Lighthouse of Hope Box

Today's post is really special to me, and I have had zero time to sit down and talk about it since its release in November.  I'm talking about the Lighthouse of Hope Box that was a collaboration between eight different indies this past November.  The box was created to benefit the group I Need a Lighthouse, which you can read a little bit about here.  I Need a Lighthouse is an amazing organization that works directly with people who suffer depressive disorders as well as educates the family members of those individuals so that they can learn coping methods and help their loved ones.  I make no secret about this fact, but I suffer from severe depressive disorder and anxiety disorder.  I work really hard every day to make sure that I don't succumb to the darkness that lurks inside.  It's hard but so worth it so that I may have a normal life.  Here's a little bit of an excerpt of something that I wrote in 2014 that I believe will help shed a light on what it's like for those of us with depression.

It's not something I'm shy about discussing because, honestly, I feel like it's not being discussed enough. With the passing of someone so famous and so entrenched in our minds as a funny and loving man, it's hard to understand why and how he could take his own life. Sadly, that's what depression does. It lies to you. It makes you think that you're all alone, and that the crippling weight of all of your bad decisions and bad experiences are the only things that matter in your life. But it's a lie. Don't give in. Get help! Talk to someone about it! If you're a loved one of someone who suffers from mental illness, support them! Don't leave them to be alone. I wrote a long blog post about this last year during my big depression awareness fundraiser, and you can read a little more about my struggles and the 5 things I've learned through my healing process at the link in the comments [here].

Again, if you suffer from severe depression or suicidal thoughts, please know you are NOT alone. If you need someone to talk to, I'm glad to fill that role until you find a therapist or psychiatrist/psychologist. Just talk! Get it out there! You will be ok!

So, now that that's all out there, let's take a look at the polishes available in the Lighthouse of Hope Depression Awareness Box.  This won't really be a review of the polishes because there are so many, so I'm only going to include the blurb that each of the makers wrote to describe their polish and their inspiration for the polish they created.

Made by me or given to use for charity donation.

The box includes the following polishes:

Alter Ego She Shines; Rica Alchemical Seas of Hope; Peita's Polish Serenity; Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Never Look Back; Sweet Heart Polish You're Amazing; Philly Loves Lacquer I Made You a Nest; Ellagee Sparks of Hope; Superficially Colorful Breathe; and Alter Ego Grows Hope.

Rica - Alchemical Seas of Hope

A sea green jelly with various green/gold glitters (dots, squares, hexes and micro glitter) in various finishes (holographic, metallic and matte). I named it Alchemical Seas of Hope because sometimes depression can feel like you’re in turbulent seas. As hard things may seem to be, there is always a lighthouse of hope in the horizon. Don’t lose sight of that.

Peita’s Polish - Serenity

A teal crelly full of various sized turquoise holographic glitter.  It reminds me of the twinkling clear waters of Australian beaches. I know the beach is often a place of solace for many people in times of stress.

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer - Never Look Back

A clear base packed with emerald green microglitter and sparks of blue and purple.  As someone who suffers from clinical depression, I’m constantly reminding myself to look to the future and not dwell on the past.  It can be immensely difficult to do so, but it is completely necessary for my recovery.  Remember that the future holds amazing things, so don’t dwell on the bad from the past!

Sweet Heart Polish - You’re Amazing

A deep royal blue jelly with a mix of matte, metallic, and holographic blue glitters in a variety of shapes and sizes with micro iridescent bar glitter.  I named this beauty You’re Amazing, because sometimes you can forget this and it always nice to have a reminder.  [Worn in one coat over Elevation Polish Pic de Sotllo, except ring finger is 4 layers by itself.  Ignore the tip wear, I didn't get to take pics until I was into day 3 of this mani.]

Philly Loves Lacquer - I Made You a Nest

A lightly tinted teal base packed with silver, turquoise, teal, blue, and green microglitters. I made this to pay homage to the comic by Robot Hugs, which I found right before I sought help for my own depression. Sometimes you just need a friend to make you a nest of cuddly blankets and hang out with you in it when things are really rough. http://www.robot-hugs.com/nest/

ellagee - Sparks Of Hope

A lush emerald green with subtle shifts of teal and gold sparkling with gold holo dust. Because when things look dark even the smallest spark of hope can light the way to healing.

Superficially Colorful - Breathe

An aqua/turquoise holographic polish with a little silver and blue shimmer. I think it's what we all need. To take a deep breath and go on. Everything is easier when you can breathe.

Alter Ego - Grows Hope

A medium green foil-ish finish. While this woman doesn't suffer from depression she knows lots of people who do. She Grows Hope for those she know who suffer, trying to make others more aware of how personal these issues can be, and by standing quietly by the side of these people she loves so much, without judgement, to help in whatever way she can.

