – two from each of our tests. We made two bottles of each colour, one bottle for each of us 😀 So, very picture heavy post!

Green Opal. Two thick coats on it’s own. It’s sheer, and subtle, but very pretty with the green shimmer and holo glitters.

Two coats – indirect light. Sorry about the yellow nails, that’s me not the polish! Wear base coats with green polish, people.

Slow dry time, esp without top coat.

Under light – shows the green pearl sheen nicely 🙂

One coat of Green Opal over One coat of Kleancolor White (which was streaky in every layering mani, self-levels like a one-legged tripod. Sigh.)

Two coats of Green Opal over White. very pretty, still very subtle – but hides the streaks in the white, nicely.

One thick coat of Green Opal over Kleancolor Black. WOW, look at that change!

Full hand photo, to show what it looks like at arms length 🙂

Because our hands are, most often, at arms length, right?!

Then, to see what these did over a variety of colours: one coat of each of these.

from left to right: Cairuo 22, Color Club Yum Gum, Kleancolor Sea Ice, Mode Say Cheese.

One coat of Green Opal over all of the above.

Topper. Like the name? We suck at names.

This was made to be a linear holographic top coat that won’t interfere too much with the colour underneath. Yeah, yeah, done a million times, right? So, add flakies… which tend to pop out in the shade, whereas the holo rainbows dance in the sun. Versatility! Something for every light 🙂
One coat over bare nail… eek. Sorry. Just to show you how sheer it is, and yet still holo and flakie (though the one flake on that nail has disappeared in the vague light).

Look, I said I was sorry, ok?! Just look at the rainbow! 😀

One coat of Kleancolor White, two coats of Topper. This looks pale silver and speckled with the occasional iridescent flake in the shade…

Click to enlarge to see the flakies in this indirect light photo 🙂

and holo in the sun. Moderately quick dry too, thanks to the Spectraflair holographic!

Sunlight wasn’t available. This is kitchen light. Still has rainbows… what does it MEAN?! 😀

One coat of Topper over one coat of Kleancolor Black. Really, really, liked this. in the shade it shows the flakes…

Light to show the rainbow…

And blurry to show ALL THE RAINBOW! Wheee!

One coat of Topper over the same skittles as previous.

Nebula: This is another sheer polish, more sheer than Green Opal. Two coats here, just adds a wash of purple and holo silver glitter to the nails. Quite slow drying, no top coat. Obviously, with a quick dry top coat this would be smoother, and dry, well, quicker :). Two coats indirect light:

In the kitchen light:

One coat of Nebula over one coat of Kleancolour White:

Two coats Nebula over White: Very delicate and pretty lilac with the silver holo glitter. This would need a top coat in real life 🙂

One thick coat of Nebula over Kleancolor Black: Look at the rich BLUE!

Love the extreme colour change of this and Green Opal, it really adds versatility, which I’m a BIG fan of in nail polish, and in life 😀

Over the same skittles as before:

Interesting result, huh? And isn’t it super ugly over the yellow? We do these tests so you don’t have to 😉

And Purple Velvet. Misnamed, like them all, I think. This is blue AND purple, but not blurple. The colours take turns, its a little duochrome-ish. This is two coats on it’s own, no undies, no top coat.

Indirect light

Excuse the mess, I was a leetle tired by this stage, and missing spots during cleanup.

Kitchen light, two coats:

And three coats on its own, no undies, no top coat.

Indirect sunlight

Whole hand photo

 

Again, this is designed to have an effect in every light (except no light, it doesn’t glow,  though that’d be fun!).

Kitchen light, shows the shine nicely here

It has a purple flick in the shade, and the flakies show. In the light the scattered holo shimmer shows, and also a varied purple/red/blue shimmer.

And now it’s purple…

And under a yellow light, which shows the inky depth of it quite nicely…

Strangely enough, although its not colour accurate for my fingers, it’s pretty accurate for the polish in that lighting 🙂

This is very shiny without topcoat, and dries average – fast.

We had a tiny spot of real sunshine this morning, so I took a photo of my least battered fingernails to see if I could get that holo shimmer dancing:

Back to blue! 🙂

What do you think of our polishes? Be honest, but please be nice!

Have an awesome creative day
Ami 🙂

Day 04: Green Nails

Day four of the 31 Day Nail Polish challenge: Green Nails. I love green!

I got a chance to use my franken polish! I showed you all the what not to do post here… and now I get to use it.

This was one thick coat of China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint – which I left alone on the least streaky nail. (Democratic way of chosing an accent nail, methinks). Then I put one coat of my franken polish with the green and gold holographic glitter in it.

This was thick. It was like I just poured whole bottles of glitter into this polish. Oh yeah, that’s right, I DID heh heh heh. The base was a CR polish with holographic silver glitter and stars in it, one of which you can almost see peeking through the glitter on my index finger.

It was nice to be able to use this 🙂

Have a greeen day!

