Barry M Blood Orange: Red, Glorious Red!

So when I'm in a rush my go to polish is anything textured, because they usually dry fast and are pretty. When I'm not in a rush, but I have no clue what polish to wear my go to is a red of some sorts. I have said this before and I will say this again, but a red just does something to you. It's like bold red lips, there's just something so classic and sexy about them that makes you feel great.

Today I have Barry M's Blood Orange, from the Gelly Nail Effects line. It's a beautiful classic red polish. I used two coats for full opacity, and the finish like all the other polishes from the Gelly line was super shiny. That being said you should know that I always photograph these with top coat and it pretty much looks the same. I just add it for protection mostly. My only "complaint" really's isn't just a Barry M polish thing, it's a red polish thing. I find red polishes tend to stain like MAD when you do clean up or take them off, so you have to be careful. It's the reason why by my cuticles you see red. It's from my previous manicure.

Overall if you are in need of a good classic red, and you can get your hands on this, it's a great option.

A England-Briarwood: My Red Addiction.

So I like collecting polish, but I'm not one of those people who has 1000+. I tend to keep my collection to under 300, which in the normal people world is insane already. I pick and choose what I own carefully, which is why I have so few polishes I don't love. This is also the reason I have so few similar polishes. Unless it's a colour I use a lot chances are I will have no dupes or even close to dupes.

Unless it's a deep, vampy red with shimmer.

This is the only colour I have a hard time not picking up. It just makes me melt as I love most reds in general. They just have an umph factor to them. A England Briarwood from the Burne-Jones Dream Collection is no exception. It's that deep vampy, shimmery, pigmented red, filled with scattered holographic glitter. Done in a way that only A England could do it. Keeping with A England tradition, this polish has AMAZING formula. I used two coats, but I could have gotten away with one. And photographing this beauty was sooooooo hard. Pictures do not do it justice!

If you are a red lover you NEED this. And if you need a vampy red in your collection, I suggest this be the one you snag! Here are all the places that sell A England: http://www.a-england.co.uk/where-to-buy/

 Light box

 Natural light bulb flash

Artificial light bulb flash

Literary Lacquers Thermodynamics - The only thing I understand about Thermodynamics is you should wear this over black. DO IT!

This polish is Thermodynamics from Literary Lacquers Community Collection.  It was created by Alex of Sparkly Vernis.

Now normally I like starting off Literary Lacquers posts with a bit of info on the book the polish was based on.  Amy reads science books, and one thing she said she could read about all day is Energy and Work.  Yesterday I couldn't tell you what that meant, today I still can't.  I honestly tried to understand it.  I even used Wikipedia, trusted encyclopedia of Universities throughout the world.  It was if I was reading the words and they immediately fell out my ears.  So I gave up and accepted the fact that science wasn't my thing...minus genetics when I was in school...and pig dissections.

Anyways, less about piggies and more about polish!  Thermodynamics is described as a sheer cherry red jelly polish with a blue glass fleck and a touch of blue iridescent glitter.  Although I would say it was more of a pinkish red.  I used 4 coats due to bumping my hand and covering it up with an extra coat.  But you really only need 3 if you want it pretty much opaque(there may be some visible nail line).  Then I layered 2 coats over one coat of black.  I'll be honest, this isn't really my type of polish, but over black ASDFGHJKL!!!!!  All the particles stand out a bit more and it kind of has this duochrome-y feel to it.

With no undies

 FLASH *AH-HA*

 Over black

When I was done I decided to add some nail art.  This is equatsion, it's where k_B is the Boltzmann constant, and Ω denotes the volume of macrostate in the phase space or otherwise called thermodynamic probability...you know...that. *blinks*

If you would like a bottle of this, head on over to Literary Lacquers page.  A bottle of this .5oz polish is only $10 USD.

*Product sent for honest review

A Very Cuccio Christmas

Sorry, I wish I could have kept that title non-denominational…but I love some good alliteration.

Today I have some wonderful polishes and simple holiday looks to show you from a brand that just isn't getting enough love on the blog circuit - Cuccio Naturale. I own two Cuccio polishes, both of which I received through Topbox. The colours are gorgeous and the wear time is great.

First up: Moscow Red Square, a cool red shimmer perfect for the holidays. Red is my favourite colour (that is a lie, my favourite colour is all of them) and this is the red I have longed for. The formula is a little bit runny, but very manageable with 3 thin coats. You could easily get away with 2, but I bumped my nails and scuffed them :P oops! No topcoat here.

I topped it with OPI Pirouette My Whistle for a pretty snowy effect. Instant holiday cheer!

