Literary Lacquers - A Thousand Christmas Trees (Custom Polish) Swatches and Review

Today's post is super exciting for me. The featured polish was a custom order made for me by the awesome Amy from Literary Lacquers, and it's stunning! She makes the most amazing holos; they have a deep 3D effect due to the jelly-esque formula that suspends micro glitter nicely, and I knew it would be perfect for my dream polish. I asked for a Christmas tree green with little holo glitters to make it look like sparkling colorful lights, and it couldn't fit the description better. Check this out!!

Literary Lacquers - A Thousand Christmas Trees

This is truly a sparkle bomb in the sun. It's the perfect neutral green (not too teal, not too yellow) with strong smooth holo that's accented with multiple sizes of silver holo micro glitter. So gorgeous. So rich. So festive.   I love how the glitter sparkles separately from the rest of the holo, giving it the "Christmas tree lights" glow.

The glitter lays within the layers, not on top, so the finish isn't bumpy or chunky and it's glassy smooth with a coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat (my favorite).  Although it has a jelly-like formula, it is completely opaque in two coats, though I did three to add a tiny bit more depth (also, I may have dented a nail or two and wanted to smooth it out ;o). It's even beautiful in dimmer lighting as you can see in the photos below (indirect daylight) - I think it shows the "lights" more prominently:

Amy really hit it out of the park, that's for sure.  It's even better than I imagined, and I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to Amy for making this beauty for me.  It's beyond perfect.  I love it so much.

Now for the best part.

Although this was a custom made for me, Amy came up with a great idea for Black Friday: it's available as a gift with purchase for the next week (11/25/2013 - 12/2/2013) in the Literary Lacquers Etsy shop! All orders between $20 and $49 will receive a mini bottle. All orders $50 and above will receive a full size bottle. There's no code needed; it will be added to your package as it ships! As far as I know, it will not be available at any time after this, so if you want it be sure to get your order in! I highly recommend If It Pleases You (a sultry reddish plum - elegant and classy with an edge) and Jack Rose (a unique caramel), or Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster if you love bright sparkles!

Cupcake Polish American Beauty Collection Swatches and Review

*Press Sample*

Cupcake Polish is coming out with a super holo collection called American Beauty. Each Polish is named after a city here in the United States and all of them are gorgeous strong linear holos!

I was sent three of these for review:

Cupcake Polish - Chicago

Chicago is an amazing, unique, stunning light purple. I have a TON of purple holos, but this one is totally different from all of them. It's kind of between pink and purple... maybe orchid? The pictures portray it way more blue-toned purple than it is in person. It's much brighter and pinker. And freaking awesome.

Cupcake Polish - Dallas

Dallas is a bright coral red base with amazing holo flame. I now have over 200 holo polishes and this is absolutely unique in my collection. Most of the red holos I have lean very pink/fuchsia, but this one has a little bit of both pink and orange which gives it the overall coral color. I'm not usually a huge fan of reds, but I think this is my favorite of these three.

Cupcake Polish - New York

New York is a vibrant teal blue. Although I have quite a few teal holos, this is one of the most saturated ones, and the holo is super strong without making it look greyed out.


All three polishes had perfect, easy to work with formulas. They were all almost opaque in one thin coat, and completely opaque in two. They have none of the dragging, patchy issues that some holos have and don't require any special base coat. I actually swatched all of these with no base coat because I'd been warned that they might stain some and I wanted to test. Honestly, I had very minor staining with both Dallas (red) and New York (teal) (none with Chicago), but all it took was an extra clean cotton ball and it all came right off. I think a single coat of regular base coat would probably help with that too.

I have to say, I'm incredibly impressed with these. I've been on a huge holo kick lately, and I've been scouting out all of the very best brands. Cupcake Polish is definitely one of them. There are three more polishes in the American Beauty collection:

Los Angeles - Pink
Denver - Green
Miami - Orange

(Swatches for these can be seen in the shop)

The American Beauty collection is going to be available (in somewhat limited quantities) in the Cupcake Polish shop on September 29th at 12pm Central time. They will be $12 for a full size bottle.

What do you think of these Beauties?? Are you as enamored as I am? Seeing as I only got mini bottles to review I will be in line for some full size bottles.  I'm dying for Dallas, Miami, Denver, and Chicago!!

(These products were sent for review.)

Enchanted Polish Austin Powers Swatch and Review

Wow, it has been way too long! I've mostly taken a break from blogging because my new computer will not load pictures form an SD card. But now I got a new nifty Eye Fi card that makes taking swatch pictures SOOOO much easier - it transfers automatically to my computer via our wifi network!

Anyway, on the the good stuff. I wanted to come back with a BANG, and I think this qualifies... This is my second favorite polish of all time (or maybe tied for first with Layla Flash Black, followed closely by Chanel Peridot): Enchanted Polish Austin Powers!

Here are some indoor indirect daylight shots. In the shade you can mostly see the super reflective gold foil finish, and it's super pretty. Sometimes you can even pick out the tiny orange glitter sprinkled throughout.

Austin Powers is a bright yellow gold foil with a linear holo shimmer. The thing that sets it apart from almost every other holo I own is the super shiny foil finish. It makes it stunning even in low light because of the beautiful reflective quality instead of the dull/flat grey finish that's so common with holos. On top of that, the gold is bright but neutral enough to be flattering on most skin tones.

 It has an awesome formula, requiring only two coats to be mostly opaque (I actually layered two coats over one coat of Pure Ice Bite Me here, but Bite Me is so sheer at one coat that I don't think it made much of a difference). And here's the best part: this is with no base coat (other than Bite Me) and no top coat AND this is day FIVE!! No chips or tip wear at all! I don't want to take it off... (but I want to try my Time to Pretend polishes!)

