Finger Lickin' Lacquer Fall for FLL : Part 1

Happy Friday all! It's Thanksgiving here this weekend so I am particularly looking forward to a long weekend. Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Canadians!

Today I have part one of the Fall for FLL collection from Finger Lickin' Lacquer. These arrived on my doorstep at the perfect time - the weather is cooling down, the sweaters are coming out of storage, and I'm looking forward to ALL THE PIE!

A note on the formula - these are all on the thinner side so, depending on your preference and how thick your coats are, you may need three or four coats to build opacity. I was able to get away with two coats for most of them but I do use thicker coats.

* descriptions from Finger Lickin' Lacquer

Apple Tart is a bright red scattered holographic polish that brings to mind chilly nights at the carnival with candied apples, or brisk fall days spent up at the local apple orchard picking apples and stopping in for some warm apple cider and maybe an apple cider doughnut too. It is scented with an apple tart fragrance.

I LOVE this one. It is so reminiscent of bright red Macintosh apples and the jelly formula is wonderfully squishy. The scent is understated and lovely and is just perfect.

Cranberry Cosmo is a cranberry intensely holographic polish with the sweet and tart fragrance of cranberry relish. This polish has all of the sparkle and shimmer of the cosmos packed into a beautiful cranberry red that is perfect for Thanksgiving dinner.

I have to say, I'm really digging the reds this season (which is weird for me) and this is another amazing one. Again, the scent isn't overpowering and just adds a nice touch.

Mauvelous, Dahling! is a mauve scattered holographic polish. Mauve is a perfect fall color and goes well with everything, and the subtle holographic sparkle really makes the polish pop. Mauvelous, Dahling! is the third unscented polish in the fall collection.

I mentioned this in episode six of Nail Newscast (promo!) but I think Jennifer did a fantastic job of making this a vampy fall colour. Mauve can easily fall in the "old lady" category but this polish is anything but stodgy.

Pumking is an orange scattered holographic polish with hints of green shimmer. Pumking is the perfect pumpkin polish for fall. It’s perfect for trips to the pumpkin patch and for carving your spooky jack-o-lantern. Pumking is scented like sweet pumpkin pie.

This may be a weird statement, but I feel like this a great "neutral" orange in that it would look good on many different skin tones. The subtle green tones keep it from being garish and the scent, again, is the perfect little something.

I apologize for the little fuzzies - why do you never see those until the editing process? Gah! Have a great weekend!

Finger Lickin' Lacquer

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"The Best of Me" Advance Screening Giveaway

* This post is brought to you by eOne Films.

If there's anyone who knows how to get the tears flowing, it's Nicholas Sparks. I will never forget the day I was riding the bus when I lived in Vancouver and the woman beside me was crying because she was reading "The Notebook;" I told her she's going to need a lot more tissue.

Now, there is a new Nicholas Sparks movie coming soon and, if the trailer is anything to go by, The Best of Me is going to be another tearjerker.

Based on the bestselling novel by acclaimed author Nicholas Sparks, The Best of Me tells the story of Dawson and Amanda, two former high school sweethearts who find themselves reunited after 20 years apart, when they return to their small town for the funeral of the beloved friend. Their bittersweet reunion reignites the love they've never forgotten, but soon they discover the forces that drove them apart twenty years ago live on, posing even more serious threats today. Spanning decades, this epic love story captures the enduring power of our first true love, and the wrenching choices we face when confronted with elusive second chances.

- Synopsis provided by eOne Films 

Starring Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden and Liana Liberato, The Best of Me is in theatres October 17th.

BUT!! Ten (10) of my local readers can win the chance to attend an advance screening at Cineplex Odeon Eau Claire Market on Wednesday, October 15th, along with a prize pack of a manicure set and tissues (you'll need them)!

Simply enter using Rafflecopter below (opens October 2nd at 12 AM) and you could be amongst the first people to see The Best of Me.

* Due to the location of the screening, entrants should live in and around the Calgary area. *

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And now, for your viewing pleasure... ;)

Glitter Macros! For Your Phone!

Happy Friday, y'all! I've been meaning to share these for some time but, you know how it is. :) Some Reddit friends were wondering about glitter macros for phone backgrounds and I decided, since I was at home recovering from an injury and had time on my hands, that I would go through my stash and take some pics. I've uploaded them all into a Google+ album so feel free to download whichever ones you fancy. I've not sized them at all so you should be able to fiddle around and set it the way you want it.

Here's a sample of the macro pics. Bonus points if you can name the polish - I lost track and forgot which is which (aside from obvious ones).

