The Lacquer Ring Presents: One Stroke Flowers

Purchased By Shelby Lou

I'm a late sharing this post for The Lacquer Ring today. I've been super-sick with the flu all week. This is the second time this year, stupid germy hospital. When I went back to work I wore a mask whenever I talked to patient's and families to keep the germs to myself, which is hot and annoying haha. Hubby is sick now though, he went to the doctor yesterday and had a fever of 102 along with bronchitis. Sorry!

This week's prompt for The Lacquer Ring is One Stroke Flowers. Not gonna lie, I've been dreading the prompt and planned on having at least a few days to practice and try out this new-to-me technique. Without time on my side though, I spent one evening messing around and just went for it. My base polish is Pahlish Imprinted Upon Your Stars, a group custom for Pahlish Lovers. I wore this for a few days by itself and I'm in love. It is such a gorgeous shade of periwinkle with holo and other shimmahs!

Shelby Lou Nails with The Lacquer Ring
One-Stroke Flowers
Pahlish Imprinted Upon Your Stars
Acrylic Paint, Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art Pen in Black
without flash

For my flowers I started by watching some tutorials online. The ones I found the most helpful were from Lucy's Stash--her artwork is gorgeous! I used acrylic paint in pink and off-white for my flowers. I didn't have any of the correct kinds of brushes around unfortunately, so I ended up using a clean-up brush one that was too skinny to really give this a proper go. So I did my flowers (please don't try to image that process, ugh). I used the end of the brush to dot the centers of the flowers in pink and topcoated. Then I used a Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art pen in black to outline everything and add a few more dots, then did one final coat of topcoat.

Shelby Lou Nails with The Lacquer Ring
One-Stroke Flowers
Pahlish Imprinted Upon Your Stars
Acrylic Paint, Sally Hansen I Heart Nail Art Pen in Black
with flash

So, not the best, but not too bad for a first attempt! I'm glad I still made myself do this even though it's late. It's important to keep challenging myself at this nail art thing. Anyone else tried these flowers? Not sure I'm going to do these again. They do make me want to try The Lacquerologist's color splash floral nails though! I'm much better at bold, graphic designs.

Have you loved your cuticles today?

An InLinkz Link-up

Zoya Delight for Spring 2015: The Metallics

Press Sample 

Finally! Today I have the rest of this year's Zoya collection for Spring: Delight. You can see the other three cremes in this collection from a previous blog post by clicking here. All of these metallics had a similar formula. I did three coats for all of my swatches, a teeny bit thicker than I tend to or I probably would have done four thin coats. They have a tendency to steak, make sure you leave plenty of time between coats and paint evenly.

First I have Daisy, described by Zoya as a "refreshing lemon meringue yellow metallic with an energizing turquoise metallic flash." This color is... yellow. Even the adorable teeny blue rhinestone bows cannot make this color look good on me (to see it on someone I think it does look good on, click here). The turquoise flash got lost for me unless I caught my nails at the right angle. It does look really shimmery but almost in a frosty way.

Shelby Lou Nails
Zoya Daisy
without flash

Shelby Lou Nails
Zoya Daisy
with flash

Rayne is described as a "spring blue metallic with an energizing turquoise metallic flash." Of course this blue is my favorite of the bunch! It really is metallic and the shimmer looks amazing. Look at that shine in the picture with flash!

Shelby Lou Nails
Zoya Rayne
without flash

Shelby Lou Nails
Zoya Rayne
with flash

Lastly is Leslie (hehe, I like how that rhymes), described as a "soft spring lavender metallic with an energizing turquoise metallic flash." The shimmer is more noticeable in Leslie but I think it does just look like a shimmer rather than a metallic polish. Still pretty!

Shelby Lou Nails
Zoya Leslie
without flash

Shelby Lou Nails
Zoya Leslie
with flash

You can purchase these through Zoya's website linked below! Perhaps someone would like these for a wedding or shower they have to attend this summer? If you don't want to be too flashy but have something fun on.

