Perfectly Polished Tips 257 - NOTD Monday Happy Hands For British Eyes Only

Happy Monday! I usually hate mondays but so far today Monday is going smoothly. (and i probably just jinxed it and the rest of my day will suck) It is damp and rainy outside but I really appreciate the cooler weather. I have been over the summer heat for about two months now :)

Today I have Happy Hands For British Eyes Only to share. It's a gorgeous, glitter bomb, and it happens to be in my favorite color family - teal!

2 coats of FBEO over Illa Muse

It was raining yesterday too when I took these photos. The bling is understated but the color is spot on. Usually my issues are opposite. There is  all types of glitter going on in the bottle. I have become really fond of hex glitter and I really love the depth and dimension in this polish.

For British Eyes Only is from Happy Hands I Have Made A Huge Mistake collection which was inspired by a TV show. After seeing the polishes I became very curious about what they were referencing and I watched all three seasons of Arrested Development over about two weeks. I loved it, if you have not watched the show you should really check it out. I know it's an older show but some how I had never watched any of it. I'm glad I did.

For British Eyes Only can be found on Etsy, it looks like FBEO is OOS right now but the shop restocks on Saturdays at 5PM.

Perfectly Polished Tips 248 - NOTD Lilacquer Schrodinger's Catastrophe

Lilacquer is another new to me brand. The owner/creator mostly does duochrome top coats. That is not really my thing. However she recently announced a new collection called Science! and it is more duochrome topcoats but they are made with hex glitter instead of shimmer. Since I am on such a glitter bomb kick I decided that I could not pass this one up. I believe Lilacquer will be releasing one new polish for the Science! collection each month. Please don't quote me on that though!

Schrodinger's Catastrophe has hex glitter that shifts from blue to aqua to green. It's very pretty and applied very easily. With most glitter polishes you have to dab to get a good coating of glitter, for this polish I applied it like a normal polish. I found that the amount of glitter varied by how much I had wiped the brush before putting it on the nail. I was very happy about that, fishing for glitter makes me sad.

I wore it over 1 coat of Illa bOOsh. It would probably look great over blues and teals too.

with flash to show the green side

I wrote this up and took photos a few days ago when it was cloudy and blogger crapped out on me. Next time I wear this polish I will be sure to get sunshine pics and post them here or on my facebook page.

Lilacquer is available on Etsy and depending on what you buy price ranges from $9-12. This particular polish was $9 plus shipping.

Perfectly Polished Tips 247 - NOTD Pahlish Typewriter Keys

I have already gushed about how much I love Shannon's polishes. Typewriter Keys did not disappoint! I wore it over OPI Don't Touch My Tutu. For being a glitter polish I found this manicure to be almost subtle and chic. It felt very elegant and not so in your face as some of the other glitter bomb polish that I own.

Typewriter Keys contains ultra fine silver and holo shimmer as well as black and pearly white shard glitter in a clear base. The holo shimmer really makes the polish IMO. I found this mani to be neutral but still fun. It was a nice break from all of the blue, green, and purple I have been wearing. :)

This is two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu and two coats of Typewriter Keys.

Pahlish retails for $9 a bottle and can be found on Etsy.

Perfectly Polished Tips 244 - NOTD Lush Lacquer Golden Goddess

Lush Lacquer is a new to me brand. It is an indie brand created by a mother daughter team :) I have been lemming OPI Dazzled by Gold FOREVER. It came out when I did not have access to Ulta and being that I am picky about gold on my skin I didn't try very hard to get it. Then of course I *needed* it and it was too late. I chose Gold Goddess in hopes of taking my mind off of Dazzled by Gold.

I love the color of this polish, it is on the cooler side and not too yellow. The formula was great, I did have an issue with the silver hex glitter. The etsy listing does say that you may have to fish for the hexes, which I thought meant that if you wanted AOT hexes on your nails then you would have to fish. Well I didn't get any hexes on my nails with just the brush. I tried tipping the bottle upside down, rolling it, shaking it. I eventually ended up sticking an orange stick in there and picking them off the stick with the brush. It was a pain and although I adore my manicure I don't know if I want to have to do that every single time I want to wear it. I don't know that this is the case with all of their polish and to be quite honest I probably would purchase another color if they had something I wanted.

