Loaded Lacquer Claus-trophobic

Today I have a polish to show you I'd never thought I would own. It was part of the Holiday collection for 2013 and sadly, it has been discontinued. But I kept looking at it on the Loaded Lacquer website's discontinued page and when I mentioned on Instagram that I was sad I couldn't get it, Heather replied that she happened to have a bottle left and was more than willing to sell it to me. Hurray for Heather!!!

Loaded Lacquer Claus-trophobic is a gorgeous black jelly base packed with green and copper micro glitter. I had a hard time figuring out if this had a black or a deep brown base, but I think it's black and the copper glitter just makes it look brown.

The formula is so nice for this polish. It flows on the nail hassle free, is opaque in 2 -3 coats, depending on how thick you make your coats. It dries really fast and reasonably shiny, but I would recommend adding a nice, glossy topcoat to smooth out the glitter and give it even more shine.

I did 2 coats with HK girl topcoat and that was more than enough for me. I love this polish so much! It's such a gorgeous warm base color and the micro glitters give it a nice little kick. I keep staring at my nails in different lighting, because it looks different every time. I'm so happy Heather had a bottle left so I could add this beauty to my ever growing Loaded Lacquer stash.

Unfortunately, you can't get this particular polish any more, unless Heather brings it back for a while. She tends to do that and I love her for it, because she has a few discontinued polishes left I'd like to get my hands on!

There are some other gorgeous polishes available on the Loaded Lacquer site though, so definitely worth checking out!

What's your favorite Loaded Lacquer?

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Zoya Wendy

I had a bit of a technical problem yesterday, so unfortunately I wasn't able to post anything. I got a new phone over the weekend and although I'm in love with it, I totally forgot that all my swatch pictures were still on my old phone... Not a big problem, I just had to connect my old phone to my laptop, get the pictures and save them on my laptop. Well... first my usb cable kinda broke, so it didn't connect to my phone or my laptop and when I fixed that problem and uploaded all my pictures to my laptop, my laptop died. Yup, who saw that one coming?

So, I have to do all my swatches all over again. Not a big deal, but because of the gray and gloomy weather, it did mean I didn't have any pictures yesterday and I only have a couple to show you today. But this is such a gorgeous polish, I just had to show you.

Zoya Wendy is a gorgeous pinktoned coral cream and was released as part of the Summer Tickled collection in 2014.

The formula is a bit patchy and a bit on the thicker side. It dries really fast and super shiny, but I did have to do 3 coats to get it opaque and even on my nails.

But just look at that color! Isn't that pretty? Ok, it's not really appropriate for this time of year, but I'm so over Winter, I needed some sunshine on my nails.

I usually get my Zoya polishes from Color4Nails, but if you live in the states, you can get it from the Zoya website. I think they just started shipping to Canada as well, so fingers crossed they'll start shipping to Europe soon!

Are you still rocking the darks or are you over Winter too and ready for something a little more colorful?

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2014 Favorite 14!

I've been sitting in front of my Helmers for hours, I've looked through all my posts, Instagram pictures and swatch wheels in order to find the polishes I really loved in 2014 so I could do this post. I pulled out a lot of them, but I just couldn't do a post with 50 polishes, so I had to put just a few away again until I was left with just 14, the best of the best, the ones I truly loved this past year and kept going back to.

Here are the 14 that made the cut, in no particular order, because deciding which one was my absolute favorite... well, I just couldn't do it!

So, here we go!
If you want to read more about one of the polishes, just click on the name.

1. Zoya Veruschka

I hunted, I coveted, I rejoiced when I finally owned this at the beginning of 2014 and than didn't paint it until December... But around Christmas I pulled it out wore it in back to back mani's, because it's just so stunning!

2. Girly Bits Gravedigger

I love a nice dark jelly base with a crapton of glitter in it and this is absolutely gorgeous!

3. Pahlish La Belle Endormie

Such a shifter! Is it red? Is it purple? It's both!

4. Kaleidoscope by El Corazon First Snowdrop

Clean, stunning with a hint of glitter and a perfect formula!

5. Picture Polish Vampire

I think this is me in a bottle... Dark, twisty, simply stunning!
And the text on the bottle could've come from me :D
This particular polish is actually my most liked swatch on Instagram, so a lot of you seemed to like it as well :D

6. Pipe Dream Polish Graffiti Tag

This polish started my love affair with white bases filled with neon glitter.

7. Colors by Llarowe Conny, you saucy minx

Just look at it, need I say more?

8. OPI Sorry I'm fizzy today

Not my usual color, pink, but because it's almost neon, it really pops. This particular polish works so well with my skin tone, this was my go to summer polish.

9. China Glaze neon gradient

Ok, so this is not a polish, but a polish combination I was obsessed with during the Summer. I think I wore this particular mani at least 4 times, I just couldn't get enough!

