OPI Neon Collection Nail Art!

Good afternoon my fellow Lacquered Lovers!  Happy Friday to you all!  I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far!  I for one am very excited for the weekend!  I get to see some of my favorite people and work on setting up some things in my apartment now that I have a new roomie!  :-)  When OPI sent me their new Neon nail polish collection for Summer 2014, I knew I had to do something really fun with it and try out some nail art!  I found an amazing tutorial from Chalkboard Nails for a Distressed manicure and had to try it!  Now, without further ado, onto the polish!

I'm kind of obsessed with this look!  For starters, it's super easy to do, and it just looks kinda grunge and punk and bad ass!  I used the white base coat that comes with the Neons and all of the neon polishes on top, and the black is Zoya Raven.  Be sure to check out the Chalkboard Nails tutorial I linked to above if you want to see how I pulled off this manicure.

Above:  All of the new OPI Neons layered over white

All in all, I love the OPI Neons!  The formula on these are definitely sheer and dry to a matte like most true neons, but layered over white they are pretty amazing.  I especially love the ones with the shimmer to them as they have a lot of depth.  I'll have a full review soon!  These are now available wherever OPI is sold.

What did you think of these colors?  Would you try it?  Any must haves?  Any dupes?

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

RickyColor The Pastel Opal Collection Skittles Manicure!

Good morning my fellow lacquered lovers!  Happy Monday to you all!  I hope you're all having a lovely week so far!  The sun is shining, it's finally feeling like Spring, and that means bright nail polish is on the horizon!  The lovely people over at one of my favorite NYC stores, Ricky's, sent me over their newest collection of RickyColor nail polishes and they are FABULOUS!  Now, without further ado, onto the polish!

These shades are BRIGHT!  RickyColor calls them pastel but I think they are more of a pastel neon.  This collection consists of three cremes and an iridescent glitter topper which I will test out soon for you all.  The blue is called BBCS at Cyrils and is the most muted of the bunch.  It's an almost dusty blue that had a great formula and was opaque in 2 coats.  The green is called Hudson Valley Getaway and is an almost neon mint green.  I'm kind of obsessed with it and had a great formula of being opaque in 2 coats.  Last but most certainly not least is the the pink Night at the Stalkhouse which is an almost neon salmon shade.  The formula on this was also opaque in 2 coats.

All in all, I was really impressed by this collection!  Usually pastels can be streaky or hard to apply but I had no issues with any of these.  The color payoff was so bright, the formulas easy to use, and they even made my super pale hands look tan!  Just for fun, I added Butter London Anorak on top:

All of these shades are now available at Ricky's stores and online for $6.50 each!

What did you think of these colors?  Would you try it?  Any must haves?  Any dupes?

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

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.

A China Glaze Neon Gradient and the Color Run Brooklyn!

Good morning my fellow lacquered lovers!  Happy Wednesday to you all!  I hope you're all having a lovely week so far!  This past weekend, I participated in The Color Run Brooklyn with a few friends and had a blast!  For those of you who don't know, the Color Run is a 5k to which you wear white, where along the way, volunteers throw cornmeal that's dyed at you so you end up all colorful!  At the end, there is a huge dance party with a DJ and they give everyone more color packets and basically, you end up an awesome, colorful disaster.  Obviously I had to do some amazing nails for it as well so now, without further ado, on to the polish!

This was my awesome China Glaze Neon Gradient I did for the Color Run.  The colors I used were Surfin' For The Boys, Japanese Koi, Celtic Sun, I'm With The Lifeguard, Towel Boy Toy and Flying Dragon!  I did a layer of white and then sponged on the neons on top to really make them pop.  I LOVED how this came out!

Check out some photos of my Color Run below and even a video my awesome friends Caitlin and Salome  made!

Above:  Amazing signs before the race

 Above:  Me pre-race, yes I'm wearing a Tutu

Above:  Cait and Me after the race but before the color party began

 Above:  Color Explosions

Above:  The Full Aftermath of the Color Run

And now, a video of our experience:

So there you have it!  An awesome manicure and The Color Run!  What did you think of the manicure?  Have you ever done the Color Run?  Would You?

Holo Wednesday Featuring China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard, Sun-Kissed and Fairy Dust & Dandy Nails Colorblind Squared!

Good morning my fellow lacquered lovers!  Happy Wednesday to you all!  Today I have another installment of the "group manicures" that myself and some fellow nail polish lovers do!  Today's theme is "holo hump day" since Wednesday's are sometimes called the "hump day" of the week.  However I'm not a fan of that term (unless it's in Mean Girls) so it's just Holo day for me! 

This is what my final product looks like although I had trouble capturing the holographic top coat I used!  I'm going to show you both the original manicure and then the holographic top coat so now, without further ado, on to the polish!

Here is the original manicure.  The base colors are China Glaze Sun-Kissed and I'm With The Lifeguard from the new Neon 2012 Collection.  The last color is the most color accurate because getting good pictures of neons is not an easy task!  I love how vibrant these are and the shimmer makes them really great!  I will do a full review of them soon.  Then I topped them with a new indie polish, Dandy Nails Colorblind Squared which is tiny black and white square glitters!  I love it! 

Ok I purposely blurred that last picture so you can see it!  The scattered holo top coat is subtle but it's there!  I really wish there was some sun in NYC today so I could have gotten better pictures but believe me, in real life, this manicure sparkles!

In case that's not holo enough, Here is picture of my favorite holo manicure I ever did!

Ah yes, that was a fun one!

Be sure to check out the other fabulous bloggers participating in today's holo challenge!  There are some real beauties in here!  And be sure to let me know what you think of these polishes in the comments below!