Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!  For those who don't, happy belated Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Festivus, Happy Solstice, Happy Yule, and just a plain old Happy End of the Year to everyone!  Normally, I do comparisons on Thursdays, but I'm going to show you guys a few of my Christmas manis from this year instead!

Purchased, Gifted, or Made by Me

Christmas Ornament Mani

I used three Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquers as well as a gold Sephora pen for this design.  For the undies, I used Untrodden Snow.  For the holly and leaves, I used Mickey Smith Defending the Earth and You Just Want to Mate?!  I modeled this manicure after my all time favorite ornament that we used as our inspiration for all of the decorations in our house!

Christmas Tree Mani

I apologize for the photos on this one because, honestly, I took them with my iPhone, lol!  Here, I used Literary Lacquer's 1000 Christmas Trees and Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Grandpa.  To make the Christmas Tree, I used some striping tape and the LL.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy Mani

For this manicure, I decided I'd go with something bright, flamboyant, and not quite Christmasy, per se.  For this mani, I used Smitten's In October We Wear Pink topped with accents of Lynnderella Sugar Plum Pink from the 2012 advent LE collection.  This is another pic taken with my phone, which I haven't quite mastered due to my shaky hands.

Tacky Winter Sweater

I did another untraditional mani, but this time I went with a polish based off of the love of tacky winter sweaters, which happens to be the name of this polish!  BEGL Tacky Winter Sweater is a hot pink crelly base packed with snowflakes, diamonds, and glitters in various other shapes.  And yet another mani taken with my phone instead of my real camera!

Matte Glitter Gradient

For this mani, I used OPI Feel the Mo-heat-toes Green topped with a glitter gradient with Lynnderella Merry Ferry, and then topped with NYC Matte Topcoat.  Again, I apologize for this photo because I took it on my phone!  Here, I'm showing off my mani with a lovely beer by the Bruery called Seven Swans a Swimming, which is an amazing Belgian Quad!

Christmas Skittles

It's a very Lynnderella Christmas!  For this look, I used BEGLs, and RBL, an OPI, an EvP, and a metric-butt ton of Lynnderellas!  From thumb to pinkie - OPI L.A.M.B. topped with Lynnderella Change; BEGL Grandpa topped with Lynnderella Happy Holodaze; BEGL Siren's a Special Snowflake topped with Lynnderella Holo-day Hearts; RBL Gondoliere topped with Lynnderella Fire in the Jelly; and Elevation Wuyi Mountain topped with Lynnderella the Mindful Heart.

Candy Cane Tape Mani 

For this mani, I decided to go with a classic look that I've been seeing around town (i.e. on IG by Nail Polish Wars and Pointless Cafe- I know there have been more, but I can't find them now!).  I used two coats of Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Dogwood because it has that shimmer that really makes it look candy-like.  I then topped it with Seche Vite, used my striping tape to tape off some lines, and topped that with BEGL You Just Want to Mate?! and another coat of Seche Vite.

I hope that everyone has a lovely and safe holiday season!  May your new year be better than you expect and happier than you hope!

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?

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!

Happy Memorial Day!

I know it's a day late, but I wanted to post my Memorial Day mani and to take a moment to think about those individuals who died while protecting our freedoms and to say thank you to the families who have lost their loved ones defending our country.  What you've lost cannot be repaid, but know that both their and your sacrifices were not for nothing.  My sincerest and deepest condolences to you all.

And now I feel that a stupid manicure really isn't important in the grand scheme of things if you really think about it.  That being said, I'll just make this a quick photos only post.  On my right hand, I used Emerald and Ash Mei Scattering (a white jelly with a super duper subtle holo shimmer, which is also my #1 favorite white jelly), topped with Sonnetarium Snowfall, and then stars made using nail vinyls by @Teismom using Lynnderellas Nail Bed of Roses and Mermuse.  On my left hand, I used Chanel Bel-Argus under Lynnderella Bibbitty Bobbitty Boo Blue, Cult Nails Kiss topped with Lynnderella Love Letter to be Red, and Cult Tempest topped with Lynnderella Tidy Whities (I wish now that I had used Mie Scattering again, but c'est la vie, I suppose!).  All polishes in this review were purchased by me or were gifts from friends.

Golden Oldies Thursday: Pastels

A week late, but here I am!  I'm not overly fond of this combination, but I didn't have time to redo it, so it'll have to do.  I should've gone with either a lighter blue or maybe even a pale pink or green.  Oh well!  I'll have to try a new base color next time I wear this topper!  Let's take a look!

Here is the GOT Polish schedule of events if you would like to follow along or participate.

