ALIQUID Lacquer Adopt a Shelter Dog Charity Polish 2016 Swatch & Review

It's October again! Indie brand ALIQUID Lacquer is celebrating Adopt a Shelter Dog Month with creating another limited edition polish to support the ASPCA. Their previous efforts have raised almost $700 over the past two years! This year they are teaming up with TwinkledT to also release some cute vinyls for doggie themed nail art.

Press Sample

Dog Ate My Homework is a berry-tinted jelly with holographic and iridescent microglitter, gold flakies and blue glass flecks. Since it is a jelly it is pretty sheer, but that allows the gorgeous glitz inside to pop and layer to give a complex look. You could build this up on it's own or layer it on top of an opaque base color for a different look. I used three coats here.

The included TwinkledT vinyl sheet comes with 24 decals and 24 stencils in lots of cute designs. These worked really nicely for me, and being a beginner, I think I did pretty well with them! I used my go-to opaque white crème to fill in the heart-paw and dog stencils. I also put on a coat of matte transforming top coat to give the polish another look.

About the cause: About 3.9 million dogs enter U.S. shelters every year, and 1.2 million dogs are euthanized (800,000 of them pit bulls and pit bull mixes like our dog Trudy). Adopt a Shelter Dog Month seeks to call attention to the plight of these animals and to encourage people to adopt dogs rather than going to a breeder. No matter your preferences, you're bound to find a rescue dog that fits perfectly into your home! Click here to read all about pet adoption!

The vision of the ASPCA is "a humane community in which all animals are treated with respect and kindness." Donations to the ASPCA support a variety of causes, including:
•Grants to shelters nationwide
•Spay/neuter and microchipping programs
•Adoption, fostering and relocation programs
•Investigation and seizure of abused animals
•Lobbying for anti-cruelty legislation

This polish will only be available in the month of October from ALIQUID Lacquer's website. You can purchase it for $13 and $6 of that will go to the ASPCA! Since I received this polish for review, I have donated the $6 that would've been given to the ASPCA had I purchased this.

If you are a dog lover, cat enthusiast, or just want to support a great charity for animals, please consider donating or purchasing this awesome polish!

❤ Kellie

The products mentioned were provided for an honest review.

China Glaze Fall 2016 Rebel Collection Swatches & Review

Happy Friday everyone! Today I took a trip down memory lane with the Fall 2016 collection from China Glaze! Rebel gives us 12 shades inspired by the "quintessential juxtaposition of the 90s." I was born in '86 so I lived through the entirety of the 90s decade and it definitely left an impression on me. 90s fashion is coming back in a big way so this collection is super timely and really gave my nostalgic heart a twinge. Let's take a look at the colors!

Press Sample

photos via China Glaze, collage via me

Purple Fiction is a stunning royal metallic plum. This applied amazingly, a touch on the thin side but covered easily in two coats. And no visible brushstrokes, they seemed to melt away! I'm obsessed with this jewel-like shade. Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies of all time too, so I love the name.

Dope Taupe is a soft greige taupe crème. Perfect formula, opaque on one coat! I used two here. I still say "dope", I didn't realize it was 90s slang haha.

Blue-Ya is a sapphire blue jelly with gleaming blue and green shimmer flakes. Great formula, easy to apply and opaque on two coats. I couldn't stop staring at this when I put it on!

Heroine Chic is a charcoal brown metallic with flecks of red shimmer. This applied well but had a thinner formula than I expected. Still, only two coats were necessary for full coverage. This has some brushstrokes, but they look ok due to the metallic-ness of the base. I almost wish this was a crème though, and interestingly enough it was described as such in the press materials. *shrug*

Pearl Jammin' is a pale blue with a strong pearly opalescent shimmer. This was pretty thin, but was almost opaque in two coats. I used three for 100% coverage. A little brushstrokey, but such is to be expected with this type of shimmer. Reminds me of a seashell!

