UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice and Football is Life

(Press samples and affiliate links ahead!)

Hello!


Today we're gonna take a look at two recent mini-plate releases from UberChic Beauty, their Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice plate, and their Football is Life plate.


Here's the quick video I did for the Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice plate:

And here's the Football is Life:

Difficulty: The football is life plate is a beginners plate, while the Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice plate is a little more of a mixed bag that leans toward intermediate. I think the Football plate does an amazing job of taking football themes and giving them a potentially feminine leaning, and I love the Pumpkin Spice plate to mix with other plates--lovely fall saying to complement any fall-themed manis you make. :)


Here are the swatches I did with the plates:

On to the manis!

UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice over Stella Chroma Pumpkin Everything

Base Polish(es): Stella Chroma Pumpkin Everything (with hashes of Hug The Road)
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice
Stamping Polish(es): Beauty Big Bang Gold,

I love the manicure so hard, but it was impossible to get to photograph well! I swiped some Hug The Road (an orange jelly) over the base polish and the stampig to make it look like a patchwork pond mani. It does still look cool here, but I just wish I'd been able to get it in the picture! If you compare the mani below, which uses the same base polish, you'll get an idea of what I mean.

UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice over Stella Chroma Pumpkin Everything

Base Polish(es): Stella Chroma Pumpkin Everything
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Hello Fall & Pumpkin Spice
Stamping Polish(es): It Girl Nail Art Mimosa, Kaleidoscope White, Black

I love the way the 'naked' nail makes the pumpkin spice latte pop off this one!

UberChic Beauty Football is Life over The Lady Varnishes Avada Kedavra --What A Wonderful Phrase!

Base Polish(es): The Lady Varnishes Avada Kedavra--What a Wonderful Phrase! (no longer available, but check out her other beauties here)
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Football is Everything
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Everyday I'm Truffling, China Glaze Passion

This came out a little muddier than I liked, so I consider it a fail...if I had it to do over, I'd do the shadow stamping with white rather than gold. The idea was to pull out the gold in the base polish, but that worked far better in theory than practice!

UberChic Beauty Football is Life over Zoya Foster

Base Polish(es): Zoya Foster, Sally Hansen Blacky O
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Football is Everything
Stamping Polish(es): China Glaze Passion, Kaleidoscope Black

Ah, yes, much clearer! The gold plays much better with the creme base here, and with the creme stamping.


Both of these plates are available now in UberChic Beauty's store. :)

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

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Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
And the 2nd Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!

Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves and Autumn 03

(Press samples and affiliate links ahead!)

Hello!


Today we're gonna take a look at two new plates from Dixie Plates, the Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves plate, and Autumn 03 plate. Here's the video review I did of the plate:

And here's a look at the plates:

Dixie Plates Autumn 03

Skill level: Lots of Leaves is a beginner plate; Autumn 03 is mostly beginning with some intermediate skills needed (e.g., layering).


One strength of these plates (and all Dixie Girls plates), is they're designed to make sure if you have long or wide nails, the images will be long enough for you to use easily--the designs are scaled up in size and are generous.


Here are the swatches I did:

On to the manis! For the first I had to test out the umbrella patterns, because I love those octagons:

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over The Lady Varnishes Urban is Legend

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over The Lady Varnishes Urban is Legend

Base Polish(es): The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend (this will be available during October's Polish Pickup sale!)
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Autumn 03
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Copper-Haired Girl and Kaleidoscope White


For my second mani, I wanted to play with the blowing leaves image:

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over Zoya Eleni

Base Polish(es): Zoya Eleni
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Autumn 03
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Everyday I'm Truffling, Girly Bits Cosmetics Flame, Firebrick, and Bronze Goddess


I love those fall polishes together, I had to play with the combo again:

Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves over The Lady Varnishes Urban is Legend

Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves over The Lady Varnishes Urban is Legend

