A Matte Jelly Sandwich

I've got another F4 today, and one that I have seen reviewed all over the place: Chunky Cow. F4 is owned by three sister, and they describe Chunky Cow as "fine black glitter based polish with silver holographic glitters and small white matte hex glitters." I love the silver holo, as it makes it unique among it's million black and white sister polishes. F4 also has a similar black and white, with smaller white squares rather than the hexes, called Holy Cow.

I don't have photos of this one by itself, but trust me, they're out there! I layered one coat of Chunky Cow over two coats of NYC Carrie'd Away. 

I then topped the whole thing off with two more coats of Carrie'd Away, making a sheer, not-quite-jelly sandwich. I really loved this look. 

Topped with a coat of Seche Vite. This combo reminds me of that dessert where you mix vanilla pudding with crushed up Oreos. 

Itty bitty bottle shot!

Chunky Cow applied very well- no glitter manipulation required. The black came out much heavier on my right hand, as my left hand is a bit . . . special. (You can see it a bit on the pinky of my left hand, too.) 

F4 Polish can be found on Etsy and Facebook. Full size bottles are $8. Check out my reviews of Flubber and Pink Penquin as well :)

Reading Tea Leaves

I have another Lyn B Designs color today: Chocolate and Chai! Jenna from Lyn B describes the colors as:
I created this collection in honor of one of my favorite drinks, tea . . . In my opinion chocolate goes smashingly well with chai tea. It adds a sweetness to the spice, and makes it even more yummy. This polish is a light sandy color with small brown glitter added like bits of chocolate in a hot cup of tea." I'd call it a sort of dark shimmery nude, and I couldn't decide if the glitter was black or brown.

I have to say: I love when polish makers describe the thought process behind their color names. Many polishes are named for TV shows, or movies, or other large fanbases and I don't always get the reference. Tea is a bit easier, but I still love seeing how a certain item inspired someone to create a lovely polish :)

You were wondering when I'd get to pictures, right? Here is two coats, topped with one coat of Out the Door, in full sun. You can still see a bit of VNL here, but I find I prefer that with nude shades, as it prevents the dreaded "mannequin hands" syndrome. And can I say, I love this color on my skin? It's just dark enough and shimmery enough (not to mention the glitter) to make my nails look obviously painted, but not outrageous. This would be a lovely neutral look for the office, or any other occasion where hot pink would be rather inappropriate. 

Indoors, under "daylight" lamp. This polish reminds me of loose tea leaf dregs in the bottom of the cup- but in a totally good way! Like- makes me want a cup of hot tea, even though it's 90+ degrees outside kind of way.

Again, indoors- you can see the super shimmer in the base color. 

Bottle shot. These bottles are adorable! And completely unique within the indie community. 

I had absolutely zero issues with application on this polish. It was slightly sheer, but I like that in a nude. It went on completely smooth, and created a lovely "depth" with the layers of glitter. 

I haven't seen too many reviews of Lyn B Designs out there, so I held off on ordering for quite a while. But I'm so glad I did order! I purchased this color, Four Things and a Lizard, and Angels Have the Phonebox, which I haven't tried yet. And there are several other colors that have been added to my wishlist since. Polishes are $10 each, and there is currently a "moving sale", where you buy two polishes, get one free! There are also many other items available in the shop, including lip balms and scents.

Lyn B Designs can be found on Etsy and Facebook- check it out!

Yummy Honey

I like to dig through the "Sold Orders" section on all of my favorite Etsy polish shops, as not every color is always in stock. When I came across Utopia's Polish Grade A Honey, I had to have it! I sent a convo to Virginia, and she was amazing: told me she was waiting on an order, but would whip it up as soon as it came in. And she did! It was only a few day delay- I probably wouldn't have noticed the delay at all if she hadn't told me ahead of time. So many indie sellers get so backed up that there is a one to two week wait time on polishes anyway, and I received this probably a week after I asked for it.

