Smokey Mountain Lacquers - Scream Queen

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the holiday season. I've been counting down the days until October 1st so I can put up my Halloween Decorations. I have to wait until the first of the month. I'm weird that way. My husband isn't a holiday person so he just rolls his eyes when I start covering our house in decorations. I was going to wait until October 1st to start showing Halloween polishes/nail art but Smokey Mountain Lacquers sent me this adorable polish to review. Now I have Halloween on the brain and I don't know how much longer I can contain myself. 

Smokey Mountain Lacquers (SML) is a new indie polish company that just opened shop about a month ago. This is the fifth polish I've tried and I've been impressed! 

This is one of SML's Halloween polishes called Scream Queen (love the name). It's a bright neon green jelly with black hex glitters. Now, neon and bright colors don't get along with my pasty skin but if you're into those shades, I think you'll like this. The formula is a little thick and a little goopy but not enough to make it difficult to apply. I think the thickness helped it build to opacity in just two coats. Putting a tiny bit of thinner may help if it bugs you. It dries quickly and slightly matte. I used a coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast to make it nice and shiny. 

Now for the good stuff. 

Smokey Mountain Lacquers - Scream Queen

You can find Scream Queen and the rest of the Smokey Mountain Lacquers' Halloween collection from their Etsy shop. I believe the Halloween collection will be available to purchase in the next day or two. If you don't see it, check back soon! 

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-Mira

*The product in this post was provided for my honest review. 

China Glaze Sunsational Collection - Jellies

I'm back with another partial collection from China Glaze! This time I have The Sunsational Collection - Jellies. I passed on the other half. The other half of the collection are all neon cremes and as you may know, my fair skin doesn't work well with neon. I know, I know. The jelly half is also neon so you're probably wondering why I bought them. Two words: jelly sandwiches. Oh yah. 

After reading several reviews about this collection, I decided to pass. A lot of bloggers had trouble with the formula and I didn't want to deal with that. Despite the problems with some of the formulas, their pictures still looked really good. A few weeks ago I changed my mind and decided that the jellies were cute enough to warrant the extra effort. Let's get to the pictures and I'll talk about my experience with this collection. 

China Glaze Are You Jelly?

Are You Jelly? is a bright purple jelly polish. The first two coats went on streaky and did not self level well. I applied the first two coat on the thin side, letting them dry in between. For the third coat, I applied it thickly and quickly in order to bypass the self leveling problem. It worked well for me and I ended up liking the result. I think this polish is adorable and worth the extra effort. 

China Glaze Heat Index

Sorry, I should have given you a heads up about this. I'll wait while grab a pair of sunglasses. Ready? Ok, here we have the brightest hot pink neon insanity that ever was. Heat Index had the same formula as Are You Jelly? I applied three coats in the same way as well. Is it worth the effort? If you love this color and love it in jelly form I say go for it. This shade is not for me unless my skin learns how to tan someday. Then, I'd totally rock this. 

China Glaze Isle See You Later

Let's just keep this to the point. Beautiful blue jelly. I adore the color in the bottle. You're looking at four coats. I'm throwing in the towel. Maybe if you used seven you could get rid of the VNL (visible nail line). Not worth the extra effort for me. 

China Glaze Keepin' It Teal

Another color adore in the bottle. It's such a cute Teal (it looks a little more green in my photos) but I couldn't get rid of that dreaded VNL. This is four coats. One more may have done the trick. 

China Glaze Shell-O

Coral jelly yumminess in a bottle. The formula was just like the rest, streaky and hard to manipulate. I applied it the same way as the others (Are You Jelly? and Heat Index) with two thin coats and then a thick coat. 

China Glaze You Drive Me Coconuts

Bright barbie pink jelly, You Drive Me Coconuts indeed drove me coconuts with it's finicky formula. With two thin coats and a thick third coat, I made it work. Totally worth it for me! 

Being late in the game in getting these, many of you probably already have them. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this collection! 

Thanks for reading!

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-Mira

Wing Dust Blue Steel

Wing Dust Collections is an indie polish line that's available both on Etsy and Llarowe that was created by Stephanie. Located in Canada, they ship worldwide (from Etsy) and in the U.S. (via Llarowe). From what I read on the "About" page on Wing Dust's Etsy page, $1.00 from each bottle of polish sold goes to a fund for Stephanie's team mission fund to Zambia. 

The majority of the polishes from this line look like glitter toppers which is one of the many types of polish I'm obsessed with right now. The one I'm showing you today is a flakie polish named, Blue Steel. 

 Blue Steel has a sheer blue jelly base with blue and green iridescent flakes and a subtle iridescent shimmer. This polish is intended for layering; I used one coat on top of Ludurana Rock (black creme). I used one coat of Seche Vite for my top coat. 

 When applying, I didn't get a lot of flakies on my brush. I tried to remove the base without loosing too many flakes but it was a little tricky. The jelly base doesn't drip as fast as a clear base would and hold on tightly to the flakes.You can see that I don't have a ton of flakies on my nail (this is one coat). I did not apply a second coat so the effect was more subtle on my nails. In the sunlight, it is more noticeable and quite pretty. The more bling the better (in my world) so I'd recommend using more than one coat to make the flakie effect really pop.

