Nerd Lacquer - Hyperspace Bypass

Okay, guys. I have to start by letting you all know that I'm very, very sorry to do this to you. I'm going to show you something really shiny and cool, that you probably won't be able to find (unless you own it already, or buy it for astronomical prices on ebay). 

This is Nerd Lacquer Hyperspace Bypass. 

I LOVE this polish. I think it's insanely freaking cool. And not just because I'm a fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This is A Really Neat Lacquer. It's yellow, and sparkly gold, and glittery black, and it's exactly what I'd imagine an galactic taxicab would look like.

It's not what I'd usually think of as a flattering polish, but I really liked how this looked on my nails. Here's a (vaguely related) picture of my galactic taxicab nails with a giant glass planetary-lookin' orb (okay, lawn ornament):

Also unrelated, but because I think it looks cool, here's another picture of the same orb. It glows in the dark! I think it's pretty neat, anyways. Looks like a big swirly planet. Or maybe a bunch of hyperspace bypasses. I'll let you decide.

One last thing to add: let's all hope that Nerd Lacquer returns someday and starts to make super awesome shiny pretty things for our nails again.

Dollish Polish Hylian Princess and Essie Play Date

I recently got together with a friend of mine who is also a lacquer enthusiast; she had recently picked up a few new polishes, and I decided to try this combination: Essie Play Date as a base for Dollish Polish Hylian Princess. 

Hylian Princess is mixture of white, gold, purple, and lavender glitters in a clear base. I thought this combination looked really pretty paired with Essie Play Date, a beautiful light purple creme.

The formulas on both Hylian Princess and Play Date were really great. Play Date applied with the usual ease that I've come to expect from the Essie creme formula, and Hylian Princess deposited a nice mixture of glitter at one coat. Overall, I was really happy with both of these lacquers.

What do you think of Dollish Polish Hylian Princess and Essie Play Date? 

Lynnderella - Love, Lace, and Lilacs

Tonight I have another layering combination with Essie Mojito Madness- this time I want to show you Lynnderella Love, Lace, and Lilacs. 

Love, Lace, and Lilacs is a mixture of white glitters (small glitter, hexagonal glitter, bar glitter, square glitter) in a clear base. It looks alright over Mojito Madness, but I think this would really shine over a pale pastel colour, maybe a very light lavender. I'll definitely be trying that next time.

And I must be channeling Adriana of Liquor, Lube and Lipstick, because I couldn't resist sharing a drink picture with you. I thought this bottle of Absinthe was a fitting companion to a green-and-white manicure!

What do you think of Essie Mojito Madness paired with Lynnderella Love, Lace, and Lilacs?

Essie Mojito Madness

Feast your eyes on Essie Mojito Madness- vibrant, minty, green creme perfection. Essie does cremes so well, and the formula on this is perfect: easy to control when applying, levels out wonderfully, and dries to a glassy smooth finish. I'm not always the biggest fan of green lacquer, but this one is stunning, and a great summer colour. 

...I couldn't resist taking a picture with my Matt & Nat purse- it's an exact match. Normally I'm not all matchy-matchy when it comes to polish and wardrobe, but this was just fun.

And you've likely seen this last picture before, but I thought I'd throw it in anyways: Pirate Polish Salt & Pepper layered overtop of Mojito Madness. 

Speaking of which, Pirate Polish is now officially open for business on Etsy! I've been busy organizing listings for the last day or so, and I'm happy to say everything is in place. I did run out of the limited quantity of Radioactive which I opened up the store with, but I will be bottling more this weekend and that'll be listed as soon as it's ready. Please do check the shop out, and let me know what you think. Any feedback you have is much appreciated! 

I'll leave you with a couple cute photos I took of my Pirate Polishes:

Borsch, fittingly pictured with a matroishka  (nesting) doll. 

What's Up, Doc? vs. Salt & Pepper in a game of checkers.  

Down the Rabbit Hole pictured with the original inspiration. 

Salt & Pepper, of course, have to be paired with salt and pepper shakers.  

