Zoya Pixie Dusts in Godiva and Vespa

I'm loving the textured trend lately, particularly Zoya's rendition of it, the Pixie Dusts. Today I've got Godiva and Vespa to share with you. 

Godiva is a light sandy beige with lots of silver sparkles- these really are best witnessed in person in order to appreciate how much sparkle these pack. They especially come to life in the sunlight. 

Vespa is a dusty light sage green with silver sparkle. Gorgeous, and again even better in person.

While I'm loving the textured trend, I have to say one thing about it- I hate wearing textured polish while flossing my teeth! It just... feels wrong. It gives me the creeps! What do you think of the textured trend? Are you loving it?

SpaRitual Aurum

SpaRitual Aurum: now, who couldn't find it in their heart to love a gold as outrageously luminous as this one? It positively glows. Pure liquid awesome. 

And can you tell that I'm still posting manicures from the holidays? I just thought Aurum was a perfect match to this shiny metallic gold bow. 

My Birthday Manicure- Zoya Caitlin and Essie Stroke of Brilliance

Although my birthday was actually at the end of November, I'm just getting around to sharing my birthday manicure with you now. Well, better late than never, because this is a really good one!

I decided to layer a gradient of Essie Stroke of Brilliance (a gorgeous smokey metallic blue glitter that I've been dying to get my hands on for ages) over Zoya Caitlin (a demure blue-grey). I'm absolutely smitten with the tone-on-tone creme + glitter combination of steely blues.

Zoya Caitlin by itself:

I really loved wearing this, and left it on for several days (an achievement for me, seeing as how I usually have a very short lacquer attention span). I thought this was a very "chic" glitter manicure; subtle and elegant, but still reflective and sparkly- it definitely caught the light in intriguing ways.

What did you think of my birthday manicure?

Butter London Knackered

Tonight I have Butter London's Knackered to share with you! This is a multichromatic polish with holographic sparkle. The colour shift in this goes from purple to blue to green; depending on the lighting, the holographic sparkle in this can either blaze (full sunlight, as in the second picture) or have a more subtle appearance, like in the first photo (indoor lighting). For the pictures below, I've layered Knackered over black to bring out the colour shift more (it would be quite sheer on its own).

I really like how Knackered looks in the above picture... it makes me think of constellations in the night sky. Very pretty!

What do you think of Butter London Knackered? This one impressed me when I first saw pictures of it in the spring time (can it really be autumn already?), but I didn't pick it up until later this summer. I'm glad I did, because I think this is a really nice lacquer.

Before I leave you tonight, I've got a couple quick updates for you! Yesterday I showed you Smitten Polish's The One On The Right; there was some discussion about where the name came from. Noelle commented on the post and clarified the speculation! In her words:  "When I first made this polish, I had it swatched with two other colors. When I showed it to people to get opinions, everyone said, "I love the one on the right," and it just stuck!" Good to know! I'm glad that mystery is solved. ;) 

Finally, I wanted to let anyone who might be eager to get their hands on the Pirate Polish Halloween Collection know that the collection has been fully re-stocked in the Pirate Polish Etsy shop; this includes the full set of 5 Halloween lacquers which is listed at a discounted price. 

L-R: Autumn Embers, The Witching Hour, Fangs, Trick or Treat, Zombies!

New Pirate Polish lacquers! (Swatches Part 4)

I'm excited to announce the addition of four new lacquers to my Pirate Polish Etsy shop! 

Left to Right: Ice Cream Sundae, Mint Milkshake, Leeloo, Multipass 

This is Mint Milkshake, a delectable mixture of metallic mint glitters in a milky white base.

Ice Cream Sundae is a tasty combination of multicoloured sprinkles, "chocolate" bar glitter, and an abundance of cherries in a creamy vanilla base.

Leeloo is part of my Fifth Element inspired duo of polishes. This combination of vibrant orange glitters is suspended in a milky white base and is based upon Leeloo's orange hair and outfit in The Fifth Element. This polish is Leeloo in lacquer form! 