Behold the gorgeous! The listing is described as: "This polish has a clear base with lots of neon colors, orange, yellow, pink hex, micro glitter." The base is actually very slightly yellowish, as you'll see in the mani photos. There are yellow, light pink and reddish orange matte medium hexes plus pale yellow micro hexes and some random larger hexes. I noticed while looking for this listing to quote, that there is a very similar Utopia Polish called Honey Bee that has pink and white heart "wings" in it! I think I'ma have to get that one too :)

Check out the cute label! It's a bit hard to read properly in a photo, but that is twining purple and blue plant shoots spelling out 'Utopia", with a pretty little fairy sitting in the U. I love fancy labels on indies. (I'm trying to get some of my own, but for now I have boring clear labels with nothing but my name on it.)

I started out with some nail wheel swatches, but I ended up using all of the colors I swatched, so I won't show them. I did an almost Skittles mani using two coats of Wet N Wild The Wonder Yellows (pinky), Wet N Wild 9021Orange (index and ring finger) and Sinful Colors Dream on (middle), topped with two coats of Grade A Honey and one coat of SV. Yes, I used these colors in another mani recently, but they're so deliciously summer, and they work so well together! I love how each color picks up the different color glitters, but none of the base colors were so close that any of the glitters disappeared. 

I was still enamored of this color when the time came to take it off, so I put it on by itself. This is three coats over nothing, topped with a coat of Seche Vite. I have no idea what happened to my middle finger, or why there is no glitter on the tip. I'm quite perplexed about it, as I certainly didn't notice it while I was wearing it. 

This glitter went on very smoothly and covered evenly (with the exception of that middle finger- maybe I bumped it or something?), but I don't think it would ever become opaque. At least not in a wearable number of coats. You can see that the base is very, very slightly yellow. There were some larger hexes that wanted to stack themselves on top of each other, but minimal manipulation fixed that. The larger glitters are also pretty transparent, so they didn't show up too well on the darker base colors, but they really looked great when the polish was worn alone.

Utopia's Polish can be found on Etsy, where full size bottle are $9, and minis are $4.50. They are also available to like on Facebook.

Dr. Who Polish!!

"Well, listen. Gotta dash. Things. Happening. WELL, four things. WELL, four things and a lizard." One of my absolute favorite Dr. Who lines ever! Have you ever fallen in love with a polish based solely on the name? To the point where you don't even care what color it is or whether you have 6 dupes or whatever? Meet Lyn B Designs Four Things and a Lizard.

Jenna from Lyn B describes this color as:  

A shimmery lime green color with medium black and green hexagons, and large gold squares., I love this colors, it's a beautiful spring green." Pretty spot on. It's a gorgeous grassy green with almost iridescent shimmer.

 In the shade

Full sun

Bottom of bottle

Luckily, I love this color for more than just the name. I'm a sucker for greens, and this is a great summery green. I love indies that actually have color to them, as opposed to the glitter in a clear base that everyone offers. 

That said, I did have a few (manageable) application issues with this. It is a full coverage color. I used two coats, with one coat of SV. Any more than two coats and the glitter would start to get buried. I would either stick to two coats, or use it on top of something else (Sinful Colors Happy Ending would be a great option). Glitter issues, there were two. First, I had trouble getting any glitter on my first pass. But a few minutes upside down fixed that problem. There was also some curling of the square glitters (which is acknowledged in the Esty item listing), but it wasn't too bad. Out of all the squares (and I had at least one on each finger), I only had a problem with one: the index finger on my left hand. There were two squares on that one, and I needed three coats of SV to smooth it down. I guess I got all the other squares on with the curl side down. 

In summary: I love this color, both for the name and the actual colors. There were some issues with application, but it was nothing that would prevent me from wearing it again, or from buying from this shop again. Lyn B Designs can be found on Etsy, and you can like them on Facebook. Polishes are $10 a piece, and right now she is having a moving sale: buy 2 get one free! There is a 16 piece Dr. Who Collection, a tea based collection, and many more. She is also beginning to offer other beauty products such as lip balms and fragrances, plus various other sundries. 

Darling Diva Polish- Space Beetle and Diabla

Ladies: stop the presses, we may have a winner. I received some polishes last week from Darling Diva, and I think I've found my new favorite color ever!

Meet Space Beetle! It is an absolutely dreamy, multichrome-y, multi-particle sized linear holo. The "main" color I would say is a dark gunmetalish grey with purple/lavender color shifts. PLUS that gorgeous linear holo in the sun. Wow. I really didn't want to take this one off!

