Zoya Arizona and Lumina Lacquer Pinball Wizard
Quick post again! Today I paired up two of my untried polishes- Zoya Arizona and Lumina Lacquer Pinball Wizard!
Zoya Arizona is a bright orange cream polish with a glossy finish. This was part of last year’s summer collection, Beach and Surf (in the Beach portion). I *adore* the Beach and Surf collections- I think I own a majority of them now with a few exceptions. Arizona went on well- this is 2 coats with no topcoat (look at that shine without topcoat!). I did have a few slightly bald areas after 2 coats, but I was rushing my paint job a little bit. I noticed that the dry time even with no topcoat was pretty fast too- it was relatively touch-dry after taking photos.
Next I added Lumina Lacquer’s Pinball Wizard on top. This is a glitter polish in a clear base that is chock FULL of matte glitters in every shape, size and color you can imagine. I used 1 coat on top of Arizona with topcoat.
As I tend to do with most glitter bombs, I used the dabbing method to place a lot of the glitters. I didn’t have to do any fishing for these large shapes and sizes- they came right up with no effort along with all the other glitters!
You can buy Zoya nail polish at ULTA stores as well as their website for $8 a bottle, and you can find Lumina Lacquer at their website for $10 a bottle. You can follow Zoya and Lumina Lacquer on Facebook for more news and updates!
Zoya Julie and Lynnderella Connect to Pretty
It’s been a bit since my last post (my kids got sick on the first day of summer vacation, can you believe the luck?)- so since I’m almost feeling better I decided to share some pictures I took a few weeks ago. I’ve been great at *taking* photographs- just not at the posting them part!
First up is Zoya Julie, which is part of their Spring 2013 Lovely collection. Julie is described on the Zoya website as a ‘soft wisteria purple metallic’. It’s very soft and shimmery! All photos are 2 coats with no topcoat.
I love Zoya, they’re one of my favorite mainstream polish brands. As usual the formula was great!
Then I added 1 coat of Lynnderella Connect to Pretty on top! Connect to Pretty is a Limited Edition Lynnderella, which means they can be bought via auction on Ebay (rather than buy-it-now). I was lucky enough to win this beautiful glitter bomb in a giveaway, but it does still appear for bidding on Ebay.
I had a *lot* of people grabbing my hands to stare at my nails while wearing this combo! Though attempting to explain where the glitter came from and it’s cost was a bit difficult for non-polishaholics 🙂 While this particular Lynn may be out of most girl’s price ranges, you can find a lot of beautiful similar colors in her newer collections (I also own Beside Herself, from the new Mixed Feelings collection, and while it’s not the same it gives a similar feeling).
You can purchase Zoya at their website here: http://www.artofbeauty.com/, and Lynnderella polishes can be purchased at lynnderella.com.
Go Pink Wednesday: Zoya Lara and Lynnderella Boy-Girl Party
Hi guys! It’s time for another Go Pink Wendesday!
Today I started off with 1 coat of Zoya Lara, one of my very favorite pink creams, and added 1 coat of Lynnderella’s Boy-Girl Party on top.
Now, those of you familiar with Lynnderella colors may be questioning my sanity about now- since Boy-Girl Party is a mix of primarily pink and blue glitter. But no, I haven’t lost my mind, this was intentional. Aside from just being very pretty, I decided to add the touch of blue this week as a reminder that not just women are affected by breast cancer. Yes, it predominately affects women- but it’s easy to forget men do suffer from this as well. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2012 just over 2,000 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and 400 will die from it.
So while we’re surrounded by pink this month, this is my nod to all the men affected by this terrible disease as well as women.
Both polishes applied wonderfully. I ADORE Zoya’s polishes, especially their creams- they’re almost always 1 coat and apply like a dream. Boy-Girl Party is a little tricky- it’s a very thick, full glitter, so I used a bit of the dabbing method for placement.
1 coat Zoya Lara, 1 coat Lynnderella Boy-Girl Party, topped with 1 coat Gelous.
You can find Zoya at ULTA as well as on their website at http://www.zoya.com. Lynnderella can be found on Ebay at http://myworld.ebay.com/lynnderella-lynnderella.
Interested in a free Zoya? If you haven’t signed up for their Share the Love program yet, you can use my referral link here– once you sign up, you’ll get a coupon code (in your ‘My Promotion Codes’ section of your account page) for a free polish! Just pay shipping! If you add 2 more polishes to your order with this coupon, you’ll get free shipping (so 3 Zoyas for $16 even). Not bad!
