Swatch and Review: M Polish You Are My Symphony

Hey y'all! Today on the blog I have a super special post to share with you! If you remember a month or so ago, I posted about Kent Hills, my sister's boyfriend who had a stroke at the very young age of 16. I am happy to report that Kent is on the mend and getting better every day! I kept asking myself how I could involve the nail community that I love so much to help the family in some way and decided to ask Megan from M Polish if she would make a charity polish for Kent. She agreed and helped us create this beautiful custom, You Are My Symphony. My sister wanted a black-red polish with subtle holo shimmer and that's exactly what Megan created for us. The name comes from Kent telling my sister that their relationship is like a symphony. (Barf alert!) So let me quit rambling and show you the polish! 

You Are My Symphony looks red in the bottle, but more black on the nail except in certain lights. While the holo is subtle, it adds something special to the polish when the light catches it. The red pays homage to the red stroke survivor ribbon in addition to being one of Kent's favorite colors. You Are My Symphony is a stamping polish primarily but can be easily used as a regular polish as well and will be opaque in one coat as a regular polish. I had no issues with application or self leveling when I used it as a regular polish. Stamping with it, I had no issues with pick up or patchiness of the image. Each image was crisp and clean using my Creative Shop Stamper and the Cici&Sisi Holiday 2014 plate. I stamped it here over Lorelei Lacquer Laugh Often and topcoated with KBShimmer Clearly On Top fast dry topcoat. 

Megan has graciously agreed to pay 50% of the proceeds from each bottle sold of You Are My Symphony directly to a GoFundMe set up for Kent by his family. You Are My Symphony is extremely limited edition, only 150 bottles total have been poured and it will not be restocked. If you'd like to pick up a bottle, it launches today at Noon CST at mpolishes.com! And if you'd like to donate directly to Kent's GoFundMe (to help with medical and recovery expenses), please click HERE. 

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Swatch and Review: Living Dead Lacquer Christmas Trio

Hey y'all! Today on the blog I have swatches from Living Dead Lacquer to share with you. These 3 polishes make up her Christmas trio and I'm super excited to show them to you. If you haven't heard of Living Dead Lacquer yet, she's a Georgia based indie brand that carries polishes and nail care products like mani bombs and cuticle oils. She makes some gorgeous polishes so let's jump right in to the swatches!

The first polish I swatched is Mistletoe Hung Where You Can See, a traditional leafy green jelly filled with tiny gold micro flakies and scattered holo glitter. This one was very sheer on the first coat but built up nicely in 3 thin coats. The formula was a bit on the thicker side but application was a breeze. My swatch shows 3 thin coats plus topcoat. The second photo is with a matte topcoat applied. Look how those flakies pop! The matte topcoat also brightened the green and almost made it lime-y which was fun because it totally changed the look of the polish. 

Mistletoe Hung Where You Can See in direct artificial lighting

Mistletoe Hung Where You Can see with matte topcoat

Macro of Mistletoe Hung Where You Can See 

Matte Macro of Mistletoe Hung Where You Can See

The next one I swatched in the trio is Sleigh Ride Together With You, an orange toned red filled with tiny gold micro flakies and gold shimmer. I don't typically gravitate towards orange based reds but the squishiness of this jelly made me love it! The formula is similar to Mistletoe, 3 thin coats for opacity. It was a little thick but application was easy. My swatches show 3 coats plus topcoat. The second photo shows it with a matte topcoat applied. The matte topcoat on this one brought out the orange! 

Sleigh Ride Together With You in direct artificial lighting

Sleigh Ride Together With You with matte topcoat

Macro of Sleigh Ride Together With You

Sleigh Ride Together With You with matte topcoat

The final polish in the trio was the star of the show for me. I want to wear this all December long and put Santas and reindeer and snowflakes and, and, and ALLLL the things over this beauty. This is Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, a white crelly filled to the max of all of the most delicious Christmas glitter. Surprisingly, this one was opaque in just 2 coats which surprised me being that its a white crelly. Formula wise, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town was a bit on the thick side due to the glitter but I had no problems with application and all of the glitter came out easily with no fishing. My swatches show 2 thin coats plus topcoat. The second photo is with matte topcoat. I'm going to need a full size of this gorgeousness!