Base Polish(es): The Lady Varnishes Urban is a Legend (this will be available during October's Polish Pickup sale!)
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Lots of Leaves
Stamping Polish(es): Girly Bits Cosmetics Flame, Firebrick, and Bronze Goddess

And for my final mani, I wanted to test out the layering pumkin/leaves images:

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over Zoya Foster

Dixie Plates Autumn 03 over Zoya Foster

Base Polish(es): Zoya Foster
Stamping Plate(s): Dixie Plates Autumn 03
Stamping Polish(es): It Girl Nail Art Mimosa and Sally Hansen I-Rush Luck


So what do you think? I realized after the fact I used a blue base in three out of four of the manis--I guess you can tell what color I'm feeling right now!


You can find these plates on sale now in Dixie Plates' store, or wherever Dixie Plates are stocked.

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

Facebook / YouTube / Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
And the 2nd Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone plate

(Press samples ahead!)

Hello!


Today we're going to take a look at a recent release in Lantern & Wren's stamping plate line, Lantern & Wren's Dab To The Bone, and adorable Halloween plate.


Here's the video review I did for the plate:

And here's a still of the test looks I did in the video:

Alright, let's take a look at that baby up close and personal:

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone

Difficulty level: Easy to intermediate--most of the images on this plate are going to be super easy to pick up and work with. Watch out for the chevron and the gravestone--scrape them from an angle to make sure you get those big solid areas nice and complete. And if the little fine line images give you a hassle (they shouldn't--they worked super easily for me), scrape gently.


This plate is a fast way to get cute, fun Halloween nails that you can mix and match--she gave a ton of little images that match up to the full-nail images beautifully. And this is a great plate to try out your lead-lighting or reversed stamping skills on. There is also huge potential here for building scenes with the little images she gives.


On to the manis! For the first I wanted to use one of the fun words she gives on the plate:

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over Girly Bits Funky Town

Base Polish(es): Girly Bits Cosmetics Funky Town
Stamping Plate(s): Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone
Stamping Polish(es): Kaleidoscope White and Black

That full-nail image is just fun, and I love the pop of black making those letters jump right out. A quick way to capture the fun side of the Halloween season.


For the next mani, I HAD to use those adorable dancing skeletons:

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over mystery Supernatural Lacquer polish

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over mystery Supernatural Lacquer polish

Base Polish(es): Supernatural Lacquer ?? (This polish will be revealed shortly...)
Stamping Plate(s): Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone
Stamping Polish(es): Kaleidoscope White

Seriously you guys, I could wear this manicure all year long, lol! Those dancing skeletons just make me super happy. And this is also a super easy mani that's almost fool-proof, even for beginning stampers.


And for my last manicure, I love the little mini scene I did in the test looks so much I couldn't resist building a little scene:

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over mystery Supernatural Lacquer polish and Zoya Ashton

Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone over mystery Supernatural Lacquer polish and Zoya Ashton

Base Polish(es): Supernatural Lacquer ?? (This polish will be revealed shortly...) & Zoya Ashton
Stamping Plate(s): Lantern & Wren Dab To The Bone
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Holo There Beautiful, Kaleidoscope White, Moonflower Polish Apple, It Girl Nail Art Mimosa

Because the Supernatural Lacquer mystery polish is a black jelly, I used the pond manicure (stamping sammich) technique to put a couple of the little ghosts in the background, and then stamped one on top to be up close and center. I also used a reversed stamping technique for the candle. This is my favorite Halloween mani I've done this year, and I hated to take it off!


Dab To The Bone is on sale now in the Lantern & Wren shop, as are several of the stamping polishes I used here.

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

Facebook / YouTube / Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
And the 2nd Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!

The Digit-al Dozen Wood & Copper: Featuring UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 4

(Press samples ahead!)

Hello!


Today we're going to take a look at UberChic Beauty's Lovely Leaves 4 plate, which I'm going to also use to finish up my Digit-al Dozen Wood & Copper manis.


