Trio of manicures: Incoco's Tropical Escape Collection

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Hello!

Today I have three manicures to show you from Incoco's Tropical Escape collection, a fun group of tropical themed appliques with matching solid sets to go with.


They sent me Summer Dream, a dreamy sky blue set:

Incoco Summer Dream

Incoco Summer Dream

And Summer Night, a fun set with a retro-80s Miami Vice sort of vibe on a shimmery background:

Incoco Summer Night

Incoco Summer Night

And finally, Tropical Getaway, a rainforest blend of coral and greens:

Tropical Getaway

Tropical Getaway

For my first manicure, I wanted to play with the patterns from the Tropical Getaway set; I surrounded two stripey nails with bed of fronds:

Tropical Getaway

Tropical Getaway

Tropical Getaway

I love the look of this; there's a lot of foliage, but the splashes of color and the background soften it so it's not overwhelming.



For my second manicure, I paired Summer Dream with Summer Night, because you know, not only do the colors go together, but so do the names:

Incoco Summer Dream + Incoco Summer Night

Incoco Summer Dream + Incoco Summer Night

Incoco Summer Dream + Incoco Summer Night

And then...well...
Then I stamped it!! First with Konad m64 and Barry M Silver Foil, then with Cheeky Jumbo plate 2 (see my full review here) and Kleancolor Metallic Orange, Hit The Bottle polishes A Rose By Any Other Name and To Have And To Gold:

Dreamy summer nights

Dreamy summer nights

Dreamy summer nights

I love love love this look! This is one of those times when the idea I had in my head for carrying over the look onto the other two nails--it's busier than I normally do and I adore it!!! I hope you do, too. :)

You can find these appliques along with a ton of other beautiful designs on Incoco's website, and selected designs at your local Walgreen's.

Happy appliqueing,
M.

Before & After: Moroccan Mosaic

Hello!

I recently told you about my nostalgic foray into Sally Hansen Nail Prisms from the late 80s/early 90s, made possible by Inky Whisker's Musings, who told me about this eBay site that specializes in discontinued drugstore polishes. I mentioned that one of the polishes I got was everything I expected, and more...and I'm back to show you that polish and some nail art.

I give to you the magical Scarlet Ruby, a red-orange-purple multichrome that minstrel songs should be written about:

Sally Hansen Scarlet Ruby

Sally Hansen Scarlet Ruby

Sally Hansen Scarlet Ruby

Sally Hansen Scarlet Ruby

Wow. Just...wow wow wow. Where have you been all my life, beautiful polish? That's right, I owned you, I used you up, and then you languished in somebody's storage locker somewhere after being discontinued until someone found you and started selling you on eBay.

I thought long and hard about what to do with her that would celebrate her majesty, rather than cover it. I decided to stamp on her using MoYou London's Artist collection plate 04, and two polishes; I used Barry M Gold Foil and Kleancolor Metallic Orange. Then, I tried out these plastic 'rhinestones' that KKcenterHk sent me for review:

KKCenterHK coffee rhinestones

I love the coffee color of these and was interested to see how much of the rhinestone-like cut on them would hold up in a manicure. The worked wonderfully, very cute! Now I want to try all of their matte colors, lol. Also, they gave me a code for 10% off of your full purchase for all of my readers, just use the code 'lacquerorleaveher', it's good through the end of the year. :)

So how did it come out?? Here's the final look:

My Moroccan Mosaic

Add caption

What do you think? I think this polish definitely qualifies for the 'prettiest' untried in my pile, which is the theme of today Glittah Pirates Neverending Pile challenge. :)

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Before & After: One does not simply leaf...

Hello!

Today I'm going to finish of a threesome of leaf manicures...I can't promise that you won't get any more, this month, but I do promise that there will be other things too, lol. :)

Today's theme in The Crumpet's Nail Tarts 33 day challenge is to use three colors on the same stamping image. Yes, we can do it! Yes, yes, we shall succeed!!

For this one, I started with a base of Lucky 13 One Does Not Simply..., another of her perfect embedded glitter polishes, this one a brown shimmer base with silver, gold, and red hexes:

Lucky 13 One Does Not Simply, two coats, artificial lighting

This is complete coverage in two coats, with no problem applying--I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love the way Lucky 13 polishes apply, it's like they don't have any glitter in them at all. Amazing.

