Rainbow Honey 20% Cooler

It's been a loooooong time since I took these photos, but they sort of go with last week's blue creme comparison since I actually just put it over those five polishes.  So, because it's been a long time since I did this mani, and my brain doesn't remember things very well anymore, this will be a predominantly picture heavy post.  Enjoy Madame Righty as she shows you 20% Cooler!

[I purchased all polishes myself.]

Just as a memory refresher, my undies are (from thumb to pinkie): Deborah Lippman Let's Hear it For the Boy, Elevation Alphubel, OPI What's with the Cattitude, BarryM Blueberry Ice Cream, and China Glaze Electric Beat.  I really liked the look of this glitter on top of the blues.  It reminded me of a rainbow in a clear blue sky.

20% Cooler is a clear based polish with a rainbow of glitters ranging from matte to metallic in varying sizes.

I did one coat of 20% Cooler over the blue ombre.  Application wasn't too bad, but it was definitely thick like most of my Rainbow Honeys.  So, you may need to get some thinner.

I really like how bright and happy this looks.  In the bottle, it looks like the base has a bit of a grey tinge, but it's actually clear with some micro glitters that muddy the base in the bottle.  It doesn't come across as grey or muddy on the nail, though.

I love the look of glitters matted, so I'm not sure why I don't do it more often.  Here, I've topped my mani with NYC's matte topcoat.

And then, just because I wanted to show how versatile this little guy can be, I used OPI Don't Touch My Tutu, my go-to white jelly, to do a jelly sandwich!

You can purchase Rainbow Honey polishes at their store.  Follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for news and updates.

So, what do you think?  Do you like rainbow glitters?  Which is your favorite rainbow glitter?

[I purchased all polishes myself.]

Comparison Thursday: Light Blue Cremes

Tonight's post will be a bit... spotty...  I took these photos forever ago, and I'm a bit fuzzy on all of the application details.  Also, the pics are a bit dark and my skin is a bit dry, soooo just keep in mind that these are from almost two years ago now.  Ok, let's get to it!

All polishes were purchased by me.

Tonight's post consists of a few of my light blue cremes and one shimmer (I'm not sure why I put it in this comparison).  None of them are or near the same shade, so I guess let's get to the differences.

Deborah Lippmann Let's Hear it for the Boy, Elevation Polish Alphubel, OPI What's With the Cattitude, BarryM Blueberry Ice Cream, and China Glaze Electric Beat

Let's Hear it For the Boy

Let's Hear it For the Boy is a super pale blue almost periwinkle creme.  As you can see, application isn't flawless and the formula isn't self-leveling.  It took three coats for full opacity, and the first coat or two are still quite streaky.  This was a limited edition, but you can purchase other Deborah Lippmann polishes at Sephora.

Alphubel

Alphubel is a light blue with a strong icy blue shimmer.  It's got a bit of a grey undertone, but the shimmer is prominent on the nail.  The application was relatively easy, like with most Elevations, and took three coats for full opacity.  You can purchase Elevation Polishes at her store here.

What's With the Cattitude

WWtC is probably the most difficult with application in the whole set.  No matter how many times I try to wear this polish, it goes on in a streaky mess that refuses to dry.  I use about four coats, and you can still see some balding and streaking.  I really want to love this polish because the color is just so pretty and unique (it's the most teal of the group), but the application leaves much to be desired.  Again, this one has been long since discontinued, but I found it dusty hunting, which is why my bottle is almost dead.

Blueberry Ice Cream

I kind of really love BarryM polishes.  Application on this guy was fantastic and has a bit of a squishy look to it even though it's not a jelly.  This is the most blue of the five polishes in this set.  This is three coats to hit full opacity.  I received this bottle from a friend in the UK, but you can purchase BarryM polishes at Color4Nails.

Electric Beat

This is another one that I'm not sure why I added into this comparison as it's the most periwinkle of the group.  It's also not very light, either.  Electric Beat has a great formula like most China Glaze cremes, and only needed two coats for full opacity.  This is a core line polish, so you can find it at most beauty supply shops.

