Untrieds: China Glaze - White Cap

For this look I used a super dark purple base, Avon - Midnight Plum, and layered China Glaze - White Cap over top.  White Cap is a very translucent shimmery white base with lots of iridescent gold glitter in it. I didn't realize how much gold was actually in White Cap until I put it on, and I don't really like gold so I don't really like this colour combo. I'm sure some would, just not me. (Doesn't it look a little green to you?) Application was smooth, formula was thin so it was great to work with. When dry this polish is slightly textured but two top coats will cover it. I'd like to try White Cap over a white of slightly off white base next time. It would also be great as a subtle accent. (PS I didn't cap my nails that's why it looks like there's tonsss of tip wear!)

NOTD: Flat Half Moons

So I just wanted to do a simple mani and use these two colours together since I tried to for my water marble but it didn't work out... Kaitlin from The Daily Polish was my inspiration! She did a "flat" half moon mani and I thought it looked really cool. It's a nice twist on the classic half moon mani, and I figured since my nails are round, a straight horizontal line would look cool. 

It's definitely different, but I think it suits square tips much better than round tips. I apologize for my messed up first finger, I was getting restless while waiting for the polish to dry and bumped it :( 

Here are the colours I used: OPI - 3 Plums, I Win! and NOPI - Lemon-Lime Twist. I've had them both for about 4 years and I barely use them, and I thought they looked really nice together! 

Indie Polish: Tryst Lacquers

Hey guys! I'm SO excited to tell you all about Tryst Lacquers, made by the lovely Kimberly Maranan! Visit her etsy shop here, and check out her facebook page! Not only are the three polishes I bought from her absolutely GORGEOUS, but they're also my very first indies! Kimberly is from Canada like me hehehe and I love supporting indie polish makers but I especially love supporting those from my own country! 

The three colours I got are: High School Sweetheart, Sweet Nothings, and What A Girl Wants. 

This is High School Sweetheart. It's a lovely white base with large pink hex, and smaller pink, magenta, and red hex. It's also got some tiny silver square glitters as well! I'm absolutely in LOVE with this polish, I'm wearing it right now! In fact, I will be wearing it for the next few days because it's just so pretty. 
Application was great, I had no difficulties placing the glitter. In the pictures below I've got two thin coats with no undies! Three thin coats would have given a bit more coverage but I'm totally okay with how this looks. There's just something so classy and elegant about white nails, but put some  girly glitter in it and your nails look fab! 

And here it is in the bottle:

Next I've got Sweet Nothings and What A Girl Wants. Sweet nothings is on my first and ring fingers, What A Girl Wants is on my middle and pinky fingers. Undies: Orly - First Kiss, Orly - Decoded.
Application was also very nice. Absolutely no difficulties with placing glitter like most glitter polishes. Photographed below are two coats of undies and two coats of glitter polish on top.

Sweet Nothings has a clear base with large copper hex, smaller magenta and dark blue hex, and tiny silver square glitter.

What A Girl Wants has a clear base with large pink and blue hex, medium lighter pink hex, and small and tiny periwinkle hex. I love love love this one because it's so girly!

Here are Sweet Nothings and What A Girl Wants in their bottles.

Anddd I tried to do a jelly sandwich but I shouldn't have used such a shimmery polish. I'll be using a nude next time! Even though this didn't turn out too well, I love these glitters for jelly sandwiches! The different sizes of glitters go really well together and I love how the polishes are dominantly one colour but they've got contrasting big hex glitters in them that your eyes are just drawn to!

Once again, thank you Kimberly! These polishes are amazing and I will definitely be buying some more Tryst Lacquers soon! 

Layering

Everybody knows you can put glitter/sparkles on top of any colour nail polish. This is the most simple kind of layering. Other types of layering include gradients, glitter gradients, jelly sandwiches, and putting a super translucent colour on top of another colour, let's just call this translucent layering. 

Gradients are one type of layering. Some people refer to a gradient as ombre, but an ombre mani is different than a gradient mani, and I'll be posting on the difference soon. 
Glitter gradients are a combination of glitter/sparkle and gradient layering (obviously). I really like them because of how easy they are. The only annoying thing though is how long they take to dry! A ton of layers = a ton of drying time :( Some glitter polishes have a very thick consistency and take forever to dry. They're so thick because that's how the glitter is suspended. 
Colours used: China Glaze - Pink Voltage (base), Orly - Tiara (glitter) 

The next layering technique I have is what I call translucent layering. In this method, you use an opaque colour as the base, and put a very sheer, translucent colour on top. The top colour will alter the look of itself and the bottom colour, producing an entirely new colour. You can experiment with all different kinds of combinations, and see what you like. Here is a combination that I really love. 
Colours used: unnamed dark blue metallic Claire's polish (base), Sally Hansen - Rock 'n' Roll (translucent glitter) 

Some people may be familiar with jelly sandwiches, but many are not. A jelly sandwich is just a layer of glitter sandwiched between two layers of polish. The top layer is very translucent so you can still half see the glitter through it, and the bottom can be the same translucent colour as well but it doesn't have to be. Other colour combinations would be awesome! The point is for the glitter to look suspended on your nail. They're very pretty and extremely simple. 
Credit goes to Colores de Carol for this picture. I attempted to do one but I didn't use the right glitter (it's old and thick, and takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to dry!) Click here to see her post about the nails below. 

