Tag Archives: Wacie Nail Company

Nails of the Week: Summer Whites

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It’s a new week, and I have some new nails. I was short on time this week and did this mani in two stages; the base color, and the stamping. That’s why my edges are a little rough-looking. I used Nails Inc.’s Sweets Way as my base, and a white creme I whipped up myself to stamp with.

Sweets Way is a white crelly with some colorful glitters, and I knew it wouldn’t need a lot to go with it. I nearly just wore it alone, and I did for a day or so. I decided that no, I could do better, so I did some quick stamping with my white creme. My stamping isn’t perfect, it never is, but I like the look I got. It’s like lace, just a simple little sweet something.

Sweets Way was discontinued by Nails Inc.; Nails Inc. can be found at Sephora.

I bought this polish myself.

Nails of the Week: Pool Blue

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Hi! So it’s been a minute since I posted last. I hit a busy spell at work, on top of my other projects, blogging was the thing that fell to the wayside. I have no idea how you girls with full-time jobs and children keep your blogs going so regularly! As you can see, a lot has happened to my nails since my last post. I broke a nail at work (rip) and had to cut them all down. That was a couple weeks ago. They were once shorter than this. So, to celebrate my return, here’s some nails! I used Sinful Colors’s Love Nails and Wacie Nail Company’s Wintrella.

Love Nails is an old Sinful Classic. I didn’t capture it so well in these photos, but it has this icy blue glow to it that’s absolutely beautiful. One downside is that it’s kind of on the sheer side; I’m wearing three coats here and my visible nail lines were only just covered. Regardless, it’s a polish I’ve had for years, and I love digging oldies out of the vault.

Wintrella is a glitter topper I made myself! It was one of my early attempts at polish making, and is essentially every blue and silver glitter I had at my disposal. I love icy glitters on icy blue, and this is a look that could work in the fall just as well as the summer.

Love Nails might have been discontinued by Sinful Colors; other SC polishes are sold in stores. I have four bottles of Wintrella, let me know if you want one!

I bought Love Nails myself.
I made Wintrella.

A Look Back at 2016

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Hello reader! Now that 2016 is behind us, I wanted to look back on some of my blog highlights and share my favorite nail art looks, and maybe share some of my 2017 blogging goals with you. I guess I could have waited to do this on my blog-versary in March, but it feels more appropriate to do it now.

January: Elevated Gradient

February: Neon Satisfaction

You’ll notice these photos are tiny. Why? Because in March, The Great wacie.com Server Crash of 2016 happened! My webhost had a hardware failure, and for whatever reason, several months of posts were lost and had to be pieced back together with images and text cached by Google. It was an extremely frustrating and embarrassing time for me.

March: Spring Hibiscus

I miss these long nails.

This is probably my favorite look of the year.

Third Anniversary Do-Over

I mentioned earlier that my blog’s anniversary is in March. For last year’s anniversary, I recreated the first-ever mani I posted on my blog. I don’t know yet what I’ll do for my fourth year, but it’ll probably be awesome.

April: Dusty Watermarble

May: Neon Splatter

I went to Hawaii in May. As a result, this is my least active month on the blog for the year.

June: Orange Jello Sandwich

My first Empties Roundup post was also in June.

July: Beyond

August: Ombre Hearts

September: Popples

October: Stripey Blue Frosting

This was a look I did to celebrate my birthday.

November: Ruby Opal

December: White Snow Blue Lava

So there’s my year! This was probably the busiest year for the blog, since I broadened my sujects quite a lot. I did tons of swatches and nail art, but I also ventured into product reviews and makeup talk. I don’t think this will ever become a full lifestyle or beauty blog, but I’m definitely having fun with it in this format. I’m kind of excited to see what it’ll evolve into in 2017. Here are a few beauty goals I have in mind, though.

1. Write more
I wrote 175 posts in 2016, averaging about 14 per month. It doesn’t sound like much to me, like I did way more work than that, especially when it started to feel stressful. That said, I’d like to do at least one more post every week.

