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

Stamping With 3 Purples (AIS Challenge)

Hello Lacquer Luvers! Today I have yet another stamping decal manicure to share with you all, surprise surprise! I'm telling you, this method of stamping is so addicting. It has made me think of my plates in ways I would've never imagined. It's so much fun experimenting with limitless colors rather than my normal black/white stamping. 

So, some of you might have read the title of this post and are wondering what AIS is. AIS, otherwise known as Adventures in Stamping, is a nail stamping group on Facebook. Every week we vote on a theme and everyone posts their mani's on Sunday's. If you have questions about stamping or just want a place to admire everyone else's work, AIS is perfect for you! This week the challenge was to stamp using three purples. Ok, so I used more than 3 for this manicure but that's okay, right? I mean, there isn't a such thing as too much purple is there?

My mani began with 2 coats each of Zoya Heather & Monica. While that dried, I began to make my stamping decal. I used Zoya Monica along with Winstonia plate W111. The colors I used to fill in the decal are Zoya Heather & Essie's Play Date and DJ Play That Song. Once I placed the decals on my accent fingers, I applied one coat of Lacquerhead Polish Space Cadet 2.0 to the rest of my nails. Space Cadet 2.0 can be described as a deep Purple jelly full of various sizes and shapes of purple and holographic glitter. Although this polish is no longer in Lacquerhead's shop, I would recommend that you visit her site because there are plenty of other pretties to purchase or add to your wishlists. My manicure was topped with the best topcoat ever, HKGirl.

Although I love the way this manicure looks in pictures, I'm not as fond of it in real life. Everything is great except that the larger circle glitter doesn't lay as flat as I would like it to. It's a bummer but not enough for me to call this a fail. What do you all think of this manicure? Have you tried stamping decals yet? 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

Today I am a Gothic Lolita!

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I hope you all are having a fantastic Friday! In my post yesterday I asked which of the polishes Ty got me you all would like to see next on the blog. Today's post is of my first reader request which came from Ms. Lizzy O. who said she'd like to see Gothic Lolita and that it was on her wish list. I received another request for Sinful's Cinderella from Ms. Val Greeley so you can expect to see that one in my next post =).

Gothic Lolita is part of China Glaze's 12 pc. Electropop Collection. This beauty is a medium red-toned purple that has some red and blue shimmer in it. The shimmer is so fine that it only comes out to play in the right lighting but once it appears you can instantly see the depth it adds to this color.

My mani today began with a base of Essie Grow Faster. Next I applied two coats of Gothic Lolita. I've read a few reviews on this one, some said it was runny, others said it was a bit on the thick side. My bottle, however, did not have any of these issues. I felt that the formula was really great & application was effortless. All I needed was two coats to reach full opacity. I instantly fell in love with this color the second it reached my nails!

For nail art, I wanted to cater to this polish's name. At first, I googled Gothic Lolita and spent about an hour in amazement at the fashion (click on the "googled" link to see what I mean). If you know me personally, you know that Japan is on the top of my destination places I would like to visit. The Gothic Lolita style is definitely something I imagine that would be seen as street-wear over there. I then googled "Gothic Lolita purple" and found my inspiration pic (see below).

Photo credit: http://www.mechanicalbunny.com/oscmax/tripp-purple-petticoat-gothic-lolita-skirt-p-668.html

I used Konad's M57 image plate for the corset look. Nothing says gothic, to me, like black roses so I used image plate M73 from a set that I purchased over on BornPrettyStore.com. Both of these images were stamped onto my nails using Konad Special Stamping Polish in black. I used Scotch tape and WetNWild's Ebony Hates Chris for my black french tips. This manicure was topped with Essie's Good To Go topcoat.

I had a little accident where I bumped my middle finger and caused it to smudge & couldn't stand to look at it which is why I didn't post a close-up shot of my entire mani like I normally do. It's not really -that- bad but I just couldn't stand it lol! Otherwise, I'm loving this manicure. I think it would be perfect for a Gothic Lolita! What do you all think luvs? I'm really excited to show you all my next reader request color, Sinful Colors Cinderella, in my next post. 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

Finally Found Fowl Play!

Hello Lacquer Luvers! Today I have a beautiful polish to share with you, it is Orly Fowl Play. Orly released their Birds of a Feather Collection back in September and it contains 6 gorgeous shades ranging from cremes to incredibly shimmering & iridescent colors. This collection was inspired by nature and beautiful flocks of birds and their lovely feathers.

I have been searching high and low for this collection since it's release and had absolutely no luck. I went to my local Sally's in hopes of finding Androgynie from their new Holiday Soiree Collection. I couldn't believe they had quite a few of them there. While waiting in line, I saw their display and a Orly Gift Set. I stepped out of line and grabbed it quick since it was the only one there and someone else was at the display. In the gift set, there are 3 full size polishes from the Birds of a Feather Collection, Sweet Peacock, Lucky Duck, & Fowl Play along with a cuuute purple suede wristlet that has a detachable peacock feather zipper pull. This set retails for $9.99 at Sally's.

For this mani, I started with my OPI Nail Envy base coat followed by 3 coats of Orly Fowl Play. I topped it off with my fast dry top coat by Seche Vite.

Fowl Play is a deep purple jelly that is full of goodies! It has everything in it from blue and purple glitter to silver micro shimmer. The star of this baby are the flakies which have a stunning flash that shifts from red to green  to an orange-yellow color. Truly gorgeous! I had no problems with application and thought the formula was really great.

Do any of you guys have Fowl Play? I am really loving this deep purple flakie & cannot wait to try the other colors in this set. I hope you all like this post my dear Lacquer Luvers & I look forward to sharing tomorrow's post with you, xo!

~Jessica

These are a few of my favorite things!

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I sure hope that you all made your good luck wishes yesterday at 11:11 & that they come true because mine certainly has! I was so happy to see all of the lovely comments you all left me and I couldn't believe that I gained so many followers in one day. Thank you all for joining me on this journey!

For today's post, I wanted to let you guys know a little bit more about me and so I've decided to do a mani using some of my favorite things. I began using 2 coats of OPI Nail Envy for my base. Nail Envy is one of my favorite base coats because it has strengthened my nails and helped me with breakage. I have only been using it for a little while and I love how much stronger my nails are already! In yesterday's post I mentioned that one of my favorite colors is green. My other favorite is purple, I just can't get enough of it!

One of my most favorite people, my Hubby, got me this polish last week. Bettina is one of my favorite brands & this pretty is called Secret Garden (which happens to be one of my hubby's favorite songs!). This is purple cream perfection! Secret Garden can be described as a warm berry toned purple. This is 2 coats and the application and formula of Bettina polishes are so flawless. Love, love!

For my design, I've used..you guessed it, my all-time favorite stamp! This plate comes in a series from BornPrettyStore & it has become my signature! I love flowers and I love that this plate (M72) comes with 3 different sizes of the same image. Consider yourself warned, you will see alot of this design!

I used my favorite white stamping polish for this design, Konad Special Stamping Polish in white. And topped it all off with my favorite top coat, Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat. I love how fast Seche sets the polish underneath and the fact that it doesn't smear my stamped images. It's also oh so shiny!

I hope that you Lacquer Luvers enjoyed this post and I look forward to sharing tomorrow's post with you, xo!

~Jessica