Pastel Hearts

Hi everyone, Happy Valentine's Day!

I just have a quick post today since I have a bunch of midterms coming up and I really need to get around to studying for them instead of procrastinating! :P

If you follow me on Instagram (my username is livelylacquer), you'd know I'm kind of cheating out on a v-day manicure. I actually did this mani a few weeks ago. I actually had a great idea for a heart manicure in my brain, but when I tried to actually do it... well, it didn't turn out so well. I might try it again in the future, when I feel more patient.

Anyway, on to the manicure! For this look I used all of the colours found in the China Glaze Avant Garden Pastel Petals set (see my swatches here) and a quick pastel yellow mix using a drop of Cult Nails' Feel me up and OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

Base: China Glaze Dandy Lyin' Around
Hearts: CG Fade into Hue, Keep Calm Paint On, Life is Rosy, Tart-y for the Party, Pink-ie Promise and a pastel yellow.

I freehanded the hearts in random places on the nail with a nail art brush and then sealed it all up with a coat of Cult Nails' Wicked Fast topcoat.

I'm fairly happy with how it turned out! I kind of wish that the hearts were a bit more even, but then again it is my art skills that we're talking about haha. What do you think? Do y'all have any cool plans for Valentine's Day? I have a hot date with my lecture notes LOL.

Thank you all for reading! Hope y'all enjoy the rest of your week! <3

Marisa

A NOTD: Rainbow Gradient-y Stamp-icure!

Hi everyone, Happy Thursday!

Today I have a NOTD that I did a little while ago to show y'all. If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen this one, but here are some more pictures!

Sorry from the backwards stamping on the middle finger - I must have turned the stamper around accidentally before stamping it onto my nail.

For my gradient I used:

Red: Cult Nails Evil Queen
Orange: Zoya Arizona
Yellow: Cult Nails Feel me up
Green: Essie Mojito Madness (I feel like a mojito now, yum)
Blue: Nails Inc Baker Street
Purple: Cult Nails Vicious

I used 2 coats of OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls as the base, and then sponged the gradient on. I didn't have any cosmetic sponges (it's on my shopping list), so I used a different kind of sponge that had perforations that were a bit larger (don't worry, not one of those yellow dish washing sponges with the scotch brite sides lolol).

I stamped overtop the gradient with BM plate bm-322 and Cult Nails Nevermore.

I had actually originally wanted to stamp the gradient over the white, but it didn't work out so well (will try again in the future!)

Anyhow, that's all for today! Thank you so much for reading, and I hope y'all have a great (polish-filled) weekend!

Marisa

China Glaze Avant Garden Collection Part II - Pastel Petals Swatches

Hi everyone!

Yesterday I showed you the Blooming Brights, but today I'm happy to bring you the Pastel Petals set from the China Glaze Avant Garden collection for Spring 2013!

I'm actually a really big sucker for pastel shades, even though I don't wear them as often as I should. The only thing I don't like about pastels is that most of the time the formula will kind of suck or be streaky and annoying... I probably don't use them that often because when I don't have time to do my nails but need a polish change, I tend to just pull out my easy to apply favourites. There's nothing I hate more than trying to quickly do my nails with a polish that's crazy amounts of thick and goopy (and requires more than 3 coats!).

Anyway, I digress. Onto the polish, shall we? This collection is made up to 3 shimmers and 3 cremes. :D

China Glaze Avant Garden Collection Part I - Blooming Brights Swatches

Hi everyone!

Today I have my first Spring collection purchase to show y'all. My beauty supply store had these in early, so of course the hoarder in me bought them all. Spring is one of my favourite seasons, the only thing I could do without is the rain!

Anyhow, today I'm going to feature the first half of the collection - the Blooming Brights!

My New Years Manicure

*Sneaks in*

Hi everyone! Sorry for the CRAZY late post! I've gotten sucked into school... I'm having a hard time adjusting to cramming things into my brain again - I don't think my brain really wants to cooperate this time around!

The good news is that after my long lab today I finally feel up to post something! I'll be posting the Mariah Carey Liquid Sand polishes sometime in the near future (planning on re-swatching some of them first!).

Anyhow, today I have my New Year Manicure to show y'all. Please excuse the excess glitter/sad cuticles, but I'm really happy with how this turned out.

  

I started out with a coat of base coat, China Glaze's Purr-fect Plum with OPI's Goldeneye sponged at the tips, and finished it all off with my favourite top coat ever, Cult Nails' Wicked Fast. 

All things considering, this is pretty on trend for this winter. I was going to do something different for the pinky and ring nails, but it didn't really work out in my opinion so I redid them to match the other fingers.

Anyhow, that's all for today! I really need to get updating some of the other pages (so many new lemmings!), so I'm off for now!

