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?

My Birthday Manicure Featuring Lush Lacquer Dippin Dots!

Good afternoon my fellow lacquered lovers!  Happy Wednesday!  I'm having a fabulous day because today, I turned 27 years old!  Somehow that sounds a lot older than 26 but since 26 was a pretty great year, here is hoping 27 is even better!  To celebrate my birthday, I knew I needed a manicure that was full of glitter so I figured I'd try out one of my amazing new Lush Lacquer polishes!  They are quickly becoming one of my favorite indie brands!  I took a bunch of pictures because I just love this manicure so much!  Now, without further ado, on to the polish!

 above:  "Carly Manicure"

I wasn't kidding when I said I took a lot of pictures!  I started off with Milani Fast Dry in White and Finger Paints Black Expressionism for the base and did my signature "Carly Manicure" with the hands different colors and a few nails swapped!  Then I topped it off with just one coat of Lush Lacquer Dippin Dots!  Here is how they describe the polish!  "  It has a clear sheer base with a huge mixture of glitter...all different sizes of pink, orange, green, yellow, blue, and purple glitters are used to make this fun and flirty polish."  I LOVE it!  Here are some macro shots with my fun new Olloclip!

 Macro Bottle Shot

Macro Nail Shots

So there you have it!  My sparkly, fun birthday manicure!  Lush Lacquer Dippin Dots is seriously amazing!  I love all their polishes and this one is so fun! 

What did you think of this manicure?

New Look for Lacquered Lover and a Duochrome Flakie Matte Extravaganza!

Good afternoon my fellow Lacquered Lovers! Some exciting new stuff happening in Lacquered Lover world today! As I'm sure you've noticed if you are reading this blog post, Lacquered Lover got a polish change last night! The amazingly talented ladies from Mac & Mo redid the website for me and I love what they came up with! They are currently in the process of getting their own personal websites set up but if you'd like to contact them for any design or website inquiries (which you should because they are amazing to work with!) then shoot them an email at macandmo.design@gmail.com. Also if you'd like to see some of their other work, you can see Nicole's website HERE and Emily's website HERE!  Thanks again ladies, I think it looks amazing!

Along with the new layout/header/font, I see that I can now reply to comments directly!  So, if you are leaving comments, make sure you check back for a reply!  I'm also playing around with making the pictures larger!  Let me know what you think!

Now, to go along with my fabulous new website, I have a fabulous new manicure to show you!  Later this afternoon I'll show you all the pieces that went into it, but for now, I will show you a few pictures of the finished product!  Now, without further ado, on to the polish!

Yes lacquered lover, it's a duochrome flakie matted manicure.  I'm obsessed with it!  I started off with one coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism, my new favorite one coat black polish!  Next came one coat of Ozotics 506 which I will give a more in depth post on later today.  506 is a gorgeous blue to purple duochrome!  Then I added a new flakie, Picture Polish Festival on top before making the entire manicure matte!  I love how matte flakies look and am so glad I discovered that if you matte a duochrome, it's still a duochrome!

So there you have it, an all new Lacquered Lover with a fun new manicure!  I'm so excited with how far my little blog has come since starting it last May and thanks to all of you for sticking around for the ride!  I'd love to hear your feedback on the new site so feel free to comment below!

What do you think of the new site?  Do you like the matted flakie duochrome manicure?

Layering Day 2 - OPI Russian Navy with Zoya Maisie and Finger Paints Asylum!

Good morning my fellow Lacquered Lovers!  In keeping with the layering theme, and the flakie theme, today I have another layered flakie!  And yes, it's over dark blue again.  What can I say?  I love dark blue nail polish!  OPI Russian Navy is one of my all time favorite polishes actually.  I've had it for years, it was one of the first "different" nail polishes I bought, meaning one that wasn't red or pink!  It's an old classic that I gave a bit of a twist to with not one, but two different flakies layered over it!  Now, without further ado, on to the polish!

So here is what you are looking at:  2 coats of OPI Russian Navy, a gorgeous deep navy blue with purple shimmer, topped with one coat of Zoya Maisie, a blue with slight green flakie, and all that topped with Finger Paints Asylum, a red and blue flakie!  Oh, and I used Essie Matte About You to matte the entire manicure except my ring finger which I left shiny!  Matte flakies is truly one of my favorite manicure looks!  I love all the different colors and different sized flakies in this manicure!  I have yet to find a flakie and dark blue combination I don't love!

What do you guys think of this manicure?  Too many flakies or not enough?  Are you a fan of Russian Navy like I am?