1b. Write on my other blog more
I have a second blog that I want to start posting to more. It’s been so long since I’ve bothered with it that I don’t even remember the login credentials. I still want a place to talk about myself and my life, a place to seem like I have a life away from my nails.

2. Build a real skincare routine
I still feel insecure about my skin. I’m frustrated that I’m 31 and I still get acne. I want to take every preventative measure I can against wrinkles and anti-aging. I also want to try a 10-step Asian beauty routine. If you’re over 30 with oily skin and hormonal acne, I want your recommendations.

3. Stop competing
I know one of the big rules of blogging is not to compare your success with others’, but I feel so competitive about it. At the risk of sounding whiny, I always look at other bloggers who’ve been working on their blogs for about as long as I have, and watching their blogs grow faster than mine is kind of frustrating. I don’t want to feel like that anymore.

4. Do more real nail art
I love glitter toppers and I think I use at least one every week, but sometimes it feels lazy. I want to go back to the basics: watermarbling, gradients, dotting. I love my glitters, but it’s starting to feel like a cop-out.

I think that’s it! Anyway, I think 2017 is going to be an exciting year, and I’m looking forward to the good times, the challenges, and the time we spend together. Thanks for reading!

Manicure Monday: Ruby Opal

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Happy Monday! I’m kind of happy to be back into my regular routine. Today’s look features a polish of my own called Dynamica; it’s a red crelly with a wee bit of scattered holo goodness. I swatched it in my Wacie Wednesday series ages ago, and lamented then that I didn’t use it in a sandwich mani with some glitter. Well, today is that day. The glitter I paired it with is Lynnderella‘s Red Opal. All photos were taken in direct sunlight.

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I used two coats of Red Opal as my base. Red Opal is so packed with glitter and has such a rich red base that it could be worn at two coats on its own. There are so many kinds of glitter in here, holo, metallic, and iridescent, that it has a lovely dimensional appearance. I used one coat of Dynamica over Red Opal; Dynamica is a warmer red and changes things up a bit, and adds that hint of holo sparkle.

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This late afternoon sun is not the best for holo shots, but it’ll have to do. It was dark and overcast all morning and afternoon, and then just now, this was the little bit of sun out, and really, I was glad to get it. It still looks pretty cool.

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Red Opal might be discontinued; other Lynnderella polishes are sold on lynnderella.com. Dynamica isn’t for sale yet, but may be in the future. I’ll let you know.

Red Opal was purchased myself.
Dynamica was made by me.

Manicure Monday: Decadent Sands

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Hey! It’s Manicure Monday! Today’s look is all about a microglitter polish I made for myself, a little something I call Decadence. I also wanted to do a nail art look with only one polish and some negative space, so here we are. All I used for this look is Decadence and Seche Vite.

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Decadence is a microglitter with silver, red, and blue holographic glitters. To achieve the look, I used some French tip guides along the base of my cuticle, making a half moon shape, and applying two coats of Decadence. I peeled off the guide, added a third coat of polish, and sealed it with top coat. The result is a little lopsided; the glitter is very dense on most of the nail and quite sparse on the half-moon, but it’s kind of cool, like sands through the hourglass.

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I’m kind surprised the negative space turned out so well. One of the nude polishes I wore a few weeks ago stained my nails an ugly yellow, and since then, I’ve wanted to do nothing but negative space manis. Of course, I had to wait for my nails to grow out a little. There’s nothing like growing out stained nails.

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The following photos were taken outdoors in direct sunlight. I love microglitters so much. They’re the best way to pack everything you want — color, glitter, whatever you like — into one bottle.

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Decadence is not available for purchase (yet). Lemme know if it’s something you like.

I made this polish.

Birthday Mani Digest 2016

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Welcome back, reader! As you know, I took a bit of time off these past couple weeks to celebrate my birthday. It was only supposed to be one, but the arrival of Hurricane Matthew led to everything being postponed. That madness is now over, and now I’d like to show you what my nails were up to during the downtime. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen most of these lovelies already. I promise I will not be mentioning my birthday again until next October.

