Water Droplets

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies!

Today's manicure took its inspiration from the base polish.

Not terribly colour-accurate; below photos are better. :)

I was moved to use my custom Tryst Lacquer, Aqueous, again. It does take four coats to opacity, but I love it so much. :) Just look at it!! And then I decided to do some one-stroke water droplets. These are deceptively difficult.

In fact, I did them over about three times. Yikes. And they're still not perfect! If you want to see perfect one-stroke water droplets, visit Lucy -- she's got it down pat. And she filmed a tutorial! :)

In the end, the method that was fastest was the one I was most comfortable with. It really was, for me, a question of getting the white down pat. I think I achieved it best on my middle finger.

BONUS: CAT ATOP LIGHT BOX
seriously what are you even doing up there

Polishes used:

Tryst Lacquers - Aqueous (custom)

butter LONDON - Nail Foundation (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

black and white acrylic paint

one-stroke brush

detailing brush

Can you believe it's October tomorrow (read: for me, 40 minutes from now)? Yikes. It's already freezing where I am, I wake up to 0˚C mornings, winter is going to own me.

xo regardless,

J.

Simple Aquatic + a Guest Post!

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies!

So, I survived part of the Skyline Trail. 36km worth of trudging around with beautiful views. I pinched something in my right hip and my feet have a collective 6 huge blisters, so the last major ascent/scree was not going to happen. I need to work out more before tackling 12 hours' worth of hiking!

But I do have nails for you today!

I'm doing an ABC challenge with my buddy @thedevilwearspolish on Instagram. We're calling it the Follow the Devil ABC Challenge and doing one prompt a week. This week: aquatic! I decided to keep it simple.

I started with two coats of Lavender Cloud, followed by Skylar for the water. I then went over Skylar in some places with Arctic Sunrise, Aqueous, and Love Letter to Kurt Vonnegut. Little shine details in Tempest, topcoat, and done!

Zoom in on this one for all the shimmery awesomeness of the polishes I used:

And I have a surprise for you! I did a guest post over at Gnarly Gnails, run by the inimitable Missy! I love Missy to death, she's the sweetest and has always been so encouraging in my blogging endeavours. One thing I've always appreciated about her swatches is that they show you exactly what you need to know about a polish. They're professional and sharp-looking, but they do not sugar-coat how a polish actually behaves. It's really refreshing! And did I mention she's sweet? Click this teaser image to go see my post, and give her blog some love!

Polishes used:

Sally Hansen - Lavender Cloud

Zoya - Skylar

Girly Bits - Arctic Sunrise

Tryst Lacquers - Aqueous (custom)

Scofflaw Nail Varnish - Love Letter to Kurt Vonnegut (limited edition)

Cult Nails - Tempest

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

I'm working on another surprise! I will have that for you on Wednesday sometime. I may even be able to get something up either tomorrow or Tuesday, fingers crossed!

xo,

J.

Garden Party

Nothing to Disclose

Lovelies, it's a whole twelve hours before my usual posting time! I might be getting a high from all the sunshine that's out right now.

The base for today's manicure is Garden Party, with a gradient of Hellebore on top. I then drew on the bunting (because what's more garden-party-ish than bunting?) with Jacqueline, Tallulah, and Tempest.

Sunshine photos make my cuticle oil look EXTRA OILY. Sorry about that!

Here I have taken a proof shot with a plant (technically they are many carrot plants), to prove that I was in the garden when I was taking these Garden Party photos.

What I feel I haven't conveyed about this polish in these photos is its complexity. I love the pale green and bright blue circle glitters, but there are also white hexes in three sizes, teeny lavender hexes (and squares?), and these small iridescent hexes that flash blueish and are totally awesome. (My love of all things iridescent is probably evident by now.)

Polishes used:

Tryst Lacquers - Garden Party (it may be batch variance but mine is much pinker than it looks here)

Cirque - Hellebore

Zoya - Jacqueline, Tallulah

Cult Nails - Tempest

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter A-Peel (base coat)

NYC - In a New York Minute (top coat)

I hope you have sunshine where you are, too, my lovelies! And that you get the enjoy it!

xo,

J.

Main Squeeze

Nothing to Disclose

Another of my multitudinous Tryst Lacquers today -- Main Squeeze!

