InDecisive Nail Lacquer Harvest! (plus a Giveaway)

I have a really special polish to show you today. It is a custom lacquer created for me by Aleksandra of InDecisive Nail Lacquer. I had mentioned to her my recent fascination with small circle glitter and she responded with a most generous offer to create a shade for me. I truly don't know what I did to deserve her kindness and I'm so honored to present to you InDecisive Nail Lacquer Harvest...

The polish was inspired by the beautiful colors of Fall foliage. Aleksandra did a fantastic job of creating this shade and making it just as I had envisioned it. I learned so much from her in the process and I will always treasure the experience.

I decided to carry the foliage theme through into my nail art to compliment the color. I wanted something bold enough to stand out against the glitter without covering up too much of it. Determined to keep practicing my freehand nail art, I painted the leaves and a friendly little hedgehog using acrylic paints.

I'm really excited about how this manicure turned out. Little by little I'm gaining confidence in freehand nail art. It is definitely more time consuming for me, but so worth it...

InDecisive Harvest is a pale yellow crelly (cream + jelly) base filled with yellow, orange, red and dark purple glitter in various shapes and sizes. It has a nice formula which is easy to work with. I used three thin coats to get maximum glitter and allow layers underneath to show through. Swatches are with a top coat...

The heavier circle glitter does settle to the bottom over time so I suggest storing the bottle upside down. I didn't have to fish for glitter, there was lots of it on the brush. It is easiest to use light brush strokes which leave the glitter in place. Heavy strokes will take the larger glitter right off the nail...

Swatch Details
	Brand: InDecisive Nail Lacquer Collection: custom Color Name/Number: Harvest Number of coats: 3 Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

If you have not yet, check out InDecisive Nail Lacquer on Etsy!

Want your own bottle of Harvest? Aleksandra has generously offered to make one for a lucky winner!
Enter below for your chance to win!
Open to US residents only.
Ends Nov 28th 2013

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

31DC2013 Day 13 - Animal Print

I'm back from vacation and trying to catch up with emails and various other bloggy stuff including comments, so please bear with me. Today I would like to show you my manicure for Day 13 of the 31 Day Nail Challenge. The challenge is animal print. I have been wanting to try a manicure inspired by the beautiful patterns of poison dart frogs for a while now so I jumped at the opportunity to do it today. The hardest part was picking out which beautiful pattern to try...

For this manicure, I used a base of Ruby Wing Electric Firefly and free handed the pattern using black acrylic paint. Electric Firefly is a beautiful color changing lacquer that is neon yellow indoors and a mustard orange in the sun. Unfortunately it was cloudy and raining when I was working on this yesterday and I didn't get the opportunity to photograph it in the sun. I do love the idea of a color changing frog pattern though so hopefully I'll be trying this again on a sunny day...

Here is the yellow-banded dart frog that modeled for my manicure...

(source)

You can find Electric Firefly and other beautiful Ruby Wing polishes at rubywing.com

I'd love to know what you think of this manicure!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

31DC2013 Day 3 - Yellow

For today's challenge of yellow, I wanted to try something a bit different for me. I am always admiring beautiful one-stroke art manicures done by everyone else, but don't make the time to practice for myself. It is however always on my to do list and what better time to try it than for a challenge...

For this manicure I started out with a base of Zoya Claudine which I topped off with a coat of Shimmer Adrienne. Using a one-stroke (in name only) technique, I added the flowers on the side of each nail in yellow and white acrylic paint. I then added a few blue dots with acrylic paint to the centers of the flowers and some yellow dots around the flowers to complete the look...

Calling it a one-stroke technique is rather deceiving since it took me a lot more than that! The great thing about working with acrylic paint is that I can easy wipe it off with rubbing alcohol and start over without destroying the base. I'm not even going to tell you how many tries that took to get it 'right', but I'm really happy with the result and encouraged to keep trying the technique...

Shimmer Adrienne is a clear base packed with blue, gold, holo and more glitter in various sizes. There is even some small red glitter in there. I used one coat over my base of Zoya Claudine. I love how the blue glitter pops against the dark base. The formula is very nice, each brush stroke is loaded with glitter and it spreads evenly. I used just one generous coat plus a top coat for these swatches...

Swatch Details
	Brand: Shimmer Collection: core Color Name/Number: Adrienne Number of coats: 1 (layered over Zoya Claudine) Top Coat: Yes Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

Ruby Wing Electric Firefly...

Hi there! Today I have another Ruby Wing beauty to share with you! I just adore these solar changing polishes during the summer. We've had some gorgeous sunny days around here and what better way to enjoy them than staring at your nails as they change colors back and forth. This little beauty even glows under black light so it is like three colors in one. Something for every occasion...

Indoors, Ruby Wing Electric Firefly is a bright, eat your eyes out (in a good way) neon yellow with a green shimmer. These photos don't quite capture how bright it is. The formula was nice and surprisingly not streaky. It provided good coverage at three coats. Swatches are with no top coat...

Outdoors it transitions to a mustard yellow/orange with the same green shimmer. Definitely a unique color in my collection. Please pardon all the dead grass in the background. We are not so good with watering the lawn on a routine basis :D

If you decide to hit the clubs after the sun goes down, you can enjoy the glow of it under black lights. It is again quite a bit brighter than these photos portray. This is one of the best neon shades that I own...

Swatch Details
	Brand: Ruby Wing Collection: Festival Paint Collection, Summer 2013 Color Name/Number: Electric Firefly Number of coats: 3 Top Coat: No Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

When I first got Electric Firefly, I was sure it was a dupe of Color Club Get Your Lem-on. In the bottle they look nearly identical with the same bright neon yellow shade and green shimmer. Ruby Wing is maybe a touch darker. On the nail however they are not at all alike....

Color Club Get Your Lem-on compared to Electric Firefly is very sheer. These swatches are four coats and you can still easily see the nail line. It also has a much thinner formula than Electric Firefly. This would be ideal to layer over a white base to get the neon shade without having to do so many coats. Although I didn't get photos under black light, this does glow just as bright and gorgeous as Electric Firefly. In addition Get Your Lem-on is lemon scented which I actually quite enjoyed, but I think a lot of people have issues with scents. Swatches are with no top coat...

Swatch Details
	Brand: Collection: Wicked Sweet, Summer 2011 Color Name/Number: Get Your Lem-on Number of coats: 4 Top Coat: No Free of Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP)

Here is hoping for another sunny day!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **

OPI Neon Revolution...

My nails are starting to get to a reasonable for me swatching length and I'm so excited to get back to showing you all the pretty polishes. I'd like to start today, with the OPI Neon Revolution mini kit. It features a white base, four neon minis and a top coat. I think neons are such a fun treat for the summer and I'm quite happy to keep wearing these and delaying fall as much as possible...

The four neon shades in this kit are (index finger to pinkie): Don't Say It - Yellow It!, The Time is Pow!, Pink Outside the Box, and Blue it Out of Proportion. Over the white base, I used one coat of each of the neons except for the blue which required two. The blue was a bit streaky, but evened out after the second coat. The rest of the neons applied smoothly and evenly....

My favorite of these was the highligher yellow. I think it is a neon shade which I didn't already own and I love it. Looking at these photos, they don't feel quite neon enough, but in real life the are not lacking in brightness...

Under black light, my favorite yellow was the most surprising transformation. From a beautiful bright yellow, it turned into an awesomely strange snot green. Pink and orange maintained their color just glowing brighter. The blue turned to white under the black light...

Hope you are all having a wonderful day!

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

** Polishes were provided to me for review by the manufacturer or their PR. **

** For more information please see the disclosure policy **