Glitter Macros

 You can find more glitter macros at Chalkboard Nails, Nailderella, and Streets Ahead Style.

WingDust Wednesday : Olive Me Hearts Olive You

Say what?! A post?! That's actually on Wednesday?! Crazy times! I was feeling so unmotivated and had started picking my cuticles and they were so nasty I just couldn't bring myself to swatch and post. I suppose the only way to break out of that funk is to say "F it" and post anyway. :)

Today I'm sharing a lovely polish from WingDust Collections that I haven't seen a ton of swatches for, which confuses me because it's amazing!

Olive Me <3s Olive You is an olive (you don't say!) green with larger gold flakes, wee dark gray and purple flakes, a smattering of purple shimmer and some iridescent flakes. The combination results in the PERFECT fall polish.

For the swatches I used two coats of Olive. I thought for sure it would take three coats but the magic always happens with the second it seems. :) After taking my regular top-coated pictures I decided that this polish would lend itself well to being matted and hooooooBOY! I love it even more this way. The matte macro pic is especially great - it shows off all the little flakes perfectly.

What are you wearing for #WingDustWednesday? Any tips for getting over the blogging blues?

WingDust Collections

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Emerald & Ash : Life in Color collection, part 2

Okie dokie, artichokie, it's Friday (woo!) and as promised, here is part two of my Life in Color collection review. Like part one, this post features three gorgeous shades (and a bonus link to a 7th!) from Emerald & Ash.

Let's get down to business. As per usual, the descriptions come directly from the maker.

Snozzberries
The snozzberries taste like...blurpurple jelly. Wait no, that can’t be right. Anywho, our version of Snozzberries is a purple jelly that is filled with color shifting square glitter and some purple and red holo micro glitters. Goes on in two to three coats depending on your application. Can also be put over a base color if that tickles your fancy. A top coat is recommended to give the polish a smooth look.

Charlie & The Chocolate Factory is one of my favourite movies EVER and I tend to use the phrase this polish is inspired by quite often, so how could I help but love it? Plus, it's blurple which I'm fairly certain is the best colour name ever (grellow, you don't hold a candle!). The formula on this was fantastic and the perfect amount of glitter applied to the nail with every stroke (how amazing is the tiny red glitter?). Shown here is two coats and one coat of Gelous.

 

Sunshower

Based in the idea of rainstorms when it’s still sunny out. Crazy little storms. A cloudy grey crelly that shows off a beautiful blue shimmer when in the sun. An added touch of rainbow flakies mimics the rain as the sun is hitting it. Perfect for a rainy mood that needs a little pick me up! Full coverage in two to three coats depending on application.

I love sunshowers. The sun glittering off the rain drops just makes it seem so much more magical. The flakies in this polish are so pretty - they glint and glimmer when they hit the sun and the grey base is so delicate and elegant. Shown here is two coats and one coat of top coat.

 

 

Confusion with a K

Once upon a time we found an ottoman that had beautiful bright colors and it needed to come home with us. It also needed to be made into a polish. After many trials and errors it decided to be a fun, festive glitter topper. Because it said so. And so, Confusion with a K was born. A glitter topper full of neon pink, neon green, metallic navy blue, grey and white glitters of all sizes. It wants to go on top of ALL of your polishes and maybe even be sandwiched between them as well. You’re good to go with one to two coats, depending on how glitter-hungry you are!

This glitter topper is where Emerald & Ash's thicker base really comes in handy. I did not have to fish for a single piece of glitter! See those large pink hexes? Yep, they just willingly came out on the brush. Glitter application like this makes my life so much easier and less frustrating. Plus, these colours are amazing and perfect and I love them. :) Shown here is one coat over China Glaze Def Defying and one coat of Gelous.

Bonus link: Ashley and I were chatting one day and she mentioned that she thought my custom, Stubble Jumper, would be the perfect addition to a new collection she was planning. Of course, I was flattered and said yes right away. The thought that people like something I had a hand in creating just tickles me. Spread the prairie love, people!

I was also sent a 3ml bottle of the July oil of the month, Fresh Cut Grass, which is a scent I already love. I had kind of... badgered? nicely? Ashley about a grass scent. :) And you already know how I feel about their cuticle oils.

All Emerald & Ash lacquers are 5-Free and are not tested on animals.

Emerald & Ash

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Emerald & Ash: Life in Color collection, part 1

* I swear that one day soon I will have another WingDust Wednesday post; I just need to get caught up on my swatching. *

Today I have part one of my review on the Life in Color collection from Emerald & Ash. They sent me six of these beauties to swatch so I decided to break it up into two posts so as not to bombard you with pics. Wouldn't want you to injure your scrolling finger. ;)

The people who make the polish are always better at describing it than I am so, as usual, polish descriptions are taken directly from Emerald & Ash.

