LynBDesigns Swatch Spam!

Hi guys! 

A while back, I bought my first ever LynBDesigns polishes when she had her Black Friday sale. I was super excited to try this brand anyway, so the sale was a perfect chance.

I'll be showing you most of them today: Off With Her Head, Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, Ragdoll, Wait Wait Wait...Is This a Kissing Book?, and Wild and Sweet. I'll have another post coming up soon with Friends Come In All Sizes and Nightmare Revisited. :)

First up today is Off With Her Head, which is from the Wonderland collection. It's described as a red jelly base with small red, silver, and white glitters. 

I can see that this is kind of a red jelly base, but to my eye, it leaned a bit purpleish. I did note that my bottle looked somewhat different from the bottle I saw in a post by Accio Lacquer, which looks like a true, bright red. I also seemed to notice more large hexes in my bottle and more squares in Accio Lacquer's. So, I'm not sure, but this one may have been reformulated. Regardless, it's still gorgeous! :)

Formula was great. Since OWHH is a jelly base, it is slightly sheer, but very buildable. In these photos, I'm wearing 3 coats plus HK Girl topcoat. Even with all the glitter in this one, it laid completely flat with topcoat! 

Next up is Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, from the Spark of Madness collection. It's described as a bright blue jelly with color shifting shimmer that changes from gold to green to blue. This polish is inspired by the genie in Aladdin, and I can definitely see that! :)

Formula was good, again this is another jelly, so it did need some building up but it's doable. I actually used 4 coats here, but I probably could have gotten away with 3, I just really hate any VNL! I used HK Girl topcoat.

The finish on this one is simply beautiful! The color shifting gold shimmer really glows in certain lighting. I can't get over how perfectly this matches to the genie! :)

Next up, we have Ragdoll, from the Nightmare Begins collection. It's inspired by Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. This polish is described as a stunning purple jelly with blue to green color shifting glass flecks.

This polish is seriously amazing, and frustratingly enough, I could not do it justice in photos! This one honestly just GLOWS. It actually looks the best in shade or low lighting, but of course, that makes the photos soft, so this was tough to capture! It is sheer like the others due to the jelly base, but again, formula was good. I used 3 coats here for opacity, but some slight VNL was still present. It wasn't enough to bother me though. :) I used HK Girl topcoat here.

This next one is kind of in indirect sunlight, and you can really see the glow here. So pretty!! I love that bright blue flash that shows up in certain lights. :)

Here we have, Wait Wait Wait...Is This A Kissing Book? hereafter referred to as "Wait" haha. Long name but amazing polish! This one is from the Dweam Wiffim a Dweam collection, and it is described as a flakie top coat. It's got hot pink, red, and gold flakies. Jenna says it can be the perfect topper or stand alone polish. I noted that it is in a red/dark pink jelly base, so I chose to build it up alone rather than layering it. This is 4 coats with HK Girl topcoat.

Formula on this was great! The flakies are absolutely incredible - I adore this color combination. In the future, I probably would layer this over a pink or red to conserve polish, but I wanted to see how it stacked up by itself, and I have no issues to report with the formula. :)

Click to enlarge one of these photos to really see up close how awesome these flakies are! I think this one might be my favorite of the 5 shown here. So gorgeous! :)

Last for today - Wild and Sweet. This one was a limited edition, released as a gift on Black Friday when you spent a certain amount of money in the shop. It's not currently available for sale in the shop to my knowledge. It is described as a medium berry toned pink cream base with golden shimmer.

I was so glad to receive this polish with my order - it's so pretty! It feels very soft and feminine, in my opinion. It reminds me of last year's Pantone color, radiant orchid. And I love the shimmer in this, it really adds a pop of something extra! I've used 3 coats here plus HK Girl topcoat.

I had absolutely no issues with formula, this applied like a dream! And just check out that shimmer in the photo below, where the light hits it - stunning! I can definitely see myself using this in nail art in the future. :)

Overall, my first experience with LynBDesigns was great! At first I thought the polishes were a bit sheer for my taste, until I went through and realized that I literally ordered ALL jellies haha! Totally my fault. Even with that being said, the formulas on all of them were great! I think in the future, I would layer most of these just to conserve polish, but that's to be expected with any jelly.