Here we see it on the nails: 3 coats over bare nail, in the sun. You can see the strong line of the holo (reminds me of an oil-slick rainbow, but lighter), as well as some of the color shift- the purple really pops on the bottom of the bottle.

Here is the shade photo. You can really see the lavender tendencies here.

This polish really applied like a dream. Smooth, easy, great consistancy. A bit slow drying, but I always use a fast dry topcoat, which you're not supposed to do with holos, since it dulls the linear effect. So I was really only suffering for my lack of Out the Door. On the second day, I did add a topcoat, to maximize wear, and it really didn't dull the effect any. 

And because I'm never content to leave a polish alone for too long (even one like this), I layered Darling Diva's Diabla over the top of Space Beetle. 

Diabla. Multi sized black glitters, plus a smattering of red in a clear base.

This is two coats of Diabla on top of my Space Beetle. The glitter is not super thick, so it took a bit of manipulating to get it placed approximately where I wanted it. The red glitter is also a bit hard to find. I had to fish a bit to make sure I got some on each nail. Nothing unmanageable. 

I also got Purple Dreams, another linear holo in a bright violet purple, and Angry Beaver, a multi glitter in a purple toned translucent base. I'll show those off sometime next week. The shop was JUST restocked, and looking through it, there are about a dozen other polishes added to my wishlist. Beautiful colors, ranging from clear-base glitters, to holos, to cream based glitters- a little something for everyone :) I also spent a bit of time convo-ing back and forth with the creator, and she is very sweet, and very excited about her polishes. She obviously loves what she does and puts a LOT of care and thought into every color and every bottle.

Darling Diva Polishes can be purchased on Etsy, and you can like them on Facebook!

*These polishes were provided to me for an honest review.

Indie Giveaways!

No, sorry, not me :( But I do have two amazing indie giveaways from my polish-blogging sistas to share with you!

Emily from Sassy Lacquer is giving away FOUR bottles of Nerd Lacquer to FOUR different winners! She has Carbon Allotrope, Resolutionary, Event Horizon and Gorammit! Check out her blog to enter.

And Tough as Nail is doing a giveaway to celebrate reach 100 likes on Facebook! She has three packages available, and the three winners will be the first to own ANY Tough As Nails brand polish! Each package contains two full size Tough As Nails polishes, plus two full size and a mini from other Indie brands, including Pahlish, Pretty & Polished, Dollish Polish and more! Check out the giveaway here.

Good luck, ladies!

Amy's Nail Boutique Fiesta

My absolute favorite nail art (and one of the few concepts I'm capable of!) is polka dots, and I'm rarely even up for that. So I was way excited when I got my bottle of Amy's Nail Boutique Fiesta polish. Shipping was superfast, and Amy provides a tracking number with every order- so you know exactly when to expect it!

From the Etsy listing: "Red, orange, yellow, purple, green and blue matter glitters make up this pretty!"  It is a rainbow of medium-ish matte hex glitter that gives the adorable look of a scattered polka dot mani without the hassle of tools and paint palettes and multiple bottles.

The first mani I did with this polish was a skittles mani with (from thumb) Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up, NYC Lexington Yellow, NYC High Line Green, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away, and Sally Hansen No Hard Feelings. All of my base colors were on the lighter side, to ensure that the glitters didn't blend in on any of them.

The glitter in this polish was not as heavy as I'd have liked it to be. It took 4 coats to get this look. And the first time I tried, I didn't wait for the first coat to dry long enough, so all of the glitter dragged down toward my tips. I started over, and was more patient, and was rewarded with the lovely speckled Skittles seen above :)

This is the second mani I did. I dabbed on the polish over creme black and white. The dabbing worked out much better than brushing it on. I got the same coverage with two passes, and was able to place the glitter exactly where I wanted it for for even coverage. Topped with Out the Door in this photo.

After the first day, I threw on a matte topcoat.

I really love this glitter- It reminds me of a circus! And it makes for a cute dot mani when I don't feel like digging out tools and whatnot. This polish does require a little bit of special application (dab, don't stroke; and make sure each layer gets a good chance to dry before going on to the next), but it's worth it- definitely going to be used again- and again!

Amy's Nail Boutique can be found on Etsy.

*This polish was provided to me for an honest review.