Holly-day Mani Season!

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I hope that you all are having a lovely weekend. Yesterday I was able to go mail my Secret Santa her gift package as well as Lindsey's from my 50 Follower Giveaway. I really enjoy gift giving and it has really gotten me into the holiday spirit! Tonight we will be decorating our Christmas tree and baking some chocolate chip cookies, I can't wait! I love stringing lights, hanging ornaments and the smell of freshly baked cookies...so fun! With the holiday season here, I want to share with you all a few festive mani's throughout the month and today's nails are decked out in polishes from China Glaze's Seasonal Sparkle gift set. I was lucky enough to win this set in Captivating Claws' 50 Follower Giveaway, thank you Jodi! =)

I began today's mani with a coat of OPI Nail Envy & two coats of China Glaze Holly-day. Holly-day is Christmas green cream perfection. The formula applied very smoothly and was completely opaque in just two thin coats. I am so in love with this green! For nail art I used Sally Hansen's Color Quick Gold Chrome pen to stamp a jingle bell from BundleMonster's BM-223 image plate onto my ring finger. I used a sponge-tipped eyeshadow applicator to sparkle up my tips using China Glaze Twinkle Lights. Twinkle Lights is a clear base polish full of gold, red, and green glitter...very festive and sparkly! This mani was topped off with fast dry top coat by Seche Vite.

Overall, I really like how this mani came out. It really has me in the mood to have fun with my son tonight as we decorate the tree and bake cookies! As always, I hope you Lacquer Luvers have enjoyed this post and I look forward to showing you more holiday nails using polishes from this season's collections, xo!

~Jessica

My Secret Santa & Orly Androgynie

Hello Lacquer Luvers! Now that the 10 Day Challenge is over I am so happy to share today's post with you all as I've been so excited to show you guys my Secret Santa package! I was added to a great nail polish group on Facebook & those of us who wanted took part in Secret Santa this year. Everyone was given another lady's name and address and we all wrote things we like and dislike and exchanged gifts. Cool, right? =)

My Secret Santa gift came from Ms. Mallory <3! She really went all out and sent me such a nice package. I received a really pretty card, J stickers, animal print nail files, ULTA Purple Haze, Sinful Colors Envy, SHXW In The Spotlight, Orly Androgynie, antibacterial PocketBac, lip balm, coal bubblegum, chocolate coins and the cutest holiday socks ever! I love everything she sent me & thought it was so cute how she packaged the polishes in the socks like stocking stuffers, adorable!

I have been wanting Androgynie, which is part of Orly's Holiday Soireé collection, for a while now and was so excited to swatch this one for you all first! After reading reviews and seeing swatches of Androgynie, I was losing hope for this polish as there was kind of a unanimous opinion that it was much prettier in the bottle than on the nail. When I received this, all of the glitter was on the bottom of the bottle, just like everyone had already said it would be. I read in the group that one of the ladies stored hers upside down and that she was able to get more of the glitter on the brush. This trick worked well and was a great "fix" for this polish!

I began this mani with one coat of OPI Nail Envy & two coats of Orly Androgynie followed by one coat of fast dry top coat by Seche Vite. As you can see in the photos, Androgynie is a black jelly based polish that has a variety of glitters in it. The glitter ranges from larger multicolored hexagonal shaped glitter to smaller square shaped holographic glitter along with some gold microglitter. This one is quite unique.

Here's a better look at how all the glitter looks in the bottle, pretty!

I really liked this polish but am wondering if I should've used 3 coats or layered one coat over a black creme polish. What do you ladies think? I am off to go mail my Secret Santa her package. I hope she loves it all just as much as I love mine! As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing tomorrow's post with you, xo!

~Jessica

50 Follower Giveaway Winner!

Hello Lacquer Luvers! It is with great pleasure that I announce the winner of my 50 Follower Bettina Giveaway: Congratulations Lindsey! I used random.org to generate the winner & sent a notification email out. Again, congratulations Lindsey and please make sure to respond within 48hrs to claim your prize! Thank you all so very much for following me and I hope to host another giveaway soon for my Lacquer Luvers, xo!!

10 Day Challenge: Day 10

Hello Lacquer Luvers and welcome to the last day of the 10 Day Challenge! I had such a great time doing this series with the lovely Ms. Kelly from Posh For Polish. And thank you to Marketta over at Pink Polish Addict for creating this challenge and allowing us to join in on the fun. I had a blast coming up with these manicures and reading each and every sweet comment you all left about them!

The last challenge theme is Ombre Nails. For those of you all who don't quite know what that is, ombre nails is a monotone manicure where the color shade varies from nail to nail. Essentially, this means you go from dark to light starting from your pinky towards your thumb. For this manicure I used Zoya Snow White & Lael to achieve a light to dark look. Snow White is a bright white creme and Lael is a gorgeous deep plum purple creme.

I began my ombre manicure with one coat of OPI Nail Envy for my base. Next, I applied two coats of Lael to my pinky. In a mixing dish, I put in 3 drops of Lael & 2 drops of Snow White. I mixed these two colors using the tip of an orange wood stick and applied two coats of this lighter shade to my ring finger using a brush from a bottle of nail polish that fell and shattered on me. For my middle finger I mixed 3 drops of Lael and 3 drops of Snow White & applied two coats and so forth goes the mixing to get the shades lighter on my index and thumb.

