Polish All the Nails

I am lucky indeed to have IRL friends that are also Lacqueristas.  Sure, it helps I met them at Reddit meetups but it totes counts.  One of my new favourite things to do is going to raid their polish collection as it can often yield excellent results.  So excellent, in fact, as I finally got to try a Butter London polish and even one I've been lusting after: Wallis, the beautiful metallic olive.   Looking at these photos, I really wish I'd added that third coat I was going to.  I can see it's just a little thin in places but that doesn't stop Wallis from being awesome.  It's such a unique shade of sparkly olive, I just don't have anything else like it in my collection.  Application was good as well, although three coats is advisable.  As I had a bit of time on my hands, I thought I'd try out a mermaid accent nail that I saw floating around Pinterest a while ago, a coloured gradient using a bunch of Sinful Color polishes.  I love how it c...

Sometimes, I have these brilliant ideas in my head and they just do not translate well to reality.  It's extra annoying as I have to stare at them all day and it makes me all whiny.  However, I feel it is my duty to show you everything - even if I kinda hate it - so you know not to do it yourself.  Learning yay! So this particular "brilliant" idea started off with a suggestion from a reader, comparing Deborah Lippmann Private Dancer with Gosh Purple Heart.  I happened to have that one lying around so gave it a shot.  Purple Heart looks amazing in the bottle - that wonderful purple-green duochrome I find so hard to resist.  The first coat was good, if not a little thin, appropriately being all colour-switchy.  By the time I got to three coats, the colours just kinda stopped being awesome.  I couldn't see the colour shift even looking at it, let alone on camera.  My next misstep was to add an accent nail in the new silver leaf I found at ...

After slaving away over my soccer nails, I had to do something to balance out the sport.  What better time than to crack open my girliest girly girl polish and be a pretty pink princess for the day!  Aww yeah I'm a fancy lady.  Let's take a look at Dollish Polish I'll Have What She's Having. To start, I wanted a nice matching base.  While being opaque, this polish is thick so I didn't want to have to deal with the four coats needed to get the opacity I like.  The best match I found was Essie Jamaican Me Crazy (  ಠ_ಠ   ) as it was the same purple tinted pink.  One went two coats.  I've reviewed this one before , it's nice.  Nothing standout but better than the normal, "boring" Essies.  Next, two coats of I'll Have What She's Having.  I don't think I've ever seen as much pink glitter in the one place as this polish.  Take a look at the close up: there's square, micro and hex glitter in at least three different shad...

Brace yourselves, everyone, I'm trying to be timely and relevant! This is quite the stretch for me so bear with me.  I'm even going to talk about sports *gasp*.  Anyway, in an attempt to get my bf interested in my blog, I occasionally make him challenge me with a design.  His brilliant idea?  The Euro Cup, with the soccer and whatnot.  Sure thing, says I, flags it is! First up, I started with two coats of Joe Fresh White.  I wanted a nice solid base to start on and that was closest so that'll do.  I started with my thumb by painting on a tiny pentagon somewhere in the middle with my new tiny brush, using black polish.  I then drew out the rest of the lines and pentagons and it actually turned out ok.  Encouraged by a decent start, I then moved on to the flags.  I free-handed them all as taping gets risky, with the base colour.  Colours will be listed below.

Guest post time!  Today we have a lovely sparkly mani from the lovely Raquel from the lovely 9ml Universe !  Take it away, Raquel. Hi everyone!   My name is Raquel and today I'll be showing you a brand that I doubt any of you has heard about, it's a spanish brand called Yes Love. I don't own many polishes from this brand, just 2 I think, but the ones I do own are quite awesome! At first, I wasn't really sure if they were any good. Here in Portugal they're only sold in chinese stores and only cost 1€, so that made me think they would be crappy, but everyone on the portuguese Facebook groups I'm in, only had nice things to say about them. I decided to give them a try and found this gorgeous colour one day on my way home. I have a soft spot for purple polishes!   Ok, moving on to the polish itself. This is Yes Love #N06 and it's purple with some gold micro glitter in it.  It had a really nice formula, not too thick or runny, and 2 coats were enough to get...