I did notice that LynBDesigns has some really unique and eye-catching color combinations and finishes. I love the shimmers she uses, flakies, glitters - how it all works together with the bases she makes. Another thing I really liked about her polishes is how clearly you can see the inspiration she draws from. Just looking at the polishes instantly brings to mind the characters that the polishes represent, which I always think is really cool. I will definitely be trying more LynBDesigns in the future. :)

Right now, 4 out of 5 of these polishes are available in the LynBDesigns shop. Unfortunately, they are no longer Black Friday priced haha, but Jenna seems to have sales often, and even at full price, they are very reasonable. All of the available polishes shown here today (with the exception of Ragdoll which retails for $10) retail for $8.

You can find these and many other amazing creations in the LynBDesigns Etsy shop, and be sure to follow LynBDesigns on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to keep up to date on new releases (a new collex is coming Jan 24th!) and sales.

Thanks for reading! <3
Kelly

These polishes were purchased by me, with the exception of the Black Friday gift. This review reflects my full and honest opinions. I am not being compensated in any way for this post. Please see my Disclosure Statement for more information.

Jindie Nails Swatch Spam: Dead Roses, K.I.S.S., Just Say Glow, Lights Out, Twerkin' for a Birkin

Hi everyone! I hope you're all having a great week! Before I get into today's post, I want to remind you to head over and enter my giveaway if you haven't already - you have a chance to win some amazing prizes from Model City Polish, Mentality Polish, or Polish Me Silly! :D

Today, I have some gorgeous Jindie Nails polishes to share with you! I am finally making my way through the vault, and I have a ton of amazing Jindies that I've swatched, so you will be seeing a lot of them coming your way soon. These are some kind of random groupings, but I put together polishes that I felt went well together. 

First up, we have Dead Roses! This is one of the few polishes in my collection that I have ever worn on all ten fingers for like a week, on TWO separate occasions. It has to be pretty epic to make it onto all ten fingers for that long, and multiple times?! Almost unheard of. ;)

Dead Roses has a pretty purpley/fuschia jelly base with a holographic micro shimmer and various sizes of silver holographic dots. It's very buildable especially for a jelly. I used 3 coats here plus topcoat and I had no VNL.

The depth in this polish is seriously amazing. And in certain lighting, it just glows! I love it so much. :D

Next up is a pairing - I started with a base of Jindie Nails K.I.S.S. and layered Just Say Glow over top of it.
K.I.S.S. is described as a barbie pink cream/jelly loaded with copper and bronze shimmer, copper flecks, sparks of small scarlett hexagons and pink/gold shimmer.

Just Say Glow is a semi-sheer gold toned rose pink polish with gold and copper shimmer and hexagons. I did wear this on its own when it first came out, and I thought it was pretty, but it was part of the same collection as K.I.S.S. and it just hit me that I thought they would look great layered together!

In these photos, I am wearing 3 coats of K.I.S.S. and 2 light coats of Just Say Glow. I topped it off with HK Girl. I really loved how the flecks in K.I.S.S. paired with the shimmer in Just Say Glow. I love these two together! They are both pretty on their own, but I think they're even better together. :)

Next up, we have Lights Out. This one was released as part of a duo with Love Me.

Lights Out is a very dark gray, almost black super squishy jelly.  It's full of all shades of reds and pinks and is pretty opaque on it's own in 3 coats, but can be layered over many different darker colors for a different look. I layered 3 coats of Lights Out alone here, with HK Girl top coat. Formula was great! No issues at all to report, even with how tightly packed the glitter is!

Lastly for today, this is Twerkin' for a Birkin'. This one came out a while back, but I'm just getting through my vault of swatches! :)

Here is the description from Jindie Nails website since Jen describes it better than I could: 

"This one is a gorgeous multi-chrome polish. The colors in this one include silver, gunmetal and several shades of green including a bright lime green to a gorgeous emerald green. The shade will depend on what angle the bottle or nail is being held. This polish also has silver shimmer/flake throughout for extra kick. This is opaque in about 3 coats."