Tel-Aviv About It! is my perfect neutral. When I first saw this polish, I wasn't too excited. After putting it on, however, it was true love. It's a perfect medium tan. In some lights, I swear I see a lilac undertone. 2 coats plus Seche Vite.

For a simple holiday mani, I stamped with Maybelline Bold Gold and Winstonia plate W120, and matted the finished look. I prefer nail art that is isn't too BAM-in-your-face-CHRISTMAS, so this is a nice, subdued look for me. Without direct light for photographing, the stamping is very subtle. I love it!

Are you as enamoured with these colours as I am? If you would like to purchase some Cuccio polishes for yourself, you can get them through Cuccio Naturale's website or Transdesign.

Have a warm and happy holiday!

OPI German-icure: Blame tumblr

I was actually going to do this post a few days ago but right as I was about to start it I decided to take a look on tumblr.  Then over the next two hours I was lured into tumblrs, seductive, fandom folds.  Upon my my harrowing escape from the Tom Cumberbatch's and the Supernatural Thor's, I briefly did attempt to make a post, but my photo editing program was having none of it.  Today after restarting my laptop and staying away from tumblr I am finally here.  Do not fear.

OPI's German-icure is from OPI's fall 2012 collection.  It's a shimmery, vampy red, with brown undertones, and even a slight gold shift in the shimmer.  It was 2 easy coats.

This is one of my many go to colours.  I don't actually have a specific polish that I go to I have a colour.  I love a good vampy red.  I am that person who normally wont buy two polishes if they look remotely close.  Vampy reds are my weakness.  I will buy them all.

Do you have a go to polish or colour?  Do you use tumblr?  Isn't it magical?

Zombie French! My bloody spin on something cute.

So this manicure was inspired by 2 things.  One thing really good, and one thing a total fail.  The good would have to be these Franken French nails over at Claws Up!  I really liked it and thought it was really cute, but I wanted to try a non cute sort of version of it.  That leads me to the second thing that inspired me.  Almost a year ago I actually tried to decute a different Halloween manicure, and it just turned into one big mess.  It was one of the rare times I posted a fail.

For this manicure I actually used a lot of the same polishes and paints as it did last time with the exception of the OPI and red Essie.  I decided to still stick with a more zombified version and leave out the stitches.  I achived the finished look by painting 3 coats of Essie's Sew Psyched, then covering it with Seche.  Once the Seche was dry to the touch I would make a tiny hole maybe 5mm from the tip of my nail, and then pulled down gently so it tore, and looked like the skin was pulled back.  Next in and around the tear I blotted some black acrylic paint, then over that some bright red acrylic paint.  Then to make it a bit more real looking I added some Cult Nails Quench and Barry M Red Black. (Note:  I didn't clean my brush between colours like I normally do). Finally I smudged some red polish and brown paint of the rest of my nails to give them a dirty look.

This year I am really pleased with how my decuteting went.  Hope you like :)

Nightmare Before Christmas Nails: You can't tell me you didn't see this coming!

So with all the polishes inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas I decided to do a Nightmare Before Christmas manicure.  Again I haven't seen this movie in forever but I remember the gist of it.

First I did 2 coats of Claws Polish Voodoo, a red jelly full of red shimmer *drools*.  Then when that was good a dry I taped off triangles and painted the rest black.  With a striper I added some white stripes with acrylic paint.  Finally I finished with a rhinestone at the tip of the triangle.

See what I did there?

It's the pattern on Jack Skellingtons suit AND a Santa hat!

Note:  Remember how I said my internet was all wacky and not working.  Well my internet has been semi fixed.  It's now sort of working.  Do you know how long these photos took me to upload?  Almost 10 minutes.  What is this 1997?  I can't deal with this.  And email is even worse.  I don't wanna get into this.  *weeps*.

How does one dress up Chanel Malice?

By doing as little as possible to it.

First of all I wore these out for a "classy" night of drinking.  A "classy" night where I ended up forgetting my wallet at home.  But I'm lucky my friends gave me some moneyz, and since my birthday was a few days before I got birthday drinks!  Yay!

I only needed 2 coats of this, blackened, glow from within red.  Then I just added some gold square studs from the Born Pretty Store.  Enough to add a little something but not enough to take away from the polish.  Out of all the polishes I own this is one of my all time favourites!  I actually have a few colours that are similar to it but I love blackened reds.  Red polish is as a whole is just sexy as hell.

Sadly if you would like a bottle of this it was limited edition.  Maybe I'll show you some alternatives one day!

Ps. Sorry my pics aren't the best.  But I was in a rush to take them.  One of the reasons I forgot my wallet actually.

Pps. Just under 24hours left to enter our giveaway!