Y'all Ready For This? is a warm red with microshimmer that subtly reflects a blueish-purple. Nice, normal formula, two coats for opacity. This is very pigmented and it may stain your skin upon removal, so be careful. Even thinking the name of this gets that song stuck in my head haha.

Jagged Little Teal is a rich teal crème. Lovely formula, easy to apply and buttery smooth. Almost a one coater, but I needed that second layer to make it fully opaque. I really appreciate the Alanis Morissette reference, her music and lyrics fed my pseudo-angsty pre-teen soul. I probably definitely shouldn't have been listening and singing along to some of those songs at that age though haha.

Don't Mesh With Me is an iridescent lavender microshimmer in a clear base. I applied one coat over Jagged Little Teal. I would personally only wear this layered over another color, I am pretty sure it's meant to be a topper.

Buuuut, I thought I'd be a trooper and show it on its own anyway. This is three coats of Don't Mesh With Me. Not bad to build up application wise, but it'll probably never really be opaque.

Fresh Prince-ss is a baby pink crème. I found this to be streaky on two coats so I used three. This reminds me of the pink clothes worn in the movie "Clueless", which I've seen about a million times!

Combat Blue-ts is an insanely luxe looking royal blue matte crème. Mattes can be difficult to apply because they dry so quickly, so I used the three-stroke method when applying this and worked fast to get a smooth result. Opaque in one coat but I used two.

This is Combat Blue-ts with a top coat. Very pretty of course, but I think I prefer it matte for a more unique look. I didn't have any staining with this, but didn't wear it very long. I always wanted combat boots in the 90s but I never got them.

Holo At Ya Girl! is a green gold iridescent microglitter with small blue and green hex glitter in a clear base. I used one coat over Combat Blue-ts. Despite the name, there is nothing holographic about the glitter.

And this is Holo At Ya Girl! by itself at three coats. This one is wearable on its own, unlike the other glitter in the collection in my humble opinion, but it's not my favorite look. Since it's so blingy though, even though you can see through to the nail in the photo, in real life it's less apparent.

Teen Spirit is a deep inky purple with metallic shifty microshimmer. We saw a similar shade a few times last year from some other brands, but this is more purple than those. Nice, easy formula and opaque on two coats. Dries very shiny, but I always recommend a top coat. So glad they put a Nirvana reference in!

This collection is available at retailers like Sally Beauty Supply and Ulta Beauty now for around $7.50 each. What do you think of these shades? Were you a 90s chick? I am pretty pleased with the colors in this collection, and am impressed with the ease of the formulas! Let me know what you think!

❤ Kellie

The products mentioned were provided for an honest review.

Guest Post by ManiGeek: OPI Suedes 2009

Hi there! How are you today my fine friends? A while ago, I asked a few of my blogging buddies if they could throw me a guest post for a vacation I was planning on taking during the end of July and wouldn't be able to blog during. Well, sadly that didn't end up happening, but that's ok. I still had their fabulous guest posts and still want to show them off because they're amazing! Today you'll be entertained and amused by Karen from BeautyGeeks. Please enjoy!

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MANIGEEK PLAYS OPI SUEDES FOR KELLIE G

Fellow polish junkies! A couple weeks ago my favourite nail painter Kellie G (you know I call her Kell-eh, right? – it’s a Canadian thing) hollered and asked if I’d do a guest post for her. I was all like “Hellz yeah! I’ll do you a couple BLOPIs!”

As I was wandering through The Archives, I ran into a couple OPI Suedes and thought “Hmmmm… “

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede is a stunning matte metallic eggplant. Totally smooth to the touch, this One Coat Wonder actually makes me giddy. It’s one of those things I’ll never, ever give up. Like, ever.

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede bears absolutely no resemblance to the Lincoln Park After Dark 2005 and never did. In fact, none of the Suedes look anything like their original namesakes. Weird.

