Cupcake Polish Celebrate and Diamond

Cupcake Polish celebrates five years in business this month. To commemorate the occasion, creator Sara crafted three limited edition polishes. I have two of them and decided to incorporate both into my latest mani.

Cupcake Polish Celebrate and Diamond, direct sunlight

Cirque Colors Vice 2018 Collection Swatches and Reviews

It took me ages to like neons. They say that first impressions shouldn't matter, but the ones that I tried early into my polish obsession were total crap. Such total crap that I was turned off by the finish for a long time. I hated how sheer they were and how finnicky they were even over white undies. I shouldn't be taking six-plus color coats to make something opaque just because the color is a streaky mess. The sheerest ones were useful for jelly sandwiches, yet still required coat after coat. I quickly concluded that they were not worth the hassle and stayed far away.

Those days are an increasingly distant nightmare as neon formulas are vastly improving across the board. There are still some that require white bases or have terrible formulas (mainly old popular shades you can still get off the shelf), but otherwise, they are becoming an endangered species. Most current neons no longer require white undies and are opaque in two or three coats like standard cremes. Some are even nearly opaque in one coat. Case in point? Cirque Colors's Vice 2018 collection.

Cirque Colors Vice 2018 collection

My First Enchanted Polishes

Or rather, hauls. One from a destash and two from the latest restock.

Enchanted Polish haul, lightbox

Enchanted Polish is one of those indies where you've heard of them, but they can be quite difficult to obtain. Along with the $16 price tag, their restocks sell out fast and their polishes sell for quite a bit on the resell market. 

Case in point- my very first Enchanted Polish, Marge's Blue Beehive.

Femme Fatale Hemlock

Greetings, y'all! Today's manicure is another Femme Fatale polish, this time being a Facebook group exclusive multichrome.

Femme Fatale Hemlock, direct sunlight

Femme Fatale Fields of Treasure

 If I had to choose my absolute favorite brand, Femme Fatale is my immediate thought. Sophie (the owner) crafts amazing polishes that can be perfectly described as works of art. Their polishes used to be difficult to get since they're based in Australia but I've never regretted the wait time to get these.

It's supposed to be raining on and off for the next couple of days so I decided to go with an old and trusted shade from FF. After looking over my stash, I decided on Fields of Treasure.

Femme Fatale Fields of Treasure 

Stamping Mani: Sally Hansen Cerulean with Whales and Waves

Sally Hansen x Crayola Cerulean with stamping

As I mentioned in my previous post, Sally Hansen Insta Dris are fantastic for nail art. I've done a series of monochromatic nail stamping manis featuring polishes from their first Crayola collaboration "Back to School" for roughly the past year. Last August I did a flower themed pink mani, then this spring a green leaf mani. This weekend I wore a blue ocean mani.

For this mani, I wore two coats of Cerulean as a base. It was almost a one coater, but needed that second to even out. I then stamped using Rica's stamping polish in Robins Egg Blue and a nautical themed Born Pretty plate. It wasn't until I worked on this plate that I noticed the little whales on the sides of the design. So cute! I wish they were more apparent.

Anyone else do a sea themed mani this summer?

Sally Hansen Insta Dri x Crayola School's Out Collection Swatches and Reviews

Greetings. Call me Kady. I'm a huge nail polish fan, and have been since... 2012? Think that's right.

Anyway, for the past couple years I've been posting pics of my manicures on Instagram and figured that I could post some of the nail art designs and polishes that I want to discuss more in detail on a specialized blog. I've battled depression for years and painting my nails is one of my hobbies and ways to express myself. Today I want to focus on an entire collection of Sally Hansen polishes themed around Crayola colors that's currently in stores.

But first, some background info.