Blogiversary Giveaway!

Next Saturday (9/06) is my one year blogiversary! I didn’t want to do a huge giveaway, but I did want it to be special. I’ve gotten three customs made, two of which I posted about yesterday.  Shipped directly from Philly Loves Lacquer the winner will get Violet Blooms, a deep purple jelly with holo micro glitter, and Tootsie’s Teal, a teal jelly with holo micro glitter. From Smokey Mountain Lacquers is Ocean Nymph, a dark teal jelly with green, blue, gold, and purple glitters. And from me the winner will get a 2oz bottle of Zoya Remove+, 3 rolls of striping tape, and their choice of one of the new fall holos coming out September.

There will only be one prize pack, so make sure to do the two daily options every day for extra entries. This giveaway will only be active for one week starting today, so go enter HERE! Entrants must be 18 or over and have a US mailing address. If you are outside of the US you can enter if you are able to get somebody in the US to receive the packages and then send them to you. PLL, SML, and MFP are not responsible for packages after they have been sent out.

Wear It Wednesday Review: Philly Loves Lacquer Customs

Hello everybody, I’ve got a great post for you today! I recently got some custom polishes made by one of my favorite indie brands, Philly Loves Lacquer. I got one of each of these for myself, but they are also being provided by PLL for my blogiversary giveaway starting tomorrow! I wanted to keep with the Philly theme and name the polishes after shops in the Reading Terminal Market. Most of the time we go to Philly we have lunch at the Market, and when my husband and I first started dating we went to get some fresh ingredients so he could make me breakfast, a lot of good memories there.

The first one is called Tootie’s Teal, named after Tootsie’s Salad Express. A teal jelly holo with holo micro glitter. I love the color, greens always seem to look good on me, and the glitter is subtle but super sparkly in the sun.

Next is Violet Blooms, named after Market Blooms. This one is a deep purple jelly with the same holo micro glitter in it. Purple is my favorite color so I had to get something purple made for me. It’s a great shade, I love that it leans more toward a blue tone than pink, so it looks good on me.

The fact that these polishes are both the same type will be awesome for nail art in the future. I might even have to get a couple more customs like this made! They were well pigmented and had full coverage in two coats, something that some jellies can’t do. Philly Loves Lacquer continues to put out great products, and Esther has helped me so much with getting my brand on track, I highly recommend giving her your business.

Negative Space Bubbles

I didn’t really know what to call today’s mani. I was definitely going for a bubble type look, but I’m not sure it’s exactly there. For these I started with a base of Zoya Raven and then dotted on Shelby, Arizona, Pippa, Josie, and Robyn. I took a brush and dipped it in acetone and gently removed the insides of each dot, cleaning my brush between colors. I added a few more dots over top and removed the centers again. Once dry, I topped it off with a couple coats of Monet. Sadly, it did smudge a little bit, so I didn’t have the crisp lines that I was hoping for. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this mani, I only did it on one hand for this post then took it off immediately. Maybe I’ll try something like this again and make it less busy. I’m thinking a pale blue base with darker blue dots and some China Glaze Fairy Dust.

Pixie Gradient

Today I have a pretty simple mani for you. This one could be done with any of the Zoya pixie dust colors and another shimmer or creme. Looking at this now, I think it would have looked a little better with a black creme. I started with Zoya Cassedy which is a gunmetal shimmer that has a greenish color to it. I think this is why it looks a little off with the black pixie dust. After Cassedy dried I sponged on Dahlia to try to get a gradient effect. It went on a little too thick at the middle so it doesn’t look as blended as I would have liked. I think I might this again at some point with different colors though.

Wear It Wednesday

Do you ever buy a polish that looks amazing in the bottle and then you paint it on and it’s disappointing? Well this polish is the complete opposite. Not to say that I was disappointed with it in the bottle, but I just wasn’t sure if I would like it or not. But wow! I don’t know what it is about Aly’s Dream Polish Yuna, but it is just so gorgeous. It’s my first Aly’s, I got it in the July Holo Grail box and I can tell you, I will definitely be buying more from this brand in the future. Top and bottom left photos are with no flash and bottom right is with flash to show the holo effect.

