ILNP swatches – Grape Alicious and Molly

Today I’ve got two I LOVE NAIL POLISH shades for you.  I won these from Brijits Digits giveaway.  I’ve never tried ILNP before, so I was thrilled to get my paws on these!

First up is Grape Alicious…

Grape Alicious is a purple holo. I used two coats here along with basecoat and topcoat too.  The holo didn’t seem too strong for me in Grape Alicious.  But I love this shade!  It’s a purple that leans more towards blue than red, which is my fave kinda purple.  Dark blue-ish purples look so rich and regal to me.  So I love this one.

Next up is Molly…

Molly is a magenta holo.  Shown here is a basecoat, two coats of Molly, and topcoat.  This shade is so pigmented and the formula was great.  So easy to apply.  I wasn’t expecting this, but Molly has tiny flecks of sparkle in it!  On the downside, it chipped pretty bad within 24hrs.

I’m so happy to have some ILNP added to my small stash of indies.  Do you have any of these??

Brijits Digits- Rasbie Cosmo Indie Polish

Today I’m sharing a gorgeous hand made nail polish that was gifted to me by Brijit.  One of the cool things about being friends with the owner of Brijits Digits Boutique?  Sometimes I get to try out the goods!  Thanks girl!  I love this nail polish.  Check it out….

This is a gorgeous raspberry color called Rasbie Cosmo.  It has a deep sangria tint to it, but when the light hits it you see flashes of blue shimmer. Shown in these pics is one base coat, three coats of Rasbie Cosmo and one coat of seche vite.  It looks very luxurious and shiny to me.  I have received many compliments on it so far at the office.

As you know, I love wearing nail art.  But what you may not know, is that I oftentimes forgo the crazy designs and pick one beautiful polish to wear on its own for a good chunk of my work week.  Rasbie Cosmo fits the bill perfectly for that.  Raspberry is a nice traditional color for nails, so I won’t get sideways glances in the elevator at work (like if I wore green or blue nails).  But the shiny glassy finish and blue shimmer make this shade seem special somehow.  It’s office-appropriate,  but it’s anything but boring!  Here’s her Etsy listing for Rasbie Cosmo if you are interested.

Brijit really has a knack for making classy and sophisticated indies.  Oh and did you see her pointy fake nails with leopard print (listing is here)?  They look just like my nails!! I’d like to think I was the inspiration for these pointies. Hehe. Was I, Brij???

 

 

Spring Flowers for #NAILLINKUP

This is my design for the SPRING FLOWERS theme of the N.A.I.L. Linkup!  The colors I chose are a bit more intense than the usual spring pastels.  But then again, it doesn’t feel like spring yet in NY!  It was kinda nice out yesterday, but today is like brrrrr.

BASE COLOR ♥ I Love Nail Polish – Grape Alicious

STAMPING NAIL POLISH ♥ AVON Mirror – Blaze

STAMPING PLATE ♥ MoYou London – Pro Collection 04

RHINESTONES ♥ magenta gems from Sally’s Beauty Supply

ACCENT NAIL GLITTER ♥ Sinful Colors – Star Dust

NAILLINKUP Spring Flowers –

Absinthe Fever

If I was able to wear only ONE nail polish for the rest of my life what would it be?  A thermal! It’s almost like cheating cuz it’s multiple colors in one. Today’s indie nail polish is no exception!  I’m wearing Absinthe Fever that I picked up from my fellow blogger’s shop: Polish Alcoholic. Shown here is one basecoat, three coats of Absinthe Fever, and one coat of seche topcoat.

Absinthe Fever is dark green when cold, and light green when warm.  Even though it transforms between two different colors (like most thermals), I swear- there’s 4 colors in there!!  Sometimes the dark green looks like a bright forest green and other times it looks like a deep dusty teal like in my collage pic.  And when it’s warm it turns an electric spring green, but sometimes it looks more muted like a chartreuse.  I can’t tell if it just seems that way due to different lighting conditions, or if it really turns 4 colors.  I dunno, but me likey!

As you can see, I’ve got VNL after three coats… I know some people don’t like visible nail line.  But VNL has always been fine with me, especially with a jelly finish like this one.  Absinthe Fever is so freakin cool!  I also made sure to wear my Christian LaCroix Absynthe perfume yesterday and today so I’m all matchy-matchy.  I’m purely intoxicating, everyone!