Featured Products:
Zoya Nail Polish

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Stamping Saturday: Mermaid Nails

Purchased By Shelby Lou 

For today's Stamping Saturday I have used a new-to-me indie brand, Baroness X, for my inspiration! This lovely mermaid-y polish is Baroness X Mermaid Madness. This is everything I wanted Deborah Lippmann Mermaid Dream and all the dupes to be.

Shelby Lou Nails
Baroness X - Mermaid Madness
without flash

Mermaid Madness is described as "a turquoise shimmer and glitter nail polish." The shimmery base has gold, teal, navy, and gold metallic and holographic glitters along with metallic turquoise dots. With all the stuff going on in this polish I totally expected goop. But no! Buttery formula, great glitter spread. I did three easy coats for full coverage. It's not even that the formula was good, it was noticeably awesome.

Shelby Lou Nails
Baroness X - Mermaid Madness
with flash

Mermaid Madness is so shiny and sparkly! It was like wearing molten metallic turquoise on my nails. Absolutely magical. 

Shelby Lou Nails
Stamping Saturday
Baroness X -Mermaid Madness
MoYou London Sailor 05 & Rica Blackout
without flash

Of course I had to stamp this puppy with some mermaid-y scales. I used an image from MoYou London Sailor 05 stamped with Rica Blackout. I'm not totally happy with my image placement. I think it makes my nails look stumpy and weird curved downwards at the end. Ah well, I'll try a different placement next time. Sailor 05 is easily one of my favorite and most-used plates.

Shelby Lou Nails
Stamping Saturday
Baroness X -Mermaid Madness
MoYou London Sailor 05 & Rica Blackout
without flash

I wish I could have done Mermaid Madness more justice! Alas, my photography skills are limited. Has anyone else tried Baroness X? I have some of her new neon thermal flakie jellies to show at some point, too!

Featured Products:
Baroness X

Have you loved your cuticles today?

An InLinkz Link-up

get the InLinkz code

HPB Presents: A Beachin' Hump Day HARE

Purchased By Shelby Lou 

Today's post is pulling double duty as both my link-up with the Hobby Polish Bloggers and my Hump Day HARE post! I feel like all I'm doing are beachy nails lately. Seriously, I have another post coming up which will prove it later this week. On to today's the nails!

Today's mani was to be beach-themed for the Hobby Polish Bloggers. I can't get enough teal and gold lately either, so I went with Hare Polish Cabin Fever Fenzy, a teal jeally filled with all kinds of metallic flakies and shimmer. I stamped it with MoYou London Sailor 05 and Essie Good As Gold. I love the Essie Mirror Metallics for stamping, I highly recommend grabbing them if you love to stamp.

Shelby Lou Nails
Hobby Polish Bloggers Presents: A Beachin' Hump Day HARE
Hare Polish Cabin Fever Fenzy
MoYou London Sailor 05 & Essie Good As Gold
without flash

Shelby Lou Nails
Hobby Polish Bloggers Presents: A Beachin' Hump Day HARE
Hare Polish Cabin Fever Fenzy
MoYou London Sailor 05 & Essie Good As Gold
with flash

Shelby Lou Nails
Hobby Polish Bloggers Presents: A Beachin' Hump Day HARE
Hare Polish Cabin Fever Fenzy
MoYou London Sailor 05 & Essie Good As Gold
with flash

Gah, Cabin Fever Frenzy is so squishy! I used three coats and resisted adding a fourth since I was stamping it anyway. Make sure you check out the other manis from the Hobby Polish Bloggers for our monthly link-up party!

Have you loved your cuticles today?

