The ones that got away

 Hi! I’m so glad to be back after a long abscence. 

I had to move and although I do occasionally post on my Instagram i don’t have most of the polishes that I blogged about on here anymore. They were in my grandma’s home that I grew up in. It was hit by a tornado and because of the coronavirus I wasn’t able to go back for ANY of my stuff or hers or my late grandpa’s because on top of the RA, asthma and other stuff I already knew I had I found out I have early state heart failure (which explains the terrible coughing furs, fatigue and full body pain and coughing up blood I’ve had) and I didn’t know that a moving and cleaning company was coming until after the fact. I’ve been very upset about that especially since all our college diplomas were in there and a lot of other sentimental  things were in there. It depresses me so much and it’s taken away a lot of physical good memories of my grandfather. 

What are your polishes or favorite things that got away? My favorites of all time that I can’t find were colors by llarowe sizzlin Liz, Seahawks lime, Vapid Lacquer Petty, and any ninja polish (especially Mystic Glacier  100% Columbian  coffee, alexandrite) and any Ozotics. And my lily pad lacquer poppin purple broke but it of course wasn’t Almost Famous. 

I will be making a list and posting it soon in case anyone reading this is destashing or having blog sales. 

And if anybody didn’t know this about me my other “thing” was collecting stuffed animals. Watch this space for a list or Pinterest board.

Anyway I’m glad I finally figured out how to get back on here and write something. Thank you for reading!

Enchanted Polish 1999 and Monsters Ink

I'm finally making a post!

I lost a great deal of my polish collection which included a lot of my favorite polishes that I blogged about here previously. When I was moving my family actually threw them away.
But I've decided to try to get back into my blog as one of my 2018 resolutions.

I recently used Enchanted Polish 1999 with Monsters Ink as an accent nail.

I love 1999. Not just because of the name- I want all the Prince polishes since he was my favorite singer- but this has a beautiful foil/super holo finish. It's the color that I wanted Purple Roses to be. And in the sunlight the holo really pops.

I took this picture standing by the window- I was lucky that it was sunny when I took the picture because we recently had 3 days of rain.

I took this picture inside where you can see the foil finish.

the Meredith Nail Nation 3000 polish

Hello! I am back with an exciting new update.

First, I would like to apologize for my long absence. Thank you to my followers for sticking around.

Today I have a very special polish to review for you. It is made by my friend Maria from Nail Nation 3000 and it is called... *drumroll please*

Below is a bottle shot. It is a beautiful teal color with a metallic/chrome finish and light linear holo. Teal has always been one of my favorite colors (I always say blue, green and purple are mmy favorites and so this is the perfect in between shade.)

Here is what it looks like on the nails. The accent nail is another from the same collection,called The Social Mani Set. It is a silver glitter topper called Vamica.

The polishes may be found here  Check the Facebook page for sales and codes!

Back in blue

I haven't been keeping up with posting in here and I apologize for that. Thank you to everyone who is still following me.

But I'm doing a nail challenge now so I will post those in here. I thought I should also share some of my favorite blue manis I've done.

This is Enchanted H2O and Reign Beau. The holo accent nails are Rainbow Juice (with Pulp). I wasn't quite ready for the cold weather so my hands are unfortunately a bit dry.

This is a custom Mod Lacquer called Goodnight, Mod which was made when MOD Lacquer sadly closed down. The accent nail is Functional Distillator by Vapid Lacquer.

I will cheat and include a green polish in this one. These polishes are both by Carpe Noctem Cosmetics and are called I am the Forest and The Forest and The Sea. These colors go so well with my purse that I had to show them off!

Pinup Polish and Carpe Noctem Customs!

Hi! I had a few bad nail breaks so I'm going to post a few of my favorite manis from when my nails were still long.

This is my custom, Hyperspace by Pinup Polish. On my Pinky is Blue Years' Eve.

I chose the name Hyperspace because of the song Cosmic Girl by Jamiroquai. In the chorus it goes "Sends me into Hyperspace, when I see her pretty face."
If you look at the bottle you can see why I thought of that. Right Nadine? (Nadine is the creator)
I wish I had done a better job capturing the colors in this polish because it does a duochrome shift but I was trying to get the holo in the stars.

