Goldfish Kiss and Zoya Nail Polish

Image via Goldfish Kiss

Beach-Themed Nails

Just because it's almost winter, doesn't mean we can't enjoy the beach!. What do we like to do when we want to pretend to have thr warm sun beating down our back? Head to Goldfish Kiss where blogger Rebekah Steen is livin' the life and showing off her creativity in so many ways. Her most recent post, a coral themed mani using Zoya PixieDust in Dhara with an accent of Zoya Nail Polish in Flynn (left). 

Check out her tropical nail-look below - because what's a day at the beach without an amazing pedi? Zoya Nail Polish in Neve and tiny pineapples with Zoya Nail Polish in Flynn (below). She gives a full how-to on the look here.

"The pineapple. A symbol of hospitality, warmth, and kindness. It’s also my favorite fruit to eat, even though it’s a total beeyotch to cut up.
So, I figured…time to make some warm, hospitable, and tasty piña toes." - Rebekah Steen

Image via Goldfish Kiss

We know what you're thinking. Life's a beach!  Make your own tropical nail art in the midst of fall/winter with more shades from the Zoya Fall Collections!

ZOYA IS THE NEW COLOR OF FASHION!

 www.zoya.com

Review: MoYou-London Christmas 01 (and how to use collage-style plates)

Hello!

Have you heard of MoYou-London's stamping plates?

I'm pretty sure you have, because they've been getting a bit of exposure lately, and they're awesome. I was just able to place my first order of MoYou-London plates, and I wiped out my Christmas present money doing so, before I even got it.

But I don't regret it. I love the style of so many of the images, but more than that, I adore the innovative direction they're taking with their plates--by creating a wide variety of what I'm calling 'collage-style' plates.

Before I say more, here is the video I made of Christmas 01, from their Festive collection; I talk more in the video about the ways I think these plates can be used and why I love them so much:

Okay, so, now back to why I think the collage-style plates are the next new direction in stamping. When you first look at them, especially if you're fairly new to stamping, I think they can be wildly intimidating, so I want to walk you through some reasons why you should love them and pet them and kiss them and hug them. Wait, that's kittens. But you get my point.



Here is what the plate looks like:

And a little closer up:

Scary, right? It's okay, I know what you're thinking. Yeah, that's cute and all, but it's not like I can get the collage onto my fingertips. That gingerbread house wouldn't fit on my whole hand! How could that possibly be useful??

I would like to convince you that not only is this just as useable as a regular plate, it actually offers you a bunch more possibilities than a regular plate. The main skill you need to use this style of plate effectively, other than just the basic scrape-and-stamp skill,  is the ability to isolate images. I have a tutorial on how to isolate images that you can find here. I have that tutorial condensed into a single image here. And if you'd like to see my tips on aligning stamps you can find them by clicking here.


So what can you do with them? Among other things you can:

1) Isolate images, for example, those cute little presents up there, or that adorable little gingerbread guy.

2) Build scenes that are in perfect proportion, for example, have Santa and his reindeer flying across your nails, or have a snowman at the north pole scene.

3) Select areas of the collage for full-nail patterns, for example, the stars in the sky or the trees on the gingerbread house.

4) Select areas of the plate to stamp that have two images and create a patchwork look in a single easy stamp; for example, you could stamp the area of the house that has the snowflakes and the chevrons for one nail, the trees and the chevrons for another, etc.

5) In the case of this plate, you can use the border to make candy-cane stripes across your nails (how cute would that be for French tips?!):

Different collage plates have different opportunities for play, but you get the idea. And I'm sure there are tons more besides these.

What's that you say? That it sounds good in theory, but you don't believe it can actually happen? Well, let's take a look at two looks I threw together quickly for you. I literally threw some stamping over the polish I was wearing (Shirley Ann Nail Lacquer Not Your Mama's Cranberry Sauce) in a few minutes, so imagine what you could do if you were being careful, lol... :)

For the first look I did a simple stamp with China Glaze Passion (a gold polish), using the image from the center of the Christmas tree. This one took under a minute to stamp, no lie:

As you can see, in my hurry, I actually picked up my image too closely to the edge of the tree--there was plenty of room for me to have avoided that--and I got tree edge on my nails. However, as you can also see, it really didn't make too much of a difference, and next time I'll just be a bit more careful. :)

For the next look, I first used the snowflake images (the ones above the reindeer on the plate), and then stamped Santa and his reindeer over them. Notice that there isn't enough area where the snowflakes are to get a single image of them that will cover the whole nail; so I had to stamp each nail twice to cover them. Too much work, you say? It still took me only about 3 minutes to do the entire manicure:

(As you can tell from the index finger, I initially tried stamping Santa and his deers in gold, but it didn't show up very well...grrr...)

