Bestie Twin Nails - Blasian Color Nation!

Okay ladies long time no post again!

Today I have a special post!  Did you know that I'm very good friends with the lovely Vicky A of Boombastic Nails?  In fact I named her blog back in the days when she was just thinking about blogging.  I may have goaded her into it because she had some of the best swatches and pictures I've ever seen how could she NOT blog!!! Lol I sound insane but she's talented and she also happens to be my nail polish/nail art bestie for today's post. 

As you know I love my Instagram and there are always tons of tags running around over there one of which is the theme - bestie twin nails.  In short you and your nail art buddy pic an idea and colors and without showing the other create some nail art.  Vicky chose the theme - using tape in nail art and then I semi chose the colors - rainbow (but then we decided on full color spectrum).  So where does the "blasian" part come from? Lol - I'm African American/Black and Vicki is Chinese.  So there we are anyway without futher ado some bestie nail art...

Mani-louge (by finger):

Reds and Oranges: Orly Cherry Bomb, OPI A Good Mandarin Is Hard To Find, Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Cardinal, Essie She's Pampered, Claire's Little Dipper, Essie Tart Deco, and Sinful Colors Orange Creme

Greens: Color Club Artsy Craft, Essie Mojito Madness, Milani Neon Fresh Teal, China Glaze Starboard, Spoiled by Wet N Wild I'm so Jaded, and Orly Green With Envy

Blues: Orly Snow Cone, Orly Sweet Peacock, L'Oreal Royally Yours, Essie Mint Candy Apple, Essie Avenue Maintain, OPI Orge The Top Blue, and Essie Bikini So Teeny

Purples: Color Club Puccilicious, Essie Play Date, Essie Boxer Shorts, L'Oreal Lacey Lilac, Orly Velvet Rope, L'Oreal Royalty Re-Invented, and Essie Go Ginza

Black and White Marble: L'Oreal I Will! and Orly Liquid Vinyl

Pretty cool right?  Even though neither of us knew which exact colors we were using it turned out so similarly!  Lol I guess we are besties after all.  Vicky's came out so perfectly I feel a little embarrassed to even put my art up next to hers *waaahhh* She is so talented!  You can see more details of her art on Boombastic Nails.

Now I know you are thinking where did YOU use tape in your mani??  Well I did.  I put down one water marble (the black and white) and then taped off sections of it and water marbled on top of the taped off sections creating a double water marble!  Crazy cool right.  I used over 30 polishes to create this manicure, and at least 4-5 different colors and 3-4 brands for each "color" of the the spectrum.! My my how overly ambitious!  Anyway I hope you enjoyed this happy un-Easter edition of Lacquer Lockdown.  May candy bunnies rain from your skies and happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it! 

Tamira :)

NailArt March: Elevation Polish OOK & Gradients

Happy Saturday polished prisoners,

So I realized I need to be a little more on the ball about putting up these posts.  Seriously I have tons of great manicures to share, but I haven't put up the posts because it's a bit more time consuming than just throwing them up to my Instagram.  However, since I love my blog and all my followers I definitely need to keep doing that :)  So let me share one with you today that is a bit old, but still fabulous!  As you know I've been putting up a lot of my nail art March challenges and the 3rd one was gradients.  Around here y'all know I love me a gradient.  Never met one I didn't like and I've got about 3 techniques under my belt for creating the perfect one ;)  I really wanted to feature a One-Of-A-Kind Elevation Polish I got too a few restocks ago.  It's one of those "black & white" toppers but in the EP spirit it's blue, white, and black.  Think frosts on top of mountains and you'll get it.  Anyway I'll let the pictures do the talking!