A chess lacquer game in progress... 

And finally, a whole box full of shiny pretty things! 

SpaRitual - It's Raining Men

I'm going to be away for a few days, but I wanted to leave you with a really quick post. This is SpaRitual It's Raining Men- a gorgeous soft blue/grey with strong gold/pink duochrome/iridescence. Whew, that was a lot of /-ing. Anyways, this is really lovely, and at two coats it was just opaque enough. 

What do you think of SpaRitual It's Raining Men?

Experimental Layering Post

I've been meaning to do this post for ages, as I've accumulated requests for the last month or two. Anyways, finally it's here! 

Top to bottom we have Lynnderella Chocolotta Love over a white base, Ozotic 505 over black (which makes the colour shift look incredible!), Picture Polish Mask-a-rade over black, and Up Colors Beijo na Boca also over black. 

On the thumb you can see Nails Inc Cheyne Walk over black, which doesn't really discernibly change the look of it so much; with one more coat it would look the exact same as it would without any base colour.

I hope these layering swatches were helpful for you! Out of these, I think Ozotic 505 and Picture Polish Mask-a-rade benefit the most from being layered over black- it really brings out the colour shift.

Color Club Magnetic Lacquer - Cop An Attitude

Today I have a good magnetic polish to share with you; this is Color Club Magnetic Nail Lacquer in Cop An Attitude. This shade is a rusty gold shade with bright red fleck shimmer that appears after the magnet is applied. 

The magnet, which is on the removable cap, forms a wavy design. I found the magnet quite easy to use, and it has the same handy finger guide that the Nails Inc magnetics have. Overall, the bottle design is a good one.

The design formed quite easily, and turned out to be fairly crisp. I love the red shimmer that appears once the design has formed! You can see it quite well in the following pictures (click to enlarge them).

If you're looking for a good magnetic polish, this is a great option, and the price point is quite a bit cheaper than many other magnetic lacquers. I also find that this particular colour combination- rusty gold with bright red shimmer- is pretty unique! What do you think of Color Club Cop An Attitude?

Illamasqua Stance

Today I've got a stunner to share with you- this is Illamasqua Stance. It's a very saturated, nearly neon, bright pink/purple. The formula, as usual with Illamasqua, was flawless. What you see here was two coats:

Isn't she gorgeous? Definitely an attention-grabber.

I think this is a pretty unique shade, although now that I think about it, Zoya Charisma has a similar kind of feel to it (neon pink/purple), but if I recall correctly it's not as pigmented. I'll do a comparison post in the future between these two.

What do you think of Illamasqua Stance? I'm pretty crazy about it, I must admit!

The first time I wore this polish was to a Janelle Monae concert; I love how I always associate certain lacquers with notable events that occurred while I was wearing them. It makes me love them all the more. Do you do the same thing?

I'll leave you with an awesome Janelle Monae video (if you haven't checked her out before, I highly recommend it!):

Girly Bits - Purple Potion

Today I have Girly Bits Purple Potion to share with you- I decided to layer it overtop of my Sally Hansen Royal Purple Chrome manicure. 

Purple Potion is a mixture of fine multicoloured glitter (mostly purple and copper, from what I can see) and fine holographic glitter.

I can't believe I waited so long to try this! It's really gorgeous, and I can't wait to layer it over a bunch of different things.

Do you own any polishes by Girly Bits? What do you think of Purple Potion?

Sally Hansen Chrome - Royal Purple

I realize it's been awhile since I've posted a Sally Hansen Chrome polish, and I still have a lot of them to share with you, so here's Royal Purple! This is another Sally Hansen Chrome that I definitely recall owning (and loving) back in the day. 

This was two coats, and while the chrome finish tends to show up every little imperfection in the nail, overall it wasn't too challenging of an application. 

And here's a quick picture of something that had been occupying my time a couple weeks ago when I was wearing this polish (it's been languishing in the unposted file for awhile now...)

