Share the Love Giveaway Prize 3: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer You are NOT Alone

Well, time to show you guys my last prize for the Share the Love Giveaway!  Remember, you can enter here for a chance to win lots of amazing things from lots of amazing bloggers.  In fact, more bloggers have been added to the giveaway, so the odds are better for you to win!

Source

Heh, sorry.  Oods are just cool.

ANYWAY, back on topic!  You are NOT Alone was a polish I made as sort of a nod to battling depression.  I've discussed this many times, but I suffer from severe clinical depression and anxiety disorder. It's something I'm very open about because I find that telling my story has helped others realize that they aren't suffering alone.  Sometimes, that's a very hard fact to remember.  If you ever feel alone and would like someone to talk to, my email is always open.  Enough of the serious stuff, let's get to the pretties!

Since this is a polish I made, I'm not going to do a normal review.  Instead, I'll try to showcase this bad boy in a few different ways.  You are NOT Alone is a milky pink based polish chock full of pink and copper shimmer, pale pink and gold hexes in various sizes, pink and gold holo hexes, lime-gold squares, pale pink circle glitters, holo pink butterflies, and holo gold stars.  The large glitters are actually really easy to get out of the mini bottle, which is why you're able to see so many in my swatches.  They came out easily and spread well.

In this first picture, I have YANA with one coat alone on my thumb, three coats alone on my index and middle fingers, one coat over OPI My First Knockwurst on my ring finger, and one thick coat over Deborah Lippmann Dancing in the Sheets on my pinkie.

Here are closeups.

One layer alone.

Three layers alone.

One layer over My First Knockwurst.

One layer over DL Dancing in the Sheets.

Next, take a look at one coat of YANA over five (yes, you read that right...) coats of Essie Pink-a-boo.  I'll have a review of Pink-a-boo probably next week.

Lastly, you can check out swatches done by the lovely Lacey of My Boyfriend Hates Makeup.  So, there you have it!  As always, my lacquers are not for sale.  I make them as a hobby, but I try to share them with you guys when I can.  There is a possibility that I may sell a limited number of these polishes to help raise depression awareness with proceeds going to a research and awareness group (which I haven't really researched yet, so that's up in the air).  When and if I make that decision, I'll definitely let you guys know.

What's your favorite milky pink based polish?

Puuuuuurple!

I asked you guys what I color I should paint my nails today, and you guys said purple purple purple! While I am painting my nails purple (actually as I type this), I have another purple mani to show you guys tonight. Let's take a look at Hare Medusa Luminosa over my purple SOG mani.

Here's the purple gel I made for myself. I don't have any purple gels, so I mixed some up! It turned out really really well. Unfortunately, I dumped most of it on my cream carpet mid-manicure, so I didn't get the application right... It didn't last long on my nails, which sucks. I will say, though, that whoever first discovered using Windex to clean up polish spills on carpets is a GENIUS! Anyway, here's what I wore as undies for several of my purple manicures a few weeks ago.

Next, I topped it with Hare Medusa Luminosa. ML is a purple jelly based polish packed with tons of blue iridescent hexes and purple shimmer. It applied really well, but dried a little gritty, which was easily corrected with two coats of my top coat. 

It just glows!!! I seriously love this polish. 

Here's a macro shot. 

My camera wasn't really capturing the beauty of this polish, but I was able to get a decent one with my phone in the sunshine. Excuse the grainy quality of the photo. I haven't really figured out how to take decent pictures with my phone yet, lol. 

You can purchase Hare on Nikole's Etsy store or at Llarowe. Follow Hare Polish on Facebook for shop updates and news on new collections.

What's your favorite purple polish?

600 Facebook Likes, Whaaaaa?!

Thank you, everyone, for the push to 600 Facebook likes!  I'm so pleased to have you along for the ride.  Poke around and get a feel for the atmosphere here.  If you see something you like that you want to see more of, let me know!  If you don't see something that you'd like to see, let me know!  I try really hard to do a little bit of everything when it comes to nails, but I love to hear suggestions on what you'd like to see or what I can improve upon.

Well, since I promised a winner once I hit 600 Facebook likes, here we go!!!!  Congratulations Melody G.!!  You have one the jelly sandwich ingredients below!  I have pm'd you from my personal account, so please message me with your address within the next 48 hours.  Otherwise, I'll have to pick a new name, and we don't want that!  Thank you, everyone, for coming along for this journey.  I am truly humbled by your support!

I'm feeling a tad under the weather, so I'm just going to spam you with some pics.  Here are Elevation Marble Caves and Lynnderella Love Potion No. 99 over a purple gel I mixed myself.  The application on both was great.  They didn't last long, though, as I put them on over an intermediary base coat of glue.  I say intermediary because I typically use the glue between my SOGs and my regular nail polish.  It doesn't last very long with that method, though, so it's only really useful for swatching or for frequent polish changes.  Take a look and let me know what you think!

