Long Overdue LVX First Impressions and Review

Hello polish lovers!

Sorry for the long absence but I was involved in some pretty intense renovations...they kind of tried to destroy my nails so they are shorter than I like them.

As the title says, this is a long overdue first impressions and review of LVX polishes.  I was at Marshalls one day and found some of these polishes, all from last year's Spring and Summer lines.  At first I only bought 2 because I had never found the brand to buy in store before and I didn't know what the quality was like.  I also don't think I could pay $16 for a single polish....it would have to be pretty damn amazing and last more than a week with no chipping for me to even think about it.  Fortunately the ones I found at Marshalls were only $7 which is much more do-able for me.  The first 2 I got were Celeste and Viridian.  (WARNING:  These photo's were taken months ago when my dominant hand was not usable so the clean up is not as good as normal, also please excuse the awkward hand position...really difficult for me to photograph my left hand.)

Celeste is a gorgeous soft grey'd out light blue...opaque in 2 coats and lasted on me for 4 days before it began to chip.  This was the first I tried and made me go back to Marshalls for as many other colours I could find.

Viridian, sorry the sunshine kind of washed it out and made it much brighter than it is IRL, this is a gorgeous medium toned green, the kind that my camera kind of looks at and cries about, could not get a colour accurate photo to save my life.  This was also opaque in 2 coats.

On my next trip to Marshalls I found Modena, Citrine, Azalea, Chambord and Indigo Bleu.

Azalea, pretty pink based lilac, similar to Pantone's Radiant Orchid colour of the year.  This had the best formula of the great formula's and was opaque in 1 coat.

Chambord is a deep raspberry colour, opaque in 2 coats and very pigmented.

Citrine is the only one of the bunch with a weak formula but it is a yellow...a mustard-y yellow but yellow none the less.  This was 3 coats to become opaque but applied smoothly like all the other colours.

Indigo Bleu was just as pigmented as the other colours but stained quite badly on removal.  You have to make sure not to re-use your cotton round or you will never get it off your cuticles.  The gorgeous purple/blue depending on lighting is totally work the extra mess though.  This is also 2 coats.

Modena is the last swatch I have for you.  An amazing bright poppy red.  2 coats, clean up was difficult, this one stains worse than Indigo Bleu, and not just your cuticles but nails too.  Definitely need to double up on base coat before I use this one again, but sooo pretty, and I am not a lover of reds.

I was later able to find Fantom, a white, and Cerulean, a royal blue at Winners, but have not swatched these yet.

Overall I was incredibly impressed with the quality and pigmentation of these polishes and hope that I manage to find more on other outings.

That is all for today.

Until next time, polish happy!

Lucky 13 Lacquer Bad Wolf, swatches and review

Hello polish lovers!

Today I have a short post about a polish I purchased over the summer, yet haven't had a chance to talk about much; Lucky 13 Lacquer's Bad Wolf.

Bad Wolf, 3 coats, no undies on pointer and middle, 2 coats over Wet n' Wild Ebony Hates Chris, ring and baby.

I must start by saying that I am a huge Who-vian and cannot tell you how many times I have watched Doctor Who since they brought the series back. I have never sat down and watched the original series but may in the future, all I ever saw were random disjointed episodes while I was young. Rose has always been one of my favourite companions and I loved her story arch with both Nine and Ten.  I don't know if any of you are fans but let me tell you, you don't have to be a Doctor Who fan to love this polish.

Bad Wolf is a black jelly with scattered holographic particles. I did 3 coats on my pointer and middle fingers and you can see that there is no visible nail line, but you do still have nail colour coming through. You can make it opaque on its own in 4 or 5 coats or do as I have done on 2 fingers and layer it over a black polish.  In my case I used Wet n' Wild's Ebony Hates Chris, which was opaque in one coat and provided a good base for Bad Wolf.  My photos really don't do this polish enough justice, the rainbow in the holographic particles is much more pronounced than it looks in my pictures.

Sunlight, pinky and ring with undies, middle and pointer without

I will give you a bottle shot.

You can see the colours slightly better here.

That is all for today.  I will be back tomorrow evening with my next theme in the Falling For Nail Art Challenge.

Until then, polish happy!

Lucky 13 Lacquer, No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me, swatches and review

Told you I would be back, fellow polish lovers!