This is the other lacquer inspired by the movie The Fifth Element. Multipass is a vibrant mixture of shiny metallic glitters in a variety of colours and shapes, all suspended in a clear base.  

What do you think of the new lacquers? I'm pretty excited about them!

Pirate Polish is available for $10 per bottle, and I do ship internationally.

Pirate Polish on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/PiratePolish

Pirate Polish on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PiratePolish

Butter London Lillibet's Jubilee

Today I have a lovely pale silvery-lilac foil from Butter London to share with you. This is Lillibet's Jubilee:

Overall, I'm really happy with this one; I love foil polishes, and this is a good one. It's sparkly, opaque in two coats, applies smoothly, and the lilac shade is gorgeous as a foil polish.

I purchased this through Nail Polish Canada, which I highly recommend. They have great customer service- when I initially placed my order I received No More Waity Kaitie by mistake, and they were really great about sending the correct item immediately. They also have a special on free shipping on all Canadian orders over $25 right now.

What do you think of Lillibet's Jubilee?

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

Pirate Polish Swatches

Today I have the first of several sets of Pirate Polish swatches I'll be posting for you! 

This is Pirate's Booty, an extremely glitzy concoction of all kinds of shapes and sizes of reflective gold glitter. Here I've layered it over a plain black creme, and was very happy with the result; it really stands out! 

Looking very shiny and reflective in the sun:

Next up we have Buried Treasure; this polish has a slightly shimmery golden yellow base with chunky yellow/gold holographic and orange hex glitter of various sizes.

These pictures don't quite convey how reflective this is on the nail; I'm really happy with the combination of golden hex glitter in a honey/yellow base. It makes me think of golden coins suspended in honey. Sounds... tasty? :P

I have thought about re-formulating this so that it has a creamier (and less pearly) base, which might be something I'll contemplate before putting it up for sale. I'd love to hear your feedback- what do you think of this shade?

Matrix Code! Neon green particles in a black base. It makes me think of the Matrix code screensaver I had on my computer about 10 years ago. I've got to admit, I'm pretty excited about this one! :D

I also wanted to make a couple polishes that weren't total glitter-bombs. Poison Apple is a bright, clean, spring green with tonnes of fine holographic sparkle in it. I'm extremely happy with this one, and it's become a favourite among friends of mine that I've polled on the new lacquer shades.

I struggled a bit to capture the holographic goodness in this on camera; for reference, I found that this polish blazes in sunlight, but still remains visibly holographic under artificial lighting.

What do you think of these initial swatches? Which are your favourites? I'll be posting more in the coming week!

Finally, a couple details to cover:

-Full disclosure! In case you missed the announcement, I've launched my own nail lacquer brand called "Pirate Polish". Hopefully in the future you will be able to see swatches and read reviews from other bloggers, but in the meantime, I'm doing my best to provide swatches so you can see what these look like on the nail.

-While these aren't for sale yet, I'm about to receive a big shipment of lacquer base (sometime next week, hopefully), at which point I'll begin to take orders. I do have an Etsy shop in the works, but for my first round of orders (consisting mainly of my lovely readers who have expressed interest, or close friends and acquaintances), I'll take orders via email and complete transactions by PayPal. This will give me a chance to price out international shipping, iron out any kinks, and get a feel for what everyone is liking. I'll make an announcement on this blog and via my Facebook page when I'm all set to take orders.

-I have a Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/PiratePolish

-I've decided to set the price per full-sized bottle (I don't have any plans to sell minis, at this point in time) at $10. The majority of indie nail polish makers seem to be selling their bottles of lacquer within the $8-$10 mark, with a couple venturing a little higher. I feel that $10 is the right amount for me, as I've incurred additional expenses due to having to ship supplies to Canada.

Well, I think that about covers it- please let me know if you have any questions, or any feedback to share with me! Thank you to my friends and readers who have extended a great deal of encouragement and support to me as I launch Pirate Polish- I really appreciate your interest and enthusiasm!