The colors in this polish already scream fall, so I decided to just redux them in the stamping polishes I chose. I used the leaf design from Pueen 12 (you can find my review of this set by clicking here), and put all three polishes on the design, each over different leaves. I used Barry M Gold Foil, Kleancolor Metallic Orange, and Sally Hansen Red-io Active. On each of the two nails I stamped, I also positioned an extra leaf besides those originally on the design:

I couldn't be happier with this manicure, and I will definitely wear it again, many times. :) I think what I like best about it is that the leaves on the stamped nails make the glitter on all of the nails look like they're also leaves, just smaller or way in the background. I love it, and I hope you do, too.

Thanks for looking! Hugs and love,
M.

Review + Before & After: Jamberry Cardinal

(Jamberry Cardinal was sent for my honest review.)

Hello!

Recently I was contacted by a representative from Jamberry, who told me that just a few weeks ago, Jamberry debuted a line of 12 polishes that coordinate with their nail wraps, along with topcoat in three finishes. This is really exciting for me, because when I play with nail wraps, I like the idea of being able to get an extra manicure or two out of them, and having the flexibility to combine them with coordinating nail polish is an incredibly fun idea with tons of possibilities. Plus, the rep's name is Michelle, so I couldn't have said not if I wanted to! Kidding of course. :)

Because of my obsession with red, I chose to review Cardinal, the red creme in their line. Her is the shiny beauty:

Jamberry Cardinal, 2 coats, artificial light

 

Cardinal is a stunning fire-engine red creme that glides on like a dream. The formula is gorgeous, and application was perfect. No pooling, not to thick, perfect in every way. You do want to be sure you wear a basecoat because when I did clean-up, I saw a little tendency toward staining, but that's the case with most reds like this, nothing strange here. I did let the first coat dry on its own before applying the second, and it dried quickly and with a very shiny finish--you don't need topcoat with this one if you don't want it, but I am wearing it here. So with respect to my review of this polish, I think this is definitely a viable equivalent for your better-than-average prestige polishes. If the other polishes in the line are like this, these will be an enormous success. You can find these, along with their impressive selection of nail wraps, by clicking here.

I wanted to keep wearing this and also wanted a bit of fall nail art, so I decided to use her as a base for a thankgiving-centerpiece sort of look I wanted to try out. For my second step, I taped off half of each nail and put on a layer of Nail'd It Fall flowers, a gold-based polish with yellow, orange, and green hex glitters. I stamped over the nail with China Glaze Passion and my Gals plates. Finally, I finished up with some dots of Kleancolor Metallic Orange to pull the look of the glitter in the polish up onto the gold stamping, to unite the two:

I wanted to throw something full of color and pattern at this base, to see if the pretty red could stand up to all of that competition. It didn't wash out or recede into the background--it absolutely held its own. So, I'm pretty darn sure that any sort of nail art combination you wanted to do with the nail wraps and anything else will come out looking good. :)

I will be back sometime in the next few days I'll also be reviewing the Jamberry matte finish topcoat...spoiler alert, I love it (that sounded a bit Gossip Girl, now didn't it...), so if you're looking for a good matte topcoat, check back for that. :)

Thanks for stopping by! Hugs and love,
M.

(Jamberry Cardinal was sent for my honest review.)

Before & After: Orange Feather

(All products purchased with my own money.)

Hey there!

I have a ton of stuff I'm trying to put out on the blog in the next couple of weeks, and I'm extremely excited about the start of the Halloween season...I may regret it, but I'm going to do two Halloween challenges again this year. :)

But before I do, I've been in the mood for fall...so today I have a very fall manicure to share with you. I've had it in the queue for a while, and I want to get it out before I go all crazy into the Halloween stuff. :)

I started out with A'dor Unseelie, a glowing greyish-brown polish with a green-gold shimmer that borders on a metallic; I accidentally deleted my swatches day-of, so here is an older one to show you the base color:

A'dor Unseelie, two coats, direct sunlight

I wanted to turn this into a duochrome, so I added a coat of Enchanted Polish Special Sauce. I did this back when my cuticles were in bad shape, so please forgive me that...:

Enchanted Polish Special Sauce over A'dor Unseelie

And finally, I did a simple feather stamp with Kleancolor Metallic Orange:

I hate that the logistics of this post were such a disaster, because I love this manicure so much! I love the deep fall colors, and the way the stamping enhances the Special Sauce; it almost seems subtle against that hauntingly rich duochrome. Definitely an attention-catcher, in a good way. If you love fall colors and Special Sauce hasn't made it onto your lemming list yet, I highly recommend it. :)

Thanks for stopping by! Big hugs,
M.