Ami

Franken attempt, and Happy Birthday to my Mother! :)

I love to franken nail polishes, although I don’t do it often. (note: franken is a strange word meaning ‘mixing up your own colours of nail polish’ – usually by combing different polishes, and often adding glitter. You can also use eyeshadow powder, which sometimes works and sometimes catastrophically fails. Adds to the fun).

This started off as a fail. I bought a cheap clear polish, and poured in a bunch of holographic glitter Megan from Two Lacquered Girls sent me. And then… it ALL fell to the bottom, and the green bled out of the green glitter. NOT what I was hoping would happen!

I’ve used the glitter in other polishes just fine, but I used a glitter polish to start with – and obviously they have a suspension base allowing that all to happen well. This didn’t, and this beauty was the result.

But if this happens to you, don’t despair! Just tip out some of the green goo at the top, and add different nail polishes. I used a few, mostly blue cream, green shimmer and a gold glitter.

This one I made for my mothers birthday – and I sneaky went and swatched it. Well, I had to, didn’t I, to make sure it worked? Its not AT ALL like reading someones brand new book then wrapping it up for their present. And I’ve only done that once. *Guilt*

• Little finger (on the right of the photo) has two coats of the franken (which I named Birthday Wishes)
• ring finger has one coat over two coats of Coral Colours Jayd
• middle finger has one coat over two coats of NYC Filthy Rich.

all nails have Kleancolor Fast Dry top coat, and could use another to be completely smooth.

Blurry for bling..

I think I like it on it’s own best, it’s more blingy and richer in colour. But my mother doesn’t like removing glitter, so I did make it as a top coat for her, it’ll be up to her how (or if! hehe) she use’s it. She has more polishes coming – and yes, she does read this blog, and she does know about them but not WHAT they are so I’ll keep quiet about it, but I hope she’ll be happy with them. 🙂 Love ya, Gyongyi! And Happy Birthday!

Home-made Holographic Glitter Top Coat

Its winter. No, sorry, it’s WINTER. In other parts of the world this would beconsidered balmy I’m sure, but.. I’m pretty soft with the cold temperatures. It’s been getting below minus 2 degrees Celsius at night, and thats pretty cold for so early in the year. So, I wanted something blingy on my nails to give me a smile. Not as good as an electric blanket for warmth, but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

This was just a quick and nasty franken – the base polish was CR 50, a clear with silver and silver holo glitter, and some large silver stars. Do you remember a while back when I posted how Megan from Two Lacquered Girls sent me some polishes for butterflies, and included some holographic glitters? No? More fish oil tablets for you, then. But here’s the link if you’re curious. Basically I threw a heap of all those glitters into this polish, and shook it like you shouldn’t shake a polaroid picture.

[If you’re curious, you are supposed to lie a polaroid picture down on a flat surface until it has developed the image and dried. Otherwise you get a blurred mess. Yes, I remember polaroids – my aunt had one in the early 80’s. They were awesome. Technology is better than carbon dating at aging someone, right?!]

 

I layered one coat of this over one coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather. Liquid Leather isn’t opaque in one coat, but with a thick top coat you can’t see that. The added glitter made this a surprisingly thick polish, but the glitter is so nice it was quite smooth despite that. This is mostly silver, but with the added blues, greenish yellow with a sprinkle of pink –  like a disco on my nails. I have two coats of Orly Sec’n’Dry top coat on, and it dried fast and smooth. Really impressed with that top coat, actually!

And a whole hand -wearing glove – photo. My hands are red. That’s because I’m cold.

Hand knitted fingerless gloves, from the Ashhurst Market. I love markets 🙂

 

And the whole hand with flash, and no gloves because it’s evening now and I’m much warmer – this shows the colours off pretty well, I think (click to enlarge photo if you want to see a bit more detail).

I’m really happy with this franken, and stoked I have the glitters – thanks Megan! I think I’ll put aside one of the green/blues and the green/yellow to try and create a holo, glittery, Floam-esque polish. It may not work. But it may…

Megan’s Polish.

After my many mani fails of the day (yesterday), I really wanted to stick with the blue theme and try out this polish.

Megan from Two Lacquered Girls made me this franken polish as part of the swap-for-butterflies we did. And wow is it a beauty.

Megan’s Polish (named by me :D)

Its a turquoise/teal blue almost foil base with fine light blue and red glitter, and mid size hex glitter in the same red and blue. I love it to absolute bits. I have nothing similar to this colour, and I think the red and blue glitter look like neon tetra fish in a pond.

More photos? Ok! The sun was almost at setting point, but the colours are pretty accurate. An interesting this about this polish is that it looks very similar no matter the light, it doesn’t change like quite a few do. These photos are two coats, and quick dry top coat.

And a whole hand photo…

Megan made this polish up in less than 5 mins while we were chatting on Facebook. The girl has talent. She seems a little unsure about whether she should make her own polishes to sell.. I think that she should really, really give it a go. I’d buy some, for sure! 😀

Have a great day, with no mani fails 🙂