Oxygen Bar Just Blue Me Away!

Hello Lacquer Luvers! As promised, I have my first Valentine's Day mani to share with you guys today. Before I get into it, I just want to say THANK YOU to each and every one of you! LuvMyLacquer hit 1,000 followers this weekend and I am still over-the-moon with excitement about that! You all have been so supportive since day one and I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate you for joining me on my blogging journey and having me as part of this amazing community. 

Today's manicure is a little unconventional when it comes to the Valentine's Day theme. It's not your typical pink, red and white manicure but it sure is cutesy and would be great to wear on the day for lovers, don't you think? Let me share with you how I achieved this look. 

This manicure began with two coats each of Essie Play Date and Bettina 190. The formula for both of these polishes is really nice. They went on smoothly and had a high gloss finish without a topcoat. I chose these colors to play up the fabulous glitter I used, Loaded Lacquer Oxygen Bar. Oxygen Bar is described as matte neon pink, matte neon blue, metallic purple, holographic lavender and periwinkle hex and squares in multiple sizes. I love everything about this polish. The neon glitters are incredibly eye catching while the periwinkle glitter lends a softer feel and the tiny holographic glitter keeps it playful.

These stamping decals were created with Pueen43, Cult Nails Tempest, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!, & China Glaze Gothic Lolita. I applied a coat of Orly Prisma Gloss Silver because..well, one could never have too much holo sparkliness, right? I sealed all of cuteness in with a coat of my favorite glossy topcoat, HKGirl, and voilà!

Do you all love this mani as much as I do? I just love the glitter in Oxygen Bar and it was a great inspiration for this look. Did you know that you have a chance of winning this polish and lots more goodies by entering my Fan Appreciation Giveaway? Are there any looks you'd like to see from me for Valentine's Day? As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica

31DC2013 Day 7 - B&W Nails

Hello Lacquer Luvers! Today is Day 7 of the 31 Day Challenge and I have some awesome black & white nails to share with you all. Black and white has been really big in fashion this year so it's no wonder it made it on the list fir the challenge. Afterall, nails are very much a part of fashion, right?

My black and white manicure began with a base of Essie Feed Me followed by 1 coat of Cult Nails Tempest on my pinky & index fingers and 3 coats of China Glaze Recycle on the rest of my nails. I then used a makeup sponge to create gradients using Tempest and Recycle on my pinky and index and Recycle and Finger Paints Black Expressionism on the other nails. 

I used my PUEEN16 image plate and my Konad Special Stamping Polish in White & Black to stamp on this really cool asymmetrical design. I also alternated the stamp upside down on a few nails to make it even more random. This mani was complete with a coat of HKGIRL topcoat. (The smudge on my index finger was a result of my brush slipping during clean up, not the topcoat.)

I'm really enjoying this challenge and hope that you all like what I've been coming up with the past week. Here's a collage of Week 1's manicures, which is your favorite? As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica

31DC2013 Day 6 - Violet Nails

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I'll be catching up on my Day 6 & 7 nails today. I really love the way my Violet Nails turned out so let's just get to it!

Reaching for my untrieds again, I grabbed Illamasqua Jo'Mina. Jo'Mina is described as an electric lilac. She is bright, creamy, and absolutely glorious. Application was dreamy..seriously. I had no clean up to do when applying this beauty and she was completely opaque in two easy coats. Love!

I applied Cult Nails Tempest to my index, pinky, and thumb. Tempest is my most favorite white. It's a true one coater and if you do your nails often you know how hard that is to come across with white! Now that my base colors were down, it was time for nail art. 

My violet skittlette is a mix of stamping and striping tape nail art. I used striping tape and Jo'Mina to create the diagonal lunes on my pinky and stamped the rest of my nails as follows: ring finger - Pueen27, middle finger - Konad M79, index finger - Konad M78, thumb - Konad M79 (not pictured but it's the polka dot image on that plate). For the stamping I used Konad Special Stamping Polish in White & Illamasqua Jo'Mina mixed with KleanColor True Purple. I used a very old pink shimmery sheer polish by Jordana called Girls Night Out over all of my nails. My manicure was complete with a coat of HKGIRL topcoat.

