Black Sheep Lacquer Swatches and Review: Lateralus, Aliens Exist, and Strawberry! :)

This is a picture heavy post, so be warned! The lovely Erin (owner of Black Sheep Lacquer) has a few awesome sales running on her Etsy shop currently (here), so I couldn't resist picking up a few pretties!

First up is Lateralus, a linear holographic top coat. It has a wonderful formula, and it levels and spreads fantastically. The pictures show the polish in varying degrees of sunlight, from indirect sunlight to close to full sunlight (the holo effect gets even stronger than in these pictures, the Sun decided to get a little brighter after I took these). This is one coat of Lateralus on top of two coats (from thumb to pinky) of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, American Apparel Office, Essie Mojito Madness, Essie Going Incognito, and Orly Liquid Vinyl. I didn't use a top coat for theses swatches, because Lateralus is so smooth when dry that you don't need to! I love this top coat so much that I prefer it over black than the black Color Club Halo Hue, Beyond!

Next up is Aliens Exist, a neon lime green jelly with tiny gold circle glitters and large matte black diamond glitters. The colour is less pale and more yellow than pictured here, but like most neons, it's difficult to capture accurately on camera unfortunately! I used three coats for the opacity you see here and no top coat. As you can see, this polish dries to an awesome satiny finish! The formula of this polish is amazing, in addition to not having to fish for glitters, it: dries quickly, isn't streaky, and it levels well!

Lastly we have Strawberry, my personal favourite if I had to choose! This beautiful polish is a red/pink jelly with green bar glitters, red bar glitters, and matte black hexagon and square glitters! I used two coats for the opacity you see here and one coat of top coat. Since this polish is absolutely packed with glitter, I'd suggest two coats of top coat for a totally smooth finish (though I prefer the textured look at one coat). Like the other two gorgeous polishes featured in this post, this polish was very easy to apply, and it levels itself out nicely! Like Aliens Exist, there was no need to fish the glitter out of the bottle!

Thank you so much for reading! Check out Black Sheep Lacquer on Etsy here and pick up some of Erin's awesome polishes!

Essie Plumberry Swatches!

I shaped my nails round again and I think it's the best shaping job I've ever done! I'm completely in love with my nails again, I really wasn't feeling them being square-ish!

Anyways, this is just one coat of Essie Plumberry which looks dark pink in sunlight, and red (like in the second picture below) in indirect light! It's a jelly, not a creme, and somehow it's still almost fully opaque in one coat.

Onto the pictures! :)

Thanks for reading! :)

Random Designs on a Nude Base!

For some reason gradients never work out well for me, my cuticles get stained and my clean up is never sufficient. Luckily Sarah at Chalkboard Nails will be posting a gradient tutorial soon, hers always seem to work out perfectly! Anyways, that's why I have another nail art post for you all today!

Onto the pictures and polishes used!

I started off with one (yes, one!) coat of American Apparel's Mannequin. It looks nude in certain lights and these pictures, but it's quite a peachy colour in others. I think American Apparel is my favourite brand of nail polish!

The yellow I used was American Apparel's Neon Yellow, the pink was Essie Mod Square, and the red was my favourite red ever, American Apparel's Poppy!

Thanks for reading!

Holographic Glitter Gradient over Pink and Grey!

I got this awesome set of tiny hexagon glitters from Michael's and three of the different glitters are holographic! I decided to use two of the holographic glitters for this mani, the silver and black ones. The pink I used here is Essie Cute As A Button and the grey is Sally Hansen Wet Cement :). Each and every glitter you see here was individually placed so it took a bit of time!

Onto the pictures!

Sorry for the bigger break between nail art/swatch posts than usual, my friend's back in town and my boyfriend recently got his wisdom teeth out so I've been away from home more than usual lately! Thanks for reading!

Sonnetarium's Blueberry Yogurt! :)

I got four lovely Sonnetarium polishes in the mail yesterday so I thought I'd share Blueberry Yogurt with you lovely people! It has a gorgeous blue and purple shimmer that is difficult to capture on camera (you can kind of see it in the last picture). Let me know if you'd be interested in seeing Vines of me moving my nails in the Sun when I wear a shimmery or glittery polish! Laura at Polish All The Nails does that and it's such a clever idea! You guys should check her out if you've never seen her before, she's so talented, I absolutely love her blog!

To get back on topic, Blueberry Yogurt is a beautiful medium purple jelly with dark blue small circle glitters and dark blue medium-sized hexagon glitters. I layered one coat of it over two coats Essie Play Date which is a bit of a warmer and less blue medium purple (so the colour Blueberry Yogurt appears on my nails isn't an accurate representation). I absolutely love the look of three coats of an indie jelly polish, but I keep buying small bottles of indie polish and I can't bear to waste them! I promise that the next indie glitter I wear I'll wear on its own! As I said above, Blueberry Yogurt also has a gorgeous blue and purple shimmer in it that doesn't photograph well. You can see the shimmer without sunlight, because it's darker and more blue than the polish. It almost looks like blue dust particles when not lit up by the Sun. So either way, it's a seriously awesome looking polish!

Onto the pictures!

Thanks for reading! :)

Red Nails with Rhinestones and Random Shapes!

These are just some plain red nails I kept adding to because I thought they were too boring! The shimmery darker purple is NOPI Fanatical Fuchsia, the lighter purple is Essie Play Date, the yellow is the awesomely-formulated Color Club Almost Famous, the darker blue is China Glaze Ride The Waves, the lighter blue is Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, and last but not least, the red is Sally Hansen Madame X!

On my left hand I painted the shapes with a small striper brush, and on my right hand I just used the brushes from the bottles and a dotting tool! The heart rhinestones are from a tiny set off of Amazon!

As always, thanks for reading! :)

Chevron Nails Take Two!

I think this is one of my favourite manis to date! :) I started with Essie's Bikini So Teeny thinking I'd be stamping over it, then completely changed my mind as you can see!

From left to right: Essie Bikini So Teeny, Essie Mod Square, and Essie Carry On :)