Valentine's Day mani with Love Angeline and Different Dimension

Hey all!! I was out of town this past weekend so I unfortunately didn't get any posts written up for this week (poor planning) but I had to paint my nails for Valentine's Day so I'm throwing up a quick post. I wanted to do something fun and I had some nice pink and red untrieds so I thought I'd try some easy nail art. And fortunately, it worked out!

I used Love Angeline Love as my base. Love is a pinky red raspberry holographic. It's very nicely pigmented and had a great formula-- it flowed easily onto the nail and was a dream to apply. I probably could have gotten away with two coats but used three because of my giant nail beds. Then I used a dotting tool to make a freehand heart on my ring finger using Different Dimension Whatchu Talkin' 'Bout Willis, is a dark cherry red holographic. 

I'm really happy with how this turned out, especially considering I've never done any sort of freehand nail art before! Luckily, a heart is a pretty easy shape to do, whew! It's not a lot but it's a nice little themed mani for the day, which is fun! And hopefully this can make me more confident to try some more nail art in the future. Happy Valentine's Day!

Love Angeline 10/16

Again, starting off with sad news... Love Angeline has also decided to close her doors! It's not happening until February but it will be happening and they are slowly cleaning out inventory. I'm not totally surprised by this announcement, as Natosha had previously posted she had considered closing Love Angeline, and recently handed the reins of the business over to a friend, even though she was still making all the polish. So while not unexpected, it is a shame because she has produced a lot of lovely polishes and I have enjoyed them! Luckily for you, I'm behind in all the polishes I do have, so you will some other lovelies from this brand.

10/16 is a deep olive green holographic. There's not much more to say there! It's a nicely pigmented polish and was maybe a titch on the thicker side, but nothing difficult to work with. Usually I make a quick note if I used two coats, so I think I must have used three here, though I feel like two would have been fine. I don't have much more to add-- I didn't have any issues with this!

Hey, another gorgeous green! 10/16 is definitely dark, but it doesn't veer into black territory and works well for the darker colors we see in the fall and winter months. I feel like photos don't capture it as well as I would have like, but it's very pretty!

Purple Friday: Love Angeline Laying Under Midnight Skies

Despite my lame attempts at blogging this week, of course I needed to get a Purple Friday post up! This week is a big one for us-- we face USC, who even though they are having a "down" year and are sitting at 6-3, are still a strong and fast team that can't be overlooked. I'm not exactly sure if I would call it bad blood, but this game generates a lot of feeling, given that our former coach left UW for SC (and then was subsequently fired) and I have no doubt they would love to knock us out of the number 4 spot. Honestly, the election pushed a lot of thoughts about this game out of my mind and so now I am getting a little anxious about it. Luckily we're at home but we'll definitely need to come out strong to take a win over the Trojans! I'm actually skipping the game to go wedding dress shopping with my sister, who got engaged last month! I feel like that might be a better way to direct my post-election anxiety (which will turn into football anxiety tomorrow).

I was debating about which purple polish to use and finally settled on Love Angeline Laying Under Midnight Skies, which was part of the fall collection. In the bottle this polish is a medium purple holographic with scattered holographic glitters. On the nail, the color deepens-- I did use three coats though two would have sufficed. The first coat was a little sheer and had a slight jelly feel to it, but I didn't have any issues and as you can see, builds up nicely! It's not quite as shiny as it could because I was lazy and didn't use a top coat here.

Lovely! I love the flame-- it's present but still has a softness to it that I can't resist. The holo glitters are harder to see, but they are and sparkle in just the right light! I was a bit worried because this looks a lot lighter in the bottle, which really wasn't what the swatches showed, so I was happy when it darkened up as I applied more coats. And even though the game tomorrow kicks at 4:30, it's practically a night game now that we're off DST so the name works too!

Go Dawgs! Beat the Trojans!

Love Angeline 08/16

Today I have another of the monthly LE polishes from Love Angeline to share with you! This is 08/16, which means it's from August. We're only just into Otcober here (I know I've skipped July and really, a ton of other months) but I think the color works as a transition color for fall.