I purchased a few Illamasqua polishes a few months ago and cannot wait to try the rest now that I've tried Jo'Mina and fell in love with her. I wish I could find more bottles of Girls Night Out or something similar. If you know of a dupe please please please let me know in the comments below. As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica

Minnie Mouse Mani & Stamping Plate Review

Hello Lacquer Luvers! Today I have another review and a super cute mani to share with you! For today's mani you will see that I "recycled" part of yesterday's manicure. As I mentioned yesterday, I was sent another item to review from BornPrettyStore, the RuiZ03 stamping plate:

I've always wanted to do a Mickey and Minnie Mouse manicure after seeing Holy Manicures masterpiece a good while ago. Isn't that adorable?! I wanted to do a twist on the normal red/black/white Minnie mani that you normally think of. I was inspired by this picture:

As stated above, I recycled part of yesterday's mani, my ring finger. I removed polish from the rest of my nails and proceeded to begin with a base of Essie Feed Me. I applied two coats of Bettina Vintage to my pinky and middle fingers, 3 coats of Zoya Darcy to my index and 3 coats of L'Oreal Miss Pixie on my thumb. Miss Pixie was a gift from the lovely Keisha of refinedandpolished.com and is part of the Limited Edition Miss Candy collection which includes 8 jellies! Oh, I can't even tell you how excited I was to see that in a very sweet and thoughtful package from her.

The stamping was done with Konad Special Stamping Polish in white along with the images found on stamping plate RuiZ03. I tested these images on paper before applying them to my nails. Each image on the plate is etched perfectly and I had no issues transferring them to my nail art stamper and on to my nails.

I used a makeup sponge and Shimmer Julia on my middle finger. On my thumb I applied one coat of OPI's Pirouette My Whistle followed by another coat of Miss Pixie. I completed my mani with a coat of Essie Good To Go.

This cobalt blue jelly that is Miss Pixie is to die for!

Overall, I really really adore this manicure! It makes me want to start planning a trip to Disney with the kids. I love that it's not your traditional Minnie Mouse colors and the 3D bow went perfectly with my inspiration photo. The RuiZ03 plate from BornPrettyStore is made perfectly and I would definitely recommend it to anybody who isn't great at freehand like myself. Remember that if you do purchase this plate, you can receive 10% off your total order at BornPrettyStore by using the unique code on the right of my blog! As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica    

3D Polka Dot Bow Review for BornPrettyStore

Hello Lacquer Luvers! Today's post is a review for the 3D Polka Dot Bow from BornPrettyStore. I have been wanting to try a 3D accent nail for a while now but have never gotten around to getting a set. When BPS contacted me to review for them I was really excited! I have long been a customer of their site and always check out the new things they have to offer.

Front of 3D bow packaging

Back of 3D bow packaging

I decided to go with a skittlette to review these since there were only 9 of them and I want to use these again for another mani I have planned. I began with a base of Essie Feed Me followed by a coat of Cult Nails Tempest on my ring, middle, and thumb nails and two coats of Bettina Vintage on my pinky, index, & thumb nails.

After applying a coat of Essie Good To Go to my ring finger, I carefully picked up the 3D polka dot bow with tweezers and applied it to my nail. The packaging says to use glue to adhere it but since these are my natural nails I didn't want to chance ruining them with glue. However, if you wear acrylic or gel enhancements or overlays, glue would be perfect to adhere your 3D bow.

I proceeded to use a variety of stamps for my skittlette once the bow was adhered and the top coat dried. For the white stamping I used Konad Special Stamping polish in white. The blue stamping is Bettina Vintage. On my pinky is Konad M79, middle is Konad M71, & Cheeky CH11 is on my index finger.

Overall, I really like these bows. I was hesitant to try 3D art because I thought that they would fall off easily or snag on everything. I'm typing up this post 4 hours after completing this mani and the bow is still in tact and hasn't gotten caught on anything. I love the polka dots on these, so cute!

The kind people at BornPrettyStore were nice enough to share a unique code with me just for my followers. You guys can purchase these or any other item at BornPrettyStore.com and receive 10% off your total order using the code UKL91 (click on the coupon code on the right to go directly to their site)! BornPrettyStore always offers FREE worldwide shipping and usually takes 3-5 weeks for your items to arrive. I can't wait to show you guys the other item I have to review from BPS! As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

~Jessica