I Feel Polished!: September 2013

Monday, September 30, 2013

Indie Spotlight: ellagee's Some Imagination, Huh!

I have such a fun polish to show you guys today! This beauty is Some Imagination, Huh! from ellagee's World of Laughter Collection! Yes, this entire collection is inspired by Disney. Did you just squeal? If you did, you will love this entire collection! But, I chose one of my favorites to show you!

Some Imagination, Huh! is, "a clear base with royal blue, navy blue, and silver holo glitters with gold holo stars and crescent moons. It's inspired by Mickey's sorcerer hat and named for his last line in Disney's nighttime show, Fantasmic." I polished two coats of this over a black base polish. I fished a bit for the stars but the moons required no fishing and landed perfectly on my nails with no placement at all! A coat of top coat smoothed this glitter bomb out perfectly! Such an awesome polish! Enjoy! :)

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Black and Pink Gradient

I hope you're ready for some crazy gorgeous nails today!

Sometimes I struggle with what to wear on my nails when I know I'm going to be around the parents of my students. Most parents love my nails and compliment them, but I always want to ensure that I maintain professionalism. Luckily, I think teaching allows me to be creative with my nails with minimal issues. Office safe colors? Not necessary for me! :) However, I likely wouldn't wear my mummy nails to a conference night! ;)

Anyway, that long winded story leads up to my nails today! I created this look to go with the dress I wore to Open House! I think these nails are fun without being over-the-top funky!

I began with two coats of Zoya Raven. Once that was relatively dry, I ripped a make-up sponge into little pieces and used one piece at a time to dab on Zoya Bobbi into a gradient. I used one piece of sponge for three to four nails before getting a new piece of sponge. Enjoy! :)

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Indie Spotlight: ellagee You Sexy Thang

Ow-wee, do I have a looker for you guys today! My love of holo polishes has always been abundantly clear, so when decided to begin using Spectraflair in some of her polishes, I nearly cartwheeled around my front yard (I didn't because the neighbors would be confused and I was worried I'd pull a muscle)! I love love LOVE Spectraflair! If you've never heard of it, is shines like the most brilliant rainbow EVER in the sunlight and even looks pretty darn awesome indoors! Spectraflair creates some of the most phenomenal polishes you've ever seen!

Ok, enough of me blathering on. I used two coats of ellagee's new polish, You Sexy Thang. This polish is a deep red holo. Such a gorgeous fall color! Beautiful in normal lighting, STUNNING in the sunlight! Check out the last two pictures! WOWZA! And the best news? This is ellagee's Flashy Friday polish tomorrow! That's right, it'll be just $7 tomorrow! Laura releases five at noon central and 8:00pm central! Woohoo! Enjoy! :)

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Corset with Bow Accent

I have some super cute nails to show you today! Bows have been a new trend recently and I had been admiring the look from afar. Well, Born Pretty Store sent me some bows so I could finally try them out for myself! Yay!

I began with two coats of Zoya Yummy. I then used striping tape to create a corset design and polished over the tape with China Glaze Fairy Dust. This gave my nails a subtle yet fancy look! :) I finished the look off with one of the light purple bows that I received. I put a tiny dot of nail glue on the back of it and then held that sucker on my accent nail until it was good and stuck! Surprisingly, the bows last four days before my first one popped off! Awesome! If you've never shopped at Born Pretty Store, you really need to check them out. They have TONS of nail related products for really reasonable prices! And remember, you get 10% off if you use the code HTCG10! Enjoy! :)

Monday, September 23, 2013

Indie Spotlight: Lacquerhead Polish

I have a new-to-me indie to show you guys today! I recently purchased a few polishes from Lacquerhead Polish and the first one I used in Blueberry Yum-Yum!

Blueberry Yum-Yum is a blue jelly packed with ultra fine rainbow glitter. I decided to use undies for this, since it's a jelly! I did one coat of Zoya Sailor underneath two coats of Blueberry Yum-Yum. Blueberry Yum-Yum was sooooooo smooth and let me just say WHOA is it gorgeous! It's beautiful both in and out of the sunlight. I received so many compliments on this amazing polish! This polish was $8.00 and can be purchased on Lacquerhead's etsy shop! Enjoy! :)

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Pink Hearts, Revisited

One of my most pinned manis on Pinterest is a very old mani from my eeeeeeeeeearly blogging days! Since I want to cringe when I see the old version of these, I decided to revisit them with one minor change: extra hearts! :)

