Christmas nails with Elevation Polish & Lumina Lacquer!

Hello! I haven't posted for awhile.. I have bronchitis and still have about another week of antibiotics left (if it fully goes away.) My doctor prescribed me a refill in case it doesn't, but let's hope it does, because this medicine makes me feel awful.

But anyway, here is the manicure I did for Christmas. I used Lumina Lacquers and Elevation Polish.

The base colors I used were: Wrapped in Red (and it's hard to find a red that is flattering to my skin tone but this one is!), Elevation Jengish Chokusu (light green) and Alpine Heights (Carlit) (darker teal).

On my pointer and pinky, I used Lumina Lacquers Hooked on Christmas. On my middle and ring fingers, I did striping with Pitaraq (a silver glitter) and you can see the alternating green colors I also used Yeti Loves the Holidays and Hooked on Chrismas on my ring finger. Unfortunately the candy cane lifted a little bit on my pinky even though I used Glitter Food to try to hold it down. If anyone has any tips on how to get these to stay down longer, let me know. I was so glad that Tatiana sent the extra candy canes, and I thought it was cool that she made a polish with both red and green candy canes!

(Side note about me- for some reason I don't like peppermint that much- so I always eat different flavored candy canes. This year the new ones I tried were the warheads super sour ones and they were rainbow colored!)

I also wanted to add a link to show fellow bloggers' holiday nail art! It is really awesome to see how creative everybody has been.

Polish Yer Hooves Review, Part 1

I was really excited to try this brand, Polish Yer Hooves, because I grew  up across the street from cows. So I would like to thank my friend Elise,  From Lips to Tips. .. Mommy Style! for letting me know about the opportunity to do a review.

The first color I decided to review is Dance of the Sugar Plum. It is a really beautiful color shifter that at first looks purple, but then you can see it shifting from pink to blue.

To bring out the duochrome nature of this polish, I used 2 coats of it alone on my pinky, middle fingers and thumb, and I used it over black (2 coats again) on my ring and pointer fingers. I also used a topcoat of Seche Vite to smooth it out. I used a basecoat of Rejuvacote because my nails have been having a really rough time with the weather, but a different basecoat may make this polish easier to apply.

With flash

Without flash- the nails with the black undies show more of a blue tint.
I had a little topoat shrinkage that is showing some black around the edge- my apologies. I think my pinky, middle, and thumbnail look better, but again, I wanted to show the contrast.
You can see a little bit of the shimmer in this picture, but there is a lot more in real life.

This color is called Miss Bessie. I got the Vanilla Lavender scent. I think the vanilla scent is more prominent, because my nails smell sweet. Unlike some scented polishes I've recently read about, you don't have to wait for your nails to dry to smell it. You can smell it while you are painting your nails!

The polish itself is a really pretty. I'd say somewhere between maroon and burgundy depending on the lighting, with a very sparkly scattered holo. This is 2 coats with HK Girl topcoat. You could get away with 1 coat but you might have a little bit of visible nail line.

Leigh Anne sent me some really cool holo hearts and flowers, so I decided to do an accent nail with them.

Both pictures are with flash

Here are pictures of the adorable bottles:

The mini bottle is one from the Star Grazers set, which is currently on sale 3 for $11!

You can buy Polish Yer Hooves at Leigh Anne's Etsy shop here.

The Snow Prince and a bonus mani!

This is the first year that I've actually gotten holiday/Christmas themed polishes!

I had a hard time picking undies for the Snow Prince by Lumina Lacquer. It has a lot of different colored glitters, as well as big snowflakes, snowmen, and hexes/snowball looking glitters.'

I love green and I ended up using Oh, Christmas Tree by Colors by Llarowe with Absinthe by Models Own on my ring finger as an accent. Absinthe is from the Velvet Goth collection, and all the polishes come with a velvet cap. The polishes are semi-textured glitters that smooth over with a topcoat.

Also, I have a bonus mani! When I was trying to decide what colors to use with The Snow Prince, I did a semi-skittles mani:
From pinky to pointer:
CbL Oh Christmas Tree, KB Shimmer Snow Flaking Way, and Liquid Sky Lacquer Teal it Like It Is

(somehow I ended up with an odd glitter arrangement that made it look like my snowman has feet)

I ended up deciding to use green undies with The Snow Prince because of the light green sparkles that showed up with flash.

