Easter Means Crawfish!

Boiled crawfish and a sliced bulb of garlic, yummy!

Ahhh, Easter. I'm not religious, but most of my husband's family is Catholic, so every year they throw a huge crawfish boil. It's the perfect occasion for catching up with family, eating til you think you're going to explode, and just letting the good times roll.

Oddly enough, I'm really not a big fan of crawfish. I'll eat them in things like crawfish etouffee or crawfish pie, but I'm just not fond of peeling boiled crawfish. So, I end up sitting and eating a hot dog or something while everyone around me slurps and cracks and does all those other icky things. :D

Anyway, on to the fun stuff- nails! I'm kind of frustrated, because while this was an adorable design in my head it just didn't work so well in reality. I did a base coat of China Glaze Dance Baby, followed by two sponged coats of a gradient from Fuchsia Fanatic to Gothic Lolita (both China Glaze as well). Then I stamped on some flowers in Scherer Chameleon's Blue Sky. I topped it off with my Best Nail Treatments topcoat, which I've found works beautifully for stamping.

I think I would have liked this better with a lighter stamp, or a lighter background. The Chameleon polish stamps really nicely, but it just didn't show well enough on this background. The pink-to-purple gradient was nice enough, but... I don't know. Something about this just didn't work for me.

Ah well. It wasn't awful, it just wasn't what I had hoped it would be. I did get compliments on it today, though, so all's well that ends well. And now, picspam.

Mmmm, nothing like small boiled crustceans.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Nail Art Using the Heavy Petal Collection from Jessica

You know, life is strange sometimes. There have been times where I was almost obsessed with a polish collection, eagerly waiting for it to be released only to find that once they were in my hands, I wasn't all that inspired by them. Then there's the opposite, which is what happened to me with the Heavy Petal collection from Jessica Cosmetics.

Honestly, when I looked at the collection images I wasn't all that impressed. Woo, pink. Woo, lavender. I'm usually not all that into the "safe" colors. But then something interesting happened...

I was sent this collection to review, to experiment with and to write about, and once I had the polishes in my hand, I realized that hey... these polishes are pretty darned exciting! I decided to skip the usual review type of thing and do what I like best- I was going to play with these!

I decided to experiment with two similar nail designs, only switching up the colors. I started out with Witchy Wisteria on my left hand and Geranium Gypsy on my right. Now, I'd like for you to ignore the bit of drag towards my cuticles because I'm kinda not the best at polishing my nails. But the crazy thing is that both of these polishes are one-coaters (if you're more skilled than I am)! That's always a good thing, right? But there's more...

Look closely at this photo of Witchy Wistera, and you'll see that it's a deep, rich red-based purple with copper sparkle in it! Go ahead, enlarge the photo to the right because it is so worth it!!

I absolutely LOVE this polish. There's a warmth to it that just draws me in. I'm sold... this polish is flat-out amazing. It applies beautifully... I honestly have nothing bad to say about this one!

Then there's Geranium Gypsy. I'm not quite as fond of this one on its own, simply because it's a foil and it tends to accentuate every little flaw in your nails. Believe me, with all the health issues I have, my nails have some pretty annoying flaws!

Still, if you're into metallic foil polishes, this one is a stunner. The lilac color is beautiful, and it applies well. I didn't notice tons of brush marks either, which is always a plus.

For the record? Brush marks make Laynie a very cranky blogger.

Once I had my base colors on, I decided to experiment with stamping with this collection. Again, these polishes performed beautifully!

On my left hand, I chose to stamp with Geranium Gypsy and Hotter Than Hibiscus, the pink counterpart to Geranium Gypsy's lilac. I then added dots of Born to Pansy, a sheer milky lilac with intense blue shimmer. I used the image plates from my new Salon Express stamping kit.

Once all that was done, I felt the need to add some colorful dots in the flower centers. I went back to the China Glaze Electropop collection and mixed some custom colors for the centers.

As you can see, the foils stamp amazingly well. I love how metallic they look...  They were a joy to stamp with. Born to Pansy is fascinating on the deep polish, because in some lights it's almost invisible. Then, as I move my hands, the light catches on the blue shimmer and it's as if I suddenly have ghost dots appearing on my nails! Super fun.

I'm not quite as happy with my right hand, but it's still cute. I went for the opposite effect on this one- dark polish stamped onto a light base. I used Witchy Wisteria and Dased Dahlia to stamp flowers, and then did dots with the Dased Dahlia to fill in the empty space. I added the mixed-Electropop floral centers on this hand too, to tie the two hands together.

Honestly, I much prefer the darker base, but I tend to be a bit of a drama queen that way. Still, I'm happy with how this manicure turned out. Now, if only I could get my poor cuticles in better shape... *grin*

Now, all I need to do is to figure out what design I'm going to do on my nails next! Ahhh, first world problems, how I love you! :D

Til next time!

Polishes were provided by the manufacturer for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Dr.'s Remedy Hot Hot Hot Summer 2011 Collection- ON ME!

You know, I wrote about the Dr.'s Remedy Summer 2011 collection a few days back, but the press release photos just did NOT do these beauties justice! Once I got these in my hands, I couldn't wait to put them on immediately!