Polish Alcoholic sells a bunch of other fun specialty polishes too like Mermaid of Log Ness (thermal) and Gold Digger (gold leaf topper).  Or check them all out here at her etsy shop: Polish Alcoholic

Thermal Valentines nails for #NAILLINKUP

I’ve done a bunch of valentines nails so far this year, but I had to squeeze in another for our February Nail Art Ideas Linkup (more info on N.A.I.L. right here)! To make it sexy for the holiday I wanted to incorporate some red, a thermal heat-activated polish, and some hearts!  The two main polishes I used here are Nicole by OPI Challenge Red-y and Black Sheep Lacquer Enter Sandman.  I also did a white accent nail with a red heart outlined with black dots.  The black dots make it look like a digital 8-bit heart!  I really like it!

The thermal polish that I used over all the red nails, even over the white ones, is a translucent light grey color called Enter Sandman.  It’s a thermal topper by Black Sheep Lacquer which is supposed to transform your base color and give it a black thermal effect.  I didn’t get too much thermal effect in my pics though, sorry.  It’s been so cold here in NY (huge snow storm in effect as I write this)!  However, I did notice more thermal action during my kickboxing class yesterday when I was nice n warm (that’s a nice way of saying ‘dripping with sweat’)!  I love the vampiness of this color combo.  The red Nicole by OPI polish with the indie thermal on top looks really hot!  Even the thermal over the white looks kinda cool!  It has a grey faded newspaper look.

If you wanna see the other valentines manis for the N.A.I.L. Linkup then here are the links.  They’re open for the whole month of feb if you’d like to enter your nails too…

FEBRUARY 2014

Red :

Valentines Day :

Gradient :

Glitter :

Red nail polish from Brijits Digits for #NAILLINKUP

Week one of the February N.A.I.L. Linkup is all about RED.  Well, I have a gorgeous red indie from Brijits Digits Boutique!  This one is called Yowl and it’s a semi-matte.  You may have seen it before when I wore it with topcoat to make it high gloss (here on my facebook page), but this time I’m wearing Yowl in all it’s glorious semi-matteness….

Shown here is three coats of Yowl without topcoat.  It has a semi-matte finish so you can see how silky it is.  I love how the light just skims over the surface of the polish and gives it a softened glow.  It dries fast too!

Yowl would be described as brick or burnt red but it also has a secret shimmer which is so pretty up close….

Now on to the nail art segment of this post 😉 !!  I went for something super simple since I haven’t been groovin’ on complicated nail art lately.  I wanna keep it quick and easy today.  So for this next design I used a black skinny striper polish from L.A. Colors to make little hearts.  I also did some tiny dots on my accent nail which look so 3D & textured against the smooth finish of the polish.

Yowl is such a great polish…. it’s actually part of Brijit’s semi-matte collection.  She has 4 in total listed here-

Yowl

Catcall cool pink with slight blue shimmer

Stone Circle dark blue-ish grey cream

Soft Grey pale grey cream

I’m loving red nails for February!  Are you?

I hope I see more red for the NAIL LINKUP.  Here are the inlinkz…

Red :

Enchanted Polish

A few weeks ago I got my first ever bottles of Enchanted Polish (from nailpolishcanada).  They’re both duochromes.  One is a holo called The Youth (I didn’t know holo duochromes even existed until now!) and a glitter called Hello New York.  I’ve swatched both and also did some gradient nail art with each.  Behold!

THE YOUTH-

The Youth is a light green holo that shifts between mint green, icy blue and sometimes even purple.  Shown here is one base coat, three coats of The Youth, and seche vite topcoat.  It’s gorgeous!

Here’s The Youth‘s duochrome effects…

How about some simple nail art with this?  Here’s The Youth with some black China Glaze sponged onto the tips.  The results are a stunning black & holo gradient!

HELLO NEW YORK-

Hello New York is a glitter!  It’s so glam and absolutely shines of gold and green!  I think it’s meant to be a glitter topper but I had to try it on it’s own.  Below is one coat of Essence peel-off base coat, 4 coats of Hello New York and one coat of seche vite topcoat…..

Sometimes it’s yellow and sometimes it’s green.  Here’s two different views of it…

Hello New York looks so hot layered over black too!  Check out my simple glitter gradient…

The formula was great on these…I definitely want more Enchanted Polish!  They’re so full of special effects!  Like WOW!  But I heard Enchanted is hard to get your hands on and it sells out quickly.

What do you think of this brand?