I
was incredibly flattered when Michelle, better known
as @creativenailchick on Instagram, of Laquerlicious approached me
directly to be her main swatcher... No, that's not quite how it
happened. haha I wish! ;) Michelle had posted on her highly popular
Instagram account that she was looking for swatchers/reviewers for her
in-demand polishes. Having never tried her indie polish before, I
figured this was a great way to see what all the hype was about. Well,
sad news, she already had all the applicants she needed, so I'd have to
wait until the next opportunity. Wah wah wah. Just a little while later
& she said there was an unexpected opening & she wanted me to
test them out. What the what? Okay! Hello! Thank you very much! I'll
take it! haha
Very shortly thereafter, I received a highly professional package, complete with swatching instructions & 6 minis that were out-of-this-world stunning. Yes, even in the bottle. I started swatching right away & then proceeded to have a very difficult December, including health issues & a car accident right before my 2-week vacation. It was horrible timing. Turns out, Michelle was having an even worse month than I was. Her home was burglarized and her computer & precious belongings were stolen. Everything she needed to continue to run her home business... gone. As you can imagine, that closed up her shop for weeks, but now this strong woman is already back up & running. She's even releasing new polishes, including one Anti-Valentine Limited Edition Polish for only $6 where $3 of it goes to The Fresno Bully Rescue (IG @fresnobullyrescue) to help save pitbulls (as a pitbull owner myself, this is a cause I hold close to my heart as well). What a powerhouse she is! I really can see that Michelle (IG @creativenailchick) cares deeply about the professionalism of her business, but is super friendly & approachable with a big heart for both humans and animals. I wish her the best in 2014 because she deserves it.
What's good for you is that her Christmas polishes are on sale for only $5 each.
Check out her shop at www.laquerlicious.com
Okay now, let us get to the goods!
First up we have "Bottle of Bubbly" from Laquerlicious' New Year's 2014 collection, which is a gold explosion of a glitter bomb. Honestly, I don't think there's a glitter shape you won't find in this jam-packed glitter topper; small & large circles, hexes, squares, mini holo bar glitters, & even large holo stars. I'm talking JAM-PACKED!
The bottle macro shots alone made me want to play with this polish immediately. I was in awe.
It was like taking macro photos of glorious bits of sand and seashells. I knew it'd make the perfect New Year's Eve mani!
I paired it with "All Bundled Up" (Laquerlicious' dark blue glitter polish featured next) for contrast for the champagne glasses that I painted using acrylic paints. I added pearl nail accents as bubbles. Such a fun & inspiring polish!
I chose Island Girl's "Tropical Island" gold polish as a base polish to enhance the already stunning gleam of "Bottle of Bubbly."
This polish comes out of the bottle so exceptionally smoothly & each stroke produces so many glitters, only one and a half to two coats & you have full coverage.
I absolutely loved the shimmer that came with each movement & how much light reflected off each piece of glitter.
So much holographic goodness!
Every inch reflects dazzling shine!
As seen in my New Year's champagne mani, "All Bundled Up" appears to be a simple dark blue & silver glitter polish at first glance, but you'll start to discover just how much depth there is to each and every one of Laquerlicious' polishes.
"All Bundled Up" has a nice gamut of hues, including varying blues from bright neon, reflective blue to dark navy. This polish can be found on her website in the Fall/Winter 2013 Collection.
What's amazing is the duo-chrome tones to the glitters which present blues at first to purples and even shades of dark red mixed in with the mirroring silver squares all over.
It reminded me of the depth of the night sky, so naturally I went with a shooting star mani accented with a silver Julep polish in "Harley," blue rhinestones, & a silver star nail stud.
This shot of "All Bundled Up" gives you a nice idea of the vividness of this polish. So intriguing!
What's this? Also from the Fall/Winter 2013 collection, we have "Mittens or Gloves?" Who doesn't ask themselves that during the Winter? Well, being in SoCal, I don't have to ask it as often, but when I need to bundle up, I do & this polish was an eye-catcher even just in the bottle.
