OPI My Twin Mimmy

OPI My Twin Mimmy is a sunshine yellow creme. I love pastel yellow polish but with yellows like these, I have to be really careful. I'm super pale and super blonde, so yellow is generally not my friend. Really vibrant, "traffic light" yellows do weird, unflattering things to my skin tone and you can definitely see that in my swatches, so just a forewarning.

I'm about to give you a very important piece of advice for applying this polish: Be patient. The formula here isn't a complete horror show, but it ain't great either. Yellow polishes tend to be temperamental and this one definitely is. What you see above is three coats. You'll want to allow extra dry time between layers, otherwise you'll wind up with uneven application and bubbling-soooo much bubbling, you guys.  I snapped these pics shortly after finishing my mani, but before long, the bubbles started to appear and there were a ton of them. I should have taken a picture but I was to horrified to do anything other than bust out the polish remover and take the whole damn thing off. Leave yourself extra time and you'll be a-okay. Rush and you'll wind up with complete ass. Such is the way of yellow nail polish.

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. :)

Twinsie Tuesday: China Glaze It's A Trap-eze!

Hey guys! It's been a minute, right? I know I've been an awful blogger lately, but I'm trying to get back in the swing of things. So what better way than Twinsie Tuesday? :)

This week we're doing manis inspired by our favorite foods. I looooooovvvveee eating, so this was a tough pick for me, hahahaha. But I decided to go with one of my very favorite desserts. Can you guess what it is from which polish I picked?

It's funfetti cake! I know, I know, it's not the most sophisticated choice, but I can't get enough funfetti, especially the frosting!

The polish is China Glaze It's A Trap-eze!, which I thought was the perfect representation since it's got a white base filled with multi-colored glitter. It's A Trap-eze! looked kinda messy with the first few layers, but it all came together nicely in the end. Most of my nails only needed three coats, but a couple needed four to even out some bald patches.

Please excuse the cut on my index finger. I nicked it at work last week and it's taking its sweet time healing. Flesh wounds aside, I hope you enjoyed today's post and that you'll check out my fellow Twinsies today too!

                        

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

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: Ruffian Manicure

We're doing ruffian manis this week! I haven't done one of these in a while, so I thought I'd try something a little different this time. I've got these plain black Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail wraps that I haven't known what to do with. Unfortunately I no longer have the original packaging so I don't know what this design is called. I got these in a set from Target a long time ago and these are the only ones from the set I still have left, because honestly, I don't quite get the point of plain nail wraps. I like wearing them for the fun and intricate designs. If I wanted black, I'd wear black polish, ya know?

But I digress. My point is, i figured now was as good a time as any to use these wraps. I layered them over a base of Orly Key Lime Twist, a neon highlighter yellow, to create the ruffian design. The wraps had dried up a bit, so they were more stuff and brittle than usual, but they still got the job done!

I always love a good pop of neon! The nail wraps made it easy to get a smooth, even curve. I think it'd be a lot of fun to do this same concept with one of the fancier Salon Effects too.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out my Twinsies too!

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

Sally Hansen Gemincello

As a Gemini with a fondness for pastel yellow, Sally Hansen Gemincello was a must-have for me. Gemincello is a buttery yellow creme that came out in the Beachside Astrologer Collection earlier this year. I wore it with a dash of Urban Decay Goldmine as an accent nail, because I was craving some sparkle with this mani.

The formula is surprisingly non-streaky for a pastel, but it still needs three coats for complete opacity. There were some visible bubbles in the bottle and the consistency is on the thinner side, so make sure you give this one a good shake or roll before applying so those issues don't transfer over to the nail.

I will add that I was impressed with how nicely Goldmine applied, especially for a mini bottle. It's only the second UD polish I've tried, but I really like what I've seen from their polishes!

Twinsie Tuesday: Blobbicure

I'm pretty hopeless at nail art, but I've been dying to try a blobbicure! I tend to fare okay with more abstract nail art techniques, because then it doesn't matter as much if everything doesn't come out perfectly. :)

Now, as I've mentioned a couple times on here, one of my not-so-guilty pleasures is professional wrestling and last week one of the all-time greats, Dusty Rhodes a.k.a. "The American Dream," passed away. When he wrestled in WWE, Dusty's ring gear was black with yellow polka dots, so I used his colors as inspiration for my blobbicure.