I began with two coats of Zoya Happi on all of my nails except my accent nail, which has three coats of OPI DS Coronation. Then, using my dotting tool, I made hearts on each nail in the opposite color! I still love these nails even after all this time! Enjoy! :)

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Indie Spotlight: ellagee's Dia De Los Muertos Collection

The Halloween Indie Spotlights continue! I love when seasonal collections come out because indie makers are so very creative! I'm showing you a lot of the indie Halloween polishes now so that you'll have time to purchase them before the end of October! This year, the hot ticket item has been skull and crossbones glitter. SKULL GLITTER. Let that sink in. Yep! Totally cool, right?! I was thrilled to receive ellagee's Dia De Los Muertos Collection. I also really appreciate her collection because it isn't scary, hahaha! I'm not a blood-and-gore type of girl at all.

Laura's collection is based on the Central and South American holiday celebrated to commemorate loved ones who have passed. It's a beautiful tradition and was the perfect inspiration for Laura! These polishes are $9 for a 15ml and $4.50 for a 6ml and can be found through the links in this post!

Calaveras de Azúcar is a clear top coat with yellow and pruple flowers, light green stars, pink skulls, red hearts, black, green, and white circles, mini blue bars, and colorful hexes and squares galore! Amazing! The skulls required a little fishing, but nothing too extreme. Maybe one or two extra brush dips. This is one coat over Zoya Arizona.

Danza De Los Muertos is a black polish loaded with gold, copper, and green shimmer. These photos cannot do this gorgeous polish justice. I did two coats of this polish without undies and it was absolutely beautiful!

Finally, I have La Calavera Catrina to show you! This polish has red and black hearts, pink flowers, a variety of black and white glitter, and white skulls. This polish did not require any fishing to get the larger glitters, including the skulls! This is two coats over China Glaze Recycle. I love this beauty! Amazing! Enjoy! :)

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Easy Triangular Dotticure

I was having such a fail nail art day. I, for the life of me, could not get my nail foils to turn out how I wanted them to. As time passed, I realized it was getting late and I was getting tired. I had my second set of white nails on ready to try the foils again. What do I do when I'm worried my nails won't turn out and it's going to take time out of my sleeping hours or I'll have to go out in public with naked nails the next day? One word: dotticure.

Dotticures are SO easy because it takes minimal effort to create amazing looking nails. So, I got out my dotting tools and decided to use some striping tape as well. I put striping tape down on each nail so that a large triangular area was created. Then, I just dotted a whole bunch of dots over my Zoya Purity base inside of the striping tape triangles. I used Zoya Neve, Giovanna, Channing, and Mason for the dots. I just kept dotting until there were only a few small areas of white left. Then, I pulled of the tape, top coated them, and went to bed. Fail nails were saved. Phew. Enjoy! :)

Monday, September 16, 2013

Indie Spotlight: Soflajo Jugular Vein

Jody from Soflajo was awesome enough to send me a polish from her new Halloween Collection, A Snake on the Hand is Worth Two on the Toes, to review! I've never met anyone who loves Halloween as much as Jody does so it makes sense for her to have fantastic polishes that go along with the holiday!

This polish, while grotesquely named ;), is really gorgeous! Jugular Vein is a shimmery deep red cream polish that looked flawless in two coats all by itself. Application was a breeze and the color is crazy beautiful! I ended up using my LED in my last picture to capture how neat this polish looks because I just couldn't get it with my normal lighting even though I could see it in normal lighting! Bah! Jody's polishes are $10 and can be purchased through the links I've provided! Enjoy! :)

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Pixie Dust Nail Art

Remember, if you follow me on Facebook, you probably AREN'T seeing anything I post on there. Each time I post, it reaches about 250 of my 2,300-ish followers. Yep, less than 10%! So be sure to visit my , hover over "liked", and make sure "Show in News Feed" is checked:

It's no secret that I love textured polish. Actually, I love texture, period. When I have textured polish on, I spend the day feeling my nails, hahaha! I attempted to do a chevron type manicure but the colored area between the chevrons ended up looking like hearts. So I guess these nails could go either way!

I began with two coats of Zoya Tomoko, my favorite Pixie Dust to date! Then, on my accent nail, I used an orange stick to draw triangular sections. When that was done, I filled each section with a different Pixie: Arabella, Carter, Sunshine, Chita, and Dhara, again using the orange stick. Next time, I'll make the chevron sections a little larger so the colored parts look less like hearts! Enjoy! :)

*The polishes used in this nail art were provided for review. All opinions are, as always, my own!*

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