Magic Bananas
Who doesn’t like magic bananas!? We sure love them around here, especially when used as an exclamation! It’s a phrase used so much around here that we had to make this yellow and green all flakie polish that has a hint of gun metal flakies - you know...for those bruises that pop up on your bananas, no matter how magical they are. This can easily be a full coverage flakie in 2-3 coats, but you can always uses it as a topper if that tickles your fancy.

Now is where I admit to being an incompetent nail blogger. I need practice applying flakie polish. Polish with flakies in it? Sure, I've worn those. Pure flakies? A polish literally packed to the brim with flakies? Nope. I think I rushed my coats which resulted in some dragging and bunching at the tips (you can particularly see this on my index finger). All you need is some patience and you will be handsomely rewarded. The flakies in this are so pretty and the final result is simple yet complex. Shown here is two coats and one coat of top coat.

Tomato, Tomato
You say tomato and I say...this tomato based polish looks amazing with flakies that throw off a red and gold shimmer while trapped in a sheer red jelly base. Can be worn to full coverage in 2-3 coats, depending on your application or it can be placed over your favorite reds to add a quick punch of fun!

Another polish that highlights how poorly I applied it. :/ As with Magic Bananas, this flakie packed polish just requires an extra bit of patience with the application.

You know, if asked, I will always say that red is never my go to colour and yet, it plays so nicely with my skin tone. This one in particular is gorgeous! The gold with the red not only plays perfectly off the tomato theme, but it's a great fall transition colour. Again, I used two coats and one coat of top coat.

You Sun of a Beach
An eye-searing bright neon leaning coral crelly that hits you with a dose of scattered holo, just in case you already haven’t been blinded. Due to the nature of neon pigments this will dry to a semi-matte look. Leave it as is or gloss it up with a top coat, your choice! You can always layer it over a base coat of white polish to make the color pop even more! Without a base color you can get full coverage in 2-3 coats.

Good lord, I love this polish. Neon coral with scattered holo?! Be still my heart. The formula on this one was amazing! With careful application I only needed two coats and one coat of top coat for this stunner. This is one of my favourites from the entire collection! 

So, there are the first three. What do you think so far? Definitely full of colour, right? Stay tuned - I will have the final three up later this week.

Emerald & Ash

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Introducing... Nail Newscast

Exciting news, guys! Tia (of Iced Lacquer) and I are teaming up to create a podcast!

Nail Newscast was Tia's brainchild and is something she's been thinking about for a while. She and I connected over our love of WingDust polish and she was kind enough to approach me about being a co-host! Awesome, right?! I have to admit, in the very beginning I was *thisclose* to saying no. "I'm awkward and strange and try too hard to be funny," I thought. "My voice sounds weird in recordings," I thought. And then I said to myself, "self, WTF are you thinking? Say yes! It will be awesome and fun and what's the worst that could happen? So you push yourself out of your comfort zone. Isn't that a good thing?" So, yes it was.

Tia and I have had fun brainstorming and Skyping and coming up with lists of people we'd love to interview. We've tried to get over our inherent introvert and just put out a quality product.

We recorded a little introduction to Nail Newscast - a teaser trailer, if you will - and now we are releasing it to the wild. To listen to our (hopefully not super awkward) intro, head over to the Nail Newscast blog. (BTW, that was my first test with my new headset - hope to get better sound quality as time goes on.)

I hope you are as excited about this as we are and I sincerely hope that you tune in every Wednesday for the latest in the nail polish world.

Who are we?

We are Nail Newscast. We are a team of nail polish bloggers who wanted to create a podcast all about nail polish. Our team currently includes Tia from Iced Lacquer and Courtney from Swatcher, Polish-Ranger.

What are we?

The Nail Newscast podcast is all about upcoming nail polish collections, sales, trends, interviews with indie polish makers and other bloggers, and general nail polish news.

Why did we make this?

A nail polish podcast is definitely something that doesn't exist yet. We felt like there is definitely a lot of great content out there that people are interested in, we're just putting it in a new format that's easy to listen to!
 

When can you listen?

As of right now we are planning to release our first episode on Wednesday, August 6th.
 

Where can you find the episodes?

For now we'll be hosting each episode on our Soundcloud account. We will also have an embedded player for each episode on this blog as well as an RSS feed you can subscribe to. Feel free to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and Bloglovin for additional content and updates!

 

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