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?