Let Them Eat Cake Mani

For today's post, I have a manicure themed around an 'oldie but goodie' indie nail polish, NCLA's 'Let Them Eat Cake':

For this Manicure I used NCLA's 'Let Them Eat Cake', a gorgeous lavender glitter crelly polish from NCLA's 'Duchess of L.A.' collection, which I believe came out in 2014. I added two metallic glitter accent nails, one in lavender (Essie's 'Stroke of Brilliance'), and another in plum (L.A Girl's Glitter Addict 'Provocative'). These glitters closely match two of the colours in the metallic glitter mix used in 'Let Them Eat Cake'. 

'Let Them Eat Cake' would probably be one of my favourite polishes, If I really had to try and pick favourites! I've always loved the colour scheme, and even after all of these years, the formula is still impeccable! 

Purple and White Manicure

Today's manicure is a mix-match of purple polishes, with a white polish and some holographic glitter thrown in for good measure!

The inspiration for this manicure came from the NCLA's 'Let Them Eat Cake', the polish that I am wearing on my ring finger. I purchased this polish several months ago after becoming hopelessly smitten by the gorgeous mix of purples in its glitter colour palette. I remember being so eager to try it out when I first got itbut unfortunately, I just never got around to doing it. For this manicure, I decided that enough was enough - I resolved to design a manicure around this amazing polish in order to finally take it off my untried list! 

Light Pink and Mint Green Easter Manicure

Happy Easter to all those celebrating!

Today, I have an Easter manicure to share:

Light Pink and Mint Green Easter Manicure

Polishes Used:
Sally Hansen Color Foil 'Yellow Gold'
Nicole by OPI 'Selena' from the Selena Gomez Collection
Nicole by OPI 'Alex by the Books' from the Modern Family Collection
NCLA 'Lavish Spender'
NCLA 'Posh and Privileged'

Plate Used:
Moyou London Festive Collection Plate 14

Polishes Used

For me, one of the best things about this manicure was getting to use 4 untried polishes that I've been really looking forward to using! 'Selena' and 'Alex by the Books' were both purchased last summer during a big sale one of my local drug store chains was having, clearing out the Nicole by OPI 'Modern Family', and 'Selena Gomez' collections. I remember that these two colours were sold out at the 2 super convenient locations that I most frequently go to, so I had to go hunting at a few other locations.  I also remember being so pumped when I finally found them, that I bought backups!

The story behind the other 2 polishes was kind of the opposite scenario. They are both from an NCLA collection called 'Duchess of L.A.'. I remember seeing another polish from the collection somewhere on line, and instantly being mesmerized by its beauty. The colour was called 'Let Them Eat Cake', and was a milky lilac based polish with purple, blue, silver, and white glitters. That started me on researching the collection, and eventually being taken with 'Lavish Spender', and 'Posh and Privileged' too. Now, I'm generally a pretty frugal shopper, and try to get most things on sale or clearance. That preference, along with the higher price of this indie brand, kept me from actually making the purchase for quite some time. Eventually, after months of price-watching to no avail, shortly after the holidays, I decided to go ahead and splurge on the polishes as a belated Christmas gift for myself!

Now that the Crackle Polish Challenge that I've been doing for the last two and a half months is over, I decided to celebrate my new-found freedom from crackle nail polish by using some of my most anticipated untried polishes. The fact that these were all pastels worked perfectly for the occasion, so I jumped at the chance to use them for this mani!

Overall, I really love the finished look of the mani! It reminds me of decorated, and speckled Easter Eggs. I also like how the polishes work so well together. It was also fun to do a manicure where I actually intended to design different versions on each hand, that complimented each other!

Crackle Polish Challenge #2: Emoticon Mani

2015 Crackle Polish Challenge Manicure #2

Featured crackle application: Taping/Masking

Featured crackle polish: OPI 'Silver Shatter'

Grey and Silver Emoticon Mani

Polishes Used:
OPI 'Silver Shatter'
NCLA 'Rock Solid'
Sally Hansen 'Silver Sweep'

Plates Used:
Moyou London Geek Collection plates 2 and 3

Polishes Used

Today's instalment of the '2015 Crackle Polish Challenge' incorporates the technique of taping/masking. I applied a piece of tape to my completely dried base colour prior to the crackle polish application, and then removed it while the crackle polish was still wet. This leaves a protected area in the shape of the applied tape, that does not received the crackle topcoat. It remains solid base-colour.

I used a triangle-shaped pieced of tape, but because of a missing area of crackle polish in the centre of the nail, the triangle looks like an arrow. Sometimes when I use shatter polishes, I'll use haphazard brush strokes that don't fully cover the nail. This leaves larger gaps so more of the base colour can show through. I did that with this application of 'Silver Shatter' polish because I find that it doesn't crack as dramatically as some of my other shatter polishes. Here's a closer look at the thumbnail (unfortunately, the best picture available was one that I took prior to cleaning up around the edges of the nail, so please disregard the excess polish on my cuticles!):

Close-Up of Shatter Thumbnail

Overall, I like how this manicure turned out. It was a very casual, understated manicure, perfect for a 'jeans and sweatshirt' day!