Birthday Mani #1: Pink Frosting With Sprinkles
Essie’s Good Morning Hope with Lynnderella‘s Icing Glass Garland

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The first birthday mani was a fun warm-up with an untried Lynnderella topper. I had a lot of fun wearing this; Icing Glass Garland was a lot more interesting in real life, however. There is a lot of iridescence and color-changiness. It doesn’t look like much over Good Morning Hope, but it still made for a fun and dainty look.

Birthday Mani #2: Cupcakes
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer‘s Eleanor, China Glaze’s White on White, LA Girl’s Black, Orly’s Water Lily, P2’s French Kiss, Ciate’s Pillow Fight

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I always do cupcakes to celebrate my birthday, and this year’s mani was actually done in the middle of the hurricane. Even though the hurricane was an unwelcome birthday event (thanks, universe), we still had a good time. A lot of our friends live in evacuation zones and came to stay with us when the call came to evacuate, so we still had a party and ate food and played board games. It was not the worst experience.

Birthday Mani #3: Hello Dalek
Digital Nails‘s Hello Dalek

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This was last week’s Manicure Monday post, but I’m including it for continuity. Monday was my actual birthday, and it was a ton of fun to wear a party on my nails as well. When your birthday is on the worst day of the week, you have to party any way you can.

Birthday Mani #4: Glitter Frosting
Digital Nails’s Pandorica, Model City Polish‘s Sheena is a Punk Rocker, Wacie Nail Company’s Your Daring Escape, Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Walk Through the Tulips
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This look includes the polish I made myself for my birthday! Your Daring Escape is a silvery-white holo with holographic glitter and pearl pink and metallic silver flakies. I wanted a holo-meets-glitter-gradient look, but as the sun never came out that day, a lot of the beauty got lost.

Birthday Mani #5: Stripey Blue Frosting
Literary Lacquers‘s Bluestocking Romance, Hard Candy’s Sky, China Glaze’s Mosaic Madness

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This was the mani I got the most compliments on for sure. I’d always wanted to do this moving stripes design, and this was the day I felt like dealing with the striping tape. It came out so much better than I expected it would, though I’m a little disappointed it smeared a little with the top coat. I’d totally do it again.

I also want to take this time to share some birthday manis of years past. I realized at some point that I’ve been doing the annual cupcake mani for five years now; the annual cupcake mani predates wacie.com, even. I love doing little retrospectives like this; if I’ve learned anything from this, it’s that my cupcake painting skills have gotten only marginally better.

2012
Colors Unknown, but probably all Sinful Colors

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Look at this. I almost don’t even want to share this, but we all have to start somewhere, right? I do remember waiting practically all day for the dots to dry, and they still smudged when I put the top down. Not only was this before wacie.com came to be, but I think it was also before the days of quick-dry top coat. Those dark, dark days.

2013
Sally Hansen’s Mint Sprint, OPI’s Eurso Euro, P2’s French Kiss, Sally Hansen’s Hard to Get, Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Floppy. Hoppy. BUNNIES!

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These look more like mashed potatoes than cupcakes. This was my first birthday post on the blog. Going back and reading the post, about it, I completely forgot all that stuff happened! I do remember doing this mani in Boyfriend’s tiny Atlanta living space, trying not to bother him and his roommate with nail polish smell. I got acetone on his desk and ruined the varnish. I still feel bad about that.

2014
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Dawn Breaks and If You’re a Seascape, Indigo Bananas‘s Moonlight (Clair de Lune), P2’s French Kiss, American Apparel’s Neon Pink, Essie’s Fiji, Ciate’s Candy Floss

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That P2 polish finds its way into every birthday mani, doesn’t it? I loved this look a lot. I totally wore it to a fancy restaurant. Here’s the post!

2015
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Ocean Warmed by the Sun, Digital Nails’s Purple Reign, Nails Inc.’s Pudding Lane, Hot Topic’s Light Blue, Estee Lauder’s Black Plum

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This is last year’s mani, and the mani that celebrates the big 3-0. This was also one of the last photos I took on my phone before Drunk Me left it on top of the car and broke the camera forever. Good times!