An InLinkz Link-up

Guest Post from @swatchbucket

I have a guest post today from one of my nail buds, Samantha! We met through mutual indie nail loves, and we've been enabling each other ever since. Samantha "microblogs" on instagram (@swatchbucket) and I highly recommend following her lovely nails. You can always count on amazing swatches of jellies, crellies, and holos from this girl. And how does she keep them so durn long?! She must be a witch. Let's see what she has for us today!

~~~~~~~~~~

Hello, reader! I am Samantha of @swatchbucket on Instagram, and I am your guest blogger for Shelby today! She and I have been polish buddies for a good while now, and she's been a witness to my microblogging development over the past year. Shelby is such a lovely and encouraging person, and holy crap is she a (fabulously) ruthless enabler! She and I share a lot of polish loves. As a result of this, she has made me more HARE Polish crazed, and she is also to be blamed for my latest polish brand obsession, Renaissance Cosmetics. In exchange, I have tried to get her hooked on WingDust polishes. All three of these brands make absolutely stunning crelly glitter polishes, and since I know that she and I love a good crelly, I have decided to use such along with an accent nail. 

I started this mani off with two coats of Serumn No5 Ho No! and smoothed it out with two coats of KBShimmer Clearly on Top. This grey crelly is absolutely packed with metallic blue, red, yellow, and matte white microglitters and small circle glitters. The formula is lovely and almost completely opaque in one coat. The base also has blue shimmer that can look pink in some lights. The shimmer is much more prevalent in the bottle and on the nail without top coat. If you like textured polishes, I highly recommend not putting a top coat on this polish, because the blue/pink shimmer looks absolutely stunning as a frosty matte finish. With top coat, the shimmer provides a more subtle yet sparkly effect. You don't want Ho No! for the shimmer and glitter mix alone, though. You NEED it because it looks good with the light on AND off! Ho No! is one of Serum No5's many famous glow in the dark polishes. This one glows blue (forgive the poo glow in the dark shot further down). 

Things have to look jank before they look swank.

The glow in the dark effect looked especially really cool with my accent nail. After I did two coats of Ho No!, I topped it with KBShimmer Clearly on Top top coat and let it dry for about 30 minutes just to make sure it would hold up against nail vinyls. I also applied a layer of Ellagee's Lickity Split liquid latex around my nail to make clean up easier. Once the latex was dry, I applied an Up Your Nail Moroccan vinyl guide, snipped it to make it hug and adhere to my nail better (I have really curved nails), and applied a layer of Enchanted Polish December 2014 (blue holo full of blue glass fleck) on the bottom half of the nail and February 2015 (tomato red holo) on the upper half. I then sponged on another layer of the polishes and blended them by using a cosmetic sponge. Once I was satisfied with how it looked, I immediately pulled the vinyl guide off with tweezers and pulled off the liquid latex before topping it off with another layer of KBShimmer Clearly on Top.  

#swankshot

Glow shot! 

I'm so used to microblogging, so this was definitely a different experience for me. Thank you guys for having me! All shots were taken in natural lighting with my Samsung Galaxy S3. I *love* how this mani turned out, and the customers I dealt with at work really loved it too.

Polishes used

KBShimmer Basic Training

Serum No5 Ho No!

Enchanted Polish December 2014

Echanted Polish February 2015

KBShimmer Clearly on Top

Products used

Ellagee Lickity Split liquid latex

Up Your Nail Moroccan vinyl guides

cosmetic sponge

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Thank you so much got such an awesome post, Samantha! Didn't she do great? Make sure you check out @swatchbucket on instagram, I know you'll like what you see and give her a follow!

Have you loved your cuticles today?

The Lacquer Ring: Turquoise Shimmer

Purchased By Shelby Lou 

I have two exciting things to share in this post. Firstly, today is my fourth wedding anniversary, yay! I love being married, and hubby and I are very content with our furbabies and home projects. Four seems like so little to me since we have really been together for 9 years. Well, we dated when we were 18, broke up at 19, and got back together at 20... yeah so 9 years. We are really lucky to have continued to grow together in the same direction. We are still working towards that house in the country. My parents have the land all ready for us and everything haha!

Secondly, this is my first post as part of The Lacquer Ring. The Lacquer Ring is a group of nail bloggers who do themed posts twice per month. I am honored to be joining all of these girls!