(All products purchased with my own money.)

Kinda Before & After: Jurassic Bubble Wrap Mani

Hello!!

And so begins my new challenge with Llama Nails--Periods of History! We're starting with the Jurassic period and each week will be moving up through time to the future. :)

I started with a base of Kleancolor Metallic Green, and then put some Spoiled Call You Later over it. Then I decided to try a new technique over it--bubble-wrapping. I figured, if saran wrap works to create cool texture, bubble wrap should be even better! It does create round areas, with an overall texture similar to what you can do with saran wrap, but a little more dense, which is kind of cool. :)  Anyway, I did this with a muddy beige polish which promptly got lost among my other polishes and I can't remember what it was...>.<

Bubble Wrap effect

Cool circular textures

Next I stamped over it, first with China Glaze Joy and China Glaze Glittering Garland; I used Bundle Monster BM10 and BM207:

What do you think? I think it looks like a cool Jurassic jungle with T-Rex slash marks going across the foliage. :)

Thanks for looking,

Xoxox,
M.

NOTD: Lucky 7

Hello!!

Today is the next installment of my Cheeky Girl Challenge twinpost, where Dina (from Secretary's Nail Art) and I use an image from one plate per week from the Cheeky summer plates. This week we're on Cheeky 39, and we agreed to use the slot machine image:

To make this, I started with a base of Kleancolor Metallic Green on three fingers, and covered them with Spoiled Call You Later, a green & gold glitter. For the ring finger, I used a base of Julep Sophie, but it ended up a bit more muddy than I wanted it to be, so I put a layer of Aphrodite Lacquer Terre over it; this is a milky-gree polish with green glitters in it.

For the stamped image, I stamped with Konad black, and then filled in the images with Sally Hansen Lightning, Lickety-Split Lime, Pure Ice Siren, and China Glaze I Herd That.

This will be the last Cheeky Girl Challenge twinpost for a few weeks, because of holiday plans...but we'll bring it back sometime in January. Don't forget to visit Dina's post to see what she did. :)

Thanks for looking!!

Xoxox,
M.

NOTD Before & After: Orly's Smolder (Or, Fall Is In The Air...)

Hello!!

A little while back I reviewed two colors from Orly's Fired Up collection, and liked them so much that I ordered a third color from the collection, Smolder. When it showed up, I couldn't wait to try it out, especially when it turned out to be more of a red than it looked from the promo materials, which made it look a bit more like a wine color.

Smolder is very similar to Flicker in the type of color and finish it is; it has incredible depth and intensity, and I want very much to call it a duochrome, but it doesn't quite shift as much as flash--it's sort of in between a flash and a shift. In the shade, you see deep red with orange/copper flashes and winey flashes. In the sun, more of the wine color comes out. And like Flicker, Smolder is true to the name of the collection in that is seems to be lit from within:

Orly Smolder--shade

Orly Smolder--shade, different angle

Orly Smolder--direct sunlight

I had been wearing this for a day and wasn't sure what to do with it because I didn't want to cover it up, when my AIS group announced the challenge theme, and solved my dilemma. The theme for today is 'Can't wait for fall!', and this color screams fall to me, so I knew I'd be using it as my base.

I personally love fall and fall colors, and while I don't want summer to end, I'm really jazzed about putting together my first official 'fall' manicure, so one fall color was certainly not going to be enough. So I grabbed a rainbow of fall colors in a bottle--Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell. If you've never seen it, it's a stunning holographic duochrome (don't know where holographic came from!) glitter that's sort of like the rainbow flakies out there:

Orly Smolder + Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell

It's like a spray of fall leaves in a bottle...

Honestly, at this point I almost decided that this could no longer be a part of the weekly theme, because AIS is a stamping group, and I almost couldn't bring myself to stamp over this combination. I wore it like this for a day, and then finally decided that a little spray of leaves would be a nice touch to stamp on top:

For the stamped image, I used Cheeky XL plate E, and stamped with Revlon Varnished, a greenish gold that I thought would be perfect for fall. However, if I had to do it again, I think I'd go with a straight gold polish, which would have a bit more of a warm feel. :)

So there you have it, a NOTD, review, and theme challenge all in one. I loved this all so much I wore it from start to finish for 5 days, which is crazy long for me these days! And I should mention, not one chip until the last day. :)

Thanks for taking a look, and have a great Sunday!

M.