Here is the song:

Speaking of customs, Emily from Carpe Noctem Cosmetics made me my very own blogger color!

I had  a hard time thinking of a name. I just looked at it and thought of a beautiful bluish purple sky.

This color is also a duochrome (are we noticing a theme here?) Then I thought about tanzanite.. so it will be called Tanzanite Sky.
It is paired with Emily de Molly Head Over Heels.

Last but not least is another Carpe Noctem manicure I did for St Patrick's Day with polishes from her Always Greener Collection.

I used Losing Lime, Sweet Escapemint, and Insert Emerald Pun Here.

The other glitters on my middle finger are Lumina Lacquer Soleil (the gold) and the teal is F***ing sexy by Bitch by Jaclyn.

Manicure inspired by a ring

I haven't done any truly original nail art in awhile, but recently I got a really cute star-shaped ring from heychickadee.com

I decided to try to do a mani based on the colors in it.

You can't see the colors in the ring as well in this picture.

The polishes I used were Femme Fatale Star's Lament, which is a black jelly polish with rainbow glitter.

On my ring finger I used chevron nail decals and from top to bottom I used:Enchanged Polish, Kids, Glitter Gal Lavender (whih looks more light pink in the bottle but does look light puple over black). I used a purple in the middle that I don't recall the name of at the moment.
On the middle finger I used Sparkle Nail Lacquer Stars on Fire.
It has a different arrangement of star colors than one of my other favorite polishes by that brand, Star Crazy.

Happy New Year! #PinkforLeelah

I want to be more active on my blog this year. Thank you to my followers for staying with me even though I haven't been posting much! I wanted to share the post I did on January 6th to honor Leelah Allcorn.

*image above from Tumblr- if you know who drew it please let me know.

This is my manicure.

The black is Cleopatra by Julep. I also used a regular topcoat and Essie's Matte about You to smooth it out. The glitter is Neon Punk by b.i.t.c.h by Jaclyn. The pink on my accent nail is September 2014 by Enchanted Polish. The stars are Silver Star by Kleancolor. (I know.. putting Kleancolor on an EP.. but I love those stars!)

I wanted to use the additional glitter on the black to try to tie it all together. I hope you all like it!

If any of you did a mani for Leelah I would love to see it too. Please link me to it or show me below!

Green Polish Link-Up

For the September Proud Beauty Bloggers of Color Collaboration Post, we are doing green polish.

I chose to do Elevation Polish Wuyi Mountain with an accent of Cupcake Polish Off the Deep End.

Wuyi Mountain is a llarowe exclusive polish. It is described as an emerald green with blue shimmer. Of course I had to have it,since emerald is my birthstone! Blue is also one of my favorite colors.

The Cupcake Polish is more teal. It is a textured holo polish with little stars.

Here are the other lovely ladies who participated in this:

An InLinkz Link-up

Mango Tango, Lilypad Orange with Rainbow Accent

I am really excited to be doing this post as part of the Orange Link-Up for Proud Beauty Bloggers of Color!

I usually don't wear orange anything. I have yellow undertones, and I'm always afraid of orange clashing with my skintone.

But this idea also ended up being sentimental for me. My uncle passed away last year, and his favorite color was orange. I remembered finding a new pair of Orange Nikes in his apartment, and so I feel like in a way the makeup and nail polish I am using in this post is a way to honor him, especially since this is a color that I would not ordinarily wear. I hope that somehow he can see this and know that I am thinking of him.

First of all, I would like to show a lip color by Mary Kay. It is called Mango Tango, and I was surprised at how flattering it turned out on me. This was given to me to review by Influenster.

Next, I have a manicure to show you.
I mainly used Orange by Lilypad Lacquer, which is a very bright neon color. Then I topped it with a holo topcoat by Starlight Polish.

For my accent nail,  I used Lemon by Lilypad Lacquer as a base. Then I did freehand stripes as a base with several other colors:
From top to bottom (one brand I will abbreviate as PBP for the purposes of this post):
The red color is Daquiri, the blue is called Ocean Rave, and the purple is called Jungle Juice. Daquiri and Jungle Juice glow in UV Light.
The orange, yellow and green are all Lilypads (Orange, Lemon, and Lime.)

P.S: I found a picture close to the shoes I remember finding. Do you think this shade of nail polish is similar?

