Indie Spam Post

Some indie spam photos of some gorgeous polishes!

First up is Crazy on You, by Wing Dust Polishes.

Two thin coats of Crazy on You over Kleancolor Black, topped with Misa BREAKneck top coat.

I preferred this layered, it was opaque on it’s own at three coats, but the black makes everything stand out so much more.

Wing Dust Crazy on You

I adored the pink shift! On the angle, the shimmer in the polish really shows pink, instead of blue. 🙂 Some of the pink hexes have a reflective curl (the way the light hits the edges makes it looked curled), but they lie flat on the nail, and this was lovely and smooth after one topcoat layer.

Next we have a cute little polish by Lush Lacquer, called Neon Blast. This was one that my friend Megan from Two Lacquered Girls blog sent me, and I adore it!

Excuse the poor lightbox photos, I’m still working on the lighting in winter issues 🙂

This was one coat of Neon Blast over Pretty & Polished Day Trippin’, and I LOVED this combo!

There’s no real substitute for good sunlight, is there?!

And see? When Day Trippin’ changed colour to the warm pink version (still showing the purple at the tips, I ADORE colour changing polishes), the glitters in Neon Blast still showed up perfectly. I think Neon Blast would be a hard polish to layer wrong – some glitter toppers are a real challenge to get the right base colour, but I think this one is just amazingly versatile.

And Pretty & Polished Candy Coated…

Super cute little polish, candy pink jelly base with purple mini glitters, and a couple of sizes of pink holographic hexes.

Photos show three coats, no top coat. Still some VNL, but not a lot, and just lovely on the super short nails on my other hand, subtle and sparkly and completely disguises the nubbins 😀

This is Ami by Daily Lacquer… which I bought almost as soon as she opened her shop because a) it’s my colours, and b) it has my name on it. Literally 😀

Super pretty, this is two coats over Kleancolor Sea Ice. It can be opaque in 3, but I had some issues with drying time.

I’ve added a thick coat of base coat and then a fast dry top coat on top so it’s lovely and smooth, but probably still having those dry time issues. I love it regardless!

And finally, this is a polish from Mmmm Nails, called Between the Buns, however it appears this shop no longer exists on Etsy!! Argh! It’s taken me so long to try it, but I can say, this is one gorgeous polish.

It’s a strong duochromatic gold, which flicks between gold and pink, with a slight green hue at certain angles.

Photos show two coats, plus top coat, there is still a slight bit of VNL, but that would disappear with three coats. I did two because I was planning on stamping over it, and knew that would distract the eye from the nail line – I am cunning when I am short on time 😀

Dry time was good, wear time has been excellent (two whole days, very slight tip wear, no chips, that’s GREAT on my nails!) and I really, really like it. The best of all the polishes I bought from her! Where did you go, nail polish creator? I want more duochromes from you!

Have a great day,

Ami

Pretty & Polished: It Gets Better swatches

I have had my eye on this gorgeous little polish for awhile, and finally caved in when I bought my colour changing Pretty & Polished polishes (article here), because it was FINALLY back in stock, and I love it. I do.

Primarily it’s a minty green with a very fine green shimmer, and a rainbow of holographic hexes floating throughout. The formula was really good, it applied really easily and was opaque in two coats, shown in the photos at 2 coats with Misa BREAKneck top coat.

The glitter hexes applied a little sporadically, but it didn’t really matter, they are still pretty! The shimmer, however, was pretty shy, and I don’t think I managed to get any photos of it. Chronically shy. Like, you probably wouldn’t know it was there unless you’d looked closely at the bottle first, shy.

The colour, for me, was perfect. The best light green for my skin tone I have found – no lobster hands at all!