I'm not American nor do I live there so I see no problem posting a red, white and blue polish with a name like Freedom Calling on June 25th.  In fact, it's the same colours as the Australian flag so to hell with it, yay Australian nails!  Let's take a look at one of Pretty & Polished's new colours, Freedom Calling.  Don't faint, you can actually sometimes buy this one! Freedom Calling is a mixture of red, white, blue and silver glitter in a clear base.  You've got all kinds of glitter in there - bar, hex, matte, shiny, all without the micro glitter which I love.  I didn't, however, love the application.  It's almost impossible to get the glitter out the bottle.  I had this sitting upside down for an hour and still, nothing but big clomps of base came out.  I'd have liked more glitter on each of my nails but one coat was all I could do as it was so thick already.  Even then, the glitter didn't even a bit sit flat.  I'm used to ro...

There comes a point where stamping is too hard and the prospect of doing another striped, dotted or average taped mani just isn't interesting.  I literally (literally!) have an entire reusable shopping full of polish and yet deciding what to do can be extremely tough.  The solution? Browse all the blogs! I really should use that more, it is the meme after which my blog is named.... Anyway, I found myself on Chloe's Nails and just had to try one of her "Patchwork" manis.  I wanted a twist though: have each be a different texture, rather than colour! To start off, I added two coats of Rimmel Black Satin - my go-to black - and added a thin coat of Seche Vite on the top to help it dry.  Once it looked dry, I WAITED FIVE MORE MINUTES.  I have ruined way too many manis not waiting an extra five minutes.  Then, I cut two squares of tape to create my first two squares.  I added the polish, added Seche Vite and WAITED FIVE MORE MINUTES.  Repeat for th...

Ever since I played with Urban Outfitters Blood the other day (the nail polish, not the...uh..bodily fluids) I've been tormented by it.  It was such a good red and I just didn't do it justice.  I've been toying with the idea of doing gingham nails for a while now and figured that since it was such a good jelly, it would make for a good ol' check pattern.  I wanted a polish that was noticeably darker between coats for the cross sections. First up, two coats of my favourite nude, Orly Porcelain.  I've used this one quite a few times now and it's one of the few light/nude colours I've found that doesn't look streaky in two coats.  I'm usually adding a lot of layers on top of it so I need something that's even in as few coats as possible.  Once that was dry, I thought about using tape but that was too much work.  I found a small, narrow brush and just dipped it in the OUB (Urban Outfitters Blood, the sentence is just too weird otherwise) an...

Onwards to show you more indie polishes that I magically have and is now impossible to get, therefore leaving me wracked with guilt because I'm essentially just teasing you!  So I can hear what you're thinking, and no, I didn't just glue sparkly pine needles to my nails, this is just Lacquistry Faux Fir! I'm not normally one for greens, for some reason, but I had to make an exception for Faux Fir.  Anything with such a large amount of glitter could be poo brown and I'd find a way to like it.  There's bar glitter, hex, micro, you name it, it's all there, in a strong forest green. Anyway, for this one I started with two coats of Revlon Posh with a coat of Rimmel Black Satin on my ring finger.  I was curious to see if using a different undercolour would make for a good accent nail and it's not bad.  Next, two coats of Faux Fir.  Application was decent - this much glitter is always a little thick - but I had no problems getting it out of the bottle which ...

Something a little different to show you today as I have another guest poster, this time from Turkey!  Take it away Aylin! Hi… This is Aylin from Posh Nail Art … Today, I’ll be guest posting for Polish All The Nails, a blog I’ve been following for some time…  J This will be my first guest post and I’m really excited, so forgive me if I make a mistake…  J For today, I picked a theme that reminds me the hot days of summer. It is getting hotter here in Istanbul, Turkey… And my daughter has been begging to have ice cream every single day… (So this mani is decicated to her… J ) And I’ve been dying to use my new Cheeky plates… So, here we go…  J I used Flormar 424, a minty green creme polish from the Spring Collection, as the base of my manicure… These polishes are very pigmented, so if you use a thick color, one coat is enough for opacity… As you can see in the pictures, I painted all my nails with 424, but then I changed my mind and decided to make an a...