I have a really special treat today.  When I was in uni one of my roommates, Laura, made me watch this little sci-fi fantasy show that wasn't even on for one full season.  That show was Firefly and quickly became one of my favourite shows(I cannot tell you how many times I have re-watched the DVD's and Serenity), along with Veronica Mars and Doctor Who, two others I attribute my fandom to Laura.  Firefly also was the beginning of my love of  Nathan Fillion, which will never die and continues in my love of Castle, but that is another post for another day.

Today I am talking about Firefly and a polish inspired by River Tam, one of my favourite characters from the show, played by Summer Glau.  No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me is from Lucky 13 Lacquer's Ballad of Serenity collection and can be found here.  I was lucky enough to pick this up during her 15% off lady inspired lacquers sale that she had in August(look forward to future posts featuring Bad Wolf and Golden Snitch).

No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me, two coats, one coat Seche Vite, artificial light

Love, love, love, love, love this polish!  So gorgeous! So much depth! So much sparkle! my camera really couldn't handle the sparkle.  The above is two coats only, the polish is thick, but workable, no problem getting the glitter out or distributed on the nail. It's a minty green shimmer base with with tiny silver and fuchsia glitter with larger silver and iridescent fuchsia hex glitters.  This polish is awesome!  It wore like iron on me and I wore it for FOUR days!  FOUR DAYS!  I don't wear any polish for four days! Usually by the second day one nail(usually my wonky thumb nail)has chipped and its all over, but not this polish.

No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me, two coats, two coats SV, sunlight

This polish was also a lot smoother than I was expecting, most glitters that I am used to are so rough you can't even think about top coating them without specialty top coats, which I do not have.  This polish did slightly eat the first coat of SV, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting, and the second coat stayed very smooth and shiny.

No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me, bottle shot

I couldn't leave you without a shot of the bottle and all of its gorgeousness.  I really cannot wait to try Golden Snitch and see if the wear time is comparable for me.  Please remember that having a polish last for four days is something that is pretty much unheard of on my nails so someone else's wear time could be much longer than mine was.

Until next time, polish happy!

Essie, For the Twill of It Collection, swatches and review

Hello polish lovers!
Today I have a review of several of Essie's For the Twill of It, fall collection.  I have already swatched For the Twill of it in my comparison with Peace & Love & OPI in a previous post so today I have the three other colours that I got in my mini's cube.  First, The Lace is On.

Two coats The Lace is On, no top coat

The Lace is On is a nice fuchsia leaning towards magenta that is slightly streaky on the first coat but is a solid two coat-er.  The colour is not unique as I am sure I have a Rimmel colour that if not exact is very close to this.  The formula is good, opaque in two coats and only slight brush strokes are visible.

Second, Cashmere Bathrobe.

Two coats Cashmere Bathrobe, no top coat

 I love this polish! Could be opaque in one coat but I did two thin coats because I am like that and I love building up of the sparkles.  And speaking of the sparkles, Oh My Glob! so subtle but so totally there, I love it(sorry for repeating myself but this is definitely my favourite of the collection).  Perfect for fall, a deep charcoal base with a subtle silver shimmer fleck.

Last, but not least, Vested Interest.

Two coats Vested Interest, no top coat.

If I didn't love Cashmere Bathrobe to the depths of my perfect grey hungry soul, Vested Interest would be my favourite, but still comes in a solid number two in my books.  This is a unique colour, one that I do not already have in my collection, it is a greyed out green teal cream that is streaky on the first coat but totally opaque on the second.  My camera could not properly capture the depth of this polish and I had to try to correct through editing, which is why my fingers look like they belong to a ghost.

Since Vested Interest is the last of the polishes that I swatched that day I decided to use them for the base in this mani:

Vested Interest with Pueen lace stamping

This picture shows the true colour slightly better than the above.  You must be getting tired of the Pueen stamps but I can tell you that I never will.  They are all lovely and stamp very well.  The white in this is Konad stamping polish(from the kit I found at Winners, which came with white and black).  It works very well and is opaque even on dark colours.

I received some amazing nail mail yesterday and today as the Lucky 13 Laquer I bought arrived(review coming soon) as well as three more plates I purchased from Messy Mansion's Etsy page.  Cannot wait to get all that gorgeous on my nails.

Until next time, polish happy!