Lynns are available on her store here.  Elevations are available here.

Do you have any recommendations for things you'd like to see featured on the blog or things you like and want to see more of?

Franken Friday: Halloween Edition

The last Friday of every month is Franken Friday on the blog!  Today, I'm going to show you what I came up with for Halloween!  As a child, my sisters and I LOVED to watch Hocus Pocus.  Hell, I still love to watch it.  In fact, we loved it so much that we actually went as the Sanderson Sisters for Halloween three years ago!

I'm Mary. This is well before I started my weight loss journey.

I took colors that reminded me of the main characters and put them into polishes!  Without further ado, here they are!

Black Flame Candle, Fur Black as Black, Hollywood, Shish-ka-Baby, Circle of Salt, Je veux mon livre, Just Lucky I Guess, I Smell Children!, Mother!

Black Flame candle is pretty obvious.  It is a black based polish with gold/red duochrome, gold squares, and red, yellow, and orange hexes.

Fur Black as Black is a  mix of black and blue glitter in a clear base.  You know how sometimes black can be so deep that it looks blue?  That's what I thought of when I made this guy.  It builds into pretty full coverage but only with five coats or something ridiculous like that.  I have one coat on my pointer finger.

Hollywood is a blue linear holographic polish with blue shimmer, white, black, and gunmetal hexes.  I chose these colors because they are the colors of Max's shoes that were stolen by Jay and Ice.

Shish-ka-Baby is based off of Danny's Halloween costume.  It's a black jelly based polish with orange shimmer and green and orange hexes.  Unfortunately, the large green hexes are curling.  Well, more like tacoing.  I just ordered a matte replacement, but it's not as large, which is sad.

A Circle of Salt will protect you from zombies, witches, and old boyfriends.  Allison used this handy trick to protect the gang from the sisters.  It's a clear based polish with silver shimmer and three different sizes of white hexes.  My ring finger is a jelly sandwich with Circle of Salt and Elevation Sarychev.

Je veux mon livre is a sage green based polish with gold and green shimmer and purple hexes, squares, and shreds.  This is based on the baddest bad witch of them all, Winifred Sanderson!

Just Lucky I Guess is a fuchsia polish with pink and blue shimmer and light pink hearts, hexes, and shreds.  Sarah was always the heart breaker who lured the men and children in to their doom.

I Smell Children! is a ruby based polish with red shimmer, black, fuchsia, and purple hexes and purple squares.  This polish comes from sister Mary's flannel dress.  She sniffs out the children so the sisters can live and stay young forever.

Mother!  Sadly, this particular polish is chock full of tacoing glitter.  I have replacements for the green and purple, but I haven't found a replacement for the fuchsia yet.  Mother! is a clear based polish with fine black hexes, medium orange hexes, and large green, red, purple, and fuchsia hexes.  I took the colors that I identified most with each sister and combined them all into this polish.  I hope I can find replacements soon because it looks pretty cool.

And there they are!  What do you think?

Game-Day Nails: Vanderbilt and Florida Atlantic

Well, despite our seriously lackluster performance on Saturday, I still love my Dawgs.  I'm shocked that we're still in the top 25, much less ranked number 11.  That, ladies and sirs, is insane.  Anyway, I'm so far behind on my game-day nails that I have 2 of them for you today.  I didn't take pics of my nails from the South Carolina game since I kinda smudged them all up, which is a total shame because I had on OPI La Boheme.  I hate being in a rush when I paint my nails.  Ugh!

UGA v. Vanderbilt

I wore a franken that I made for the Vandy game.  I'm not a huge fan of it.  It's a ruby based polish with large black hexes, fine black hexes, red hexes, and holographic silver hexes.  I added way too many fine black hexes for my liking.  If anyone likes this polish and wants it, it's yours for the taking.  Just shoot me an email, lol.

Hunker Down Hairy Dawg! 

Macro shot of the bottle - it has promise...

See, too many fine black glitters.  Just too busy.

I love the holo silver hexes, but I definitely would take out 3/4 of the small black hexes.

UGA v. Florida Atlantic

This mani was one of my favorites!  I'm not very great at nail art, but I thought I would try the braided/fishtail trend that's been gaining popularity lately.  I used this tutorial:

The three polishes I chose to use were China Glaze TMI, Nfu Oh 61, and OPI My Private Jet.

Holy holographic!!!  I couldn't stop staring at my nails the entire day.  I even had guy friends compliment them!  Seriously one of my favorite game-day manis to date.  I think I could do a better job the next time I try a fishtail mani, as it takes a little bit of practice to get it down right.  

Check out a closeup in the sunshine.  I seriously love holo polishes!

Don't forget about my Halloween giveaway!  Check it out here!  Also, I'm looking forward to announcing another massive giveaway that I'm going to take part in with another blogger.  Stay tuned for that announcement, too!  I just love Halloween!!

Have you ever done a fishtail mani?  I'd love to see your pics on my Facebook page!