OPI Ink Suede almost leans purple but doesn’t quite get there. Instead, it’s a metallic-matte silver blurple. Perfect in one coat with no base coat and no top coat. These are the bottles I reach for when I need a fast mani because I gotta haul ass out the door. One coat and dry in 5 minutes flat. #TrueStory

You can still find bottles from the OPI Suede collection floating around on both eBay and Amazon.com but prices vary wildly. I’m still working on mine and maybe one day, I’ll have ‘em all.

Thanks for the read, Kellie G fans! I know both you and I are looking forward to her return so she can once again fill our feeds with pretty nails. In the meantime, thanks for letting me play in your sandbox Kell-eh!

xoManiGeek.

This post contains an affiliate link.

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Karen aka ManiGeek: BLOG | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK

I'm in awe of Karen's beautiful photos and her perfect nails and muticles (mutant cuticles). She lives in Canada, my favorite country other than the US, and her outrageous sense of humor and the fact that she puts up reviews of new collections so fast makes reading her blog an utter delight. Her writing is seriously second to none and she's just a special chick. I adore her and I am sure you will too! Please check out Karen at the links above!

❤ Kellie

KBShimmer New Nail Care Products Review

KBShimmer has come out with a few new nail care products alongside their Spring collection, and I've got them to review for you today! I will have the Spring polishes up next week, I didn't get enough sun to swatch them this past weekend unfortunately. Plus then my nails will be grown out a little more, so that'll be good. They're super nubs right now, you'll see them in some posts later this week haha. Now, nail care ahoy!

Press Sample

KBShimmer Fillin’ Groovy Ridge Filling Base Coat (left) is a sticky base coat that gives a slightly plumped finish for smooth polish application. The stickiness helps to keep polish on your nails longer and also resists staining. It has a milky color and a medium consistency, a little thicker than clear bases so it takes a little longer to dry. This seems to fill ridges nicely and seems to help my polish adhere easily. I'm not the best judge of longevity with nail products as I change my manicure very often, usually before I ever get chips, so I can't speak to how well this keeps polish on. However, it did seem to prevent staining as I tried it with a shade I know tends to stain and didn't notice any.

KBShimmer Love You Strong Time Nail Strengthener (middle) "contains calcium pantothenate and Vitamin A to help strengthen natural nails without the use of Formaldehyde". The website says it helps weak, thin, splitting or peeling nails because it is a rehydrating formula. I find this very thin, almost watery, but it's not as runny on the nail as I imagined. Dries very quickly and leaves a nice finish. Some nail strengtheners/treatments can leave a less than desirable finish on the nail so I don't like wearing them on their own but this one is fine. You can also use it under nail polish, but I don't know how it would be at preventing staining, but it doesn't claim to be stain blocking. Most strengtheners aren't. I can't speak to how effective it is yet because I haven't had it long enough to form an opinion on that yet.

KBShimmer Oh Matte! Matte Top Coat (right) is a cloudy top coat meant to leave behind a matte finish. They advise to use this over dry polish only, or over quick-dry topcoat-ed polish, in thin coats with as few brushstrokes as possible. I've tried lots of matte top coats and this is probably among the top three. It's easy to apply, leaves a super matte finish, and doesn't get chalky on the neck of the bottle. They do tend to thicken up a lot over time so I'm interested to see if this guy does as well.

image via KBShimmer.com

The last product I have to show you is a new addition to their lotion family, the new KBShimmer Picture Perfect Matte Cuticle Cream. I was among a select few to actually be a tester for this product before its release and I'm really happy with it. (My bottle is a tester so I'm featuring a stock photo from their website.) You know how I prefer a moisturized but matte look to my skin and cuticles when I take photos so this is a perfect solution to that. I've tried a similar product from another brand and still love it, but it's a balm and this is a lotion so there's some variety in this product category now. This comes in a variety of scents as well as unscented. Pink Sugar still has my heart though!

