Picture Polish Honey Dew and China Glaze It's A Trap-eze

First of all, my apologies for a lengthy disappearance- sometimes life (regrettably) gets in the way of blogging about nail polish. I should be back to posting fairly regularly, however. And to kick that off, I've got a great spring manicure to show you: Picture Polish Honey Dew, with a single layer of China Glaze It's A Trap-eze layered overtop of the ring finger as an accent nail. I love the way this turned out- Honey Dew is a gorgeous, dreamy, melon green, and It's A Trap-eze is sheer enough to let the base colour shine through to create a delicious milky effect. 

Speaking of Picture Polish, did anyone else get the chance to try the new glitter base, "Revolution"? I was able to get my hands on it through Nail Polish Canada when it first went up on the site, and have only really tried it with Cirque's French Roast (a pretty glitter dense polish), and can't say I noticed a dramatic difference in removal. If I did it again, I'd probably just opt for foil method. I'm assuming it's more to do with my particular body chemistry, as others have reported excellent results using Revolution.

What about you? Any great successes (or otherwise) to report with Picture Polish Revolution as an aid in glitter removal?

Jindie Nails - Stompin' Gilbert Grapes

Tonight I've got a polish from Jindie Nails to share with you: this is "Stompin' Gilbert Grapes", a white crelly (creme-jelly) base with purple, green, and orange (or pink-y orange? For some reason they look pink in other online pictures, but to me they seem orange) glitters. The purple and green glitters come in various sizes and shapes, including some larger hex glitter and medium sized square glitter. The orangey glitter is much smaller. For me, this took a solid 3-4 coats to cover completely, but it was totally worth it. I love the soft milky/jelly base with the pretty combination of glitters in it. 

What do you think of this polish from Jindie Nails? Do you love the milky glitter look?

Quo by Orly Bubble Bath and Sailor's Blue

Tonight I've got two lacquers to share with you from Quo by Orly's spring collection: Bubble Bath and Sailor's Blue. FYI, these are the exact same as the Orly polishes Peaceful Opposition and High on Hope, except re-packaged into the Quo by Orly lacquers carried by Shopper's Drugmart in Canada. 

This is three coats of Bubble Bath, a milky white with lots of silver glitter in different shapes and sizes. I'm a sucker for silver glitter in a milky base because it makes the glitter look like a cool reflective white glitter, and not so much straight-up silver. Neat look, although the formula was a little globby. 

Sailor's Blue is a smokey navy blue with tonnes of purpley-red and gold shimmer. This one is really cool and the shimmer flashes a whole bunch of different colours. A little bit multichromatic!

What do you think of these polishes? Did you pick anything up from the Orly spring collection?

Man Glaze Cabron and Black Cat Lacquer Black Hole

Feast your eyes on Man Glaze Cabron: a shimmery matte in a deep blackened indigo purple shade. Very dramatic, and totally stunning. As we've come to expect, the label art is amazing. 

On a side note, whenever I pull this lacquer out I immediately start humming this song (which is a great bonus to owning this polish, now that I think about it):

Finally, I've got a few glorious snapshots of how Cabron looks with Black Cat Lacquer's Black Hole layered overtop; you might recall that I first showed this one on my blog here, but failed utterly at choosing a winning layering combination. I'd say that problem has been rectified here, wouldn't you agree?

Julie G Gumdrops Collection

Today I've got swatches of the Julie G Gumdrops collection- a set of six gorgeous sugar-texture (or "liquid sand" texture) polishes. I've got a skittles manicure that shows off the first five shades. Thumb to pinkie, these are: Blueberry Fizz (pale blue with bigger silver-y shimmer particles), Hot Cinnamon (intense, vibrant red with subtle gold glitter), Rock Candy (teal with different sizes of sparkly glitter particles), Crushed Candy (grape-y purple with silver glitter accents in different sizes), Tangerine Dream (bright citrus orange packed with golden sparkle). 

