Review: Nayll Create-Your-Own-Indie

(Press Sample)

Hello everyone!

I have the coolest thing to share with you today, an indie brand that specializes in create-your-own-indies! When Sara contacted me about her recently launched indie polish business, Nayll, pronounced 'nail', I was intrigued by the concept, and interested to try it out.

Turns out, it was SO much fun, I didn't want to stop. I mean, I always enjoy picking out polish. But this was above and beyond the normal polish fun.

Create your own polish? Can't I just do that at home? Sure you can. And I have, and I enjoy doing it. But if you're just looking to make a few bottles of polish, and you only want one or two of each, it isn't necessarily cheap or practical to buy all the materials and do it at home yourself. You need bottles and you need a suspension base, and you need glitters and/or pigments. And usually the smallest packet of glitter you can buy makes way more than one or two bottles, so you end up buying 3-4 types of glitter to make one polish, and then you have a ton left over--great if you have a bunch of polish-loving friends you want to gift the extras to, but not really practical for just making something cool for yourself. And, it can be messy. Very messy. Let's not talk about the places I find glitter months after I make a glitter franken.

What Nayll does is allows you to pick the glitters or pigments you want, in the base you want, and then mixes it all up for you and sends it right to your door. In a pretty, mess-free bottle. With the name you choose for your creation on a professional custom label. Check, please.

Right now, you can choose to make your own:

Shimmer polish: (1) Name your polish (or you can do this at the end). (2) Select the shimmer base, (3) pick up to three shimmer pigments to add in.

Glitter polish:  (1) Choose your base; there is a clear option, and a nice variety of tinted options so you can have a colored base if you want. (2) Choose up to 10 glitters to add into your base. (3) Name your polish (or do this at the beginning. I don't judge).

And coming soon:

Gel polishes, and topcoats: She is currently working to add in the ability to make gel polishes and topcoats with special ingredients (like holographic and glow-in-the dark--or wait--maybe holographic glow in the dark???).

I tested out both the shimmer polishes and the glitter polishes, and seriously, it was so easy and so much fun to do. I giggled and squeed and enjoyed picking different glitters and looking at them together and making changes and adding more and taking some away and playing and playing and playing. When you're choosing your glitters, all the ones you've selected appear together in a bar next to each other, so you can get a visual of how the glitters will look together. I found myself putting 5 or 6 up in the bar, and putting my fingers over one or two to see how the mix looked without that color, until I found a blend I liked.

And at the end of the process, my coffee table was still absolutely clean, lol.

Before I show you swatches and talk about the polishes on the nail, here are some bottle shots; I really loved that the bottles came with professional labels that included the names I selected; it made me feel like I'd created something very cool:

How awesome is that?

Here are Sizzling Hot and Cabernet Mousse, both designed by me:

Nayll Sizzling Hot and Cabernet Mousse, designed by me

And here are Hydrangea and Seaside, designed by me: 

Nayll Hydrangea and Seaside, designed by me

And finally, here is Red Bottom Heels, one of the ready-made polishes available from Nayll, and her Smooth It Out glitter topcoat:

Nayll Smooth It Out glitter topcoat and Red Bottom Heels

And some back shots just so you can see all of that lovely glitter goodness:

So remember that one called Cabernet Mousse? I kinda had a little brain-freeze when I was naming it, and couldn't come up with anything I liked until later. So, I'm officially changing the name to 'Mayan Mocha', because it makes me think of a thick cup of mocha with that little bit of red heat to spice it up:

Nayll Mayan Mocha

Nayll Mayan Mocha

Nayll Mayan Mocha

This is two coats; the application was easy and the formula was good; this is right up there with any top-quality pre-made shimmer you'll find. To get this color, I mixed a medium brown pigment with a red pigment, to jazz it up; when the light hits it, the undertones of red shine through, and I love it; it's a beautiful, very wearable rusty brown, I think.


For my next creation, I wanted to make my ideal orange/yellow/red glitter. I have several that I've tried before and that I like, but I've always had a picture in my head of what I wanted, so this was my chance to try. Here is the result, Sizzling Hot, over Mayan Mocha:

Nayll Sizzling Hot over Mayan Mocha, both designed by me

Nayll Sizzling Hot over Mayan Mocha, both designed by me

Nayll Sizzling Hot over Mayan Mocha, both designed by me

This is one coat easily brushed over my base polish, no dabbing. This is a gorgeous fall look, and I'll be wearing this glitter over bright yellows and reds in the summer. If you're interested, I used gold hexes, yellow shards, orange circles, and red squares and circles, and little micro red glitter.

