Cult Nails Love at First Sight

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted this yet--I'm a little shocked, honestly. Today I have a polish from the now defunct brand (something I'm still sad about) Cult Nails Love at First Sight, which was originally released in May 2013 as part of the Dance All Night collection. My husband bought this collection for me for my 30th birthday and I wore Love at First Sight on my toes when I gave birth to my boys. And then I wore it a year later as my manicure for their first birthday! This swatch is actually from October 2014, so I was really late photographing it anyway! Whoops!

Love at First Sight is a bright lilac purple creme, with a slight hint of duskiness to it. Now, usually I don't like purples with pink tones to them, but something about this one is just stunning and I love it. As per the standard with Cult Nails, this went on easily and smoothly and I only needed two coats. Gotta love that!

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This is one of those polishes I love so much that I actually bought a back-up when Cult Nails was having their going out of business sale, which is honestly something I never do! But this polish has a special meaning to me and I love the color (plus the sale price) so it was a no-brainer. This polish is actually still available for sale at Harlow & Co, and thanks to the exchange rate you actually get a bit more of a discount if you are ordering from the US.

Cult Nails Flash

Today brings us a sad story, sob. I have one of the last polishes ever from Cult Nails, Flash. Back in December, they announced a Secret Collection of three colors but didn't release pictures of them. Flash was one of the polishes from that collection. Unfortunately, Cult Nails announced in January that they were liquidating and closing their doors, which was a huge disappoint for the nail world. Personally, I love (loved?) Cult Nails so I am definitely sad that they are gone-- they made great polishes (and treatments... god, what I am going to do without their Wicked Fast top coat?!) and they were a great company to support. So sad! 

Flash is a medium green creme and it dries with a slight satin or waxy finish. I honestly can't remember now if I used three coats or two-- I think it was three. This was decently pigmented, but definitely not opaque in a single coat; there were a few patches that needed to be covered up. I didn't use a top coat here-- you can see the waxy finish. I didn't have any issues!

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I think this is a nice creme polish and great green, though nothing necessarily out of the ordinary. It's still a bummer that Cult Nails has closed up shop, though. I will miss their collections! I still have a bunch of untried polishes waiting to be used, so you will still see them on the blog!

4th of July mani!

I'm not dead! It's hard to convey how much I want to be blogging right now, but just can not spare a lot of (or any) time for my blog. I'm not quitting, but am trying to figure out how I can blog with more frequency. So sorry for my long absences-- I am still around! You can follow me on twitter (@lacquerland) or on Instagram (catray); I am fairly active on both of those social media outlets, though it's not always polish related.

I wanted to do a manicure to celebrate the 4th of July because, let's face it, I don't have much time to do creative manicures these days. So I actually did some nail art! It took two days, but I did it! I was tossing around some ideas and finally settled one what you will see below. I used Cult Nails Tempest as my white base on four nails and Colors by Llarowe Rubies & Rednecks on my ring finger as an accent (who knows when I will review this polish-- it's awesome!). Then I taped off the top of my nail and used OPI Wharf! Wharf! Wharf! on the bottom half. Pretty easy, but it did take two nights because I wanted the white base to dry so I didn't have to worry about ruining it when I applied the tape. 

This manicure also has a nautical feel to it, but that seems to fit with the 4th of July. I'm just happy I was able to come up with a themed manicure and I think it turned out pretty well! Hope everyone has a happy 4th!

Cult Nails Lethal

Today I have another polish from the Cult Nails Passionate Dreams collection-- Lethal! Lethal is a silver foil polish, though when it dries it has a matte chrome like finish. This will be brief, because I don't really take notes anymore when I "swatch" so I'm going from memory here. To the best of my recollection, this is two coats of Lethal and I no issues applying the polish at all.

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For some weird reason, even though I wear a lot of silver jewelry in my day to day life, I find myself more attracted to gold polish instead of silver. I'm not really sure why that is, but it was a thought that crossed my mind the other day. But when I wear a silver polish, I'm like a magpie and incredibly attracted to how shiny it is, and Lethal is no exception to that. This is a great silver polish if you're in the market for one! Which color metallic polish do you like wearing the most?

Cult Nails Angel Whispers

Today I have a polish from the most recent Cult Nails collection. (I am so behind on everything!) a recent Cult Nails collection, Passionate Dreams. This isn't the first polish I've worn from this collection-- I wore Kiss for Valentine's Day but didn't get a chance to photograph it for the blog. I decided I needed to paint my nails and reached for Angel Whispers. This polish is a very soft, light pink (almost white) with a shimmery silver glitter/texture. It dries to a slightly gritty feel, but because the glitter is so fine, it feels like sandpaper (to me, anyway). If you didn't like the texture, a layer or two of top coat would make this smooth-- you don't have to wear it as a textured polish and though slightly gritty, is not extremely textured. 

