The Lacquer Legion: On Holiday - A Familiar View

It's another Lacquer Legion day! I get so excited for the end of the month now—I just love participating in this group.

The LL mods chose "On Holiday" as this month's theme, and I have to say, this one was equal parts fun and challenging for me. I knew early on what I wanted to do and was excited to try, but I also knew that it would be difficult, so I spent most of the month psyching myself up for it.

Easiest Gradient Ever

Gradient manicures are one of my absolute favorite things, but sometimes they're just a little too much work, y'know? Waiting for the base layer to dry, painstakingly sponging on layers, dealing with cleanup—it can take forever! That's why all the thermal polishes popping up these days are so great: if your nails are long enough, you can (sometimes) get that gradient look without all the hassle.

A Walk Around the Color Block

My husband and I were out doing some outlet mall shopping recently, and as we breezed through the Kenneth Cole outlet, this mixed-pattern blouse caught my eye. As you may have already guessed, I always love a good mix of color blocking and patterns—and this combo in particular was so striking to me that started recreating a version of it on my nails almost as soon as we walked in the door at home.

Taboo Dreams... Come True!

Today I'd like to talk about dream polishes.

Everyone has them, right? The polishes (and/or brands) that you admire from afar and fantasize about owning one day, but that remain frustratingly out of reach because they're discontinued, from another country, too expensive, etc. For me, this dream polish has always been anything Chanel—and, more specifically, Chanel Taboo. Everyone raves about Chanel polish and I've coveted Taboo forever, but because that one little bottle costs what I'd normally spend on two or three of another brand, I could never quite justify buying it for myself. 

Thankfully, however, my birthday rolled around recently, and because I have very cool parents who are kind enough to indulge my nail obsession, I received an awesome gift from them: my dream polish! 

Nailed It! Nail Wraps Review and Giveaway

As the title of this post so slyly hints, I have a couple of exciting things to share today: a product review and a giveaway! (You're shocked and amazed, I know.)

Like a lot of geeky nail art lovers, I was super extremely excited last summer when Espionage Cosmetics launched their "NAILED IT!" Kickstarter for geek-themed nail wraps. I mean, geek-themed nail wraps! That basically has my name written all over it! I supported the project within the first few days, and then gradually kept increasing my pledge as they released more designs and I got more and more excited... and then suddenly, when the funding period ended and all the stretch rewards were tallied, I had a lot of nail wraps coming my way. Like, a lot a lot. Like, way more nail wraps than one human could ever hope to use. I gifted some to friends and family who were interested in sporting geeky nails, but I still had so many left that now I'm sharing some with you, my lovely readers, too.

First, however: my review!

A Little Spotty

I've been incredibly short on time for writing posts lately, but I've still been doing my nails! So, rather than wait until I have more time to write up something longer, I thought I'd go ahead share this quick Cruella de Vil–esque manicure that I did recently. Very little explanation required!