Glisten & Glow Cocktails Anyone Round 2 - holo swatches!

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Hey Everyone!

Today I have some gorgeous holos to share! This is the “Cocktails Anyone? Round 2” from Glisten & Glow. This is the 2nd release for the Cocktails Collection, Jill plans on having this be a progressive collection that she keeps adding on! This set goes on sale 9/4/15 7pm EST at Glisten & Glow. Are you guys even reading this? I’m sure you’ve already moved on to the swatches so let’s get to it!

But first, who remembers “Cocktails” the movie with Tom Cruise?! The tagline has me dying “When he pours, he reigns” WTF kind of crap is that? Haha oh Hollywood!

The Sparkle Kit - We Will Never Be Royals polish box swatch review

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Hey Everyone!

Today I am sharing the next edition of “The Sparkle Kit!” This box is named “We Will Never Be Royals” and the theme should be obvious from the name haha! This box is a collaborative from Lou It Yourself , Got Nail, and Charmed & Dangerous. This is not a subscription box so no commitment! The “We Will Never Be Royals” box releases this Friday 9/4/15 at 10am MDT in the Got Nail shop and will sell for $20 plus shipping. Ok let’s get into this adorable box.

Included in the box you get:
- I See You Baby, Shakin’ That Cash – green teal crème from Lou It Yourself
- Bitch, I’m A Princess – multi-color glitter topper from Lou It Yourself
- Queen B Cuticle Oil – Beyonce Heat Rush perfume inspired from Got Nail
- Mini sheet of diamond stencil and starburst vinyls – from Lou It Yourself
-2 silver jeweled crown charms – from Charmed & Dangerous For the first mani

Gridlock Lacquer Rochester NY Summer 2015 swatches

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Hey Everyone!

Today I’m sharing the newest editions to the Gridlock Lacquer Rochester, NY collection, these 3 polishes are the Summer 2015 colors. These polishes will have Rochester themed names, so if you know anyone from Rochester let them know they’ll be needing these lol I’m obviously a huge neon fan so I was excited to swatch these babies, let’s get to it!

Bundle Monster Squishy Silicone Mega Stamper and Shangri-La Stamp Plate Review

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Above mani features a new stamp plate from Bundle Monster Shangri-La plate BM-S109.

Hey Everyone!

Today I have a new stamper and plate set from one of my favs Bundle Monster! I’ll be reviewing the Shangri-La 10 Piece Stamp Plate Set and the Mega Stamper & Scraper Set. I have really been loving everything Bundle Monster has been putting out lately, they really speak to my polish soul lol To be honest, they had me at Shangri-La! When I think of Shangri-La I envision an exotic paradise with beautiful rich colors and intricate designs all romantic like. Who doesn’t want that on their nails?! Ok, let’s look at the plates first.

Here are the pics of the plates from Bundle Monster. 10 gorgeously designed plates that are abstract florals and patterns. They have a bit of a tribal or Aztec feel to some of them. These are right up my alley!

Here you can see the quality of the etching, they feel like all the other Bundle Monster plates I have.

Along with the plates I was also sent their new stamper set, the Mega Stamper & Scraper Set. This set is Bundle Monster’s response to the larger squishier stampers that are flooding the nail art scene. It comes with a gray cup shape holder, 2 silicone stamp heads, and 2 credit card style scrapers. The scrapers that came with the stamper are 1mm in thickness just like a credit card. Bundle Monster does sell a .5mm more flexible scraper which I prefer as they give me a better scrape. I used the .5mm scrapers for the above mani and stamp swatches below. The scrapers have images of some of their stamp plates, and I think that’s a great touch! They say “Scrape. Stamp. Swoon.” also an adorable touch.

Gridlock Lacquer Buffalo Summer 2015 Collection swatches

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Hey Everyone! Today I am sharing the Summer 2015 Buffalo Collection from Gridlock Lacquer! I love posting about Gridlock Lacquer because it’s an indie polish brand based in my backyard: Buffalo, NY! GL is also one of the very first indie polish brands I bought and definitely helped get me into buying more indie brands, how cool right? AND I just love that there are polishes inspired by my city! Gridlock Lacquer has other city themed polish lines: Niagara Falls, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and the soon to be released Detroit.

