Laquered Up Mandarin Pear

I have been a very loyal Zoya polisher, but it has come to my attention that my polish collection is...well...extensive. Maybe excessive. In response to these concerns, I organized my collection and realized that I do have about every color I could ever need. For a couple seasonal releases, I sat back, satisfied and saving. Then I tried indie polish.

Between glow in the dark, thermal, color shift, and amazing holos, I am no longer saving. I am, however, excited about nail polish again. And you can't put a price tag on that, right? ;) So, now I'm going to start my blog journey through indie polishes.

Today I'm showing Laquered up in Madarin Pear. It's a thermal with glitter and it is wonderful. My nails are showing a little edge wear because I have had this polish on for three days. The formula is great. It is a little thin, with almost a jelly quality that gives its glitters some depth. It's easy to apply. The color change is responsive and so much fun to watch. This is my first thermal and I am very pleasantly surprised and how well it works and by how smooth it application is. Mandarin Pear is a light, bright green when warm and a pleasanty lightly-burnt (that's how I describe most of my baked goods, too ;) ) orange when cold. This leads to a nice gradient effect on longer nails, as the edge is cooler that the nail bed. It also changes in air conditioning, when wet, or if you're outside on a hot day. (Or a cold day, I imagine, but here in Fla. I haven't had the opportunity to see!) Part of the fun is how often you'll notice different effects.

Laquered up can be purchased via Etsy or Laqueredup.com. I was very happy with delivery and packaging and all those kind of concerns. They also sell full sized or mini bottles, which I think is nice. If you'll excuse me now, I need to go shop for some more polish.

Nescafé!

So, I'm now a coffee drinker. One kuerig and some entry level Frappucinos have turned me into a one cup a day but I really want another consumer of highly caffeinated brewed beverages. Recently I was sent a sample of NESCAFÉ® with Coffee-mate® By Smiley 360. I have the French Vanilla flavor. It's quite good. You spoon some of the powder into hot water and stir and viola! A sweet and hot coffee beverage awaits. I am not picky about temperature, but I suppose it is nice that unlike refrigerated creamer your drink is nice and creamy without losing heat. Will it replace my fresh brewed k cup and soy milk habit? No. But I said I wanted two cups, right?

Nature's Bounty® Hair, Skin, & Nail Gummies

I was given a free sample from Smiley 360 of Nature's Bounty® Hair, Skin, & Nail Gummies. They are delicious and I have noticed less peeling from my nails! Seriously, if I go to take these and realize I already have for the day, I am sad. They are that tasty.

My First Water Marble

After months of careful consideration, I have finally taken the plunge to attempt my first water marble manicure. Yes, this took weeks of deliberation on my part. I think the problem was that the water marbles look so pretty and so fun that I was afraid my own probable spectacular failure in the milieu would destroy the anticipatory joy I could continue to experience as long as I didn't actually try. But, this was a mistake! Although my results are definitely amateur, it was actually very fun and I am happy with nails! Yay!

In researching instructions for this technique, I kinda thought other water marblers were overstating the messiness of the whole thing. I mean, yes, your fingers would get polish all over them. Maybe it's just me (for I am a messy manicurist with lots of practice here), but isn't picking polish off your fingers a little bit enjoyable? Experience has taught me that it is not really so in this degree. I still don't think it would be worth going through all the trouble of scotch taping your fingers before dipping like I've seen on the web, but I might try the trick of rubbing vaseline into the surrounding fingers to help the polish peel off easier. 

For this one, I used Zoya anchor, two coats of Kennedy (one would have probably sufficed), and marbled with Kennedy, Lara, and Wednesday. I have topped this off with two coats of Zoya Armor. I've heard that water marbles can be a bit chip-prone, which is why I doubled up on the top coat. I'll let you know how it wears!

Chip update (8/18): I was pretty pleased with the durability of the water marble, actually. It did have a couple chips, whereas my usual Zoya manicures only get edge wear, but they weren't terribly noticeable thanks to how busy the colors were! Wore this one for five days, so not quite to my one week manicure goal, but pretty close.