33 Day Challenge: Freestyle/Recreate Someone Else's Mani

So, I tried to recreate a manicure that The Manicured Monkey  did using OPI Black Spotted over neon colored polishes. In fact, I tried 3 different times, but I couldn't get the coats thin enough to work properly. So I gave up and just made neon rainbows using different Color Club and LA Colors Striping Polishes. Also, the purple I used is a Dear Rus Color Changing polish that fades from purple to pink, which I thought was really cool. It is #CC24.

I decided to tie it all together with Enchanted Polish Djinn in a Bottle, except on my ring finger- that holo topcoat is Rainbow inthe Dark by the wonderful Carpe Noctem Cosmetics. (although none of these colors are dark- LOL.)I  love that the polish is named after a Dio song! It also is extremely vibrant , even over these neon colors.  It did dull them a little, but I still love it.

I wanted to go out with a bang. . . so here you go:

Here are the other lovely ladies who did this challenge:

33 Day Challenge: Shapes

For this challenge, I decided to do stars. I used this tutorial from Pack a Punch Polish to learn how to do the stars.. but the one on my pointer finger was kind of a fail. It looked a little better before I put the black outline on it.. but I think the outline definitely made the ones on my pinky look better.

I used Layla CE 01, Colors by Llarowe Black Gold, Texas Tea and  Lilypad Lacquer As Good as Gold for my base colors. I have a KISS Nail Dress sticker on my ring finger.

For the stars, I used L.A. Colors striping brushes and Stars on Fire by Sparkle Nail Lacquer. I also lightly used some dots of the 90's by Carpe Noctem Cosmetics.

I did a closeup of my pinky because at least you can tell these are stars.. hopefully :P

From this angle the star on my pointer finger looks more like a heart.. lol

Here are the other lovely ladies that did this challenge!

33 Day Challenge: same pattern in various colors

This challenge was to do the same pattern in different colors.

(Yes I'm posting in backwards order.. I did this mani a few days ago but I'm just getting around to posting it.)

Now that I actually have decent dotting tools, I decided to try dots. I used this gradient dotting tutorial from Chalkboard Nails here.
I actually had to redo my pinky nail.. I didn't think to use a smaller dotting tool on it the first time and it didn't look so great LOL.

From pointer to pinky, the base colors I used are:
Liquid Sky Lacquer Teal it Like It Is, Colors by LlaRowe Young Grasshoppa. Teal it Like It is (again) and Liquid Sky Lacquer Moonless Night.

On the ring finger I used Carpe Notem Cosmetics Hyperion as a glitter topper.

For the dots I used Color Club Pure Energy for the light blue on my middle finger, and the neon green is an LA Colors Striping Brush colors. The other dots are the same colors mentioned above.

I saw my grandmother on Monday and she said that my middle fingernail was her favorite! Which one do you like the best?

Here are the other lovely ladies that did this challenge:

33 Day Challenge: Artwork Featuring your Favorite Polish

Today's challenge was to do artwork featuring your favorite polish (Well I should have double checked, it was actually our favorite 3 so I may redo this one in the future) As some of you may know, the reason for my blog name is because of Cosmic Ocean by Girly Bits. It's a really great color for layering and it has a beautiful blue/green shift with shimmer as well. I'm always amazed how even in low light the blue that it picks up is the most beautiful shade of blue ever!

The base colors I used (from pointer to pinky) are: Revlon Royal, a blue custom with holo from Carpe Noctem Cosmetics (Emily actually sent me a new one that she liked better, so this is the newer version! I had no issues with the older one, so I thought that was really cool of her.)  Sizzlin Liz by Colors by Llarowe, and Revlon Royal again,

Then I layered Silent Night by Carpe Noctem Cosmetics on my ring and middle nails. It is in a sheer light blue base, which I wanted to test over 2 of the blues in this mani. I think it compliments them both well, although the stars stand out better over a darker color.
I didn't have to try very hard to "fish" for any of the star glitters at all. They fit very well to the brush and they didn't keep falling back into the bottle.

 I did want to place them a certain way on my nail, so I dabbed them on, but that isn't necessary- this is color is very, very easy to apply.