Tomorrow I’ll be showing off a few colors by Pams & Kin, so be sure to check back!
Want to see the other lovely manis for Go Pink Wednesday! Look no further! Click the link below!
Go Pink Wednesday: International Brands and Indies!
Good afternoon everyone! I couldn’t decide which mani to use for today’s Go Pink Wednesday- so I decided to show off both!
My first look is using 2 international polishes- Tip Top Nails Popsicle that you saw in yesterday’s post, topped with Passe Nati Sabrina Sato- Quero Amor.
How fun! Quero Amor is a gorgeous green-shift flakie in a light pink jelly base, filled with glitter!
Of course flakes don’t show up as well over colors that aren’t black or dark, but when I put my hand in the shade it was easy to spot them!
And now for my second mani- This one is a gorgeous color from Fanchromatic Nails!
It’s called Layer Cake- and I knew I needed it just for the name! This polish is inspired by Kaylee from the amazing show Firefly- which was sadly only on for 1 season.
Inara: I see Kaylee’s here.
Mal: Yeah, crying Cinderella tears. You should have seen her when I told her she could have that layer cake she’s wearing.
Inara: I think she looks adorable.
So this polish is a homage to Kaylee’s completely over the top, adorable, so ‘her’ dress that she had to wear to the big shindig. I love Kaylee 🙂
This polish is so beautiful! It’s an amazing light pink linear holo, spotted with holographic pink glitter.
For these photos I wore 2 coats of Layer Cake over 1 coat of Zoya’s Rory, but it can easily be worn on it’s own. I previously wore 3 coats of Layer Cake alone just fine! It was just too cloudy for photos that day 🙂
Hope you enjoyed the different looks!
Sadly- Tip Top Nails can only be purchased in South Africa, and Passe Nati can be found in Brazil (Llarowe does carry some of the brand, but not this particular polish).
Fanchromatic Nails can be found here on Etsy, and you can follow their Facebook Page for news and updates! I’ll be showing off a few other beautiful colors from Lynae at Fanchromatic tomorrow, so be sure to check back!
Check out all the other awesome Go Pink Wednesday posts here:
Mashup: Indie Wednesday meets Flakie Friday with SYN Cosmetics
Hello again everyone! If you keep up with me on Facebook, you already know I’ve been in a bit of a funk this week- and if not, you may have thought I dropped off the Earth. I think I’m back to feeling normal, though!
A few announcements! I think a very small part of my funk was being restricted to these theme days (though most of it was not polish related). I thought they would be a great idea to keep me motivated, but in reality it’s having the opposite effect. In light of that, I’m dropping Flakie Friday. This will be the last official Flakie Friday post. I’m keeping the other 3 (Mani Mondays, Try It On Tuesday, Indie Wednesday), but I won’t force myself to do them each and every week. If the mood strikes me to wear something else? I’ll do it!
I’m also going to begin doing ‘Favorite’ posts. I really enjoy reading other bloggers monthly favorites roundups, so I’ll be adding in one of my own once a month. I’ll be working on July’s this weekend! It will feature all sorts of different things I’m interested in at the moment, not just polish. Trying to branch out a little- I have a TON of interests! But of course the blog will remain 99% polish related 🙂
So onto today’s post. I’m sure you guys have seen me raving about the new releases from Syn Cosmetics- and some of that is what I’m going to feature today!
Syn Cosmetics is an indie makeup brand that recently (a few months ago I believe) added polish to her lineup. Be sure to check out everything she offers!
First up is my very first purchase from Syn- All White Everything.
This is 1 coat of All White Everything over 2 coats Hard Candy Beetle (what was intended for the Try It On Tuesday that I didn’t post- I’ll reuse it this coming Tuesday!)
Its a very roughly similar idea to Lynderella’s Love, Lace and Lilacs, but in no means a dupe. I don’t own LLL, but this one lacks the heavy fine white glitter and the variety of hex sizes. But if you’ve been looking for a nice, white CTD type glitter, give this one a look!
Next up are 2 that I was SO excited to play with- her newest additions to the line, solar changing polish!! She has an awesome video available on the site!
Obviously, the photo on the left is inside, and the one on the right is outside in the sunlight. I alternated between Solar Skies and Sunkissed- Sunkissed is the pink and Solar Skies is blue. Both appear the same- a milky clear- inside.
