HARE Nail Polish

 Nikole, the mastermind behind HARE nail polish, is coming out with a new collection featuring some amazing new colors. I've got three of the new colors that will be available in her Spring collection to show you today.
For more updates on this collection, including future release dates, head over to her facebook page here.

HARE The Sky Was Pink

This polish is nothing short of breathtaking. It has a pink base color with blue, purple, and pink multishaped glitters. Best part, this is one coat. Insane! 

HARE Asteroid Turf

Very unique. Green base with purple hex glitters. I can honestly say that I own nothing like this polish and I've never seen anything like it before. Again, this is one coat.

HARE Cosmo Blossoms

Beautiful. A lilac base with green glitters throughout. This is two coats. 

What I liked:

These polishes are VERY dense. 

They're packed full of glitters and are very pigmented. 

I love the labels on the bottles. Those bunnies are so cute!

They're all very unique. 

Gorgeous color combinations.

What I didn't like:

That I don't have more of these polishes in my collection!

For Reference:

All of these swatches are shown with

1 coat Nail Magic

1-2 coats of polish color (mentioned in the post)

1 coat Gelous

1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

Barry M Cobalt Blue

I decided to wear blue nails for Memorial Day. I chose Barry M Cobalt Blue. I wanted to do some stamping with stars or stripes but I really liked how simple this polish looked just by itself.

This polish dries darker on the nails then it looks in the bottle. Very pigmented. This is one coat. 

All of the Barry Ms I've tried so far have been one coaters and have had amazing application. I really need to get some more of them. 

Thank you to my family, friends, and all the other men and women out there who have served our country! 

For Reference:

1 coat Nail Magic

1 coat Barry M Cobalt Blue

1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

Island Girl

Here are swatches of the two Island Girl polishes I used for my gradient manicure.

Aloha Luau
Beautiful purple creme with hidden shimmers. Application was a bit weird. You can't really do thin coats with this polish, it applies better using a thicker coat. It dries matte and once you put a top coat on it, all the hidden shimmers come out. Gorgeous. I really love it!

Big Island Volcano

My camera had a hard time capturing this one. It looks more green in real life. A very bright aqua creme with shimmers in it. As with Aloha Luau, this polish applies better with a slightly thicker coat. 

For Reference:

Aloha Luau

1 coat Nail Magic

2 coats Aloha Luau

1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

Big Island Volcano

1 coat Nail Magic

2 coats Big Island Volcano

1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

Gradient Nails + Tutorial

Here's my take on a gradient mani:

I used two Island Girl polishes for my gradient, Aloha Luau and Big Island Volcano. 

Here is a quick tutorial showing how I achieved these results!

1. Apply your favorite base coat and then 2 coats of your base color.

2. Pick out a second color that you will use for your gradient.

3. Using a sponge, apply both colors to the sponge and lightly overlap the two colors. 

4. Sponge the colors onto your nails until you're happy with the results. You may have to do this step twice.

5. Clean up with acetone and a small brush (or q-tips). 

6. Apply a quick dry top coat and you're done!

For Reference:

1 coat Nail Magic

2 coats Island Girl Big Island Volcano

Sponged on Island Girl Aloha Luau

2 coats NYC Grand Central Station

Layla Flash Black

Layla Flash Black

I bought three Layla holos back in March but the only one I tried at the time was Jade Groove. I'm not sure what took me so long to wear another one. In my opinion, Layla makes the best holographic polishes on the market at the moment. They're insanely gorgeous and the holo effect is still visible indoors. The bottles are a bit on the pricey side, $15 for 10mL, but it is definitely worth it if you are interested in holographic polishes. 

The formula of Flash Black was different than Jade Groove. Flash Black was a bit thinner and didn't seem as opaque but it covered completely in two coats. I also really love the brushes on the Layla bottles. 

For Reference:

2 coats Nfu-Oh Aqua Base

2 coats Layla Flash Black

Lynnderella Matter of the Heart + OPI You Callin' Me A Lyre?

Lynnderella Matter of the Heart
I've had this polish for a few months and this is the first chance I've had to wear it. I don't wear pinks very often so I struggled to find a good base color to pair this polish with. I finally found a good one! OPI You Callin' Me A Lyre fits it perfectly and still lets the polish keep the squishy/milky look it has in the bottle.
I even managed to get two hearts out of the bottle, woohoo!

OPI You Callin' Me A Lyre

Another one from the Ballet collection and it applies just as well as all of the others in the collection. It's a bit of a light, milky pink.

For Reference:
1 coat Nail Magic
3 coats OPI You Callin' Me A Lyre
1-2 coats Lynnderella Matter of the Heart
1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

Lynnderella Gotta Love Brains + OPI My Pointe Exactly

Lynnderella Gotta Love Brains

By far, my favorite Lynnderella. The shimmer in this polish is to die for and I think that's one of my favorite things about it. I tried to capture it in my pics but you can just barely see it. I also love the milky base and the colors of the glitters. It's perfection in a bottle. Seriously.

I layered Gotta Love Brains over OPI My Pointe Exactly from the 2012 Ballet collection. I'm generally not a big fan of OPI. I don't like their prowide brush because it is too large for my nails and I usually find their colors uninteresting and over-hyped but the Ballet collection is worth all of the hype it's getting! 

They are so easy to apply and don't streak at all! They can be worn as just one coat or built up for a slightly more opaque look. 