For all of the glitters including this one, I used one coat of the Smooth It Out glitter topcoat, and followed that up with one coat of Seche Vite. The Smooth It Out was a fine topcoat, but it wasn't as shiny as Seche Vite, and I like that extra shine. Some people want less shine, so if you're one of those, this will be perfect for you.

Okay okay okay, I'm so excited about this next one, it came out even better than I had hoped, and I think it's just amazing. I just sit and stare at the bottle, I'm completely not kidding. This is Hydrangea, a blend of blue, green, and purple matte circles, along with green matte shards:

Nayll Hydrangea, designed by me, over Julep Gabrielle

Nayll Hydrangea, designed by me, over Julep Gabrielle

Nayll Hydrangea, designed by me, over Julep Gabrielle

This is one coat, semi-strategically brushed on for effect--this polish has a Monet/Impressionist look to it, so I wanted a look that wasn't uniform or covered each nail completely. In terms of the quality of ingredients and formula, I found all of the polishes to be exactly what I'd expect from a quality indie glitter.

Obviously I'm biased, but I really adore this, and I know it sounds like I'm patting myself on the back for my creation, so let me explain a bit. Yes, I picked these glitters to combine, it's true, but I'm not sure I would have ever thought of this on my own. I was playing around with the glitters, filtering them in different ways so different ones appeared, and as I did, I selected several different matte colors. I put them into my add bar, and then covered one or two of them with my fingers to see which colors I liked together. When I saw the purple and blue and green, I suddenly saw visions of purple and blue hydrangeas, and a polish was born! This is why the process was so fun--I got to play and explore and see what came together, without having to buy 40 different sorts of glitter ahead of time, never knowing which ones I'd actually ever use.

For the last of my creations, I wanted to test out her tinted glitter bases. This is Seaside, a combination of light and medium blue circles, green circles, blue and brown squares, and silver shards, in a blue jelly base (shown here over Julep Alaina):

Nayll Seaside, my creation, over Julep Alaina

Nayll Seaside, my creation, over Julep Alaina

Nayll Seaside, my creation, over Julep Alaina

Nayll Seaside, my creation, over Julep Alaina

This is two coats brushed on over one coat of Julep Alaina, a medium gray creme. I did some extra dabbing on the ring finger, to give a little extra bling on the accent nail. I put this over a creme because I wanted to test out how well the tinted jelly settled; when I put on one coat, there was some streaking, but with two coats, you can see it evened out beautifully. Usually when you buy a glitter polish in a tinted base you're hoping to wear it this way rather than just a single-coated topper, so this will work well.

This is a polish I've been designing in my head for quite some time, and I've actually frankened a different version of it myself, in a crelly base. But for this one, I wanted to be able to create a particular look I've been dreaming of--a manicure that looks like ocean waves washing over the sand. So, I brush/dabbed a coat of Seaside over two coats of Zoya Godiva, an sand-colored textured polish, to get the ocean-waves-over-sand look:

One coat Nayll Seaside, designed by me, over two coats Zoya Godiva

One coat Nayll Seaside, designed by me, over two coats Zoya Godiva

One coat Nayll Seaside, designed by me, over two coats Zoya Godiva

One coat Nayll Seaside, designed by me, over two coats Zoya Godiva

I am so in love with how this came together. I love the way the Zoya glimmers just a bit through the layers, and the colors of the glitter are so perfect in my mind to represent my favorite beach. I dabbed the polish so that the blue jelly isn't uniform, which makes it look (to my eye) like the water is in motion. You can't tell in the picture, but the texture of the Zoya comes through just enough that it does look like it's washing over sand. This is now my go-to beach manicure, and I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out.


The last polish I have to show you is one of the pre-made polishes you can get on the Nayll site, Red Bottom Heels; this polish has tons of gold, red, and black glitters in a variety of sizes and shapes:

Nayll Red Bottom Heels over one coat of Julep Alaina

Nayll Red Bottom Heels over one coat of Julep Alaina

Nayll Red Bottom Heels over one coat of Julep Alaina

Nayll Red Bottom Heels over one coat of Nayll Mayan Mocha

Nayll Red Bottom Heels over one coat of Nayll Mayan Mocha

The first pictures show two coats of Red Bottom Heels over Julep Alaina, and the second pictures show one coat over Mayan Mocha. I brushed the glitter on in both cases, with a teensy bit of dabbing after the fact to get coverage the way I wanted it. Application was good, I didn't have any problems with it. This is sooo packed with glitter, if you wanted to make a glitter-bomb look with it, you absolutely could. I see myself wearing this over gold polish on my birthday or for other celebrations--it's a party in a bottle, and it's as close as I'm ever going to get to owning a pair of Lubus, lol. :)

If you've looked at any of the polishes above and thought something like 'Yeah, that Hydrangea is kinda pretty, but it would be so much prettier with pink matte glitters in it, too...', well guess what? You can go make that exact polish, right now. I find myself looking at so many polishes thinking, 'that's close to what I want, if only it had a darker blue in it', or 'How come nobody ever makes one like that without the pink!' This is a way you can take your inspiration, whatever it is, and quickly and easily make the polish that you want, just the way you want it.