I layered each over 2 coats of white polish, followed by 2 coats of the solar changing polish.
I will say, I was a little disappointed Sunkissed didn’t quite show off as well as Solar Skies. Look at the bottle! The color change is HUGE, but over white it just wasn’t as noticeable. The blue was very apparent though!
These also definitely require sun- being inside, no matter how well lit or even ambient sunlight you have, they’re going to remain clear. As soon as you step into sunlight outdoors though, it changes fast!
So what did I do? Went back inside, and added more coats of Sunkissed. This is 4 coats of Sunkissed, and you can see it a lot better! Even with 4 coats, it wasn’t overly thick- so it’s definitely doable! LOVE these! Even my husband was into it, and thought this was the coolest thing ever. They’ll be releasing color-to-color changing ones soon, so keep yours eyes out!
Last one up is my quasi flakie of the day- a new unnamed Syn polish!
There was recently a promotion that if you spent $30.00, you would get one of the upcoming, unnamed polishes for free! I nicely asked if I could get this one- I LOVE pink of course, and I love shards and flakes and fun things!
I am in love with this! Ya’ll, this is only ONE coat! This has a little bit of everything in it- ultrafine pink, fine white, hot pink squares, pink hexes, white and black shards and bars. I layered this over 2 coats of Zoya Adina (another Try It On Tuesday color- I’m working ahead!).
You can purchase Syn Cosmetics on their site here, and follow them on Facebook for updates here. Be sure to check them out!! You’ll always find awesome promotions on Facebook- I’ve caught the buy 3-get 1 sale as well as a 35% off flash sale!
(Just Another) Mani Monday: Olympic Nails
First off, I’d like to say again- THANK YOU for all the support, and for all the interest in the giveaway!
As I mentioned on Facebook, I drew the names of the winners last night, and they have already responded! So big congratulations to Tina, Patricia, and Cayce!! 2 of the 3 winners will have their packages on their way to them tomorrow- the 3rd (at her request) will be getting hers mailed as soon as the Olympics are over. My first international winner!
Be sure to post pictures on my wall when you make a fuzzy monster mani, guys!
Now onto today’s post- Olympic Nails. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (which is always possible, I’m fairly in the dark with news a lot of times), you know that the Olympics began this weekend. Go Team USA!
I will freely admit, this is not my best work. But the kids were screaming, and I’m sure it’s fun to see the ‘fails’ as often as the wins. The idea is good though, in my opinion! Maybe you can recreate it a bit better 🙂
Here’s the first round of polishes I used. This is OPI’s DS Radiance, Essie’s Penny Talk, a franken thrown together 5 minutes earlier by me, Color Club’s mini gold with no sticker (from May’s BirchBox), and Julep Kate. (Or in other words- you need white, gold, silver, bronze, and (optional) patriotic topcoat)
I had planned to use Pretty and Polished’s Freedom Calling, but I couldn’t find the bottle for the life of me. I know it’s around here somewhere. That is a good one to use though, it’s fairly similar to this one but not identical. Same idea- red, white and blue mixed glitter.
I painted white on my thumb and pinky, and did the 3 medal colors across the inner fingers, like so:
I think using all 3 colors from Essie’s Mirror Metallics would be good if you have them. This gold and silver did not play nicely when it came to cleanup, because of the glittery effect.
Next round of colors:
You’ll need black, green, yellow, red, blue, and some straws (cutting them is up to you- but you’ll need 5 ‘sides’). I used Cult Nails Nevermore, Julep Emilie, Sinful Colors Pull Over, Zoya Sooki, and Sinful Color’s Rain Storm. For cleaning purposes, I also used a paper plate, but a piece of paper will also work.
Now we’re going to use these colors to create the Olympic rings on our thumb!
To make the rings, I dipped the tip of the straw into a little blob of polish. If you don’t know off the top of your head (I didn’t), the rings go blue-black-red, and then yellow-green below them. So I began with blue, and worked my way down!
Here’s the tip of the straw with polish on it. Then you’ll place the straw end where you want the first ring, and gently rock it around to ensure the polish gets on the nail around the entire circle. On my first circle, I lifted up after just placing it on my nail, and 1/2 the circle was missing. When I re-did it, it made it look a bit ‘off’. Do make sure you have a good bit of polish on the straw, but it doesn’t have to be dripping.