With flash:

Without flash:

Here are the other lovely ladies who did this challenge:

33 day challenge: Lines

This challenge was to create a  mani that included lines.

I used striping tape to do this (except for the ring finger) and I really like how it turned out. I think my nails look like purple candy canes!

From pointer to pinky:

Base colors: Sinful Colors Let's Talk, I Love Nail Polish Grapealicious, Ozotic 505 (over black), Elevation Polish El Cap

I used Grapealicious to do the stripes on the lighter purples, and El Cap on my middle finger.I also used Julep Geo to place some diamonds on my middle finger. I used a black striping polish on my ring finger and placed glitters by Red Dog Designs from the Pop Art Mickey polish inside the squares. I thought they would be perfect for that!

I had a Mickey head in the bottom right and upper left corners but one is hiding.

Here are the other lovely ladies who did this challenge:

33 DC: 3 Patterns

Our challenge was to do a manicure with 3 patterns.

I saw several other people do manis with anti-bullying patterns. I really admire them for that and if I had known this was going on, I would have contributed to this as well! What an excellent idea!

Below is what I tried to do.

On my pinky I used Orly purple velvet and an L.A. Color striping brush in purple. At first the colors looked nearly identical but you can tell the difference in photos with flash.

I definitely should have used tape for the stripes.. the first one looks ok, but not the second one.

On my ring finger, I used Ozotic 505 for a base color and Jindie Nails Midnight Rainbow on thetip (with a lime green L.A. colors stripe I used Starfire by Sparkle Nail Lacquer for the stars- that counts as a pattern, right? I used several of my favorite colors on my middle nail to do a pinwheel and here is the tutorial I by the Manicurator. On my pointer finger, I used Illamasqua Scorn with stripes of Jade Magia Negra (a black holo- although it looks almost charcoal gray since the Illamasqua black is so dark) I topped it off with a purple bow from the Born Pretty Store to tie it all together.

The bow serves another purpose as well. I had to do some repairs on that nail since I cracked it right through the middle.. and the repair job isn't looking that great, but so far it's holding up. Let's hope it stays that way until it can grow back out because for now my nails at least look a little bit more even!

Here are the other lovely and talented ladies who did this challenge.

33 Day Challenge: A New Technique

Our challenge was to do a new technique to us. I decided to try dry water marbling. The tutorial I used is here and was created by Nuthin' but a Nail Thing.

I also totally admit that I got my manicure inspiration from Mucking Fusser for my accent nails.

At first I had just used Billie Jean by Colors by Llarowe on my pinky and pointer nails (a nice dark red shimmer) but then I also used Lumina Lacquers Sorcerer's Haunted Mansion.

On my other nails, I used Lilypad Lacquer Luscious Larimer  (a pale blue with light pink shimmer) as a base color. The marble colors are Lilypad Lacquer Sparkling Embers (a dark red to green color shift with sparkle) and Darling Diva We Are the Champions (a green-to-gold color shift with shimmer)

 I love how this turned out. I think it looks almost like foil. It isn't as fancy as most people's water marble designs by far, but I think you can still see a pattern- and I picked out 2 that seemed to be a mirror image of each other.

                                     

Here are the other lovely ladies who did this challenge:

33 DC: Mani Featuring a Color You Own the Most of

This challenge is to use the color you own the most of.

 If anyone doesn't know, my favorite colors are blue, green, and purple. I also have a TON of silver and black in my polish collection

 But November 14th was World Diabetes Awareness Day. My grandmother has diabetes and she raised me, and so did my uncle who recently passed away. My grandmother's sister, who used to baby-sit me when I was youner also had diabetes and so did several of my other diabetes
. Since this has affected so many people in my family and so many of my friends (both online and offline) I wanted to make sure to honor them on this day.

 So it is very fortunate that blue is one of the predominant colors in my nail polish collection!

From pointer to pinky:

Azure dreams by Lilypad Lacquer, Unzipped by Colors by Llarowe, middle finger has a gradient featuring Maybe Navy by KB Shimmer, Azure Dreams, and Ozotic 903. My pinky has Hole in the Sky by Emily de Molly.

Does anyone have a hard time applying Emily de Molly polish? I love the colors so much but sometimes they are really, really thick. If anyone has advice on how to apply them, please let me know! 