For my NOTD I layered two coats of Golden Goddess over one coat of Orly Luxe

Sunlight

outdoors

I purchased Golden Goddess from Lush Lacquer's Etsy shop. They retail for $8.75 each and I believe shipping was $3 or so. It seems that they make the polish as the orders come in so there is a wait time. I think it took almost two weeks for me to receive the polish, so if you are not the patient type I would skip Lush Lacquer.

Perfectly Polished Tips 239 - NOTD Monday Pahlish

I posted about Pahlish in my last post. I am pretty new to indie nail polish and Pahlish was one of my first purchases. I have always said glitter was not for me, I am a self proclaimed member of TEAM CREME! I saw Dark Parades and instantly fell in love. Since then I have purchased a few more and I love them all. The formula is awesome, the brush is perfect for my narrow nail beds, and the selection is amazing!

Here are two NOTDs featuring Pahlish.

Dark Parades - unfortunately it was gloomy out when I wore this one so no great pictures were taken. These photos do it no justice!

Train Underwater - again this pic does not do the polish justice. There is amazing purple glitter in there as well as blue. There are some hexes as well.

Both of these are not my usual MO but I had fun wearing them and am glad they are apart of my collection! You can find Pahlish on Etsy, they retail for $8.50 each.

Perfectly Polished Tips 237 - NOTD Monday

I did this NOTD when my nails were still long. Unfortunately I am not cut out to have long nails and I have been sporting nubbins for about a week now. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted!

This is Essie Body Language topped with OPI Mod Hatter. We had very little sun last week so the pictures are not the best.

I had wanted to do a neutral manicure because I thought it would look very chic on long tips. I ended up hating this combo, which is odd because the first time I wore Body Language I loved it. It may have been because I wore it on short nails.

Are there any colors meant for long tips? Or colors that should only be worn on shorties? I know everyone has different opinions on this, I feel like if you like it rock it.

Have a great week!

Perfectly Polished Tips 235 - NOTD Monday! Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Little Lam Lam

I have never watched any of the Kardashian shows, but I have read about them on my guilty pleasure; ONTD. I am not a fan at all but I must admit I do like quite a few of the colors they created with OPI. I don't usually purchase Nicole by OPI polishes because I hate the bottle shape. I know it is supposed to make polishing easier but it messes up order in my Helmer. Things don't fit as well and yea.

Anyways I caved on the Nicoles & the Kardashian Kolors. (I also hate all the "K" business but I will keep my rants to myself.) As I have shared before on the blog I love teal nail polish. I am also on "Team Creme" so that made Khloe Had a Little Lam Lam doubly enticing. I absolutely hate the name of this polish, keep your cutesy nick names to yourself! The polish applied wonderfully and wore very well. I really like Nicole brushes and wish OPI would have never gone Pro Wide.

This is two coats of color & top coat. I really love this polish even if I do already own a few in the same vein. I wear this color pretty often so I don't mind the extra :)

On a side note I have not clipped my nails at all since ending the ASK Cosmetics Bare Naked Nail Challenge. I am still using the TIPS for Toes but not religiously and filing with the Contour file daily has really helped lessen snags and the pieces that had been off. I'm really happy with the progress but I don't know if I am meant to have long nails! They look so elegant but I keep stabbing my kids. I am also terrified that I am going to catch one on something and have a horrible break. I wanted to do a neutral manicure because that is something I rarely do and I thought it would look nice on longer nails. The color combo I chose was a big fail, so I am trying to decide weather to do another neutral mani or nubbinize and do something fun.

I do have pictures of the neutral mani but it rained here today so I am not sure how they turned out, if they are decent I will share. I will also do a mini TIPS conditioner update with naked nail pics before I clip them.

Have a good week!

