My ellagee custom and a giveaway teaser...

Hello!!! I know it's been a long time since I've posted but I've been so busy loving on some new polishes. This one is my favorite of all and warning, this is gonna be a loooooong post!

Custom

I contacted Laura at ellagee about doing a custom for me based on my favorite color. I'm sure you can guess what it is based on the pictures below...it's a certain blue, made famous by a certain jeweler...ahem...

This is what she came up with and I named it Angela Blue. Because it's mine. ALLLLLL MIIIIIINE! Actually there were 3 bottles made. One for myself, one for a giveaway (teaser), and one for my polish bestie, Heather at I Feel Polished. I know she loves this color too so I thought it would be a good surprise for her!

I picked Laura to do my custom because she is crazy easy to work with and I love her polishes (I now have 50. Yes 50.). She sent me pics and let me make the final decision. I absolutely love what we came up with :-) The formula is amazing, it's opaque in 2 coats, and I'm pretty sure if I run out she'll make me more. I hope! I also decided to do an accent nail because this polish is way too pretty for my manicure with it not to shine!

Accent nail

For my accent nail to go with Angela Blue, I was inspired by the lampshades made famous by *cough* Louis Comfort Tiffany. His lampshades are so beautiful and coveted by many. Especially by me. Anyway so I found a picture of one with red, orange, and purple flowers and decided to do my own take on it. For the base I used another custom (SURPRISE!) from Laura that came with my Angela Blue, Sweet Heather, inspired by the white ribbon that's on the boxes from the aforementioned jeweler :-) Then I used a very small dotting tool and Zoya Elodie, a medium orange/coral, and made an irregular dot in the middle of my nail. Using the same dotting tool, I used Pure Ice Siren (red), ellagee Haleakala Sunrise (pink shimmer), and ellagee Aloha Oe (purple shimmer) to make irregular shapes for the petals. Next I used Essie Go Overboard (dark teal) for the leaves. Then using a very small nail art brush (and a shaky hand but remember, I did this on my left hand...and I'm left handed o.O) I used Sinful Colors Black On Black to fill in the lines and actually make the petals and leaves. Then I drew some random lines coming off the flower to indicate the "lampshade" part. I thought it turned out really well, considering A) this is my 2nd attempt at free hand nail art and B) I did it right-handed!

Giveaway

I have one more bottle of Angela Blue to give away to a lucky reader. As soon as I hit 100 likes on Facebook and 100 followers on IG, be looking for a chance to win a bottle of my custom!!

Pretty in blue,

The Unprofessional Polisher

ellagee Doctor Who collection Part 2--the greens

Holy cow! Summer hit Missouri this past week and the air has been so humid it is hampering my abilities to polish! Which is why, despite my best attempts, this post didn't happen last Friday as it should have...my polish wouldn't dry, it was applying all goopy and wonky, and in general I was a hot, cranky, tired mess!

Finally though, here is the last 2 of the 4 polishes I bought from ellagee's Doctor Who collection, and all I can say is...WOW.

First up is Void Stuff...it's a beautiful emerald green jelly polish loaded with green glitters! I used two coats, but should have done three thin ones...this was when I realized the humidity was hampering my polishing. I had trouble with this polish and I have no doubt it was the weather!! The humidity seems to mess with jellies more than any other formula, and I had some troubles with it wanting to goop up at the end of my nail and then pull back. I didn't have this problem with Sexy Old Girl from the same collection so I'm thinking it was the weather. I really thought I would love this polish, but it didn't speak out to me. It's a beautiful color, and so shimmery and shiny in the sunlight, but wasn't a favorite out of the 4. Here it is, in all its emerald green glory:

Next up is Medusa Cascade. Now, as I mentioned in my previous post, I'm not a Whovian. So I have no idea where the inspiration and name came from for this polish. All I know is O.M.G. wherever the inspiration came from, it was amazing!