This polish is stunning in every angle! It reminds me of those iridescent beetles. :] Here's how it looks in shade, you can really see the gold flash! I am wearing 3 coats plus topcoat in these photos. I also want to try this polish again layered over a black creme to see how it looks that way. 

Here you can see some of the blue/purple coming through, around the edges of the nails. And check out the pink flash along the edge of the bottle. Love it!

I noticed when I was in the shower that when the water droplets hit the nail, they did something cool to the polish color. Of course it was much harder to replicate later, I just tried to run my hand under some water and make it happen again, but the lighting was different and I couldn't quite do it justice. But you can see on some of the water droplets, it makes the polish underneath look purple or pink. So cool!

Twerkin' for a Birkin', Lights Out, and Dead Roses are no longer available sadly, but you can still pick up K.I.S.S. and Just Say Glow at Jindie Nails shop.

Hope you liked this post! I'd love to hear what your favorite polish is from this group! :)

Kelly

3000 FB Followers GIVEAWAY!

Hi everyone! I am so happy the time has finally come to show you my 3000 FB Followers giveaway!! I'm not sure what happened there, I think the page must have been shared a few times, because more and more of your lovely faces just appeared there and I knew I had to do something to celebrate and to welcome all my new readers. :) 

Plus, 3000 feels like such a milestone to me, I remember back when I had just a handful of readers and sometimes posting felt just like I was talking to myself. I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart...for taking a moment of your day to look at my little old blog, and my nail photos, and making me remember why I started this blog in the first place. 

And what better way to thank you than to buy you things?!

Okay, okay, now that my little sappy intro is over, onto what you really came here for:

THE PRIZES!  

Prize 1 is a Mentality Nail Polish prize pack. Mentality has quickly become one of my all-time favorite indie polish brands over the past year or so - so much so that they now need their own Helmer drawer! I chose some of my favorite Mentality's to share with one winner. Detonate and Spree are part of the Jellychrome collection, which has been wildly popular. Diem is a gorgeous multichrome, flakie, shifty thingy. And Tempest is a gloriously vampy blackened red matte. A must have for every polish lover!
One winner will receive Mentality Detonate, Mentality Spree, Mentality Diem, and Mentality Tempest.

Prize 2 is a Polish Me Silly prize pack. I know lately that flakies have been ALL the rage, and there are a lot of brands out there releasing these lately. I still haven't even bought any for myself actually!! But, I looked over what options were out there on the market, and these two from Polish Me Silly really caught my eye. Party Hearty is like a rainbow in a bottle, seriously - I think I will be getting my own bottle soon enough. ;) And Free Fall reminded me so much of fall leaves, and I just love the color combination together.
One winner will receive Polish Me Silly Party Hearty and Polish Me Silly Free Fall.

Prize 3 is a Model City Polish prize pack. I absolutely adore Model City Polish, and some of the polishes she has put out just in this last year are astounding. My personal favorite that I have been lemming since it came out haha, is Pumpkin Spice, an amazing orange holographic. I need it in my life not only because my favorite color is orange (duh) but I am obsessed with all things pumpkin - yum! AND, the elusive Wear with Caution 2.0. This purple holographic is seriously blinding. Nina says this is hands down her best seller, and I can see why!
One winner will receive MCP Pumpkin Spice, MCP Wear with Caution 2.0, and a nail care set including a mini glass nail file and a mini size MCP cuticle oil.

Rules

1. This giveaway is open to US only. Sorry, international friends - the shipping would just be too much for me at this time. However, I am happy to ship to a friend for you, if you have someone in the US who can receive packages for you. 
2. You must be 18 or older to enter.
3. No cheating, period. All winners' entries will be verified. If I draw your name as a winner, and I can't verify your entry for whatever reason, I will re-draw.
4. Giveaway prizes will be shipped by the indie makers listed above. Winners must be okay with giving me with their mailing addresses. 
5. Winners will be notified by email, and must respond within 48 HOURS or I will redraw.
6. Good luck, and thanks again so much for reading!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Mentality: Diverse & Orgasmic

*Nothing to disclose*

Hey everyone! :) Happy 2015!! I hope you are all feeling okay today and didn't party too hard last night haha. I don't know, I must just be getting old because as I was driving to work last night and I saw people waiting in lines outside to get into the clubs, all I could think was, "they must be freezing!" That kind of thing just doesn't seem as fun to me anymore! Oh well, I guess it happens to us all. I would much rather have been snuggled up at home with my fiance and our two fur babies, but of course, I had to work!

