Models Own Beetlejuice Spring/Summer 2012 - Quick Pics

Second post of the day! Just a quick one to say that my Models Own Beetlejuice Spring/Summer 2012 polishes arrived in the post today. I'm really impressed with how quickly they've reached me as I only ordered them on Monday afternoon. I haven't tried them on yet but I have swatched them on a nail wheel. Here's a couple of photos of them taken in today's lovely sunny weather:

Tropical Sun, Copper Pot, Indian Ocean

Expect proper swatches in a few days. :)

EDIT: You can find swatches of the polishes on my nails here!

Lilacquer Lycanthrope

Here is the second of the duochrome top coats I bought from Lilacquer. This one is called Lycanthrope.

From Wikipedia: A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope, is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, either purposely or after being placed under a curse and/or lycanthropic affliction via a bite or scratch from a werewolf. This transformation is often associated with the appearance of the full moon.

Lilacquer Lycanthrope is a green/gold duochrome with the same shimmer as Selkie. It was a little thick but not unmanageably so. I painted my nails with two coats of Nails Inc Black Taxi (a black creme) first before doing two coats of Lycanthrope. It doesn't dry particularly shiny so I followed this with a top coat.

(I was wearing this on Sunday while having lunch with my parents when the sun suddenly came out. I grabbed my camera and literally legged it outside to get some decent photos of it!)

I always say I don't like green nail polishes, but I keep finding ones that make me change my mind! When I initially put this on I decided it wasn't my cup of tea, but it's definitely grown on me. The duochrome shift is subtler than Selkie, going from a blue-toned green to gold, and it's so darn sparkly! All the same, I do think I prefer Selkie.

Lilacquer Lycanthropy retails for $6 (about £3.80) for 5ml. It's not an Etsy shop; to order you email the creater directly and pay by PayPal. International shipping is available at a very reasonable price, and delivery is quite fast - it took 10 days to reach me in the UK from the States. I have one more Lilacquer polish to show you very soon!

Lilacquer Selkie

I'm really excited to introduce to you the first indie polish of my collection. I bought three duochrome top coats (!!!) from Lilacquer, called Selkie, Lycanthrope and Kitsune. I'm a bit of a mythology/supernatural nerd, so I thought it was really cool that the polishes are named after mythological creatures. The one I'm showing you today is Selkie, which is my favourite of the three.

From Wikipedia: Selkies are mythological creatures found in Faroese, Icelandic, Irish, and Scottish folklore. They are said to live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land. If a man steals a female selkie's skin she is in his power and is forced to become his wife. Female selkies are said to make excellent wives, but because their true home is the sea, they will often be seen gazing longingly at the ocean. If she finds her skin she will immediately return to her true home in the sea.

Lilacquer Selkie is a blue/teal/green duochrome shimmer top coat. I used two coats of a dark teal, Nails Inc Blair, first, then two of Selkie. I was warned by the maker that I might find it a bit thick so I was prepared to use a bit of thinner, but actually I had no problems with it whatsoever. It went on perfectly.

I took eleventy billion photos of this polish and a part of me wanted to post them all...but I managed to narrow it down a bit!

Isn't it lush? It's even better in person. In the shade it's a pretty, deep blue shimmer, but when the sunlight hits it...blam! Sparklefest 2012. It's got such incredible depth to it, like looking into a pool of tropical water. The duochrome is very noticeable, and the different colours really complement each other. This is what Models Own Emerald Black should have been like.

Lilacquer Selkie retails for $6 (about £3.80) for 5ml. It's not an Etsy shop; to order you email the creater directly and pay by PayPal. International shipping is available at a very reasonable price, and delivery is quite fast - it took 10 days to reach me in the UK from the States. I'll be showing you the other two colours available very soon.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Erin go Bragh!

I don't know about you, but I'm celebrating St Patrick's Day in two very traditional ways: by having a lovely pint of Guinness, and by painting my nails green!

For today's manicure I started with two coats of China Glaze Holly-Day, which is from their Let It Snow collection that came out last winter. It's a deep green creme that covers perfectly in two coats. I then used a dotting tool to draw shamrocks on all my nails using the green foil Color Club Kiss Me Mistletoe, also a Christmas shade from last year. The shamrocks were surprisingly easy to do - I did three little heart shapes with the points all facing each other. I drew a large shamrock on all but my ring fingers, which got mini ones. In hindsight I wish I'd just done another large one, but oh well. The stalks were done using a striper brush.

Yes, I mucked up the stalks a bit. It wouldn't be normal for one of my manicures to actually turn out perfectly! XD In truth it's because I did this last night while I was watching New Girl, so only half my attention was actually on painting my nails (the other half was on Nick. I can't help it. I love him so!).

OPI I Have a Herring Problem

I was oddly disappointed with OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI? yesterday, but here's another polish from their Holland collection that I like a lot more. This is I Have a Herring Problem - which, aside from the fantastic name, is actually a really nice colour. It's a dusty blue with silver shimmer, and it was a bit sheer so I did three coats. Other than the fact I think it's really pretty, I don't actually have a lot else to say about it to be honest! I'll let the photos do the talking with this one.

OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI?

I'm a bit 'meh' about today's manicure colour, which is a shame as I've been looking forward to getting this polish since I first saw promo photos last year. It's OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI? from their Holland collection. I love purple polishes and I was expecting great things from this one...and instead, I'm just kind of ambivalent towards it.

Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI is a dark grape polish with red/gold shimmer. I was actually quite surprised by how dark it is in person - it almost looks more like an autumn colour than a spring one. Anyway, the formula was pretty good, and it only needed two coats to become opaque.

The purple is definitely a lot more red-toned than I thought it would be. Here's what it looks like under artificial light - see how it almost looks berry coloured?

By all rights I should love this polish. Purple? Check. Shimmer? Check. Decent formula? Check. So why aren't I fangirling all over the place...?

Sigh.

Rimmel London Aqua Cool

You may have realised by now that I have a bit of a thing for blue nail polish...and here's another one! This is Rimmel London Aqua Cool from their Lycra Pro range. It's a stunning light blue that hovers between periwinkle and cornflower. It was a bit sheer and needed three coats for opacity, but it's such a lovely colour and the formula and brush were both so fantastic that I didn't mind. It dried super shiny, but I used a top coat anyway.

Artificial light

Sunlight

I loooove this colour. It is pretty much my perfect shade of blue, and it practically screams 'spring'. It reminds me a lot of swatches of China Glaze Electric Beat from their new Electropop collection - but as I haven't been able to get my hands on a bottle yet, I can't say for certain. Oh well, at least I've got Aqua Cool to keep me company...