Lacquer or Leave Her!: Sweet Heart Polish

Showing posts with label Sweet Heart Polish. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Peaceful Boxing Day

(Press samples and affiliate links ahead!)

Hello!

If you celebrate it, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. For me, the day after Christmas (known as Boxing Day in many areas of the world) always has a bittersweet feeling for me. I'm always a little bummed Christmas is over, but every year I'm also a little more relieved to be finished with all the preparations and know that everything unfolded (mostly!) successfully. Especially this year, because I hosted several guests yesterday, so have been extra busy the last two weeks, and was on my feet all day yesterday.

But today I get to sit next to my tree, sip my coffee, and enjoy some peaceful time to write. :)

To share that peace with you, here's a manicure that shows what I'm hoping my day will look like:

Sweet Heart Polish Hey Catnip! and UberChic Beauty Holly Jolly

Just my tree, and a little holiday glimmer dusted across everything. :) For this manicure I used Sweet Heart Polish Hey Catnip! and UberChic Beauty Holly Jolly.

And here's a bonus holiday mani, because people give away holiday left-overs on Boxing Day:

Lantern & Wren's Most Wonderful Time over Shine Upper Crust

This one features Lantern & Wren's Most Wonderful Time over Shine Upper Crust.

I hope your Boxing Day is peaceful and happy!

Big hugs,
M. xoxo

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Thursday, July 2, 2015

My top 5 indie polishes!

(Nothing to disclose)

Hello!

A bunch of my fellow blogging buddies and I decided to do a link-up of our five favorite indie polishes. Some of us are doing are favorites from this year, some are doing our all-time favorites--so here are my five all-time favorite indie polishes, in alphabetical order.

Cult Nails: Coveted

I went back and forth about whether to include this polish or Iconic, because they're a tie for me; in the end I chose Coveted because I've featured Iconic before. And there's just so much I love about this beauty--the dark-grass shade of the green, the glowy sparkle, the squishy jelly, the flakie shards. It was one of the first indie polishes I absolutely...Coveted. Sadly, Cult Nails has closed their doors, but you may be able to find this baby in blog sales...:)

Cult Nails Coveted

Elevation Polish Gobi

Gobi is an ethereal beauty that defies description. It's a soft caramel jelly holo with a soft mint green flash. It looks like it glows from within, like it's radiating the light of angels. It's the most amazing neutral, sophisticated and understated, while still being special and eye-catching. It's breath-taking. This polish isn't currently available, but you can find tons of other amazing polish in the Elevation shop.

Elevation Polish Gobi

InDecisive Bloodstone

Ah, Bloodstone. Beautiful anytime, but possibly the most perfect Christmas polish ever made. Deep pine green sprinkled with red, gold and green glitters, with a subtle sprinkle of gold shimmer throughout. It has a vintage feel, like winter in an English manor house. If the ladies of Downton Abbey had worn nail polish, they'd have loved this. And, and: she's still making this one, and you can find it here.

InDecisive Polish Bloodstone

Lucky 13 Lacquer But I Want To Fight! & Fool Of A Took

Yes, okay, this is technically two polishes, but they were released as a twin set, so I'm counting them as one. These two polishes represent Merry and Pippin from the Lord Of the Rings books/movies, and I think they capture the spirit of the hobbits well, with a touch of whimsy in them both. But I Want To Fight! is a dusty grape jelly with green holo glitters; it's pretty with just a bit of twinkly sparkle. Fool Of A Took is a muted avocado with purple glitter that has made it into my Halloween nail art several times, and is fun even when it's not October. These are no longer available, but there are plenty of other beauties that are in the Lucky 13 shop.

Lucky13 Lacquer But I Want To Fight!

Lucky13 Lacquer Fool Of A Took

LynBDesigns Do I Look Like A Frolicker?

This polish is a tangerine jelly with pink-purple flakies; together they give the polish a coral summer-sunset-sky look that's like nothing I've seen elsewhere. It's summery and feminine and it feels like it has just the right amount of magic splashed in. Art in a bottle. You can find LynBDesigns here.

LynBDesigns Do I Look Like A Frolicker?

Mentality Tenderness

(Um, Michelle? I think this is more than five polishes, even with your little cheat about the twin polish set from Lucky13 Lacquer...) (Shhhhh...quiet...nobody needs to know that, keep it to yourself!)

*Ahem*. This polish. THIS polish. THIS. POLISH. Deep regal purple with an amazing scatter of holo throughout. Nothing more needs to be said. Just enjoy and try not to drool everywhere. You can find Mentality's shop here.

