It's St Patricks Day! I really LOVE green and I always get excited to do manicures for today BUT....I realized when going through my collection this year that I really don't have many green creme polishes. I have plenty of glitters, shimmers and other such goodies, but not anywhere near enough cremes.  In either event I threw a few China Glaze polishes together with one of my favorite glitters of all time, Dollish Polish The Hero of Time. I think it came out rather nice and subtle. One of those mani's I could carry over into tomorrow if I were feeling sort of lazy. ;) I hope everyone has a happy holiday and stays safe!

I have to apologize for being SUPER late on these ABC Challenge nails! "T" will be up shortly as well. Life has gotten busy and time gets away from me!! Anyway for the letter "S" I've chosen to show you an indie polish. This is Lynderella Sweets to the Sweet and I was lucky enough to score it from an awesome nail friend, Debbie of The Crumpet. :)  Sweets to the Sweet is a milky, jelly based polish with various shapes and colors of glitter inside.  It's not super sparkly but it's oh so fun and Spring-like on your nails. Since the base is pretty light you can also layer it to create different effects. I used Lime Crime's Milky Ways here, for a softer look.

Don't forget to check out what Emma and Kerrie had for the letter "S"!

It's time for another BadAss polish!! I'm so excited about these.  The last one I did was so much fun with the stars and the silver glitter.  This one is also from the "Are You Ready For Some Football" collection and it's inspired by the Green Bay Packers.  It's called Go Pack Go.  It's a green glitter with larger goldish yellow hexes.  I'll be honest and say I didn't love this one but it's really just a color preference.  It applied easily and like the one before it I didn't have to do any fishing to get the hexes out.  I first swatched it over Duri One Summer Dream, a creamy yellow.  I love the way the green stands out on they yellow and it's definitely easy to see the inspiration on this one!  I like that the polish is saturated too because that means you can do one easy coat, as shown above, and not have to keep layering it up for effect.  After I had it over the yellow I decided to go for it over green as well...I mean...might as well!

Here it is over two coats of China Glaze Paper Chasing.  As you can see the effect completely changes which is something I love about multi glitters.   Now it's the gold that stands out and the green which provides a little extra sparkle.  Obviously you could wear this over any number of colors.  I think I really prefer the yellow to the green but it's nice either way.  Go Pack Go dried a little gritty as most glitter do, but again I used one coat of Seche Vite and it was shiny and smooth.  The hexes were easy to apply and they are not curled or raised at all.  I feel like you could almost wear this one on it's own if you wanted to layer it up a few times.  One coat is VERY glittery. I didn't try layering it on it's own but I feel like three coats would be sufficient.  

Which way do you prefer Go Pack Go?

Like this polish? Show your support by checking out BadAss Polish's Facebook page!

You can purchase BadAss Polish at their Etsy store.  



This polish was sent to me for my honest review. I have not been paid and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

 I have something exciting to show you today!! There is a new indie brand on the market and it's one you'll want to check out!  The brand is Bad Ass Polish and the little tube above is the way it comes packaged.  The tube is pretty sturdy, my cat knocked them off the kitchen counter onto the tile and it held up! If you don't believe me, check out this video of the creator tossing the tubes onto a concrete street. The polish inside was, of course, unharmed as well!  When you open the tube there is a little message inside from the creator, Amy.

Nice, no?  Not only does it thank you for you purchase but it also let's you know that there is a piece of felt inside the tube that you can use to remove the glittery polish!

  Here is the tube from above.  You can see the little piece of felt wrapped around the polish.  It adds cushion while the polish is in transit and then you can use it later to remove the glitter (if you so choose!)

 This is what the whole thing looks like.  The polish I'm showing you today is called America's Team and it's from the "Are You Ready For Some Football" collection .  It has a few sizes of silver glitter and blue stars inside.  Isn't the packaging nice? I don't think I've yet received an indie with such sturdy, professional packaging so I was impressed out the gate.  Now onto the fun part!! The swatching!