Thank you for reading! :D

Marisa

China Glaze Glitz Bitz 'n Pieces Collection for Spring 2013

Hi everyone!

I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year! I certainly am! Of course I'm dreading going back to school (and job hunting), but I've been having a blast polish wise! I was stalking my local beauty supply for the OPI Mariah Carey collection and I had the best luck yesterday. Not only did they just get the Mariah Carey collection, but they also got this new China Glaze collection! Needless to say, the hoarder in me jumped out and I had to get all 6 polishes in this collection. In my defense it's glitter, which makes it much more reasonable, right?

Anyhow, there are a LOT of photos in this post, so I'll be putting it under a cut... here's some eye candy to hopefully tempt you into taking the plunge!

My Picks: Top 10 of 2012

Hi everyone! Happy New Year's Eve!

I hope you're all having a great day with lots of plans later! I'm working today, so I won't be able to relax as much, but it is my last day before I head back to school for the next semester!

Today's post will be a bit of a picture spam of my top 10 polishes from this past year. I'm already excited to start making a list for next year... I have my eye on some of the polishes from the spring Zoya collection!

Anyhow, let us begin! Here are my favourite polishes that were released this year, in no particular order! I also think that there were a few greens that are honorable mentions since I didn't want my list to be too overwhelmingly green. ;)

China Glaze - Riveting

I absolutely loved this polish when it came out, and I still do. I never thought an orange polish could steal my heart like this one did, but maybe it's the fact that it's gorgeous shiny and also great matte. I find the gold shimmer in this polish addicting.

Zoya - Zuza

I thought this polish was okay in the bottle, but when I put it on... it was just amazing! I love the finish on this and the colour... now only if they made this finish in different colours... It's like a silver-y but not quite foil-y metallic. Love.

Cult Nails - Coveted

You guys have heard me yapping on about this one before. It's a green version of Iconic and since I love both, of course this is going to be on my list. I'm that predictable haha. :P

A England - Dragon

Dragon! It's so aptly named... it's really the colour I can see dragons as being! and holographic! Oh man, I can't believe I don't even have St. George yet... obviously I feel behind in my polish buying! :P  To sum it up, green + holo = win.

Cult Nails - Evil Queen

I don't know what to say about this one. I love the look of red polish but it was really hard for me to find a red that would match my skintone. Of course then I got this polish and it was amazing, the colour is great and the formula is fantastic. This is now my go-to red!

Cult Nails - Feeling Froggy

This one is on my list being it's green and amazing. I was at IKEA one day and saw a sofa in this really pretty dusty sage green and I knew I HAD to have a polish in that colour. Fast forward a week later when I get my Cult Nails Fairy Tale collection pre-order and this polish is there staring up at me! It's almost perfect I think. The only test left is to wear it on my nails and go to IKEA again to compare. 

Cult Nails - Flushed

This is amaaaaaaaaaaaaazing. I love the shade, I love the shimmer... no more words necessary. I fell in love with Flushed as soon as I unwrapped the bottle.

Sephora + Pantone Universe - Purple Parachute

I originally purchased this one thinking that it'd be my go-to bottle so I could conserve my precious Scrangie. In the bottle it looks almost exactly the same as that famous Rescue Beauty Lounge polish... and it doesn't break the bank. I almost danced in the store. Of course then I went home and did the comparison and found that it's just a bit different... the shimmer isn't as blatantly obvious on the nail as it is in Scrangie. I was a bit disappointed at first, but after I put it on for the first time I fell in love. Now I think I love it even more than Scrangie. Scrangie has a little problem with being a bit sheer, but this baby has all the opacity, and I think I might even prefer the more subtle shimmer. 

Cult Nails - Charlatan

I love how versatile this polish is. It's a topcoat, so you can wear it over whatever base colour you fancy and it'll give this stunning pink-blue duochrome. It's amazing. I've worn it over so many polishes and I'm constantly in awe of how amazing it is. I haven't done a formal post about this polish yet since whenever I wear it I have the misfortune of not having enough time to take proper pictures, but here are some pictures from my phone that I've posted on twitter at one time or another.  Pictured below are Charlatan over Devious Nature (pink) and Vicious (purple).

OPI - Goldeneye (or Sally Hansen Gilded Lily)

I think I've gushed about this polish in the post I did, but here's a summary of how gorgeous it is: it's like having solid gold on your nails. It's fantastic. I did a comparison a few posts ago to SH's Gilded Lily and they're dupes (hence the or... part in the polish title). I still love it though. My only complaint would be that it takes a few layers of polish to get it to opacity, but that allows you to also wear it layered over another polish. 

 

Whew. That was a lot of typing lol. That's all from me on this last day of the year! See y'all in 2013 and I hope you have a great New Year! 

Lots of love, and thank y'all so much for supporting my wee blog! I really really appreciate it even though my posting is so sporadic! 

Marisa