I was only able to get flash photos of this polish, sadly. The day that I planned on photographing this in natural light (and sun!), the polish on one nail completely flaked off, so these are the only photos I have.

Here's the thing: I'm torn about this polish. Part of me loves it and part of me really dislikes it.The color is great. I like that this can be worn as a texture or not, very easily. The formula isn't as great-- it's very thick and gets a little goopy. I used three coats here, but in the future would do two coats and live with the slight visible nail line. But overall I still really like this, despite the formula issues.

Football Friday: Chicago Deep Dish Edition

Hey all! After a break last week due to an early bye, I'm back this week with another Football Friday look! The Huskies are in Chicago to play the Fighting Illini of Illinois. These two teams have actually met 9 times, which blows my mind, but the most recent match-up was in 1972, so it's been awhile. Originally my husband and I thought we would go to this game, but obviously things have changed and traveling is not really an option right now. So we'll watch the game on TV, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Road games are always frustrating to watch and the Huskies tend to struggle when they travel. Illinois hasn't been a great team over the last few years, but they seem to be on a hot streak right, so we'll see what happens tomorrow. I am trying to temper my optimism so I'm not disappointed, though obviously I hope the Dawgs run away with the score.

Since we've also got a couple of other engagements tomorrow in addition to football, I have a great purple ombre maternity dress that I plan on wearing and still be spirited.  My Target maternity dress (the colors are off as the top isn't nearly as bright in person) looks like this:

So I decide to recreate my dress as my manicure! First I grabbed Cult Nails Vicious as my base, which is a warm deep purple. Then I decided to sponge on Julep Padma, a shimmery dark purple on the tips of nails to recreate the deeper purple bottom of the dress. Add  top coat and viola!

Note: sorry about all the bubbling on my ring finger-- my Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat is obviously on its last legs, ugh. So annoying!

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Sorry for the short post tonight-- it's been a busy week and I didn't have a lot of time (and I started this too late). I like this manicure, but I need to work on my sponging as I'm never really happy with the way it turns out. 

Go Dawgs! Beat the Illini!

Update: I was much happier with the actual gameday manicure I did than the one I did for the blog. My nails are a bit shorter and the sponging is a bit more subtle, but I was really happy with how it turned out. I had a hard time capturing it, so all my pictures have flash (you will see the reflection in my nails) but I just want to share a few more pictures! The clean-up isn't perfect, but I was much happier with this manicure in general.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Wedding Manicure

This weekend my husband and I attended the wedding of a dear friend-- my husband was one of the groomsmen and we've been looking forward to this wedding for awhile. In addition, we got to see our whole group friends and party, which is always fun! Shopping for a dress for a "formal" occasion when you're pregnant is a bit of a challenge, though-- it's pretty much just like spinning a roulette wheel and hoping whatever you get still fits by the time you need to wear it. Luckily, even though I bought my dress in June, I didn't have a problem fitting into it yesterday.

Since the dress had a print I decided I wanted to keep my nails simple so they wouldn't fight with it (though I'm sure anyone else would have cared or noticed). But given that it's summer and we've been having some beautiful weather, I couldn't resist a little bit of sparkle either! I decided to use Essence Cafe Ole as my nude polish (a review is coming!). To give it some sparkle I decided to use Cult Nails Mayhem, which is a sheer holographic topper that I conveniently just got. The result was a nice subtle manicure with the right amount of sparkle to keep it interesting! I love this look!

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I decided that I needed to get a pedicure for the wedding as well, mainly because I can't actually reach my toes anymore. And getting a pedicure feels great! With the colors of my dress, I decided that doing a mint or turquoise pedicure was calling my name. When I got to the salon, I pulled China Glaze For Audrey off the shelf. Why do I not own this? It's such a pretty shade and I love it on my toes. Such a soothing color! Here's a pic with the dress I wore to the wedding so you can see the print/colors (sorry, feet/toes!):

So we had a great time at the wedding yesterday and have spent today recovering (my husband from drinking, me from just being up so late). I can't believe it's Monday again tomorrow! Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!

4th of July Skittlette Mani!

Hey all! Hope that many of you are having a good time celebrating the 4th of July-- and if not that you are having a pleasant Thursday! This post is a little late because we've been doing a lot of cleaning around the house so we can move furniture and prep for the arrival of the twins, and in doing so lost our internet connection for awhile, whoops!