10. OPI My boyfriend scales walls

Just a simple off white cream, but I love how clean this looks on the nail and it's the perfect base for nail art. I love this so much, I actually just repurchased this polish, because I completely used up my first bottle.

11. China Glaze Lotus Begin

I'd never thought I'd add a pastel purple to my favorite polishes, but here it is! I wore the heck out of this polish, on it's own, in nail art, as an accent, with an accent, you name it, I wore it.

12. China Glaze Grass is Lime Greener

Crappy formula, but so so worth it! I made all my friends buy this polish, because it's just stunning!

13. Loaded Lacquer Cuts like a knife

2014 was the year I discovered Loaded lacquer and fell in love with this brand. And when I say fell in love I mean L O V E! I own a lot and have a lot of favorites, I could've done a 2014 favorite 14 Loaded Lacquer polishes easily, because I love them all! But this particular one made my heart flutter the first time I painted this on my nails. Red, glitter, with a bit of oomph to it. Be still my heart!

14. Zoya Tomoko

This has to be my favorite Pixie Dust, at least it's my most worn by far! This polish is my gateway polish into metallic colors, because I used to not like gold, silver, or any metallic shade at all! Now I'm kinda addicted to white golden polish and I just purchased a few silver ones.

And because I can't help myself, I snuck in a sneaky extra! I absolutely love this polish, but I love the cherries even more. I think this might be my favorite nail art of 2014 and it's just so simple.

15. Picture Polish Chillax

That's it, all 14 (and a sneaky extra) of my favorite, most worn polishes for 2014! I can't wait to see what indie and mainstream brands come out with in 2015, I've already seen some amazing new collections.

What's your favorite polish for 2014?

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Loaded Lacquer Freezing my baguettes off

Winter has hit, well, as much of a winter as we get, which means my hands are starting to look like old lady hands again. I keep applying hand cream and cuticle butter or oil, but they're still dry and somehow extremely wrinkly. Not fun...

The polish I have to show you today is fun though! It's from one of my favorite indie brands and although it's not my normal type of color, I do really like it.

Loaded Lacquer Freezing my baguettes off is a white jelly base packed with pink and rose metallic hex, square, circle and micro glitters. It also has some iridescent glitter in there to give it a little more depth.

The formula is really nice, like I've come to expect from this brand. You can get this opaque on its own in about 3 coats, but I like it better layered over a white or, like I did in these pictures, a very light pink polish. The glitter comes out easily, no need to fish and I like that you don't get an overload of glitter with each coat, so you can do a few coats without getting to much glitter on the nail.

I layered 2 coats of Freezing my baguettes off over a single coat of China Glaze Friends forever, right? and I think this makes for the perfect, girly combination. I don't wear baby pink often, as it's just a bit to sweet for me, but add some glitter and I'm all in!

This polish is part of the 2014 Ha Ha Holiday collection and I love the fact that Heather stayed away from the normal holiday reds and gave us a different kind of Holiday collection. If you haven't tried any Loaded Lacquer polishes before, you really should give them a go, they're awesome!

You can get these gorgeous polishes on the Loaded Lacquer website, but it's currently closed until the end of January, so check back than.

What do you think of this polish? Do you like the white jelly based glitters or do you stay away from them as far as you can get?

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piCture pOlish Nebula

Happy New Year everybody!
It's been a while since I last blogged, but I've had a bit of an emotional last couple of weeks. On Boxing Day we lost a family friend I was very close to and if that wasn't enough, my father in law had to be rushed to the hospital on the 31st of December. He's doing a lot better and keeps getting better every day luckily, but it's been a hectic time.

During those not so fun days, I did receive my prize from an Instagram giveaway and boy, are the polishes gorgeous! I was lucky enough to win the newest collaboration shades from Picture Polish and I'm over the moon, because I love them all! Today I have the first to show you.

Picture Polish Nebula is a gorgeous blue crelly base, packed with fuchsia and turquoise hex and small glitter. This polish was created with The Nail Polish Project and if  you want to read how she came up with this polish, click here.

The formula was a little on the thick and goopy side, but that's what happens when you pack so much glitter in a jelly base. I think I'm going to add a drop of thinner next time I use it, just to make it a little easier to apply. It was opaque in 2 coats and dried extremely fast. It does need a topcoat to smooth out the glitter and give it a nice shine.

I absolutely love how this looks on the nail and I'm already thinking about pairing it with a blue or green base, to see what it will look like. I love the glitter combo in it, it's just so fun and sparkly!

Picture Polish is available on their website and a lot of other websites (they have them all listed on the site), like Color4Nails, Harlow&Co and Pretty Polish.

I absolutely love this brand and own quite a few of them. If you haven't tried any of their polishes yet, I'd recommend checking them out!

What's your favorite Picture Polish?

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