BBP - December Birthstone Duo Swatches and Review

*Press Samples* Today I have swatches of these beauties from Bad Bitch Polish. I'm a sucker for anything blue so you know I loved these. The December birthstone duo from BBP consists of a jelly and a holo just like all the others. December has 2 stones, either Tanzanite or Turquoise so Britt did a color for each stone.

Turquoise Meteor - is described as a deep dark turquoise jelly polish with a variety of shapes and shades of turquoise glitters and flakies. Swatch was 2 coats with top coat. Formula was excellent as usual, it's smooth, it stays put, not runny, great glitter to base ratio, dries down smooth and shiny. It did not stain my skin or nails. And it looks awesome matted with a matte top coat.

Cerulean Sky - described as a sky blue linear holo. Swatch is 2 coats with topcoat. Formula for this one is not as opaque as BBP's usual holos but still very nice. Easy to apply, not streaky, a little thin but not too runny. Dries to a shiny finish on it's own, but I always use topcoat to help it dry faster.

The December Birthstone Duo will be available tomorrow at www.badbitchpolish.com. Britt will also be having huge Black Friday sale, the entire store will be 50% off, no codes needed. There will also be free shipping with domestic orders of $50+ and international orders of $100+. The Black Friday exclusive polish will be excluded from the sale. Sale starts tomorrow and ends Monday. Check out her  FB fan group for more info. I received these polishes as press samples in exchange for photos and an honest review. 

Rose Stamping with China Glaze and Moonflower Polish

Hey everybody! Today's post is just some simple nail art using China Glaze Cabin Fever and Moonflower Polish Cozy Sweaters. I'm trying to get back into blogging at least twice a week, painting my nails every other day, and making video tutorials once a week. That also includes working through my ginormous stash of nail polishes, most of which are untried.

For this look I went with China Glaze Cabin Fever, which I've owned since it came out in...2015. Yeesh, 2 years...where has the time gone? Cabin Fever is a wine-red-gold multichrome. It's got a very thin formula and definitely needs 3 coats for opacity. You have to be careful with the brush strokes as well.

To finish off the look I used Moonflower Polish Cozy Sweaters, a dark gunmetal gray holo stamping polish with golden shimmer. I used a rose image from MoYou London Pro 08 stamping plate. And that's it, easy, simple, and pretty for fall.

Moonflower Polish is my own brand of 5 free handcrafted nail polish for stamping, nail art, and regular wear, available at www.moonflowerpolish.com and www.nail-artisan.co.uk. You can find Moonflower Polish on IG @moonflowerpolish (and don't forget to use #moonflowerpolish so I can repost your pics). On FB: @moonflowerpolish and the fan group Painted Moonflowers.

Glow in the Dark Marble Stone Nail Art

Moonflower Polish Noche

Hey guys! I've got more nail art today. I was sent the Glow in the Dark collection from INM Nails a few months ago and I really wanted to do something cool with them. I also recently purchased the super cool Dixie Plates Marbled 01 stamping plate and it occurred to me that some glow in the dark marbled stone nails would be interesting.

INM Nails Angler - glow in the dark polish

 To start out I painted a white base on my nails. Next I created a "watercolor" effect with INM Nails Angler and Foxfire glow in the dark polishes. As I mentioned in my review for these found here, these polishes have a thin, jelly like consistency that made them perfect for this technique. Usually I would create this sort of effect with a sponge or by smooshing the colors on my nails with a stamper. However, because these colors are thin, they behaved a lot like real watercolors, so all I had to do was place drops of color on my nails and gently spread them around with the brush tip, so they sorta blend. Let them dry and repeat 3 times. The final result is not thick at all, since I'm not plopping on a bunch of polish, just a bit. Top coat and wait for it to dry.

Moonflower Polish Silver

Next step was to stamp an image from the Dixie Marbled 01 plate, using Moonflower Polish Silver, and then layer over that another image from the same plate with Noche. (It just occurred to me that it would have also looked cool to do the stamping in between the layers of the glow in the dark jellies, since they are translucent, it would have added more depth. Let's add that to the "to do" list.) Final step was Out the Door topcoat and clean up.

Due to the white base, the glow was really intense! If one treats the INM Glow in the Dark polishes like jellies instead of plain sheer polishes, the nail art options expand. You can have glow in the dark leadlighting, gradients, watercolor backgrounds like these...I dunno! I just loved the final result. The Dixie plate was also a breeze to use, I'll definitely be doing more designs with it. Check out my video tutorial below to see exactly how I created this look.

Video Tutorial:

https://youtu.be/mPTinagRo_0

The INM Nails Glow in the Dark collection is available right now for $3 at www.inmnails.com. You can find INM on social media on Instagram and Facebook and with the hashtags #inmnails and #inm. I received the polishes as press samples in exchange for a review.

Dixie Plates Marbled 01 was purchased with a blogger discount from Lantern and Wren. Use my link here for a 10% discount on your purchase, only for 1st time buyers, discount applied at checkout. Moonflower Polish is my own brand of 5 free handcrafted nail polish for stamping, nail art, and regular wear, available at www.moonflowerpolish.com and www.nail-artisan.co.uk. Noche is also available at Lantern and Wren.

BBP - November Duo Swatches and Review

OMG you guys...two posts in 1 week! Can you believe it? Today I have swatches and a review on the November Duo from indie polish brand Bad Bitch Polish. All year long BBP has been coming out with these gorgeous jelly glitter and holo duos and I feel so blessed that I've been able to feature a few of them here in this blog. For November Britt has made one of my favorite duos to date. Check out below for why I liked this one so much.