For reference, here's Dusty in his signature black and yellow:

And then here is the blobbicure I created using Wet N Wild Black Creme and Deborah Lippmann Walking On Sunshine:

This is my second time doing a blobbicure; I did one last week that I haven't posted yet. But for just a second try, I think this came out really well and I'm super proud of it! I absolutely love how the yellow pops! The blobs didn't get as distorted as they did for my first blobbicure, but I was playing around with some different techniques this time, so that's probably to blame.

Have you tried doing a blobbicure? They're actually pretty simple and fun! It's not often I find a nail art technique I can pull off, but this is one I had a really good time doing!

Hope you enjoyed my little tribute nails today. Be sure to take a look at what my Twinsies are up to!

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Lisa at The Polish Playground

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Kristine at Pink and Polished Nails

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

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

Born Pretty Rainbow Lips Water Decals: Review & Swatches

I've reviewed a lot of cool products for Born Pretty Store over the years and if you've been following Nailed for a while, then it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that I'm kinda obsessed with their water decals. Nail art n00bs like me need all the cheats we can get and water decals are one of the best!

If you've never used water decals before, they're super easy! They work like a temporary tattoo: cut them out, submerge them in water for about 30 seconds, peel off the paper backing and then stick the decals wherever and however you like on your nail. They look really impressive on the nail and they seriously could not be any simpler to use, which I why I adore them so much!

These particular decals are only 99 cents(!) and they come in all kinds of awesome patterns, which you can see on Born Pretty's site HERE. The design I chose, QJ-028, features some lip designs in a neon rainbow of colors!

 I keep thinking of the video for Meghan Trainor's "Lips Are Movin" whenever I look at my nails now.

Anywho, my base here is Jessica Banana Peel, which is the cutest shade of pastel yellow. I wanted something that wasn't as plain as white, but that wouldn't be so pigmented it would distort the color of the decals and Banana Peel was the perfect "in-between" shade.

I used a ton of decals for this mani and still had plenty left over afterwards. So you can easily stretch this one sheet out into multiple manis--gotta make the most of that 99 cents! ;) That price definitely can't be beat and the decals themselves are great quality. They're a fun way to bring a pop of color to my nails for summer!

If you would like to purchase anything from Born Pretty, they offer 10% off for Nailed readers:

Disclosure: This product was sent for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

Jessica Banana Peel

I have a special affection in my heart for pastel yellow polish. Today's example came into my life courtesy of my friend and fellow Twinsie, Amanda. Jessica isn't sold in my neck of the woods, so any of their polishes I have in my collection are all thanks to her! :)

Jessica Banana Peel is a creamy pastel yellow. Despite the name, I'd say it's closer to the color of a banana itself than a banana peel. It's not quite as yellow as, say, China Glaze Lemon Fizz--there's a bit of an off-white undertone to it that I really like. Anyways, I'm rambling way too much about the minutia of yellow polish, which I'm sure no one other than me cares about, haha. However you wanna hash it, this is a gorgeous color!

Banana Peel has a nice formula, especially for a yellow, which can be notoriously difficult to work with. This is three coats.

Lumina Lacquer Social Meteor

Lumina Lacquer Social Meteor is a clear-based glitterbomb with grey, baby pink and pastel yellow in a variety of shapes, like circles, crescent moons, stars, hearts and hexes. These are colors you wouldn't necessarily think to put together, but I love the combination and all the different shapes are super fun!

The formula is just okay. I had to fish a lot to get the larger glitter pieces on my brush (seems like they tended to sink toward the bottom of the bottle) and it took some extra guidance to make the glitter distribute the way I wanted it to on the nail. Dabbling and placing are ideal application strategies here. What you see above is two coats of Social Meteor over Deborah Lippmann Chasing Pavements.