So I'm a bit of a silly face.  Here I am, lamenting the fact that I'm trying to behave myself and not buy polish when it means I can't have my fix of indie polish goodness. The fact that they're almost impossible to get aside, it was nice to have a steady supply of sparklies to show all you lovely people.  Gazing at my indie drawer of my helmer (yes, I have an entire drawer full of indie polishes - you jelly :)?) I realised: there are like 10 polishes in here I haven't even a bit tried.  Aww yeah!  Brace yourselves, you're getting a few of these posts over the next week. Let's start off Indie Week (sure, let's call it that) with a lovely Lacquistry lacquer (alliteration!), And Miles to Go Before I Sleep.  This polish is absolutely beautiful.  Despite being filled with silver micro glitter and silver holo hex glitter, it manages to look white in the bottle and over Sally Hansen Celeb City.  It looks like snow in the sunshine, all frosty and sparkly...

Sometimes, you have a vision in your mind of how a mani will look.  People gasping, cameras flashing, being the talk of the entire world.  Sadly, today is not one of those days as everything about what I did the other night is just sad and fail. My first brilliant idea was to use an Urban Outfitters polish called Blood.  I had this picture of it being viscous, deadly looking, dangerous as it really is the most true blood red I've ever seen in a polish.  Unfortunately, it also makes my cuticles look like they're bleeding as apparently after all this time I still can't paint my nails neatly.  Being more of a jelly polish, I used three coats and got decent coverage.  My next bright idea was to apply a glitter stripe down the middle to hopefully distract from the mess I made.  I managed to convince myself that the beautiful matte glitter Sand Art from Pretty and Polished tootttallly went with the red.  NOPE.  I'll be coming back to review th...

Another new brand for me today!  I find it really hard to leave Sephora without a new polish (wow, that's a broken sentence, but whatcha gunna do) so let's take a look at one of the new TokiDoki polishes from the Confetti Collection, Latte.   Cos you know, my lattes are always blue and pink.... First up, let me inwardly kick myself for not using a base colour with this polish.  It's just crying out for a strong, sparkly base, something like Orly Sweet Peacock or just a purple or black, or pink, or something.  That aside, the polish itself is super interesting with a mix of blue micro glitter and pink and holo bar glitter.  I do hate bar glitter generally as there's always bits hanging off the ends of my nails but these bars are smaller and ok.  Application was good - this is three coats, normal for a glitter - but looking a the pictures,  I can see holes in the glitter and it bugs me.  Oh well, live and learn. 

It's fair to say that I spend rather a lot of time on Reddit Laqueristas (and yes, the 'c' is missing).  There was a post on there last night asking about how a ruffian manicure was done, and, having nothing better to do, I thought I'd give it a shot! Add a coat of Revlon Silver Coin.  Leave this to dry completely, then add another coat.  I only used one and it lifted at the corners.  Two would have been better.   Apply a coat of a quick dry top coat, like Seche Vite and leave to dry completely. Leave it to dry another five minutes. Once completely dry, use labels or tape, cut into semi-circles, and apply over the cuticles, leaving ~3mm of base colour showing.   Paint on your black polish and remove tape before it dries. Add a coat of Seche Vite, for staying power. Add your matte top coat.  I used Joe Fresh Matte, as it works well.  Voila!

Oh happy day for me, sad day for my wallet when I finally found a store in Canada selling Deborah Lippmann polishes! I've seen and admired a lot of her polishes online but it's really hard to justify dropping $20 on a polish that you can't see for yourself.  When wandering around Yorkdale mall after the Radiohead concert was cancelled (so very actually tragic) something pinged at me out the corner of my eye from a hair salon.  Looking closer, I was expecting the standard OPI's but no...this was the ENTIRE Deborah Lippmann collection, complete with the new chromes, glitters, everything.  I plopped my bf in HMV and proceeded to drool.  My final choice?  Private Dancer from the Mirrored Chrome collection as the bottle was just stunning.  On to lots of pictures! I was worried about how opaque this polish would be so I started off with one coat of black.  I needn't have bothered as the polish was fine on it's own and I had to spend a while cleaning up ...

For today's nails, I actually had to fit a theme, of all things!  Every year, the advertising half of our company throws a massive themed party and this year, it's superheroes and villains.  Because I'm not the most organised person in the world, I went to get my costume from the only costume place nearby, the day before the party.  I was so tempted to go for an evil queen costume that was actually produced for an opera, it was that elaborate but an floor length red cape stole my heart.  I, then, am going as Super Developer!  Never a defect or a bug exists that I can't fix!  Never a cat video that will go un-shown!  So, I needed superhero nails! First up, the same cloud design I used here .  Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect in Air makes an excellent base for clouds.  After three coats, I created the clouds using  Rimmel French White Tip Liner, dotting on to create the clouds.  I should have followed my instinct and used purple f...

