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.

 

 

 

OPI Black Spotted and So So Skullicious Halloween

I am in my third month of blogging!  I took on a Halloween challenge this month, that I unfortunately did not complete, Hurricane Sandy was not conducive to taking nail swatch pictures outside.  I did get to try some new methods and I am now posting the last of all my Halloween polishes.  I also finished my first month of beauty school!

Here is the Halloween manicure I wore today.  I used OPI Hi, Pumpkin!, A-Rose From The Dead and Candlelight from the So So Skullicious mini pack for the base colors with three coats each on alternating fingers.  I love how bright all these colors are.  I then used the Sephora France exclusive Black Spotted effect topcoat from the Amazing Spiderman collection.  Black Spotted took the place of the Green Shatter that we had here in the US, and what a better polish those French girls got!  This is an amazing polish.  I also used some of the sugar skull decals from the Skullicious set.

 

I love Halloween and all things spooky, and there were some amazing collections this season, but I am so tired of Halloween polish!  The amount I had to swatch and wear made it almost impossible to wear anything other than a Halloween manicure for 31 days!  Now I get to start posting the lacquer I have been sitting on!

 

Thanks for reading my blog and leaving comments!  Now, on to November!

f4 Polish Halloween Part 3

Here are the last three f4 Polish Halloween lacquers!

First is Boo To You! filled with black and orange hex glitters and black diamond glitter in a clear base.  Here I have two layers over three layers of OPI Candlelight.  I love the way this looks.

 

 

Here I layered a coat of Deborah Lippmann Yellow Brick Road to make a jelly sandwich.

 

 

Next I have Hocus Pocus, a mix of black, green and purple glitters with some holographic glitter.  This is two coats over two coats of Orly Decades of Dysfunction.

 

 

 

And, finally I have Monster Mash a clear base with green medium hex, purple large hex and black micro matte glitters.  I used two coats over one coat of Milani White On The Spot, then topped it with a matte finish.

 

 

 

Boo To You! was my least favorite until I applied it, now it is my favorite.  This was a great collection with really good formulas.  There are still some colors on the f4 Polish etsy site, get them while you can!

Witches-This Is Halloween Challenge

This post is so late!  Between parties and stressing out over hurricane preparedness I didn't post this one on time.  I also am not the biggest fan of how this came out.  I decided to try making some witch wart nails. 

 

I used two coats of OPI Don't Talk Bach To Me, then I sponged on spots of China Glaze Winter Holly and Milani Black Magic.  I painted some sticky backed rhinestones from a cheap Walgreens Halloween kit with OPI Live And Let Die and attached them.  This was not what I was going for, but I had 30 minutes to paint and shoot a picture before we left for a party.  The colors and painting method need to change, but the rhinestones worked for the bumbs.

F4 Polish Halloween Spam

I couldn't get Google or Blogger to upload my photos yesterday, so I was unable to post a blog!  Today, I have a few f4 Polish Halloween selections for you.

 

First up is Nightmare Forest.  This is two coats of Nightmare Forest over two coats of Zoya Natty.

 

f4 Polish describes Nightmare Forest as, "a clear base with green and orange matte glitters, black shreds and purple micro slices."

 

 

I really love this combination of colors.  The application of all of these f4 Polishes apply smoothly and all the different glitter comes out effortlessly.

Next up is Glitter Goblin, a mix of micro green glitters in a clear base.  This is two coats layered over two coats of Zoya Charisma.

 

 

 

Lastly is Krazy Korn, multi sized orange, white and yellow glitter in a clear base.  This is two coats paired over two coats of OPI A-Rose From The Dead.

 

 

I have worn Krazy Korn twice and I've gotten a lot of compliments on it. 

 

 

Krazy Korn is one of my favorites of the collection.  A few more polishes will be posted soon, so check back.  f4 polish is available on etsy.

Zombies! This Is Halloween Day 15 Dawn Of The Dead

I can't believe how hard it is for me to pick the ideas for my challenges.  I get stuck every time!  I ended up going with George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead, one of my favorite zombie films.

 

I used Milani Black Magic, Nicole by OPI Paparazzi Don't Preach, OPI, La Paz-itively Hot Matte, and a Kiss nail art pen in silver. 

 

The zombie head is the guy on the box cover of Dawn Of The Dead.

 

 

 

 

Jack-O-Lanterns This Is Halloween Day 12

Today is Jack-O-Lantern day for the This Is Halloween Challenge.  Today I had a little bit of help with my manicure, my cat Pumpkinhead (named after one of my favorite movies) was close by the whole time! 

 

 

I added the picture of the cat to distract from the uneven nostril marks on my jack-o-lantern face!  I didn't even notice 'til now for some reason.

 



 

This is three coats of OPI Hi, Pumpkin from the So So Skullicious mini set, it was really streaky.  I mixed some of that orange with Milani Black Magic to paint on the faint pumpkin ridge lines.

 

 

Dollish Polish Spectral Pup

Tonight I have another one of the Dollish Polish This Is Halloween collection for you.  This is Spectral Pup, and besides the fact that it is an awesome and adorable glitter, this guy glows in the dark, like Zero!

 

 

 

This is three coats of Spectral Pup over two coats of OPI Mourning Glory.  Spectral Pup has white and orange glitter of various shapes and sizes.

 

 

And this is two coats of Spectral Pup over three coats of Essence Color & Go Sweet As Candy

 

 

And here it is in the dark!  This really glows, it doesn't even have to be in pitch black.  This is by far the best glow in the dark polish I have ever had. 

 

 

Dollish Polish is available here, you can follow Dolly here, and it looks like Overall Beauty will have some This Is Halloween collection polishes in a grab bag, but only until Thursday 10/11, so I would suggest checking that out now!