Formula X Athena

Remember the mouth-wateringly gorgeous Formula X Hera? Well today we're going to take a look at one of her lovely sisters, Athena! Both Hera and Athena are from Formula X's Divine Stardust line which is kinda like a mash-up between glitter and holo and is 1000% awesome.

Whereas Hera was rose gold goodness, Athena is a beautiful shade of sparkling aquamarine. Just look at her, you guys. Are further words required?

*swoon* It's so holo that it freaked my camera out! I could stare at this all day. The formula is a dream as well. This is three coats, sans top coat to keep that holo game strong.

My all-time favorite holos are from a-england and Color Club and now it's safe to say that the Divine Stardust polishes are right up there with them. If you are even remotely interested in holographic polish, you need to check these out!

Twinsie Tuesday: Formula X Hera

We're doing jewelry-inspired manis this week! I've kinda sorta obsessed with rose gold, so of course I love me some rose gold jewelry. It's my favorite metallic and I love the fun pop it adds to any piece. I figured I'd channel that love into this week's mani, featuring Formula X Hera.

Hera is an absolutely stunning rose gold from Formula X's Divine Stardust line. These polishes have large holo bits so that they almost look like glitters, but they feel silky smooth (no grit!) and have all the sparkle and shine of a traditional holo. I did a crappy job of explaining it, so lemme just show you this beauty!

Seriously, I want to bathe in this polish. I was constantly staring at my nails when I had this on. It's sooooooo gorgeous, you guys!

The formula is equally lovely. Opacity is reached in just two coats. I skipped top coat to maximize the holo.

I definitely need to check out more of the Divine Stardust line after falling for Hera! Hopefully you enjoyed this polish as much as I did!

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Twinsie Tuesday: LynBDesigns Benedict

We're doing a romantic theme this week, so I decided to bust out the heart glitter! I actually only have one polish in my stash that prominently features heart glitter and that's LynBDesigns Benedict. Benedict is a glitterbomb with small blue and holographic silver glitters and then of course the aforementioned hearts in shades of holographic blue, silver and red. I layered Benedict over OPI Look At My Bow!, a bubblegum pink.

Benedict is a cute polish, but I honestly feel like the glitter is too dense. I usually can't get enough glitter, but since this is designed to be a layering glitter, I think the overall look would benefit from allowing the base polish to peek through more. I wiped down my brush for each nail and I still felt like I was getting a ton of glitter each time. The end result can get a little crowded-looking--and this is with only one coat of Benedict. Oddly enough, I really had to fish for the heart glitters. There's so much small glitter that they get kind of buried.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I like it, but I don't love it. Anything with glitter is never a total loss. ;)

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Twinsie Tuesday: Mix and Match

The theme mix and match is pretty broad, so I tried to pick several polishes with different finishes in colors that I thought would be kind of unexpected and edgy together. That was the idea anyways. Instead, I think they just came out...well, I don't wanna go so far as to say ugly, but...it wasn't quite what I was going for. See and judge for yourself.

Index and pinky fingers: OPI DS Coronation
Middle finger: OPI Did It On 'Em with KBShimmer nail vinyls
Ring finger: OPI Metallic 4 Life
Thumb: Illamasqua Scorch with KBShimmer nail vinyls

The nail vinyls are by far my favorite part of this mani. They're a great nail art cheat--super easy and fast--and I love the variety of designs KBShimmer has to choose from. My main issue is with Did It On 'Em. I thought it'd be an interesting pop of color but it seems like it threw off the cohesiveness of the rest of the mani.

Anyways, I'm overanalyzing this. This mani had some hits and some misses, but I guess that's the nature of mix and match! ;)

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Twinsie Tuesday: Grey and Gold

Kudos to whoever came up with this theme, because gold and grey is one of my favorite color combos! I kept this one pretty simple. I started with a grey base of Deborah Lippmann Chasing Pavements and added a sprinkling of holographic gold glitter with Nubar Gold Celebration.