Boxes have not sold out, but there are only a handful left.  Each box costs $80 shipped domestically and $60 of each box will be donated to I Need a Lighthouse within a week of selling out [I haven't made the donation of the sold boxes yet, and that money is just itchin to get to work at its new home!!].  International packages will be shipped flat rate priority and will cost $94.25 to Canada and $98.25 everywhere else.  For transparency purposes, I will provide screenshots of the donation and donation amount once it has been made.

So, what do you think?  Which is your favorite?  Don't you agree that Depression Awareness should be discussed for more than just one month?

My First Reverie!

I want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who has wished my kitty well or sent positive and healing vibes, thoughts, and prayers for him.  He's finally at home, but we had to keep the feeding tube in since he's not quite ready to eat on his own yet.  Here he is napping on the blanket next to me shortly after we got home.  You can see his little shaved belly where they did the surgery as well as a bit of the feeding tube.  He goes back in for a checkup in a week, so please keep sending those positive vibes until we get a clean bill of health!!

Tonight, I'm going to show you a brand that I've loved for a while as well as a brand that is new to me!  I've been a fan of Peita's Polish for quite a while, so it was only natural that I try to grab a What's Indie Box every month that I could!  Reverie Nail Lacquer is new to me, so I was pretty excited to give it a shot.  I received this bottle from a swap I had with a few other indie makers, which was a super fun way to try out each others' brands!  Let's take a look at Peita's Polish Solar Flare with accents of Reverie Nail Lacquer Giant Toxic Algae Bloom.

Purchased by me or gifted to me.

Solar Flare is a lovely medium teal creme with a bit of shimmer and silver micro flakies.  I used two coats with one coat of KBShimmer's Clearly On Top.  Application was super easy and didn't require much cleanup.  

Giant Toxic Algae Bloom has a lightly tinted teal jelly base with a slight shimmer loaded with a ridiculously insane amount of glitter including teal, blue, mint, white, silver, and blue in various shapes and sizes.  I didn't need to layer this over anything as it was fully opaque in two coats!  I probably could've easily layered it over undies, but I am in love with this squishy look with just GTAB.

GTAB was a custom created for a swap, so it's not available for purchase.  You can, however, find more Reverie Nail Lacquers at her shop here.  Solar Flare was from the September What's Indie Box, unfortunately, but you can still find them on blog sales or sales in Facebook groups.

I love how bright it came out.  Do you have any Peita's Polishes or Reverie Nail Lacquers?  Which are your favorites?

Summer of Untrieds: Week 3

Another week down, and only one more day left for the Summer of Untrieds challenge!  Without anymore preamble,let's get to week 3's polishes!

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!

[I purchased these polishes or received them as gifts from friends.]

July 15: Pink

For pink I chose to use Zoya Kitridge, Peita's Polish Pinkaholic, Accessorize Lilac Sorbet, and Lilypad Lacquer Bubble Yummo.  Kitridge went on smoothly and easily without streaking and built well in three coats.  I chose to top this baby pink with the vibrant neon Pinkaholic, which was also easy to apply with the glitters coming out and spreading easily.  I did a watermarble using Lilac Sorbet, Kitridge, and Bubble Yummo over a coat of Cult Nails Tempest.  This is probably the best watermarble I've ever done in my life, and I'm super proud of how it came out!  All three of these polishes were easy to marble with, and I can't wait to wear Lilac and Bubble Yummo on their own.

July 16: Flakie

I decided to try something different for my flakie manicure, and I wasn't in love with the outcome.  Someone told me that it looked like mermaid scales, which made me feel a little better about them, though.  I used OPI's Amazon... Amazoff, which applied easily but stained just a little bit on the accent nail that had all of the flakies combined.  I used Finger Paints flakies from a few years ago (from thumb to pinkie): Asylum, Flashy, Flecked, all 4,and Motley.  The flakies were easy to use, but I wouldn't recommend layering them over each other unless you've got some time to wait for them to dry!

July 17: Elevation Polish

The EvPs I chose to wear were Higravstinden and Haba Xueshan.  I was hoping these two would look nice together, and they really did!  The mint accents of Haba on top really pulled the look together nicely.  Hig applied well and in only two coats, but it had a bit of staining on my nails upon removal.  The blue shimmer in Hig isn't as noticeable in my photos, but it's very clear in person.  Haba was also easy to apply, and the glitters came out and spread across my nails easily.