Anyone else playing Diablo 3? Since I took this picture I've started playing Nightmare mode, but I'm kind of running out of steam with Act II. Not sure how I feel about playing through all the same material, just on a harder difficulty. It's a bit tedious.

What do you think of Sally Hansen Royal Purple and/or Diablo 3?

And in case you missed my announcement the other day, I'm now officially taking orders for Pirate Polish. See this post for details, if you're interested!

Pirate Polish Swatches: Part 3

Tonight I have Part 3 (check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them) of my Pirate Polish swatches- this will be the last instalment before my lacquers go on sale for the first time this Wednesday! I'll have more details on ordering at the end of the post. On with the show! 

Salt & Pepper is a shredded glitter topcoat in black and white; here you see it layered over Essie Mojito Madness, which is a lovely vivid green. Black and white glitter topcoats have been all the rage lately, but I can see why- it's an incredibly striking effect, and layering possibilities are endless. This is my rendition of the black and white glitter trend! 

This is Walk the Plank, which you've seen before in Part 2 of the Pirate Polish swatches; because I re-did some of my swatches, I've decided to post a couple more pictures of it: 

Walk the Plank is a vivid blue with two kinds of blue glitter (including holographic blue glitter), as well as multicoloured flake glitter.

This next polish is an unusual one; it's something of an Anomaly. I've combined two kinds of colour-shifting pigments, and this was the result.

While Anomaly might not be a conventionally pretty lacquer, I'm rather taken with it. It's fun to play with in different lighting, and the colour shift is quite pronounced. In the sun it looks very sparkly, while in the shade it looks smoother and more like a metallic.

Because Anomaly is a mysterious polish, here's a mysterious swatch of it... very film noir, no?

The Jackal: a mixture of intense neon purple pigment and holographic shimmer. I recommend using a topcoat with this one, as colours with neon pigment tend to dry matte as opposed to glossy.

"And in case you hadn't known... they call me 'The Jackal'."

Finally I have Scimitar to share with you; this is a deep steely charcoal-grey with holographic shimmer.

I was having a hard time capturing the holographic sparkle in this, so this is another shot of a Scimitar prototype- same base colour, but including gunmetal hex glitter which I later omitted (it simply got covered up by the base colour). This should give you an idea of what the base colour looks like, but please ignore the hex glitter you can see in the bottle (and the corresponding lumpiness on the nail).

Before leaving you, I wanted to make a note about another lacquer I posted about recently- remember Pirate's Booty, from my first set of swatches? Well, the bling-y gold glitter in it has curled in the lacquer base. I'm not talking completely folded over "taco" glitter, but there is a definite curve to it (not entirely unusual in large glitter pieces). A thick topcoat like Seche Vite helps immensely in smoothing out the curved glitter, but you'll still feel texture. Here's a picture of me wearing it recently, and while I'm personally not bothered by the texture of the glitter on the nail, I know some people dislike it. If you're thinking about ordering this, it's something to be aware of. 

As mentioned previously, this first round of orders will not be done via Etsy, but will be taken via email, and payment will be made directly with PayPal. This will allow me to calculate shipping costs, work out any kinks, and figure out what lacquers are most popular. Lacquers will be sold in a full sized (15ml) bottle, for $10 each. I'm mostly anticipating orders from friends and acquaintances, as well as the lovely readers of my blog. If you're interested in ordering, I'll begin taking orders this Wednesday, July 11th- please send an email to piratepolish@gmail.com with your order requests at that time.

Lacquers available for purchase (bearing in mind that some of these lacquers are being produced in limited quantities while I'm waiting for more materials to arrive!) include:

Poison Apple
The Buffster
What's Up, Doc?
Anomaly
Salt & Pepper
Radioactive
Matrix Code
Scimitar
Down the Rabbit Hole
The Jackal
Borsch
Walk the Plank
Pirate's Booty (please see my above note about curling glitters)
Buried Treasure (I had been planning on reformulating this one, but because I've received requests for the version shown in my recent swatches, this version is available on request).

Links:

Pirate Polish Swatches
Pirate Polish Swatches Part 2

Pirate Polish on Facebook