First things first--here's the quick video I did with a few test looks:

And here's a look at the plate itself:

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 

On to the manis! For the first one I really wanted to hit the combination of wood and copper one last time:

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 over Zoya Foster

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 over Zoya Foster

Base Polish(es): Zoya Foster
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 4
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Polish Copper-Haired Beauty; Kaleidoscope by El Corazon Black and White


And then I focused on tree leaves as my representation of 'wood':

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 over Zoya Etta

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 over Zoya Etta

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 over Zoya Etta

Base Polish(es): Zoya Etta
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Polish Holo There Beautiful


For this one I wanted to capture a bit of the transition from summer manis to fall manis:

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 over UberChic Beauty Electric Pumpkin

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 over UberChic Beauty Electric Pumpkin

Base Polish(es): UberChic Beauty Electric Pumpkin
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04
Stamping Polish(es): Messy Mansion Bisque


And, finally, you've actually seen this one before, but I thought I'd include it again here since it's from the same plate:

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 over The Lady Varnishes Avada Kedavra

UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04 over The Lady Varnishes Avada Kedavra

Base Polish(es): The Lady Varnishes Avada Kedavra (no longer available, but check out her other beauties!)
Stamping Plate(s): UberChic Beauty Lovely Leaves 04
Stamping Polish(es): Beauty Big Bang Gold

I enjoyed the summer, but I'm so glad fall is coming! This plate is on sale in UberChic Beauty's shop now. :)

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

Facebook / YouTube / Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
Preorder the second Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!

The Digit-al Dozen does Wood & Copper: Day 2!

(Press samples ahead!)

Hello!


So as I mentioned, lol, due to a small miscommunication, a number of us Digit-al Dozeners were under the impression that this month's theme was Wood & Copper, rather than *wool* and copper...But either way, we're celebrating DD's 7th anniversary with some creativity-stretching manis. :)


The first thing I thought of when coming up with ways to combine wood and copper is something California is famous for--our Redwoods. The bark is dark and red, with a copper-y feel, so I knew I had to do a Redwoods mani! In fact, I was so excited about doing this mani I asked Carleigh of Lantern & Wren if I could give a sneak-peek of an image from on of her upcoming plates...

Lantern & Wren ?? over Stella Chroma Cinnamon & Spice

Lantern & Wren ?? over Stella Chroma Cinnamon & Spice

Base Polish(es): Stella Chroma Cinnamon & Spice
Stamping Plate(s): Lantern & Wren mystery plate not yet released...
Stamping Polish(es): Hit The Bottle Polish Copper-Haired Girl

I love how subtle but pretty this is! I really do feel like I have redwoods on my nails.


We've had some technical difficulties this month so we don't have a link up, but check the other ladies' blogs for more manis!

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

Facebook / YouTube / Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
Preorder the second Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!

Zoya's Sensual Fall 2019 Collection

(Press samples ahead!)

Hello!


Today we're going to take a look at Zoya's Sensual Fall 2019 collection--I apologize this has taken me longer to get to you than I wanted, because of those family issues I mentioned before. I did do some live videos about the collection, but for those of you who only follow me here, I'm sorry it's taken awhile! So let me get on with it, and jump right in!

Zoya Ashton

Zoya Ashton

Zoya Ashton

Zoya Ashton

Zoya Ashton

Coverage: 2 coats
Formula & application: Smooth as silk with excellent dry time.

This is a great one to start off with, since it's one of my favorites of the collection! It's vampy and goth but with a touch of sparkly shimmer because of the flecked finish--it's like being kissed under a night sky filled with fireflies. I love this for Halloween and all year round.

Zoya Briar

Zoya Briar

Zoya Briar

Zoya Briar

Zoya Briar

Coverage: 1-2 coats. You'll probably be fine with one, I'm wearing two here because of my ridges. :)
Formula & application: Excellent!

This is the workhorse of the collection, in my opinion--it goes with everything, it's professional but also pretty, it's a polish you can reach for time and again and be happy.