I have more light blues I could add to this comparison now, but that'll have to wait for another week.  I'll definitely let you know when I have more to add to the comparison!  Which is your favorite?

All polishes were purchased by me.

Summer of Untrieds: Week 1

Welcome to my first weekly installment of the Summer of Untrieds Challenge!  If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, you'll know that I've created a daily challenge for the month of July to get through as many untried polishes on my list as I possibly can.  Because changing my polish every day is pretty ambitious, even for me, I'm going to stick to one weekly post showcasing the week's manis instead of trying to post them every day.  This will allow me to keep certain other weekly features going while I do this challenge (i.e. the return of Comparison Thursday!).  The last challenge I did went pretty well for a while, but I just got so busy and stopped wearing polish for a few weeks.  I know!  Quelle horreur!  I'm determined to keep up with this one, and maybe after the month of July is over, I'll get back to the Crumpet's Golden Oldie Thursdays.  Until then, though, I hope you take the untrieds train with me!  Here are the prompts and the rules:

Rules:

• Use at least 1 untried polish that fits with the prompt for the day.
• If you don't have anything that works with the prompt, then consider it a free day and choose a random untried from your stash.
• There won't be an inlinkz, so keep up with the group by tagging your photos #summerofuntrieds.  I've also been including #julyuntriedchallenge in my posts, so you can add that too if you want.  Also, feel free to add a tag to me if you'd like (either @blueeyedlawyer or #wishesofablueeyedgirl).
• Start crossing off those untrieds in your stash!

Eventually, I may make a collage of all of the manis for each day's prompts and make an album on my Facebook page or Pinterest.  So, I'll let you guys know if I do that so you can tag yourselves!  Ok, let's get down to the nitty-gritty!  As always, click on the photos to view them in greater detail.

July 1: OPI

I purchased these myself.

For the first day, I wore OPI's Hey Baby and Push and Shove.  I know I'm a bit late on the Gwen polishes, but I haven't really been in the mood for mainstreams lately.  That being said, I have no idea why I waited to wear these.  Holy lord, they are sooooo pretty.  Hey Baby is really a one coater, and application was beyond easy.  I highly recommend it for everyone!  Push and Shove has a great ending effect, but it's a pretty annoying polish to apply.  It reminds me of the Nfu Oh and Layla holos that really needed an aqua base to go on smoothly without balding.  You can definitely see all of the imperfection in my nails, too, so I decided to do a little bit of testing to check out wear and the final application.  On my ring finger of my left hand and pinkie of my right hand, I have 3 layers of Push and Shove over 1 layer of my strengthener, Quimica Alemana Esmalte Endurecedor para Unas (what a mouthful!), and 1 layer of Lay Down that Base. On the thumb, index, and middle fingers of my right I have 2 layers of Lay down that Base topped with 3 of Push and Shove. All have topcoat. The P&S over the strengthener is holding up WAY better than the one over only LDTB and has 0 chips so far while the nails with just LDTB are chipping like mad.  [They say that it's a one-day use polish, which I can totally see if you're wearing it with only LDTB and without a topcoat!] You also can't see as many nail imperfections on the nails over the strengthener!  If you decide to go with a normal base coat underneath LDTB, you should really wait until it and LDTB are completely dry before applying P&S, otherwise it'll drag like mad.  Also, use caution when applying P&S and try not to go over portions that have already been painted until it has dried.  This means you'll need to get a little less polish on the brush and try not to overlap while you're painting.  I was planning to stamp over these, but I'm liking the fresh look they have on their own.  I do wonder, though, how they will stamp!  I'll have to give that a try and report back!

July 2: Glitter Topper

I purchased these myself.

