Wu Tang Clan and H.P. Lovecraft nail sets

I recently did two sets of nails on myself that are my favorites so far.  Currently there is an acrylic overlay on my natural nails that I put after I broke a few nails in one day.  I sculpted over three of my nails to make the length match  

These are my Wu Tang Nails!  From left to right I will list what I did or used for each nail:
1. OPI Candlelight base, Cult Nails Nevermore with a striper brush to make bumble bee stripes.
2. Cult Nails Tempest base with Dollish Polish Urban Camo on top.
3. Reverse french with Tempest and Nevermore with rhinestones and studs glued on top.
4. OPI Candlelight base and Nevermore striped for my Tiger Style nail!
5. Cult Nails Quench with OPI Man With the Golden Gun real gold topcoat, I had to bring some gold to the Wu-Mani.
6. Candlelight base and Nevermore painted around the yellow to make the Wu Tang W.
7. Quench with a black rhinestone.
8. Candlelight and Nevermore to paint my cute lil Killa Bee!
9. Nevermore base and a black chain glued in a pile on top.
10. Reverse french with Tempest and Quench and a bunch of rhinestones on top!

This was a manicure that I really didn't want to take off, I even left it on two days, which is unusual for me.

 

This H.P. Lovecraft manicure is the one I am currently wearing.  From left to right again:

1. Nevermore with Girly Bits Magically Delicious gradient.

2. Dollish Polish Toxic Avenger, one of my favorite polishes ever!  All the symbols on different fingers are from the Necronomicon, any circles I replaced with rhinestones.  All of the symbols were drawn on with a Kiss nail art pen in black, since I was working on my non dominant hand I figured a pen would be easier than a brush.

3. Cult Nails Nevermore with three 5mm silver spikes.

4. Liquid Glam Lightning Storm, I will be swatching this polish on its own soon. 

5. OPI Just Spotted the Lizard

6. Cult Nails Tempest base, then I painted a cute Cthulhu with China Glaze Budding Romance and I used Nevermore and a dotting tool for the eyes.

7. Just Spotted the Lizard again and a spike for the arrow on the symbol.

8. I should make my own water decals sometime, but I just printed out a picture of Lovecraft and top coated it down.

9. & 10. Toxic Avenger and Necronomicon symbols on both.

 

I think this was the first time my right hang made an appearance on the blog!  The complicated manicure post is done, so that's all for now.

 

Love Will Tear Us Apart-Black Cat Lacquer

My unplanned blogging hiatus is over and I have an amazing polish for my first post--Love Will Tear Us Apart by Black Cat Lacquer!  I needed a Joy Division polish in my life.  Love Will Tear Us Apart is a clear base with red shards, black micro glitter and BLACK HEARTS!

I used one coat of Love Will Tear Us Apart (with some additional heart placement at the end, though plenty of hearts where coming out on the brush) over two coats of OPI My Vampire Is Buff.  My thumb has one coat of Cult Nails Nevermore, my new go-to one coat black polish, with Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures cover art painted on with Cult Nails Tempest.  

 

Love Will Tear Us Apart, along with all Black Cat Lacquers, applies smoothly, with an amazing glitter payoff.  Sabrina of Black Cat Lacquer (available here) gets inspiration from all the same bands, shows and movies that I love as well and it is always exciting to find polishes like this one.  It gives me a great starting point for fun manicures.  

Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is one of the most beautiful and haunting songs ever written and is about love, depression and the stress on a relationship that such a strong love brings.  This polish is a perfect deconstruction of the song, and I am absolutely in love with it.

Follow Black Cat Lacquer on Facebook or Twitter, and seriously, go buy some polish, you will not be disappointed!

 

Pretty & Polished Mathematical!! Collection

I just about died when I saw the macro shots of the Mathematical!! collection on Twitter a few weeks ago!  This is an Adventure Time inspired collection by Pretty & Polished.  These come in the new printed bottles!  A new Pretty & Polished website, http://shopprettyandpolished.com, was launched last week where you can buy this and other collections in the new bottles, as well as jewelry and cuticle care items. 

All swatches were done with three easily applied coats, unless otherwise noted.  My nails for these pictures were enhanced with OPI Axxium sculpting gel, no tips.

Here is King of C-C-Cool, a light blue Ice King inspired polish with red, blue, yellow and white diamond glitters.

 

 

 

BMO Me Up!  is grey with tiny blue flakies.  This is one that really needs to be seen in person, it's so pretty and unique.

 

 

 

 

Okay, here is my favorite, I'm Not A Banana!, the Jake polish.  Okay, yellow + jelly + black and white glitter = the polish I have wanted the most, and never even knew it!  This is an amazing, highly pigmented color.