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town in direct artificial lighting

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town with matte topcoat

Macro of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town with matte topcoat

Now that you've seen them, I know you want them! Head over to Living Dead Lacquer's SITE on November 13th to pick these up, exact launch time is to be determined. You can find out more about the release on her Instagram. If you'd like to see a live swatch, click below:

Which one is your favorite? 

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Product Review: B-Stronger Base Coat by LynBDesigns

Hey y'all! Today on the blog I have a review of the B-Stronger base coat by LynBDesigns. As a self professed aggressive polisher, I am constantly on the hunt for nail strengtheners to help protect my natural nails from damage, particularly peeling. About a year ago, I started experiencing peeling due to dehydration from constant acetone usage. I started trying all kinds of products to help with it including OPI Nail Envy (expensive!) and the only thing that I found to help was Nail Magic. I really wanted to find something indie made that would work just as well. Enter: B-Stronger base coat by LynBDesigns! 

I've been using B-Stronger for about a month now. I wanted to really use it before making a determination on its effectiveness. The positives to this base coat are that it has little to no smell which is something I cannot say for the commercially produced nail strengtheners and it actually helped with some brittleness and peeling that I had begun to get due to not using a special base coat for a while. It has a bonus upside too - it actually prolongs the wear time of a mani! Many of the strengtheners that I have used don't do anything for wear time but B-Stronger does. To test its capabilities, I used it on my mama's nails. She has acrylics so she didn't need it for strengthening purposes but she works a job where she uses her hands constantly and they can take a beating so I knew it would really put B-Stronger to the test. Typically when I do her nails, I have to redo them every 3 days due to tip wear and chipping. The photos below show 1 week wear time using B-Stronger as the base coat. 

As you can see, she doesn't even have tip wear! I've tested B-Stronger for wear time on my natural nails with similar results, although the longest I've worn it is around 3 days because I choose to change my mani that often or more. This base coat has officially reached holy grail status for me and I hope LynBDesigns always has it in stock because it'll be the only base I use, probably for forever!

If you want to pick up B-Stronger or any other LynB products, head over to her SITE on Etsy. You can also follow LynBDesigns on Instagram for more information on releases and new collections! 

What's your favorite base coat? 

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Nail Blogger Giveaway!

 Some of my favorite bloggers have joined forces again to bring you all this epic giveaway just in time for those Black Friday sales! Read on to see the rules and enter for your chance to win!

Review: Stamping Polish From bornprettystore!

Hey y'all! Today on the blog I have a review of two colors of stamping polish from bornprettystore to share with you, one gold and one white. One I was rather pleased with, the other, not so much. I typically have great experiences with bornprettystore products so I was really disappointed that one of these was completely unusable.

The first one of the two that I tried out was the gold. The quality of this polish was fantastic. No funny smell, super opaque, and gave crisp lines with each stamp. The BPS polishes don't have names or ingredient labels so we will just call this one "Gold". Gold shows as a bright metallic stamp on the nail and it stamped well over light and dark colors. I have a macro of it on the stamper and on my nail below.

The second one I have to show you is the white. There's nothing to say about this one except its awful. I couldn't even do a mani with it, that's how bad it was. The consistency was something akin to watered down white out. You can see the macro on my stamper down below to see what I mean:

Its possible that I received a poor bottle and that's why the consistency is so poor so I will be reaching out to BPS to let them know how bad it was. 

Shoving the white to the side (or the trash :P), let me show you the full mani I did with the gold! I stamped it over Madam Glam Endless Night using a Cici&Sisi plate and I adored how it came out. Look how bright and shiny it is!

If you'd like to try some stamping polishes from bornprettystore, you can use my code PPPQ10 for 10% off your regularly priced items. 

If you'd like to see these polishes in action, click below to see my live demo:

Do you have any stamping polishes from bornprettystore? Have you had a good experience with them?

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