I've seen 08/16 described as an aqua holographic, but to me this polish leans so green that aqua doesn't quite fit, even though there blue tones to the polish. Perusing Wikipedia to see their list of green shades, it occurred to me that I would describe 08/16 as a spruce green-- think Christmas trees; it's a dusty greyed green with blue tones. It's a bit of a chameleon in that sense; the color shifts around from green to grey green to blue green depending on the lighting conditions. I didn't have any problems when applying this-- I think I used three coats, though I probably could have gotten away with two! No issues to report!

The holographic flame on this is just lovely; this might be one of my favorite polishes from Love Angeline! I find 08/16 to be a unique green (holographic or otherwise) in my collection, and I loved wearing this and studying it. I thought the color was very flattering and I'm really glad I picked this one up!

Hope everyone's Monday is off to a good start!

Love Angeline 06/16

Today I have another pretty (and pretty unique) polish to share with you: 06/16 is the June monthly LE Polish from Love Angeline. I feel like this is the first monthly from Love, Angeline that I am showing you, though I have others to show you! I am just behind, as per usual. This is a good place to start, though, because I absolutely love this color! 

06/16 is described as an "orangey-copper with hints of red and flashes of pink. Along with gold holo microglitters and gold micro flakies!" To me, this polish read as a coppery rose pink but I think both descriptions fit! The formula on this was good; thick but not too thick and it applied easily. I think I used three coats but probably could have gotten away with two coats. I think I've discovered one thing that is kind of annoying about my Love, Angeline polishes. I find the brush to be a bit floppy, which then makes the polish feel a little thicker. It's not that big of a deal, just something I've noticed. 

So pretty, right? I love the color and this is pretty unique to my polish collection. It was hard to stop staring at my nails while I was wearing it because it's super sparkly. One of my favorites for this year, for sure! 

Love Angeline Cosmo

Blue nail polish is my true love. I'm serious. Blue is my favorite color and my personal philosophy is that blue nail polish goes with everything. It does, I refuse to listen to anyone who says otherwise! The amount of swatches of blue polishes I have waiting to be published is a little obscene. It's obvious where my heart lies. And along those lines, today I have Love Angeline Cosmo to share with you. This was originally released as part of the Fall 2015 Let's Grab a Drink collection.

Cosmo is described as a "darkened royal blue matte polish with an intense flash of blue and purple shimmer." I'm not really sure what the color has to do with the drink (Cosmos are usually red in my experience) but I can roll with it because it's such a gorgeous color. Fair warning, I did wear this awhile ago so my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details. I don't recall having any major issues, though I think the formula was just ok. I can't remember the number of coats I used, probably 2 or 3! 

(Ugh, apologies for the lack of clean-up! Looks terrible but I remember being too tired to deal with it at the time.)

Here's a quick shot with top coat (still a bit messy-- I think I had trimmed my nails and then painted on an additional coat) so you can see how shimmery it is!

Gorgeous! My biggest issue with Cosmo is that oh boy, it wants to stain. Not necessarily your nails, but even with careful removal I felt like there was blue everywhere! This polish is also discontinued, along with the rest of the collection, but maybe it'll make a reappearance someday! I love these shimmery mattes, though-- they are so versatile! 

Love Angeline Champagne

Today I have another polish I picked up from Love Angeline, also from the Let's Grab a Drink collection-- today we're breaking out the bubbly and having some Champagne! (Or as Zapp Brannigan would say "cham-pagan"!) Champagne is a gorgeous deep pink with a very strong blue shimmer, and bonus, it dries to a matte finish!

Unlike Shandy, sadly, I found the formula on Champagne to be a bit more difficult to work with. It was a little on the thicker side, but also had an almost jelly-like feel to it, so when I was applying it there was some patchiness and I didn't get it completely even looking. I used three coats in my photos below. I feel like I almost could have used a fourth coat, because I felt it was still a bit patchy, but three was enough to make me feel okay.