The site is extremely user friendly, and if you're worried about doing it right (which you really don't need to be), Sara has a short video tutorial that shows you just what to do. And you can do it all for the same price as most indie polishes would cost you anyway, which is very cool, considering many makers charge extra if you want something custom made up.

You can find the Nayll site by clicking here. You can visit her Facebook page by clicking here, and you can also find Nayll on Pinterest by clicking here.

Her products are of course 4-free, vegan and cruelty free, and guess what: she ships INTERNATIONALLY!! So go get your global glitter on, my dear friends! And she has offered a 30% discount on your first order to my readers, good through the end of April; just use code LOLH30 at checkout. :)

Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope your weekend is going well--happy hump day!

Hugs and loves,
M.

Tutorial: Dia De Los Muertos manicure

Hello!!

I had some requests for a tutorial on my Dia De Los Muertos manicure, so here it is! It's pretty simple once you know how to do it, so that's a good thing.

Step 1) Over your base color, which can be any medium gray color, you want to stamp a row of
roses across the bottom (tips) of your nails in a lighter gray color that is opaque enough to show up:

Notice I did not do this perfectly and didn't care if they are blurry or smudged a bit--this is just a background row that you're putting in to create depth and contrast, you won't be able to see if it's perfect or not because it will be covered up. My rose is from Winstonia 104, but you can use any rose you like. :)


Step 2). Add another layer of roses in red over your layer of gray roses:

You do not want these to line up perfectly, in fact, you want to give the illusion that there are a ton of roses there. So, try to stamp generally in the same spot as the other roses, but don't worry about it when it doesn't match up, because that's the effect you're going for. :)

Step 3: Finally, add in your skull and your skeletons! (Mine are from BM413.) I wanted my skeletons to look like they were dancing and moving around like they would be in a Dia De Los Muertos parade. But I do admit that the nail I love the best is the index finger, where they sort of look like they're in a mosh pit, lol:

The point is, position them randomly anywhere you like. One important tip, however; for the skeletons on my ring and pinkie finger, I rolled the stamper downward, from cuticle to tip, rather than from side-to-side on the nail. That's how I keep an image straight vertically on the nail without warping. :)

And that's it! Throw a topcoat on--I bet this would be awesome with a matte topcoat--and you're done!

Of course I'm including a single-image tutorial for you in case you want to pin it somewhere for ease of use.

Thanks to the people who requested the tutorial--it really helps me when you tell me what you'd like to see tutorials for, so keep those requests coming!! :)

Hugs and loves,
M.

Before & After: Ninja bats!!

Hello!!

Today I'm going batty!

(Michelle, how is that different from any other day?)
(Hush, you.)

That's right, today is the first day of Crumpet Nail Tart's Halloween challenge, and as you can see, the theme for today is black cats or bats:

I'm choosing bats, and that gives me an opportunity to tell you the back-story of my Bat Undies franken, the one I showed you in my Dia De Los Muertos manicure. A while back, I was looking for the perfect gray to wear under 6 Harts Ninja Bat, one that really allowed the shimmer and all the colors of glitter to sing. I didn't have one I like, so I frankend one...and because the topper is called 'Ninja Bat', I came up with the name 'Bat Undies'. Okay, that wasn't the most exciting story, but there you have it, lol. :)

Here is the base polish plus topper:

In my mind, this combination just cried out for some cool bats, both because of the names and because of the colors. So I added some with both Winstonia 116 and Cheeky jumbo plate 6, using Konad Black:

What do you think? Spoooooky? Fun? If you look at them too long, it looks like they're coming...right...for...you..........

Hugs and love!
M.

NOTD: Mexico

Hola!

Yesterday's theme in the CNT 33 Day Challenge was Mexico, and I'm a day late for it, but better late than never. :)

Because I'm in a mood for things like skulls and skeletons (or, skulleletons, as I like to call them), I figured the perfect way to honor Mexico was to do a Dia De Los Muertos manicure.

Make no mistake, I'm not claiming that Dia De Los Muertos is simply a version of Halloween. They do share some features, and possibly even some underlying ideas (Dia De Los Muertos celebrates departed loved ones and their return for a short time to our world by leaving food, drink and Sugar Skulls for them, while one theory about the origin of trick-or-treating argues that people believed spirits returned to this world on All Hallow's Eve, so people would leave food and drink for them outside of their homes), they are certainly different.