 

 

The Young Hero, the Finn polish, has a white base with yellow, blue and green glitter.  Because of the shape of my nails, my boyfriend thought this looked like the dinosaur egg candy.

 

Here is Peebles, the Princess Bubblegum color.  This is my second favorite in this collection!  A pink jelly with pink and yellow glitter, this is like strawberry lemonade as a nail polish.  I have been looking for the perfect pink and yellow for awhile and here it is!

 

My Lumps is next, the Lumpy Space Princess polish.  This is a purple polish with purple and yellow shards.  I used about four coats in these swatches.  The shards make application of the base color a little difficult, but what do you want with a polish with lumps in the name?!  Next time I wear it I will probably layer it over another purple, but this is a fun and very different nail polish.

 

 

Here is Vampire Sing-a-long, the Marceline inspiration.  I used two coats over two coats of Dior Incognito.  On the Pretty & Polished site this is described as, "packed with red, purple, and black glitters with a sprinkling of white in a crystal clear base. Looks like a vampire bite to me!"  I thought that was cute and accurate.  I know a lot of girls go crazy over the large circle glitter, so go pick this up!

 

 

And, finally, Rainy Day Lady, the Lady Rainicorn polish.  This is a multi color glitter bomb, I used two coats over one coat of Milani Black Magic.

 

I love this entire collection, but I'm Not A Banana! and Peebles are favorites. 

 

There is still some polish available in the old bottles on the Pretty & Polished Etsy site, but make sure to check out the new site.

 

 

 

Deborah Lippmann Let's Go Crazy

Okay, so, Deborah Lippmann's Let's Go Crazy is a Prince inspired royal purple (of course) jelly packed with multi colored glitter.  I don't know if I have anything else to say!

 

I used about three coats for this manicure.  This is the third time I have used this polish and taken pictures before I was satisfied with the outcome.  When spreading polish toward the cuticle it is best to try to get only the base on your brush or else you will have weird bare spots if you try to apply the first coat or second coats with lots of glitter gathered on your brush.

 

 

There is no problem finding glitter in this bottle.  And other than what I described above, it applies like a $16 bottle of polish should.

 

 

This is one of the Deborah Lippmann fall colors. It was a Nordstrom exclusive for a time and was hardly ever in stock, but I have seen it offered on Birchbox since, so I think it is easier to find now.

 

 

This is the same multi glitter combo found in Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop and Happy Birthday, but in a purple jelly this time, I haven't seen anything else in stores or online that would be a dupe of this, so I would recommend going for this one.

Just Add Milk-Whimsical Nail Polish by Pam

Today I have Just Add Milk, one of the Eight Whimsical Nights holiday polishes by Pam of Whimsical Nail Polish.  Pam says this polish is chocolate chip cookies in a bottle and she is right!

 

The base is a milky light brown with darker brown glitter.  For these pictures I wore three coats.

 

 

Like always with Whimsical Nail Polishes, Just Add Milk gave a smooth application.  With milky glitters like these I like to control the brush and only have a tiny bit of glitter on my first coat.  I like to build up the base coat color.  I also love seeing all the layers of depth with the glitter in these semi translucent polishes.

 

 

I love this polish and I bet you don't have one like this in your stash!   You can order Whimsical Nail Polish through Pam's facebook page for $10 a bottle.

 

 

Candeo Colors Rock Steady & Essence Grey-To Be Here

Today I have Rock Steady from the Candeo Colors Winter collection.  Candeo Colors describes it as a, "mix of small garnet and navy hex with medium gold, navy and gunmetal hex in a grey tinted base."

I used two coats of Rock Steady over two coats of Essence Grey-To Be Here (swatches of it alone further down).

 

 

The grey tint is very light and I didn't want to build up the glitter too much, so I chose to layer it to get it to look like it does in the bottle.  These are the new printed bottles from Candeo Colors that you can purchase here.  I really love this color and it was very easy to apply.

 

Here is Grey-To Be Here on its own.  This is a beautiful grey with a slight shimmer. 

 

These Essence Colour & Go polishes are amazing.  You can find them at Ulta for $1.99, they have unique and deeply pigmented colors that dry really fast and you typically need only one or two coats.

 

Check out the Winter Candeo Colors, Rock Steady is perfect for fall into winter.

 

Crows Toes Bunny Slope

We got our first snow fall this week in Rhode Island, so I decided to blog about Crows Toes Bunny Slope!

 

Bunny Slope is a mix of white matte micro glitter and really shiny silver glitter that looks like snow.

 

 

I used two coats of Bunny Slope over two coats of Nicole by OPI Paparazzi Don't Preach.

 

 

This polish is beautiful and the formula was great.  Check out the Polished Crow blog.  Crows Toes can be purchased at Llarowe and Overall Beauty.