My nails, in addition to being shorter, are not very big. I could *barely* fit the rings on my thumb, and they were all overlapping each other. If you have slightly smaller nails, I’d advise trying out a coffee stirrer straw instead of a standard one. If I had any, that’s what I would have used!
My ghetto rings. At least it’s obvious what they’re supposed to be!
I didn’t take photos of the next step (because my husband wasn’t home to help with pictures), but I wrote ‘USA’ in red and blue polish on my pinky. I did this using a paintbrush, but you could easily do it using nail art stripers, or maybe even a standard brush if you’re patient.
I then finished it all off with my red, white and blue topcoat over the gold, silver and bronze nails. Obviously, if you’re not from the USA, Britain, or another r/w/b country, you can use something else to represent your colors!
Believe it or not, I DID clean up those metallic nails. The gold and silver really don’t like me!
And I didn’t realize my USA was upside down in the swatches until after I’d taken pictures. I didn’t want to redo the entire nail, so I hope you guys understand 🙂
Go Team USA! Make us proud!
If you do any kind of Olympic mani, even if it’s completely different from this, please link up on my Facebook page- I’d love to see it and feature it!
(Just Another) Mani Monday- Monster Nails!
Hey fellow polish monsters!
Today I have a fun look for Mani Monday! These are what I’ve dubbed… Monster Nails!
I know many people have seen the ‘fuzzy’ nail look- the first I saw with this effect was The PolishAholic’s Fuzzy Nail Sweaters. So I’m not really reinventing the wheel with this, but I added a fun twist (that I haven’t seen before, but you know how big the nail world is- it’s possible that it’s been done!)
First off, I gathered my supplies:
You can get Flocking Powder in any craft store, it will be by the scrapbooking supplies. I think this container was maybe $2 on sale. I also grabbed a polish that was close to the color of the flocking powder (this powder I actually bought for crafts, not nails, so I worked with what I had), some clear top coat, and googley eyes!
I picked Zoya Lara as my polish for this mani. It’s actually the first time I’ve worn Lara… and it look great on me! Cooler colors always work best with my skin tone. It’s a plain, pretty medium pink cream.
Next up: flocking powder!
(15 minutes later) Sorry, took a writing break to stalk Dollish Polish over on Llarowe’s site. I was successful in my venture!
Ok, so flocking powder! There’s 2 different ‘tops’, one to pour and one to ‘sprinkle’. I chose the sprinkling option, so my fuzziness was on the lighter side compared to many versions I’ve seen. Working 1 nail at a time, I simply put a coat of fast dry topcoat on, and sprinkled flocking powder until the nail was covered.
This is a fun look 🙂 Because there wasn’t a ton on there, it wasn’t moving at all and there was no residual flaking.
Now onto the fun!
To add a neat twist on this, I decided to turn them into ‘monster’ nails- I love monsters, and that’s of course the theme of my blog and franken polishes 🙂
To do this, I just added a googly eye to each nail- that’s it! I dabbed it with a bit of nail polish, and placed it on.
I won’t lie, this isn’t exactly… user friendly. These particular googly eyes are thick, and popped up:
And they didn’t have the best of hold on there, though they weren’t falling off either. For more wear, I would probably opt for nail glue.
My cat (Alex) thinks I’m crazy. And was also annoyed I was getting in his way of the sunshine.
I always feel like… somebody’s watchin’ meeee…
So there it is! A quick, easy fun look 🙂 This would be GREAT for Halloween! See everyone tomorrow- I’ll be featuring 2 new Essie’s for Try It On Tuesday!
Flakie Friday: Zoya Chloe over Cult Nails Nevermore
Sorry this post is coming so late! I got caught up cleaning the house and some other things and before I knew it, the day was almost done and I still hadn’t painted my nails for the post. Luckily the sun was still shining when I finished!
Today is my first Flakie Friday, and I decided to start off with a flakie that is easily available to everyone.
Zoya Chloe!
Chloe is part of Zoya’s Fleck Effect line from Spring 2012, along with Maisie and Opal. It can be found here.
This is a beautiful flakie, that’s slightly different from the more common color schemes you’ll find. The flecks are mostly orange with a yellow shift, but there’s also the occasional yellow and green flecks to add some interest.
Application is wonderful- the flakes are fairly dense and you really only need 1 coat. For these photos however I added 2 coats of Chloe over 1 coat of Cult Nails‘ Nevermore. If you’re looking for an amazing 1 coat solid black, check out Nevermore! It’s wonderful.