I had to wear this to celebrate New Zealand voting to legalise marriage between two consenting adults, regardless of gender. Yeah, you could say ‘gay marriage’, but I don’t think that’s the point really. The point is us growing up as a nation, and saying gender really DOESN’T matter here, love does. And that’s HUGE. I am seldom proud of my country, but I had some very proud and happy feelings the morning I found the bill had passed. Way to go, those 77 politicians that ‘aye-d’ it, and all the people out there supporting and promoting and picketing and signing and emailing.  And to those of you who are immediately affected by this change, congrats – sorry it’s so long overdue, and IT DOES GET BETTER!

I can’t find It Gets Better on Pretty & Polished website (here) or Etsy shop (here), but she may bring it back – and check out the other amazing polishes, too. One thing I loved about this polish was that she donated some of the proceeds to the It Gets Better foundation, and I always try to support that kind of ethics in business.

Have a great day! And, YAY NEW ZEALAND! GO EQUALITY! *happy dance*

Ami 🙂

Really Quick Photos of Pretty & Polished Day Trippin’ and May Flowers.

Preamble: My apologies, these are quick, and not good photos. Of two VERY nice polishes. I will revisit, but right now I need to clear my desk and photo album, so here they are!

First off: Pretty & Polished May Flowers

This is a lovely polish, mid green when cold, very light green when warm.

Two coats here, and Misa BREAKneck top coat. Dry time was average, wear time was good!

My favourite part is probably the pink flowers, because they are hard to see when the polish is green, but very visible when it’s light 😀

And here is Day Trippin’ – here is three thin coats no top coat, see it sort of looks matte?

And here with Misa BREAKneck top coat, lovely and glossy. This is another colour changing polish – from purple with pink shimmer when cool to REALLY bright pink when warm.

this is in it’s COLD state! 😀

I like the fact that I usually had the purple tips, even though my nails are always short.

Although, when I showed my family they were all neon pink (hot day!) and my folks were ‘meh’ (because, apart from my mother none of us are really pink people, and even she thought it was strange I was wearing hot pink with no glitter heh), but when I ran them under cold water and they changed INSTANTLY – then I got the WOOOO’s! 😀

Mostly warm – when it gets very warm the tips go pink, too 🙂

So, yeah. Sorry about the poor quality of the photos, but I hope it gives some idea of the supreme coolness of these polishes. I love them. SO much. I’ll definitely take better photos at a later stage, they deserve it! Meantime, probably just go and buy them if you can 😀

Have a great day

Ami the Enabler. 🙂

Pretty and Polished: Cuttlefish – Swatches

Introducing my first temperature controlled colour changing nail polish; aka the Mood Polish. 🙂

I’m so going to make a ring out of this.

This is Pretty & Polished Cuttlefish, which I had to buy because a) Cuttlefish are some of my all time favourite animals, an b) look at it, it’s stunning! These photos show three coats of Cuttlefish, and a top coat of China Glaze Fast Forward.

When it’s cold, this polish is a pretty mid teal blue, with blue, green and silver glitters. When it warms up (i.e ALL THE TIME at the moment, it’s Summer!) it goes to a very soft almost white blue, and you can see there are periwinkle glitters too, and some of the glitters are circles! Yay!

During these photos I had to pour cold water over my fingers to get them  to change, and they’d snap back to white as soon as I turned the water off. This is NOT a slow changing polish, it’s really fast! When I would go swimming, or for a walk in the morning, my nails would be blue. So very entertaining for me. Imagine a car painted like this! In winter you’d have a blue car, in summer a white one, and in the mornings you’d have a blue car with a white bonnet lol

Dry time was fast, removal was easy, and it lasted for quite a few days before chipping. It did need all three coats, because it was a bit sheer. I’d imagine you could layer it fine, but not sure which colour you’d choose to layer it over, and I love the depth of glitter at 3 coats.