Ppps.  I was going to say this in the comments of the Dalek post but I figure most people wouldn't see this but THANK YOU FOR THE BIRTHDAY WISHES!

H&M Cherry - I do not know why I have only been using you in nail art, you sexy minx. Two magical coats of creamy, cherry red perfection. Are all H&M polishes this amazing? But I will say I do wish red polishes were a bit easier to clean up. This has been a title post.

3D Lego Nails!

Ugh As soon as clicked on the new post button, the new post page loaded and then my internet immediately cut out!  It obviously was down a few days ago when the power went our but for the past few weeks it's been finicky in general.  Anyways I hope you had a great few days.  I had a new first!  A man followed me the other day!  Luckily is was by a busy road, and when I lost him I went and hid in a store for a bit.

Now onto things that aren't creepy men!

I've been wanting to do 3D nails for a while now but wasn't sure what I wanted to do.  I knew I didn't want anything too over the top, or something that would interfere with me doing things.  So a few nights ago I was looking at The Daily Nail's site, and I came across these Lego nails.  Not only did I think they looked nifty, I thought I could do something like that but actually make it 3D.

First I painted my nails the base colour of whatever the block was going to be.  Next I placed between 2-6 pieces of KKCenterHk gold circular glitter down depending on how many bumps the block was going to have.  After that I got out some nail glue, placed a tiny bit on each piece of glitter, and stacked another piece of glitter on top of the original piece.  Then I repeated that step so each of the bumps consisted of 3 pieces of glitter.  When that was done I got out my acrylic paint and painted over just the bumps, focusing on the sides.  Following that I went over the entire nail with the acrylic paint (you may need to do this more than once if the base colour of polish is slightly different than the paint).  Finally I topped it of with a couple thin coats of top coat.

Note:  My pinky finger was done entirely with polish because I didn't have the shade of green I wanted in paint.  While you can do this entirely with polish I found it much easier with paint.  Not only that but I found the bumps were more more defined with paint.

What do you guys think of 3D nails?  Thoughts on creepy men?

NYX Girls Woman: Hotter than this 30 degree weather I have to put up with!

If you don't think this polish is pretty, know that I am judging you.  If you have read the blog before I have mentioned I love reds a lot!  I think everyone needs at least one.  It's an essential like a LBD or sushi.

Woman is a shimmery cherry red, with gold and purple shimmer.  I used 3 coats but I only would have needed 2 had I not rushed between coats and caused dragging.  Now while I love this colour I do wish that the gold and purple shimmer translated onto the nail.  Also I hate how because the writing on the bottle is black it's super hard to read any of the writing(like the name of the polish) on the bottle when the polish is a dark colour.

But overall I think this is $2 well spent!  And for the record I don't actually remember where I got this.  Well I know I bought it when I was on vacation to the States, specifically NYC.  And I do remember it was a random beauty shop.  I think I had sushi that day.

Literary Lacquers - Woman of Pleasure and Zipless: This post features naughty words!

So today I have two more polishes from Literary Lacquers The Good Parts Collection Woman of Pleasure and Zipless.

First up I have Woman of Pleasure.  Inspired by Fanny Hill:  Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure By John Cleland.  Written in 1748 it was banned in the UK and US until 1963.   This is actually one of the books on the list I REALLY want.  It's a periwinkle crelly with matte pink and magenta glitter along with blue and lavender glitter.  I used 3 coats, but if you use slightly thicker coats you could get away with 2.  When I first saw this polish I knew I was going to like it but I didn't think I would like it as much as I did.  I love how it looks on me and I think it's great for the summer.

 

Flash! A-ha!

Next is Zipless.  Inspired by Fear of Flying by Erica Jong.  Amy of Literary Lacquers said this was inspired by the narrators search for what she calls a "zipless fuck".  According the the author "It is "zipless" because "when you came together, zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff. For the true ultimate zipless A-1 fuck, it was necessary that you never got to know the man very well." So no strings attached boinking.  This polish is a red jelly with orange undertones, small red glitter and holographic gold glitter, as well as larger medium sized gold glitter.  I used 3 coats for this.  While I like the polish itself I don't think it looks good on me.  But anything with orange in it is generally a hit or miss for me.  So I decided it layer one coat over Cult nails Quench, a red crelly.  I think it looked much better on me.  Although some of the red glitter was hidden.

 The next two are with Cult Nail Quench as undies.

You can find these polishes and more over at Literary Lacquers Etsy shop here.   The polishes(15ml bottles) retail for $10USD.  And follow Literary Lacquers on facebook(And you should also check out their giveaway that's on right now!).  One more from Literary Lacquer tomorrow!

*Products were sent for honest review.