Illamasqua Viridian Swatch and Review & Half Moon Heart Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of Illamasqua Viridian and some nail art on top to share!

Hey guys, how are you doing? I'm a little nervous and very curious to get my organic chem midterm back today! They are only worth 10% so I'll try not to beat myself up if I don't do super well! Every time I finish a midterm in that class I tell myself I have to start studying sooner than the night before for the next one but it never happens! :P

If you follow me on Instagram you'll know I actually painted and wore these nails about two weeks ago, but I got a bit ahead of myself and kept not posting them. So here they are today! Because these are older pictures they were just automatically white balanced after being taken (not custom white balanced in my light box prior to being taken) so they might be a little off. I'll take a little off any day when I look back at how off my white balance has been!

I remember wearing just one coat of Viridian the first time I wore it, but this time I wore two coats and a coat of top coat! It had a perfect formula and consistency and it seemed to dry quickly! I really love this polish and I've since bought another Illamasqua polish because of it (Facet if you're wondering)! Props to my friend Sarah for buying me this lovely and making me want a ton more! ;)

I think this polish is prettier and glowier than it looks in these pictures, too bad my light box is where pretty shimmer and glitter go to die!

Another thing I love about Illamasqua polishes are their bottles! They look so classy and ritzy. I also quite like the brush that they come with, it made application very easy!

Now for the nail art! Using the bottle from the brush, I painted heart-like shapes in Zoya Kristen over my base. I was going to go in with another heart shape with another polish, but I decided I really liked these as is!

Kristen is a grey blue hybrid and it can lean one way more than the other depending on what you pair it with. It looks colour-accurate here, but I did feel like it looked more grey next to the green in real life!

What do you guys think of these nails? They're super quick to do but really interesting to look at. I think they look quite chic! Also, does anyone know the proper term for these? I've called them half moon hearts in my title because I have no idea haha!

Thanks so much for reading everyone, I hope you're all having a lovely start to the week! I'll be back soon with a super bright pink polish (Rainbow Honey Apple Kid) and some nail art on top! Happy Tuesday! =)

Black Sheep Lacquer Grey Ghost plus Lace and Peacock Feather Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a swatch and review of Black Sheep Lacquer Grey Ghost and some nail art on top to share!

I'm pretty excited because in the week that's coming up I have no midterms! Except that means I should really be working on my 1-2 page write-ups and 12-15 page term paper for genetics. I've only done one of the 6-8 write-ups and I haven't started the paper except for an outline (because it was due a few weeks ago). I wouldn't be Bailey if I didn't do stuff like procrastinate so oh well haha! Onto the nails!

What you see here is two easy coats of Grey Ghost and a coat of top coat! This polish has the most gorgeous scattered holographic shimmer and in the Sun it almost looks as if each holographic particle is partially translucent. It is seriously gorgeous and I can't not look at it when it's sunny!

Oh and have I mentioned it's also a thermal? It goes from white/really light grey to dark grey when it goes from hot to cold!

Here is a little collage so I don't bombard you with 12 pictures instead of 9 (technically this collage is one picture and not four right?)! When you aren't in the Sun or similar lighting and this polish is cold, you can see the holographic pigment as silver really well! Gorgeous!

You can see the awesome translucent-looking holographic particles in this picture taken above my light box!

Oh how I love grey polishes, they're perfect bases for nail art of any kind or colour! And I just love watching my nail art and entire mani look different and changing colour in different temperatures!

And here we have the nail art! The design on my thumb, middle and ring finger nails is a copy of part of Lindsey of Wondrously Polished lace nail art that you can find here! She is amazingly talented at nail art and I always love every single mani she does! Check her out if you haven't already!

For my index and pinky finger I stamped a peacock feather design from the Bundle Monster plate BM-212!

I used another Black Sheep Lacquer polish for the free-hand and stamping bits here called Dragon Scale. It's a gorgeous two-coater teal polish with glitter and a bit of a duochrome effect! I swatched and reviewed this baby last summer so here's a link to that post if you want to see a swatch or review of it!

Did you notice that the nail art pictures look a little better white balanced? I think I finally figured out how to do it on the camera I use! Squee!!!!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! What are you guys up to on this Saturday afternoon? And what do you think of this polish and this nail art? Let me know in the comments! Happy March! :)

Above the Curve Doctor Who Collection Part 1: Relative Dimensions and Slitheen

Hey everyone! Today I'm back with the other two polishes from part one of Above the Curve's Doctor Who Collection!

I'm happy to report that my midterm went better than I thought it would! I'll find out my mark next week so I'll know for sure pretty soon! Anyways, onto the nails!

I'm going to start right off by saying that after I applied my top coat, this polish (called Relative Dimensions) seemed to change colour (become darker and warmer) and the holographic effect was dulled. I had just combined two half-empty Essie Good to Go top coats and it did feel quite thick when I applied it, so maybe it was something to do with that? The brush in the bottle was a bit wonky so maybe that had something to do with it too? It was crazy shiny on it's own so if your top coat makes it change colour just skip the top coat!

The formula and consistency of this polish was perfect as I've come to expect with Above the Curve polishes! I used two coats and a coat of top coat for these photos!