While the formula was alright, I still fell in love with the look of this polish. It's so cute and the pops of pastel are very pretty and feminine-looking. I had my eye on this polish for a long time before I finally pulled the trigger and I'm definitely glad I indulged!

You can purchase Lumina Lacquer from their website.

Lumina Lacquer All Tied Up

Lumina Lacquer All Tied Up is a pink, purple and white explosion of circle and hex glitters. Usually the mere presence of circle glitter (let alone holographic circle glitter, as is the case with All Tied Up) is enough to earn my stamp of approval, but what's really magical about All Tied Up is the inclusion of bow-shaped glitters!

All Tied Up was originally a holiday polish from Lumina, but with the right base, I think it makes an awesome spring glitter topper too! My choice here was Deborah Lippmann Build Me Up Buttercup. I was tempted to use a baby pink creme, but I thought the pastel yellow gave the glitters more of a chance to pop.

All Tied Up was a little tricky to apply. It took some maneuvering to keep the glitters from bunching all together. The dabbling method of application is your best bet to ensure even distribution across the nail. I used two coats here.

All Tied Up is a discontinued polish (sorry y'all), but there are plenty of other goodies to be found at Lumina Lacquer's website.

Twinsie Tuesday: Endometriosis Awareness Nails

Endometriosis is a hormonal and immune system disease in which cell grows outside the uterine cavity, causing extreme pain and infertility. This female reproductive disease affects approximately 1 in 10 women worldwide. Today, the Twinsie Tuesday girls are wearing yellow to bring awareness to this debilitating disease.

I chose a pastel yellow creme, Deborah Lippmann Build Me Up Buttercup. When you're as pale and as blonde as I am, you have to be careful with yellows, but I can usually do okay with pastel ones like this.

The formula is pretty decent--certainly world better than the other DL yellow I own, Yellow Brick Road. It goes on a little streaky (still, show me a pastel yellow that doesn't) but it's not chalky in the slightest. I used three coats here.

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

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished
​Lisa at The Polish Playground

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Savannah at Addicted to Polish

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Naild'it Birthday Balloons

Whenever I don't like the color I have on my nails, my go-to solution is to cover it in glitter. Now, you might recall that a few Twinsie Tuesday's ago that I featured Deborah Lippmann Yellow Brick Road as my pick for least favorite polish. It's not only a wildly unflattering color on me, but it's also a total ass-ache to apply. Yaaaayyyy!

After all the effort it took to put it on, I felt like I may as well wear it as a full mani rather than just a swatch, so I tried to salvage it by slapping some glitter on top--namely, Naild'it Birthday Balloons, a matter glitterbomb with a rainbow of colored hexes. Really, I'm not sure anything could save Yellow Brick Road--it looks pretty friggin' gross on me--but Birthday Balloons certainly brightens and pretties it up a bit.

Birthday Balloons was a limited edition from way back, so unfortunately this is one indie polish that's been lost to the ages. But Naild'it is still up and running, so if you dig Birthday Balloons, give their website a look! 

Twinsie Tuesday: Deborah Lippmann Yellow Brick Road

Choosing your least favorite polish is a tall order. I don't know if Deborah Lippmann Yellow Brick Road is my absolute least favorite, but it's up there. On paper, this polish has potential: a squishy, shiny canary yellow jelly. But throw in a crappy, super sheer formula and the fact that warm yellows tend to look terrible on my pale skin and this is what you get... Enjoy!

Yep, it looks like baby barf--and not even in an ugly-pretty kinda way, which I'm all about. It's just...well, ugly. I think Yellow Brick Road would look nicer on someone with darker skin, but sadly, the formula is unforgivably awful. It is painfully sheer, even for a jelly. It is literally impossible to build this polish up to opacity on its own--I've tried! But for how sheer it is, it's also ridiculously thick. You have to leave ample dry time between layers, otherwise you wind up with a goopy, lumpy mess.

I learned my lesson from the last time I wore this polish and not only gave myself plenty of time between coats, but also used Barielle's Natural Nail Camouflage as my base coat. Even with two coats of Nail Camouflage, it took four coats of Yellow Brick Road to get what you see here, which is still not completely opaque!

