Pretty & Polished Mannequin Hands

The polish I'm going to show you today is one I was VERY excited for. Pretty & Polished came out with a few polishes to add to their main line along with the Christmas collection, and as soon as I saw Mannequin Hands I had to have it.

Here are some swatches, along with my first impressions of the polish.

This is one coat of Mannequin Hands (Over my extremely uneven nails. Hello dry winter, thanks for breaking my nails!) It is a pinkish-nude jelly with baby pink hex glitters. I instantly thought of how darling this would be for a french manicure with a twist.

And this is 3 coats of Mannequin Hands. I think I prefer this as a sheer. The opacity kinda ruins the delicacy of the nude & pink. Or maybe It's because I'm not a huge fan of the color of the base at full opacity. I might try layering it over a more opaque nude as a topper.

Maybe if my nails weren't so stained from hair color It might've looked better, ha! Anyway, Mannequin Hands is a great polish for any nude or french manicure lover.

You can purchase Pretty & Polished on Etsy. Mannequin Hands is not currently in stock, but there are lots of other beautiful polishes in stock! Such as some of the Christmas collection! (swatches coming soon!)

Funky Glitter Sandwich & Some Big Rhinestones!

I am loving all of the mani's I am seeing lately with the big stud & rhinestone accents so I had to pick both of these embellishments up. The first I received was the big, chunky rhinestones! I couldn't wait to use them!

I was worried I wouldn't be able to wear these for long. I'm a hair stylist, so embellishments tend to catch on clients hair & pull which is not something that makes for an enjoyable experience! However I was pleasantly surprised!

Here is my funky purple mani with my big purple rhinestones! They laid surprisingly flat on my thumbnails and did not catch for the couple of days I wore this mani at all! The only issue I had was they fell off after day 2.

To focus on the polish aspect, here is my glitter sandwich! This was done using Colorama Transparente as the base, a coat of Daring Digits Punch Me Purple and then another coat of Transparente. I loved how exciting this was!

This combined 3 of my favorite things; glitter, glitter sandwiches & nude polish. Me gusta.

You can purchase these big rhinestones on eBay, and Daring Digits polish sells on Etsy. Punch Me Purple is not currently for sale, but they have lots of other great polishes including some beautiful holiday polishes!

Wonder Beauty Products Aphrodisiac!

Happy Monday! Here in Canada the winter season is upon us, so I've been more into pastels, light colors and sparkly glitter that imitates the snow.

Wonder Beauty Products Aphrodisiac is definitely one of those light colors that is perfect for winter & spring! I am also excited to show this off because WBP recently started retailing their polishes in bottles with brushes instead of jars! Way easier for my lazy self.

Aphrodisiac is a light mint/turquoise jelly with small orange & blue hex glitters and small & medium sized gold & silver hex glitters. I love any polish that consists of glitter in a creamy jelly base, because they are glitter sandwiches in a bottle!

The polish is quite sheer, this is 3 coats for full opacity. The build up is worth it, however, because the glitters are beautiful & I love the color combinations.

I really love wearing light polishes in the winter, but I also love wearing deep dark colors! Both make my (super pale) skin look so nice!

You can purchase Wonder Beauty Products on Etsy, and Aphrodisiac is currently up for sale along with dozens of other great polishes! Go check it out!

Dollish Polish Dino-mite Yoshi!

Dollish Polish recently released the Mario Brothers collection featuring character themed polishes and I just had to have some. I picked up both Yoshi & Toad's themed polish (because they're my favorite characters, hehe).

Today I'm going to show you Dollish Polish Dino-mite Yoshi!

Dino-mite Yoshi is an assortment of red, green, light green and white hex glitters in all sizes in a clear base. It's pretty dense, so It could be built up if desired, but I think it's meant to be more of a glitter topper.
This swatch was done as a glitter sandwich with extra glitter on top! The base used in this manicure was Colorama Orvalho.

Very cool and Yoshi-like! I need to pick me up some more Dollish Polish!

You can purchase Dollish Polish on her bigcartel shop & on Llarowe!

Candeo Colors Jellybean

I had been lusting after this polish for so, so long. So when I finally got my hands on it I was so excited to test it out and see it in all it's glory.

Sad story is, I hate the formula. It is so thick, a nightmare to apply and not flattering on my skin tone at all. Major sadness over here.

It doesn't look too bad in my pictures at all (minus the mysterious chip on my index finger, I didn't even notice that). In person it just made my skin look dead.
Candeo Colors Jellybean is a pastel yellow creme with multicolored hexes suspended in the base. This is 3 coats of the polish.