This polish is a fairly cool-toned medium purple polish stuffed with holographic pigment! I'm sorry that my pictures aren't accurate, but you can check out other swatches by some lovely ladies on Above the Curve's Facebook page!

This one is super gorgeous, I really love it!

Next up we have Slitheen, a dark green holographic polish. This is what the finish of Relative Dimensions looked like before top coat, except this is after top coat!

Again, perfect formula and consistency! I love my greens and this polish is such a unique shade of green!

This is also just two coats of polish and a coat of top coat!

Thanks so much for reading everyone! Sorry for another brief post, I just really wanted to get this post up tonight! Happy Thursday! =)

Above the Curve Doctor Who Collection Part 1: Donna and The Silence!

Hey everybody! Today I have two polishes from Above the Curve's new Doctor Who Collection to share!

I have a midterm tomorrow to study for so I'll make this post fairly quick! It's in organic chemistry which is the class I'm the worst at so I'm kind of nervous. Scary things aside, let's get on to the pretty polishes!

Donna is a bright orange metallic polish with holographic pigment tossed in! I find I don't own or wear a lot of warm-toned polishes like this, and I really don't know why because they're gorgeous!

The formula on this baby was amazing; it dried quickly and had the perfect consistency!

This polish was nice and opaque too, needing just two coats for full coverage! I also applied a coat of top coat for the pictures you see here (not that it needed it, it was super smooth and shiny on its own)!

The Silence is a black polish stuffed with holographic pigment, purple to blue duochrome shimmer, and what look like pink and blue flakies. In other words, this polish is gorgeous!

Again, no issues to report with the formula here because it was amazing too!

What you see here is two coats and a coat of top coat but you could probably get away with just one coat of this bad boy. Isn't it stunning?

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'll have the other two polishes from this collection up on Thursday! Happy Tuesday! :)

Above the Curve Valentine's Collection Swatches and Review: UPDATED!

Hey everyone! Today I have swatches of the Above the Curve Valentine's Collection to share!*

I'm just going to start off by saying these all had perfect formulas and consistencies (apart from a little glitter settling) so I don't have to repeat myself throughout this post! Another thing I really love about this collection is that Shawn and Angel (the makers) didn't include a pink (because I don't really like pink on myself and it's my least favourite colour). Purples, plums and browns are definitely more my thing! I loved each and every one of these and didn't want to take them off as I was swatching, but stay tuned to find out my favourite!

UPDATE: I found an easy way to white balance my pictures using GIMP (a free photo editing program) so most of these pictures are now white balanced (it made the Sun and flash pictures worse)!

First up is All You Need is Love! Wine, a lovely plum-coloured polish with holographic microglitter and a bunch of different sized and coloured glitters!

What you see here is two easy coats and a coat of topcoat! I probably got less glitter on my nails than I would have from a perfectly mixed bottle but I love the look of it this way! I think it's harder for glitters to redistribute in small bottles because of the brush and mixing balls in the way!

This is my favourite from this collection! I'd love to know your guys' favourites in the comments!

Here's a shot of this baby in the Sun! Check out all the holographic glitter! Are you guys as in love with this as I am?

Next up is Circle of Love, a clear-based glitter polish with metallic pink and holographic silver microglitter and a bunch of circle and heart-shaped glitters in different sizes, colours and finishes!

This is one thick and dabbed coat of Circle of Love over one coat of American Apparel Mount Royal! Now that there is a bit of product gone from the bottle I think it will be easier to redistribute the glitters when I use this again! Even still, I managed to get quite a bunch of glitter on my nails including some of the hearts!

I was very tempted to keep this one on but I think I have to go on a bit of a glitter strike. Even when I use the foil method and have three or so coats of polish under a glitter topper my nails end up peeling where the glitters were! Then I have to buff my nails smooth and I've been buffing them probably more than is good for them. It's really frustrating, I wonder if I should go on a Nail Envy break and use it as directed for a few weeks. Do you guys have any advice for me? Let me know!

Next up is You Java Me Crazy (love the name!), a warm brown holographic polish!

You know what I said earlier about my peeling nails? Even after buffing them you can see what I mean in these pictures! Since this polish was so opaque (I only used one coat and a coat of top coat) you can really see the places my nails are peeling. Anyway, my peeling nails aside haha, this polish is another lovely Above the Curve one-coater brown polish like Friday the 13th, so naturally I love it!

Unfortunately the Sun went down before swatching these last few polishes so a flash picture and a picture above my light box is the best I could do!

Lastly, we have Truly Madly Deeply, a metallic and holographic warm-toned purple polish! I am actually wearing this right now (as I often do with one polish per swatch fest) and it's definitely unlike anything I own which I love! I've been trying to get a picture of this in the Sun all day but it only came out once and I missed my chance! I hope it comes out again, if so I'll post the picture on my Instagram!

What you see here is two easy coats and a coat of top coat, it was very easy to work with like the rest of this collection!

You can't see the holo effect too well here, but you can see it's metallic aspect!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! What do you think of these polishes? I think you could wear them year-round and that they're gorgeous! Happy Friday everyone!

*These polishes were provided in exchange for my honest review.