Once again, I am on the quest to find new and interesting things to show you all.   Given I'm approaching 250 posts, this is getting more than a little difficult to do!  I've noticed a few interesting techniques on Pinterest and the one I thought I'd try out was NOT.  USING. A. BASE. COLOUR. *gasp*.  I use a LOT of nail polish and thought I'd give it a shot, while my nails are free of stains for once! After yesterdays taping adventures, I felt the need to try something a little more complicated.  Starting with a base coat and a coat of Seche Vite, I cut thin strips of tape into various shapes, stuck it to my hand first to get rid of a little of the stickiness then laid it on my nail.  Using a black polish I got in Australia, I then painted over the tape, making sure there weren't any bubble lifting the tape.  Peel off and voila!  The only change I'd make to this would be to use my favourite black, Rimmel Black Satin.  It's thick than thi...

Guest Post time! Take it away, Natalie, from There is Beauty in Colour ! Hello everyone, For this guest post on Polish All the Nails (yay Canadian blog!), I thought I'd choose an amazing indie glitter polish that has been sitting in my drawer for a few weeks now - Dollish Polish Scarab.  Chartreuse, turquoise, black, brown, and blue small and medium hex glitters blend beautifully in a clear base.  The many colours in this polish make it versatile, as it can match and contrast many colours of underwear.  I decided to wear it by itself, which was probably not the best idea.  I started out with three coats and one coat of Nubar Diamont and it looked fine to me, but in the bright sunlight, you could see a few bald patches here and there.  I then painted on a fourth coat of Scarab and one more of Diamont ~ 6 coats!! Needless to say, the polish on my left index finger chipped off in one sheet (!) a few hours later.  Oh well, it was beautiful while it las...

Last night, I decided that I might just have to try something different.  I've been doing a lot of glitter gradients, swatches of indie polishes as well as my trusty glitter mosaics but haven't really played with tape much.  Given I have a fresh bottle of Seche Vite and just found my Scotch Tape, why not give it a go?  The thing that's always stopped my taping attempts in the past has always been impatience.  I wouldn't wait long enough before applying the tape which would then either pull up the base colour or I'd be too scared to stick it down full and the top colour would bleed.  This time I was determined for success.  First up, two coats of American Apparel Sunshine State, the egg yolk yellow.  I then waited.  Then waited five minutes more.  Next, sticking the tape to my palm first, I laid the tape near my cuticles and added a thick coat of Urban Outfitters Bandeau.  It's such a fantastic purple, and has a really interesting ru...

Time for another guest post everyone!  Take it away Stephanie! Hey all! I am so happy to be here while Laura is away on vacation, lucky lady! I hope she is having a super fantastic time and I am thrilled to be here :) I'm Stephanie and I have a little Canadian blog called  Sincerely Stephanie . Woo to Laura also living in Canada ;) I really love Laura's blog and the number of manicures she manages to get in blows my mind! I don't know how she manages to get it all done! It took me awhile to decide on what to post but I finally took inspiration from a purse that I saw on Pinterest! I unfortunately drew out the design on paper and can't find the bag now, anyway onto the nails. 

After a holiday, the sensible blogger must not immediately raid all shops for polishes that come out in the preceding two weeks.  No, she must only get the select few, those that are truly worth showing.  Turns out that's hard and when I first got back I may have gone a bit silly with the polishes I bought.  Let's take a look at the (mercifully) single never Sephora polish I bought, If You've Got It, Haute It.  Yes, that is actually what is printed on the bottom of the bottle >.< IYGIHI - even the acronym is ridiculous - is a charcoal grey polish backed to the glitter with black, charcoal and opalescent glitter.  It looked so sparkly in the bottle, I couldn't resist.  Application was not great with this one - the brush is huge and the polish a little thick, despite being a sealed bottle.  I was excited with the first coat as there was a ton of black glitter standing out but that was quickly overwhelmed.  The end result after three co...

Having missed last month's Reddit Monthly Meetup, not only did I have to be there with bells on this month, I clearly had to bring seriously sparkly nails.  Cos, you know, it's vital for a bar full of people from the internet.  Since it's been a little while since I last did a good mosaic glitter, let's go with that.   As another other than my most eye-bleedingly orange neon polish would clearly do my silver holo glitter a disservice, I started with three coats of Claire's Neon Orange polish.  Like most neons, the first coat was a little unruly but it smooths out nicely after three coats, which isn't unreasonable.  Once this was dry, I coated one third of a nail with my stickiest top coat.  Using a toothpick, I then placed each piece of glitter in a dot pattern.  See my full tutorial here , if you're interested. 