And I love them both. :)

For this mani, I started with a medium-dark gray polish that I frankened and named Bat Undies; I then did a double-stamp technique with grey and red polishes to create a layer of roses along the bottom of the nails (I used Winstonia 104 for this). Then I used BM 413 (what's this? A new Bundle Monster set? Yep, that's right--Bundle Monster just released their 'Create Your Own' set, and I haz it to show you!!) to stamp some awesome dancing skulleletons and a Sugar Skull on top, with Konad white. Finally, I stuck on two red studs for eyes, to give it a maniacally rockin' effect:

We can go where we want to; a place where they willl never find 

And we can act like we come from out of this world, leave the real one far behind.

 There you have it! Hope you like it as much as I do. :)

And since I'm almost certainly the last person to post my mani, please check out all the other participants linked below!

Hugs and love,
M.

Before & After: Abstract Ocean (Or, now I get the point of crellies)

Hello!

I recently went on a trip to one of my favorite places in the world, Carmel-by-the-sea. I've been going to Carmel for years because it has many things I love: possibly the world's most beautiful beach; fun boutiques; quaint, quirky, fun houses and architecture; excellent restaurants; art galleries. Layered over all of that, Carmel is a dog-loving town in the most beautiful of ways, and I've always loved that even though I didn't have a dog. Once I was adopted by my puppy-baby this past October, I knew I had to take her for a visit so she could run along the gorgeous off-leash beach...I had one of the best afternoons of my life watching her discover the water--at first scared, slowly testing it out, learning to love it, and then impossible to separate from it. That night, I knew I wanted to create a polish inspired by that beautiful beach and that wonderful day...and when I got home, I did exactly that.

Here are swatches of the polish, which I've named Carmel. It's supposed to be an abstract representation of the beach, with a beige base for the sand, blue glitters for the ocean, green glitters for the seaweed, and brown glitters for the rocks. There are also a few pearl white glitters for shells:

Lacquer Or Leave Her! Carmel, artificial light

Unfortunately, when I put this on in a full manicure, the base is too opaque and covers the glitters too much (I guess maybe this is the beach at low tide?), so I need to tweak it a bit more, but here's what it looks like for the moment; I want it to look more like the swatch above, so I will add more clear suspension base.

Lacquer Or Leave Her! Carmel, indirect sunlight

Lacquer Or Leave Her! Carmel, direct sunlight

Lacquer Or Leave Her! Carmel, artificial light

I wanted to do a little nail art on this, particularly because the glitters weren't doing quite what I wanted them to. So I stamped with Pueen45, using Zoya Breezi; I picked a flourish image that is sort of wave-like, to make it ocean-y and flourish-y at the same time. Then I added some glitter on top of the stamping and the glitter circles to give it more pop; I used Wet n Wild Fergie's Mermaid Curves:

What do you think? I know it's not perfect yet, but do you think it has potential? Or should I just give it up and start over on a different polish, lol?

Thanks for looking, and big hugs. :)
M.

Before & After: Franken Flashback

Hello there!

Okay, so I tweaked my franken a bit more, and wanted to show it to you full-manicure, as requested. In my hurry to get it up tonight I fought the light a little, so you'll have to sort of piece it together. First, the pic that represents the color well, which is a light milky sage, with green, gold, and white glitters:

Lacquer Or Leave Her! Irish Rain

Then two pictures that show the contrast with the glitters best, but wash out the green a bit and looks more of a mint shade than it really is:

Lacquer Or Leave Her! Irish Rain

I'm not sure that I'm fully happy with it, but I think I may leave it for now. It's still a bit thin--this is three coats, and I still wish it were a bit less milky. But it's a pretty sage sort of milky rather than a pastel, which I like. And at least you can see the glitters, and that's a definite improvement from the first from-scratch I made. And I do like the blend of glitters--not too much, not too little, and some differences in color and shape to keep it a bit interesting. Just too...milky.

Anyway, I needed to do a 1970s manicure for my Llama Nails time period Challenge, and I figured this makes a nice 1970s sort of base, so I thought I'd just use this. I picked an image from Pueen25, which has been screaming '1970s' to me since I saw it. I stamped with Sally Hansen Lightning on three of the nails, and with a rainbow of Rapid Red, Lightning, Orange Impulse, Lickety-Split Lime, and Brisk Blue on the accent nail. I finished off with some 3D Nail Art Confetti from the set Mash sent me for review:

I like how the glitter in the background looks sort of like a comet trail or some such behind the flowers, and I think the combination of flowers and stars is very 1970s, and so is the random rainbow, lol.

Anyway, I would definitely still love any opinions and/or advice on the franken, and I hope you liked the mani! Please check out the other 1970s era manis linked below. :)

Hugs, loves, and frankens...:)
M.