Lacquered Lover Nail Art Extravaganza!

Good morning my fellow lacquered lovers!  Happy Wednesday to you all!  I'm in a fantastic mood today because thanks to all of you, my Lacquered Lover Facebook page his over 5,000 likes yesterday!  Thank you to everyone for all of your continued support!  So, to celebrate, I thought it would be fun to go back and post up some of my nail art over the last few months while I was on hiatus from the blog but still posting on social media in case you missed it!  

There are dotticures, penguins, gold leaf, gradients, and more! Now, without further ado, on to the polish!

 Above - American Apparel Neon Gradient

 Above:  China Glaze Neon Rainbow Gradient

I did this manicure twice, in two different ways, over the course of 2 weeks last summer!  The first one I did for Pride in NYC and did it as I usually do a gradient.  Then for the Color Run, I decided to try a sideways gradient and absolutely fell in love with it!  Just adore these bright shades!

 Above:  Ciate Feather Manicure Kit

Yes, I put actual feathers on my nails.  I actually loved this manicure, it was a lot easier than I expected!  You paint your nails, put on a clear coat, gently place the feather on the nail, top coat again, and then just file off the excess!  Pretty neat idea!

Above:  CND Nail Art

I was lucky enough during NYFW last September to be invited up to the CND Design Lab to have one of their master manicurists do a nail art look on me!  On my thumbs, she used shellac to recreate the Red Rum look from the Blondes AW2013 show and the rest was the silver foil manicure from the Michael Van Der Ham London shows!  Such a fun look!

 Above:  Deborah Lippmann Mermaid Gradient

 Above:  Illamasqua Textured Dotticure

 Above:  Jesse's  Girl Julie G Frosted Gumdrops Gradient

 Above:  Jin Soon Epidote and Gold Flake Nail Art

Above:  Nails Inc. Leather and Denim

 Above:  Nails Inc Nail Wraps in Fowl Play and Emerald Bay nail polish

 Above:  Nails Inc. My Dad Invented That and Clueless Nail Wrap

 Above:  OPI James Bond Gradiant

 Above:  OPI Alcatraz Rocks and Solitaire Gradiant

 Above:  Penguin Nail Art

 Above:  Zoya Casey and Gilty

 Above:  Zoya Hunter and Gilty

 Above:  Zoya Fall Gradiant

Above:  Zoya Texture Dotticure

So there you have it!  A LOT of nail art!  This is making me want to do an epic manicure coming up this weekend!


What did you think of these manicures?  Which is your favorite?

Some of the products in this post were sent to me for my unbiased review. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

Monochrome Monday Featuring Gradient Dots!

Good morning my fellow lacquered lovers!  Happy Monday!  First, I want to apologize for my lack of posting last week, about 20% of my office got knocked out by a nasty stomach virus and I was one of them!  Luckily I'm finally feeling better!  And, I have a super fun manicure for you today!  As some of you have seen, some lovely fellow bloggers and myself (and a few nail art fanatics) have been doing challenges every couple of weeks just as a fun little event between us all!  This weeks challenge was "Monochrome Monday" meaning black and white!  After seeing this amazing Gradient Dot manicure by Sarah over at Chalkboard Nails, I knew I wanted to try it using black, white and grey!  Now, without further ado, on to the polish!

Don't mind my poor broken left ring finger nail, the rest of my nails will be chopped off tonight so I don't look so lopsided!  The colors used in this manicure are Milani White on the Spot, Finger Paints Black Expressionism and Essie Cocktail Bling.  I used dotting tools to make the different sized dots and love how it came out!  I do prefer the ones with the white base more but I think it came out really fun!  It was a bit time consuming but since it's all just dots, it really wasn't too bad for how complicated it looks!  I will definitely be trying this again with different colors!  Make sure you check the links below for the other amazing ladies participating!

What did you think of this manicure?  What other colors would you like to see?

Fun Friday Featuring Wine Grapes AND My 200th Post!

Good afternoon my fellow lacquered lovers!  I just saw as I was about start writing this post that this will be my 200th post!  That's so exciting!  Who would have thought 7 months ago that I'd write 200 posts and still be going strong?  Thanks to everyone who has been along for this awesome journey!  I have a ton of fun doing this blog, working hard to make it better, and writing fun posts for you all to read!  Now, without further ado, on to the polish!

So I decided to try some nail art last night!  I love wine so a wine glass or bottle seemed like a great idea.  Then I remembered that my nails were super short now and it wouldn't fit so grapes it is!  Wine is very special to me since my dad is the person who got me into wine (Hi Dad!) and my amazing boyfriend AJ and I met while working in a wine shop together!  (Hi AJ!)  So as you can see, wine and I have a very deep and meaningful relationship.  I even got my sommelier certification 2 years ago!

Above:  Macro shot of the grapes

Above:  Macro shot of Razzle Dazzle

So I chose Deborah Lippmann Razzle Dazzle for the main base because it's fairly wine colored and also used that to make the grapes!  I also love how sparkly it is!  Look at all that glitter!  It was fully opaque in two coats.  I kind of like that on the grapes they are a tiny bit sheer, it makes them look juicy!  To make the contrast in the grapes, I just mixed a little white or black into Razzle Dazzle before dotting it.  The accent nail is a base of Zoya Cho and the little leaves are China Glaze Starboard.

Above:  Look!  I did it on my left hand too!  (Don't mind the broken ring finger nail!)