One thing I want to try to do in the coming year is become more diligent about my blogging. I had a few job changes this year and had a lot going on with wedding planning and such...and it seemed like I was letting my nail art and swatching fall by the wayside. I want to be more focused and more consistent with posting this year. I'm determined! I also want to lose quite a bit of weight before my wedding, so let's home I can stay as determined with that one lol.

Anyway, for my first post of 2015, I wanted to share some more swatches from what has become one of my favorite indie brands of all time: Mentality! I am always astounded by the amazing shades and flawless formulas in Mentality's polishes, and these two were no exception.

First up is Diverse, which is described as is a blackened dark yellow green holographic nail polish. I've used 2 coats in the following photos, plus topcoat, and as you can see, it was totally opaque!

I really liked this shade because it was something unique that I didn't have yet in my collection. I love green polish! This one is very earthy-feeling to me, and it reminds me of fall. The holo in it is stunning (of course, I happened to swatch it on one of the zillions of dreary days Ohio has) but I feel it is toned down enough that it would be work-appropriate for those of you that have to consider that.

Since I failed at capturing the sun that day, I had to snap a couple of flash photos to show the gorgeous holo sparkle in Diverse! :)

I adore the natural, yet still elegant look of this polish. The blackened yellow shimmer makes it shine like gold!

Next up is a somewhat drastic change, so prepare yourselves haha. This next polish is the complete opposite end of the color spectrum! Where Diverse is natural and subdued, Orgasmic is bright and in your face. It is described as a sparkling blue holographic stained glass polish with loads of pink and blue glass accents. I also swatched this one on my swatching hand, so my nails are super long haha. I wish I could always keep them that long as squares, but they always break at the edges. :( 

Anyway, feast your eyes on the amazing Orgasmic!

Luckily, when I wore this one, I found some sun! And as soon as I stepped out into my stairwell, I felt like the holo punched me in the face haha!! It is seriously amazing. The linear holo effect is SO strong, it's almost blinding - and I mean that in the best way possible. 

I love how bright and fun this color is, while still looking feminine and pretty. I think it's the pink glass accents! You can really see the pink around the edges of the nail and where the sun hits it. This is one of those polishes that you can stare at for a good bit of time and you'll keep finding something new. I love that!

I took the below photo with flash and left it kind of intentionally blurred to really show off the intense holo.  WOW - I don't think I could ever get tired of looking at it!

And of course, one more because I clearly am obsessed with this polish and maybe just a little bit wanted to show off my ring? Haha - I took these not long after we got engaged. I thought, this polish is insanely sparkly, why not show it off paired with more sparkles? ;) Also, this photo makes me miss my long squares again. :(

I'm so in love with both of these polishes, for different reasons. I would reach for Orgasmic more in the spring or early summer (which I did lol) but Diverse is such a perfect fall polish. Both have a gorgeous holo effect, but I would say it's definitely stronger in Orgasmic. However, both are amazing polishes, and if you ask me? You need both!

Both of these are currently available for sale now. Orgasmic retails for $9.25 and Diverse retails for only $7.50! Shipping is always free and SUPER fast. I've linked to both polishes you've seen here, or you can just check out Mentality's shop in general. There are tons of amazing polishes in literally every finish you can imagine!! Be sure to also follow them on social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to keep up to date on new collections and sales.

