Arcane Lacquer Giveaway @ Lacquerheads of Oz

Nothing to Disclose

I didn't want my last post to get too cluttered, but here's a thing I feel that you, my lovelies, should know about:

Lacquerheads of Oz are holding a giveaway of Arcane Lacquers and it's open internationally.

THIS IS HUGE! As you may have noticed in my post on Luna Madness, Arcanes are currently only available within Australia, and I only have mine because of my darling, sweet nail mail buddy. So get on it, lovelies, click on the above image to get your entries in! Go go go!

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.

Chalkboard Nails

Nothing to Disclose

... Not as in the extremely talented nail blogger. As in nails that are meant to look chalkboard-ish.

Doing chalkboard nails was the idea of one of my lovelies over on Instagram. I regrettably haven't run very far with it, but it's a fun look for when you're feeling lazy!

This look began with two coats of Camelot (best black ever), followed by some sponging of Marble for the dust effect, then Filthy Rich for the chalk holder along the bottom. Text is done with Tempest, and the whole is coated in two thick coats of Matte About You.

On the subject of which -- you notice the dots that are distinctly whiter and sharper than the sponging? Those are weird calcifications in Matte About You. Has this happened to anybody else? I have no idea what they're doing but I strongly disapprove. In this case, they sort of blend in, but I've had them nearly ruin a manicure before. Time to consult Missy's informative Iron Polish post on matte topcoats and get myself a butter LONDON matte topper, I think!

Can anybody guess what the equation is? Any maths nerds out there? Show yourselves, ain't no reason to hide! I'll write it below in white text, highlight it and read if you're hopeless at maths like me:

The theory of general relativity as formulated by our good friend Einstein. :)

Polishes used:

A England - Camelot

Spa Ritual - Marble

Quo by Orly - Filthy Rich

Cult Nails - Tempest

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

Essie - Matte About You (top coat)

I have some seriously awesome posts coming up in the next few days -- a W-themed mani, and another crack at paisley print, so I hope you'll look forward to those!

xo,

J.

Summer Strawberries

Nothing to Disclose

LOVELIES. Oh, my lovelies. If only you knew the toil behind this manicure.

"Jolène," you protest, "this is really easy." YES. But it took 4 do-overs! I tried every conceivable strawberry mani before I ended up with this one! What is wrong with me today.

At any rate. I'll keep it brief because it's past midnight and Momma has a serious sleeping problem, in that she needs to do lots of it or else she'll fall apart... like... a joke in terrible taste about leprosy.

This began with a coat of Tempest (ONE COAT!), with strawberries done in An Amorous Disposition (will need to be showcased better in future), greens in Shawn, and little dots in Kalahari Kiss.

Polishes used:

Cult Nails - Tempest

Arcane Lacquer - An Amorous Disposition (only Australia)

Zoya - Shawn

China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss

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

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

I have a serious request. I've been so low on nail art inspiration lately! I don't know why, but it sucks. Is there anything you, lovely lovelies, would like to see me take a shot at? I'm all ears over here!!

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.

Rhinestone Skittlette!

Nothing to Disclose

Tonight I have something blingy for you!

I recently read Marta's wonderful tutorial on skittlette manicures and thought, you know what, I want to give that a try! And then I promptly overdid it.

For this look, I started with a base of My Vampire is Buff, followed with dots in Tempest and a pinkie in Once In a Lullaby (four coats! It's not a very dense glitter, but it IS lovely). I found the rhinestones at Born Pretty and affixed them on a thick coat of Gelous, topped with top coat.

I realize that the pinkie is supposed to be the blingiest and the middle two fingers are supposed to be the intermediates, and I appear to have inverted that order, and it's a whole hunk of hot mess as a result, but I like it anyway. And you know why? RAINBOWS, THAT'S WHY.

Polishes used:

OPI - My Vampire is Buff

Cult Nails - Tempest

Maya Cosmetics - Once In a Lullaby

Born Pretty rhinestones

Gelous

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

'Traditional' nail art is sort of boring to me, but I do like skittlettes because they offer a lot to look at and you can use a number of beautiful polishes without cluttering them up too much. I may start introducing this look into my repertoire a bit more, perhaps in lieu of my Swatch Saturdays (Skittlette Saturdays!) -- any thoughts on that?

xo,

J.