Anyone who's read a few posts around these here parts will know I'm something of a fan of matte glitter.  There's just something about the effect that is very visually pleasing to me.  When I find one beach-themed, which makes me yearn for the time I just spent in tropical northern Australia, you have a nostalgia-filled winner! To start, two coats of Sally Hansen Navy Baby, the ever reliable navy base colour.  I've used this one so many times, it's just such a good alternative to black.  Next, two coats of Pretty & Polished Beach Bum.  This polish is so pretty, a mix of matte blue glitter and a ton of different sparkly blue too.  Application was really good, despite me only managing to get two of the larger hex pieces out of the bottle.  The mix of the matte and shiny glitter just makes the whole thing more interesting.  Combined with the navy base, it reminds me of the ocean in the moonlight.

My, did I get a pretty polish in the mail a little while ago - funnily enough from Pretty & Polished.  So sparkly in the bottle, I felt I had to honour the beautiful summer weather Toronto's been having recently and do it justice with the goldiest gold gold mani I could come up with.  When none of my current gold polishes would suffice, why not a summery yellow?  Why not also try a reverse glitter gradient? Let's do it! First up, I started with two coats of Orly Spark, a lovely lemony yellow.  I've had this one for a while but it wasn't until the horrible green stains grew out of my nails that I've actually been able to use it without getting sad.  Application wasn't great on this.  There was cuticle dragging and streaking, even after two coats.  That's partly the reason I decided to go for a reverse gradient - to try to cover up the drags.  Apart from that, I love this colour, so summery.  Next, I applied a coat of Pretty & Poli...

Someone made the comment that apparently I'm 12.  It's not the most unreasonable comment - I do like all things sparkly, had princess nails for my birthday and just generally a little bit 12.  Sticking with that analogy, let me show you one of the Hello Kitty nail polishes I found in Australia, a shimmery duochrome Violet Salome.   Other than sparklies, I also can't seem to resist a polish that has that oil slick colour shift around the edges.  Violet Salome is a classic example.  It looks mostly a reddish purple but right on the edges it shifts to green.  I am physically unable to stop myself from buying these, if I see them.  To test this polish out properly, I started with a coat of black polish, as I wasn't in the mood to layer on five coats.  I then followed it up with two coats of Violet Salome.  Despite being my least favourite shade of purple, the amount of sparkle that comes off this, combined with the different colours in ...

Well, today I turn 27.  To distract myself from the fact I haven't done much in the past few years that I'm totally not getting old, I'm having Disney princess nails, dammit!  I found the princess temporary tattoos in a supermarket in Australia, of all places, and had to have the right occasion to wear them.  What better time than my birthday?  COS I'M A PRINCESS YAY :D:D:D So, to start with, two coats of Revlon Silver Coin and one of the holo top coat from Etsy, same as yesterday, followed by a coat of Seche Vite cos I'm impatient.  Then, once it was dry I cut out two princesses from my sheet (Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, because they're both blonde like me) and applied them to my thumb and ring fingers.  The remaining fingers was the jewel and silver pattern from the border.  I found the best way to apply these is just like you did as a kid: peel off the outer layer, stick on, soak for 40 seconds with a makeup pad and slide off.  Add a t...

My other post today had a tiny bit of complaining about running out of ideas to do, and how I too often resort to indie polishes.  While what I'm about to show you is resoundingly this, it's so different that I have no  problems posting it on the same day.  Let's take a look at Pretty & Polished Phoenix.   The hardest part about this polish is what to pair it with.  The polish itself is a matte yellow glitter with a orange tinted base and shiny red glitter.  I wasn't entirely sure of what this would come out like so I chose the twin to base of my last post - Revlon Gold Coin.  Sitting the bottles together, they looked like they went so off I went.  Gold Coin is a nice, subdued gold, nothing too sparkly or outlandish.  Then, two coats of Phoenix.  I haven't paired a foil base with a matte glitter between and let me tell you, the outcome is very different.  We're used to a flat base and sparkly glitter so the reverse is quite...