So, enough rabbitting. I want all of her colour changing polishes, like RIGHT NAOW. And I want to layer Ruby Wing Desert Valley over Cuttlefish. Could you imagine the colour changing combinations? *brain explodes with the Glee of Gimmicks*

I love the way this can make a gradient, with blue at the tips, when the conditions are just right – even on my short nails 🙂

Have a spectacular day

Ami

Mayan Zombie Nails! Features Pretty & Polished, Polish Revolution, and more :D

My sister hosted a BBQ on the 21st of December – and themed it the ZomBBQ – just in case the Hollywood scriptwriters were right, and the end of the 13th Mayan Long Count Calendar did mean the end of the world. This time. For some reason, that meant zombies. Or jaguars… or.. good goddess, all sorts. Planets rampaging through our solar system to whallop Earth upside the crust, rains of fire/blood/locusts/water/sultanas… all silliness. All a good excuse to have a family get together involving dressing up as the undead.

I decided to go as a Mayan Priestess – deceased. Though in deference to the 3 children under 5 years old, I referenced being deceased by just putting paler makeup on than normal 😀 I was a chicken priestess, of course. And when I get some photos through from my sister, I’ll show you my outfit! 😀

These were my nails-to-match:

Its really hot and humid here at the moment, and this did bubble – but it wasn’t really visible in real life 🙂

Here we have one lovely coat of L.A Girls Color Addict in Disorder, a gorgeous slate grey with gold shimmer. Added to that was a coat of Polish Revolution in Vegan Zombie (appropriate, I thought! I’d rather meet  a Vegan Zombie than a carnivorous one!) and then one coat of Pretty & Polished Hearts & Daggers, which added the appropriate Mayan theme, I think 😀

I topped it off with Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food, and Misa BREAKneck – which meant it dried pretty fast, and very smooth.

In fact, I am still wearing this mani two days later (I KNOW!) and they have a small amount of tip wear, no chips, and are still smooth to the touch. Polish and top coat win. I love, love, love this mani, and don’t want to take it off (but I have others I’m dead keen to put on (nailpolishaddictsproblems) and actually I’m a bit scared because I don’t have peel-off base coat under it. 😀

P.S – this came off really easily, actually. I just soaked a cotton ball in remover, had that pressed on my nail for about 30 seconds, then it came off pretty quickly. 😀

Have a lovely Boxing Day!

Ami

Pretty & Polished: Hearts and Daggers over Kleancolor, Swatches

Before we get to the Pretty & Polished, this is the colour I layered it over – Kleancolor Shining Sea.

Base coat and one coat of Shining sea, this is such a pretty, shimmery deep aqua blue. It would probably look nicer at 2 coats, but as I was layering this and am a very lazy person, one coat was what I stuck with. Mr Husband noticed this polish, too. ‘Wow’, he says, ‘THAT’S a bright blue, I can see that from across the room!’ And so he could.

Easy application, lovely formula. Doesn’t stain 🙂 I like that it has larger flake type particles in it too, gives it a nice spark and texture (visually, it’s not lumpy at all).

Then here is the star of today’s show, Pretty & Polished Hearts & Daggers.

I bought this from Llarowe on sale, and it’s super pretty. So much going on with this one, but all in the colour scheme of red, white and black – yay power colours!

The base is cloudy because it’s suspension base, but goes on clear – there is a lot of teensy iridescent glitter in it too, to give it a punch of sparkle, as all the other glitters are matte.

I tell you this, though: this polish is HARD work. Kleancolor Aurora level hard, but with a nicer base and better end result. I shook this. I fished. I shook, and shook, and fished. I rolled, I twisted, I turned, in the end I got a stick and stirred the McFlurry out of it, and STILL had to fish. But look, I think I got all the glitters represented here –  and it’s so worth it.

 

For a uber glitter in a large amount of base it dries respectably fast. I topped it off with Kleancolor Fast Dry for these photos… and utterly adore it. I’m going to try it over a crème, next time, to get those iridescent glitters showing up.

 

A blurry macro to finish up on, showing some of the other glitters. And my poor photography 😀

 

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