Layering Day 1 - Hyper by Gareth Pugh for MAC and Finger Paints Asylum Matte!

Good morning my fellow lacquered lovers!  Just a quick post this morning before a full on review this afternoon but I couldn't wait to show you this!  As some of you know, I had a little poll on the right side of the blog last week on what you ladies would love to see the most and layering won!  So this week I will be showing you some fun layering combinations!  After my obsession with flakies last week, of course the first combination includes some of my favorite things, blue nail polish, flakies and matte top coat!  Now, without further ado, on to the polish!

Above:  2 coats of Hyper

First I wanted to show you what a beauty Hyper is!  I saw Hyper came out as a limited edition collaboration between designer Gareth Pugh and MAC at the end of 2011 and had to get it!  First of all, the bottle is amazing!  I love the shape!  This polish looked like it would be a blue to purple duochrome in the bottle and in the press shots so I was slightly disappointed when that didn't happen, but it's still a stunning blue!  And practically a one coater!  I did a second for good measure here but honestly, it didn't need it!

Since I always like to add some flair to my manicures, I then decided to add one coat of Finger Paints Twisted on top of Hyper!  Then I used Essie Matte About You to make all nails except the ring finger matte.  There is something about matte flakies that I just love.  It almost looks three dimensional but then it looks flat!  And since Twisted has so many colors in it, I just am obsessed with this look!

What did you think of this layering?  Are you a fan of matte flakies or do you prefer shiny?

Finger Paints Special Effects Collection Swatches and Review!

Good morning my fellow lacquered lovers!  As many of you know, I am in love with flakie nail polish top coats.  I love them!  I love how they can change any manicure and give it an entirely new look! 

Now Finger Paints is a brand I have never tried before because I don't have easy access to a Sally's Beauty Store.  However, my fabulous friend Marissa (who I've known since we were 10 and went to sleepaway camp together) recently rekindled our friendship over a love of nail polish and she sent me an awesome package that included these beauties!  (Hi Marissa!  Thanks again!!!)  I was super excited to try these amazing new flakies so be prepared for a lot of pictures below!  Now, without further ado, on to the polish!

Above:  1 coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism topped with 1 coat of Twisted

Twisted is definitely the flakie effect that has the most colors and I love it!  I can see blue, pink, red, green, gold and copper and I'm sure there are more!  I love that the flakies are different colors and different sizes because it really gives the manicure a three dimensional look that's fabulous!  This kind of reminds me of Nfu-Oh 60 but in a clear base but regardless, I can't wait to try this over basically every dark color I own!

Above:  1 coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism topped with 1 coat of Flecked

Flecked is a gorgeous green and blue flakie combination reminiscent of Zoya Opal and Maisie but in a clear base!  I love blues and greens so put them together with flakies and I'm a happy girl!  Once again, the different sized flakies give this an awesome look that I just adore!

Above:  1 coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism topped with 1 coat of Flashy

Flashy is a red and copper flakie that has flashes of green!  You can see the green flash the strongest in the top picture here.  It seems to me that Flashy didn't have as many large flakes as some of the others in this collection but it's still gorgeous!

Above:  1 coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism topped with 1 coat of Asylum

Asylum is a flakie with red, blue and a bit of gold.  Asylum is definitely much more sparse and has much smaller flakes than the rest of the collection, so if you want a more subtle look that stays within its colors and doesn't have the color shift, then this is the best one for you!  I personally like a bit more "bling" when it comes to flakies but I think 2 or 3 coats of this would help the sparseness and really be pretty!

Above:  1 coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism topped with 1 coat of Motley

Last but certainly not least is Motley, a gorgeous dark blue, royal blue, turquoise and green flakie.  Like Asylum, Motley is more sparsely flaked and has smaller pieces but it's such a pretty color combination!  It almost looks like the ocean to me!  I'm always a sucker for blue and I just love Motley!

Now, being a crazy nail polish fanatic, I had to see how it would look if I did one coat of EACH of the 5 flakies over black!  What you see above is the final product!  I kind of love it!  It's intense and bright and colorful and just all around amazing!  I highly recommend this if you have all five!

So there you have it, 5 gorgeous new flakies from Finger Paints.  I will also say that Finger Paints Black Expressionism is an amazing one coat black polish that might be my new favorite black creme!  All in all, I love these flakie top coats, I just can't get enough of them!

What do you think of this collection?  Any must haves?  What other combinations would you like to see?