Remember the rules:

• The polish you use must be at least a year old.
• If you haven't been a polishaholic for that long, you can use the oldest polishes you have.
• The polish should be previously used, but if you're stuck, you can use a polish from your untrieds stack.
• You can use more than one polish as long as it fits the rules.

I purchased or received as gifts all polishes in this post.

For this challenge, I used Deborah Lippmann's Let's Hear it For the Boys and By Dany Vianna's Soft Pastels - yes it has my name on it!  I topped the look using Cult Nails Wax This...

Let's Hear it for the Boys is a pastel baby blue creme.  This is three difficult coats.  Unfortunately, LHIFTB doesn't self level, which caused some issues when it came to application.  There were some bunching issues as well as balding and clumping.  I used thicker coats to try and make it even, which made it almost impossible to dry despite the fact that I used a coat of KBShimmer's Clearly on Top before I applied the wax coat.

LHIFTB was also a mess to apply.  I got it all over myself, and the milkiness of it made it very difficult to remove from the skin.  If I had Zoya Blu for over a year, I would've much rather have used it instead.  While Blu is paler than LHIFTB, it's definitely got a much better application.  Dry time for LHIFTB took forever to dry, too, so it's definitely not in my list of top favorites.

Soft Pastels is a lovely and delicate glitter topcoat made up of mint green, lavender, and baby pink matte glitters in varying sizes.  The glitter to base ratio is light on the glitter and heavy on the base, so if you want a more dense look than what I have here, you'll need more than one coat.  Due to the glitter payoff being a bit light, you may have to fish some for the glitters.

Otherwise, application and dry time were pretty average.  The top handle and wand are a bit different, and the brush is a little more pliant than I'm used to, but I've noticed that about other Brazilian polishes as well.  It's not a bad thing by any means, but it's just a bit different.  Lastly, it's important to note that Dany's polishes are not billed as 3-free, so make sure you know this before you purchase!

You can get Deborah Lippmann's at beauty supply stores.  You can purchase By Dany Vianna polishes at Mei Mei's Signatures!

Pretty Little Liars: Black and White

I'm sort of having a nail identity crisis of late.  I can't decide if I want to nub them, grow them out, round them, squoval them, or what.  Plus, they're starting to peel again, oh joy, and my glass files are simply not cutting it.  I have a bottle of Quimica Alemana Esmalte Endurecedor para Unas (HOLY MOUTHFUL BATMAN) that Amy from @atlcatsmeow recommended I try after the Rejuvacote debacle, but I'm a bit afraid to use strengtheners now.  I'm also afraid because it doesn't appear to be three free, and while I normally don't care about three free, I do wonder if those chemicals have attributed to the overall crappiness of my nails.  Either way, I know something's got to give, so I'll probably try to use that strengthener more than one mani every two weeks to see if it helps.  We'll see, and I'll definitely keep you posted!  I'm still picking at my polish, which has helped me to tear up some of my nails, too, so that isn't helping the peel factor at all...  Meh.  We'll see.  That all being said, you're going to see shorter squarer nails in tonight's post.

So, I'm still doing the Pretty Little Liars challenge despite the fact that I'm pretty much a season behind.  I'm all caught up with what's on Netflix, but I'm woefully behind on this season.  Today's #RedCoatTuesday challenge is to incorporate black and white into your Pretty Little Liars inspired mani.  Why are we adding black and white?  I have no clue, hah!  But, I'm just going along with the rest of the gang.  Eventually it will make sense to me!

For tonight's post, I'm going to let the photos do most of the talking.  I don't tend to do my more in depth reviews when I do nail art, so I hope that's cool.  Click on the photos see them in more detail.  All photos are under artificial daylight with two coats of Blaze over two coats of gradient and one coat of KBShimmer's Clearly on Top and an uber thin coat of Alter Ego She Shines to gloss it up after a day of wear.

I started tonight's mani with a black and white gradient using Cult Nails Nevermore and Tempest.  Apparently, I shouldn't have used my Lemony Flutter to grease up the skin around my nails for better mess removal...  Because it totally absorbed way too quickly, making it next to impossible to clean up!  What's worse?  Nevermore stained the ever living poop out of my skin, so now my fingers look all dirty.  Yuck.  I tried to get it all off with nail polish remover, but waiting to scrape it off under the shower was a better option for removal.

After applying a coat of topcoat to the gradient to ensure it would dry quickly, I taped off each finger using striping tape.  I then applied two thickish coats of Zoya Blaze and topped it with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

I honestly wanted to do this in the reverse with red on the bottom and gradient on the top, but I was afraid that the red would show up through the white too much.  I'm undecided on whether I like this.  In a way it's pretty and neat, but then it also gets on my nerves because it's not what I had envisioned.

You can buy Cult polishes at their store.  You can buy Zoya polishes at beauty supply stores like Ulta.