Without flash, to show duochrome in Azure Dreams and Ozotic 903:

Here are the other lovely ladies who did this challenge:

33 Day Challenge: 3 color gradient and a pattern

I meant to post this the other day. Oops! For this challenge, we did a 3 color gradient with a pattern. I used blue, green, and purple for the gradient since they are my 3 favorite colors.

I couldn't get a really good picture of the gradient because there was so much glare, but here it is:

 I tried to do zebra print for the gradient, using a tutoral and an LA colors metallic blue striping polish, but it was a fail. It turned out more like a... pinwheel or something?

For my accent nail, I used a glitter topper from Colors by Laura K, which is called Super Dee Duper! It is layered over Lilac Lovely by Lilypad Lacquer. I think Super Dee Duper is such a cute name. Since it has a purple base, you could probably use it on its own if you use a few coats, but since it was so sheer I just decided to match it with the purple color I was already using in my gradient.

Here are the other lovely ladies who did this challenge:

33 Day Challenge: Europe

This challenge is based on the EU. I like the way Venetian Glass looks.. I looked around and I was able to narrow down my design to this as inspiration:

I love the rainbow colors and the fact that the swirls are sort of in a DNA shape.

My strokes turned out more angular than curved, though:

The designs on my ring and middle finger are also different because I had inititally left my ring finger plain.

It is a gray scattered holo.

From pointer to pinky: Base colors are seascape by Lilypad Lacquer, As Good as Gold by Lilypad Lacquer, and Dance Legend #46, and Seascape again. On the pointer finger I also used Leather & Lace by Colors by Llarowe toadd more holo.

I used a few different polishes on the design on my middle and ring fingers (mainly Jades since the thin brushes are good for a design like this)- if you have questions about any of them, just let me know)

Here are the other lovely ladies who did this challenge:

33 Day Challenge: Follow someone's Tutorial

I have always loved butterflies!

I have a stamping plate with butterflies, but I wasn't able to make it look good yet so when I found this tutorial by Polish Pals, I was really excited!

She also had a rainbow butterfly tutorial that linked to the more detailed one I used.. instead of gradients I decided to use some of my duo/multichrome polishes.

I am behind in posting this since at first I used the only striping polish I have on my pointer finger. It was a silver glitter one but I didn't like how it looked.

So without further adieu, from pointer to poinky:
Base colors are:
Sizzlin Liz by colors by Llarowe (one of my new favorites! I thought it would be purple but it is a very nice dark blue that shifts to green and has copper sparkles.) Mutagen by I love Nail Polish, Birefergence by I Love Nail Polish, and Yesterday by Encanted Polish

On all my nails except the pointer finger, I used a brush to paint on the black polish, and then I used a dotting tool and Eileen by Julep for the white dots.

On my pointer finger, I used Seascape by Lilypad Lacquer. Then I used Polka Dots by Liquid Sky Lacquer to make some more lines and I fished out some of the bigger holo dots and used my dotting tool to place them on my nail, and "sealed" everything on with HK Girl topcoat.

With flash:

Without flash, at night:

I love how many colors these polishes turn!!!

Here are the other lovely and talented ladies who did this challenge. I might be a day late on the next challenge but if so, it's because this is one of my absolute favorite manis and I want people to see it in real life!

Ruby White Tips Review

As I have stated, I've unfortunately gotten behind on my blog and I have been needing to do a review for Ruby White Tips.

First of all, I love how the bottles are decorated with different colored beads!
I was sent this color which has not yet been released, and it's actually one of my favorite shades of blue! It is called You Sea Me?
I used 2 coats, but you could probably get away with one. It dries with a semi-matte finish. I do suggest applying carefully and waiting between coats or it might dry a little thick. I had to redo my ring finger to make it smoother.
.

The accent nail is "It's the Bomb YO!" which is aptly named, since Laura actually doesn't make a ton of glitter bombs. This polish also has the option of coming scented. I decided to try the pink grapefruit scent. To me it kind of smelled like a piña colada.. or something vaguely fruity? It was almost like those flouride tray things at the dentist (but not in a bad way!)

This picture is without topcoat. 

I also took a picture of the... sequin things? that came with "It's the Bomb YO!" But I didn't have to fish for any extra glitter and it went on very smoothly, so I felt like adding any extra would be overkill with an already fabulously blue mani.