Unfortunately, the metallic colors didn't fare so well over the deep color I had on already, so I had to take it all off and start over. Awww, shucks, such a shame... more time playing with my polish! *wink* Don't worry, I ended up with lovely shots of all the colors, and I'll share them all with you after the jump!

Hard Candy - Beetle

You may have noticed by now that I tend to be drawn to interesting polishes- duochromes, holos, things that don't look typical. I love iridescence, I love sparkle and glitter and shimmer. I am a total magpie, so when I saw Hard Candy's new polish Beetle in the display, I absolutely fell in love.

It's such a hard color to describe, for me. Depending on the angle of the light, I can see purple, magenta, green and gold in it at varying times. It's a beautiful foil polish that is absolutely stunning on the nail, and it wears like iron on me. These photos were taken 7 days after I applied the polish, and I hadn't even applied topcoat after that!

The photo to the left shows more of the variations of color that show up. I wore this the day of the impromptu polish party, and my nieces absolutely loved it. They gathered around while I was painting their nails and tried to decide how many colors they could find in it.

Then one niece asked why it was called Beetle. I loved this, because I was able to describe how beetles' wings are iridescent and reflect many colors, just like this polish. We also discussed the term "duochrome," and the roots of it- duo means two and chrome means colors.

Unfortunately, they then asked why this would be called a duochrome if more than two colors show up, and I had no answer for them. I think they forgave me for it, though. They certainly seemed happy enough with the holo polish on their own nails!

I had lots of fun wandering around my father-in-law's property looking for photo ops. He's got so many lovely flowerbeds, but almost nothing was in bloom this time of year! Of course, he did have some gorgeous pansies in the back yard that I didn't find until after I'd finished taking photos. That's ok, though... I'm happy with the shots I got.

What do you think of Beetle- is it your kind of polish, or do you tend to stick with more traditional colors?

Hard Candy Beetle was provided by the manufacturer for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Nail Doodling: Playing With Nail Art Designs

I got bored again after wearing Shield for just a day or two. The cute little stencil wasn't enough... I had to find something else fun to do. I ended up taking a cue from my sketchbook and started doodling on my nails.

For my thumb, I first stenciled a leaf. Well, I think it's a leaf. It's the shape I used for the tutorial, and although it sort of looks like a crown I figured that if I put a flower on top of it, it would look like a leaf instead. I should have added some detailing to it, but it's not awful. Then I painted a swirly rose. I had a decent-looking rose after 2 colors (red and orange), but then I kept going with various colors (sheer pink, pink striper, white striper) and ended up with... well, this. It's not horrible, but it sort of looks like a badly-wound ball of variegated yarn. Yea... next?

I won't even show a close-up picture of the next one. I stenciled a dragonfly, but it was just... bad. You can see it in the group shot, though, without seeing it magnified to the point it just loses visual coherence. My middle finger was interesting, though.

I used my royal blue glitter striper to paint diagonal stripes onto my nail. Simple, but then I started to think... and I wondered what the water polish would look like over this. Sure enough, it changed the color ever so slightly. It's more visible in person, but since I can't upload my actual fingers, this is as good as y'all are gonna get.

 Finally, there was my pinkie. I pulled out BPAL's Blood Countess and my tiny striping brush and started to doodle swirls and dots. I think I like this one, although I'm not exactly sure. It made a pretty filigree, and the glitter shined through the bloody red in a very delicate fashion.

Of course, now I'm very tempted to do disturbing splatters and drips of blood down my nails with this one. Can't you see it? Ahh, it's so perfect for Halloween! It suits my mood the last couple of days as well! I wonder how well this polish would show on black...

Finally, here's the four nails together. See what I mean about the poor dragonfly? He looked much better in real life.

Ah well, it was a fun experiment! Do you ever doodle on your nails? I'd love to see what you do! Show me, or describe it in the comments!

Some polishes were provided by their companies' PR groups for evaluation.

Wet n Wild Craze- Shield

I've whined a good bit about Wet n Wild's basic polishes here. Maybe it's my base coat, maybe it's my application, maybe I got a couple of bad bottles, or maybe it's my chemistry. I have no idea. But I've finally found one that I absolutely adore...

Shield is a desaturated metallic gold that applied like a dream. The brush is very short and squatty, but I found that I had no problem with control, or with reaching the polish in the bottle (like the problem I've had with other bottles). This polish went on smooth and gorgeous and I had almost no need for cleanup, which is odd for me!


I'm also oddly amused by the bottle design. The swirly paisley on the cap makes me smile, and I think the bottle is just adorable. It's not really elegant, but it's cute as can be which also works for me!

I'm not sure why, but I'm often drawn to metallic polishes. It's sad, because they almost never look good on me! Golds are too yellow and make me look sickly, silvers are too cold and just look odd. But this? This is the perfect metallic tone for my skin, in my opinion, and happily I don't cringe when I see it on my fingers!

Unfortunately, I forgot one of the main things I've been testing when I use a new polish- I forgot the stample! I feel so silly, but there's no doubt in my mind that this would stamp beautifully, especially over black. Can't you just see it now...?