Main Squeeze is described as a blood orange jelly with white satin hexes and squares (in two sizes), plus orange iridescent mini glitters. In these photos, that description is pretty bang on, but in real life, the colour leans more coral than it appears here. I actually love it in photos and in person, but it tickles my coral-love bone more than my orange-love bone in reality. (That sounded awful, didn't it?) I should note that it's almost impossible to get the satin hexes out, and I'm not sure why (they aren't huge or anything). I think they just really like the sides of the bottle. Your only hope is to shake the bottle vigorously every nail or two, and I was too lazy for that. I think the polish looks lovely even without them.

Simple look tonight; started with My Vampire is Buff as the lightest, followed by Kalahari Kiss, followed by Sun Kissed, followed by blending Sun Kissed and Kalahari Kiss a bit with some Action. Doing circles with tiny brushes is a huge pain in the arse.

I am now going to continue my pic spam. These were more photogenic than some of the nails I've done recently, so I kind of went overboard.

And finally, a simple swatch of my other hand, with Main Squeeze on its own. This is more colour-accurate than the above (I think there was some attracting going on with the orange, er, oranges-- this isolates the polish better). Wouldn't it be cool if all my swatch photos turned out this good? Something was working well tonight...

Polishes used:

Tryst Lacquers - Main Squeeze

Cult Nails - Scandalous (1 coat as undies just for some added opacity, didn't change the colour)

OPI - My Vampire is Buff

China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss

Sally Hansen - Sun Kissed

Essie - Action

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter A-Peel (base coat), Glitter Food

NYC - In a New York Minute (top coat)

Hey, here's a fun fact for you: my left hand poses so much better than my right hand, which is tragic. Why? Because, in Grade 7, a kid named Ryan was teasing my friend Allie and keeping some book or other away from her and I went to punch him in the stomach for it, except I missed and hit his hip bone and broke something in my hand. It only occurred to me that I broke something many years later, when a nail tech was massaging my hand and asked if I ever broke it. I guess Grade 7 Jolène assumed that being unable to close her right hand for a whole month was standard post-punch process?

xo,

J.

Aqueous

Nothing to Disclose

Good evening, lovelies! Another Tryst Lacquers custom polish for you today: Aqueous.

To show this beauty off, I decided on another skittlette. (I'm planning on something more oomph-ish for tomorrow, thus inverting the posting order I have established. Yay?)

All fingers started with a base of 4 coats of Aqueous. This sounds like a lot, but it went on very smooth and thin-- it's a true jelly, to let all the shimmer types through. If many layers annoy you, putting it on top of something like OPI's Ski Teal We Drop would be an excellent alternative. It leans a bit more green than the photos are showing, making it a perfect deep teal. My middle and ring fingers have a simple water marble done with White On and Nail Envy, and my pinkie has two coats of Trash Glam (because it is Quo by Orly, it is as far as I can tell a dead-on dupe for Orly's Sparkling Garbage, but maybe a bit denser glitter-wise). I focussed the above photo on my index so that the blurred out pinkie could hint at the holo goodness of Trash Glam. It's a party in a bottle, that one.

The above helps to show you the complexity of the base polish, but I wasn't satisfied. Oh no. Kimberly took my vision for a water polish and knocked it straight out of the park, so I decided that the world needed MACROS. Here's Aqueous in lightbox compact fluorescent lighting (this one is pretty well colour accurate) and indirect natural lighting:

If you aren't ready to pounce, you may have a fever-- please consult a doctor. But in all seriousness, like with all of my custom Tryst creations, I've allowed Kimberly to sell this baby to anybody who wants it, so if you're drooling, fire her off a note!

Polishes used:

Tryst Lacquers - Aqueous (custom)

OPI - Nail Envy (clear, for water marbling)

Sally Hansen - White On

Quo by Orly - Trash Glam

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Until tomorrow, my lovelies!

xo,

J.

Ghost Orchids

Good evening!

I have another of my Tryst Lacquers custom polishes for you today! This one is called Calypso, after a very rare form of orchid. Fittingly, I decided on painting some orchids!

I didn't want to hide the beautiful base polish too much, so I opted for some small ghostly watercolour orchids, done with a small brush and very watered-down white acrylic paint.