Mentality Tenderness

Sweet Heart Polish Hurry Ba-ack!

(Um, Michelle? I think you're pushing this pretend-this-is-only-five-polishes thing a little far...) (Hey! If Douglas Adams could put out a trilogy that had five books, I can do a post of my five favorite indie polishes that has eight polishes! Work with me here!!)

Hurry Ba-ack! was a limited edition polish in honor of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, and I think it is easily the funnest polish (most fun polish?) I've ever seen, hands down, indie or no. I love the combination of the bright glitters in the squishy jelly, with the healthy dose of shimmer added in. I love that it captures the vibe of the ride, at least for me. I never thought I'd call a black-based polish 'happy', but it is. It's happy and it's fun, and it makes me smile. I loved it so much that although I was originally sent a mini for review, I bought myself a full-sized bottle. LOVE. This was a limited edition polish, but you can find her other beauties here. :)

Sweet Heart Polish Hurry Ba-ack!

Narrowing it down to five was crazy difficult, I had at least 30 more I wanted to include. So I'm thinking maybe I need to do this by season or something in the future, give myself an excuse to pull out pics of more awesome polishes! But there are my top indie polishes today, at this moment. Wait, maybe I should have put in...focus, Michelle, focus!! Don't forget to check out what the other bloggers chose in the link-up below. :)

So what do you think of my choices? Any there you love? And what's your favorite indie polish of all time?

Happy polishing!
M.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Review & How-to-use: MoYou London Gothic Collection 01

(Nothing to disclose)

Hello!

MoYou London has made me extremely happy by coming out with a Gothic collection of plates right in time for Halloween. I live in the US and I got mine in a week, so you still have time to get these plates before the big day if you want them. :)

First, as always, here is my video review:

And here are the stills:

MoYou London Gothic Collection 01

And to give you an idea of how big the different portions are:

MoYou London Gothic Collection 01 vs. Konad

This is a combination plate; it's not completely a collage-style plate, but it's not a normal images-in-neat-rows sort of plate, either. So how do you use it?

1) Use single images.

There are lots of spaces between most of the images on this plate, so this probably doesn't need too much explanation here. But in case you're not sure how to pull off the image you want without pulling off something you don't, check out my tutorial on how to isolate images/parts of images here.

2) Full-nail images.

Yes, there are in fact several full-nail images you can get from this plate. There are at least 4 I can see, possibly one or two more if you have smaller nails:

3) Let's build-a-scene!

Probably my favorite thing to do with these plates, you can create a coordinated scene out of the elements on the plate. I've outlined four possibilities for you here, but there are more:

Yellow: Monsters under the bed!!
Red: Graveyard madness
Green: Nightmare-before landscape
Black: spooky tree scene

4) Patchwork-style manicures, with more than one pattern on the same nail, or patterns that transitions across your nails:

The top of the carousel would make a perfect gothic/halloween patchwork mani, with two or more of the patterns on each nail, placed at different angles. You could also do a patchwork mani with the monsters and the surrounding patterns, or a transition manicure with the three monsters over your five nails (dividing them in parts to make them look like they're running across your nails or peeking out). Another great transition mani here is the gate + tree or the tree+ web; for example, stamp the gate on your pinky and ring fingers (half each) and then the tree over the other three fingers. Very cute!!

5) Go goth, baby!

As my friend Inky says, for some of us, every day is Halloween. But for others, maybe we prefer to stick with a goth feel, but not images that are more typically 'Halloween'. There are plenty of images on this plate that can create a great gothic feel without being necessarilly 'Halloween':

How did it stamp? Let's take a look at my test mani. I just got back from spending several days at Disneyland with my cousins, and they told me before we went that my favorite ride at Disneyland, The Haunted Mansion ride, now has a 'Nightmare Before Christmas' theme, and I wanted to do a manicure that celebrates that.

A while back, I reviewed for you the Grim Grinning Ghosts Duo, a pair of indie polishes that were inspired by The Haunted Mansion Ride, and I knew I had to use them for this (duh). So for my base polishes I used The Lady Varnishes Foolish Mortals on my index, middle and pinky, with Sweetheart Polish Hurry Ba-ack on my ring and thumb. Then I stamped using Konad White and Black; I did a slightly different design on each hand:

The Nightmare Before The Haunted Mansion

I adore this. It's creepy but not too creepy, and the colors are fun but not too bright. Oh, and? Foolish Mortals Glows in the dark, so the pattern is preserved even at night. :)

Hope you're having a great Halloween season!
M.