These three polishes and the lotion are all available now on the KBShimmer website. The treatments sell for $6 each and the lotion is $4.50 for a 15ml bottle. Do you use any of these kind of nail care products? Have you tried any of KBShimmer's nail care yet? Let me know in the comments! Talk to you again soon!

❤ Kellie

The products mentioned were provided for an honest review.

Zoya Winter/Holiday 2015 Matte Velvet Collection Swatches & Review

Hey there! I have the new Winter/Holiday collection from Zoya to show you today! It's a collection of 6 polishes in their matte velvet finish. The original matte velvets were such fan favorites that Zoya brought them out of retirement last year, so there was much excitement over the fact that we were getting six new shades in the classic matte style. Let's have a look!

Press Sample

Aspen is a crisp white matte with diamond like shimmer flecks. I found this a bit streaky but didn't have as much trouble with it as I was expecting to. Whites are notoriously tricky to work with. This is three coats.

And below is after I've added a top coat. There isn't a huge discernable difference in photos, but in real life it changes the look a lot.

Yves is described as a deep sapphire matte with a subtle pearl fleck shimmer. This was quite easy to apply, two coats here.

The sparkle in Yves really comes out to play when you apply top coat!

Amal is a crimson red matte with red pearl fleck shimmer. This one was fantastic, it was opaque in one coat but I used two out of habit. Some matte polishes are difficult to apply evenly, but this one was effortless.

With top coat over Amal, you can see little pops of pink come out through the shimmer!

Sue is a muted champagne beige matte with "oyster shell" pearl fleck shimmer. This is one I wasn't crazy about in the bottle but ended up loving on my nails. The formula seemed a bit thinner than the others, I needed three coats.

There is a glimpse of pink shimmer glimmering through Sue when she has top coat on, so pretty!

Honor is an emerald green matte with soft emerald pearl fleck shimmer. This one has a good formula, similar to Yves. Two coats.

With top coat, Honor reminds me of the emerald city from Wizard of Oz, so shimmery!

Iris is described as a deep amethyst with a fuchsia pearl fleck shimmer. This might be my surprise favorite, it's such a lovely red toned purple! This one was pretty opaque in one coat, but two layers deepened the color a bit.

Wowza! Check out that shimmah! I love how the little reddish bits in Iris glow with top coat on.

Zoya recommends to apply these without a base coat for best results, but I never use polish without a base coat so I cheated and applied my stain-blocker favorite SuperChic Lacquer Bring It On and then a coat of a matte top coat before I put on the polish. I have heard that both the green and blue in this collection can stain significantly, but I didn't have any issues due to the base coat combo I used.

These are available now at the Zoya website for $10 each. What do you think of these beauties? In case you're interested in how these compare to the original matte velvet shades, my friend Valesha over at Peachy Polish has a post up on her blog with comparisons! Thanks for coming by today, see you again soon!

❤ Kellie

The products mentioned were provided for an honest review.

Orly Summer 2015 Adrenaline Rush Collection [Partial] Swatches & Review

Hi everyone! Today I have four minis from the Orly Adrenaline Rush collection to show you. This is their 2015 Summer collection, it has six shades in it but I opted for the mini set of four. I found this guy at my local discount store for a good price so I had to pick it up.

Fireball is a super vivid red with a touch of hidden shimmer. This had a good formula, on the thin side but I didn't have any issues with it. I had full opacity on two coats. It dried satiny matte so use a top coat for maximum shine. I don't think I have a dupe for this, it's so cool!

On The Edge is a blurple, more blue than purple but it's still there. This had a great formula, two coats. I never used to like blurple colors, but I have come around so I definitely appreciate this one. It also dries semi-matte.

Push The Limit seems to be the popular favorite from this collection from what I've heard, and for good reason. It's a beautiful bright orangey coral crème with neon properties but not totally neon. It went on a little streaky for me, not terrible but not awesome. It also dries more matte.