The finished product is definitely gorgeous, though even at three coats Champagne was still a bit uneven and could have used a fourth one. The next time I wear this I will probably also apply my first coat(s) a little more carefully, which might help. I think this color is currently retired from the Love Angeline line up, so sorry about that if you really love it!

Love Angeline Ammacarre

Today I have a cheerful little yellow polish called Ammacarre from Love Angeline to share with you! I actually bought this bottle months ago (it was on sale) but due to the pastel nature of the shade, I didn't wear it right away because it felt out of season. And while I don't consider myself to be a slave to trends, I due tend to theme my polishes to the season (darker colors in fall/winter, bright colors in spring/summer-- but there are always exceptions!) and it felt weird wearing this color out of season. But last week we were scheduled to have the nicest day of the year so far (and we did!) so I decided it was time to take the plunge and wear Ammacarre. In the bottle, Ammacarre has a pastel yellow appearance, but on the nail it's a bit more of a sunny yellow with yellow, pink, and blue shimmer in it. Without top coat, it dries to a matte satin finish.

The formula of Ammacarre is about what I expected. It's on the sheerer side, and while it does build up, you do need to be careful of dragging the polish and creating bald spots. Honestly, I was expecting the formula to be a lot worse given how light this yellow looks in the bottle but it applies fairly easily as long as you are careful. I've certainly had a lot worse experiences! That said, here's mine: I put on the first coat and was horrified. It was super sheer and looked very orange-yellow on my nails and looked terrible and for a minute I honestly considered whether I should plunge ahead and just scrap the manicure altogether. I decided to stay the course, and it worked out (whew). I did need four coats to get my nails to a level of opacity that I liked, and the polish does look a little thick on my nails. There is still some visible nail line, but with four coats it's not too bad. 

Here's what Ammacare looks like without a top coat:

While I was taking the pictures above I managed to dent my ring finger so I decided to slap on a top coat to help it dry down, because four coats meant I would probably have sheet marks on my nails the next morning. So here it what it looks like shiny:

I do have to say, I'm a bit disappointed with Ammacarre. I actually really love the way it looks without top coat, but I wish I hadn't needed four coats to get it looking the way I wanted it too. It looks much lighter in the bottle, and so I had a bit of a shock when it applied darker (aka not pastel) and also brighter than I anticipated. Due to the number of coats I needed and the extended dry time, I added a top coat, but I don't look the finished product quite as much.

I definitely don't hate this polish, it just wasn't quite what I was expecting! But the shimmer is quite lovely and I even got a compliment so I guess it was worth it in the end!

Love Angeline Shandy

Today I have a more recent, "new to me" brand to share with you. I was introduced to Love Angeline thanks to Amanda aka Fashion Footing and decided I needed to give them a try myself! Love Angeline had a Black Friday sale so I snagged a few polishes on the cheap as my first foray into the brand. Today I have Shandy to share with you, which is one of her shimmer matte polishes from the Let's Grab a Drink collection. If you don't know, a shandy is a beer that is mixed with a soft drink or juice, usually carbonated lemonade, ginger ale, or orange juice. Shandy is described as a "golden yellow matte polish with an intense flash of gold shimmer."

The formula on Shandy was a dream; exactly what I want from a matte polish. It wasn't too thick or too thin; it flowed nicely on the nail and built up easily  without getting thick and gloopy. The first coat covers nicely, though is a bit sheer. Two coats gave pretty good coverage, but I ended up using a third just to make sure there were no patches, though quite honestly you could get away with two if you have smaller nail beds than I do-- I tend to use three as my standard unless it's definitely opaque enough for two. 

Artificial light (flash): 

In summary, I love Shandy! (Plus shandy is delicious to drink-- perfect for summer!). This color is kind of funky and can lean green in some lights, so it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I love it. The formula was great and for a matte, it wore very well on me. I generally don't mention wear time because I change my nails so frequently, but I got three days of wear out of this manicure, with no top coat and only a few minimal chips. Bonus!!

In short, this polish really impressed me-- I have a couple other to show you soon, but I am definitely becoming a fan of Love Angeline polishes!