July 18: Green

I feel like I have a million green Enchanted Polishes that I haven't worn, which I admit is probably an exaggeration, so I went with two of those for this prompt.  I used July 2013 topped with Wish Me Good Luck.  July was amazing!  It applied so well and could've been a one coater, but I chose to do two to ensure no bald spots in my photos.  The pink shimmer in it is striking, but I couldn't get a photo of it to save my life.  In person, however, it's extremely evident in the bottle as well as on the nail.  WMGL was a pain in the butt.  Application was difficult as the glitter to base ratio pulled heavily in favor of base.  The glitters were difficult to extract from the bottle, and if you tried to get enough glitter on the brush you'd end up flooding your cuticles because there was too much base.  All in all, I wasn't really in love with this mani despite the fact that I adore July.

July 19: Neon Glitter

I always love the look of neon over pastels, so I knew I just had to do Enchanted Polish *69 over something light.  I looked around my stash and was afraid that I didn't have anything untried that would work, and then I remembered my bottle of Enchanted J'adore!  This dainty pink was thin, a bit watery, and applied with some streaking and frostiness.  Thus, wearing it as undies for *69 was the perfect use for it!  I used three coats of J'Adore with one coat of *69, which is a lovely neon green and pink glitter topper with a shimmered base.  I have a decant, so I can't really speak to the polish's application truthfully since I was using a mini bottle.  However, in the mini bottle, everything came out alright and very easily and spread without much manipulation.  I was pretty disappointed with J'Adore, though, because the holo effect was practically nil, and even with three coats, I could still easily see my nail line.  It's not at all like the other EP holos I own.

July 20: Duo/Multichrome or Shifter

I received a couple decants of the I <3 Nail Polish chromes, Cygnus Loop and Birefringence, from a friend to try out before I took the plunge in purchasing them myself.  I'm really glad she let me try them because it helped me realize that I don't really need more than a decant.  While the end effect is lovely and the shifts are gorgeous, I just didn't love them.  Plus, they both had the same base color, which made differentiation a bit difficult.  As you can see, I was able to easily smudge two of my nails even though I had used a coat of KBShimmer's Clearly on Top at least five minutes or longer before the smudges occurred.  I don't like polishes that don't dry quickly on me, so these two were nice to try, but I probably wouldn't buy full sizes of either of them.  Plus, they're so similar to the million of other, cheaper, chromes out there, that I just can't justify spending that type of money on a bottle or two of something I can get for much cheaper (and that could be better quality!).  I can't really speak to their application because I used the mini bottles, but I will say that they were a pain to apply from the mini bottles leaving bald spots and streaks with not-so-careful application.  Keep in mind that could be because the mini brushes are annoying to use.

July 21: Girly Bits

My mani for Girly Bits kind of reminded me of Christmas in July with the rich green and dark maroonish red.  I only had two Girly Bits polishes I hadn't used yet, Fathomless and What Happens in Vegas Ends Up on Facebook, so I decided to wear them together!  What Happens in Vegas Ends Up on Facebook is a lovely maroon scattered holographic with a pretty dense smattering of blue iridescent glitters.  Application was super easy, and the rainbow effect was really nice with the bits of iridescent peeking out.  Fathomless is a dark hunter green with silver micro glitters.  Again, application was great, and it only really needed two coats for full opacity.  Here, however, I used three for photo purposes.  Dry time for both was average.  

July 22: Teal

For my teal mani, I decided to cheat and do skittles using five different teals.  Is that really cheating, though?  I'm going to pretend like it's not since I did wear all five of these for over 24 hours.  From my thumb to pinkie I wore: Elevation Polish Arabian Sea 2 (a light teal with gold flakies), Lilypad Lacquer Neon Ocean Lights (a medium teal holographic with a super strong pink/purple flash), Lynnderella Do You Paraiba? (a medium teal micro glitter), Elevation Polish Twinkle in Yeti's Eye (a darker teal with a green to red shift), and Enchanted Polish August 2013 (a dark teal linear holo).  All of these guys applied amazingly, and I don't have a single complaint about any of them.  I wore three coats of them all except Paraiba and August, which only needed two coats.  Dry time on them all was quick.

So, what do you think?  Are you playing along still?  I think this is the first nail challenge I've done every single prompt for through completion!  I've gotten through an outstanding number of untrieds, so I think I'll be bringing it back again in October!  What do you think?  Do you like doing challenges like this?

[I purchased these polishes or received them as gifts from friends.]

Summer of Untrieds Week 2

I've been sooo busy at work and with the shop that I haven't had time to keep up with the Summer of Untrieds Challenge posts.  I've been doing them every day and posting them on my Instagram account, but I haven't posted them here.  That being said, I'll be playing a little catch up the next few days!  So, let's get started!