For this manicure, I used OPI Can't Find My Czechbook topped with the ultimate glitter topper - Lynnderella's The Glittering Crowd.  Application of the OPI was pretty easy with only minimal pooling.  It only required two coats and dried fairly quickly.  Unfortunately, this blue isn't exactly super unique, and I'm planning to do a comparison of about 3 other blues in the same range soon.  TGC was fairly easy to apply as well.  It didn't require digging to get the glitters out of the bottle, and it spread evenly without pooling.  The base to glitter ratio was perfect, which can sometimes be a crapshoot with Lynnderellas.  Don't get me wrong, I clearly love me some Lynns, but she tends to pack her bottles so full of glitter that they require the dab method to spread evenly.  This wasn't the case for TGC!

July 3: Creme

I purchased or swapped for these.

I love wearing a creme as much as the next gal, but I get sooooo bored with them super easily.  Plus, since this is a challenge to slash through my untrieds, I wanted to make sure I used more than just one.  As such, I decided to try out some Nail Vinyls from @teismom on IG to go with my cremes.  I've used her stars and chevrons before, but I had some lightening bolts laying around that needed some attention, so I pulled those out for this mani to use with my cremes: Illamasqua Jo'mina (purple), Cult Nails Nakizzle's Shizzle (baby blue), and Illamasqua Cameo (periwinkle).  I didn't exactly think this one through, though, and didn't do them in the correct order.  Oops!  Next time, I'll be more prepared and do them in the right order so that I won't have to do what I did this go around, which was to freehand one of the lines of the baby blue.  Jo'mina was a two coater, but it definitely got all over the skin around my nails, which was sad.  Cleanup was fairly easy, though, without any staining of my skin.  I only needed one coat each of Cameo and NS, but I can't accurately describe their application since I didn't exactly use them for a full mani.  All in all, I still really like this mani despite the imperfections!

July 4: Red, White, and Blue

I purchased or swapped for these.

I wanted to do too many things for my red, white, and blue mani, so I did a bit of a skittle manicure to try and incorporate a lot of the good stuff into the one day I allotted myself for the challenge.  I used Barry M Cobalt Blue on my thumb topped with two coats of Lynnderella Flurries of Starlight.  Cobalt was practically a one coater, but I used two coats for fuller coverage.  I should've used only one coat of Flurries, but I got a little over eager...  As a base for my index, middle, and ring fingers, I used three coats of Emerald and Ash's Mie Scattering, which is my all time favorite white right now with it's crelly texture and subtle shimmer.  On my index finger, I used one coat of Kawaii Lacquer's Aren't the Stars and Stripes a Little... Old Fashioned?, which was super easy to apply with glitters that came out of the bottle easily and spread well on the nail.  On my middle finger, I did a waterfall manicure using Barry M Cobalt, KBShimmer's A Whole Lava Lovin, and Maybeline Silver Gleam.  On my ring finger, I did a water marble using Cult Nails Tempest (white) and Kiss (red) and Barry M Cobalt.  All three were fantastic for water marbling!  I had a bit of trouble with the marble on my swatch hand, but my right hand looked pretty good.  Lastly, on my pinkie I used two coats of Whole Lava Lovin topped with one coat of Lynnderella Sapphire Starfire.  Both were super easy to apply without much manipulation.

July 5: Lynnderella

I purchased or swapped for these myself.

For my Lynnderella day, I chose to use two Lynns: LE Sleepy Holo and core the Stars in Her Eyes, which I wore in one coat over two coats of Chanel April.  I received SIHE in a decant from a friend, and I love those little baby stars!!  For Sleepy Holo, I used two coats of this amazingly full coverage glitter jelly alone.  Even at one coat, it was almost opaque!  Dry time on this mani was fairly quick, and I used one coat of Peita's Polish Glitter Glaze with a coat of Seche Vite to tame those glitters.

