Wacie Wednesday: Bleeding Heart

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

It’s Wacie Wednesday! I got a bunch of new glitters and another bottle of lacquer base, so I finished up some prototypes I was working on last week. I’m really excited about these. Let’s do it!

Bleeding Heart is a deep red jelly laden with iridescent and holo glitter hearts. I’m wearing three coats with no undies, and three coats of Seche Vite. As shiny as it looks here, it’s even shinier in person. The glitter shines through beautifully, the jelly is squishy and clear. The hearts blend in more than I thought they would, but they add to the look without overpowering it. I’m in love with this polish. I don’t think I can do any better than this.

I’m getting ever closer to an actual Wacie Nail Company launch. I have a few more prototypes I’ll be sharing with you in the coming weeks; I’m aiming for eight finished polishes as an initial product line. I’m still looking to labelling ideas and a means of producing things in batches, and then I’ll be ready to go. I’m really excited.

Manicure Monday: Turquoise Hologram

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

This week’s Manicure Monday is an oldie, but a goodie. I admit I hated this polish when I bought it last decade, but now I’m in a place where I can appreciate it. This is three coats of Turquoise Hologram from Claire’s.

Turquoise Hologram is a light blue jelly with fine holographic glitter. When I bought it, I was just looking for a nice blue polish that would match this light blue eyeliner I was into. I liked the glitter in this one, so I grabbed it, and when I put it on, I thought it was horrible. It took six coats to achieve total opacity and I couldn’t stand it. I put it away and never used it again until now, now that I know what jellies are.

I think I might still have hated it on longer nails. Because they’re not very long, you don’t see much of a nail line, because I barely have one. I must have smudged it with top coat on the index finger because of that bald spot, and the Seche Vite must have shrunk the edges. I’m not very happy with this manicure in particular, but there is hope for this polish after all.

It’s kind of satisfying using one of the oldest polishes I own. It was probably 2008 when I bought this one, seeing it was about that time I stopped biting my nails and put some effort into nail care. I’d been painting my nails since before then, but growing up, we always had family bottles; my mom, sisters and I all shared one collection. I left home in 2005, but didn’t really bother with my nails much, since I was still a raging nailbiter. I had a handful of polishes for myself then, and maybe a hundred when my boyfriend moved out in 2012. Now I’m hoarding it. I don’t know how I survived with only a hundred bottles of nail polish.

Swatch Saturday: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer Prototype PSB1

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

My swatch this week is a Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer prototype. They turn up in the BEGL store occasionally; they’re early versions of polishes or rejected customs. Most of the time there’s only one, so it’s cool having a one-of-a-kind polish. Keep an eye out so you can snag your own.

I am super sorry about those edges. Breaks suck.

The label is smudged from the last time I used it.

Note the handwritten label.

PSB1 is a creamy aqua crelly with a fine pink shimmer, red stars and various glitters in pink and blue. It was a little thick; and the first time I applied it, it was gummy and never fully dried, even after allowing 30 minutes between each coat. I put some thinner in it and that fixed it. It was much easier to apply after that. The end result is a bit sheer, which I like. I like being able to see the glitters on the first coat through the last coat. I like the dimensional glitter. This is most evident on the middle nail.

I don’t know what was meant by the cryptic name, so because PSB1 doesn’t really roll off the tongue, I’ve been calling it PROTOFABULOUS. I like the idea that just because it’s not finished, that doesn’t mean it can’t be awesome.

I’m sure I had more to say about this, but I’m hungover and my brain is still hazy from tequila.

Manicure Monday: Scattered Glitter Over Khaki

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

This week’s manicure is a gorgeous one. I have on Julep’s Kennedy and China Glaze’s Scattered and Tattered. Note to self: do more glitter and nude pairings.

Kennedy is a khaki creme. The last time I used it, I compared it to unblended foundation. There’s just not a lot to say about this one. It’s far too yellow to be a nude, at least not on me; I’m sure this is a perfect nude for someone. The formula is standard Julep fare; the first coat was thin and streaky, but the second evened everything out. I think I still had a slightly visible nail line, but the glitter covers it well. Overall, despite the odd choice khaki is for a nail color, I like it. Before I put the glitter over it, my nails look lengthened and smooth. It’s like nail mascara.