You can read more about Gridlock Lacquer in an article that was published in The Buffalo News!  Check it out here: Kaisertown resident’s Gridlock Lacquer puts polish on city. Ok, let’s do this!

Let's start out with a bang, this is my fav from the collection! This is ‘For the Love of Larkin,’ a gorgeous blue toned neon pink. The Larkin Building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright but was demolished in 1950, Larkin Square is right next door. Larkin Square is a pretty hip-happening place these days, you can even find Gridlock Lacquer setting up shop there and check out their awesome polish live and in person! This polish is everything and quite possibly will be on my favorites of 2015 list! Shown here with 3 coats.

For nail art I did some reverse stamping using Winstonia Store stamp plate The Carnival with Bundle Monster Black Noir, and Rica Polish White Out.

MidWest Lacquer For The Love of Grayskull He-Man inspired collection!

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Hey Everyone!

Are you ready for an 80s flashback? I posted these swatches to Instagram @twi_star already and I think a huge amount of my followers weren’t alive in the 80s haha! Anyways, enough of being old, today I have the ‘For the Love of Grayskull’ He-man and She-Ra inspired polish collection from MidWest Lacquer (Vinyl It Up) to show you! This collection releases on Friday, July 24th at 7:00 pm EST. Make sure to follow @vinylitup for more swatches.

Ok let’s travel onward to Castle Grayskull…

Look at how fun these are! I have such fond memories of this show and running around the house pretending to be She-Ra! For all my accent nails I made my own water decals. I used decal transfer paper that I found on amazon, you print the images and then spray a few coats of spray paint clear coat onto the printed sheet. You have to really let them dry for at least a day before applying to your nails and topping with top coat.

August 2015 A Box Indied: Glisten & Glow Veni Vidi Vici

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Hey Everyone!!

I’m starting out the week with pink holo lol Today I’m reviewing the Glisten & Glow contribution to the August A Box Indied ‘Veni Vidi Vici.’ This box goes on sale July 26th and can be purchased at Llarowe, follow @aboxindied on Instagram for more swatches and updates! Let’s get started.



This beautiful fuchsia pink holo is ‘Veni Vidi Vici.’ This pic was taken in the sun. It has a stronger holo presence in person and there are silver flakes in there but for some reason they only showed up in pics taken in the shade but are visible in person. This applied really easily, I used 2 smooth coats no issues with application and of course topped with 1 coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl Top Coat.

China Glaze The Great Outdoors Fall 2015 polish swatches

Hey Everyone!

Ohhhh boy do I have something fun to share today! The China Glaze The Great Outdoors Fall 2015 Collection! Wait a minute, isn’t it July? Why yes, yes it is lol I’ve actually had this collection for 2 months but just didn’t have time to swatch it, bad bad Angel. (I purchased these) I think we usually start to see swatches in August so yea to early even though Summer started about 5 mins ago. I’ve been on a real China Glaze kick and I’m a big fan of this collection, my type of colors. But surprisingly I think I like the duochromes and glitter the best! Shocking since crème is my fav finish. Ok let’s do this!

Ooooooooo, aaaaahhhhhhh! This collection consists of 6 cremes (one has shimmer), 3 duochromes, 2 shimmer metallics, and 1 glitter flakie.

Winstonia Store Dotting Tool review and leopard nail art!

Affiliate Code, Press Sample (Some of these items were sent for review)

Hi Guys!

Hopefully this week is treating you well, the weather by me has been so crappy. It’s been raining for about a week straight and it’s not letting up anytime soon. Come on! It’s Summer! I’m supposed to be sitting in my driveway every day after work with a frozen drink and yelling at all the neighborhood kids for leaving their garbage all over my lawn. This is a true story, I’ve actually become this lady lol Hey, just don’t act like an ass outside of my house and leave your trash and we can all exist peacefully. Haha!