 Here is a macro shot of the bottle. Doesn't this shade of blue remind you of the ocean?

I didn't notice Blue Steel in the Wing Dust Collection Etsy shop but it is currently available at Llarowe for $8.50. 

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I'm also on Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.

-Mira

*The product in this post was provided for review. 

KKCenterHK - Silver Star Nail Art Studs

I was recently contacted by an online store called, KKCenterHK to review a couple of products. I snooped around on their site and agreed. The first thing I chose was a bag of silver star studs (say that fast three times). I love using studs for nail art because they are so easy to use and take very little effort to apply. Yet they can add so much to a manicure. Works for me!

For my mani, I used a new to me brand called Super Black Lacquer. The polish is called HBIC. I have no idea what that stands for but I love the polish! I will do a separate review on the polish soon. After that dried, I added a coat of Seche Vite and placed the studs on my nails. Then I applied another coat of top coat to make sure they stayed in place. I wore this mani for a few days and only lost one star on the last day. The stars don't lay down completely flat so I must have snagged it on something. The next time I use them, I will wear two coats of top coat over the stars to make sure they are completely sealed on my nail. 

The stars  I got are 4mm and come in a little bag like this (you get around 50). They cost $4.23 + shipping. You can find them, here.

Thanks for reading!

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-Mira

*Products in this post were provided for review.

Jelly Sandwich Time

Alright, I am here a day late on the jelly sandwiches I promised you! I forgot I had my Go Pink Wednesday! post set for the next day so I'm going to show them to you today! On Monday, I showed you Zoya's Gloss Collection alone with nothing on them. You can find that, here. I'm not a huge fan of wearing them alone. The colors just don't wow me enough so I used China Glaze's Halloween glitters to make them more, "me." 

 For Frida, I added two coats of China Glaze Make a Spectacle. I had a feeling this would look lovely together and was not prepared for how freaking awesome it would be. I L O V E this look. I should have just stopped here and called it fabulous. I will be wearing this combo again. Soon. Love it! 

Knowing that my goal was to show these polishes sammich style, I put on another two coats of Frida. One coat just turned the glitter teal. It looked funky. Two gave me the sandwich look I was going for. It's nice. In person, it looks very mermaid like. In person, it's sparkly. I like it. I really do...

I just couldn't stop thinking about this. This I love. Sorry, I just needed to show this twice. I'm funny that way. ;)

Moving on.....

 Paloma was the only one out of the three that I like alone. I still wanted to see what it would look like with China Glaze Make a Spectacle on top. This time I just put one coat on top. Having Paloma underneath gives MaS a different look than with Frida underneath. I like it this way too. 

 Very Christmasy to me. I want to remember this combo for the holidays. 

Then I had to ruin it by putting two coats of Paloma on top. It just didn't work for some reason. Maybe I just need one coat but a thicker coat? Live and learn right?

On to Katherine...

I loved the way ChG Make a Spectacle looked on top of these jellies but I hadn't had success sandwiching them yet. I decided to switch it up by using China Glaze Glitter Goblin. Glitter Goblin is from the Halloween 2012 Collection, Wicked. Glitter Goblin is.....so amazing that I'm not going to show you it on it's own today. I'm skipping to the sandwiched look and then I'll show it to you in it's own post. Glitter Goblin deserves it's very own post. 

I can't handle how gorgeous this is. My pictures aren't even doing it justice which makes me sad. If you happen to have these two polishes, you must try this look. You won't be able to stop staring at your nails, moving them around in the light, licking them, shoving them in your husband's face so he can see your pretty nails, etc. It's ridiculous how pretty this combo is. 

Katherine is super thin so I needed two coats on top of Glitter Goblin to get this look. It took a while for everything to dry but it was worth it. 

Tomorrow, I'll be back with Glitter Goblin. 

Maybe I'll post it later today. 

We shall see. =) 

Thank you for reading!

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-Mira

Zoya Gloss Collection

I have had the Gloss Collection from Zoya for a while now and I'm so excited to finally show them to you! Tomorrow, I'm going to show you the jelly sandwiches I created with them. Today will just be my swatches and review. 

It took me a while to really understand what you can do with nail polish with jelly finishes. Before, they just frustrated me with how many coats they needed to become opaque. Now that I know what a jelly sandwich is in the nail world, I love them. I was excited that Zoya released these polishes and snagged all three on an impulse (that's how I usually roll). Now, I like these polishes just fine... I just don't love them. The colors aren't my favorite on their own. They take a lot of coats to look like the bottle color which is typical of a jelly. Each polish took about 4 coats and they were still a bit transparent. Again, typical of a jelly. With the right kind of bling layered on top, their true potential comes out which is how I prefer to wear them. I'll show you that tomorrow. 

 Zoya Frida

 Zoya Katherine

This was the hardest of the three to get opaque. 

 Zoya Paloma

This is the only one out of the three that I like on it's own. 

If you are thinking about purchasing these, remember they take a bit of patience. Each picture shows 4 coats of polish. You need to take your time in between coats to make sure the polish dries properly. It may seem dry on the top but the bottom layers may still be wet so be careful. Other than that, the formula was fabulous. 

Thanks for reading!

-Mira