Mani-louge

Basecoat/Top Coat: CND Stickey & Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

Gradient: Orly Satin Hues - Satin Eloquence, Uniquely Satin, and Satin Finesse

Glitter Topper: Elevation Polish OOK #2

Stamping polish: Color Club Lumi-nescient

Stamping plate: Wistonia 111

 

Friggin gorgeous right?!? Okay no seriously what do you think?  The blue was a bit hard to capture due to the lightness but  I love love love this combo plus I love love love this glitter topper!  It's an OOK (I know don't groan it's really hard for me to get OOKs too!)  but here's some good news.  The brilliant Lulu of Elevation Polish was actually test running this pretty baby and released the final version on the 7th of this month.  It's called Haba Xueshan and you can get it on the 22nd of March on the EP website.  And before you ask, yes, I did get the final version because I want to do a comparison ;) I believe that's called being a helpless addict.  In any case I remember some time ago when Lulu was planning a brown/white/black combo that was supposed to be in this vein - I want that one too! 

So on another note I'm intending to spam you all pretty soon with my Satin Hues collection.  It will probably have to be in multiple parts I have a lot and I keep getting tons of questions about them so I figured I could put up some posts with the deets.  Look forward to it!  Thanks for reading and see you next post!  Toodles...

Rainbows and Stripes

Hiya polished prisoners,

Happy Saturday!  I'm exhausted it has been such a long week for this warden of the polish arena.  I have so much art to catch up on as well!  I'm in the throws of a deep and obsessive love with holographics right now.  It's killing me thinking of ways to wear them and ways to create cool art around them.  I looked at the last few polishes I have bought and most of them are holos! Ugh.  Wait why am I talking about this?  Today I'm not even featuring holo polish on the blog.  Okay back on track.  Today I'm putting up the second challenge of my nail art for March.  If you recall the challenges this one was for stripes.  I had a lot of fun creating around this concept because I like all kinds of stripes and though hee this could be so fun! So without further ado onto the art....

Ugh everything about Old Gold Buffy makes me want to cry - so pretty and perfect here!

Mani-louge

Basecoat & Topcoat: CND Stickey and Poshe Fast Drying Topcoat

Stripes: L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented, Sally Hansen Insta Dri Brisk Blue, Essie Mojito Madness, Essie Peach Daiquiri, and Zoya Pippa

Top color: Essence Vampires Love Gold Old Buffy, Orly Liquid Vinyl 

In its own way this is super pretty.  I didn't try to make it neat since I knew it was going to be covered up anyway.

This is cool huh?  I tried a laser effect like this once before last summer and it turned out horribly :(  I think because I didn't press the tape down hard enough and the color choice for the top was wrong so I'm glad this one came out so well though I did have my doubts.  I can definitely say my nail art these days is slowly improving.  I want to keep working on my freehand technique as well!  Are there aspects of your nail art that you want to improve?  Thanks for reading and see you next post! Toodles...

Spring Sprung Chevrons feat L'Oreal The Palace Life & Powder Puff

Hey polished ladies!

Hope everyone had a good week.  Mine was laced with frustration of one kind or another ah but I survived so there's that!  I decided to try out the monthly nail art Instagram challenge again.  Lol February was an an unsuccessful venture as I did about 3 of the 15-20 challenges.  I still need to share them here too.  I'll post the challenges below so you can see what's coming up.  This one for the 1st is already late but who cares when it's so pretty!  Anyhoo I'm using some polish selections from L'Oreal's Limited Edition Versailles Romance Spring 2013 Collection.  I chose The Palace Life, a soft pink girly shade and Powder Puffs a very creamy yellow with a bit of pearl sheen in the base which is very difficult to discern.  I have to say this collection is quite pretty.  The colors are all very girly, light, and fluffy.  In short perfect for spring!

Mani-louge

Base/Topcoat: CND Stickey and Poshe Fast Drying Top Coat

Base colors: L'Oreal The Palace Life & Powder Puffs

Chevron Colors:  Orly Luxe and Kiss Nail Art Striper in Dark Purple

So thoughts?  It's pretty straightforward and simple, but I think a good way to start off the challenge.  I freehanded this creation since I want to start doing more freehand for sure.  I love my stamping and will never give it up but sometimes its nice to get a feel for my ability to draw outside the lines as well if you know what I mean ;) and I think you do! Anyhoo this is my 100th post! Woot somehow I've been steadily plodding along in my own pace but I'd like to thank all my readers for coming along!  I'll see you next post and toodles...