By the way, I think this picture also shows the duochrome nature of You Sea Me?  I didn't have to put it over a darker color, but it looks like 2 shades of blue on my middle and pinky and it is the same polish.

The below pictures are with HK Girl Top Coat. They bring out the rainbow shimmer in You Sea Me? In very bright light it looks like a linear holo.

Check out Ruby White Tips at her etsy store here. Her anniversary is coming up November 9th and she will be releasing a lot of beautiful new colors! She also donates 50% of her Bat World Sanctuary polishes to charity to help bats, as if she wasn't already awesome enough for the aforementioned reasons?!

I ordered BOO2 because I can't resist a pretty purple polish, and it even came with a bat charm on it! In the future I will review more of the polishes that I bought from her.

And just because. . . (I mean, you can't talk about a polish called It's the Bomb YO without this)

33 Day Challenge: Artwork featuring your favorite Brand

It was hard for me to pick a favorite brand, because I really love about 3 or 4. But the one I decided to feature on my ring finger was Emily de Molly.

I chose Rhodium because it's such an interesting polish, with different shapes of silver and holo.

This also doubled as my Halloween mani.

From pointer to pinky:
Pointer has Edge of the Cosmos by Femme Fatale with Berry Blue by Colors By Llarowe, with Trick or Treat by Liquid sky Lacqer layered over it. Middle Finger has True Blood by Lilypad Lacquer with Merlin by A England on the tip. Ring finger is Rhodium by Emily de Molly layered over a silver holo. Pinky is True Blood.

33 Day Challenge: The Animal that turned Abstract

This post ends up combining days 14 and 15. This is because so far, I am not very good at stamping. I can pretty much only successfully do zebra print. But when I did it, it only got on the center of my nail and looked almost the same as my tape mani. I kept trying. I even tried to do cheetah print, but it didn't work. So I gave up.
I used a Kiss zebra print nail sticker on my middle finger. I had been wanting to use Julep Cleopatra as a base for stamping but since it's probably a limited edition color, I didn't want to keep wasting polish.

But I had to go to the doctor and my nails were such an epic mess that I'm not even going to post what happened.
      

So I followed a tutorial and I ended up with my nails accidentally looking like Van Gogh's Starry Night.

The duochrome I used  on my pointer and pinky is a custom made by Emily from Carpe Noctem Cosmetics. I was thinking about Prince's movie Purple Rain. I will reveal the name of the polish later LOL.

On my middle finger is Carribean Crush by Lilypad Lacquer over black, and Azure Dreams. I used Gargantuan Green Grape Matte by OPI to make the dots and more Carribean Crush for the swirls. On my ring finger, I did the same except Azure Dreams and Carribean Crush are flipped.

I have been trying to forever get a duochrome that goes from a dark purple to sky blue, and I guess that is really hard to do. I don't really know how color shifts work because I have never tried to make polish.

I'm really impressed with how this turned out. I think this is one of the best polishes I've gotten yet from Emily and I think it is really cool how the tip of my ring finger with Azure Dreams is so close to the blue that shows up in the bottle of her polish!

When I ended up doing the swirls, they blended into my tips a little. I like how it looks on my middle finger but on the ring, not so much. . . So no, my polish didn't chip, but I wanted to show the duochrome awesomeness from another angle!

Here is one more.. unfortunately from this angle you can see ow my topcoat dragged a little bit on my ring finger. my middle finger again looks so much better!

Under the jump I will reveal the name of my custom, since it might be NSFW. I also have links to the other lovely, talented ladies' abstract manis. :)

33 Day Challenge Day 12- Based on a Pattern in your Home

I have gotten really behind on the 33 day challenge!

This is a mani I did last week, which is based on a pattern in my home. I found some stuff to make posters with and I used a blue one and a white one with hibiscus flowers on it.

I used Kiss Nail Stickers for the flowers.
From pointer to pinky the polishes I used were: Mentality Gumdrop, Enchanted Ice Castle over Revlon Royal, on he middle finger sort of a gradient with Lilypad Lacquer Once upon a Lime and Clover all Over with some Ozotic 902 over Revlon Royal, and Gumdrop on the pointer and thumb.

Here are the other lovely and talented ladies who participated in this challenge: