Literary Lacquers - A Thousand Christmas Trees (Custom Polish) Swatches and Review

Today's post is super exciting for me. The featured polish was a custom order made for me by the awesome Amy from Literary Lacquers, and it's stunning! She makes the most amazing holos; they have a deep 3D effect due to the jelly-esque formula that suspends micro glitter nicely, and I knew it would be perfect for my dream polish. I asked for a Christmas tree green with little holo glitters to make it look like sparkling colorful lights, and it couldn't fit the description better. Check this out!!

Literary Lacquers - A Thousand Christmas Trees

This is truly a sparkle bomb in the sun. It's the perfect neutral green (not too teal, not too yellow) with strong smooth holo that's accented with multiple sizes of silver holo micro glitter. So gorgeous. So rich. So festive.   I love how the glitter sparkles separately from the rest of the holo, giving it the "Christmas tree lights" glow.

The glitter lays within the layers, not on top, so the finish isn't bumpy or chunky and it's glassy smooth with a coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat (my favorite).  Although it has a jelly-like formula, it is completely opaque in two coats, though I did three to add a tiny bit more depth (also, I may have dented a nail or two and wanted to smooth it out ;o). It's even beautiful in dimmer lighting as you can see in the photos below (indirect daylight) - I think it shows the "lights" more prominently:

Amy really hit it out of the park, that's for sure.  It's even better than I imagined, and I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to Amy for making this beauty for me.  It's beyond perfect.  I love it so much.

Now for the best part.

Although this was a custom made for me, Amy came up with a great idea for Black Friday: it's available as a gift with purchase for the next week (11/25/2013 - 12/2/2013) in the Literary Lacquers Etsy shop! All orders between $20 and $49 will receive a mini bottle. All orders $50 and above will receive a full size bottle. There's no code needed; it will be added to your package as it ships! As far as I know, it will not be available at any time after this, so if you want it be sure to get your order in! I highly recommend If It Pleases You (a sultry reddish plum - elegant and classy with an edge) and Jack Rose (a unique caramel), or Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster if you love bright sparkles!

Clarins 230 / Max Factor Fantasy Fire Franken-dupe

This is a franken I made using the red to green color morphing powder I got from More Nail Polish (she is sold out of color morphing powders but also offers Spectraflair for frankening holo polishes. She has a link to someone who sells the color morphing top coats, though!).

There are a lot of pictures for this one! It is shown at two coats over Diamond Cosmetics Not Your "Hum Drum" Plum (a royal indigo creme).

The duochrome is awesome, but my favorite part is just the glowy red sparkles on the indigo background.
So insanely gorgeous!

Kind of a bad picture, but it shows the red and green togther!

Normally duochromes tend to show off their colors more in low/indirect lighting, but this one was even more vibrant in the sun! Check out the beautiful greens in this!

It also didn't show as much in the water as normal duochromes. Maybe I'll have to try and take a picture of it in water in the sun.

From the pictures I've seen, this LOOKS like a close dupe for Clarins 230 or Max Factor Fantasy Fire. I don't have either to actually compare, but I'm pretty sure it's the same pigment that they used (it's sort of a standard color change). What do you think? For those of you that have 230 or Fantasy Fire, do you think it compares?

The recipe I used was about three "scoops" (using a nail swatch stick) of powder with about a 1/4 bottle of Milani Rad Purple, a few drops of a blue jelly (like Barielle Berry Blue, but I can't remember which I used) and the rest filled with Glamour Base from TKB Trading (for glitter suspensions).

My Black Knight Franken: Mid Knight

Sometimes I like frankening just to attempt to dupe something. I don't know what it is, but I do it with other things to (I like to try and replicate movie costumes that are as screen accurate as possible - I have an Elizabeth Swann dress, a Hogwarts school uniform, and I made Chief an authentic Obi-Wan jedi tunic).

I didn't even LIKE Butter London's Black Knight very much, but as soon as I saw it I thought "that looks like Rockstar Pink with a black jelly base!" so I HAD to try it.

Mid Knight - my BL Black Knight Franken-dupe

Unfortunately, I don't have the original to compare the two (in fact, the whole point of frankening it was to avoid paying $25 for the set). However, I think it looks close compared to Scrangie's swatches. In fact, Scrangie's post made me run off to ebay to buy the other half of the collection, Tart with a Heart, just to go with my franken... oh well.

The best part about this??  It is SOOOO easy to make at home!  I started with a base of China Glaze Liquid Leather (about half the bottle), and added in Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Rockstar Pink.  Because it didn't have quite enough blue in it, I added a little tiny bit of OPI Absolutely Alice.  The only one of those that isn't readily available is the OPI, but it is easily substitutable with another fine blue glitter like Pure Ice Strapless.  So there you have it - a cheap, easy way to get the Black Knight look!

The 12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 3 - Spice Drops

This was a manicure I had in mind since Mrs. Claus and Mistletoe Kisses came out last year in China Glaze's holiday collection. I wanted them to look like various flavors of spice drops (you know, the ones you decorate gingerbread houses with?). So here they are!

Spice Drops - CND Sugar Sparkle over various bases

For the bases, I used CG Grape Juice, CG Mistletoe Kisses, CG Mrs. Claus, Ulta Sun-sational, and Revlon Powder Puff, then I topped each with two coats of CND Sugar Sparkle.  This is what I was going for:

I love these candies, but only the ones that are flavored like spices (not fruits).  If you haven't had them, you should try them!  Some of the flavors are anise (purple), spearmint (green), peppermint (white), and cinnamon (red).  I can't remember what the orange and yellow ones are...  ginger might be one?


Do you have any favorite Christmas candies?

Milani Ruby Jewels (China Glaze Ruby Pumps dupe)

It may be hard to believe, but out of my hundreds of nail polishes I actually do NOT own China Glaze Ruby Pumps *gasp*! Instead, I had this one already, and it's a dupe for Ruby Pumps. This is Milani Ruby Jewels, and it is just as breathtaking as that "original red glitter."

Milani - Ruby Jewels

For some reason, I could not get my camera to pick up the depth in this polish, and it also shows as a slightly warmer red here than in person. But in my defense, I actually have never seen a picture that accurately depicts this polish (or any of its dupes). It is the epitome of Christmas red. This polish also applies very nicely, taking just two easy, thin coats to achieve this bright cherry red sparkle.

*EDIT:  I had it wrong... it's Ruby JEWELS, not Ruby Gems  :o)

Incoco 24 Karats Swatch and Wear Test

Well, I'm in Loreto, Mexico right now and will be for nine days, so I figured instead of taking nail polish stuff with me, I'd try and do a wear test of the Incoco strips. I had this very same color, 24 Karats, on for a whole week before and they looked nearly perfect even when I took them off. Normally I'm too anxious to change my polish so I'm never able to do long wear tests, so I figured this vacation might give me a perfect reason to try out Incoco again.

Incoco - 24 Karats

When I first ordered a set of the 24 Karats strips I was disappointed because I thought the color was dull and plain, but once I put them on I realized it is the definition of a perfect gold glitter for me. I love these better than Milani Gold Glitz AND Butter London West End Wonderland, and that's saying something! Needless to say, I actually don't think I'll mind having these on for ten days straight. I've also gotten much more skilled at applying these after doing it a few times (with both Incoco and the Sally Hansen Salon Effects), and these were very quick and easy to apply. I got it right up against the cuticle and there are no bare spots around the edges at all. They look perfect, if I do say so myself.

Butter London West End Wonderland and Milani Gold Glitz

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Loreto, Mexico for a vacation with Chief and his family, and I'm going to try and see if my 24 Karats Incoco strips will live up to the 10-day wear test (which is how long we'll be there). But before I took off West End Wonderland, I wanted to compare it with Milani Gold Glitz since they seem very similar. Here they are:

Butter London West End Wonderland (index and ring) and Milani Gold Glitz (middle and pinky)

The Milani is definitely more orange/coppery while WEW is more traditional warm gold. Both look wonderful on my skin which has yellow base tones. They both take two easy coats, though I applied the Milani a little unevenly because I was impatient. Also, the Milani is shown with only one coat of Seche Vite on top, but I had put two coats (which sunk in a little over time) on WEW since it was a full manicure. Both are mostly smooth with two coats of SV.

Honestly, I don't know which I like better! They are most certainly not dupes, and they both have excellent formula (and of course, both are a pain to remove). I'll probably be wearing both this holiday season, along with all my other festive reds, greens, whites, and glitters!