The real star here is Scattered and Tattered. This is a clear base full of black and red hexes and slices. I’m wearing one coat here, and you can see that it applies well and the glitter spreads evenly. I love these China Glaze glitters so much that I bought as many as my boyfriend would let me. I think there’s only one I’m missing, and once I figure out which one it is, I’m going to grab it. I just really love this look. It’s part pop art, part graffiti, part granite countertop. I definitely want to do this again.

Julep’s Kennedy and China Glaze’s Scattered and Tattered

Swatch Sunday?: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Operation Hennesy

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Yeah, I have two swatches this weekend, completely by accident; let me begin with a PSA: Protect your floors when you work with nail lacquer and lacquer accessories. Otherwise you might knock an open bottle of blue dye on your floor and spend the hour before your party starts on your hands and knees scrubbing the floor and crying, ruining your floor and your mani in the process. Put something on your floor so it doesn’t end up like this.

As my last swatch mani was marred by tragedy, I took it off and put on Operation Hennesy, yet another Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer I’ve had for quite a while that’s just been sitting around. Since the weather is dreadful today, I’m using my boyfriend’s new photography lights for my nail shots today. I like how these came out, so I might do this from now on. Now you won’t have to look at my vintage Radio Shack hi-fi anymore. As usual, I’m wearing three coats of Operation Hennesy with three coats of Seche Vite. I purchased this polish myself. These opinions are my own.

Operation Hennesy is a navy blue jelly with green, blue, gold, and purple glitters. You know what working with jellies is like; that first coat is kind of scary because it doesn’t cover much, but then the color builds and it looks fantastic. This is just like that. On its own, it’s quite shiny; with the dark jewel blue and the many glitters, it has a lot going for it. When I applied the top coat, I just said “Wow”. There was so much shine, so much sparkle. Just “Wow”.

Unfortunately for you, Operation Hennesy is yet another discontinued Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer that’s no longer carried in their store. However, if you haven’t gotten in on the Valentine’s Day collection, I highly recommend you do, or you might miss out forever.

Swatch Saturday: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer’s It’s Smaller on the Outside

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

My swatch this week is of It’s Smaller on the Outside, and it’s one of the first Blue Eyed Girl Lacquers I ever bought. I’ve had it for a really long time, and this is the first time I’ve ever worn it. You may notice a trend here. It’s Smaller on the Outside is shown here at three coats, topped with three coats of Seche Vite.

It’s Smaller on the Outside is a shimmery cornflower blue loaded with various blue glitters, including blue hearts. The formula is a bit thick, almost creamy, which I’m going to attribute to all the shimmer. It’s really sparkly. It’s opaque in two coats, though I added a third for personal tastes. The glitter spreads easily, and it doesn’t take too much effort to get the hearts out. One thing, though: the polish is so thick and opaque is covers any hearts on the middle coats. I had one or two on each nail per coat, and they just got covered up. Whatever. It’s still cute.

For funsies, I put a matte coat over it, just because it’s so shiny you can’t really see the glitter and creamy texture in the photos. The matte coat killed it. It looks like a chambray shirt. It totally worked though, you can see all the glitters. There are so many!

One last note: I know this is a Doctor Who-inspired polish. Doctor Who is a thing that’s completely beyond my area of expertise. I know lots of indie-scene polishes are inspired by something, and because Doctor Who has such a wide fanbase, it’s inevitable that the two blend together. This isn’t the only DW-inspired polish I have, and they’re all gorgeous. I don’t care about the inspiration as much as I do about the polish, but I do admit it’s a little weird having so many and not really knowing where it came from.

Manicure Monday: Whirled Away Over Yellow

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

This week, I’m finally arriving to the black and white glitter topper party. Also, I forgot how much I love yellow polish. This is also my first Color Club mani, so that’s exciting too, I guess.