A purple jelly suspension base with a multitude of glitters, especially gold & holo squares in all sizes & mini black hexes sneaking in the blue & purple flecks of this super sparkly polish.
This polish invokes many creative ideas for nail art. I wanted to play on the rich purples and blue luminescence.
I attempted my very first chevron accent nail using nail vinyls my dear friend, Melanie (IG @einalem_og) gifted me with recently. I used Essie polishes in "Bikini So Teeny" (light blue) & "Play Date" (bright purple). I also coupled this mani with neon heart nail studs I bought from IG @polishmetogo & used a dotting tool and silver acrylic paint to accent each nail with a simple design.
It only took 2-3 thin coats of this jelly glitter polish to become opaque. Very impressive for a jelly glitter.
I absolutely love this polish and can picture myself wearing it all year long! Such a potent polish!
And here we have "Confetti Aftermath" from Laquerlicious' New Year's 2014 collection, which is clearly a party in a bottle. Being a connoisseur of colour, I was enamoured with this remarkable rainbow explosion of a glitter topper.
Is there a colour you don't see here? Nope. Well, there's black hex glitters & no white, but you'll see why it works so well together in the macro shots. I felt a gravitational pull towards this polish.
Every angle gives you a brilliant flash of fantastic colour.
I attempted some simple Michelangelo nail art because topping this glitter polish over +PolishMeToGo's glowing "Lucky Me!" gave me flashes of TMNT & growing up with my siblings in the early 90s.
I then used gold holo striping tape, gold nail art stars (gifts from one of my best friends Alix @teoqeg), beautiful multicoloured rhinestones (won in a contest held by Karina @here4nails) & black polish (in a skull bottle Alix also gifted me for winning her Comic contest) to create a holiday festive Christmas tree mani. This mani got a lot of attention last month & was one of my favourites that was a conglomerate of my favourite things from some of my favourite people & brands.
Macro shots of Laquerlicious' "Confetti Aftermath" to give you a better idea of the variations of glitter placement that happens so smoothly with little to no effort.
This polish could literally be topped over any polish colour & would still pop!
This is one of my faves of all of the ones she sent me. At least I thought I had faves until I kept swatching.
Check out "Ruby Glaze!" At first glance, a simple cranberry glitter, no? ... No. Take a closer look...
Do you see all those red and maroon and purpleish pink glitters?
Even hints of indigo and gold and orange come out the more you look at it.
I decided "Ruby Glaze" deserved a simplistic accent nail with three red rhinestones over @lynbdesigns "Ingenue" topped off with "Silver Sparkler" by Salon Perfect. This mani reminded me of an elegant dinner party or night out.
You can really begin to discover the breadth of red & purple tones with these macro shots of this lively cranberry jelly.
"Ruby Glaze" is such a delicious, 2-coat indie polish within the magenta range of tertiary colours.
Lastly, we have "Emerald Glaze," the counterpart & close companion of "Ruby Glaze" in that they both are glitteriffic polishes which contain more colours than first meets the eye.
Bright purple screams through the green to teal glitters in an evergreen-coloured jelly base.
Ooo, this colour combo is so enticing to the eye! Where is your eye drawn to?
Decided to follow the "simple" suit of my "Ruby Glaze" mani & added a large, gold, diamond-shaped nail stud to bring out the goldish reflective specks within this twinkling indie.
Another 2-3 coater polish to get to full opacity.
I wonder if you see the same aspects I do to each of these polishes. What I noticed over & over was how pleasantly astonished I was that each polish was made of extreme high quality ingredients, especially the magnitude of glitters I began to discover with each stroke of the brush. Depth was the word that kept coming to mind over & over. I absolutely found more to each polish the more I inspected it. I think that's always a sign of a truly devoted indie maker. They know the colour combinations mean your eye will continue to stay engaged past just the initial glance. I will definitely be purchasing more handmade indie polishes from @creativenailchick's Laquerlicious brand. I'm a huge fan now. I get it everyone. The hype is real. Her 13K followers on Instagram know what they've become fans of too. Check out her other major sales, along with these six stunning polishes on her website:
Thanks for reading, friends! Happy New Year!