Citrine Shimmer

LED lights

Ottlite only

LED lights

Guys...my fingers are super oily in these shots, I apologize for that. When I swatched these a few weeks ago my fingers where super dry and flaky, I had to load up on the cuticle oil. Anyway, Citrine Shimmer is a gorgeously squishy jelly glitter polish with scattered holo flakies in an citrine orange base. It's super pretty and unique to my collection. Swatch is 3 coats with top coat. It dries shiny on it's own. The formula is just smooth, buttery perfection. Being a jelly, it does need a few coats to reach opacity. No staining or any issues to report.

Sunny Haze

LED lights

Ottlite

LED lights

Sunny Haze is a sorta burnt orange red holographic polish. Swatch is 2 coats with topcoat, although it dries shiny on it's own. Just like Citrine Shimmer, this color is very unique to my 1000+ nail polish collection. It's perfect for fall and has just the right amount of holo pigment to have a very intense rainbow flash without overpowering the base color. Britt is really a master at what she does and I feel these duos really showcase her talent well. Formula is also nice and buttery, a bit on the thinner side but not runny either, it's still very pigmented. If you load up a large drop on your brush then it will run, but you really just need a bit to get great coverage in just a few strokes.

Live Swatches

Overall, the November Duo from Bad Bitch Polish is an excellent addition to anyone's collection. The colors have great formulas that are a breeze to apply, in very wearable shades of orange that are perfect for fall. They are available now at www.badbitchpolish.com, $10 each or $19 for the duo.
Make sure you're following BBP on Instagram, Facebook, and join the FB fan group for all the latest info and swatches!

I received these polishes as press samples in exchange for photos and an honest review. 

Twirls and Swirls Nail Art - Lina Nail Art and Moonflower Polish

Hey there! Long time no see. No seriously, I have like quite a few things to blog about, but then instead of editing videos or photos or even painting my nails, I've been binge watching Stranger Things. Cause believe it or not, I hadn't watched Season 1 in it's entirety. My hubs has this annoying tendency to keep watching series without me, after I take the kids to my room for bedtime stories and nighttime cuddles and whatnot, which always takes too long and I end up falling asleep. The result is that he keeps on watching episodes unless I specifically tell him not to. And the other thing is that I tend to avoid things when they are super hyped up. Like it seemed interesting but I thought it was going to be more "horror" and less "sci-fi" so I didn't pay attention. And then it blew it up and everyone was watching so I felt like I had to resist it. But then the hubs watched Season 2 last weekend and I caught the 1st few episodes and the last 3 and I was like...I *have* to watch this now. So I went back and watched Season 1 and now I'm almost done with Season 2, and that's been my week so far. Totally irresponsible, housework ignored, polish making business placed aside, nails unpainted, press samples and stuff bought with blogger discounts just collecting dust on my desk.... tsk tsk. But it's sooo good you guys, so good. Like, the type of story I just absolutely love. I get it now, I get the hype.

Anyway, on to nails! I recently purchased the Lina Nail Art Twirls and Swirls 01 plate* and I've been wanting to take it on a test run. So here's what I came up with..or rather, there it is above. Guys...I have to be honest, it's a bit tricky to use. At least for me. This isn't really a full on plate review, no pics or swatches here but here's my experience with it. First off, I don't like clear stampers, I have trouble getting them to work and I feel they are so finicky with the polishes they will work with. This plate for the most part has to be used with a clear stamper because it's all about layers. You have a bunch of wonderful negative/blank spaced images and these super cool twirly arabesque vines and leaves and twirly swirly images to layer over them. And I suck at it. It took me all day to do these nails, I was so frustrated.

The concept is simple, you use the negative blank space on one side of the image with one color, stamp that on your nail, then use the corresponding swirly part with another color and layer that on top or on the edge of the part you stamped 1st. Did that make sense? So for my mani here I started with a base of Renaissance Cosmetics Blood Lust (sadly no longer in business) and then stamped the blank/negative spaced image in black (Moonflower Polish Noche). Got that part down. But for the life of me I couldn't line up the swirly wines properly over the black on my nails. I couldn't figure out how to align them, did they go over the black, over the red, along the edge? After multiple failures, I wiped the stamping off, redid my base and settled on doing decals. And that finally worked, stamping the black on the mat, allowed me to clearly see how I wanted to align the vines over it. For this image, the vines looked best right over the edge between the red and black.

It was so hard to do you guys...like way harder than it needed to be. I would have done a video but by then end I was just to annoyed at it. Like I seriously thought I would have to sell the plate cause I would have no use for it. I am super glad I got it to work.

Products used:
Base polish: Renaissance Cosmetics Blood Lust
Stamping Polish: Moonflower Polish Noche and Bronze
Stamping Plate: Lina Nail Art Supplies Twirls and Swirls 01
Stamper: Eujibas Clear Stamper
Top Coat: INM Out the Door

Twirls and Swirls 01 was purchased with a blogger discount from Lantern and Wren. Use my link here for a 10% discount on your purchase, only for 1st time buyers, discount applied at checkout. Moonflower Polish is my own brand of 5 free handcrafted nail polish for stamping, nail art, and regular wear, available at www.moonflowerpolish.com and www.nail-artisan.co.uk. Noche is also available at Lantern and Wren. 

If you made it all the way to the end, tell me...do you have this plate? Did you find it hard or easy to use? Let me know in the comments!