Color Club’s Almost Famous is part of their Poptastic collection, which according to the packaging, are all colors that POP. This one certainly does pop. I really love this one. It went on smoothly and easily and turned opaque in two coats. I’m pretty impressed by the quality. I’ll go ahead and mention I got the whole Poptastic set and the Take Wing set for $8 each at Bealls Outlet. Yeah, it was awesome.

When I saw China Glaze’s Whirled Away, I knew I had to have it. At that point, I’d turned to nail polish to ward off the loneliness of having my boyfriend living in another state, and a certain enabler showed me this one. It was so unlike anything else I’d seen or owned; I fell hard for it and spent my dinner money on it. I regret nothing.

Color Club’s Almost Famous and China Glaze’s Whirled Away. Also that’s Hard Candy’s matte top coat on the end.

This is a look I like. I had a little application problem with Whirled Away; it picked up some of the yellow, and while it didn’t smudge the color, some of the black glitter has a weird greenish wash over it. This is probably most evident on my thumb. Apart from that, I like the chaos of the glitter over the bright color. Also, the matte coat was an afterthought; I figured that since the glitter was matte, it couldn’t hurt. I’m always afraid I’m going to ruin the mani with a matte finish. I’ve also switched from the Revlon matte to Hard Candy’s matte, and it’s the first Hard Candy product I’ve ever used. Lots of weird firsts this week.

Swatch Saturday: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Elusive Unicorn

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

This weekend, we’re looking at a long-discontinued limited edition polish from Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer called Elusive Unicorn. It really is elusive now, since only a few bottles were ever made, and that was way back in June or July. I’m wearing four coats of it here with three coats of top coat. All photos were taken indoors with natural light and camera flash. I bought this polish myself, but even if I hadn’t, my opinions would be the same. Let’s get started.

Elusive Unicorn is a sheer pink holo. It’s also the first holo I’ve reviewed on the site. I don’t really know what to say about holos; you have to see them to know what they’re about. Unforunately, I don’t feel like I’ve done this one justice. It’s sad and rainy outside, so I didn’t get any great photos of it in the sunshine, where they look best. Elusive Unicorn isn’t a very strong holo; it’s just holo enough. I like that, though. Sometimes I don’t want a super-strong punch-in-the-stomach-by-a-rainbow holo.

Flash!

For a while, I didn’t really go for holos. I usually skip anything with a solid color, because I feel like I have them all already. Glitter is the best way to sell me on anything. Holos don’t fit neatly into either category. Then I bought this one. I didn’t even want it at first, then caved to peer pressure. Then I put it on and I kind of changed my mind about holos.

As I was writing this, the sun came out and I was able to get a good holo shot after all. I’m probably going to walk into traffic or something staring at it.

There you go. That’s Elusive Unicorn. Like I said earlier, this was only made once and probably won’t come back. However, if you are a big fan of holos, please check out the BEGL store. There’s a Valentine’s Day collection launching tomorrow that has a really nice holo, and you wouldn’t want to miss it.

Wacie Wednesday: Bridal Bouquet

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

It’s the first-ever Wacie Wednesday! This is the part of the week where, if I have a new product to share, you’ll get to see it. Yeah, I told you I was serious about making my own polish. This first entry is a little rough, since I’m still missing things like branding, labelling, and a way for you to actually buy it. I’ll get on that soon, I promise. In the meantime, have a look at the very first Wacie Nail Company polish, Bridal Bouquet. It’s awesome, but don’t take my word for it.

Bridal Bouquet is a glitter toppper in a clear base; it contains pink flowers, green shreds, and iridescent hexes. I’m wearing one coat over The New Black’s Black, Essie’s Fiji and Navigate Her. It dries quickly and is easily smoothed down by top coat. I don’t really know what to say about it, other than it’s awesome and I love it. I can’t stop staring at it. The green-to-gold iridescent glitters really stand out on the black polish, and the flowers look great over the green. The light pink flowers blend in a little, but I think that’s okay. I think it still evokes the image of its namesake: soft petals, soft colors, fragrance and beauty. I think I started a nail company just to make this polish.