This is one coat of America's Team over two coats of Zoya Purity.  I expected to have issues fishing the large stars out but actually, I didn't with this one.  I managed to end up with one star per nail without any maneuvering or fishing.  The polish itself is moderately thick.  It's not hard to work with and as you can see, it doesn't really seem goopy but it's a bit thicker than a standard polish.  I shook mine pretty good before I started, as I always do with glitter but I don't notice any settling of the glitter if it sits so I don't know if it was really necessary. One coat of Seche Vite and it was smooth and shiny.  I really loved it over white.  But then I decided to try it over silver too!

With this one I decided to try for more stars so I fished a few out and placed them on my nails.  This is pretty typical with polishes with large shape glitter.  I've even had to do it with main stream brands like OPI, and you might remember with my LynB indie swatch of Zero I had to do some fishing.  I don't mind doing it to get the larger glitters out.  I think I prefer this over white but the silver was nice as well just the silver glitter got kind of lost on it.  This is one coat of America's Team over two coats of Barry M Silver Foil.  Which way do you prefer it?


Like this polish? Show your support by checking out Bad Ass Polish's Facebook page!

 You can purchase Bad Ass Polish at her Etsy store. 

This is an indie post!! Today I'm showing you a polish from an Etsy seller called LynB Designs.  The color?  Zero.  Zero is described as a "...sheer white base, with a small amount of red fine glitter. Loaded with medium black hexes, red hearts, white stars, and white hearts." 

 Two things I will say about the description given.  One:  I didn't find the base to be very sheer.  This swatch is over two coats of Zoya Purity so don't judge it on that!! But in the pics below you'll notice that it's more of a milky base than a sheer one.  Two: perhaps it's just that I'm used to crammed bottles of glitter (like with the Shimmer polishes I received recently) but it didn't seem very loaded to me.  Now...those things aside, the polish is a unique color.  I actually thought it was reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland with the colors and the hearts.  I'm reminded of cards and poker!! 

This is one coat of Zero.  You can really see the red glitter in this and there are a few bar glitters on there but so far as being "loaded" I'm just not seeing it.  I did NOT do any maneuvering on these coats.  Whatever came out of the bottle is on my nails. You can also see that the base is already fairly visible even though it's just one thin coat.

This is two coats.  So now you can see that there are some more bars, a few more large glitters and the base is REALLY starting to get opaque.  There is still visible nail line and honestly, I wouldn't say this is a creme. It's reminiscent of Essie Marshmallow.  A white or off white jelly. If you look at the original glitters which were on the nail you can see how the second coat has sort of muted them a bit.

Here we have three coats.  And again you can see that mostly it added some bars and red glitter.  The pictures on the Etsy store list that they are three coats but if that's true then the formula on mine is way different than what is swatched because the base on this is very obvious after it builds up.  I wasn't super in love with it after I got three coats on.  At this point, most of the large glitters are on one nail, and the white ones aren't super visible due to the opacity of the base.  It did dry to a pretty shiny finish but I always add Seche anyway because I'm impatient!  For the original picture you saw at the top I used two coats of Zoya Purity and then two coats of Zero using the "dab" technique to fish glitters out of the bottle and place them on my nail.  That's not uncommon with polishes with large glitters, even mainstream brands like OPI require this technique with some of their polishes.  After I'd done that I really LOVED the look.  I got a lot of compliments on it and like I said, it really has a very Alice in Wonderland look to it at the finish.  As a stand alone polish though, I don't think I'd wear it.  In the swatches on the Etsy store, she swatched it over other colors. I tried this but the base on mine just made it look a hot mess.  It MIGHT work over other very light colors but it will certainly mute the base.  

 Which way do you prefer this polish?

You can purchase Zero and other LynB polishes by visiting her Etsy store.

This polish was sent to me for my honest review. I have not been compensated for my opinions.

It's here! It's here! The final day of my Shimmer Polish week and my most favorite of the bunch.  This stunner is called Natalie and *sigh* she's just absolutely gorgeous.  The Shimmer Polish store describes Natalie as a dusty blue, copper and turquoise melange.  She's definitely blue and copper and she's oh so pretty. One of the things I love most about the melange polishes is that there is so much color to them.  This is blue, yes, but it's also got a multi effect and when you put it over other colors the whole picture changes.  It's just magical.  Here's a close up shot of Natalie:

It makes you swoon, no?  I'm totally in love with this one.  It's a must have!! I'm so glad I had the chance to try these out.  They're really amazing to look at and they sparkle an insane amount on your nails!  Totally worth the investment!  Now I'm dying to get my hands on Airriann and Karina!!

