Literary Lacquers - A Thousand Christmas Trees (Custom Polish) Swatches and Review

Today's post is super exciting for me. The featured polish was a custom order made for me by the awesome Amy from Literary Lacquers, and it's stunning! She makes the most amazing holos; they have a deep 3D effect due to the jelly-esque formula that suspends micro glitter nicely, and I knew it would be perfect for my dream polish. I asked for a Christmas tree green with little holo glitters to make it look like sparkling colorful lights, and it couldn't fit the description better. Check this out!!

Literary Lacquers - A Thousand Christmas Trees

This is truly a sparkle bomb in the sun. It's the perfect neutral green (not too teal, not too yellow) with strong smooth holo that's accented with multiple sizes of silver holo micro glitter. So gorgeous. So rich. So festive.   I love how the glitter sparkles separately from the rest of the holo, giving it the "Christmas tree lights" glow.

The glitter lays within the layers, not on top, so the finish isn't bumpy or chunky and it's glassy smooth with a coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat (my favorite).  Although it has a jelly-like formula, it is completely opaque in two coats, though I did three to add a tiny bit more depth (also, I may have dented a nail or two and wanted to smooth it out ;o). It's even beautiful in dimmer lighting as you can see in the photos below (indirect daylight) - I think it shows the "lights" more prominently:

Amy really hit it out of the park, that's for sure.  It's even better than I imagined, and I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to Amy for making this beauty for me.  It's beyond perfect.  I love it so much.

Now for the best part.

Although this was a custom made for me, Amy came up with a great idea for Black Friday: it's available as a gift with purchase for the next week (11/25/2013 - 12/2/2013) in the Literary Lacquers Etsy shop! All orders between $20 and $49 will receive a mini bottle. All orders $50 and above will receive a full size bottle. There's no code needed; it will be added to your package as it ships! As far as I know, it will not be available at any time after this, so if you want it be sure to get your order in! I highly recommend If It Pleases You (a sultry reddish plum - elegant and classy with an edge) and Jack Rose (a unique caramel), or Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster if you love bright sparkles!

Cupcake Polish American Beauty Collection Swatches and Review

*Press Sample*

Cupcake Polish is coming out with a super holo collection called American Beauty. Each Polish is named after a city here in the United States and all of them are gorgeous strong linear holos!

I was sent three of these for review:

Cupcake Polish - Chicago

Chicago is an amazing, unique, stunning light purple. I have a TON of purple holos, but this one is totally different from all of them. It's kind of between pink and purple... maybe orchid? The pictures portray it way more blue-toned purple than it is in person. It's much brighter and pinker. And freaking awesome.

Cupcake Polish - Dallas

Dallas is a bright coral red base with amazing holo flame. I now have over 200 holo polishes and this is absolutely unique in my collection. Most of the red holos I have lean very pink/fuchsia, but this one has a little bit of both pink and orange which gives it the overall coral color. I'm not usually a huge fan of reds, but I think this is my favorite of these three.

Cupcake Polish - New York

New York is a vibrant teal blue. Although I have quite a few teal holos, this is one of the most saturated ones, and the holo is super strong without making it look greyed out.


All three polishes had perfect, easy to work with formulas. They were all almost opaque in one thin coat, and completely opaque in two. They have none of the dragging, patchy issues that some holos have and don't require any special base coat. I actually swatched all of these with no base coat because I'd been warned that they might stain some and I wanted to test. Honestly, I had very minor staining with both Dallas (red) and New York (teal) (none with Chicago), but all it took was an extra clean cotton ball and it all came right off. I think a single coat of regular base coat would probably help with that too.

I have to say, I'm incredibly impressed with these. I've been on a huge holo kick lately, and I've been scouting out all of the very best brands. Cupcake Polish is definitely one of them. There are three more polishes in the American Beauty collection:

Los Angeles - Pink
Denver - Green
Miami - Orange

(Swatches for these can be seen in the shop)

The American Beauty collection is going to be available (in somewhat limited quantities) in the Cupcake Polish shop on September 29th at 12pm Central time. They will be $12 for a full size bottle.

What do you think of these Beauties?? Are you as enamored as I am? Seeing as I only got mini bottles to review I will be in line for some full size bottles.  I'm dying for Dallas, Miami, Denver, and Chicago!!

(These products were sent for review.)

Mint Mani for Talia Joy: Lilypad Lacquer Aquadisiac

The world lost someone very special the other day: a beautiful, talented, incredible girl named Talia Joy. The idea for the mint mani theme is inspired by Talia's last Instagram posting, which was a mint manicure post featuring the hands of Talia, her mother, and her dear friend Tammy.

Here is my mint mani, in honor of the amazing inspiration she provided in the beauty world.

Just keep swimming :o)

Stars and Stripes! (Well... Dots and Stripes, anyway)

Happy 4th of July!

I used Urban Outfitters Silver Holo (dupe for Color Club Harp on It) with Jade Vermelho Surreal on top for the stripes and Rescue Beauty Lounge Dead Calm with OPI DS Glamour on top for the blue base with Silver Holo dots.

Color Club Harp on It is still readily available right now, and Jade Vermelho Surreal goes in and out of stock on Llarowe and Ninja Polish. RBL Dead Calm and OPI DS Glamour are both discontinued and most likely going to be hard to find, but Glamour has some "dupes" being made more recently (one is Glamorous by Ninja Polish). Dead Calm is a dark blue creme, so there are probably some similar polishes out there.

Enchanted Polish Austin Powers Swatch and Review

Wow, it has been way too long! I've mostly taken a break from blogging because my new computer will not load pictures form an SD card. But now I got a new nifty Eye Fi card that makes taking swatch pictures SOOOO much easier - it transfers automatically to my computer via our wifi network!

Anyway, on the the good stuff. I wanted to come back with a BANG, and I think this qualifies... This is my second favorite polish of all time (or maybe tied for first with Layla Flash Black, followed closely by Chanel Peridot): Enchanted Polish Austin Powers!

Here are some indoor indirect daylight shots. In the shade you can mostly see the super reflective gold foil finish, and it's super pretty. Sometimes you can even pick out the tiny orange glitter sprinkled throughout.

Austin Powers is a bright yellow gold foil with a linear holo shimmer. The thing that sets it apart from almost every other holo I own is the super shiny foil finish. It makes it stunning even in low light because of the beautiful reflective quality instead of the dull/flat grey finish that's so common with holos. On top of that, the gold is bright but neutral enough to be flattering on most skin tones.

 It has an awesome formula, requiring only two coats to be mostly opaque (I actually layered two coats over one coat of Pure Ice Bite Me here, but Bite Me is so sheer at one coat that I don't think it made much of a difference). And here's the best part: this is with no base coat (other than Bite Me) and no top coat AND this is day FIVE!! No chips or tip wear at all! I don't want to take it off... (but I want to try my Time to Pretend polishes!)

The only downside? This polish is fairly hard to find now. If you're lucky, one might pop up on ebay or a blog sale, but they're probably going to be quite a bit above retail price (current retail is $14-15). I'm not sure if Enchanted Polish is planning on making any more of this color, but other Enchanted Polishes may be purchased from the Enchanted Polish site, Llarowe, or Harlow & Co when they come into stock (watch out - they sell out quickly!)