For this 4th of July, I had a hankering to try out a skittlette manicure, as pioneered Marta of ChitChat Nails. She recently did a tutorial on how to create this manicure and so I took it for a test drive! I already had in my mind two polishes I wanted to use: Julep Fireworks, a red/blue/silver glitter polish, and Julie G Hot Cinnamon, a red texture polish. Because I was afraid that the glitter and the texture might be too much, I decided to just do glitter tips and not full accent nails. I pulled out Cult Nails Tempest and Time Traveler and viola! A 4th of July manicure was born!

And, in true Marta fashion, I'm using props to show off my manicure! For this I used my husband's challenge coin from the Navy job he completed this past year, and a navy/white striped skirt that I'm wearing today.

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I really like how this turned out. Since Hot Cinnamon has shimmer but not necessarily glitter, I don't think it clashes with the glitter from Fireworks-- nor does it look too busy. Part of me wishes I had used a lighter blue, given how close to navy blue Time Traveler is, but it's so easy to work with that I don't mind it, even if it is a little dark.

Happy 4th of July!

Birthday manicure!

This past week I turned the big 3-0!! I'm no longer a 20-something! In a brief moment of reflection, given that turning 30 is supposed to be a big deal, I have to say-- I'm not that bothered by moving from my 20's to my 30's. I have a lot of great things to look forward in this next year and really, age is just a number, right?

I definitely have too much polish and was stumped to come up with something special for my birthday. Because the weather has been so nice, there was a color combination calling my name-- coral and gold. I'm ready for summer! I decided on the following polishes: Rescue Beauty Lounge Smile and Cult Nails Walk of Shame. Smile is described as a "dazzling red light, a neutral red, and full of sunny, shimmery goodness," while Walk of Shame is described as a "clear base with medium sized, blingtastic gold glitter sprinkled with holographic microglitter." I used two coats of Smile and then layered a coat of Walk of Shame on my ring finger.

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Smile is gorgeous and just seem appropriate-- I'm happy and content with life right now. And Walk of Shame is also gorgeous and was easy to  apply-- luckily, I'm too old to be doing any real walks of shame and will just wear it on my nails instead! I really liked this combination. A manicure that's slightly grown up but also has a fun side. And failing all else, at least I started 30 being perfectly polished-- on my nails, anyway!

NOTD: Bright Dots

I have been enjoying my Julep Eden manicure but I decided to extend its life a little bit longer by doing some nail art! For some weird reason, I have been craving a purple and orange manicure (seriously, I don't know why-- I generally hate those colors together). So I grabbed two of my new Cult Nails polishes, You're My Dandy Lion (yellow) and Ay Poppy! (orange) and did some polka dot nail art.

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I  actually love this combination. The colors are very bright and happy-- I am reminded of a butterfly or flowers or something.

That's my quick and dirty post for tonight!

Cult Nails Tempest

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter weekend, even if you don't celebrate the holiday. We had gorgeous weather here in Seattle and my parents were in town visiting, so I've been pretty busy! I also didn't have time to paint my nails for Easter, which is kind of lame, but it is what it is. 

Tonight I have one of the Cult Nails 2nd Anniversary polishes for you-- Tempest! Cult Nails describes Tempest as a "pure white, high gloss polish perfect for a manicure and great for nail art!" and this is pretty spot on. I actually have played around with this for nail art (stamping, specifically) and it worked well for that. They say this is almost a one coat white, but more on that later. I found that Tempest was a bit streaky when I was applying it and I ended up needing to use about 3 coats (depending on the nail) to get the coverage I was looking for. Overall, though, it was fairly easy to apply and was really nicely pigmented without being super thick. 

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Now, I love Cult Nails, but I couldn't make this a one (or one and a half) coat white. Is it me?! I think my application technique needs work, because in general this was a great white polish so I think with some practice I could make this work. However, Tempest is very white and I don't know how often I'll be reaching for this as a full manicure.

Cult Nails Flushed

Saving the best for last, today I have the final polish from the Cult Nails Behind Closed Doors collection, Flushed! This polish is amazing and even better in real life. Flushed is described as a "true "blurple" (blue/purple) buildable sheer with an intense purple/pink shimmer effect that appears to glow through the polish."

The formula on Flushed was good. They call it a buildable sheer, and it is. The first coat is fairly sheer, but I've only used two coats in my photos and you can see that you get excellent coverage. The shimmer is intense and beautiful. Of course, being a purple, it has photographed a little bit too light, though in general seems to be awkward. Otherwise it photographs too blue.

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Swoon! Flushed is amazing!! I love this polish sooooo much. This is a limited edition shade, and I'm really tempted to buy a back-up, which is something I rarely consider.