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!

July 8: Glitter with Colored Base

I wore NerdLacquer Warrior Ethos with an accent of Alter Ego's Nymph of the Night.  I did this for a #RedCoatTuesday, so go and check out the full post here.

July 9: Lilypad Lacquer

I wore Violet Moon and Almost Famous on alternating nails.  I loved these two together, and they both applied flawlessly.  They both had pink flashes that really brought the look together, which is why I wore them both.  However, sadly, the pink flash in Violet Moon was impossible to pick up with my camera, but it's very apparent in person.  Both polishes only took three coats and dried quickly.  I purchased these directly from Lilypad Lacquer at her store here.

July 10: Purple

This is Peita's Polish Wendy with accents of Lynnderella Is it Warm In Here?  Wendy is a warmed toned purple with a strong pink flash.  It applied very easily in only two coats, and dried quickly with a coat of KBShimmer's Clearly on Top.  It removed without staining, too, which is sometimes an issue for me with purples.  IiWiH is a clear base with a strong purple shimmer loaded with matte glitters in white and neons.  It wasn't that hard to get the glitters out of the bottle, and the consistency was nice with even application.  I purchased both of these straight from the makers: Peita's Polish and Lynnderella.

July 11: Summer

For my summer themed polish, I used a few polishes whose names, and colors, reminded me of summer.  I used Model City Polish Walking on Sunshine, a sunny yellow holo, and OPI Strawberry Margarita, a bright pink creme, as base colors and topped with Lacquistry's Watermelon Baller Shot Caller, a glitter topcoat packed full of shades of pink, green, and black matte glitters.  Strawberry Margarita took three coats for full coverage and dried fairly quickly.  It applied evenly and didn't require much cleanup.  Walking on Sunshine is in four coats as it is a tad sheer.  Application was fairly easy, and the patchy first coat builds up well with further coats.  Watermelon Baller is one coat with a great glitter to base ratio.  The glitters were easy to get out of the bottle and spread well.  You can purchase OPI polishes at salons and beauty supply shops.  You can purchase Model City Polish here and Lacquistry here.

July 12: Glitter Crelly

The glitter crelly I chose to wear, 365 Days of Color's Summer Dream, was from my friend Jen over at Jen's Nail Files who gave it to me in my birthday group!  I chose to pair it with Elevation Polish Lys Glacier.  Summer Dream is a minty green crelly with a lovely rainbow of hex glitters in varying sizes.  I wore three coats without undies, and it applied fairly easily, if not a tad thick.  Lys Glacier is a taupe-ish purple with a pink to gold shifting shimmer.  I wore three coats alone, and it was super easy to apply.  Sadly, 365 Days of Color has decided to stop selling nail polish so she can focus on her insanely popular (and super awesome) hand care line, but you should still check her out at her store here.  Lys Glacier has been discontinued, but you can purchase other EvPs at her store here.

July 13: China Glaze

I chose to wear varying shades of blue for my China Glaze mani, so I chose Strap on Your Moon Boots with accents of Kaleidoscope Him Out.  I know that the Hologlam collection was a huge disappointment for a lot of people who were hoping that the recent China Glaze collection would be an answer to the hugely popular and long discontinued OMG collection.  There were clearly batch issues as several people had bottles with very little holographic pigment.  I, however, received a set with very high holographic pigmentation as you can see in this photograph.  I used three horrible coats of SOYMB to cover up the patches and balding spots.  It is pigmented enough to be opaque in one or two coats, but the application was so horrible that I was forced to use three coats to cover up the unevenness.  You can see in my photos, that it was also extremely difficult to clean up, and there were still stains on my cuticles after I did my cleanup routine.  My bottle of KHO was from a dusty hunt, so it's old and a bit thick.  I used three coats of KHO because it was actually fairly sheer.  Cleanup was relatively easy as well.  Both of these have been discontinued, but you can purchase China Glaze polishes at beauty supply stores.

July 14: Neon

It's hard to get much more neon than Illamasqua's Collide.  I decided to pair Collide with a special franken from a friend that I received in a indie maker/hobbyist group swap.  Collide is a bright neon pink polish that can be worn alone (on my thumb) or over white (on my index and pinkie).  Application was fairly easy, but it works much better in two coats over white versus four coats alone.  Even with the four coats, it was still relatively easy to see my nail line.  The little franken is a lovely neon pink with black glitters.  I wore this in two coats over Cult Nails Tempest.  You can purchase Illamasqua polishes at Sephora.

So, that was week two.  Which was your favorite?  Did you participate?  There's still one more week left to play, and I'd love to see your manis!