It’s really exciting to be one step closer, you know? I had the time of my life making this, and I hope I’ll be able to keep doing it for a long while. It would be amazing to have a career where I get to sit in a room with glitter and sparkles and just create things. I almost don’t even care if I make my investment back, just the satisfaction of doing it was, to me, worth the money.

I did a test to see what it looked like over blue. The verdict: awesome! From left to right: Sinful Colors’s Midnight Blue, Essie’s After School Boy Blazer, Julep’s Bess, Color Club’s Chelsea Girl, China Glaze’s For Audrey, Essie’s Turquoise & Caicos, and Bridal Bouquet worn alone.

Yeah, this is the best thing I ever did. If you’re interested in buying a bottle, or just interested in reviewing it, I’ll get the store and press form ready soon. I am absolutely dying to share this with everyone.

Manicure Monday: Trash Nails and Magnetic Silver

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

This week on Manicure Monday, we play with magnets, tweezers, and super glue. No, we’re not building a robot, we’re doing our nails! I wish we were building a robot, that would be cool.

I only used one polish this week: Sinful Colors’ Polar Opposites. I know magnetic polishes are passé and uninteresting now, but I still like the look, even if I couldn’t get mine to come out very well. As was the case with my last magnetic polish, the magnetic design looked fantastic when I pulled the magnet away, but began to fade and distort as it dried. On some nails, the design is completely invisible, whereas some others barely are. It’s too bad; the magnetic effect really brings out the fine blue-to-purple shifting glitter. It’s a shame it’s not more pronounced, it’s really pretty.

You’re probably wondering what all that crap is doing stuck to my nail. I got this nail art wheel from Claire’s with a bunch of round pyramid studs in it, and I thought that since I was only using one color, I could use a few of these studs. I thought they’d look best paired with a gray or silver polish, and since I was using one, I tried it. These are some of the tackiest, trashiest, most clothes-snagginest nails I’ve ever done. I can’t wait to see what it’s like washing my hair in the morning with these bad guys. There are pyramid studs of various sizes and colors, a teardrop rhinestone, and metal chain segments in a variety of finishes. I know they look like over-the-top hooker nails, but they make me feel kind of badass, like I could cut somebody with them. I might accidentally cut myself.

I don’t always post my right hand, but when I do, it’s tacky as hell.

I tried something new this week: the DIY gel manicure. I originally saw a post on Reddit (that I can’t find now, so here’s the tutorial I used), where someone applied layers of Gelous between their color coats to get a durability comparable to a gel manicure. I was in Sally this weekend, I saw the Gelous, and I decided to try it for myself. Application was easy, but took some time; you’re using a few different products in a short amount of time. I didn’t really like this part; I like to let my polish dry for a really long time (like an hour) before I put another down. As a result, when I went to clean up my cuticles, I got some pulling and tugging from where the polish was kind of dry, but not dry enough. I have some weird edges from that. Also, the tutorial skipped base coat altogether and jumped right into the Gelous. I wasn’t okay with that. Having bought my first bottle of Nail Envy this weekend, I started with a base coat of that, then went for my usual OPI base coat (which was probably overkill), and then went into the Gelous tutorial. We’ll see if it holds up. I really hope it does, because now that my boyfriend lives here, I have to wash dishes twice as often, and my manicures don’t hold up the way they used to when I only had to do dishes once a week.

One of these things is not like the others. It’s Sinful Colors’ Polar Opposites!

In unrelated news: Wacie Nail Company is a thing that’s really going to happen, and soon. Last week I ordered some supplies for a R&D run, and the last of it will arrive tomorrow. I will probably spend all my free time this week huffing lacquer fumes and inhaling glitter, and hopefully, I’ll have working prototypes by Friday. I’m really excited about making polish, sharing it with everyone, and doing something more constructive with my time than refreshing Reddit. I hope you’re looking forward to it!

Wacie.com

Home of Wacie Nail Company