Again, a huge thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday; I cherish all of you! Thank you so much for tolerating all of the birthday posts.

Pretty sure I bought all these polishes myself.

Manicure Monday: Bridal Gradient

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Welcome back to Manicure Monday! I’m excited about today’s look, because the first-ever Wacie Nail Company polish is part of it. I feel like I made this polish a lifetime ago! This is Bridal Bouquet over a gradient of China Glaze’s For Audrey and Orly’s Water Lily.

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Bridal Bouquet was the reason I started making polish. I’d had ideas for polishes and ordered customs from other indie makers, but this was an idea I wanted to do just for myself. I still remember how exciting it was to receive all the glitters and bottles and lacquer supplies in the mail; I still remember the satisfaction of shaking it together, brushing it onto a swatch wheel, and knowing I’d gotten it right. That was two years ago. It feels so good to come full circle.

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To keep the marriage motif, I went for a Tiffany-inspired gradient. For Audrey, everyone’s favorite Tiffany blue, had to be used. In testing, I tried Bridal Bouquet over many blues, but For Audrey was my favorite base for it. As an afterthought, I added Water Lily to create a little bit of dimension beneath the glitter. Though Water Lily is a deeper, brighter turquoise, the gradient is very subtle, barely even there. The glitter is such that the gradient is covered up and on display at the same time.

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The following photos were taken in direct sunlight. When the sunlight is harsh like this, the iridescent glitters get washed out. The gradient looks fantastic, though, and there is a bit of sparkle yet. I’m pretty happy with this look, overall. How long has it been since I last did a gradient? Much too long.

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Follow wacie.com for Bridal Bouquet release info, as well as other Wacie Nail Company polishes. China Glaze and Orly are available in stores nationwide.

I made this polish. Other polishes were purchased myself.

Manicure Monday: Fun With Microglitter

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Happy Tuesday, reader! It’s still Monday somewhere, so let’s have a look at this week’s mani. For this mani, I used Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Prototype Summer 1.1, Wacie Nail Company‘s Opulence, and Digital Nails‘s Tauping Mechanism. All nails are topped with a coat of Seche Vite top coat.

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I ended up pairing red and gold again. I can’t help it, they just go so well together! At first I wasn’t going to pair Summer 1.1 with anything, just because it already has so much going on. The colors are so vibrant and varied that it looks excellent on its own. When I started thinking about what nail art I would do, if any, I started looking at other options. I found Opulence in the polish box and went for it.

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The dotting was something I explored later on. I was pleased to discover microglitters actually do dot. In these photos, because of the macro, it looks weird because you can see the individual pieces of glitter and it makes it look less like a dot. My dots didn’t really line up the way I wanted them; they’re more linear than scattered on one nail, and that kind of bugs me. Overall, though, I’m happy with how uniform and neat they are. I try to avoid dotting because I can never keep my hands steady enough, but this came out really well, all things considered.

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Here are some sunlight photos! You’ll see how the glitter is brighter and shines better than in the studio. Opulence looks best here, too; you can see that’s actually a gold and silver mix and not just gold alone. The glitter really comes to life in this set.

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Tauping Mechanism was the last selection I made for this look. When I decided to do the dots, I knew I needed a nude as the base, something that would fade gently into the background and not detract from the dotting, and Tauping Mechanism does exactly that. It’s amazing for undies! It’s opaque in one coat and levels itself nicely. It’s also the only polish in this mani I hadn’t used before.

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BEGL Prototype Summer 1.1 was a one-off and no others were for sale; other BEGLs are for sale in their shop. Opulence will be available in the Wacie Nail Company shop shortly. Tauping Mechanism is for sale in the Digital Nails shop.

I bought these polishes myself, except for the one I made.