Butter London - West End Wonderland Swatch

I'm pretty sure I've found my new favorite gold glitter. I don't know what it is, but warm gold looks wonderful with my skin. I saw Butter London West End Wonderland on Alexandra RC the other day and knew I had to go straight to Ulta to pick it up (and usually I think twice about most polishes more than $10 each). Check out how beautiful this is!

Butter London - West End Wonderland

Wow.  Such a stunner.  I'm pretty sure this will be one of the few polishes I don't want to take off.  I love this gold.  It's mostly warm light gold micro glitter with a few pieces of copper micro glitter mixed in.

I already can't wait for the holiday season, and this is just so festive it feels perfect for my mood!

My first thought was that this looks somewhat like Milani Gold Glitz (my picture of it is a little bit too saturated), but this is lighter and less orange/copper.  They have similar formula, going on in two easy coats.  I'll try to remember to do a comparison before I take this off.

OPI The Show Must Go On and Orly Rock It Swatches

Today I have a couple of pink/red/orange duochromes for you. I like these for fall, but they seem like they'd be fitting for summer as well. I put Orly Rock It on today and it reminded me I had pics of OPI The Show Must Go On to post as well. Both of these seem to have lots of pink/red/orange duochrome foil flecks in them but with different base colors.

The first up is OPI The Show Must Go On.

OPI - The Show Must Go On

The duochrome in this one is quite strong and beautiful. While I'm not much a pink fan, I very much enjoy this one.


Next is Orly Rock It from their current fall collection:

Orly - Rock It

The duochrome in this is much less pronounced and (unfortunately) is a lot harder to catch. I love the orange end of the spectrum in this one, but it can only be seen at certain angles. Nevertheless, it is still gorgeous. A beautiful rich dark magenta that turns crimson and a kind of burnt orange.

I know sometimes (a lot of times?) I forget to comment on application. Honestly, it's probably because I don't much care how hard it is to put on. If I love a color enough, I'll go through hell and back to have it on my nails. I'll try to include the number of coats and a little comment on application if I remember from now on though. These were both two coats and had very easy, smooth application. Removal is a slight pain just because of all the sparkly particles.

Zoya Sparkle Swatches

So I didn't quite realize how much of my time school would be taking up for the next few weeks, and I technically should be doing homework instead of posting, but oh well. I took these pictures a couple days ago, and wanted to get them up here for you to see.

Zoya - Ivanka

This green is AMAZING and is a little tiny bit more yellow green than in the photo, but it's pretty close.

Zoya - Charla

Gorgeous teal blue! It's actually quite a bit more green (more true teal) than it shows, and absolutely mesmerizing in the sun!!

Zoya - Mimi

I have a lot of purples (including Milani Totally Cool and Hot Topic Iridescent Purple), but this one is still different. It's almost like the little gold-ish flecks stay underneath the surface, so they appear more rosy-purple. And still crazy sparkly!

Zoya - Alegra

So this one really surprised me. It's PERFECT. I don't normally like pinks much (I'm more of a blue/green/purple polish kind of girl), but I didn't want to take this one off. I started wishing I'd swatched this last so I could just leave it on. I think it might be my favorite *gasp*.

Zoya - Gilda

So apparently I didn't do a good enough job of capturing the difference between Alegra and Gilda. Gilda look much more "hot pink" than Alegra, which is more of a magenta.

Zoya - Gilda (sun)

It was at this point that I realized I should probably be taking pics of these in the sun as well to show the crazy sparkle... after I'd already swatched the others... oh well.

Zoya - Nidhi

Pretty awesome color, and it really stands out from the rest because the base is much more creamy and opaque. Really, really cool.

Altogether, I'm SO in love with this collection. I took the set to show my mom and sister and they decided they need a set of them as well! I usually never feel the need to buy a whole set of nail polishes because not all of the colors are "me," but even the pinks and reds in this one were so PERFECT, and I'm even considering that I need a backup set... whoa.

Nfu-oh 062 (sun)

And last but not least, this was my NOTD after swatching. It's my first Nfu-oh holo, and it's SOOOO rainbow-y! Even in shade and artificial light, it was very distracting!