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: Monochrome Nails

When I picture a monochromatic manicure, the first thing that comes to mind is all-white nails. So that's what I did! :) Somewhat ironically, I used two polishes to create this monochrome look. I started with Barielle Enduring, a white creme from their new keratin-infused Prosina line. Then to make my nails extra squishy-looking, I layered Essie Marshmallow, a white jelly, over top.

It's a simple look, but I thought the mix of jelly and creme finishes gave a little extra visual interest.
Please excuse the bits of bubbling. I need a new bottle of topcoat!

Not too much more I can say about this one--like I said, it's pretty simple, but I think it fits the theme.

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 Barielle polish in this post was provided for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

Deborah Lippmann Summer 2016 Preview

My first job was at an ice cream place that opened in the 1950s and still maintains that classic soda jerk-style aesthetic to this day. To keep the type of ambience they were going for, we could only play 1950s and 60s music (I spent many hours with Sirius XM 50s on 5 and 60s on 6) so I have something of an encyclopedic knowledge of early pop music, especially for someone in their 20s.

This is basically a long-winded intro to segue into telling you that DL has a new summer collection out called Happy Days and it is 1950s-themed. And...go!

Beauty School Dropout 

 

Happy Days

 

Splish Splash

 

My Boyfriend's Back 

I gotta say, it's really pretty, but it's not DL's most unique-looking collection. Normally I want, like, all of DL's new polishes but this time I'm not getting an immediate case of the MUST BUY. Now that the prices for DL have been upped even more to go along with the line's full "Gel Lab Pro" rebranding (which started with their spring collection this year), I want some super unique colors before I drop $20 a piece on them. These are beautiful and I love DL to pieces, but I'd have a hard time paying this much for cremes when there are so many other, cheaper alternatives out there. 

That said, I don't blame you if you want 'em. They are pretty, after all. You can pick them up on the Deborah Lipmann website, if you're so inclined.

I'm super curious to hear your thoughts on this apparent new direction for DL. Are you in the "gel-substitute ALL THE THINGS" camp or are you sick of it?

Twinsie Tuesday: Tulips

This week we have a Twinsie Tuesday take as old as time: I tired to do nail art. It sucked. I cheated. The end. "I tried, it sucked, I cheated" is the Nailed version of "I came, I saw, I conquered."

Okay, so there's a little more to it than that. I found this really cool abstract tulip design that looked easy enough to do. I was actually pretty excited about it. I always have this eternal sense of optimism with nail art that this will finally be the time I can add something to my limited repitoire. It went well for about two nails and then it all fell apart--and not in a "so bad it's entertaining" kind of way (which I fully embrace). It just looked totally lopsided and ugly.

So I scrapped that idea and went with my emergency plan: find something mildly tulip-related and run with it. Enter OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips! It has "tulips" in the name. It's from the Holland Collection. It is the color of (some) tulips.




So here she is!

This polish is still fairly easy to find online (you can consult my handy dandy authenticity guide for shopping OPI online) if you like the look of it. Or it's quite dupeable, so that's an option as well. I'm sure I have a few shades just like this one in my collection, but they aren't named after tulips so we don't care about them--for today, at least. ;)

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: Gradient With Stamping

Hey guys. As I'm sure you've guessed by the decreased amount of posts lately, I've been crazy busy these past few weeks. Between work and some personal stuff going on (all is well--just hectic) I haven't had time to paint my nails often, let alone blog about them. But I've still been taking photos so I should have a nice little backlog to share with you all once the dust settles!

I'm hoping to get back to a regular post schedule shortly, but I didn't get my shit together in time to participate in Twinsie Tuesday this week. In the meantime, check out any of my Twinsies' awesome blogs below to get your daily nail fix!

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: Glitter Placement

Hey guys! So today we are doing manis featuring glitter placement. I've got a couple baggies of loose glitter shapes, mostly from Lumina Lacquer. She includes them with a lot of her glitterbomb polishes so you won't have to fish in the bottle for specific pieces you want. Cool customer service touches like that are one of the many reasons I love indie polish!

For this mani, I used some skull and crossbones glitters that came with Seven Year Witch.

Pink: Zoya Shelby
Black: OPI Never Have Too Mani Friends!

I really need to do glitter placement nails more often. They're super quick and fun. Just grab some tweezers and you're good to go!

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 (On A Wednesday): Birds

Hey guys! Sorry for the late post. There was a little mishap involving my dishwasher and a buncha water, but that's all sorted out now so we can get back to the very important business of nails!

We are doing bird nails this week, so I pulled out some Born Pretty nail stickers from my stash (you can see more about them HERE) and got to work! This particular set has a bunch of different shapes, but I made the owl stickers the main focus here, because...hello, birds?

My base shade is cult favorite OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. It's a deceptively complex shade that looks white, but has this wonderful hint of blue-grey to it. I thought it'd be a good "clean" shade to let the neon stickers pop, but not so plain that it fades completely into the background.

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