Well onto my mani that I’m so in love with. I was sent a new dotting tool from Winstonia Store for review, I was like dotting tool? Why do I need a new dotting tool? But now that I’ve used it I’ve seen the light! It’s actually pretty great and I think they’ve improved the whole dotting experience. It’s a metal double-ended barrel and the tips unscrew from the ends and then can be stored inside of the barrel. It comes with 8 interchangeable tips, so instead of having 4 double-ended dotting tools you can now have one! It’s very well made and has a good weight to it. It feels pretty fancy actually haha The only downside that I could think of, would be if you were in the middle of doing a mani and wanted to switch out a tip you’d have to unscrew one and potentially mess up your in-process mani. But for this mani I only needed to 2 size tips so I just screwed them in before I started. I don’t think I’ve ever needed more than 2 sizes for one design so I don’t see myself running into this problem but I thought it was worth noting.

Winstonia Store sent me a 10% discount code, use code TWISTAR. Pretty clever code right? HA! Love it.



This purple! I reviewed the Color Club Poptastic Pastel Neons HERE and then I also did a bunch of stamping manis with this collection HERE. I’ve been wanting to use ‘Diggin’ The Dancing Queen’ again and leopard seemed purrfect! Like my review said, these polishes got mostly bad reviews BUT I find using 2 coats over 1 coat white undies and they are sooooo pretty! They’re a little thick but sheer but the white undie cancels it all out and they’re worth it to me.

Glisten & Glow Clubbin' Teal Dawn - July 2015 A Box, Indied swatch review!

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Hey Everyone!

Today I have a lovely sparkly holo to share with you! It is ‘Clubbin’ Teal Dawn’ and it’s the Glisten & Glow contribution to the July A Box Indied. A Box, Indied is a monthly polish sub box featuring some of the biggest and hottest brands in the Indie polish world. The July A Box, Indied will be available on June 26th, follow @aboxindied for swatches and updates. When Jill sent this to me she had me at teal lol I always love sporting a good teal color. Once I put this baby on it just felt like Summer in a bottle, taking pics in the sun sure helped! I swatched this one the day before I left for vacation so about 2 weeks ago, I raced home from work because the sun was shining and here in Buffalo, NY you don’t know how long you’ll get sunshine. So while you’re looking at these swatches you can imagine me sitting on my concrete driveway in the front of my house in my business casual work outfit. I wonder if my neighbors saw me, and if they did, what were they thinking? Who cares! Swatch on!

See I told you ‘Clubbin’ Teal Dawn’ was pretty! I’d call it a warm teal aqua holo. This pic was taken in the sun, again imagine me sitting in the middle of my driveway taking this pic hehe. It throws beautiful rainbows and would be a great color to wear to the beach. This is 2 smooth and easy to apply coats. Very good formula and of course topped with HK Girl Top Coat.

China Glaze Rain Dance The Night Away - turquoise and rose gold nails

Press Sample (some of these items were sent to me for consideration)

Hi Guys & Gals!

Do I have any guy readers? I’d love that lol Today I’m getting back to my nail art swatches of the China Glaze Desert Escape Summer 2015 Collection. You can see all my sans-nail-art-swatches here China Glaze Desert Escape Collection Summer 2015 Swatch Review. I’m always drawn to bright turquoise and blue colors, I’ll wear them all year long without a thought about the season or weather! Who cares when your nails are pretty? And ‘Rain Dance The Night Away’ could be one of my favs in my collection, it’s so bright and crisp and very eye catching. When I had this collection lined up on my swatch station (aka just my desk), RDTNA was next to the rose gold shimmer ‘Meet Me At The Mirage’ and they looked kinda great together so I paired them and wowza, I love the end result. Let’s check it out!

Does this combo look like Summer or what? Do not answer what because you’ll be wrong lol I’m imagining myself wearing this combo with white linen flowy pants, a huge straw hat and some sort of coconut flavored drink…… I’m feeling very How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Taye Diggs ya’ll. Wow what a great daydream haha!