End rant. There you have it: my least favorite polish--or at least, one that deserves a very dishonorable mention. Don't shell out the big bucks for this one!

​

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace
Anna at Going to the Showing
Bridget at A Painted Nail

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Cordia at Seriously Swatched

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

​Marisa at Polish Obsession

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision​

Twinsie Tuesday: Lumina Lacquer Seven Year Witch

With Halloween just around the corner, we're showcasing some manis dedicated to the holiday this week! I originally planned on doing some mummy nails, but when I got some awesome nail mail over the weekend, I couldn't resist taking this opportunity to show off one of the newest additions to my collection: one of Lumina Lacquer's new Halloween polishes, Seven Year Witch!

Seven Year Witch is a matte glitterbomb filled with black and neon glitters in a bevvy of shapes, sizes and colors. Also included with Seven Year Witch is a baggie of skull-shaped glitters in a staggering amount of colors (including a few holo pieces!), for you to place on your nails however you like. Thoughtful, creative touches like this are one of the many reasons I love Lumina Lacquer so much!

The formula here is wonderful--very easy to spread across the nails. This is one coat over Illamasqua Scorch, a white creme. I thought a clean white base would be a great way to show off the huge variety of glitters you get with this polish. As I've come to expect from Lumina, the glitters themselves are well-mixed, so you don't have to fish a ton to get some of the bigger pieces.

I definitely went with something more fun and colorful for my Halloween mani rather than something spooky. While I focused more on "treat" than "trick," I can't wait to see what direction my Twinsies took this theme!

​

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace
Anna at Going to the Showing
Bridget at A Painted Nail

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Cordia at Seriously Swatched

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Jessica at Blue Velvet Lacquer

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

​Lisa at The Polish Playground

​Marisa at Polish Obsession

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision​

Rainbow Honey Lanterns

Rainbow Honey Lanterns is an iridescent, multi-colored glitter topper from the brand's new Summer Mixtape Collection, which is already available on their website. I've reviewed two other polishes from the collection already (Fall In Love and Stolen Dance) and dare I say I saved the best for last! I love not only the rainbow of colors in this polish, but the name as well. It's very evocative and perfectly captures the feel of this polish--colorful,  luminous orbs glowing and glittering as they float through space.

The formula is great, with the various glitter colors and sizes distributing evenly across the nail. There's no need to help this polish along with fishing or placing.

For the mani above, I did two coats of Lanterns over Illamasqua Scorch, a white creme. I thought a white base would best showcase the rainbow of colors in Lanterns and I really like how this combo turned out! My nails look almost like little funfetti cupcakes!


Disclosure: This polish was sent to me for my honest review. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

NOTD: Lumina Lacquer Free Spirit

I've already done a full post on Lumina Lacquer Free Spirit, but I thought I'd share a quick NOTD post with another layering combo I tried with this awesome glitter topper. I wore it over a raspberry-colored Barielle before and this time, I put it over another Barielle--a yellow called Piña Colada.

I really loved this combo so I thought it couldn't hurt to share it with you guys! A lot of the fun of indie glitters is finding different layering partners for them. It's amazing how changing the base shade can make a polish look completely different!

Barielle Piña Colada

Barielle Piña Colada is an adorable shade of pineapple yellow from their new Keys Collection. When you're pale and blonde like me, you have to be careful with yellows, but this is one I really love! It's such a bright and creamy yellow that's so fun and perfect for summer.

The formula is very creamy and not streaky in the slightest. As you can see a bit in my swatches, (which were taken pre-top coat, since I did some layering with this shade) it doesn't self-level completely, but that's nothing the top coat couldn't fix. I used three coats here.

Having worn all the shades in this collection, (I still have two more to do full posts on, but you've gotten some sneak peeks at them already in other posts.) I can safely say that Piña Colada is my favorite of the whole bunch! It's such a cute shade that strikes that perfect balance between bright and pastel. 

You can purchase Barielle from their website.

Disclosure: This polish was sent to me for my honest review.