I loooooove Chasing Pavements. Such a perfect grey! Not too much more to say on this one--like I said, it's simple, but hopefully pretty too. :)

Be sure to check out my fellow Twinsies' grey and gold manis today! I like these colors so much that I'm sure I'll be borrowing an idea or two of theirs for future manis!

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Disclosure: The Nubar polish in this post was sent for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

Lynnderella New Year's Eve Eve

It wouldn't be a New Year's mani without glitter and I figure there's no better choice than Lynderella New Year's Eve Eve! This is a rainbow explosion of glitter in all shapes and sizes that brings to mind the gallons of confetti that will be falling in Times Square tonight.

I layered two coats over Wet N Wild Break The Ice, a pearly white shimmer. I thought it was the perfect base because it lets the colorful glitters stand out while still adding some sparkle of its own.

New Year's Eve Eve didn't have any notable formula issues. Like any glitter polish of this type, you'll get some large pieces that need to be guided away from the free edge of the nail, but otherwise this has a nice 'n easy formula.

I absolutely love this mani and how it looks like a little party on my nails! A big thanks to my buddy (and one-time Twinsie Tuesday member) Tara for gifting it to me!

What's on your nails tonight? Any fun New Year's plans? I'm eating tacos and watching "Archer" with my boyfriend. My kind of night. :)

OPI Ce-less-tial Is More

I didn't do anything super fancy for my Christmas mani this year, but I did make sure to keep it nice and sparkly! OPI Ce-less-tial Is More definitely fits the bill. It's an explosion of silver glitter, complete with holographic accents.

I was expecting this to need several coats, so I was pleasantly surprised at how opaque it really is. I only needed two coats! It feels super gritty on, however, so you'll definitely want an extra layer of top coat. I'm never bothered by glitters feeling rough on my nails but even I found this distractingly gritty. It almost feels like a Liquid Sand polish.

If you celebrate, I hope you had a lovely Christmas today! Did you wear anything fun on your nails?

Twinsie Tuesday: Holiday Mani

The Twinsie Tuesday girls are checking in from our seasonal hiatus to bring you some holiday manis! This time of year is crazy for all of us, but we wanted to do at least one post for December.

For my mani, I went with my favorite holiday color combo of red and gold. Plus since it's the holidays, you know I gotta bring some extra sparkle. So I took the red and white glitterbomb goodness of Lumina Lacquer Candy Cane Lane and layered it over my favorite gold polish, OPI Glitzerland. Candy Cane Lane is such a great polish and I couldn't let the holiday season pass without wearing it at least once. Seriously, who can resist a polish with candy cane-shaped glitter?!

I plan to post again before Christmas but I wanted to take the opportunity to wish all of you a safe and happy holiday season. I hope whatever your plans are and whichever holidays you celebrate, that you feel happy and loved.

                        

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Claire at Kerruticles

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

OPI Give Me Space

I was disappointed with OPI's holiday collection overall, but if there's a bright spot for me, it's gotta be Give Me Space. Give Me Space is a gorgeous shade of midnight blue with scattered silver holo. This would be the perfect shade for a holiday cocktail party!

The formula is a dream. What you see above is two buttery coats. The holo here isn't strong, but I actually think that was the right call with this particular shade. The base color is so gorgeous and having just little glints of holo peeking through really add to the night sky kind of vibe this polish has.

If you only buy one polish from the Starlight Collection, this gets my vote! This is easily one of my favorite OPI polishes of 2015. Now if we could just get more colors like Give Me Space and less holiday reds, I'd be a truly happy polish addict. :p

Halloween Nails With Lumina Lacquer Mick Or Treat

I didn't pick up any new Halloween polishes this year, so I decided to wear an old favorite: Lumina Lacquer Mick or Treat! It's a super fun glitterbomb with fall-colored glitters--think red, grey, orange, black and yellow--in all shapes and sizes. You've got hexes, squares, stars, circles, crescent moons and, the extra special cherry on top: Mickey Mouse-shaped glitters!

I wore Mick Or Treat over a deep burgundy in my original review, so this time I used OPI Take The Stage for my base. Above is one coat of Mick Or Treat. You have to really fish for the Mickey glitters (I only got one with this mani), but they are worth it!