Holo Watermelon

Before I get into this mani I just want to state that it was not going to be watermelons at first, it was just going to be stripes. I changed it up for two reasons, one being because I started doing the stripes and the two greens together screamed watermelon to me. The second reason was because I owe you guys some actual nail art. I’ve been doing a lot of gradients and other simple stuff lately and I need to put in more effort when possible. And now for some nails!

I started with a base of Hero’s Shade from Philly Loves Lacquer. This polish was exclusive to the July 2014 Holo Grail Box by Dazzled. I put a top coat over that and saved the nail art for the next day. I used striping tape on my middle and ring fingers and topped it with March 2014 from Enchanted Polish then removed the tape right away. On the other nails I took a french tip guide and turned it around so it curved around the bottom of my nail. I used Enchanted Polish’s July 2014 for the red and removed the guide. I let that dry a bit then carefully used striping tape over Hero’s shade again and painted on March. I used a toothpick to dot on the seeds with Zoya’s Raven. Once the black was dry enough I used my top coat which did cause a tiny bit of streaking from the black. Left photo below is with flash and right is without, above photo is also with flash.

I am very happy with how this mani turned out! I think the stripes look super cool because the holo in March is more pronounced than in Hero’s Shade and they contrast very well. I was a little sad at first because I didn’t have a watermelon colored holo, but then I remembered I had this red and it fit so perfectly! Anything lighter wouldn’t have looked right in my opinion. What are your thoughts on this one? I think it’s one of my best manis in a while.

Wear It Wednesday

Today I’ve got a nice simple Wear It Wednesday for you. This is Julep India, a gorgeous shimmery blue. I’m not always happy with Julep’s colors, but this one was a must have for me. I’m so happy I got my box for this month! The application was smooth and the slight color shift to a lighter blue is really pretty.

Enchanted Gradient

A couple weeks ago I did a Wear It Wednesday with Enchanted Polish’s June 2014. That one seemed to be the fan favorite out of the three that were released together. I bought all three and was very pleased this time around. Before I had even tried on June I used May 2014 and July 2014 as a gradient. The results were stunning! I don’t often wear the same mani multiple times, but I might do this one again!

I started with a base of Zoya Lulu, which is a sheer nude, and might be my go to base for some of my gradients now. Then I painted May and July onto a makeup sponge and started dabbing it onto my nails. Since I did not wet the sponge first a lot of the polish soaked in and left May (the orange) very light. When I went to do my second hand I used the same spot on the sponge and since it had dried polish on it the orange came out much darker. So I removed it and completely redid it with another spot on the sponge. Both ways looked beautiful but I did prefer this way better. I’m really excited for the next release because I really want September, my birth month.

Wear It Wednesday

I’ve got a great polish for you today! Recently Ellagee put out a Doctor Who collection and I snagged a few of the colors. Each color perfectly matches the scene or object it was based off of. The first one I tried out was Trenzalore, a cloudy blue holo.

The holo is more subtle, but still very pretty in sunlight. The application was very smooth and it will only take 2 or 3 coats for full opacity. Here’s the TARDIS pendant I got with my order, isn’t it awesome? You can get your own pendant for just $1.50, and Trenzalore for $10 at ellagee.com as well as the other polishes in the collection.

Fall Dry Brushing

A while back some of you may have seen I posted this photo on my facebook page, just to brighten up a post.

Somebody suggested it would make a great mani, so instead of just attempting to make a flower which I assumed would turn out bad, I wanted to go another route and just use the colors. I painted my nails with a base of Zoya Josie for a green background. When that dried I was going to put drops of America, Pippa, and Louise at the base of my nails and dry brush them upward. This did not work…. at all. So I decided to just try a normal dry brush, by dipping the brush into the polish and brushing it on to my nail randomly.

The result was not the best in my opinion. I do like the dry brush technique, it’s easy to do, I just didn’t pick the right colors. This one screams muddy fall day. Next time I will most likely do what I’ve seen other people do and use brighter neons with black, or maybe try white and pastels. What are your thoughts on this mani? Love it, hate it?