Swatch Saturday: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Custom Walk Through the Tulips

I am really excited to show you my weekend swatch. Walk Through the Tulips is a custom I ordered from Blue -Eyed Girl Lacquer; I was wearing First Frost some day several months ago and thought “I wonder what you look like in pink”. While I was warned it would not be an exact dupe of First Frost, I don’t think it could have gotten any closer. I am so pleased with this. I’m wearing three coats of it (no undies) with two coats of Seche Vite.

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Walk Through the Tulips is a white crelly with various shades, shapes, and sizes of pink glitters. I adore it. I don’t even know what else to say. It has everything I love: pink, glitter, pink glitter. I like the dimension created by the layers of glitter. I don’t think I’ll ever get over these white crelly polishes. They always turn out so nicely.

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As I said, I ordered this as a custom polish, so I don’t know how many are floating around out there aside from this bottle. BEGL does accept custom orders, so order your own or something else.

Wacie Wednesday: Shimmerkiss

This week’s Wacie Wednesday features a fun little experiment I’ve been calling Shimmerkiss. It’s a juicy pink crelly with pearly green microflakies. I’m wearing three coats of it as per the DIY Gel method outlined here.

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I really like this, but it kinda came out weird on my nails, like even after all those layers of Gelous and Seche Vite, the flakies ate it all. It’s not shiny; it’s smooth, but satiny matte smooth The glints you see in the photos are not from top coat, but from the flakies. It’s still pretty, but next time I will definitely not use the Gelous method with this polish.

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There’s way more glitter here than I thought there would be; the formula was thick and could have been easier to apply. I may end up taking this one back to the drawing board before I start making it in batches.

Manicure Monday: Neutrals and Glitter

This week’s Manicure Monday is a masterpiece. No really, I am way too excited about how this turned out. I had my doubts about pairing these two polishes, but they look so fantastic together that I can’t believe I didn’t do this sooner. We’re looking at Sally Hansen’s Natural Sienna and Digital Nails’s Xiao Mei Mei. I have on two coats of each, topped by two coats of Seche Vite top coat.

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Natural Sienna is a shimmery, chocolatey brown that I like a lot more than I thought I would. I always skip over browns and neutrals because they’re not bold enough for me. I grabbed this one out of a sale bin thinking “Meh, why not”, and I like it a lot. The formula is thin but covers well. My only complaint here is the brush; it’s one of those wide brushes that’s almost as wide as my whole nail, and I tend to make a mess with those. Otherwise, this one is totally worth the two dollars I paid for it.

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Digital Nails’s Xiao Mei Mei kind of steals the show here. Xiao Mei Mei is a nude crelly with orange, pink, and brown glitters. As you can see, it’s very sheer; my nail line is visible if you’re looking for it. I don’t even care about that. What I love about this is its simplicity; there’s just enough color to support the glitter, and it never detracts from it. Bonus: the nude would be my perfect nude if it didn’t have any glitter in it. It blends perfectly with my natural nail color.

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My favorite thing, though, is how well these colors pair. The neutrals, the deep colors, the glitters, they all complement each other so well. Totally gorgeous.

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I didn’t see Natural Sienna on Sally Hansen’s website, so it may be discontinued. However, Digital Nails has Xiao Mei Mei in stock, so grab it while you can.

Manicure Monday: It’s a Trap-eze!

For this week’s Mani Monday, I’m wearing one of my most loved polishes, China Glaze’s It’s a Trap-eze!. A nail friend peer-pressured me into buying it, and I have not regretted it once. This is the first time I’ve ever worn it on its own; you may remember it from this bad mani I did almost a year ago. This is a gorgeous polish in the bottle, but I was totally unprepared for how it came out on my nails.

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It’s a Trap-eze! is a white jelly loaded down with metallic rainbow glitters. I’m wearing three coats of it here, but I could have gotten away with two. As it dries, the glitter makes it textured and gritty; I put down three coats of Seche Vite, and it’s still a little bumpy. Also, cleanup was a bit of a pain; I didn’t get my cuticles as clean as I wanted them, but I’m lucky to have done this well.

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This polish is just unbelievable. Look at that glitter! I am completely hypnotized by it. Whenever I happen to look down at my hands, I end up staring. Also, it’s always amazing how the macro setting on my camera picks up the individual shapes of the glitters. Man. It’s unbelievable.

Swatch Saturday: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer’s First Frost

Today’s swatch is yet another Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer, but it’s one I love a lot. First Frost is a white jelly/crelly with tons of blue, silver, and gunmetal gray glitters. I’m wearing three coats of it with three coats of top coat.

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I really do adore this polish. There are so many beautiful glitters, but it’s such a soft look. Given the translucence of the jelly, this almost looks kind of pink on me (it’s more evident in person, I think), but it’s totally not. It’s my nail. While I work from home and have a skewed idea of what’s work-appropriate, I’d say this one is. It’s pretty and glittery, but it can’t be seen from the other side of the room. The name is also evocative of gray skies and light, fluffy snowfalls, the wintry smell of the air and the crush of frozen ground underneath one’s boots; these are things that, as a Floridian, I know absolutely nothing about.

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These were really hard to clean up, and as you can see, I did a horrible job. I tried getting the fine glitters away from my cuticle, but I ended up just making my cuticles dry and sad. I’m kind of embarrassed to post them like this, but the polish looks so awesome I almost don’t even care.

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Sadly, First Frost has been discontinued, but there are some similar white crellies in the BEGL store. One of them is a discontinued limited edition that’s on sale, you may want to get on that before it’s gone.

Swatch Saturday: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer Prototype PSB1

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.

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I am super sorry about those edges. Breaks suck.

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

Note the handwritten label.

Note the handwritten label.

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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.

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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.