China Glaze Desert Escape Collection Summer 2015 Swatch Review

(These polishes were purchased by me)

Hey People!

New China Glaze Alert! Don’t you wish you really would get alerts for new collections? Haha Today I have swatches of the China Glaze Desert Escape 6 piece Collection for Summer 2015. I thought the Electric Nights Collection was Summer 2015? Not complaining, I’ll always take more polish lol And spoiler alert, I’m really digging these colors. I definitely get a Southwest/Arizona vibe from these colors. At first I thought, well these aren’t super desert-y but then I realized “Desert Escape” probably means like resort/vacation. Duh. And yea, these are polish colors I’d want to wear while vacationing in Arizona! Shall we look at pretty colors now? Ok, let’s do this.

Oooooo Aaaahhhh! Pretty Pretty. Now, I do admit these aren’t exactly unique colors but I don’t think that takes away from how great they look. We have some nice formulas and some that are ok. But for a couple of these I may have had a margarita or 2 while swatching soooooo it could be user error!

MidWest Lacquer End NF Blue Thermal Color Changing Polish tutorial

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Hey Everyone!

Today I’m sharing another thermal from MidWest Lacquer aka Vinyl It Up and this one is soooo BLUE! Love it. Part of the proceeds from ‘End NF’ will be donated to the Children’s Tumor Foundation, nice. I could have asked Lizzie what colors these would change to but I like being surprised haha Turns out this blue turns white so my design layered over white makes it look like the polish disappears! Not something I would have done on purpose but I think it is such a fun look, a happy accident. Ok let’s get to swatches!

Whoah right, it’s so blue! The blue is the cold stage and I think when I was taking thes pics my hands were super cold because the blue is very opaque and bright but right now when I’m more of a normal temperature the blue isn’t as intense. I’m digging watching my mani change throughout the day haha

Here is how the polish transitions from cold to hot. Looks like icicle fingers! I’m thinking this polish would be perfect for a Frozen themed mani.

Read more by clicking below!

MidWest Lacquer Cincy Sunset Thermal Color Changing Polish and Blobbicure Nail Art Tutorial

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Hi My Polish Friends!

Hope you are all doing well and if not well let's just look at polish until we feel better, deal?  Today I'm going to be sharing the first of 3 thermal color changing polishes sent to me for review from MidWest Lacquer aka Vinyl It Up.  Lizzie, the owner of Vinyl It Up, let me know a few months ago that she was working on expanding her line of vinyls to include polish!  I waited patiently for her research and development stage to be over lol  And then I got these babies, yaaaayyyy!  Today we are looking at 'Cincy Sunset' shall we?

And here is 'Cincy Sunset!'  A beautiful coral with pink flakies and gold shimmer that transitions to a warm yellow/peach.  These being my first thermal polishes (I know right?  Crazy, how is this even possible with all the polish I own?), I didn't really know what to expect but this baby blew me away!  Now I know why peeps seem to go so crazy for these, there's just something about them that just takes me back to my childhood when magic color changing toys were in your life.  As adults I don't have anything that changes colors :(  Well this problem is solved haha

Want more?  Of course ya do, click below!

Wet N Wild California Dreaming Spring / Summer 2015 Collection swatches!

(These polishes were purchased by me)

Hey Everyone!

I'm super excited to share this collection with you!  Today I'm sharing the Wet N Wild California Dreaming Collection.  Ever since I reviewed the Wet N Wild Silver Lake Collection, I just can't get enough of the MegaLast line!  I adore their formula and colors and most especially their price, they range from $1.99 - $2.99 and you can often get them on sale.  My only dislike is the extra large brush, but not that big of a deal.  For all of my swatches I also used the new top coat from Wet N wild, Clear The Air.  I believe this top coat is supposed to be like the gel hybrids top coats out there.  It dries very fast but sort of leaves micro-cracks in the surface of the polish.  I'll point it out in the photos below.  Ok, let's get onto swatches!