Today's prompt is based around a color: Turquoise Shimmer. Luckily I just got my order of Octopus Party Nail Lacquer I snagged in the last restock and instantly knew I must use Piece of Caicos. Piece of Caicos is a turquoise holographic polish with a smattering of subtle blue-green flakies. I actually remembered to take a picture of the base alone this time, too.

Shelby Lou Nails
Octopus Party Nail Lacquer
Piece of Caicos
without flash

Shelby Lou Nails
Octopus Party Nail Lacquer
Piece of Caicos
with flash

And since I can't leave anything alone now... I decided to try adding sea foam on top. I had seen nails like this somewhere on The Internet and have read how to do them several times, but of course I can't find a tutorial that even looks close to what I did.

Shelby Lou Nails
Turquoise Seafoam

I started by doing the first few steps of a watermarble: Drop 3-4 drops of China Glaze White Out into the cup of water, let them spread, and then spray the polish with perfume 2-3 times. I used a stamper and dunked that in the cup instead of my finger and then transferred the image onto my nails like a stamp. I am very comfortable with stamping so this was easier than dunking my finger... with which I have yet to be successful.

Shelby Lou Nails
Turquoise Seafoam

I added the starfish using Zoya Wendy and MoYou London Doodles 07. I wish I had stamped a bunch of things from that plate on my nails before adding the seafoam, but that's for next time!

Shelby Lou Nails
Turquoise Seafoam

I'm so glad I challenged myself with these nails, I love them!  Make sure you check out the other posts this week below.

Have you loved your cuticles today?

An InLinkz Link-up

Mani Mash-Up: Scofflaw & Zoya

Purchased By Shelby Lou (Scofflaw)
Press Sample (Zoya)

I thought I'd share this mani mash-up I wore last Saturday for a nail get-together with my nail friends Joy (IG@joyrserio) and Meghan (Will Paint Nails For Food & Renaissance Cosmetics). We hung around the trendy Elmwood Village in Buffalo and had some great nail polish chat, noms, and shopping times. And it was perfectly gorgeous and sunny all day! Meghan also shared some of her new microglitter collection with us, you can check out a swatch and a macro of Selene on my instagram. The collection releases this Sunday at 12pm EST!

The mani I wore was simple but fun... and it was what I happened to be wearing from earlier in the week haha. On my thumb, index, and middle fingers I wore Scofflaw Nail Varnish Velocipedestrienne--that was still hard to type even with 6 years of French in grade school. On my ring and pinky I wore Zoya Arlo.

Shelby Lou Nails
Scofflaw Nail Varnish Velocipedestrienne
Zoya Arlo
without flash

I know I have been very public about my love-hate relationship with textured polish. I actually found I was able to wear Arlo with one coat of topcoat, which took away the worst of the sand-papery texture I dislike. I think wearing it on only two fingers also helped. I only freaked out a couple times over four days when filing some papers at work haha. I got great wear from both of these polishes. I credit Pretty & Polished's base and topcoat, they work wonders for me.

Shelby Lou Nails
Scofflaw Nail Varnish Velocipedestrienne
Zoya Arlo
without flash

Here is the official mani picture of the day! I had a ton of fun with these two ladies.

Clockwise from right:
Will Paint Nails For Food
IG@joyrserio
Shelby Lou Nails

Products: 
Scofflaw Nail Varnish
Zoya Nail Polish

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Hump Day HARE: Pretty When I Cry

Purchased By Shelby Lou 

I am feeling so lazy about blogging lately! I have a vacation starting this Friday, hopefully I'll get some things done to share then. I've still got three spring Zoyas and twelve summer ones staring me down....

Today's Hump Day HARE is one of the newest ones called Pretty When I Cry, inspired by Lana Del Rey. This is part of a limited edition release and while they are sold out in the Etsy shop, I do believe some stockists will be receiving some.

Pretty When I Cry is described as "a sandy beige jelly with metallic silver flakes (that come off sort of golden) and iridescent blue mini flakes and shimmer." The shimmer is a bit hidden in most lights (and my swatches) but it is easy to catch the blue flash in the sun!

Shelby Lou Nails
Hump Day HARE
Hare Polish - Pretty When I Cry
without flash

Loving this gorgeous nude, might be one of my go-tos. I used four thin coats for full opacity, it does not feel thick on my nails at all. If you don't mind VNL two or three would be just fine. The flakes are magical and spread perfectly.

Shelby Lou Nails
Hump Day HARE
Hare Polish - Pretty When I Cry
with flash

I am so feeling nudes in the last year or so. Make sure you check out my instagram for a macro of this lovely, too! Will any of you be stalking this shade?

Have you loved your cuticles today?