Glitter or sparkles on nails is pretty, but it's pretty boring. And since it's so easy, I find it to look very amateur and young. (I don't wanna say childish cause that's not what I mean but as I've gotten older I prefer classier, more sophisticated, more elegant, and somewhat simple manis.) I still like to do glitter very regularly, in fact I just did it not too long ago. Glitter/sparkle layering is best when it's subtle, at least to me. 
Colours used: China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise (base), Finger Paints - Art You Wondering? (sparkles) 

Have fun layering and don't forget to let each coat dry COMPLETELY before you apply the next coat! 

Deborah Lippmann - Mermaid's Dream

Lately I've been in a crappy/stressy mood so I figured swatching 1) an untried polish and 2) a fancy polish would de-stress me! Mermaid's Dreams by Deborah Lippmann happened to fall in both those categories so I figured I'd swatch it.

Before I even bought this polish I told everyone it was one of my favourites. I wasn't disappointed; this polish is absolutely gorgeous! The pictures do it no justice because I used my iPhone 4 camera, I was too lazy to get out my Canon Rebel T1i!

Here's Mermaid's Dream in the bottle. Who else loves the DL bottles?! They're so classy and elegant.

This is after 3 coats, no top coat. I find the polish to be very thin so 1 coat is definitely not enough, 2 coats was almost enough but there were still a few bald spots although they were not noticeable unless you stared, so 3 coats was just perfect to achieve opacity. It dries a bit textured which is okay for some, but I don't really like textured nails, and I find stuff gets caught or snags on it. 

Here's it is again with two top coats - sorry for the glare! There's still a tiny bit of texture, so I'll be applying a 3rd top coat tomorrow when I get my Pro FX UV Top Coat! For the two top coats pictured I used my Pro FX Quick Dry since I did this before bed and didn't wanna see ugly smudges when I woke up.

Ughhh sorry for my terrible cuticles :( They don't even look as bad in person as they do in this picture! I attempted to get a macro shot of the polish so you could see what's going on here... I did not succeed, clearly! There's all different sizes of the teal glitter, some bigger silver pieces of glitter, and of course the big blue pieces of hex glitter. This polish is just jam packed! Everything works so well together which makes for an absolutely stunning polish.

And one last picture of my whole hand, again, sorry for the glare, that top coat sure is shiny!

Overall, I LOVE this polish. The colour is breathtaking and anyone who purchases it won't be disappointed. Application was good - not bad at all, but definitely not the best. Probably because it's intense glitter, the actual polish is thin (not the formula) and because of the DL brush. The brushes aren't terrible or anything, but I prefer a pro-wide OPI brush, just my personal preference. Glitter placement was probably one of the easiest I've had. There's definitely a good amount of blue hex in this polish; I knew this would be fine since I've seen so many swatches. 

Would I recommend this polish to EVERYONE?! Umm, YES! I know DL's are a bit pricey but this one is absolutely gorgeous! Besides, every girl needs a few expensive polishes to use when she wants to feel extra glamorous or to cheer her up when she's feeling down :) 

A Relaxing Friday Night

I'm being totally lame tonight and didn't wanna go to "country night" at the bar with my friends. I like going out but... country night isn't really my thing. Not because I don't like country music, because I don't know any of the songs! 

So, I chose 8 untried polishes to swatch! My New Year's Resolution is to try all my untrieds... I'm sure many of you also have this resolution LOL! You'll have to excuse my deformed middle fingernail :( It broke last night! Also, there's no topcoat on any of these swatches, I wanted you guys to see the true finishes because we all know what shiny looks like! One last thing, I did no tidy up on these swatches (sorry some of them are brutal) and I sincerely apologize for my AWFUL cuticles... they're extremely dry and need some tending to asap :( 

The first polish I've got to show you is China Glaze - Peachy Keen. I got it about 6 months ago with a bunch of other CG colours - mostly neon/bright ones. I absolutely love peachy colours so I was really excited to try this one. It applied very well, a little bit see through on the first coat but perfectly opaque on the second coat. My only complaint is that the colour in the bottle is more of a peach, whereas the swatched colour looks more like a coral. It's still pretty, just not completely true to the bottle colour. 