The only downside? This polish is fairly hard to find now. If you're lucky, one might pop up on ebay or a blog sale, but they're probably going to be quite a bit above retail price (current retail is $14-15). I'm not sure if Enchanted Polish is planning on making any more of this color, but other Enchanted Polishes may be purchased from the Enchanted Polish site, Llarowe, or Harlow & Co when they come into stock (watch out - they sell out quickly!)

OPI - DS Design: Swatches and Review

I'm such a sucker for nude/gold holo polishes lately, and I was lucky enough recently to get OPI DS Design at an incredible price!

OPI - DS Design

Design is a perfect nude base with tons of sparkly holo pigment, just like the others in the DS series. For some reason, the rainbow colors seem a bit more subdued in this one, but it's still very stunning in the sun. In the shade, it matches my skin tone PERFECTLY.

Unfortunately, DS Design is discontinued (along with all the other holo DS polishes) and can be tricky to find. I found mine in a blog sale, so keep your eye out and you might just get lucky!

Dollish Polish - Toxic Avenger: Swatches and Review

Funny story about this polish.

Dollish Polish - Toxic Avenger

Toxic Avenger is an amazing duochrome AND holo foil. The duochrome is similar to Orly Space Cadet or Hard Candy Beetle: it's a purple to gold/green duochrome in a teal base, but this has a ton of holo pigment added to it. Usually, the holo takes over in the sun, and the duochrome really comes out in indirect light. Basically, it's just all-around interesting! It's also not being made anymore, so I'd pretty much given up hope at ever finding a bottle.

This was from a couple Dollish sales ago when the "bonus mystery shade" was a mini bottle of the original Toxic Avenger. I actually didn't know about the sale until it was already 15 minutes into it or something, and all the Toxic Avengers were in carts already (if you don't know, Big Cartel SUPPOSEDLY will hold it for 30 minutes once it's in someone's cart so it doesn't get taken from them while they're in the payment process).

So I waited for another 15 minutes (wildly refreshing the page) until it was finally dropped from someone's cart into MINE... WOOHOO! I was so excited and hurriedly went to payment and just as I was about to pay on Paypal's site... BOOM, it's gone out of my cart (obviously, Big Cartel's hold does NOT always work). OH, MISERY!

So I sat there for ANOTHER half hour wildly refreshing waiting for someone else to let go of one in their cart. And FINALLY, I got one and was able to pay for it, and you can bet I did it LICKETY SPLIT.

I know the story sounds dramatic, but really, even if I hadn't have gotten it I would have just moved on with my day. I LIKE the chase of nail polish sales on Etsy/Big Cartel/whatever. I think it's fun to try and snag the polishes I'm longing for, but to me it will always still be just nail polish. At the end of the day, there are so many more important things to me.

But yes, I DID spend an hour of my life refreshing a web page so I could get this polish, and it was totally worth it!

Like I said, unfortunately (because of availability of ingredients) Dollish Polish isn't making this polish (at lease with this particular formula) anymore. It could be she releases it with a new formula in the future, so be on the lookout for it!

Born Pretty Microbeads Review

Accent nails have been very popular lately, so I decided to go crazy and dress up my favorite nail polish (Layla Hologram Effect Flash Black) with all sorts of accent nails.

Layla Hologram Effects 

(with Born Pretty microbeads, Hot Topic holo bar glitter, and American Apparel Light Year)

When I got these micro beads from Born Pretty to review, I originally had a full "fish eggs" manicure in mind, but once I got it, I realized that there wasn't enough of each color. I think this wheel of microbeads is more for nail art using the bullion pieces to create patterns like Sammy's manicure inspired by fashion. If you're looking to do a full fish egg manicure, I'd probably go with the jars of microbeads instead.

The container these came in is a little tricky.  Every time I turned the top clear piece to move the opening to a slot of beads, micro beads from all over would stick to it (static cling) and migrate into the other colors. You can see what I mean in the picture below.  It makes them a little bit hard to use as solid color accent nails, but I would imagine it'd still be fine for delicate nail art.  

The Born Pretty microbeads can be purchased from their site as well as a lot of other awesome nail art decorations and polishes and nail wraps! You can also use the code GG5J61 to get a 5% discount on your order!

Love & Beauty - Silver: The Blingy-est Polish I Own

I can't believe I haven't worn this until today. I remember thinking how amazing it was when I swatched it on a nail wheel, but somehow I never got around to actually wearing it until just now. It's really too bad Love & Beauty doesn't give their polishes actual names. This one just says "Silver" on the price sticker.

(shade)

Love & Beauty - Silver

Silver is a clear base that's packed with small holo hex glitters. It's not micro glitter, but it lays pretty flat and gives excellent coverage. What struck me about this polish is how much the rainbows show even in the dim light. I'm pretty sure it's the strongest holo glitter I've seen in a polish. I've worn the Layla holos and glitter bombs like OPI Crown Me Already, but this one takes the cake for the single most "blingy" polish that I own. Even better is that this glitter doesn't even dry very gritty so it's nearly perfect with one coat of Wicked Fast.

In the right light, the colors are almost blinding:

These were all taken under a particular lamp that really amplifies the rainbows in holo polishes (as a side note, one of my favorite things to do is sit under this lamp with my holo polish swatches and just stare at the beauty... *sigh*). The pictures do not even come close to portraying the amount of color and sparkle.

I LOVE when I find a new favorite polish and it happens to be incredibly inexpensive! I got this on Forever 21's website a while ago, so I'm not sure if it's still available (it could be this one or this one), but they have a lot of amazing colors (especially glitters!) and they're less than $3 each!