Zoya Elliot

Zoya Elliot

Zoya Elliot

Zoya Elliot

Zoya Elliot

Coverage: 1-2 coats . You'll almost certainly be fine with one coat unless you have super ridges!
Formula & application:  Perfection. :)

This shade is a lovely blend between royal blue and navy blue--like a smoked royal blue, maybe? It feels regal for sure, with a beautiful fall-sweater sort of feel. But if you're feeling a little bit more summer nautical before you transition, this'll work for that, too.

Zoya Etta

Zoya Etta

Zoya Etta

Zoya Etta

Zoya Etta

Coverage: 2 coats
Formula & application: Smooth and beautiful. :)

Ooooohhhhh yyyyyeeeessss. This is super sexy and perfectly fall! The shimmer to this gives a gorgeous depth that keeps your fingers pretty and intriguing.

Zoya Foster

Zoya Foster

Zoya Foster

Zoya Foster

Zoya Foster

Coverage: 1 coat
Formula & application: Perfection!

Milk chocolate...cafe au lait...just like both those, this polish is just yummy. An excellent neutral for when you want something a little darker--love.

Zoya Joss

Zoya Joss

Zoya Joss

Zoya Joss

Zoya Joss

Coverage: 2 coats
Formula & application: Surprisingly smooth for a light creme!

The lightest of the three neutrals in the collection, this is like that stripe in your plaid that pulls the outfit together. And it's a perfect base for nail art, so what more can you ask?!

Zoya Kinsley

Zoya Kinsley

Zoya Kinsley

Zoya Kinsley

Coverage: 2 coats
Formula & application:  Smooth as silk. :)

I'll have extra foam on that cappucchino, please...Oh, what, my nails? They're perfect, aren't they? Sure, add a little pumpkin spice sprinkle on the top, I'm really in a fall mood for some reason today...

Zoya Margaret

Zoya Margaret

Zoya Margaret

Zoya Margaret

Zoya Margaret

Coverage: 1-2 coats; I'm wearing 2 for ridge reasons.
Formula & application: Perfection. :)

A beautiful tomato red, Margaret's perfect for when you're feeling a little sassy, or need a little extra kick of glam in your day.

Zoya Michaela

Zoya Michaela

Zoya Michaela

Zoya Michaela

Zoya Michaela

Coverage: 1-2 coats; I'm wearing two to hide those ring-finger ridges. 
Formula & application: Smooth and lovely. :)

A smoky light eggplant with a feminine touch, soft but rich at the same time.

Zoya Rashida

Zoya Rashida

Zoya Rashida

Zoya Rashida

Zoya Rashida

Coverage: 2 coats
Formula & application:  Perfect

My favorite of the collection! Rashida is hot hot HOT, and the shimmer makes the hot simmer and shine. LOVE.

Zoya Ripley

Zoya Ripley

Zoya Ripley

Zoya Ripley

Zoya Ripley

Coverage: 1 coat
Formula & application: Beautiful and easy.

A fun, bright magenta to give your fall looks a pop of happy color.

Zoya Vesper

Zoya Vesper

Zoya Vesper

Zoya Vesper

Zoya Vesper

Coverage: 1 coat
Formula & application: Easy and smooth :)

A smoky blue slate with a hint of periwinkle, this is like a night sky after a storm has passed through, mysterious and serene. Just gorgeous.


In terms of one-coat cremes, this collection is the highest performing I've seen yet--the formula on all the polishes were good and the only reason I needed two coats for any of the cremes was because of my one nail that refuses to play well with others. Zoya's outdone themselves here.


You can find this collection now on Zoya's website, or anywhere Zoya polishes are sold.

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

Follow me all the places! 

Facebook / YouTube / Bloglovin' / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Check out The Dancing Girls, my debut novel, here!
Preorder the second Det. Jo Fournier book, Taken to the Grave, here!