Illamasqua Jo'Mina

Hello lovelies! Happy Sunday! I know I haven't been posting much lately but it's been a busy week. We are having a 3-day weekend because Monday is a holiday so I'm trying to relax as much as possible before a new crazy week starts. Today's post is one that I should have put up earlier but I've been postponing it because the photos are not 100% accurate. In the end, I'm not one to edit the colors on my photos so here goes. 

Illamasqua Jo'Mina indoors, artificial light

I've been lemming this polish for a while now but Illamasqua's are pretty expensive at full price. I was glad to see it in the sale they had a few weeks ago. Thanks to the amazing Esther from Fab Fingertips, I was able to dodge the high shipping rates they have for international orders. Thank you again love! 

Jo'Mina is a vibrant vibrant lilac creme. It's a little more pink in reality but I wasn't able to photograph it properly. The sun pictures are even worse so I won't include those at all. The formula is great on this one and it only needed 2 coats to be opaque. It dries fast to a fairly shiny finish. My swatches don't have any top coat on. 

Of course I had to do a little nail art on top so I stamped with plate CH14 and Opoola purple stamping polish. I must say that this image is one of those that made me love the Cheeky set even before I got it. These doodled flowers are so fun and original! 

I really enjoyed this manicure and I know Jo'Mina is a polish I will be wearing a lot, especially in the spring! 

Grey for Brain Tumor Awareness Month

Hello my lovely readers and friends! It's the last day of May and I really wanted to squeeze this post in because May is Brain Tumor Awareness Month. I wanted to post this earlier but totally forgot and realized today that it's the 31st. So basically Marisa from Polish Obsession started a nail art contest on Instagram. The theme was Grey for Brain Tumor Awareness Month. I had to take part because it was an awesome contest and because this is an important cause. Here's what I came up with! 

This chevron mani was done using scotch tape and was inspired by the amazing Nailside. I started with a base of Golden Rose 134. This is the only true grey that I own and it's very sheer. I had to do about 3-4 coats to get it to look decent. I really have to get some good grey cremes. I then put some fast drying top coat on and waited for it to fully dry. After it was dry I taped a triangle in the middle and filled it in with a-england Ascalon (swatches coming soon). Finally, after it was dry, I taped a smaller triangle and painted it with Hello Kitty Blackstage, a really dark grey creme. Topped everything with top coat and that's it! For some reason this photographed better outside the light box so the rest of the pictures will be in direct light.

This looked so cool and really made my fingers seem longer. Sadly I broke a nail while I was wearing this so I had to cut them all off. I'm back to shorties now and I don't mind too much. I forgot how easy it was to go around with short nails. 

I hope you liked my grey mani! To find out how you can help the cause make sure to check this link out! 

Monday Blues: China Glaze Flyin' High

Hello my lovelies! How are you all doing today? For today's Monday Blues post I have something a bit improvised. I was going to post Kleancolor Holo Chrome but I found out yesterday that people call that one a purple. So I had nothing. I desperately went trough the pictures on my computer to see if there was something unposted. Luckily, I found the swatches of this lovely polish. It has been named turquoise, aqua and whatnot but I think we can all agree it's more blue than anything else. So here it is! 

China Glaze Flyin' High indoors, artificial light

I've had this polish for about a year but never posted swatches on my blog. It comes from the 2010 Up & Away collection and boy do I love it! It's very hard to describe because it looks different in pretty much every light and time of the day possible. A hint of green might be visible at times but mostly it's blue. Vibrant, glossy and amazing! It's very pigmented but I still needed 2 coats to get it even. My pictures have no top coat and look at that shine! 

China Glaze Flyin' High, natural light

I would say I have a soft spot for spring collections and this one from China Glaze is one of my favorites. The formula on most of these is top-notch and just a pleasure to apply. 

Don't forget to check out the other Monday Blues posts! The ladies participating are: 

Gosia from Life in Color!

Marta from ChitChat Nails

Stephanie from Sincerely Stephanie

Mandy from Chameleon Stampede
Marisa from Polish Obsession 

Have a great week!

Kleancolor Holo Chrome

Hello loves! Happy Sunday! I have a very exciting announcement for you today! Lacquer Buzz finally has its own domain! So from now on you can find my blog on lacquerbuzz.com. I can't believe how easy it was to make the transition. The following 3 days or so will be a little problematic because of the transition and the new address might get some errors. The old address is still working and will be redirecting to the new one so no worries. I'm still on blogger so GFC is still working. Also don't forget you can follow me via Bloglovin, Facebook, twitter and Google+. Check out the buttons on the left sidebar for all the links!

Today's post is about a gorgeous Kleancolor glitter. There's actually a funny story about this because I regarded it more as a blue but found out today that most people see it as purple. I guess it's a blurple so that makes everyone happy. 

Kleancolor Holo Chrome indoors, artificial light

Holo Chrome is a fine blurple glitter with a few larger blue pieces mixed in. It's not that dense so you will need at least 3 coats to get it opaque. Even at 3 coats there was still some visible nail line in certain lights. You can use some underwear polish if you don't wanna do so many coats. My pictures show 3 coats without any underwear. 

Kleancolor Holo Chrome in the sun

What made me sad about my pictures of this was the fact that I couldn't capture the holo effect properly. The picture above is slightly blurred and only shows part of the holo. For some reason it was much stronger under my bathroom light so I snapped a picture in there too. I don't usually do that but temptation was too strong. 

I used a fast drying top coat over this because it doesn't dry very fast. It's also a top coat eater. It was still gritty after 2 coats of it so I would say a thicker one is in order if you wanna make it smooth. Luckily I'm not too obsessed with that. 

I also did some stamping over it on the second day. I used stars again because I'm obsessed with them. The accent finger is stamped with QA18 and the rest with QA17. The stamping polish is China Glaze Liquid Leather. I really love how crisp the lines on the ring finger came out. I tried it with Kleancolor Metallic Black first and it was a mess. 

These photos are in full sun so they show the holo a bit better. Removal is very hard on this one so the foil method is mandatory. I think I will try using it over a blue or purple next time. All in all I really love this polish and I think it's great value for money. What do you think? Do you see it more as a purple or as a blue? 

Silver mermaid

Hello loves! TGIF! Today's post will be a short one because I'm really tired and not very talkative at the moment. You guys might know by now that I love subtle stamping. This is a manicure I did when my Cheeky plates first arrived. I was wearing OPI Mermaid's Tears so I quickly picked two stamps I liked and slapped them on. I sure loved the result! 

I used plates CH16 for the accent nail and CH5 for the rest of the fingers. The stamping polish is a-england Excalibur. You might have noticed I use this polish a lot and that's because it stamps amazingly. I won it in a giveaway on Marisa's blog and I'd like to thank her again for it! I tried to take pictures of it swatched 2 times but I wasn't happy with them at all. My photos show all the streaks that are not visible in reality. So I think this one will remain unswatched on my blog. There are several posts about it on famous blogs so you can google those. It's an amazing polish, opaque in one single coat and very durable on the nails. 

I really loved this manicure and I was sorry to take it off. I just love Mermaid's Tears so much! It's definitely one of my top 10 polishes if not even one of the first 3. It's also very special because of the trouble I had when I was trying to get it.  So what do you think about this mani? Are there any polishes that are special to you for some reason?