Although the colors aren't as pronounced in this manicure as I would've liked, I hope that you all can see how the purple shade varies from nail to nail. Have you ever tried the ombre manicure? What other colors do you think this manicure would look good in? Make sure to go check out what Kelly did for her ombre manicure today, as well! As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing tomorrow's post with you! Hmmm, now what will I do now without a scheduled post? Guess we'll just have to see, xo!!

~Jessica

P.S. Lacquer Luvers, my 50 Follower Bettina Giveaway ends today at 11:59PM EST so make sure you don't miss out and enter here! Good luck to all who enter and thank you so much for following me!!

10 Day Challenge: Day 9

Hello Lacquer Luvers & welcome to Day 9 of the 10 Day Challenge! Today's challenge is Favorite Color Combination. As you can see in my banner, my favorite color combo is pink, black and white. Although I have not always been a fan of pink, as I grow older this combination is one I am always drawn to. I absolutely love the way these colors pop off eachother and how fun they are together.

For today's manicure I did a water marble using my favorite colors and one of my favorite brands. To begin, I applied one coat of OPI Nail Envy. For the water marble, I used Matte (white), Pink Bikini (pink, obviously) & Onix (black) by Bettina. These are all cream polishes and spread nicely in the water. I tried to do  the same design on each finger. Even though these didn't come out exactly how I imagined, I still like them, especially my index finger. Once I water marbled all of my nails I applied a thick coat of fast dry top coat by Seche Vite.

What do you all think of this color combination? What colors do you think work best together? I would love to try this look with turquoise and chocolate brown or lime green, black, and white. Don't forget that Kelly over at Posh For Polish is doing this challenge with me, so please go take a look at her favorite color combination inspired manicure and make sure to follow her as well! As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing tomorrow's post with you, xo!

~Jessica

P.S. Lacquer Luvers, tomorrow is the last day to enter my 50 Follower Bettina Giveaway, don't miss out and enter here! Good luck!!

10 Day Challenge: Day 8

Hello Lacquer Luvers & welcome to Day 8 of the 10 Day Challenge! The theme for today's manicure is Favorite Movie or Inspired by a Movie. This manicure was inspired by my son and one of his favorite movies, Madagascar 2! Tyus loves the animals in this movie, & he especially likes the "I like to move it, move it!" song. We all have a great time watching this together =)

There were quite a few polishes used for this mani but as usual, I began with a base of OPI Nail Envy. I wanted to do a nail for each of the main characters in the movie: Alex (the lion), Marty (the zebra), Melman (the giraffe), & Gloria (the hippo). For Alex, I used one coat of OPI Rising star and sponged on E.L.F. Chocolate at the tip of my nail using an eyeshadow applicator. For Alex's pawprints, I used Chocolate again and image plate m35 from BornPrettyStore. Marty was done using 3 coats of Snow White by Zoya & konad special stamping polish in black. I used a design from BundleMonster's BM223 image plate for the zebra stripes. Melman began with 2 coats of China Glaze II & the giraffe print was stamped on using Chocolate by E.L.F. along with a design from BundleMonster's BM215 image plate. Gloria was freehanded and began with 2 coats of Grey Area by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear. I used my dotting tool as well as E.L.F. Champagne, Zoya Snow White, & WetNWild Ebony Hates Chris for the eyes & used my striper brush for her eyelashes and eyebrows. Once everything dried, I topped this mani with fast dry top coat by Seche Vite.

I love how my Madagascar 2 inspired mani turned out so much! It was really fun to do and I hope you all like it just as much. What is your favorite movie? Let's all go see what Ms. Kelly from Posh For Polish was inspired by for this challenge! I'm sure she did something amazing! As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing tomorrow's post with you, xo!

~Jessica

10 Day Challenge: Day 7

Hello Lacquer Luvers & welcome to Day 7 of the 10 Day Challenge. Today's manicure theme is Favorite Freehand Nail Nail Art Design. I have always loved this freehand design and I hope that you all do, too! Not only was it simple and easy to do, this mani is so pretty and feminine & it's one that does not take many tools to complete.

My favorite freehand manicure is Japanese cherry blossoms. I have always loved seeing tutorials of this manicure on youtube and have seen other bloggers do it as well. Each time I say, "I'm going to do that one day.." but never gotten around to it so today was the perfect opportunity for me =)

I began my cherry blossom mani with a coat of OPI Nail Envy & 2 coats of Bettina Ocean. Ocean is such a gorgeous blue-green color, it reminds me so much of the beautiful beaches here & provided a nice base for my nail art to pop. Next, I used a nail art striper brush and some brown acrylic paint to create some branches for my cherry blossoms. I used Bettina Pink Bikini and a dotting tool from BornPrettyStore for the pink part of the blossoms and Bettina Matte which is white cream perfection along with my dotting tool for the petals of the blossoms. This manicure was topped with fast dry top coat by Seche Vite.

I love this manicure for so many reasons. It's very easy to do, it reminds me of one of my dream vacation places (Japan) & the colors work so well together! Would you girls ever wear this manicure? What's your favorite freehand design? Don't forget to go over to Posh For Polish & take a look at Kelly's, who is doing this challenge with me, freehand nail art for this challenge! As always, I hope you all liked this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing tomorrow's post with you, xo!

~Jessica