Perfectly Polished Tips 221 - The Return of NOTD Monday

I liked doing NOTD Monday posts and was sidelined due to the nail challenge. While I don't think it will be beneficial to keep polish on all the time during the challenge, I do think it is okay some of the time. I will (hopefully) be doing weekend manicures so I can get back to posting polish photos! That and I miss having color on my tips!

This weekend's manicure was Essie No More Film. It's a beautiful, inky, blurple creme. When I first got into polishes that were not pink or red, blurple was the color I was on the hunt for. At the time the only blurple creme out there was one by L'Oreal and it was hard to find. I was lucky enough to snag a bottle but was disappointed to find that the formula bubbled on me. Every. Single. Time. I tried different base coats and top coats, nothing helped. A few others came out after that and of course I had to have them. Zoya Pinta comes to mind, I think I have a photo somewhere but I'm not sure if I still own Pinta.

No More Film is part of the Resort 2012 collection. I did not pay attention to any of the other colors in this collection, I saw NMF, grabbed it, and didn't have a second thought. This polish is a one coater, the coverage and formula are amazing. I did two coats out of habit though and because for some reason when I polish lately I completely miss the side of my nail. It takes the "gap" to a whole other level, a level where it doesn't belong :) 

I had to tweak with the color settings of the photos. My camera was giving me a boring, navy creme. This polish is far from that! I tried to get it as true to life as I could. I think I did a decent job representing the color. With two coats it dries slightly darker than the color in the bottle. This is no big deal to me. 

Essie No More Film is available now, I got my bottle at Target for around $8.

Perfectly Polished Tips 191 - NOTD Monday

Happy Monday! Today's NOTD Monday polish is Massini Purple Medallion. It's a fun, chunky, purple, and slightly holographic glitter. I wish I could have gotten my hands on more polishes from this brand. I believe they are sold at a place called Meijer's. I don't have one of those near by. This polish was sent to me by a friend. On to the photos. Two coats w/ base and top coat.




I'm getting ready to move & my stash has arrived at my new home. Hopefully in one piece. I did keep two polishes behind though. Now just to find the time to use them! Have a good week everyone!

Perfectly Polished Tips 185 - NOTD Monday

Today's Nail of the Day is OPI Visions of Sugarplums. I believe this polish was an Ulta exclusive 2 winters ago. I don't know why it took me so long to get around to wearing it, it's a beautiful polish. I did decide to do a month of glitter. I had wanted to kick things of with Lippmann's Superstar but it chipped before I had a chance to snap a photo. I apologize for the tip wear in this photo. I am always running around like a chicken with no head this time of the year. I thought I was going to miss getting a photo but I forgot how well OPI wears on me. This manicure is 2 coats of polish w/ Gelous base coat + Poshe top coat.

sunshine.

indoor - no flash

This polish may only be available on ebay however I did read recently about random Ulta exclusives being spotted at CVS. so you could check there although I don't find this polish to be overly unique and there are probably a few dupes out there.

Perfectly Polished Tips 183 - NOTD Monday

To get me on track with posting and to force me to photograph my Nail Of The Day more often I'm going to try to do these once a week. I don't change my polish nearly as often as I would like. I used to do 3 or 4 manicures a week. To start it off I have Orly Luxe topped with China Glaze Lightening Bolt.

I saw a manicure similar to this sometime last year when the news the crackle polish was making a comeback was released. I remember using the Cover Girl crackle polish when I was younger and loving it. I didn't keep any of the polish I had when I was younger and I often wonder what gems I tossed out! Anyways I saw the manicure and I needed to replicate it ASAP. The China Glaze crackle was hard to come by in my town. It sold out immediately. My lovely sister was able to find it online and got it for me for my birthday. I finally wore it and was happy with the results.

Even though crackle polish is everywhere right now it seems to get mixed reviews. I personally love it. It's nice for a funky/fun mani and my favorite thing about it? I can slap it over an old mani or one I may have smudged and I am good to go.

I picked up Orly Luxe from my local Sally Beauty I believe it's part of the core collection. Crackle polish can be found just about anywhere in a variety of colors.