They ended up looking mostly like Lady Slipper orchids, but oh well! :)

This is a photo of my unadorned Cinderella hand, because I wanted to show you the beauty of this polish. (This photo is overexposed but is the most colour-accurate by far.) It glimmers like no tomorrow. It has a raspberry jelly base with silver shimmer, white flake shimmer, teeny white satin squares, and golden yellow hexes. It's gorgeous.

Polishes used:

Tryst Lacquers - Calypso (custom polish)

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter Food

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

white acrylic paint

detail brush

I broke my Cinderella thumbnail at bootcamp last Friday, and am thinking I'm going to need to file them all down to a degree, sooner rather than later. BUT I DUN WANNAAAA. D:


xo,

J.

I scream! You scream! We all scream for ice cream!

... I used to say, back when I could also skip in double ropes. (I can barely single skip with a single rope now. Oh, the halcyon days of youthful coordination.)

No tutorial for these, because the only real process was "screw around with acrylic paints in the general shape of ice cream". From left to right, we have mint chocolate chip, a banana split, some kind of berry sunday, and a peanut chocolate parfait that looks poop-ish because using dark brown tricks my camera into thinking things are solid black!

But the BASE of this manicure, which you can regrettably see little of, is another of the custom Tryst Lacquers I ordered -- Confection (aptly). It's a very pale nude/peach with super-pale green satin hex, purple micro holo, and tiny iridescent glitter. It's lovely and I'm sure you'll be seeing it again. It also applied like a dream in 3 thin coats.

The cups are made with polish, in a page I've taken from @glitterfingers' cupcake manis. From left to right: Jinx, Lil Miss Sunshine, Mermaid's Dream, another (!) custom Tryst Lacquer which is called Calypso and which you'll see more of soon.

Polishes used:

Tryst Lacquers - Confection (custom), Calypso (custom)

OPI - Jinx

CrowsToes - Lil Miss Sunshine

Deborah Lippmann - Mermaid's Dream

Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter A-Peel (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

acrylic paint
detail brush
fine-nibbed pen with watered-down acrylic paint for the outlines

I think I'll be doing a watermarble next, because I bought a GOSH polish today that is SUPERB -- if only my photos will end up doing it justice!

xo,

J.

Mirage

Hello lovelies!

Today's post is instalment #1 of 4 about a series of custom polishes that Kimberly over at Tryst Lacquers made for me. She's a sweetheart and her polishes are awesome; I strongly recommend you check them out if you haven't already. She only ships to Canada and the States at the moment, but I'm happy to do some nail mail magic if you spot anything you really want!

This is a much paler orange than it's appearing in photos-- the last photo gets it the closest. It's a pale orange with an edge of peach, filled with silver micro holo glitter and opalescent flakes. The flakes come in small to quite large, and the odd one is a pain in the butt, requiring you to wipe them off the brush lest they get all curly on your nail. A good coat of Glitter Food, though, and the bumps are all sorted out. It dries down to a good thickness, even with 3 coats. And, in spite of the flakes, it's a super-easy polish to apply and control. Kimberly makes a good product!

This is a simpler nail art in large part because I felt like something I could hammer out quickly, and because I used 100% nail polish for this look, so I didn't have the workable time of acrylics on my side. I think it came out quite cutely! That little buffalo skull is my favourite part, and the part I thought I'd have the hardest time with.

The opalescent flakes in an orange base strongly reminded me of mirages in the desert, so that's why I named it Mirage! :) I fiddled with the levels and colour balances to try to get the polish colour more accurate in this photo, but it's still a bit too darkly orange. You'll have to use your imaginations! ;)

Polishes used:
Tryst Lacquers - Mirage (custom)
OPI - My Vampire is Buff
Sally Hansen - Mellow Yellow
Nails Inc - Porchester Square
Zoya - Godiva, Tracie
Rescue Beauty Lounge - Recycle
Elevation Polish - Xixabangma, Streetside NYC, Temperance
Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)
Seche Vite (top coat; only on top of Mirage, not on top of nail art)

The other three custom polishes I have to show you are Confection, Rosin, and Calypso! I gotta brainstorm ideas...

DON'T FORGET ABOUT MY CONTEST / GIVEAWAY!!


J.