I've also got swatches of the final shade, Sugar Rush (a vibrant red-orange with tiny gold glitter):

I ordered this whole set as part of the pre-order for $20 from the Jesse's Girl Cosmetics website, and I can't say enough in terms of quality for the price- these are all gorgeous, and I'm not sure my skittles swatches quite do them justice. My favourites are Hot Cinnamon, Rock Candy, and Crushed Candy. I highly recommend these if you're into the textured look- they're inexpensive and really fantastic!

Do you have any plans to pick up some of the Julie G Gumdrops polishes? And while I'm asking, what do you think of my new nail shape? I recently filed them into more of a rounded/almond shape, and have been loving them! 

Cirque: Cape Liz, Vaudeville, Hellebore

So, this year for Valentine's Day I received what was pretty much the best Valentine's Day present ever from my significant other: a whole whack of lacquer-y amazingness in the form of Cirque's delightful polishes. Was there ever a purer expression of true love? Well, from a lacquerhead's perspective, anyways. 

 The pretties, left to right: Cape Liz, Galinda, Vaudeville, Hellebore, French Roast, XX, Cypress

Today I have a few of these beauties to show to you- first up is Cape Liz, a stormy light grey-blue with small flakey shimmer particles in it. Gorgeous, and a little demure. This reminds me of a bluer version of Illamasqua's Raindrops- it has a similar shimmer running through it.

Vaudeville: ridiculously pretty soft purpley-pink with strong golden/green shimmer running through it. I love this colour combination, and the shimmer makes this polish something special.

Vaudeville, with it's pink/purple base and greenish shimmer, also seemed like a natural companion to Hellebore, which is a mixture of predominantly green glitter with subtle purple accents. I applied Hellebore as a gradient over Vaudeville.

So far, all of the Cirque polishes I've tried have been excellent in terms of formula; I can't wait to try the rest of them! I'm especially pleased with how the Vaudeville/Hellebore manicure worked out- it's a perfect springtime combination... if only spring would actually show up around here. Which brings me to my next topic, regarding the weather in my neck of the woods. I apparently inhabit some kind of wintery hell dimension, because so far April has looked much like this:

Is it too much to ask for temperatures above freezing? And for further illustration as to the amount of snowfall we've had this past month, check these out:

 Trees be like: "what is this, quicksand?!"

 ...he's trying to run away from the memory of this winter.

What about you, dear reader? Has spring time arrived in your world? 

Rescue Beauty Lounge Aqua Lily with Pirate Polish Lovandula

After my disappointment with Rescue Beauty Lounge's Piu Mosso, I'm happy to report that Aqua Lily rather makes up for it. It's a gorgeous turquoise blue with lovely purple/pink shimmer. The formula was quite dense, covering easily in two coats. I found this shade to be really flattering on me, and I'm definitely happy I was able to snag this when it was re-released last fall. 

Aqua Lily was also the perfect base for Pirate Polish's Lovandula (a lovely lavender glitter from the Valentine's Day collection); I love the contrast between the pink and lavender glitters and the vibrant turquoise of Aqua Lily.

What do you think of Rescue Beauty Lounge's Aqua Lily? Does it make a good base for Lovandula? There are still a couple bottles on sale in the Pirate Polish Etsy store, if Lovandula is catching your eye!

A-England Dorian Gray and Lush Lacquer Lite Brite

Here's a look at a combination I did back in January: A-England's Dorian Gray with Lush Lacquer's Lite Brite layered overtop. First up, here are a couple pictures of Dorian Gray by itself:

Dorian Gray is a charcoal metallic grey, opaque in two coats. It has a somewhat pearly finish, and at first I thought it might show a few frosty brushstrokes, but after drying it looked pretty smooth. Overtop I layered Lush Lacquer's Lite Brite, an extremely punchy and vibrant glitter topcoat; I can spot big magenta metallic glitters, small turquoise squares, various orange, blue, and purple glitters, along with some tiny silver speckles. Overall, it's a really fun and high impact layering glitter. Highly recommend.

As I mentioned, I originally wore this manicure earlier in the year, and at the time I happened to be visiting Banff and Lake Louise. While sight-seeing around the Chateau Lake Louise, we were lucky enough to have a look at some amazing ice sculptures that had been carved as part of an ice-scupting competition. There were so many incredible and intricate sculptures- here's a look at one (with a pretty stunning backdrop, to boot).