You can pick up Natalie for yourself by clicking here!!

You can purchase ShimmerPolish directly from her Etsy site for $12 each.  She also makes amazing custom polishes for just a little more. This polish was sent to me for my honest review.

 Continuing with my five days of Shimmer Polish, today we have Adrienne.  Of the five colors I got this one was the most color forward.  Adrienne is an obvious dark blue polish.  Like the others, she has a plethora of other colors strewn throughout her clear base.  But overall...she's very decidedly blue. Shimmer Polish describes her as a blue and gold polish and that's very much the case.  She has large blue hex glitters, medium gold hex glitters, and smaller holographic, blue, red and gold glitters.  It really amazes me with all of these Shimmer colors how many types and colors of glitter are in these bottles.  It's really crammed full and even though there are so many colors and shapes it really looks great on the nail.  It isn't chunky or bumpy and it doesn't look like the glitter display at the craft store tumbled into a bottle of clear polish.  These are well thought out, smart matches.  Here's a close up of Adrienne on my nail:

Like the others, Tracy aside, this is two coats and there is still some nail showing.  You could probably do three and have a full coverage glitter or you can do one ot two over another color for a fun glittery flash.

You can pick up Adrienne for yourself by clicking here!  

You can purchase ShimmerPolish directly from her Etsy site for $12 each.  She also makes amazing custom polishes for just a little more. This polish was sent to me for my honest review.

Day three of my week of Shimmer Polish  is here! Today I have Wendy for you to drool over. Wendy was my second favorite of the five I tried out.  I love that she has a two toned effect and it makes it a little hard to pinpoint a color for her!  She is described as a purple, copper melange on the Shimmer Polish store and ultimately, that's pretty much what she is.  The site says she's reminiscent of the 70's and I'd agree with that! I love the look of the copper and purple together but then there are flashes of other colors as you turn your nails.

Here's a close-up of her disco goodness:

You can see the large copper hexes and the smaller purple ones.  But there is also small blue and holographic glitters in there.  I think overall she reads as a purple but it's certainly hard to tell!  This had a similar formula to the others. Slightly thicker but easy to work with and it was less dense than Tracy.  About the same as Erica.  Two coats left my nails still bare in places but still very sparkly and well covered.  I have two more of these bad boys for you and I'm saving my most favorite for last so don't miss Friday's post!!

Pick up Wendy for yourself here!!

Today I have another gorgeous Shimmer Polish for you as promised!  Here we have Erica.  Erica is described as a Crystal Periodot Glitter Polish. She leans greenish and goldish and also a little blue-ish. Overall it's sort of a holographic green but as you can see from the macro shot below, she definitely has some other colors to her! There is also an intense amount of silver holographic glitter in Erica and boy does she shimmer!

You can tell from the macro shot that there is mostly holographic silver glitter in this polish and only micro green glitter.  Still the overall effect is greenish.  Erica had the same formula as Tracy and was a little on the thick side but nothing difficult to handle.  The coverage was a little more sparse than with Tracy -- two coats of Erica, above, still left some bare spots on my nail.  But three coats would have likely given full coverage and I think these are awesome in that you can layer them as a glitter top coat or go all out with full coverage. You literally don't even have to move your hand for them to sparkle and they light up in any light and at all angles! Gorgeous.

You can snag your own bottle of Erica here!!

I'm so incredibly excited for the swatches I have for you this week!! I'm not normally a big indie polish lover. Don't get me wrong, there are a few I really adore, but many of them are difficult to get a hold of, expensive, disappointing, and don't have longevity.  I can't speak for the longevity of this polish myself since these are my first bottles and I got them at the beginning of the month. However, from what I've seen and heard (and the appearance of my bottles after several weeks) I can vouch that they are good quality polishes.  These are from a brand called Shimmer Polish.  I've seen these around and they're just lovely but I hadn't tried any for myself until these stunners came in the mail.  I have five total to show you from the new line and they are all as amazing as the one before them!  I wanted to give them each their own post so you can really see all of them in their glory and appreciate them!  This is the first on the list!  She is called Tracy.