Check out the other lovely ladies who are participating in the Orange Link-Up!

Orange Link-up

Ruby White Tips- Man Eater with Zoya Posh

This post is a bit overdue.

I was so excited that Hall & Oates were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame! I did a mani with Ruby White Tips Maneater and Zoya Posh.

Maneater looks like a jelly polish, but it has a lot more depth and opacity. It is a truly beautiful polish. It seems to have a bluish/purple undertone. It's hard for me to find shades of red that look good on my skin tone, but this one truly does. I love the different multcolored glittery flecks in this polish as well.

I think I should have used another coat because on my ring finger, I ended up with a bald spot.

I paired it with Zoya Posh because it's also dark red, but Posh has a more pink undertone. Since it's matte, it was a little harder to work with.

I used the Pretty & Polished Matte is Back topcoat to try to smooth it out a little bit.

I had to get a bottle shot because I love how Laura (the Ruby White Tips creator) decorates these lids!

You can find her polish at www.rubywhitetips.com

Of course, I have to close this post with Maneater. I love this song. Sometimes I sing it at karaoke.

Enchanted Polishes & glitters, oh my!

Sorry I haven't posted in so long!

Life keeps happening. My grandfather was in the hospital and had to have surgery, so I was very worried about him, but fortunately he was able to come back home.

Also, my birthday was on the 9th. It was uneventful but hey, I'm 29 now.

Anyway, I have some manis to share from before I broke my nails and had to go to nubs! The worst break was my pointer finger.. and it happened trying on knee braces, believe it or not.

Without further adieu, here are some swatches!

Pointer & pinky- Enchanted Polish February 2013

Middle and ring finger- Too Fancy Lacquer- the Crown Jewel
I also did an experiment with this mani- since I have both Lumina Lacqurs Mucking Rainbows and Prismatic, I layered them over the Too Fancy color to see the difference.
Prismatic has a lot of beautiful flakies in addition to mulicolored, large circle glitters.
Mucking Rainbows is one of the polishes I am happiest to own, and I love how one of the green dots almost looks matte on my nail.

This is another mani I did with February 2014.
My middle finger nail is topped with Bellisima by Emily de Molly. Bellissima is a gorgeous, dainty glitter topper.

My ring finger has Diamond in the Rough by Lilypad Lacquer.

The beauty on my pointer,middle, and pinky fingers is Enchanted Polish- April 2014.

My middle finger is topped with Emily de Molly, LE 02.It is a lovely lavender/light purple,with hearts in it!
The ring is Colors by Llarowe- My Big Girls Panties. I wish I had holo underwear like that!

I still have some catching up to do, so you will get to see a few more pictures that I took before having to cut my nails! I miss them and it will take what feels like forever for them to grow back!

2 Aurora Lacquers Shimmering Orchid Manis!

Hello, lovelies! Sorry for disappearing once again. I've been more active on Instagram but for awhile I wasn't feeling well. I had a bad reaction to a medicine they were trying me on and even had to go to the ER but now I'm finally beginning to feel better.

 I'm normally not a wearer of pink polish at all, but I was in love with the shade Shimmering Orchids by Aurora Lacquers so I wanted to show a couple of manis I did with it.

The first one was for an important cause. April 9th was the International Day of Pink. It is to show that you stand against homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools.


For this mani I used Shimmering Orchids on my tips and on my thumb, pointer and pinky, Mentality Sorceress (I had some application issues, but it may have been my basecoat) and on my middle and ring finger I used Aly's Dream Polish Super Black and then topped it with Sparkle Nail Lacquer Rapid Heart Beat. I also used Pretty and Polished Matte is Back to try to smooth out the Mentality polish.

I usually don't have any issues with their matte polishes, so if anyone has any tips or know if it is just this color, can you please let me know?

Did any of you do an International Day of Pink mani? If so, I would love to see it! :)

For the other mani, I used the new version of Colors by Llarowe Purple Rain. My Accents were Bullet by Pretty Bitch Polish and Shimmering Orchids, topped with another Aurora Lacquers color called Moirai. It is a really pretty glitter topper with holo stars and other added glitter pieces. I had a fun glitter overload!

St. Patrick's Day Nails

For St. Patrick's Day, I decided to wear a few green polishes. I also wanted to make a rainbow on my ring finger nail.

