Oldie but Goodie: Old Swatch Roundup

It's time for the next installment of the Old Swatch Roundup!  I've got a MILLION photos of gorgeous polishes that need to be reviewed, but I've taken so long to actually do anything with these photos that I don't remember anything about the actual polish!  D'oh!  My solution?  I'll just toss a bunch of older swatches into one post a month without an actual review!  By the way, I've been keeping notes on application for all of the recent swatches I've done to ensure that I don't forget when it's time for the review.  I can't let my laziness deter from proper reviews!  Ok, let's take a look!

Purchased By Me

Hot Look BMX Bandit topped with Lynnderella Forget You Not

OPI Suzi Skis the Pyrenees Suede

OPI Russian Navy Suede

Butter London Black Knight

Koh Cloudy

Candeo Spruce over Koh Cloudy

Essie She's Picture Perfect

China Glaze Crystal Ball

Dollish Three Best Friends that Anyone Could Have over Essie She's Picture Perfect

China Glaze Let's Do It in 3-D

Game Day Mani: Clemson

Now that Pretty Little Liars is over, I'm going to start using my normal #RedCoatTuesday slot to honor a different Red Coats - the University of Georgia!  [For those not in the know, UGA's marching band is called the Redcoat Band, which I was in for two years in college!]  So, every Tuesday, I'm going to share my team spirit!  I apologize to anyone who doesn't like UGA, but at least red and black are pretty together!  Tonight's mani includes stamping, decals, and Swarovski crystals!  Let's take a look!

Purchased by me or given as gift.

First, though, here's me, Mr. Blue-Eyed Girl (would that be Hazel-Eyed Boy?), and UGA VI in our Redcoat uniforms.  Band geek and proud!

I used the following items for this mani:

Cult Nails Tempest, Cult Nails Nevermore, Cult Nails Kiss, Konad White, Konad Black, Essie No Place Like Chrome, Cheeky plate CH52 from their Summer Collection, Nail Dot water decals, Nail Vinyls, and little red Swarovski crystals I received as a gift!

I started out by applying my undies, (thumb to pinkie): Nevermore, Tempest, Tempest, Kiss, Nevermore.  Next, I stamped onto my thumb, index, ring, and pinkie fingers using the Cheeky plate.  For my thumb and pinkie, I did a double stamp using Konad White and Cult Kiss, which actually stamped really well.  On my index finger, I stamped using the Essie.  Lastly, I used Konad Black and White on my ring finger over Kiss.  This was my first time doing the double stamp, which came out better than I had anticipated!

Next, I used the little G water decal from Nail Dots that I applied over the silver stamping.  I like these little decals, but they always tend to wrinkle and stick up around the edges, which is not so awesome.  I ended up using an extra coat of topcoat to smooth it down.

Then, after I waited for my coat of Tempest to dry on my middle finger, I applied the Nail Vinyls and painted on Kiss and Nevermore.  This was probably the best Nail Vinyl mani I've ever done!  I think it's because I waited long enough for my base to be 100% completely dry and removed the stickers as soon as I put the paint down without letting it dry.

Lastly, I added on the Swarovski crystals and added another layer of topcoat.  I was actually really surprised that most of these crystals lasted for two days, and I only lost two!  I'm not normally the type of person who likes doing anything that sticks up on my nails, but these aren't that bad or inconvenient.

All in all, I was so pleased with the outcome of this mani!  I highly doubt I'll be doing anything this elaborate for future game-day manis, but I wanted to go all out for the season opener.  Do you follow any fall sports?  Do you like to do fun manis to show your team spirit?

Guest Post: Born for a Storm with Lynnderella Bunny Robin

This week's going to be insane, so I'll be having a few guest bloggers help me keep up the blog! I promised I wouldn't take too much time off, so this is my solution. Tonight, let's welcome the ever amazing Sara from Born for a Storm, one of my BFFs and the lady who has the cutest nubs around! Take a look at her lovely post below! 


Hi, everyone who reads Julie's blog! I'm Sara and I'm over at Born For A Storm. Julie put out a call for some guest bloggers so I'm here to show you a totally beautiful Lynnderella that I got earlier in the spring. I was hesitant to buy Bunny Robin at first. I'm not much of a bright blue-wearer. I stick to softer blues, but after wearing this, I don't really know why. I purchased this polish myself.