Tracy is described on the Shimmer polish store as a tarnished holographic gold and that's exactly what she is.  More over there are SO many colors packed into Tracy and it gives your nails a very disco ball effect.  There are glittery polishes and then there are Shimmer polishes.  If you own any of the China Glaze 3D glitter polishes then you'll understand what I mean when I say these take sparkly to a whole new level.

This picture is a macro shot from the ShimmerPolish store.  You can see that it's just completely packed with glitter. Most of the glitters are gold and there are several sizes and shapes including bar glitters, hex glitters and micro glitters. It also has reddish bronze glitter, green glitter and holographic glitter.  As far as application and formula I would liken these to the infamous OPI Burlesque glitters.  You can absolutely layer them but I only used two coats above and as you can see it's not hard to achieve full coverage.  The polish is thicker but mostly because of the amount of glitter inside.  Despite being on the thicker side they are not hard to work with and dry pretty quickly.  They do NOT dry shiny but that's also to be expected with such an amount of glitter. Two coats of Seche Vite sorted it right out and it was smooth and shiny and...I really wish I could capture the amount of sparkly! I have four more of these glorious beauty's to show you this week so stay tuned for them!!

 You can pick up Tracy and try her out yourself here!!

You can purchase ShimmerPolish directly from her Etsy site for $12 each.  She also makes amazing custom polishes for just a little more. This polish was sent to me for my honest review.

Today I have another Dollish Polish for you.  When I saw that there was a series of polishes dedicated to The Legend of Zelda, you know I was all over that! I still remember getting my very first game system, The original NES.  Mind you, I was 13, my dad FINALLY caved to our requests for one and snagged it at a yard sale and my friends had already been playing the crap out of the PlayStation for two years. But we loved it.  We started out with something like four games.  One was Super Mario Brothers 3/Duck Hunt/Track and Field.  It's actually a pretty common game but the great part was we actually had a Duck Hunt gun AND the Track and Field mat so we could fully enjoy all three.  Except for the part where if you ran on the mat too hard the system crashed. :/  At any rate, we also had a Chipmunk game which we failed at miserably because teamwork was essential and we just didn't have it.  And then there was that shiny gold cartridge.  The Legend of Zelda.  LOVED. THAT. GAME.  We had no idea how to play it or where to go and my sister and I spent endless hours with graph paper making castle maps to try to figure a way to beat it.  We failed.  But years later I watched my husband beat the whole damn thing in roughly an hour.  Stupid boys. Anyway...here we have Hylian Princess.  You'll probably notice in the pic above that there is a random blue hex glitter on my ring finger.  After carefully examining my bottle, I decided this glitter must have been an oops because there isn't another to be found.

Hylian Princess is a mix of tiny purple squares, various sizes of purple hexes, large white hexes and  large gold hexes and squares.  It's A LOT going on but it looks just amazing.  I layered it over butterLONDON Muggins for just a bit of color to the background.  I really love this one.  I love the color combo but I also loved that it went on so easily. All of my nails have a little bit of each type of glitter and I didn't have to fish for larger pieces.  It's smooth on the nail, and it wasn't thick and goopy. Gorgeous.  Stay tuned tomorrow for the other half of this amazing duo!  For good measure...here's a close-up pic of her royal highness:

Perfection. Thanks for following along!! 

Were you a gamer growing up? What was your favorite one?

The sun is finally out again!! It's been dreary and rainy here for some time now and while we definitely needed some rain and cooler weather, it wasn't so great for my nail blogging pics!  So the sun is out and it was a perfect opportunity for me to give this little gem a go on my nails.  The base on this is Orly Buried Alive.  It's just an absolutely stunning polish as you can see!  It has a deep mahogany jelly base which is just crammed with coppery shimmer.  Gorgeous.  Since I have another 'brown' glitter in my collection I thought I'd marry the two and see what came of it.  I think it came out rather lovely myself.  The tips (and base on my accent nail) are Lynderella Choco-latta Love.  It has colored glitter as well as smaller brownish glitter in it and mostly the color is what shows on these nails.  The only flaw with the Lynn is that it's very chunky and I found the clear base to be very thick and difficult to work with.  I don't know if thinner would have helped any as I didn't try it but the effect is still quite nice on the nails!  I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend!!

