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

Octopus Party Nail Lacquer Baroque-n Record

Purchased By Shelby Lou 

Have I mentioned how sick of the weather I am yet? I saw this in a post on From Polish With Love and wanted to share. It sums up my feelings exactly.

Have y'all heard of Octopus Party Nail Lacquer (OPNL) yet? I don't own many, but the ones I have I love. This is Baroque-n Record, described by the maker as "an icy-teal linear holographic, with strong emerald undertones and golden shimmer." So much shimmer! I shared a macro earlier this week on my instagram if you are interested as well. This polish applied so easily and was practically no clean-up for me.

I wanted to do something bold with black for this polish, so I broke out the tribal sheet from my KBShimmer Vinyl Nail Decals. I haven't ever just stuck the decals right on my nails and left them, I'm so glad I did though! I cut down the one of the chevrons for my teeny pinky. I used some KBShimmer Clearly On Top over the whole mani and the vinyls stayed on just perfectly. I have a few photos with and without flash for you.

Shelby Lou Nails
Octopus Party Nail Lacquer Baroque-n Record
KBShimmer Tribal Vinyl Nail Decals
Without Flash

Shelby Lou Nails
Octopus Party Nail Lacquer Baroque-n Record
KBShimmer Tribal Vinyl Nail Decals
WithFlash

I'm so glad to have my square nails back! The flash photos make my skin look really red, just focus on the holo and shimmer. I love how much of a chameleon this polish is with the silver, blue, gold, and green in it. OPNL is sold out right now, make sure you follow them for restock news. The maker, Dave, has been doing some amazing collaborations with other indies and is really making a name for himself, I can't wait for more!

Shelby Lou Nails
Octopus Party Nail Lacquer Baroque-n Record
KBShimmer Tribal Vinyl Nail Decals
With Flash

Products:
OPNL
KBShimmer

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Octopus Party Nail Lacquer: Body Electric & Embellishments

Purchased By Shelby Lou 

Western New York is just coming out of another big winter weather weekend. I was on stand-by for any sheltering needs with the Red Cross, luckily our services were not needed! I'm a little bummed at work though. I am working with a few families at work who have had to make the decision to make their loved one comfort care. Sometimes it's an easy decision and it happens quickly, there have been a couple in the past week though that have needed quite a bit of extra time to come around to it. Today was a tough day especially, so I decided to come home and immerse myself in some stud placement I've been wanting to do.

I just ordered a couple bottles of Octopus Party Nail Lacquer (or OPNL) and couldn't wait to get this nude beauty on--Body Electric. Dave, the maker (and sweetie!), describes this as "a champagne lacquer with salmon undertones, strong golden shimmer, and a subtle linear holographic flare." That description is poetry. I love this so much I just want to freak out and I have no idea how to put it in words. So I have a lot of pictures.

Octopus Party Nail Lacquer
Body Electric
No Flash

Anyways, I messed around with my assortment of gold studs and finally pulled out the metallic caviar beads I bought a billion years ago but had not messed with yet (soooo tiny....). I think I came up with something quite beautiful and Indian inspired--which is always winning with me. I think I must have been Indian in a past life, I just think their art (dress, dance, art, architecture, etc) is some of the most beautiful I've ever seen. I even have two henna-inspired tattoos I designed ;-)

Octopus Party Nail Lacquer
Body Electric
With Flash

I thought Body Electric was gorgeous on its own, these studs just take me right over the edge! I wore Body Electric alone to work and it kept my interest all day, all the shimmer and holo and gold metallic flashes. I have some more OPNL that I'm hoping to share soon. Has anyone else tried this amazing brand yet? What do you think of my stud placement?

Products:
Octopus Party Nail Lacquer

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Octopus Party Nail Lacquer Duo: Glow For The Gold & Gold Vibrations

Purchased By Shelby Lou

Oh blogging, I always have such good intentions...

Before we check out the polish, go enter the mega facebook-only giveaway I am participating in going on right now. You could win $75, $90, or $165 cold hard cash to spend on the polish of your choice! Check out my post here for more information and to enter the giveaway. Make sure you check out some of the other lovely bloggers you may have been missing out on as well.

Today's polish is a new-to-me brand: Octopus Party Nail Lacquer, or OPNL. OPNL is a newer indie out there who is killin' it as far as I am concerned. I have always read good things about the brand and had been envying this gold duo for quite some time. One of my friends was raving about it and it was finally all over--I ran to buy the last duo!

Octopus Party Nail Lacquer
Gold Duo
Glow For The Gold & Gold Vibrations

OPNL's gold duo comes in two 7ml bottles and the cutest little bag printed with the OPNL logo. I love the adorable packaging and fabric. What can I say? Indies win my heart for this very reason, a package that feels like a present! And then there is the polish...

Octopus Party Nail Lacquer
Gold Duo
Glow For The Gold & Gold Vibrations

Gold Vibrations is a gold holographic polish, somewhere between yellow-gold and antique gold. The formula is thin and has to be built up. I have four thin coats shown in my swatch, but it did not feel thick on my nail. While it is thin I did not have any issues with pooling or dragging when I built up my coats. There is an air bubble on my middle finger, that is from my topcoat (a crummy one I am trying to just use up, ugh).

Glow For The Gold is a yellow-gold glitter bomb with metallic and holographic glitters. Sparkle-tastic gold rainbows! I used two coats over two coats of Gold Vibrations. Very nice glitter formula, spreads well but doesn't pool or clump. I can't wait to try this in a gradient!

Overall Octopus Party Nail Lacquer has made a great first impression on me. Both of the golds are staples that I can see using in nail art and alone, especially that gold holo for a no-clean-up mani when I'm in a rush. I am also really pleased with how well the yellow looks on my skintone! Additionally, because I like to support nice people, I have only ever heard good things about the maker, Dave, and he enclosed a little note about me getting the last duo--how sweet!

Has anyone else out there tried Octopus Party Nail Lacquer yet? Check out OPNL's facebook and instagram for sneak-peeks of the Halloween Collection, releasing this Friday (9/26)! I already have a couple on my wishlist ;-)

Products:
Octopus Party Nail Lacquer on Etsy

Have you loved your cuticles today?