On to the pictures!
Look at all those beautiful colors!
Close up of my nubbin thumb nail
Hopefully these photos can really show off how beautiful Chloe is! They were taken outside in full sunlight to really try to capture the colors.
Now a lot of people will already know this, but if you haven’t purchased from Zoya.com before, you’re in luck! Use can use THIS referral link to get a free polish of your choice (maybe Chloe?). Also with the program, if you buy 2 extra polishes along with your free one, you’ll receive free shipping! Not a bad deal! As a disclaimer, I do receive sharing points if you use the link- but the more I get, the more goodies I can get for giveaways!
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Monday Mani: Splatter Manicure with Zoya Sooki and Essie Marshmallow
I wanna do bad things to you…
Hi everyone! It’s my very first Mani Monday, and I decided to start off with a tutorial I’ve had bookmarked for awhile, the blood splatter effect. Why, in the middle of June, you ask?
I’m a pretty big True Blood fan, though I’ll admit- I love the books more. That always seems to be the case though! Season 5 premiered on HBO last Sunday night. We had out of town family staying with us that week, so I wasn’t able to watch until tonight- so I got 2 episodes back to back. To celebrate the show’s return, I decided to turn to a tutorial by Dollface22772 (who most of you probably know because her amazing line of indie polishes, Dollish Polish). This tutorial was originally posted just before Halloween to celebrate the start of Dexter, but it fits True Blood just as perfectly! You can find the tutorial I used here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47dWovqryvc. I highly recommend watching it! I’m not going to do a full explanation, but you can see her demonstrate the technique perfectly in the video. You can find Dolly here on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dollface22772.
First off, you’ll need supplies! At least 1 straw, your polish (base coat and splatter coat), tape, some form of protective surface (I just used some foil), and wine. Ok, the wine is totally optional, but if you’re of legal age it’s always a fun addition (yes, I’m drinking from a tea glass… we don’t have real wine glasses. Don’t judge!).
This picture is a little outdated- I started with Sinful Colors White, but had some streaking issues that multiple coats did not help. I removed it, and used Essie Marshmallow instead (totally smart right, replace the original with a sheer color that’s going to take 4 coats? Couldn’t have been the wine!).
Anywho… you paint all your fingers your base coat (in this case, white) and allow to dry completely. I went ahead and used Poshe Super-Fast Drying topcoat to speed up the process. For having 4 coats, I had absolutely no trouble with smudges or other issues that normally plague me when I put that many coats on. I’m unsure if it’s just because Marshmallow is a sheer color and thinner, or if it’s a trait of Essie (I don’t have many Essies), but it was great to work with. Took forever to build up of course, but that’s not unexpected.
After that, it’s time to get down to business! You’ll want to work with each nail one at a time, and tape around the nail to protect the skin. You can skip this step, it just causes a lot more cleanup time afterwards. Especially with a vibrant red that stains! I took a picture to show an example:
*Interrupting this nail discussion for eye candy*
Anyways, where was I… ah ha! Splatter time!
So for the blood splatters, you simply make a pool of polish (a few large drops from the brush should do), and place the end of the straw in the paint, hold above your nail, and blow on the straw quickly and forcefully. This *should* cause the paint to splatter out. The distance from your nail determines the extent of the splatter- the closer you are, the bigger the initial blob. You’ll be able to see these size variations on the photos I’m about to post: my index and ring finger both have blobs from being closer. I did have a little bit of trouble with this- it definitely worked, but I think my straw (one that bends at the top) wasn’t ideal. It would take multiple tries to get paint out most of the time. Even with that, it was an east mani to do! I highly recommend watching the video to see the process in action.
Of course since this mani was done in honor of True Blood, the *only* polish I felt was acceptable to use would be Zoya Sooki. In the books her name is spelled Sookie, but honestly 1 letter doesn’t make a huge difference! I adore that this polish is a bright, blood red.
You can see the topcoat caused a bit of bleeding, even though I applied it after I gave the red time to dry on each nail. It’s not as noticeable in person, but on a macro shot it stands out very clearly.
So that’s it for my first Mani Monday! I had a lot of fun with this one, and I’m happy to finally scratch one effect off my to-do list. This look can easily be switched around to different colors for completely different looks, like the 80’s neon paint splatter!
Till next time!
~Diana, The Polish Monster
Polish Monster 