Mick Or Treat was limited edition, so unfortunately it's no longer available. Lumina in general doesn't seem to produce new collections anymore. They were one of my favorite indie brands and I really miss having new Lumina's to look forward to!

Twinsie Tuesday: Recreate Another Twinsie's Mani

This week, we were challenged to recreate one of our fellow Twinsies' manis. We could pick anyone and any mani we wanted. I did some looking and decided on a really cute mani done by Alaina from The Little Canvas!

I would like to preface this by saying that Alaina is a million times better at nail art than I will ever be. So while I am a big admirer of her manis, most of them are things I would never even attempt to try myself! But I really loved this mani of hers...

...and I thought it was something I could pull off. Here's my version:

I used the same base as Alaina, China Glaze Too Yacht To Handle. Then my pinky and pointer fingers are topped with OPI I'll Tinsel You In and my middle finger is Color Club Harp On It. Alaina drew the hearts on her ring fingers, but I cheated by fishing out heart glitter from Lynnderella Evermore.

I had a lot of fun doing this! I like searching my stash for the perfect polishes to recreate a look. I'm excited to see what manis everyone else picked! And please be sure to welcome our newest Twinsies, Alice and Sarah! :)

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sarah at Cloudy with a Chance of Lacquer

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Lisa at The Polish Playground

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

Claire at Kerruticles

​ ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amanda at Amandalandish

Alice at Nail Art in Wonderland

 Alaina at The Little Canvas

Twinsie Tuesday: Native War Paints Rotten Zombie Flesh

Hey guys! We've got several brand new Twinsies joining us this week, so I just wanted to start out this post with a quick welcome for our newest members: Marisa, Megan, Sara, Sharon and Steph! Do take a look at their blogs in the link list at the end of this post if you're not familiar with them already.

For this week's theme, we're doing a mani inspired by our BFF. My BFF and I share a deep and abiding love for swamp green polish. In fact, this particular green was a gift from her! Native War Paints Rotten Zombie Flesh (love that name) is a duochrome swampy green with scattered holo. The fact that she managed to pick a polish that features so many of my favorite things all together is truly a testament to our friendship. ;) Rotten Zombie Flesh has multiple personalities, so I tried to post pictures that would give a good idea of how multi-faceted this polish really is!

The formula was very easy to work with. I used three coats here. Top coat (I used Deborah Lippmann Gel Lab) did not appear to diminish the holo at all.

Native War Paints was a new-to-me brand, but after I received this polish, I checked out their website and I gotta say, they have a lot of really awesome colors! Have you tried anything from Native War Paints before?

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amanda at Fashion Footing

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Bridget at A Painted Nail

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Marisa at Polish Those Nails

Megan at A Beauty in the Business

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Sara at The Call of Beauty

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Sharon at Behind Green Eyes

Steph at Lovestruck Lacquer

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Color Club Eternal Beauty

Color Club's Halo Hues are widely beloved as some of the greatest holographic polishes ever and I can't say I disagree. They're richly pigmented, buttery smooth and fast-drying. I really can't say enough positive things about them. You need to own at least one of these beauties!

I had a hard time finding the Halo Hues in my neck of the woods, so I've relied on friends for most of the ones in my collection. One of my very favorite Halo Hues is Eternal Beauty, a purple stunner that I received in one of our Twinsie Tuesday holiday swaps from Amanda. I could have easily taken dozens pictures of this polish basking in the sun like this. But as happy as I am with these photos, they still don't hold a candle to how mesmerizing Eternal Beauty looks in person.

 And a final parting shot in less direct sun:

The formula, as is the case with all the Halo Hues, is fantastic. You don't need a special base to get smooth application with intense holo pay-off, although I do skip the top coat with these to get the most out of the holo. What you see above is two coats.

Which brands make your favorite holos? Aside from Halo Hues, which really take the cake for me, I also love a-England's. I really want to try some of the holos in the Colors by Llarowe line!