For Reference:
1 coat Nail Magic
3 coats OPI My Pointe Exactly
1 coat Lynnderella Gotta Love Brains
1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

BarryM Coral with Stamping

I recently did a swap with a friend and she sent me my first BarryM polishes. I've had my eye on a few of these for a while now but never bought them. Now that I've tried a few of them though, I think I'm going to have to make an order soon to get some more! 

Today I'm wearing Coral (how creative haha).

This could have been a one coater but I did two coats because the color was a bit brighter with a second coat. Formula was perfect. 

And since I haven't stamped in a while, I decided to do a bit of a contrasting look with another BarryM. I used Cobalt Blue for the stamping. I really like the contrast between the two colors. 

For Reference:

1 coat Nail Magic

2 coats BarryM Coral

Stamping with BarryM Cobalt Blue from Cheeky XL Plate B

1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

Butter London's Lillibet's Jubilee

The polish I've got for you today is very special (at least to me!). It's Lillibet's Jubilee by Butter London. 

This polish is meant to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II's 60th anniversary of the accession to the throne, her Diamond Jubilee. Only one other monarch in history has reigned long enough to celebrate a Diamond Jubilee (Queen Victoria in 1897, if you're curious). 

I've always been very fascinated by the British Monarchy and all of it's history, so I knew I needed this polish the moment I heard about it. 

I don't generally wear metallics (this might be the only one in my whole collection!) because they usually make my hands look weird but I like this one. It's a silver, lavendar metallic foil with some small glitters in it. I tried to capture all of it's beauty in my pictures but they don't do it justice. You really need to see this in person to get the full effect!

This polish could have been a one coater but I decided to go with two coats for good measure. 

Here is how it looks in the sun:

And here it is in the shade:

This polish was really nice to work with and dry time was fairly fast as well. 

For Reference:

1 coat Nail Magic base coat

2 coats Lillibet's Jubilee

1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

Makeup Store Charmaine and Kaja

I've been wanting Makeup Store's newest holos, Charmaine and Kaja, ever since I first saw pictures of them. MUS is a bit of a pain because they have a flat rate shipping cost of $10 and I just couldn't justify that price for two polishes. One of my friends organized a group order so that we could split the shipping costs among everyone so I gladly hopped on that train!

First up, Charmaine:

Charmaine is a gorgeous teal holo. I'm SO in love with this color. 

This polish isn't super holo, so if that's what you're looking for, this isn't the polish for you. I think it looks wonderful and I like that you are able to clearly see the base color. 

Application was fantastic! This was one coat. ONE COAT! 

Here's a picture of it in the shade. Look at how nice it still looks!

And then, Kaja:

Now, I'm still not sure how I feel about Kaja. I love the base color. It's a cornflower blue/periwinkle color and I don't have any holos that are similar to this. The only downside is that the holo is a bit hard to see in this one. The formula is very creamy which I think hides some of the holo particles. 

This is two coats of Kaja and application was wonderful with this polish as well.

Here it is in the shade.

For reference:
Charmaine
2 coats Nfu-Oh Aqua Base
2 coats MUS Charmaine


Kaja
2 coats Nfu-Oh Aqua Base
2 coats MUS Kaja

What I liked:
The application for both of these polishes was great!
As with most holos, dry time was very fast.
The colors look great indoors and out.


What I disliked:
I wish the holo effect was a bit stronger in Kaja.
Flat rate shipping from MUS is $10, even if you're just ordering one polish.
Holos tend to chip faster than normal polishes.

Overall, I'm happy with both of these. I think they're great and the colors are gorgeous too!

Lynnderella The Glittering Crowd

Summer break started yesterday (WOOHOO!!) and I wanted to celebrate the end of finals and the beginning of summer with a glitter bomb.

So naturally, I picked the most glittery polish in my stash, Lynderella's The Glittering Crowd!

Unfortunately this is discontinued now but if you ever get the chance to get your hands on this polish, DO IT!

I used a coat of Butter London West End Wonderland to help cover up any bald spots that I might have. Then I dabbed on three "coats" of The Glittering Crowd. I probably could have gone with one more coat but I didn't want to make my nails too thick. 

Check out the star on my index finger! I was so excited when I saw that!

For Reference:

1 coat Nail Magic (from Sally's beauty)

1 coat BL West End Wonderland

3 coats Lynnderella The Glittering Crowd

2 coats Gelous

1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

Purple Tone-On-Tone Stamping

 Ever have one of those days where it seems like every piece of cat hair and fuzz makes its way onto your nails while you're painting them? Well this was one of those days. By some miracle my nails turned out fairly decent.

I used Essie Nice is Nice for my base color and then I stamped over it with China Glaze Magnetix Drawn to You to hide some of the mistakes that I made while painting. Image is from Cheeky XL Plate D.
Magnetic polishes are great for stamping since most of them are one coaters. Drawn to You had a really great shimmer to it when the light hit it and I tried to capture some of that in the pictures.
The formula of Nice is Nice wasn't as good as I remember with previous uses but that might have just been user error since I had previously really liked this polish. It's still my favorite pastel purple regardless.

For reference:

1 Coat Nail Magic

3 Coats Essie Nice is Nice

Stamping with China Glaze Magnetix Drawn to You (Cheeky Plate D)

1 Coat NYC Grand Central Station