Above:  Macro shot of grapes on left hand


So there you have it!  Wine grapes!  I thought this was a super fun manicure and am glad it worked out to be my 200th post!  I absolutely adore every color I used in it and I think the grapes look pretty cute!  I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and get excited for some really fun stuff to come this week!  Thanks again for reading and I look forward to the next 200 posts!


What do you think of this manicure?  Would you like to see a tutorial?

Blogger Breakfast with Glamour Magazine and Essie!

Good afternoon my fellow lacquered lovers! As some of you might have noticed, I went missing yesterday! The reason for that is I took the day off to attend my first blogger event! The lovely ladies at Glamour invited me to a blogger breakfast with the one and only Essie Weingarten of Essie Nail Care. Clearly I had to do something amazing using all Essie products, so check out the manicure I came up with to meet the woman behind the brand!





Polka dots! As you can see in the middle picture, my nails matched my outfit! The colors I used were all Essie and were Blanc, Very Structured and Coat Azure. I had to go to 5 different stores before I finally found Very Structured which is a gorgeous milk chocolatey brown from the Fall collection. I couldn't believe it was sold out everywhere until I saw how pretty it was on the nail! I was really excited with how my polka dots came out for the event!

The event was a ton of fun. It was at this great little nail salon in TriBeCa called Tenoverten that was a gorgeous open space with large windows and comfy chairs and a couch! The lovely ladies from Glamour had a light breakfast, coffee and mimosas waiting for us while we perused the salon. Take a look at my pictures of all the Essie polishes they had out!







That is a lot of Essie! When the amazing Essie Weingarten herself appeared, she was so sweet! She sat down with me for a bit and we chatted about where we grew up, the nail polish industry, how she comes up with names and what our favorite Essie polishes are! I was happy to know that she loves Fiji and Wicked as much as I do! She also absolutely loved my polka dot nails (and correctly knew every single polish I had used) and discouraged me from getting one of the manicures with the new collection that the manicurists at Tenoverten were offering!




Here are a couple pictures of the lovely Ms. Weingarten pointing at my nails and posing with me! She was just so nice to chat with, and meeting a nail polish icon was like a dream come true for me! To think she started Essie by selling nail polishes door to door in Las Vegas 30 years ago and now has a nail polish empire, you just have to respect and admire that! You can also see the amazing breakfast that the ladies at Glamour had out for us in the background!

All in all, it was a fabulous day! It's so great getting to meet all sorts of different beauty bloggers from New York and to get to meet Essie Weingarten was just incredible. It's amazing seeing a strong, smart woman really make it and be an inspiration to the rest of us. I'm also very excited to have received the Essie Winter Collection which I will swatch for you all to see asap! I have Cocktail Bling on my toes right now, and let me tell you, it's stunning!

What did you think of the polka dot manicure? Have you ever gotten to meet any of your icons?

NYC Fashion's Night Out

Good afternoon my fellow lacquered lovers! As promised, here is a post all about my adventures at Fashion's Night Out last night! FNO is an event that kicks off New York Fashion Week where stores, mobile trucks, pop up shops all have events that people can go to for Fashion Week! Since you can't get into a fashion show without a ticket, this is a great alternative! Clearly I had to do something awesome for my manicure so here is my first stab at a corset manicure!




This look was created using Butter London Knees Up, a Milani black nail art brush and my dotting tools! It took awhile and it wasn't perfect but it was good enough that people at FNO kept asking me who did my manicure and at which event it was done! Felt good to say I did it myself!

Now, onto the events! First I stopped off for a preview at the Sally Hansen event at Talbots on Madison Avenue. It was so cute! They had a bunch of their Insta-Dry polishes and Salon Effects on display and were doing manicures! They also had an eyebrow shaping booth. Here are some pictures of the displays and the manicure station:






So fun! Unfortunately I had to run to another event so I couldn't stick around once it started but I heard it was a ton of fun! Next, I was off to Ricky's newest location on 88th and Broadway:



It was so awesome! You walked in and got a giftbag full of goodies like Mattesse Elite makeup, tweezers, a gel eye mask, nail buffer, etc. They had free drinks from Hypnotiq, games to guess candle scents (I guessed all 3 wrong!) and raffles all night! Plus a DJ, mini makeovers from TooFaced and a manicure station! I took advantage of the $25 hair blowout which was amazing AND the deal is good through the end of September, so if you are in NY, definitely check out the Revolver Salon! Here is a picture of me post hair blowout and holding my goodie bag:


Special thanks to the wonderful boyfriend AJ for taking this picture and for accompanying me to FNO!

Unfortunately by the time we got home I was so exhausted I forgot to take pictures of the inside of my goodie bag but I'll try to post that up this weekend! Our last stop of the night was down in the Meatpacking District to check out the Color Club Mobile Truck that they set up for the night! However when we got down there, something happened and they had to close early, but here are a few quick pictures I got:




It was so cute! It was an old ice cream truck and they had pictures of polishes on it like ice cream! Even though it was closed, I spoke with a lovely woman who ended up giving me the special edition Fashion Night Out polish that Color Club created called FNO Red in a pack with their black crackle!




Those were all the events we checked out but here are a few more pictures of what we saw around the MeatPacking District! Tons of shops had outdoor areas set up, and well it's just not something you see every day on the streets of NYC!







Phew! So there you have it! My Fashion's Night Out experience in a nutshell! It was a ton of fun and I can't wait to go back in the spring!

Did any of you go to any FNO events this year? What did you think?