Here's a little collage of the 5 colors in the collection, all dreamy cremes - my fav!

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Cinco de Mayo mani featuring Wet N Wild Sun Settle Down and Bundle Monster BMH-24

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Margaritas for everyone! How else am I supposed to celebrate? Lol I’m in the middle of swatching the Wet N Wild California Dreaming collection and one of the colors ‘Sun Settle Down’ seemed like the perfect base for some Cinco de Mayo themed nails! I also attempted another mini Instagram tutorial for this mani and I kind of just messed up the whole thing haha I didn’t realize my camera would be in the way of stamping, whoops. Shortly after I purchased a new tripod so that I have more room, it’s never ending what I feel like I NEED in order to complete my manis lol Ok, onto my mani!


You can see how I mis-stamped the nail with what is supposed to say Cinco de Mayo but instead it says “inco de nayo” hahaha! I half-ass painted on a C but didn’t have any room to fix the M so nayo it is!

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Bundle Monster - First Holo Polish Collection review plus swatch-fest

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Hey Peeps!

 

Today I have something super fun to share!  Bundle Monster sent me their first Holographic Collection EVER!  How exciting, glad to see this brand getting into the holo polish game.  I love their inexpensive polishes and these are a great option.  Along with my swatches, I did a little stamping over each color using the Bundle Monster Secret Garden plates – check out my review of this set here: Secret Garden Bundle Monster Stamp Plate Review.   Ok, onto swatches!

 

 

 

Want to see more!  Click below!

 

OPI Infinite Shine - To The Finish Lime! Review

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Hey Everyone!

Today I am sharing another mani using the OPI Infinite Shine polishes that I received from the Preen.Me VIP Program.  This gorgeous Spring Green is To The Finish Lime!  At first I didn't know what to do with this color, don't get me wrong I love green polish but I was feeling very uninspired.  So without a plan I laid down the base color and dug through my decal stash... and then magic happened haha, check it out!

 

This came out better than if I planned it lol The green is OPI Infinite Shine To The Finish Lime!  This one had a very nice formula and covered completely opaque in 2 coats.  After I added the Infinite Shine Gloss top coat and let dry, I applied these blue rose water decals.  The decals are from ebay, they are sold by about a million sellers so you could find them by searching for blue flower waer decals.  They are on a clear base so the green polish kind of shows through and blends them together, I love the effect!  I also added a 2mm blue round jewel that I got from ebay.

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Color Club Poptastic Pastel Neon Collection Swatch Review - Spring 2015

(These polishes were purchased by me)

 

Hey Everyone!

Today I have a collection to share that I am SO excited about!  They are just me in a bottle lol  I'm talking about the Color Club Poptastic Pastel Neon Collection for Spring 2015.  ALL the things I love, crème finish, pastel, and neon!  Well, washed out neon if you want to be specific.  You may have seen a lot of swatches of these on instagram and heard us all talking about the.... not so great formula?  Well, ok they're not perfect BUT I kind of expect that with these types of colors AND if you use a white undie (like I do with all neons) they are perfectly fine!  I only needed 2 coats of each color over 1 coat of white to reach full opacity with no patchiness or streakiness.  Now, if you didn't use a white undie these would probably take 3 or 4 coats to be opaque and even out.  So, moral of the story kids:  don't forget to wear clean undies with these!  Onto swatches and reviews!

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OPI Infinite Shine Indignantly Indigo and DS Lapis review

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Hey Everyone!

Today I am sharing another mani using the OPI Infinite Shine polishes that I received from the Preen.Me VIP Program.  This blue OPI Indignantly Indigo is so pretty!  It’s one of those bright/dark blues, which makes absolutely no sense haha  I didn’t want to take away from how blue it is so I paired it with OPI Lapis which is from the OPI Designer Series.  Shall we check out my mani?

 

A video posted by Angel 😇 (@twi_star) on Apr 20, 2015 at 2:27pm PDT

AND!  Check out my first instagram tutorial!  I have a lot to learn but it's a good start!

Want to read more?  Click Below!