July 6: Orange

I purchased or swapped for these myself.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll either know or have noticed that I don't really wear much orange.  Oranges typically don't look great on me.  Plus, I have an aversion to it because of my having gone to the University of Georgia (and a strangely large amount of our rivals use orange!).  For this prompt, I really only had one orange that I hadn't used before, and this gave me a great excuse to wear it!  I used Essie's Bright Tights that I found dusty hunting a while ago, and I topped it with one coat of Alta Costura Vernis BrightSide.  Stupidly, I decided to try this neon without a white base coat...  As such, I couldn't get a fully opaque look at even four coats!  However, I was lucky in that the glitter topper helped to cover up some of the VNL.  Application for Bright Tights was also a bit difficult.  It dries a bit matte, so you have to work quickly to get it on the nail and keep it from dragging.  Plus, my bottle is wicked old, so it was a touch clumpy.  BrightSide applied well, but I wish there was a better glitter to base payoff since it was hard to get the larger bits of glitter out of the bottle.  I really liked that the pink and yellow glitters reminded me a bit of pink lemonade!  Both of these polishes have been discontinued, sadly, so you won't be able to find them anywhere other than blog sales (or maybe dusty hunting for the Essie).

July 7: Textured

I purchased these myself.

The last mani for tonight is a gradient I did using only textures.  I started with a base of white using Cult Tempest.  Then, I used (going from thumb to pinkie): OPI You're So Flippy Floppy, OPI Jinx, OPI I'm Brazil Nuts Over You, OPI Samba-dy Loves Purple, Sally Hansen Royal Icing, and OPI What's a Little Rain Forest?.  Sadly, Samba and Royal Icing weren't as easy to apply using the gradient method as the rest.  They just weren't pigmented enough and required an extra coat for each.  I can't really speak to proper application on any of these polishes, though, since I did the gradient instead of a normal mani.  The first photo shows the mani without a topcoat.  Next, I put on a coat of Peita's Polish Glitter Glaze, which really made the colors look richer than without the topcoat.  Lastly, I attempted a little palm tree nail art, which I copied from this awesome tutorial, using Kiss Nail Art's black striper.  (I did this on three nails but only watched the video to do it on my middle finger...  The picture got increasingly worse until the final attempt on my not-pictured pinkie looked like a weird bug...  Next time, I'll rewatch the video as I do each nail until I'm positive that I know how to do it without it looking like a second grader's abstract art.)  I topped it off with a coat of Alter Ego She Shines! topcoat.  I almost wish I could have been able to wear this for a longer period of time, but this challenge slows down for no (wo)man!

So, what did you think of this past week's manis?  Come back next Monday for next week's installment of the Summer of Untrieds Challenge!  Tomorrow we'll be taking a look at another #RedCoatTuesday!

ECOPOLO Summer Mani Challenge

Better late than never, I say!  Tonight's special post is for a challenge I have accepted through one of my polish groups.  Here is the list of the weekly challenges:

I'm really no good at nail art, but I thought I'd think outside of the box for this one.  I could've done something that was well within my comfort level, like a yellow mani with polka dots, but I had this ridiculous idea immediately pop into my mind.  And because I don't usually want to do nail art, I thought I had to give it a shot, at least!  So, tonight's attempt at nail art is a beach scene at sunset with an abandoned yellow polka dot bikini.  I've also included a palm tree and an umbrella.  Sorry if it's hard to tell what I attempted, but I thought I'd post it anyway despite it not being the best job.  Also, note that I'm showing you my right hand.  For some reason, it came out better than my left hand, which is weird because I'm a righty.

I used a ridiculous amount of polishes to create this look: OPI WWTC, Czechbook, Jinx, The Spy Who Loved Me, You Don't Know Jacques, Opening Night Gold; Girly Bits Arctic Sunrise, Glo Worm, Banana Hammock, and Jelly Shoes; Revlon Powder Puff; Barry M Indigo, Max Factor Fantasy Fire; Zoya Yana; and Color Club Almost Famous.

First, I striped on Czechbook, Opening Night Gold, and Arctic Sunrise.  I let it dry for a minute, then, I sponged on Banana Hammock, Jinx, The Spy Who Loved Me, Jelly Shoes, Indigo, and Fantasy Fire to create a sunset look.  Next, I painted on the sun, bikini, trees, and umbrella.