I used Julep Eileen to make a white base for the rainbow colors I used. I mainly used Jade polishes for the rainbow colors, because the brushes are small and it's easier to do striping.

I used Julep Geo on the top of that nail instead of just doing gold polish. The purple tint really popped out and ended up matching the purple on the bottom.

On my other nails (from pointer to pinky:) I used Celestial Cosmetics Highgarden- which I purchased on color4nails.com. I used the same polish on my middle fingernail, but topped it with Lumina Lacquer Extraterrestrial.I thought the neon green giltters went especially well with the lighter green that Highgarden changes to when it was warmer.

I have to give my friend Cate a shout out for telling me about Highgarden. I saw it on her and it looked so great I had to get one for myself. Thank you, Cate!

On my pinky, I used Coveted by Cult Nails.I love this color! It's one of my favorite shades of dark green.. I did have to "Fish" a little to get the flakies out though.

And for a bonus pic:

They were giving out free rings at the grocery store. The clover really compliments my pinky color (Cult Nails Coveted) doesn't it?

Elevation Polish Swatch Spam

These are some Elevation Polish swatches, most of which are colors I got at the second to last restock.

 I got an amazing dark purple called Tronador! It is one of my favorite shades of purple. It has a hidden shimmer that  matches the first color I decided to pair it with.

This was my anti Valentines Day mani, and I used Jindie Nails Dead Roses. I was lucky enough to find this color on Pinterest, since the Llarowe February A Box, Indied  was sold out.

Without flash
I had 2 coats of Dead Roses on so I could add some more circle glitter. I had one coat of Tronador on the middle and ring finger, but you could still see some VNL (Visible Nail Line).. If you have shorter nails you probably only need one coat since this is such a dark color.

With Flash
I added another coat of Tronador to get rid of the nail line. In this picture, I think you can see some of the different colored shimmer and tiny flakes in the polish.

This is the first time I got an SBP (Small Batch Prototype) at a restock. It is called Salcantay and it had my favorite colors, blue, green and purple in it. It is in a clear base. I had a hard time deciding what colors to use it over, but after I tried it over Tronador (middle finger) I decided to also try it over Forest of the Fog (pointer finger) , which is a very pretty dark teal jelly polish on its own. My other nails are Muztagh Ata, which is a gorgeous lighter teal holo. It is 2 coats with HK Girl Topcoat.

Without flash:

With flash:

Which color do you think Salcantay looks best over?
This color seriously made me so happy! I had been in such a funk but the glitter mix is my favorite colors and it cheered me up to look at it.

You can buy Elevation Polish at elevationpolish.bigcartel.com 

Nail Art Challenge: Represent Your Country's Flag

I was invited to a nail art challenge by File Fantasi Nails to represent my country's flag.
The rules are to choose a symbol that represents your country, and nominate 5 other bloggers.
The 5 others I choose are:
1. Things About
2. Penny Penching Polish
3. Almost Famous Nails
4. Dreadfully Divine
5. Precious Pearl Makeup

 At first, I was stumped. I didn't just want to do the same thing that I did for my 4th of July mani last year:

So the base colors I used were: Balt out of the Blue by Lilypad Lacquer, Colors by Llarowe Angels Sing, and Rebel at Heart by Lilypad Lacquer.

It is hard for me to find reds that go well with my skin tone, but this one does.

Then I did stripes with the colors. I used 'Murica by Aly's Dream Polish on my blue and white nails to represent the stars in the flag. This color is one of the ones that made me want to order from Aly's when I first saw it because I found the name so funny.
I think it looks the best over the white because of how the glitter mix blends in.

Purple Manis for World Cancer Day

Yesterday, February 4th, was World Cancer Day.

Several of us wore purple nail polish for the day.I wore 3 different purples made by Carpe Noctem Cosmetics- Calypso, which is one of her newest releases, Pimp my Purple, and Man in White, the very first color I ever got from Emily.

Calypso is a really nice lavender holo. I like the green shimmer in it that my pinky picks up.
There is a lot more holo in Pimp my Purple, but the lighting in my apartment does not do it justice. Yesterday was the start of yet another snowpocalypse though- we got 10 inches of snow yesterday- over an inch per hour plus sleet and I was lucky to just be able to get groceries and make it home! There has been a lot of haze and fog, so I apologize for these pictures not being very holo-y.

