Tag Archives: valley girl lacquer

August Nails

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In August I was a bit of a slacker in the nail art department.  I ended up wearing a lot of neon polish,.  I was feeling that summer-is-coming-to-and-end crunch, and I felt like I needed to squeeze in as much obnoxiously bright polish as possible.

IMG_5262I found a little bottle of China Glaze – Celtic Sun for $2.49 at Sally Beauty Supply, so I finally added this one to my collection.  Although I have a few neon yellows, this is truly the brightest of the bunch.  This polish will definitely get you noticed, if that’s your goal.

IMG_5195I enjoyed adding some shimmery toppers to my neon polish, too.  Here is an unnamed Sally Girl light neon pink that is really similar to China Glaze – Shocking Pink topped with Valley Girl Lacquer – Profundity.  I opted for a matte top coat, too.

Valley Girl Lacquer is an indie polish shop on Etsy.  She’s got some really  cute polishes.  Check out her shop! (By the way, I don’t have any relationship with Valley Girl Lacquer; I was just given some of her polishes as a Christmas gift by my sis.)

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Here is Orly – Fireball topped with Valley Girl Lacquer – Enigma.  Fireball is a beautiful neon red with a blue shimmer in it.  Unfortunately, the blue shimmer didn’t really show up on the nail as well as it did in the bottle.  Fortunately, I had Enigma on hand, so I added my own shimmer!

IMG_5151I also had some fun with glitter in August.  Here’s a gradient I did using LA Girl Color Pop – Rebel over my natural nail.  I’ve only ever seen the LA Girl Color Pop polishes at Rite Aid, and they are pretty inexpensive.  They are often on sale for two for $4.

IMG_5159While I was wearing this glitter gradient, I was given two of the Essie Silk Watercolor polishes.  Since I was pretty much dreading removing this glitter, I opted to make it last a little longer by topping it with the Essie polishes.  The purple color is No Shrinking Violet and the teal is Pen and Inky.  So fun and shiny and squishy!

IMG_5285I did actually do one bit of legitimate nail art in August.  After all of the bright colors, I felt I needed something a little more subdued, and it had been ages since I had done some simple, classic leopard print nails.  Leopard print is really so easy and takes very little skill.  After applying my base color, I just used the brush of the metalic-y bronze-y brown polish to make my spots.  Then I used a little dotting tool to quasi outline the spots in black. (A toothpick would work just fine for this step.)  Then I filled in any extra spaces with black dots or “C” shapes.  It looks way more complicated than it actually is.

Just a little aside:  This pattern is sometimes referred to as cheetah print, but if you look at actual cheetahs, you’ll notice that they just have regular black spots.  Leopards are the ones who have this circular type pattern.

So, that’s what happened on my nails in August!  My next post is going to be non-nail stuff.  Through influenster.com, I was sent some products to review, so I’ll be covering those items next.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering… I’m not tackling the 31 Day Challenge this September. I just knew that with some of the other things in life that I have coming up this month, I wouldn’t be able to do it justice.  I love checking out what other nail art lovers are doing for #31dc2015, and I’m a little sad not to be joining in.  Maybe next year.

Thanks for reading!

What Black Undies Can Do For You

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Did you ever buy a polish that you couldn’t really tell in the bottle what it would look like on the nail, but you were sure it would be cool?  Then you tried it and it didn’t rock your world like you thought it would.  I’ve definitely done this a lot of times.   One thing I have discovered is that a lot of these types of polishes take on a whole new life when you put them over black polish.

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Let’s look at each of these starting with…

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These polishes are from Valley Girl Lacquer, and indie polish company.  Here’s the link to their etsy shop.  The polishes from left to right are Profundity, Enigma, and Conundrum. These were actually a gift from my little sis.  When I got them, I thought they pretty much looked the same in the bottle.  My sis assured me that according to the pictures online, they would look awesome over black. And do they ever!  They are all duo-chrome-ish to some degree.  Enigma has the strongest 2-color appearance, as it reflects a really strong purple from some angles.

The middle chunk of polishes I have for you is a little less exciting.

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From left to right: Sally Hansen – Disco Ball, Sephora by OPI – Hollywood if I Could, Nicole by OPI – Heavenly Angel, Zoya – Monet, Loreal –  The True Daimond.

None of these are really earth-shattering.  I guess the thing I want to point out is that all of these colors give a nice mellow sparkle to any lighter color, but when you put them over black, it’s like POW!

