Andy Nailed Marilyn!!! (Pop Art Inspired Nails)

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I know I always say this, but seriously, I am SO excited to share my mani with you guys today!! A few years ago I attempted to recreate one of Andy Warhol's pop art images (the one with the guns) on my nails and it was disastrous to say the least. I mean, just awful! I recently received a few plates from MoYou London to review and after looking at this one image of Marilyn Monroe I knew it was time to try another pop art look. This time I was successful! 

Now I don't know about you guys, but I am totally in love with this look! It incorporates so many things that I adore: bright colors, polka dots, eye catching imagery and of course, Marilyn. I think this mani was successful because my creative process this time was different than any other time I've created a manicure. I usually sit a bunch of colors and plates in front of me and have at it but this time I thought to sketch it out first. 

After I sketched the nails I went and grabbed a bunch of bright polishes. As you can see, I broke down the colors I would be using for each nail.  "B" is my base or background color,  "H" is hair & "F" is face. 

My manicure began with 2 coats each (starting from pinky to thumb) of Zoya Micky, Bettina Green Apple & Bettina Sunrise and 3 coats each of Essie Saturday Disco Fever & Essie Turquoise & Caicos. I honestly liked that the way it was, just fun bright colors! But I had to finish the task at hand so I started my nail art using MoYou London's Pro Collection 10 Plate and Konad Special Stamping Polish in black.

All of my Marilyn's were created using the stamping decal method and MoYou's Rebel Collection 02 plate. I made these Warhol-esque by using funky color combinations that really pop when put together. These are the polishes I used:

Turquoise - Essie Turquoise & Caicos

Purple - Essie Play Date

Yellow - Bettina Sunrise

Orange - Essie Saturday Disco Fever

Green - Bettina Green Apple

Pink - Zoya Micky

I've been wearing this mani since Saturday. Do I love it? Maybe a little too much! However, FedEx just left with a delivery so I will weep as I remove this. Do you guys have any MoYou stamping plates? I love the unique images that are on them and the wide variety of collections that they offer. MoYou plates retail for £4.99 & can be purchased on their website. As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers & 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

All About Nail It! Magazine

Hello Lacquer Luvers! Today's post is all about the hottest magazine in newstands, Nail It! I first saw this magazine in my Instagram feed & was on a mission to get a copy in my hands. The cover of the premiere issue is incredibly cool with the model rocking some fierce studded gloves accompanied with an equally fierce studded manicure. I couldn't help but to snatch this up as soon as i saw it at Target!

The articles in this magazine cater to those of us who like to stay on trend. While it features professional/salon products, it isn't a pro only magazine & I like that. It features lots of articles targeted to everyday consumers (AKA polishaholics like us lol) and even comes equipped with a salon checklist so that you can know what to look for for a safe salon mani/pedi experience.

My personal favorite manicure in the magazine. These icecream nails were crazy cool!

So, as stated on the cover there were some free nail decals inside:

Aren't these designs by Kiss cute? I have only tried nail decals like these once so I was really looking forward to trying them again. I'm sure you guys see my slight obsession with animal print nails throughout my posts so there's no guessing which decal I couldn't wait to try!

There was one sticker to each design so I went with a skittlette for my mani. I used Sinful Colors polishes in Black on Black and Pink as my base colors. On my index is the ever so fabulous black and white glitter topper from Different Dimensions called Social Suicide. I matched the pink of the sticker to the pink nail polish but  didn't realize that the black polish would make the sticker darker. Although I had a little wrinkling at the edges (this is user error) I really really liked how easy these were to apply! Had I done this by hand it would've taken forever which makes the strips very convenient.

So Lacquer Luvers, for $5.99 I got a fantastic new magazine and got to create a mani from it! I urge you all to pick this up when you see it on newsstands, you will LOVE it! You can also subscribe to it which is what I did after reading the first issue. 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


**The regularly scheduled blue mani's for Autism Awareness month will presume. I just wanted to get this awesomeness out to you guys!**