Then, I finished up with sponging on WWTC and Powder Puff onto Czechbook and Opening Night Gold to create a wave crashing on the ocean look.  Lastly, I added KBShimmer's Clearly on Top, which smeared the details just a tad, but not horribly.  Here are macros of each finger.  You'll need to click on it to enlarge if you want to see the details a little better.

There you have it!  My take on the Yellow Polka Dot Bikini!




So, was this a nail fail, or do you like it?

*I was not financially compensated for this post.  All items in this review were purchased by me for my own use.  The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.*

Case of the Blues: Sassy Lacquer Dawns Dew

With the end of this project in sight, I sighed in relief.  Until, that is, they decided to get an extension so we could continue on this insane project for another week.  Now, I'm just sighing.  There go my plans to hit up Disney this weekend!  Meh.  Oh, and let me just tell you, time changes suck.  They need to keep it one way or another.  This stupid variation is killer!!!!  Ugh.  So, I guess you can say that today, I have the case of the blues.  And the Mondays.  Maybe a little of both.  Or a lot of both?  Fitting that I'm rocking some seriously killer blue nails!

First, I want to show you a quick peek at my undies for this mani.  They'll be up on the blog shortly for a Comparison Thursday post, but here's the ombre I used as my base mani.

Deborah Lippmann Dancing in the Sheets, Elevation Alphubel, OPI What's With the Cattitude, Barry M Blueberry Ice cream, and China Glaze Electric Beat.

I chose to top these guys off with an indie called Dawns Dew [sic] by Sassy Lacquer.  (Read my interview with Carrie of Sassy Lacquer here.)

Color: Super sheer blue with fine blue and pink shimmering micro glitters.

Ignore the smudge on my middle finger...  I ran out of time, so it had to stay.  Womp womp!

Finish: Sheer – a polish that is sheer like a jelly, but has shimmer.  Not squishy like a jelly.  Best over darker colors.

Bottle / Brush: Round mini bottle – wand and brush are just long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle.  However, the fact that it’s a mini makes application a little tricky.  Requires a steady hand to apply evenly without pooling.

Opacity: Low – it requires several coats for opacity, but you'll never really get rid of visible nail line.  This is pretty much best used as a topper over other polishes.  It's so sheer that I couldn't get it to build up enough to cover my visible nail line.  However, it looks great over other colors and transforms darker colors into something special.

Here it is over black and white.

Glitter Application: Easy – Spreads evenly without much manipulation.  Like with Tiger Lily Wears Pink, Dawns Dew has super fine micro glitters that come out of the bottle easily and spread without any need to manipulate.

Consistency: Medium – applies easily and doesn’t flood the cuticles.  It was almost perfect.  I didn't even need to do any cleanup - and this is my right hand, guys.  I'm not so awesome at polish application with my left hand, so the application for Dawns Dew is something special.

Overall Ease of Application: Easy – applies well without pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads evenly and smoothly.

Stampability: Not designed for stamping.

Dry Time: Medium – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in 3-8 minutes. Overall Thoughts: Dawns Dew is a very pretty blue shimmer looks best over darker colors.  The micro glitters slightly detract from lighter colors by giving them a speckled look, which is actually trendy right now so it's not really a negative.  You just don't notice the blue sheen and pink shimmers as much over lighter colors as you do over darker.  It completely transforms mid-range and darker colors showing off it's beautiful shift from blue to pink.  Application was amazing.  It applied evenly, spread well, and I didn't screw up my right hand, which is fantastic since it's now my swatching hand!  Even though I'm not usually really into sheers like this, I'm very pleased with Dawns Dew.  It's extremely pretty while also being fairly unique.

You can purchase Dawns Dew from Sassy Lacquer's store.  Follow Carrie on her blog and Facebook for more information, news, and updates.

What's your favorite sheer?

*I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.*