Through the Grapevine

Nothing to Disclose

Hello lovelies! Today I have an afternoon post for you-- be amazed!-- of something of an abstracted nature mani.

"But Jolène," you are no doubt saying, "what the bejesus happened to your nails?!"

If you don't follow me on Instagram, then you haven't heretofore known that I broke my right index nail yesterday evening, in a traumatic incident that would make for the world's most boring Lifetime TV movie. And so now I've been nubbinized. I have acute nubbinitis. You get the idea.

Still, I will soldier on! In the name of bringing you ze nail arts!

This sort of patterned/abstracted grapevine mani is done on a base of Chilled Down, which features gorgeous blue and copper/gold flakes in a very pale greige base and I love it. It applied like a boss; I love the Dandy Nails formula and brush.

The vines were made with Blue Gums on Boxing Day, Xixabangma, 915, and Moe Money. The grapes were done with tiny dots of Lady of the Lake, Pic du Gar, and 1972.

Here are comparison shots of this mani in lightbox lighting and then in indirect sunlight:

Sorry for blurry; should have used a tripod. :S

Polishes used:

Dandy Nails - Chilled Down

OPI - Charmed by a Snake

Elevation Polish - Xixabangma, Pic du Gar

Pretty Serious Cosmetics - Blue Gums on Boxing Day

Ozotic - 915

Tough as Nails Lacquer - Moe Money (does not seem to be in production anymore)

A England - Lady of the Lake

la couleur couture - 1972, 2013 (top coat)

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

I don't know what next to paint on my nubs! I'm so used to being spoiled for canvas size... And look at that corner break! HIDEOUS. Don't look at me, I'm a monster!!!

xo,

J.

Luna Madness

Nothing to Disclose

Good evening! Today I'm using one of my new Arcane Lacquers, Luna Madness, in a somewhat literal manner:

This didn't turn out quite as expected, to be honest, and it's not doing any justice to the beautiful complexity of this polish. Click here and scroll down for Bec's own swatch. I painted with watered-down white acrylic paint and the polish itself, layered a couple times over. Not fluffy enough! HULK SMASH

Weird hand pose FTW!

Polishes used:

Arcane Lacquer - Luna Madness (only available in Australia for the time being)

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

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

white acrylic paint

detail brush

cotton swabs

I'm thinking another Arcane for tomorrow, but we shall see! If you are celebrating Father's Day tomorrow, all the best to you and your pops, my lovelies!!

xo,

J.

Water Lilies

Nothing to Disclose

Good evening! Tonight I have some water lilies for you.

This look has a base of Love Letter to Kurt Vonnegut. I have not captured it whatsoever. It has rocketed its way to my top 5 favourite polishes of all time-- that's how beautiful this one is. Here is a link to Sarah's review of it over on Samarium's Swatches; she does a much better job of showing its beauty. Unfortunately, it was a limited edition and is no longer in production. And I will be jealously hoarding mine like Smaug and his beloved cup. Except this polish is no mere cup. You get the idea.

What does this taste like? What's under here? What's behind this thing? How much cat hair can I get in the light box?

The rest of the design is done in acrylics; the tutorial is at the bottom of this post. :)

The green bled into the white in a conspiracy to drive me seven ways insane.

Polishes used:

Scofflaw Nail Varnish Manufactory - Love Letter to Kurt Vonnegut

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

Seche Vite (top coat)

acrylics paints (white, greens, pink)

size 0 flat brush

I used this same polish as a base for a simpler look for this upcoming Sunday, so you haven't seen the last of it yet! I think I will next be using a base of one of the gorgeous Arcane polishes I've received from my lovely Aussie nail mail buddy (*waves*), and hopefully it'll turn out like it is in my head!

xo,

J.

Pride Week, Adventure-Time-Style

Nothing to Disclose

Today I have a rainicorn for you. Yep. To the chase!:

It's Pride Week here in Edmonton, so a steed made out of a rainbow seemed to make sense. (It does!) And the base of this one is the beautiful Princess Bubblegum -- if Jindie Nails made more subtle polishes like these, I'd own every one. It applied like butter in 3 thin coats and boasts a mix of eeny weeny neon glitters in pink, blue, and purple, plus small neon glitters in pink and purple, AND blue/green iridescent glitters in micro hexes, micro squares, and micro bars. Whew!