So there you go, two fun, cute manicures in no time flat!

The moral of the story is, don't let these collage-style plates frighten you away. If you can do even just basic stamping and you can use my technique for isolating an image, you can do tremendously cool things with these plates. And of course, if there are any questions you have about them or any tutorials you want me to do with them, let me know. :)

I hope you've enjoyed this, and that I've taken at least a little fear out of these sorts of images for you. :)

Hugs and love,
M.

(The plate in this review was purchased with my own money.)

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah!

I'm currently spending time with my family, but I wanted to show you my Thanksgiving and Hanukkah manis!  I'm not Jewish and don't celebrate Hanukkah, but I wanted to do a mani to say Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate it!  Get ready for a crap ton of pictures!

First, for my Thanksgiving mani, I did a jelly sandwich using one of Lynnderella's Thanksgiving Twinset polishes Punkkin Pie in between layers of Colors by Llarowe Coconut.  Then, I attempted a pond mani using stamps from Red Angel plate 121 sandwiched in CbL Coconut and Elevation Polish Cascade.  For stamping, I used Essie Good as Gold, Essie Penny Talk, and China Glaze Passion.

The idea in my head was lacking in execution.  Coconut is technically a jelly, but it's a bit too opaque for jelly sandwiches and pond manis, unless you're using super beyond sheer layers, which I even attempted to do. Cascade was a perfect polish to work with as it wasn't too thick, streaky, or hard to handle.  It also handled the pond mani quite well!  

All of the polishes I used for stamping are metallics, so they stamped really well with great image pickup and transfer.  The Essie Mirror Metallic collection is my go-to non-Konad special polish for stamping.

Punkkin was a bit of a surprise because it has a bit of a yellowish tint to the base, which comes out strongly since I used it over and under white.  Like most Lynns it's a thick glitterbomb packed to the gills with all sorts of colors, sizes, and shapes of glitters including some really sweet hearts!  It definitely requires the dab method, but almost all of her gorgeous polishes do, so I'm used to it.  You can get Colors by Llarowe at Llarowe's shop, Elevation at her store, Lynnderella at her store, Essie and China Glaze at Beauty Supply stores and drug stores, and Red Angel plates on Amazon.

Next is my Hanukkah mani!  Let's take a look at Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Ma'oz Tzur by Candlelight, which is a black polish with a purple flash and a rainbow of micro-flakies.  I wanted to go with a nontraditional color combination that wasn't the normal silver and blue you usually see for Hanukkah.  Ma'oz Tzur is a liturgical poem traditionally sung during Hanukkah after lighting the festival of lights.  The thought behind this color scheme is to capture the flickering of lights in the darkness.  This is two coats with one coat of Gelous and one coat of KBShimmer's Clearly on Top.

Dry time is typical, and it goes on smoothly without clumping despite being packed full of pigments.  Ma'oz Tzur by Candlelight is a limited edition from my Holiday Limited Edition Collection and is currently up on my store right now.  Don't forget, I'm having sales all weekend, and Ma'oz Tzur will be a part of that sale!

So, what do you have on your nails for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah?  I hope everyone who celebrates has  happy and safe holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble Gobble

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving from the Zoya Fairies! Hope you enjoy your day of food, family and fun! 

ZOYA IS THE NEW COLOR OF FASHION!
www.zoya.com

Review: Shirley Ann Nail Lacquers

Hello!

I promised I'd be back late tonight (early today?) with an Indie review, and here I be. :)

Once upon a time, I attended an event designed to raise awareness of local, independent polish makers. It was a beautiful, almost mystical day, filled with lovely surprises...and Shirley Ann Nail Lacquers was one of them. I snapped up at least 4 of her polishes, and I've already shown you one or two of them. Today I will show you two others that I bought that day, plus two that I've been lucky enough to receive for review.

Let's start with the understated elegance of Wedded Bliss, a glitter topper that Cherish made to celebrate her (then) upcoming wedding, and filled with her wedding colors. This is an ethereal blend of soft yellow, white, and gray glitters in a variety of shapes and sizes, with a little iridescence to give off a touch of light:

Shirly Ann Nail Lacquers Wedded Bliss over Barielle No Not Now

When I saw this polish, it looked to me like someone had taken a dandelion and blown it into the wind just as someone else was tossing he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not daisy petals into the air. It's soft, it's romantic, it's sweet without being cloying. I see little girls in white dresses on a bright spring day. Because it's fall, I layered this over a nude; when spring and summer come, I'll be putting it over blues and greens and oranges.