Here are the next two:

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They are Orly – Sky Blue-Pink and Sally Hansen Lustre Shine – Moonstone.  Yeah, I don’t know why it’s called Sky Blue-Pink either, because it definitely gives off a copper color.  When either of these are worn on their own, they really just look like a pearly nude polish.  Nice, but super subtle.  One coat over black gives a totally different look!  As I said, the Orly polish gives a really strong copper color, and Moonstone turns into a really cool pink-purple-blue-green multi-chrome.

My last one is the most amazing:

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This is Fresh Paint – Sugar Crush.  This is what’s generally called a flaky topper.  (I hate that name, but if that’s what everyone else wants to call these polishes, I guess it’s not in my power to change it. )  Flaky polishes can sort of look like glitter toppers at first glance, but they are just different, and you can tell when you apply them.  Flaky Polishes are packed with tiny duo-chrome little bits that apply really nicely and evenly to the nail.  They can seem a little like a holographic shredded glitter polish like Nicole by OPI – Heavenly Angel, but the application is really different.  A shredded glitter topper behaves like any other chunky glitter topper: it’s a little hard to apply and can take some dabbing and finagling to get even application.  Flaky polishes apply much more easily.

When I first got this, I swatched it over a neon coral, white, and black:

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(These are actually my sister’s fingers.)  As you can see, over the lighter colors, the effect is pleasant, but not amazing.  I still remember when we were doing the swatches and I painted this polish over the black, both my sister and I were like, “Whoa!”   Ever since I got this polish, I’ve been waiting for October to roll around so I could wear it over black.

Okay folks, that’s it for today.  Thanks for reading, commenting, and liking.  It means a lot!

Jelly Sandwich Time!

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Jelly sandwiches are not really a new thing in the nail polish world, but I run into enough people who give me a blank stare when I use the term that I thought it warranted a post.  A jelly sandwich is a layer of glitter that is sandwiched between a few layer of a jelly polish. 

What is a jelly polish, you ask?  Thank you for asking.  A jelly polish is a sheer, colored polish that generally looks like a Jolly Rancher when it dries on your nail – colored, but still see-through and really shiny.  The appearance of wet jelly polish always reminds me of the paint you used to paint those plastic faux stained glass sun-catcher things as a kid.  Do you know what I’m talking about? 

Sometimes polish brands will release a collection of jellies, but I think most lines of polish have a few jellies in the mix already.  Sometimes you can tell a polish is a jelly just by looking at it in the bottle, but the best way to tell is to open up the bottle and look at the polish on the brush and around the neck of the bottle.  If you can see through it easily, you’ve got a jelly.  If you can just sort of see through it, you may have a “crelly” on your hands.

A crelly is somewhere between a cream polish and a jelly.  (I feel like it’s a dumb word, and I avoid using it if possible, but really, there’s no other word to describe polishes like this.)  Have you seen those glitter polishes that are in a light colored, milky sort of base?  That’s  a crelly base.  Crellies work well for jelly sandwiches too. 

Here is the first jelly sandwich I ever attempted:

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Eh, it turned out okay.  I didn’t love it.  This was with a sheer nude polish from Avon called Barely There that I’ve had forever.  I would call this one a crelly.  The glitter polish I used is Fantasm from Valley Girl Lacquer.   (Valley Girl Lacquer is an indie polish company.  Check out their etsy shop.  They have some awesome glitter polishes!)

Just for reference, here’s what Fantasm looks like over black:

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you can definitely see how when you sandwich the glitter between the layers of “jelly” how it mutes the glitter effect. 

Here’s another jelly sandwich that I did using Fantasm and a purple limited edition polish called Deception from Wet n Wild.  I love this purple, and I’m sorry you can’t get it anymore. 

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I LOVED this manicure! Deception is so sheer that I think I used 2-3 coats of polish under the layer of glitter and then another 2-3 coats over the glitter, but gosh it was beautiful!  The way the glitter reflected light through the polish made my heart so happy. 

Here’s one final jelly sandwich:

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This is using Wet n Wild Megalast Bubblegum Pop and China Glaze Glitter Up.  (This Wet n Wild color is exclusive to Dollar General / Family Dollar as far as I know.)  This one I medium liked.  This pink is really fun but really… pink.

What are your thoughts about jelly sandwiches?  What are your favorite jelly polishes?