Happy Pride Week! Ride on, you rainbow unicorns.

Polishes used:
Jindie Nails - Princess Bubblegum
Nail Pattern Boldness - Glitter A-Peel (base coat), Glitter Food
Seche Vite (top coat)
acrylic paints
detail brush

xo,

J.

Adieu, Google Reader / Google Friend Connect

Everybody and their monkey's uncle knows about the imminent demise of Google Reader and, contrary to initial reports, I've heard that Google Friend Connect will be getting the boot, too. So sad!

If you use either of these platforms to follow my blog (bless your heart for following, I love you!) then consider this your friendly reminder to switch over to another reader platform ASAP!

I use Bloglovin' to follow all of the nail blogging lovelies out there and I adore the service. If you use Bloglovin' or are thinking of using it, here is the button to follow me:



There are of course other RSS readers out there; for the rest of my reading, I use Feedly. If you're jumping to another RSS reader, here is a Feedburner link to get your subscription to my feed all set up:

 Subscribe in a reader


Thanks so much for taking the time to read this! I'll be back with some adventuresome nail art in the near future (likely tomorrow afternoon)!


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.

Purple Flowers

After completing a pictorial for the gradated dotted ikat look, I decided I wanted something quick and easy to do as nail art.

These are the famous Mr. Candiipants flowers; she has a tutorial on YouTube (start from 1:00 if you want to skip her characteristic intro-ramble) for anybody wanting to know how to do them. They're easy as heck and I love the visual punch they have! I made mine bigger than hers just because I was feeling something in-your-face, but you can make the petals larger or smaller by adjusting how little polish you leave on the brush. I used a dotting tool for the middles, but you can use the nail polish brush if you wipe pretty much all the polish off and are very careful.

I used three shades of more-or-less neon purple (which of course aren't showing up properly), plus a neon green for the little leaves.

Polishes used:

Zoya - Charisma

Models Own - Pukka Purple

Elevation Polish - Pic du Gar (deep almost neon purple jelly -- may be my favourite new purple)

Nina Ultra Pro - Lime Light

A England - Camelot

Cult Nails - Tempest

Duri - Rejuvacote (base coat)

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

small dotting tool

Another easy look (plus tutorial) will be up tomorrow, and then I'm off to Victoria for the weekend to be pampered at the Magnolia, have high tea at the Fairmont Empress and, of course, nosh at Re-Bar! So excite!

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.

SIMPLE(R) SUNDAY: Houndstooth

Oh boy. It's 00:11 on Monday and I'm starting my Sunday post. Bad Jolène!!

Houndstooth is a weird pattern when you look at it, but it breaks down easily. There are a million tutorials for this one, but here's how I did it:

Step 1: draw your squares. You want them evenly spaced, so that it's a bit like a chess board where every second line of black squares was erased. That's a complicated way of saying what I hopefully have shown above.

Step 2: the first set of arms. Technically, the ends of the arms are supposed to be at an angle like fancy ribbon, but I challenge you to achieve that on the nail.

Step 3: the second set of arms. This should end up looking a bit like you're watching a bunch of block people doing the Macarena from above. (Good luck unseeing that.)

Step 4: the ears! So now the block people are looking up at you and they're actually CAT-BLOCK PEOPLE. I enjoy how my captions have managed to devolve into complete uselessness in only four steps.

That made sense, right????? Right. I'd make a pictorial for IG but it's clear by now that I do not function well without a staggering amount of words to throw around. Once you summon up the patience to do all your nails, you end up with something like this:

I did mine on a base of a glitter bomb for visual interest, but you could do it on anything. There are limitless colour combinations. I think it'd be really cool (but perhaps difficult) to do a houndstooth in a textured polish on a base of a similar shade of regular polish. Über classy!

Polishes used:

Cult Nails - Tempest (one coat underneath Rave)

Jindie Nails - Rave

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

la couleur couture - 2013 (top coat)

black acrylic paint

detail brush

I think I will next do another post with a custom Tryst Lacquer, so keep your peepers peeled for that!


xo,

J.