But look at Man in White. It speaks for itself. It's electric. . . it has blue in it. . . it looks amazing on my skin tone, this color GIVES ME LIFE! This color is what made me say "Holy Purple!" and rush to order from Emily. Unfortunately,that specific pigment is no longer available, but it was recreated as Pro Amico if you want to order some of  your own.

February is also Heart Awareness Month, so I decided to accent my ring fingernail with "We Found Love" by Lumina Lacquer. Unfortunately, I have lost a lot of family members to strokes and heart disease.

If you want to check out Carpe Noctem Cosmetics, her shop is located here.
Lumina Lacquer is located here.

Below are everyone's lovely contributions to the World Cancer Day manicures!

Liquid Sky Lacquer Moonless Night with Penelope Luz Mistica

Hi everyone! I'd like to say thank you to anyone who started following me during the Share the Love campaign.

I am thinking of creating a Facebook fan page, but I didn't think to make my instagram have the same name as my blog. What do you guys think I should do? Should I rename my IG to Obscenely Blue so everything matches and make a Facebook Page and link everything together?

Anyway, today I wanted to share a pretty dark blue mani I did.

On my pinky and pointer fingers are Moonless Night by Liquid Sky Lacquer. I put it over black because it is described as slightly shifting to purple and green, but as others have said, this shows up in the bottle an not on the nail. However, there is a lovely silver shimmer that is more evident from certain angles.

On my middle and ring fingers, I used Sephora X orbit, a dark blue/silver glitter, which is very textured on its own.
Then I layered Penelope Luz Mistica over it to create a night sky effect. The stars  are very shiny and they look more gold or silver in real life There are also many multicolored glitters that look like confetti.
The stars are so shiny that they might look like they are lifting off your nail, but I think it's just reflective curling. That post explains it better than I could- it's amazing the things you learn when you're blogging!

You do need to use a good topcoat to get these stars to stay on, though. I used HK Girl.

There are moons in the polish, too, but I couldn't get them out. I had to "fish" the stars out, and also leave the bottle upside-down for awhile. This bottle is the thinnest I've used to try to get glitter out of.

I purchased the Penelope Luz polish on Color4nails.com.

Catching up, manis from Instagram

So I still haven't been feeling well but I have posted a few manis on Instagram while I've been under the weather (literally- I'm not just fighting bronchitis, but I live in one of the places that got a crazy amount of snow! Then, we had windchills that this state had not seen in the past 20 years and there were a lot of power outages. Fortunately mine were intermittent and didn't last long, but now that the snow is starting to melt, we are experiencing flooding. Everything was shut down here for almost a week. Just so you all know, my name on instagram is chocoholofreak, so these will be tagged differently.

Literary Lacquers If It Pleases You with an accent of Colors by Laura K You're Shrinking, Gilbert!

The Literary Lacquers took 2-3 coats to reach full opacity because it's a jelly holo. I thought it would be darker, but maybe it looks darker on other people because of their skin tone? It is a really nice color with a strong holo. My grandmother really liked the color on me when she saw it, and she even said she would wear it- and she almost never wears nail polish and almost no makeup except lipstick.
      The Colors by Laura K speaks for itself- it's a nice shimmery purple, and she said that she used something different than glitter to facilitate easy removal. There is also holo in it. I do't know how she did it, but it really didn't take forever to get off or a huge amount of effort. I didn't think to use glitter-a-peel or anything first so it did take me 2 tries but it was no hassle.

This was my mani for New Years' Eve! On my pinky and pointer finger are Girly Bits Purple Potion. On my ring and middle finger are Zoya Carter, a textured purple polish. I was surprised at how closely these matched on my camera, since Carter is a more red-toned purple. My ring finger has Cirque XX, which I've previously mentioned is my favorite rainbow glitter so far. (warning- post contains adult language)

Anyway, I had a really bad break on my middle fingernail that turned out to be beyond repair, and then on my right hand my thumbnail broke down really low (like bandaid for a week low) so I didn't do my nails at all for awhile. The nails on my right hand were so short that I had to use Rejuvacote to even get them to nub status. So the next post you see from me will probably be my rarely seen right hand.

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.