LynB Designs: Dianthus Redux

Hello there. Today I have to show you a polish I received as a gift for ordering from LynB Designs. It's called Dianthus Redux. I had no clue what it meant so I looked it up. A dianthus is a genus of a flower also known as a carnation. It's not what we know as a traditional carnation. Redux means to return or to reoccur. Put them together...reincarnation? Have I rambled on too long? Maybe? Ok, ok take a look. 

Dianthus Redux is a gorgeous red toned purple jelly with a mix of square and hex purple and white glitters and also a purple shimmer/micro glitter. I used 3 coats over a base coat of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter A-Peel and topped it off with some G&G HK Girl Fast Drying & Super Shiny Top Coat. The formula of Dianthus Redux was a bit thick and gooey but surprisingly easy and well behaved. It did take slightly longer than usual to dry with my fast dry top coat. 

After wearing that for a day I decided to practice with my stamping so I used my Cheeky Stamping plate CH16 and double stamped the scribble design with both black and silver. 

I totally fudged up the index finger...sigh. I hope with practice I get better. Right now my nails look a hot mess. So I decided to matte them...

Hmmm...not really better. Am I being too critical? Oh well I gotta start somewhere, right? 

CH16

Nothing to disclose***

Full Nail Stamping with Cheeky

 Recently I decided I was going to try to master the art of nail art stamping. I have been purchasing some stamping plates with every intention of putting them to full use. A couple weeks ago I bought a set of Cheeky stamping plates from Amazon.com. I believe set I bought is called the Vibrant Collection. This is my attempt at full nail stamping.

I can't remember which plate I used for this image. (I'm posting from work right now). I don't think I did toooo bad...did I???

I used Konad special white stamping polish over 3 coats of Pomegranate Nail Lacquer Improv Show and one coat of a shimmery, sparlkly topcoat made by Smuckers...it's very old but very pretty :)

I wish I remembered to take a picture of it before I stamped on top of it.
Here's a picture Improv Show on it's own. Isn't she a beauty?!

So can anyone provide some tips and tricks on this stamping fun? I try watching video tutorials on YouTube but I can never quite get it right.

***There is nothing to disclose as I have purchased all products in this post.

My Late Easter Mani

Happy Sunday everyone. I wanted to post the mani I wore on Easter but it seems I never did. I guess better late than never. Here are a few pics.

 



 

This was my first attempt at using my dotting tools that I bought months ago and have sat in my desk drawer since. I hope I did a good enough job. My base color is Anise Hint of Heaven and on my accent finger is Julep Claire. For the dots I used Wet & Wild Candy-licious (pink), Wet & Wild On A Trip (purple), Julep Blake (yellow) and Anise Chill Mood (green). I used the new topcoat from Julep and I must say that my mani was ready to go in 5 minutes. The downside is that even though I waited a while for the polish to dry a little before applying topcoat, it still made my dots bleed a little :(

Its not bad enough to stop me from using it...or buying another.

 

**All of the polishes in this post were either purchased by me or a gift from a family member.

Candied Lustre: Grape Essence & Jawbreaker

Hey lacquer lovers! How has everyone been. I feel like I have been so out of the NP loop. I have just been trying to recover from surgery to fix a torn ACL. Boy did I underestimate the fact that I was going to be in pain for quite some time. I have just started been able to get around a little more without being in too much pain. I'm hoping to get back to my normal life as soon as possible.
So since the sun came out for a little while yesterday I decided to do some swatching and get back into the groove of blogging.
About a month or 2 ago I recieved a couple of polishes to review from Bri of Candied Lacquer, Grape Essence, a purple with glitter & Jawbreaker, a multicolored glitter in a clear base.

 

And yes, she also sent me that super delicious lollipop that my daughter thoroughly enjoyed :)

 

Grape Essence is a purple based polish with a silvery holo glitter. The base has a little bit of a pearly finish that makes it look like pulled sugar or taffy. The first coat was a bit sheer and patchy. It wanted to drag a bit if I went over it more than once. Once the first coat dried the next 2 went on flawlessly and dried pretty quickly. It did dry a bit flat so i added a layer of topcoat which gave it shine and dimension.

 

 

Jawbreaker is a multicolored glitter topcoat. It has red, blue, green, purple & pink hex glitters in varying sizes. I layered/dabbed 2 coats over OPI My Boyfriend Scaled The Walls for the true "jawbreaker" effect...you know the giant balls of rock hard candy you got at the candy store that you were never quite able to eat all of. I really had no trouble with coverage and it dried pretty smooth but I did add one layer of topcoat for extra shine.

 

 

 

 

 

Candied Lustre is available on etsy for $7.25

**This product was sent to me for an honest review. All opinions are my own.





Daily Lacquer: Moon Kitty, Ami & Makoto

Hello everyone! How are you guys doing? I'm ok, just kinda meh...If you didn't know about 3 weeks ago I tore my ACL in my right knee and I'm waiting for my surgery on the 5th. Then on friday night i pulled a muscle in my lower back so I haven't really been up to blogging or even painting my nails. I am starting to feel a little better...as I am currently reclining with a heating pad on my lower back and some tylenol with codeine in my system. I have been wanting to post these pics I have of Daily Lacquer's Moon Kitty, Ami & Makoto for some time now. I won them sometime last fall in one of Maggy's giveaways and never got around to posting about them.

I really love that Maggy makes truly unique polishes that are absolutly gorgeous. When I learned that she had a collection based on the popular anime cartoon of my childhood, Sailor Moon, I knew I had to have some of these.