Next up I've got Finger Paints - Fall-ing For You. I randomly got this one from Sally's because it was on sale for $2 - what a deal! Like most metallics, some streaks are visible but they aren't too bad. No problems with application. I didn't think I would like this colour as much as I do, since I normally don't like dark colours, and I like blue but I prefer pink. But having said that, I LOVE this polish! I'll be experimenting putting sparkles over it soon - the sparkles are fine silver sparkles with blue hex :) This polish was opaque on the first coat, but I've done two for the picture.  

Now we have Orly - Synchro. It's a beautiful light duo chrome, I also got it at Sally's for $2! Gotta love those sales! I wasn't sure how translucent it would be, so my first and ring fingers have white base coats but as you see it makes no difference, as this polish is opaque in two coats. No problems with application. It's a nice rosy pink/red, I really like it :) 

This polish is Sinful Colors - Lets Meet. I was super excited to try this one, because it's my first and only SC. I'm not really a huge fan of yellow to begin with so I didn't have any expectations for this polish. My first and ring fingers have white base coats, and middle and pinky have only a clear base coat. Application was fine, but this polish is extremely translucent. All nails have two coats, and as you can see there are still patchy parts. It's a nice shimmery yellow, but I don't think I'll be using it very often. If anything, it'll be a base for a design, possibly a saran wrap mani, maybe even a half moon mani. 

Next up is Finger Paints - Take It or Leaf It. It's like a darker version of CG Swing Baby, which is a darker version of NOPI The Next CEO. I've gotta say, I LOVE all three! I didn't think I would really like the FP one as much but man I think I'm in love! I do enjoy a dark polish every now and then, I think they're rather classy and elegant and that's what this polish is, but it's still fun cause it's metallic! Also, I really don't like gold... jewellery that is. But there's just something about a beautiful gold nail polish! Like most FP, application was great and this colour, like Fall-ing For You, was opaque in one coat, but I've done two coats for the picture. 

This one is Nina - Pearly Brights. I'm not sure if that's the actual name, or it's the collection because this colour is pearly and bright... but that was the only thing written on the bottom of the bottle. This colour is absolutely gorgeous! It looks oddly pink in the picture but it's more of a coral/pink/pearl in real life. This colour is pretty up there with the colour of CG Flip Flop Fantasy... I love how bright it is. It's neon but doesn't need a white base which is awesome! Like most neons/brights, it dries semi matte. The absolute WORST part of the polish though... THE BRUSH IS TERRIBLE! I should have taken a picture of it because it was just awful. Maybe some of you like the Nina brushes, or maybe I just got a terribly cut one... but it's awful. It's way too wide (like the width of my pinky!) and one side was rounded but the other wasn't so it was a square! Umm talk about annoying... The application was okay even though the brush wasn't, and the polish was opaque in two coats. 

Next is Revlon - Minted. The first time I saw this colour was on @higasaurus's instagram. I had a couple other mints but something about this one just stood out to me and I knew I HAD to have it. Revlon did another mint, very similar, called Jaded. I almost bought it but I'm glad I didn't because I was holding out for Minted! I think what sets this mint apart from other mints is that it's got more of a green tinge. Yes, I know mint is supposed to be green, but it's usually a lot whiter and softer. Application was great, this polish became opaque in two coats. The formula was a little on the thick side though but it's still very easy to work with. My only complaint is with Revlon brushes, they're rather skinny so it's a little annoying cause I like brushes like OPI's where I can polish a nail in 3 sweeps. With Revlon it's about 5 sweeps. This gorgeous colour makes up for the sucky brush though! 

This last one is Revlon - Whimsical, over Minted. I've been seeing lots of people talk about this polish on instagram, as well as Girly. I bought them at the same time and I finally got around to using Girly yesterday on my friend over Revlon's Lily which is a beautiful light purple. Girly was very pretty, I'm going to try it over pink next. Like Girly, Whimsical is stunning in the bottle. However, when applied, the glitter is very sparse and placing it is frustrating. There are two coats of Whimsical pictured below, but that's after extensive glitter placement. I might try it over a ligher mint again, because like I said Minted is just greener than most mints so it altered the colour of Whimsical a bit, I think it looks a little odd with the glitter but it's still pretty. I'm not completely sold on this polish. I think I'll need to experiment with it on top of different colours, or even in a jelly sandwich before I can make up my mind about it. 

If you're reading this, thanks for sticking with me through my first swatching session! I had a lot of fun swatching, because I got to see lots of new colours that I haven't before, and I even fell in love with a couple new ones! I've still got a ton of untrieds which I'm slowly getting around to using... and I have more polish on its way so that means even more swatching! I think this was a great way to end the week, I've been a little stressed lately but somehow polish always seems to relax me. I realize how sad that is... and that I'm rambling... so have a great weekend ladies!