Thanks for reading!
<3
Kelly

Nail Challenge Collaborative: Dots #4 (NYE)

Hi everyone, Happy New Year! Phew, I'm making it just in time! I did this quick simple dotticure in silver and gold to celebrate the new year. I love it! :)

I had one more dotticure to do for the Nail Challenge Collaborative and I knew I wanted to do something for New Year's. These are the colors that spring to mind when I think of NYE  - black, silver and gold. I used a base of Sinful Black on Black and dotted with Zoya Trixie and Color Club Winter Affair (Sally's version). I used Seche Vite topcoat. I've been using these Color Club 2012 holiday shades a lot this year, and I'm not mad about it! I forgot about them and they really are pretty colors. :)

This is a quick and simple look anyone can recreate. It's a little late for NYE now, but it can be used for really any celebration where you want a fun, confetti-like look with an elegant color scheme.

I'd love to hear what you guys think of this look! I'll be heading to work here shortly (BOO!) but I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year's, and I hope you are lucky enough to spend time celebrating loved ones.

Thanks for all the support in 2014, I sincerely hope you all will stick around for 2015 and see what amazing things are to come! :)

<3
Kelly

An InLinkz Link-up

Nail Challenge Collaborative: Dots #3 (Christmas Presents)

Hi loves! I've got another dotted look to share with you today. It looks like I'm going to finish out this theme just in time - again! I think this was my favorite look I did for this theme. I used one of Christabell's designs from Instagram for inspiration. I chose some different colors to emphasize, but the idea is all hers! :)

I started with a base of Sinful Snow Me White on the middle two fingers, and Color Club Berry and Bright on the outer two. Even though it is from a couple of years ago, Berry and Bright still has a bit of the yummy berry scent left over! :) I love this shade of red for the holidays. I used a dotting tool to dot with Berry and Bright, Color Club Ho Ho Holly, and Essie Good as Gold. Then, I used a striping brush to create the stripes and the bow on my ring finger, using the same colors. I love how it turned out!

I used HK Girl to top it off, and luckily I waited long enough this time that I didn't smear my dots haha! :) I got a lot of compliments on this mani and several "Did you do those yourself?" which I haven't heard in a while. Always nice to hear! ;)

I didn't want to take this mani off, I loved it that much! I have to start looking to Christabell for inspiration more often - she's got some awesome designs.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out the other blogger's Week 3 looks!
Kelly

An InLinkz Link-up

Nail Challenge Collaborative: Dots #2 (Christmas Trees)

Hi everyone, and Merry Christmas (to those who celebrate it)! Unfortunately, I am spending my Christmas at work. :( But, I was able to spend Christmas Eve with my mom's side and my fiance got to meet them for the first time which was great. I was desperately trying to get all my Christmas manis posted before Christmas was over, but I didn't quite make it. I have one more after this one to share, and even though it will be late, I really loved it so I definitely want to share it.

Today, I have some dotted Christmas trees that I came up with after seeing my new Azature purchases I ordered during their December 6th sale. I was feeling like doing some holiday nail art, and since this is dots month for the Nail Challenge Collaborative, I thought this design would be perfect! So, here you have my dotted Christmas trees!

I used all Azature nail polishes for this mani, except the topcoat, which is HK Girl. I started with a base of Azature Red on the first two nails and Azature Horizon Diamond on the last two. Then, I dotted my Christmas tree shapes using Horizon Diamond and Azature Ruby Diamond.

The formula on these was absolutely phenomenal! Of course, it's beyond cool that there is a black diamond in each bottle, so I was excited on that alone. But these polishes are super pigmented. They were opaque in two flawless coats and went on like butter. No issues at all to report.

Fiance didn't quite get that these were Christmas trees at first glance, but I kind of like the abstract look, and it felt perfectly Christmas-y to me! :)

Overall, I really loved this look. It was simple, but still eye-catching, and the polishes really stood alone, in my opinion. I didn't feel like I needed to go super over the top with nail art because the polishes were stunning enough even on their own! I can't wait to try the rest of the Azature polishes I got during the sale! If you haven't already, you should check out Azature's selection of luxury nail polishes. Granted, the sale is over, but even at full price, these polishes are a great idea for when you want to treat yourself. :)
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this look below.

Thanks for reading, and happy holidays! <3
Kelly

An InLinkz Link-up