Manicure Monday: Confetti Disco

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Welcome back to Manicure Monday! Today’s mani is made up entirely of glitter, it’s kind of insane. Also, there’s some Wacie Nail Company restock info coming, so keep reading! For this look, I used Sinful Colors’s Queen of Beauty as the base, Digital Nails‘s Spectraflair top coat over that, and Wacie Nail Company’s Handful of Confetti for the glitter accents. All nails are topped with one coat of Seche Vite top coat. Also, these photos are taken outdoors in partly cloudy conditions.

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Queen of Beauty is a veteran in my collection; it must have been around 2008 when I bought it. When I started this manicure, I seriously doubted whether I’d have enough to get me through the whole mani. This polish is great because it’s so versatile; I don’t think it was intended to be worn as a full-coverage microglitter polish, because you can see some teeny-tiny gaps in coverage, but it works pretty well as one. It also looks great as a topper, which is how I’ve worn it in the past. Also, it’s shiny. It’s wicked shiny. Light bounces off this like you wouldn’t believe. You can see the glare in some of these photos. It’s the reason a lot of these photos are washed out and blurry. I love it.

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I got the Spectraflair top coat out because I wanted to take it just a step further. The chunky rainbow glitter has a slightly holo base, and I thought it would look weird with some of the nail being holographic and some not, so I thought the holo top coat would even it out. As it turned out, it was cloudy and you can barely see the holo effect in either polish. It’s pretty visible in the accent nails, but I think that’s because the accent glitter has Spectraflair in it as well. On the nails without it, you can barely tell. At least I know it’s there. It’s kind of a fun little secret.

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This set of photos were taken indoors in the studio; some with flash, and some without. This mani definitely looked better in the sun, but they always do.

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Handful of Confetti is making its debut today, and I’m really excited! I don’t want to say too much about it, because I have an entire post dedicated to it I’ll be posting on Wednesday. I love ridiculous glitter toppers, and I know they’re becoming passé in indie polish these days, but I still love them and I want to cling to them forever. I chose it as the accent for this mani because it couldn’t be more different from the base polish; every bit of glitter stands out from it, it adds tons of color, and it’s interesting to look at. I think it’s a pretty fun look.

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One more photo: here’s a shot of the bottle, just so you can see how empty it is. I haven’t come this close to finishing a bottle (of polish) in years.

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Queen of Beauty and other Sinful Colors are sold nationwide; mine is from Walgreens. Digital Nails polishes, as well as their Spectraflair top coat, are available from their etsy shop. Handful of Confetti will release Wednesday, February 24, at 2 PM EST; watch this space for more information.

I bought two of these polishes myself; I made one.

Manicure Monday: Virgo Supercluster

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Happy Monday again, reader! This week’s Manicure Monday is also a Wacie Nail Company release! One of the first polishes I ever made found itself in my polish queue, and it felt appropriate to do a mani with it and a release at the same time. This polish is called Virgo Supercluster, and I’m wearing it at three coats without top coat. Photos were taken both indoors and outdoors in direct sunlight.

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So if you’re a longtime reader of wacie.com, you’ll might remember a Wacie Wednesday feature, when I wore a new prototype I made every week. Virgo Supercluster was one of the first Wacies to make their debut there, so check out that post as well. In that post, you can see what this polish looks like with top coat; this week I decided not to use top coat to capture its gritty textured finish. Whether you choose to wear top coat or not, this polish is still insanely sparkly, and even without top coat, it does still have some gloss.

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Every time I write a post like this, I’m just so excited. I’m not only writing a blog post about a nail polish, but I’m bringing a new polish into the world. I’m putting a part of myself out there. And, should it ever make its way into someone else’s hands, I hope they love it as much as I do.

 

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Though most of the photos I took were indoors, I did get out for a bit this afternoon to take some in the sun. This polish absolutely looks best in the sunshine, because you can see every bit of the holo glitter shine. Indoors, it’s still pretty, but it’s muted. In the sun, the colors are brighter and richer, and just make the polish. I think the texture pops more out there, too.

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Virgo Supercluster is available from the Wacie Nail Company etsy shop. My bow is from Daily Charme.

I made this polish.