Shimmer Wendy

One of my favorite glitter layerings in recent memory has got to be pairing Shimmer Wendy--an orange, purple and blue glitterbomb--with Pure Nail Lacquer Sunny Disposition, a very interesting and unique shade of green. I've been looking for the perfect base to wear Wendy with and in my eyes, these two are made for each other!

This is one coat of Wendy over two(?) of Sunny Disposition. Wendy's formula is excellent and didn't give me any problems. I'm extremely pleased with how this combo turned out and I really love all of the fun colors it has! I've mentioned several times on here before that orange and blue is one of my favorite color combinations and when you throw in some purple, green and then make it all sparkly too boot, that certainly doesn't hurt! ;)

You can purchase Shimmer from their website or on Etsy.

Twinsie Tuesday: Inspired By A Magazine

This week's Twinsie Tuesday theme challenged us to re-create a manicure from a magazine. As a sidenote, one of my biggest pet peeves with style magazines is when they're doing a feature on polish and they have photos of a bunch of different colors spilling out of the bottle. All I can think of is how much polish is being wasted! But I digress.

After a bit of searching around on Google for inspiration, I came across this mani, inspired by artist Ellsworth Kelly, that was featured in Nylon Magazine. The bright colors and the bold lines and curves of the Color Field style caught my eye.

Source

I made some tweaks to my version of this mani, while still trying to stay true to the general idea and color scheme. I think it turned out okay, given my limited artistic abilities. The abstract nature of this mani gave me some leeway for when my lines and curves weren't completely perfect, which is often. ;)

Index finger: Deborah Lippmann Yellow Brick Road (over base of Illamasqua Scorch), Essie Bouncer It's Me
Middle finger: China Glaze Bahamian Escape, Essie Mojito Madness
Ring finger: Pure Nail Lacquer Sunny Disposition, Pure Nail Lacquer Fiesta
Pinky finger: Illamasqua Scorch, Lime Crime Peaches <3 Cream

I really like the way all of the different colors come together here. I always like to play and experiment with brights! I didn't have a good match for the orange used in the original mani, so I substituted Lime Crime Peaches <3 Cream, which I think worked pretty well. I also flipped the blue and yellow on the index finger, because I don't think I have a bright yellow opaque enough to easily cover a bright blue.

I'm very curious to see what looks and magazines my fellow Twinsies chose for their manis today! Have you ever attempted to recreate a mani you saw in a magazine? How did it turn out?

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Anna at Going to the Showing

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Cordia at Seriously Swatched

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Meredith at Polish and Charms

Nory at Fierce Makeup and Nails

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Traci at DrinkCitra

Twinsie Tuesday: Shimmer Adrienne

This week's Twinsie Tuesday theme was to show a good transitional polish that bridges the gap from summer to fall. Sparkle fiend that I am, I wear glitter year-round and look for any excuse to play with some new sparklies, so glitter it was! :) For my transitional polish, I chose Shimmer Adrienne, a mix of blue, gold and silver glitter. I was trying to come up with a color that I don't tie with any particular season and one of the ones that came to mind was blue. It's a great transitional shade--whether it's bright, bold neon blue for summer or a rich sapphire for fall, it works either way. Metallics, meanwhile, are truly timeless and work for any season, so the gold and silver accents in Adrienne seemed like they would be a good fit too.

Blue and orange is one of my all-time favorite color combinations, so I used Pure Nail Lacquer Fiesta, an orange creme, for my base. Plus, depending on the time of year, orange can either make me think or citrus or fall leaves and pumpkins!

I suppose technically this is a transitional combo rather than a single polish--although Adrienne can be built up so that it is opaque enough to wear alone--but I really like these two together! Hopefully it isn't considered cheating to pick two. :p I came really close to choosing a red for this challenge, because you can never go wrong with reds, but I'm thrilled with how this combination turned out.

Do you take the season into consideration when you pick your polish or do you wear whatever you want year-round? I mostly pick based off what I'm feeling that day, although I do tend to gravitate more toward, say, pastels in spring and jewel tones in winter than I might during other times of year. Be sure to take a look at what my Twinsies picked for their transitional polishes today!

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Anna at Going to the Showing

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Cordia at Seriously Swatched

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Meredith at Polish and Charms

Nory at Fierce Makeup and Nails

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Traci at DrinkCitra

Happy Hands Illusions, Michael

I have reviewed Happy Hands Illusions, Michael here before, but my original swatches were pretty dreadful and frankly, this polish deserves better! Inspired by Arrested Development, one of my all-time favorite TV shows, Illusions, Michael is a clear base with silver microglitter, red round glitter, orange hexes, gold squares and holographic gold stars.

I originally swatched this polish alone and while you can certainly do that, I think the different elements really pop when you layer Illusions, Michael over something else. Here's one coat over Pure Nail Lacquer Sunny Disposition. I really dig the super hero vibe this combination has!

I absolutely love these two polishes together! I think they compliment each other perfectly and the bright yellow really makes the red glitter stand out.

You can purchase Happy Hands on Etsy.

Pure Nail Lacquer: Review & Swatches

I've got three polishes to share with you from Pure Nail Lacquer today! Pure was started by Danielle, a Christian worship artist who noticed on her singing tours that no matter where she went, she saw women who were so hard-working that they often had to put taking time for themselves at the bottom of their list. She started Pure as a way to brighten women's days and encourage them to take some time for themselves. The entire line is four-free and vegan-friendly.

Fiesta is a vibrant, citrus-y orange creme. I like my oranges bright without veering into "traffic cone" territory, so this was a perfect fit for me! The formula was excellent--almost a one-coater, but covered beautifully in two.

Sunny Disposition is a bright, cheery yellow creme. I'm very pale, so I have to be careful with yellows, but Sunny Disposition is a very pretty one that didn't make me look sallow. This is the only one I had any formula issues with. It's streaky and needed four coats--five on a couple of nails--to be completely opaque. Using thicker coats and waiting a while in between them might be helpful. Still, it's so darn cute!

Sunday Brunch has got to be my favorite of three polishes I tried. I definitely gravitate toward these offbeat greens but even then, this was still a very unique polish in my stash. It's a tough color to peg; not too green, not too yellow, not quite bright enough to be chartreuse. But whatever it is, I absolutely love it! (I did an awesome layering with this polish that I can't wait to show you guys!) This is three coats.

You can purchase Pure Nail Lacquer from their website.

Disclosure: These polishes were provided to me for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.