 Had the formula been better on this polish, I probably would've liked it more. It was just so thick.

I really wish I could love this polish, I really do. Maybe I'll save it to give away to one of you lovely nail art addicts. Yellow might be more your color!

Smitten Polish Pink Lemonade!

Part of my summer Indie haul was a preorder from Smitten Polish! I had never tried the brand before, so I was very excited to test it out.

Smitten Polish has a very exciting collection of glitters in creme & jelly bases! I love that, it's like automatic glitter sandwiches. 

This is 3 coats of Smitten Polish Pink Lemonade. It's a cream-yellow jelly base with micro & medium fuchsia hex glitters suspended throughout.

As you can see after 3 coats I still had a little bit of VNL but it was barely noticeable in person. I really like how dense the glitter is in this polish, it ensures that you'll never have any issues with glitter placement.

Overall this is definitely a new favorite in my collection. I can't wait to try other Smittens!

You can purchase Smitten Polish on Etsy, however she is currently closed. You can also follow Smitten Polish's page on Facebook to keep up to date on restocks and new polishes!

Challenge Day 22: Inspired By A Song

This was a hard one for sure. I'm not sure how to be inspired by a song. I was thinking music videos, lyrics, the name. But I eventually settled on something!

I have been obsessed with Lana Del Rey lately, her music is amazing and her lyrics are definitely inspiring. I chose her song Radio so inspired this manicure!

"Baby love me cause I'm playing on the radio." This song is awesome and was fairly easy to create in a manicure. I started with a nude base and painted on little radios on my thumb nails. I also did an accent nail with music notes! The radios were created with Joe Fresh Cement, Zoya Kelly and a black ebay nail art pen.

On the rest of my nails I did a glitter sandwich with F4 Polish Rainforest and China Glaze I. I thought this would be a cute way to spice up the rest of my nails instead of leaving them plain.

Overall I think this was a fun manicure! And I think it was inspired by a song quite well. Actually a radio and music notes could be inspired by all types of music!

I will be posting my tribal challenge later today, so for now I will leave you with a video of Radio so you can take a listen :)

Delicate Mani From Day 15! Featuring Pretty & Polished Cheer Camp

So I was going to use this for my glitter mani day but because I couldn't get over how delicate and dainty this polish was! So even though the challenge called for delicate "print", I thought this was a suitable mani for this day!

This is Pretty & Polished Cheer Camp! I purchased Cheer Camp from Pretty & Polished some time back in August so when I received it I was very excited because it is my dream polish. I love pastels, I love glitter and I love glitter in a creme base because you get automatic glitter sandwiches.

This nail polish is so fittingly named Cheer Camp, but it kinda reminds me of ballet dancers & their leotards. This is 3 coats of Cheer Camp. It is a combination of light pink & purple hex glitters in different sizes suspended in a very light pastel pink creme base.
Dreamy. That's all I can say. The formula was so nice, not too thick. Just perfect.

You can purchase Cheer Camp and other Pretty & Polished polishes on Etsy and keep an eye on new polishes and restocks on Facebook. Cheer Camp is currently in stock, so go get it!

So tomorrow I will be posting another two challenge mani's! One being tomorrow's challenge, inspired by a song & two being tribal from day 16. I kinda cheated for tribal, but it still counts.
See you tomorrow!

Glitter Sandwich Love! Featuring Lush Lacquer Pink Panther

I've been seeing lots of glitter sandwiches hitting the blogverse lately. Glitter is back with the indie polish explosion and everyone wants to wear it 101 ways.
This is a neat way to transform any glitter!

Let's look at some pictures of Lush Lacquer Pink Panther first!

This is 1 coat of Pink Panther over 2 coats of China Glaze Innocence. Innocence is a nice light, dusty pink creme that is the perfect amount of sheer to use for a glitter sandwich! (It doesn't always have to be a jelly polish!)

Pink Panther is an awesome matte glitter. It features black, pink and white hex glitters in all sizes. I especially love the giant white glitters. (See my thumb!). It is super cute. You could layer it over all sorts of colors because it has a clear base. Awesome!

And then we sandwich! This is another coat of Innocence on top to sandwich it all. It makes the manicure so delicate and pretty, but funky at the same time!

Innocence was a great base for Pink Panther. It let the glitter be the feature of the manicure ever though it was covered up again to be sandwiched.

I got so many compliments on this manicure! Lots of people thought it was one polish and wanted to know how I did it! A glitter sandwich is a great way to make anyone think you have crazy nail skills!

Have you sandwiched any of your glitters lately? I love the way it looks like all one polish!

You can purchase Lush Lacquer on their Etsy and follow them on Facebook for updates!