Today I have another swatch for you!  I'm really working on my swatching but I have a sort of sub-par camera and I'm not really interested in upgrading it anytime soon!! So instead I'm experimenting with different lighting and modes on the camera I have.  Hopefully you can all see the improvement!  At any rate this is a Hungry Asian polish called Twenty Ten.  She describes the polish as:

"...small square red glitter, micro-fine and small blue hex glitter in a sheer black base. This color was one of my first ever made, it has had a few versions over the last couple of years and I am quite happy with this final one."

...and that's pretty accurate.  It's definitely a jelly polish and it's fairly sheer on the first two coats.

This is three coats in natural light.  I really love the formula on this.  Even though it's pretty packed with glitter it's not thick or lumpy and the glitter spreads pretty evenly on the nail without having to "place" it like you do with some glitters. On the downside, it didn't dry to a very shiny finish and it was a little bit gritty.  Not a crazy amount or even an amount which was unexpected given the amount of glitter in the polish. Still, a topcoat is necessary with this polish.  I used one coat of Seche Vite and it dried smooth as glass so it's nothing you need anything special to conquer!

Here's a macro shot so you can see all the glitters!

Gorgeous, isn't she?  You can see on the macro too that there is a little bit on VNL but on the far shots you'll notice that it's not incredibly obvious from a distance.  I personally LOVE jellies so a bit of VNL is nothing that bothers me but I'm sure this would also be lovely over a few coats of black creme.  (I did three coats on all pictures).  Overall I really loved this polish!  It's fun, pretty, and easy to layer or use as a fun topcoat.  I'd certainly purchase more Hungry Asian polishes!

Thanks for following! Do you have any Hungry Asians?

Hungry Asian is an indie polish brand available on Etsy at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheHungryAsian.  They retail for $9.25 for full sized bottles and $4.50 for a mini.

Today I have something extra special for you guys!  My very first indie polish review.  This is a SoFlaJo polish and it was made by Jody Alu.  She makes some really amazing polishes and her most recent, Year of the Dragon collection was just absolutely stunning.  I've been dying to get my hands on some of her creations so when she offered me the chance to review one of them for her I was elated.  I was NOT disappointed!  Jody has been making personal care items since the 80's and currently has her polishes available at her personal shop as well as via Etsy.    This particular polish is from her new Happy Hour collection.  It's called Shirley Temple.

Jody describes Shirley Temple as a cherry shimmer.  I think it leans a little orange in some lights, more of a tomato type red than a cherry.  It's not enough of a shift to be a duo chrome but it has a hint in there which makes it extra special and gives it a little oomph.  Definitely not your standard red polish.  And just look at that shimmer!!  I really encourage you to blow up the picture (just click it!)  so you can see all the gorgeous shimmer packed in to this polish. It's just lovely.  How was application, you ask?

Here we have two coats of Shirley Temple photographed in natural light.  You can really see the orange hint in this picture but it's more noticeable in artificial lights while in natural light it leans more reddish.  The application was a dream.  I've noticed with some indie polishes I've gotten recently that they're very thick, not very smooth, or that pigments in them separate easily. This is not the case with my SoFlaJo. I even let it sit without moving it for a solid week and there was NO hint of separation.  The first coat of this is a bit sheer but two coats builds nicely.  I think three would be ideal but I also love that the sheerness of it allows you the possibility of layering it over other things.  As far as wear time and dry time goes I'd liken this to an OPI.  It dried fairly quickly and shiny (there is no topcoat in the above photo)  and it lasted three days with no chips.  I'm VERY hard on my hands and my nails are damaged and thin at the moment so I imagine someone who is less hard could easily go a week with no chips or little wear with this.  Definitely worth the investment!  I can't wait to pick up more of these polishes!  You can purchase Shirley Temple (or one of Jody's other fabulous polishes!) by clicking on the links above! 

 Thanks for following! Do you have any SoFlaJo polishes? How do you like them?