Risky Behavior is the last in the mini bunch, a really bright gorgeous fuchsia pink, another almost neon crème. This one went on very easy and covered in two coats, almost opaque in one though. Also dries kinda satiny. This one is super flattering, I love it!

The other two shades in the full collection are a highlighter yellow crème and a vivid purple crème, which I'm sure are lovely but I don't think I necessarily need them. I wasn't sure at first, but I think my favorite of these four is Fireball! That unexpected shimmer just really wowed me! Also, I enjoyed these mini bottles. Some mini sizes just don't work well for application, but these were nice and easy to use. They are .18 fl oz with nicely sized handles and brushes.

You can purchase Orly polishes from stores like Sally Beauty Supply and Ulta for around $8 for a 0.6 fl oz bottle. I got this set for around $5 at Marshalls. Did you pick up any colors from this collection?

❤ Kellie

SuperChic Lacquer Serendipity Collection Swatches & Review

Hi kittens! Today I have a new collection from SuperChic Lacquer to show ya! It's called the Serendipity collection and it consists of eight new "dewy day-glow" neon pastels and one holographic top coat. I swatched each color and, since they dry semi-matte, used a shiny top coat, then layered two coats of the holo over my ring fingernail. The crèmes all had similar formulas so I'll discuss that toward the end. They all make me look super tan too so I thought I'd mention that ;)

Press Sample

First up is Cause & Effect, described as a "stunning cross between a tangy tangerine and pink grapefruit". Indoors this looked completely orange to me, but in bright light it does have more of a pink tone than I thought. Love this! I applied the holo tc a little unevenly as you can see, but I didn't notice until I went to edit these photos :(

Crystal Blue Persuasion is a "heavenly ethereal crystal blue". Sky blues look good on everyone. So you need this!

Next we have Dumb Luck, a "jaw-dropping most incredible retro green". Uh, this is right on, so retro and I love it!

This is Happenstance, an "over-the-top hot popping bubblegum pink". It seems to have more of a slight purple tone on the nail than it does in the bottle. It's just adorable, reminds me of cupcakes.

Here comes Law of Nature, a "lush citrusy lemon yellow". Pastel yellows are hard to do well usually, but this one is pretty painless! Yellow is such a happy color :)

Nothing Ventured is not a neon, it's a "sultry silvery light to medium gray". At first I would've told you that joint don't belong in this collection, but I just don't care! It's awesome and way prettier on than I expected.

This gal is Pleasant Surprise, a "most luscious retro teal blue". Another retro color?! Yes please! I imagine if I lived in the 50's this would be the color of a lot of my kitchen appliances.

Synchronicity is the last of the crèmes and it might just be my favorite. It's more low key than the others in terms of neon-icity but it's still quite bright. It's described as "an amazing electrified grape". Everyone needs this.

All of these apply mostly the same, they are semi-matte so they dry quickly. They have a thin formula which could make for some streaky-ness. You'll need two coats, possibly three depending on your application. I used two coats for all of them except for the yellow & orange, which needed three. There is a pearly shimmer to them all (hence, the dewy moniker) that subtly twinkles when they are in their matte state, but really pops out with top coat. One layer of the holographic top coat might be a better way to go when layering, as it does get a little grey on some of them at two, but it looked good on all of them. My favorite holo + color combo is with Pleasant Surprise.

Ride The Neon Rainbow is meant to be a layering top coat, but I wanted to try it on its own for kicks. It totally works! It looks brilliant and very blingy. It's thin but easy to work with. If you want complete and total opacity you might use one more coat, but it looked good to me at three.

This collection is the collaborative brainchild of owner Jennifer and YouTuber JessFACE90, so please go check out her video review of these colors and give her some love if you like this collection! These will be available for purchase today on the SuperChic Lacquer - Wonder Beauty Products Etsy store at 4pm PST for $10 each. What do you think of these Spring shades?

It's a good day to have a good day ;)

❤ Kellie

The products mentioned were provided for an honest review.