Beach Nails

I AM GOING TO THE BEACH!!! Woo hoo! Leaving tomorrow night to drive to Holden Beach, NC for a whole week! This is the first time I have ever taken a real vacation that involves nothing but me sitting on my ass and doing whatever I want for an entire 7 days. Unfortunately, I have to be 29 weeks pregnant for it, but I'll take the bad with the good!

When placing my second order at shop.Llarowe.com, I kept my vacation in mind and found the perfect color for my nails and I give you....

Enchanted Ocean Potion!! This was really hard to photograph... This pic looks almost fake to me, but it was just my camera on the usual macro setting in full sun. It's definitely a more linear holo in real life than it shows here. It's also slightly more green and metallic looking.




Yeah, I know this pic is blurry and kinda sucks, I'm sorry, either the color or the holo made my camera freak out... this pic is most color accurate.

This is with flash and shows the holo better but removes most of the green from the color. I do like this color, but it's not accurate.

Cost: This was $15 at shop.Llarowe.com and worth every single penny. I ordered several more Enchanted Polishes and I currently have 2 from the Beatles Collection. I plan to buy pretty much all of them because they are so awesome, and this from someone who used to refuse to pay that much for Polish!

What I used: To give this, hopefully, more staying power, I used Nailtek Foundation II, a coat of Orly Bonder, two coats of Ocean Potion, a coat of Color Club Vivid topcoat and a coat of Poshe fast dry topcoat. We'll see if it helps it not chip in the sand and surf!

Application: EXCELLENT! Omg, everyone always complains about holos and how they bald after the first coat and are a pain to apply, yada yada. Nope, not this one, not at all. This applied totally smoothly in two opaque coats, it didn't drip, pool or drag, and I had minimal cleanup afterwards (from my own sloppiness). Not really a one-coater, but damn close. I am so impressed by the pigmentation and formula on this. Totally makes it worth every penny.

Color/Finish: This is a metallic aqua semi-strong linear holo. That's a mouthful! The color is on the lighter side of teal and just slightly more blue than green. The holo is very strong in sunlight and the particles are small and more linear than scattered. As with most holos, the effect is dulled indoors, but still visible.

This is so full of win! I am so happy I bought this, the other Enchanteds that I got with that order, and the ones I just ordered. They do NOT disappoint! I can't wait to review more of them.

Holo Yumminess (And My Renewed Polish Addiction)

Aka A-England Princess Tears (The Legends Collection)

I am pretty sure the princess is crying because this Polish is so effing AWESOME. Seriously, it's been a while since I have really been excited about Polish... It's become more of "Oh I want to get that one because it will be a good toe-Polish" or "I don't really have a color like that, I should get it"... until now.

I'd seen a post somewhere that Ozotic was discontinue some of their more awesome Polishes so I finally got my butt to Llarowe to make some purchases. Of course, while I was there, I threw a few more things that I had been wanting to try into my cart. Sadly (or fortunately for my bank account), so many of the things I wanted to try weren't in stock. So I ended up with a couple of Ozotics, a Ludurana (which seems to be an exact dupe for one of the Ozotics I got) and this gem.

Before I get on with the Polish, I just want to note that I have a renewed obsession for these unique and gorgeous Polishes. I can't wait to get more from A-England and I really, really want some Enchanted Polishes. I've been rather annoyed with all the blog posts lately of all the over-the-top (to me), glittery, chunky indie Polishes - just not my thing... but I can get behind some awesome holo-duochromey-goodiness. I see me placing some pretty pricey orders from Llarowe in the future.

Anyway, on to the awesome...

Outdoors, full sun, no flash:

You can see a bit of the pink/lilac duochrome on my ring finger.

The holo is definitely way more prominent outdoors in the sun.

Look at that holo goodiness!!! 

 ------------------------------------------------------

I attempted an indoors shot to show how the holo translates out of the sun, but my camera kept focusing on everything BUT my nails! It's still a very lovely, subtle grey/lilac/pink mulitchrome indoors with a pretty sparkle and a hint of holo.

Where to buy: In case you didn't catch it above, here is where you can buy these: http://shop.llarowe.com/main.sc. They are $12 for 13ml or about .44 oz (bottle says 4 fl oz haha that'd be a LOT of Polish - and a great deal!)

What I used: 1 coat of Nailtek II Foundation, 2 coats of Princess Tears and 1 coat of Poshe.

Application: Pretty darn good! I don't have a lot of experience with holos, but I hear they can be a real pain. This one was great, opaque in 2 coats, very easy to control and no clean up required! The brush seemed a little stuff and weird, but actually worked perfect for a nice clean line - and the polish only went where I put it and spread nicely. I guess I was expecting some difficulty, it didn't give me any. My nails didn't exactly paint themselves, but great formula none-the-less. It can be slightly brushtrokey if you're super sloppy (like me), but it's hardly noticeable and most of them disappear entirely once dry. It's a little on the thick side so watch how much is on the brush.

Color/Finish: This is a subtle grey/pink/lilac multichrome base with a fairly strong linear holographic finish. I'd say the color is predominately lilac but the pink flash is fairly strong where the light hits the polish. In very dull lighting, it looks more silvery grey. The holo EXPLODES in sunlight but is still reasonably visible indoors.

Final Word: AWESOME. I seriously LOVE this Polish and plan on buying more from A-England. Even indoors with the muted holo, it's just a beautiful color and I keep looking at it. It makes me feel happy and anything medieval themed has a special place in my heart. I HIGHLY recommend this Polish and think it's 100% worth the $12 price tag.