 

How cute is the blue label?! This is from Lynnderella's spring core collection. I decided to wear it for Easter, since the polish reminded me of candy nestled in bright blue Easter basket plastic grass stuff. Random? Yes. But are you now agreeing with me about what it looks like? Also yes.

 

Just looking at this photo makes me want to whip this out and wear it again. This polish is mainly blue with hints of multi-colored glitters. The base of the polish is blue, so it'll change your base color a little bit. The base also has an intense pink shimmer! I'm wearing it over a light blue Essie that I forget the name of. I'm wearing one thicker coat of the Lynn with base coat, top coat, and a bit of Gelous to smooth it all out. I used some zig zag nail vinyls on my ring finger to make it look like an Easter egg. It's super dorky but I got so many compliments on it!

 

I think the macro speaks for itself. :) You can purchase Lynnderella polishes at the brand's eBay store.

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!

Comparison Friday: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer April Showers Collection

Tonight's comparison is all about the new Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer April Showers Collection that releases on Sunday, April 27, at 4:30 pm edt.  This post will be short on words and heavy on photos.  As always, click on the photo to see it in more detail.  I'm including some rare and special editions in this as well so you can see how those compare.  So, let's get started!

White

Dogwood vs. Untrodden Snow

Both are shown with three coats and a topcoat.  Dogwood is more jelly-like and has various sizes of flakies and shimmers.  Untrodden Snow is a creme with strong blue flash and blue microshimmers.

Pink/Orange/Neutral

Cherry Blossom vs. Flash Forward Fantasy vs. Peruvian Lily vs. <3

Clearly, Cherry Blossom and Peruvian Lily don't really mix in with the other two.  One is pink and the other is orange...  While Flash Forward Fantasy has a strong pink shimmer, which gives it a strong pink leaning, it's still neutral.  <3 and Flash Forward Fantasy both have the same base color, but FFF is a creme that dries matte and has a shift whereas <3 is a jelly with iridescent glitters.  All are shown with four coats except for <3, which is three coats.

Purple

Dew in Lieu of Frost vs. Purple Phlox vs. Ovaries before Brovaries

FiLoD is a darker purple and more of a blue purple than the other two and is a creme with a strong shift.  Purple Phlox is a straight up jelly without any additional shimmer, but it does include micro-iridescent glitters.  These glitters are different from the ones in Ovaries before Broveries.  Ovaries before Brovaries is a crelly with a shift and iridescent glitters, but it leans closer to a creme than a jelly.  However, at some angles, the base color in OBB and Purple Phlox is almost identical.  They both lean on the red side of the purple spectrum as compared to FiLoD, but the added shimmer in OBB changes the base just a tad making it a hair lighter than Purple Phlox.  All three polishes are shown with three coats.

Green

Essie Mint Candy Apple vs. Lady Slipper vs. Monster's Tea at Tiffany's vs. Zoya Wednesday

Unlike the other colors in the collection, I actually had a few mainstreams that I thought might be comparable.  While they are close, they're still very different.  Essie Mint Candy Apple is a creme that's also a giant pain in the butt.  It didn't self level and it would bald easily.  Lady Slipper's base color is closest in color to MCA, but application was easier and it has a shift to it.  Monster's Tea at Tiffany's is a few shades darker than Lady Slipper but lighter than Wednesday.  The shift in MTaT is a green to red, which is also different from Lady Slipper's blue to pink shift.  Lastly is Wednesday, which is much darker than all the rest and is a plain creme.  All polishes are in three coats, except MTaT, which is only two.

Blue

Hydrangea vs. Sordid End

This one's a pretty clear difference.  Sordid End is much darker than Hydrangea and has a strong teal to purple shift.  Hydrangea has teal, blue, and purple shimmers and is in a crelly base.  Sordid End has a creme base versus Hydrangea's crelly.  Both polishes are shown in three coats.

I hope this comparison has helped to show that this new collection is pretty unique within the BEGL line.  These will be released on Sunday, April 27, at 3:30 pm edt at my store here.  This will be a relatively small restock, so get there early and be ready!  Some of these colors may come back after this release depending on popularity, but please note that I'm currently planning to retire them after this restock.  Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for news and updates, or sign up for the newsletter here.