 

The first polish from The Lovely Moon collection I have is Ami. Ami is a gorqeous robin's egg blue jelly chock full of a mixture of different sized and shaped blue and silver glitters as well as moons and stars. I really love how this looks on me. The forlula was a bit thick but I think that's because it has so much glittery goodness going on. I used 2 coats of Ami with 1 coat of topcoat.

 

The next up is Makoto. Makoto is a mixture of different sized and shaped green, pink & I think some silver glitters including pink hearts and silver holo stars. I used 2 dabbed on coats on top of Wet & Wild Candy-licious, a bubble gum pink creme.  

 

Last but definately not least we have the LE Moon Kitty. This is an extremely opaque purple jelly chock full of holo glitter, holo stars and moons and some mixed glitter. I so so so love this polish. Again it was thick but not hard to spread on the nail. I used 2 coats with 1 coat of topcoat. 

 

I hope you enjoyed this post. I definately enjoyed this polish! Thanks again Maggy!

OPI: Mariah Carey Collection

So I have finally had time to sit and swatch so I reached for the Mariah Carey Collection by OPI that came out for Spring 2013. It's an 8 polish collection that consists of 4 Studio Shades and 4 Stage Shades. The Studio Shade are you typical OPI polishes while the Stage Shades are the liquid sand polishes that had everyone going crazy to get. The first ones I am going to show are the Studio Shades. They all had the typical OPI formula. All of them were pretty opaque except for Sprung which took 3 coats to reach opacity.

A Butterfly Moment-
a peachy nude with a chunky golden shimmer
2 coats, no topcoat

 

 

Antibleak-



An plum creme
2 coats, no topcoat

 

 

Sprung-

a copper shimmer

3 coats, no topcoat

 

 

Pink Yet Lavender-

metallic baby pink glitter topcoat with holo micro glitter

2 coats over A Butterfly Moment, no topcoat

 

 

The next set are the Stage Shades or the liquid sand texture polishes. I found it best to apply a thin first coat then a thicker second coat. All of the swatches shown have had hours worth of dry time.

 

Stay The Night-

a black textured base with hot pink glitter

2 coats, no topcoat

 

 

Can't Let Go-

a purple textured base with purple hex glitter

2 coats, no top coat

 

 

The Impossible-

a pink toned red textured base with red hex glitter and star glitter

2 coats, no topcoat











Get Your Number-
a blue textured base with scattered holo goodness
2 coats, no topcoat

 

Get Your Number was my personal favorite of the collection with Sprung a close second. I want to mention that I did not have any issues with getting stars on my nails with The Impossible. They were however almost impossible to see and did not lay flat. I ended up picking off the stars because they annoyed me that much. Removal of these liquid sand polishes was pretty easy as well, no where near as hard as regular glitter polish.

 

**I purchased this collection myself

MmmmNails: I Love Boyz

Hey! Today I have another MmmmNails polish to show you. I originally was going to post the polishes I got from my January Julep It Girl box BUT blogger is a dork and I can't get to my pics sooo...here is I Love Boyz. I really love how this polish looks over this purple base. I thinks it Finger Paints Gumball Grape or something like that. The formula on this one was amazing as was the glitter payoff. Can you see the square glitter!!! *SQUEEEEE*** I love square glitter for some reason. This one has blue hex and sqaure glitter as well as white square and small holographic bits of glitter too, all in a clear base.

I Love Boyz

2 coats over Finger Paints Gumball Grape

1 coat of topcoat

You can check out Monique's etsy shop here. You can also click on her image on my sidebar. She has new & amazing stuff out almost everyday and her prices are very reasonable.

**This product was sent to me for an honest review.

Essence: Alice Had A Vision-Again

Hello! Today I am posting really late since I had to work and then we went to a Three Kings Day event at a local McDonald's to help give out toys to the children of the community. Today I have the third polish from Essence's Twilight Collection called Alice Had A Vision-Again. Alice Had a Vision-Again is very similiar to Jacob's Protection except it's a blackened base with purple glass fleck/shimmer. I also had the same issues with the formula being quite thick.

Alice Had A Vision-Again
2coats with topcoat

 

 

Is anyone else having problems with blogger not letting you upload pics?

 

MmmmNails Spam (pic heavy)

 

 

Hello and Happy New Year everyone. I have more of a picture post for you since I am recovering from last nights festivities. Mr. Lusty and I partied until 3am before we made our way home. I had a good time though. Today I just want to show a few polishes from MmmmNails that I have recently swatched.

 

 

Party Girl

 

 Party Girl is a mix of green, white & iredescent multisized hex glitter and teal bar glitter in a clear base. I used 2 coats over Pure Ice Gift of Gold.

 

 

 

Candies R For Kids

Candies R For Kids is a mix of purple/fushia diamond glitter, purple square glitter, pink barer glitter and small iredescent glitter in a clear base. I used 2 coats over Revlon Dreamer.

 

 

 

Yes or No

Yes or No is a Mix of black bar glitter and multisized and shaped red glitter in a clear base. I used 2 coats over OPI Skull & Glossbones.

 

 

 

 

I'm Just 21

I'm Just 21 is a green to bluey purple shifting flakie. I used 1 coat over OPI Black Onyx.

 

 

 

 

Rent Free

Rent Free is a mix of Black diamond shped glitter, Smaller black hex glitter, silver holo bar glitter as well as small pink iredescent glitter in a clear base. I used 2 coats over OPI Think Pink!

 

 

 

The Recipe

The Recipe is a golden holo base with some larger gold glitters in it. I used 2 coats with no "undies."