The formula on the polish is excellent. This is brushed on, no dabbing needed to get a pretty, even effect. However, if I had wanted more of the circles, say, I would have used a bit of fishing to make sure that was even.


Next up is one of the non-glitter polishes in her line, Candy-Coated Poison. This is a blue-silver metallic with a touch of gold-green color shift to it:

Shirley Ann Nail Lacquers Candy-Coated Poison

The formula on this was again wonderful--it went on beautifully and evened perfectly over the two coats I show here with no effort. I love the unique color here, and I think it's a beautiful polish for winter--it has a magical snow-scape feel to it that is lovely on its own or would work very well as a base for winter nail art. I think it would be a beautiful Hanukkah color, as well. Plus...I love that she let her little nephew name it. How cool is that?


Back in the realm of her glitter toppers, we have Knot-Knot, a vibrant mix of pinky-purple and blue-purple glitters in a variety of shapes and sizes, all floating in a sea of teeny holographic glitter:

Shirley Ann Nail Lacquers Knot-Knot over Julep Lola

This polish was so frustrating to photograph, because it's so hard to capture the dance of the holographic glitter in a still picture; so please forgive the large number of pictures here. I've tried to give you a feel for the different colors and the light that they throw in the blurred pictures; when my indoor light played with this polish over the blue base, it looked like a brilliant night sky. Even when the light doesn't make this shine, the colors in it are vibrant and eye-catching.

The formula on this was excellent; it bushed on well, but I did do some dabbing so that I could get a nice mix of colors and shapes on each nail. Nothing out of the ordinary for a glitter topper, however; it was forgiving and easy to work with. :)


I have purposefully left my favorite for last; I give you an instant addition to my favorite-holiday-polishes list--Not Your Mama's Cranberry Sauce:

Shirley Ann Nail Lacquer Not Your Mama's Cranberry Sauce

 

 

NYMCS is a blood-cranberry red jelly with gold holographic hexes in a variety of small sizes. I tend to have issues with jellies, but I had absolutely no problems with this. It applied beautifully, evened well, and the glitter laid out evenly with no stress. I have three coats here, but you likely won't need three--when I took pictures of it, it showed a little more translucent than it really is, and that white ding spot on my middle finger showed up, so I put on three coats to show you what it really looks like. On my other hand, I'm still wearing only two coats, and it looks beautiful. Three coats does make the red a little darker, and I like it that way, so I'll add another coat before I sit down to Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, I had intended to wear a different mani, but once I put this on, I knew it had to stay on.

This is another polish where the holographic effect to the glitter is hard to capture--especially with indoor lighting, lights from the holographic glitter dance across your nails. In any holiday gathering this is going to glimmer and catch the eye, like the flicker of little flames. The blurred picture gives you a bit of a sense, but still can't capture the beauty of this polish when the light plays with it. I adore this polish, and I intend to buy a full bottle of it at the first opportunity. Maybe even a back-up.

Speaking of opportunities to buy...I wanted to get this posted today, in time to notify you about the amazing Black Friday sale Cherish is having. This line is extremely affordable to start with--full-sized bottles go for only $6--but during the Black Friday weekend (through Cyber Monday), Cherish is having a buy-one-get-one free sale! Translation: THREE dollars per bottle (with a limit of three free bottles). Plus, if you buy more than $15, you get free shipping. That is by far the best deal on indie polish I've heard of, ever, in all my time blogging. To get the BOGO deal, purchase your polish, and tell her in the comment section which polish(es) you'd like for free. She hasn't announced the code for the shipping yet, so make sure you get that before you checkout.

So, come Friday, run--do not walk--over to the Shirley Ann Nail Lacquer Etsy Shop and take advantage of these deals. She says she will also be having other flash sales, so watch her Facebook page for more information on that.

I don't often tell you that things are a 'must have' or 'you can't miss this!'. But come on, passing up beautiful indie polishes that are on sale for $3 per bottle just doesn't make sense. You can bet I'll be there getting my full bottle of NYMCS, and more. :)

Now go have a great Thanksgiving dinner, so you can have the energy you need to grab that polish!

Wishing all of us a beautiful Thanksgiving day filled with true gratitude for all the blessings in our lives,

M.