Beauty Never Fails + Maxxed Out

This post features two of my favorite indie brands, a-England and CrowsToes, and I'll keep it short because I think the pictures really speak for themselves!
a-England Beauty Never Fails is a stunning and richly colored deep green base with fine gold and olive shimmer.  Shut the front door - I LOVE this color!  So much depth and sparkle!  I used 2 coats for full coverage and had no application issues.  CrowsToes Maxxed Out is the perfect New Years Eve polish!  Festive and blingy, it reminds me of expensive jewelry!  My friend even commented saying it looked like jewels on my nails!  Maxxed Out is packed full of silver and gold mixed glitters; hexs, micro glitter and bars.  I used two coats on my accent nail and sponged 1 heavy layer on my other nails.  No digging or dabbing required.  I finished everything off with a heavy coat of topcoat for perfectly party ready nails!
a-England and CrowsToes are both available at Overall Beauty and Llarowe.  a-England is also available at a-England (of course) and Mei Mei's Signatures.  

Shimmer Polish Tiffany

Tonight I have another beautiful Shimmer Polish to share with you.  Tiffany is a pretty mix of light pink and baby blue hex glitters and micro glitter.  Tiffany reminds me of a baby blanket…pastel and soft.  I thought hard about how to best show Tiffany and settled on Essie Secret Affair.  SA is a sheer pearly pink.  I felt SA would give enough base support, but wouldn't overpower Tiffany's soft colors.  I think it worked!  I used 1 coat of Secret Affair and 2 coats of Tiffany.  Tiffany went on easily and plenty of glitter came out with each brush dip.  No dabbing or glitter clumping here!  I finished it off with a layer of topcoat for a smooth and shiny finish.
You can shop for Tiffany and other beautiful polishes in the etsy store.  Be sure to follow the blog Shimmer Polish and the facebook page to keep up to date on new releases and specials.  Shimmer Polish is also available at Overall Beauty.  Happy shopping!

*this polish was provided for my honest opinion and review

Live and Let Die + The Captain

It's such a low posting month for me, I apologize for that.  Life has been crazy.  Kids have been injury-prone, then holidays have been time consuming.  But I have a lovely little post to share today…a color combination that is very festive and seasonal. I started with 2 coats of OPI Live and Let Die, from the new Skyfall collection.  This green is a real stunner!  It's a deep forest green with gold shimmer.  This shimmer isn't a 'hide while indoors, come out to play when outside,' you can see it very well all the time.  The formula of LaLD was wonderful.  No streaks, no pooling, great coverage.  It's definitely one of the stand out colors in the collection (at least in my opinion, but I'm a green gal).   I then topped LaLD with Red Dog Designs The Captain, from The Original Series collection.  You can see my post for The Engineer here.  The Captain is a great take on Captain Kirk, and I can envision him in action with his phaser in hand!  Here's a picture just in case you don't know who The Captain is.  

But I digress, back to The Captain, the polish.  Hello golden beauty!  TC is a wonderful mix of different sized gold hexs and micro glitter.  It went on smoothly, with loads of glitter coming out with each brush dip.  TC lay flat and was smooth with 2 coats of topcoat.  

You can purchase The Captain and other lovely polish from Red Dog Designs at the store.  Be sure to follow Red Dog Designs on facebook for updates!

Violet Groove + Southern Lights + Pirouette My Whistle

I normally stick to 2 polishes for my mani's but I wanted to venture into something more exciting!  I used 3 polishes!!  When I used these 3 polishes I had a friend in mind.  Michelle from Ehmkay Nails is the Queen of Layers.  It's never just two polishes for her, it's 3 or 4 layered blended into a gorgeously unique mani!  
I started with 2 layers of Lancome Violet Groove.  VG was very thick and streaky, not my favorite polish of all time.  But I've had it for a while so maybe it just needs a little thinner to be it's best self again?  VG is a lovely color though - reminds me of springtime flowers in bloom.
I then used 1 coat of Model's Own Southern Lights.  SL is a very beautiful light purple holo glitter topcoat.  It went on easily, not too thick or gloppy.  It spread well and there was more than enough of the glitter particles to go around with one brush dip.  Shout out to my friend Kim from The Ides of Polish for sending this beautiful baby to me from across the pond.  
Finally I thought it would be fun to put a larger glitter on top of Southern Lights so I brought out OPI Pirouette My Whistle.  PMW is another glitter topcoat, but it consists of pale white hexs and pale white micro glitter.  The micro glitter dissapears on top of SL, but the larger hexs show up and look pretty cool!  PMW was easy to apply, spread well, didn't clump up.  Though I do wish more of the larger hexs came out easily - not that I had to fish, they were just more sparse.
So, what do you think of my first attempt at layering more than 2 polishes?  Something I should try again?  What is the most number of polishes you have layered for a specific "look?"

Baptiste + Moonbow

I'm feeling behind on blog posts…so I think I will just throw a few up with short descriptions.  Here's Illamasqua Baptiste with Hits Moonbow on the top.  I received Baptiste in a swap and Moonbow was a very unexpected and lovely gift from my good friend Hazel.  

Baptiste is a deep grape purple with the same tone shimmer.  It's a lovely color that had wonderful application.  No pooling or streaking.  I used 2 coats for full coverage.

I then used 1 coat of Moonbow, a gorgeous microglitter color changing topper.  Pictures don't do it any justice, but you will see the different color variations in the outdoor vs indoors pictures.  Moonbow really has captured a rainbow in a bottle - fuchsia, purple, green, and teal.  Gorgeous!  I had no application issues with this polish.  

Enjoy the pictures!

Shimmer Polish Elsa

Rejoice…it's time to share another Shimmer Polish!  This time I'm happy to show you Elsa.  
Elsa is described on the Shimmer Polish blog as "turquoise, red and gold" glitters.  I'll elaborate by saying that yes, there is an abundance of small hexs in those colors.  But there is also a very pretty smattering of micro glitter in those same colors giving the polish a shimmery effect.  I think Elsa would be amazing for the 4th of July!   I used 2 coats of Elsa and the glitter coverage was great!  Elsa was a tad thicker than some of the other Shimmer's that I've reviewed, but not so thick that's it's difficult to spread.  
I layered Elsa over 2 coats of butter London Billy No Mates.  BNM is a light grey with a slight blue tinge.  It's a very pretty color, and it leveled itself nicely with the second coat.  I feel the neutral grey really allowed Elsa to stand out!
You can shop for Brooklyn and other beautiful polishes in the etsy store.  Be sure to follow the blog Shimmer Polish and the facebook page to keep up to date on new releases and specials.  Shimmer Polish is also available at Overall Beauty.  Happy shopping!

*this polish was provided for my honest opinion and review