Medusa Cascade is a multi-chrome, shade shifting, wonderful batch of goodness that shifts from gold to yellow to orange to green to teal to blue. My boys said it was very dragon-like...whatever that means. Let me just say I spent 15 minutes in the shower looking at my nails from all angles in and out of the water to see all the colors. Yes, I am, in fact, easily amused, however this polish is just simply gorgeous. The formula is smooth but because it is a chromie, brushstrokes can show. Here it is, Medusa Cascade:

See all the pretty colors?!?!?! My friend Amy said it was no wonder I loved this polish because it was like the beach and ocean all in one polish. All the things I like :-)

Sadly I think Medusa Cascade is gone because Laura can no longer get the pigments used to make it, but she was working on some dupes of the original formulas of some of the multi-chromes in this collection so keep checking!

Forever polished,

The Unprofessional Polisher

ellagee Doctor Who collection Part 1--The Blues

Today I have a couple of amazing polishes from ellagee's Doctor Who collection. I have to admit, I've only seen about 7 episodes and so I haven't completely jumped on the Doctor Who bandwagon, but it is a quirky show, I'll give it that! I got 4 from the collection, 2 greens and 2 blues and today I have the blues for you!

Onto the polish!

First up is Sexy Old Girl. Everyone who watches Doctor Who knows he travels in the TARDIS. Well, this polish is a TARDIS blue jelly with holographic glitters! It is so beautiful! My camera went into sparkle overload and couldn't quite catch the awesomeness of Sexy Old Girl. I had a few problems with the formula on this one, only because there is so much glitter and it wasn't cooperating for me. But once I got it on, WOW! It's a stare at your nails all day long polish!

Next up is Trenzalore, named after the place Doctor Who can't go to. What a pity because if it is as gorgeous as this polish, he's missing out!

You know how sometimes you find things in life that is like a part of your soul, a piece of clothing that just soothes you when you put it on, a blanket that automatically makes you feel cozy and comfy, an animal that seems like they're a part of you? This unexpectedly happened for me with Trenzalore. I kid you not! It was the first polish of the four I tried because I thought it was the ugliest in the bottle. My thoughts were, "Eh, I'll wear this one for a day then I'll take it off and try the pretties." It was more like I put this on, and I wore it for FOUR DAYS until one nail was so chipped I HAD to take it off.

Trenzalore is a soft blue-gray polish with subtle scattered holo. Formula is smooth and amazing and just seeing these pics I want to run home and put it back on. I LOVE this polish!

There you have it! The blues of the Doctor Who collection from ellagee. Both can be found at www.ellagee.com along with the other amazing polishes from this collection!

Found my soul mate polish!

The Unprofessional Polisher

Ellagee Wham!

I love glitter. I love holo.

I LOVE holo glitter!

Today's polish is almost too much for words. This is Wham! by ellagee, a gorgeous mix of white and yellow gold holographic glitter. It's not really a texture polish, but because of all the glitter, it isn't smooth. However, with a coat or two of top coat, it is as smooth as a cream polish, and YOWZERS!!! THE SPARKLE!!!

Formula is okay, a little difficult to manage because of the glitter, but I wore this for 2 days with no glitter snagging or chipping! Removal, well, it is a grouch. But that's to be expected with any glitter polish. I just soak a piece of cotton ball in remover, slap it on my nail, and put a rubber sorting finger over it. Then I do crosswords or watch TV for 10 minutes and ta da!! Glitter is removed!

Ok, so here is Wham! under normal light:

Here is Wham! under muted sunlight:

And here, here is Wham! with flash to show the beauty it is:

Wham! is really blingy and really flashy, but for the record no one at work ran away screaming, "My eyes! My eyes!" so I think it's safe to wear for all occasions :-)

And, if yellow gold is more your thing, check out Kachow! If white gold is more your style, check out Boom!, all at www.ellagee.com.

Or just go to Laura's site anyway, because there will be something you'll love there. Trust me ;-)

Have a sparkling weekend!

The Unprofessional Polisher

Fan Group Love--ellagee Blueberry Ella-ment

I'm really excited for the next, oh, three weeks of posts. I have some fantastic polishes to show you all, starting with this beauty!

Laura at ellagee created another exclusive polish for her fan group on Facebook, Gee, I Love Ellagee! The members of the group got to vote on the color, finish, and name and this is what we chose, Blueberry Ella-ment!

It's a gorgeous cobalt blue linear holo! Formula is so smooth and it is perfect in 2 coats! I wouldn't expect anything less from ellagee!

Here's another pic that shows some of the holo:

For some reason my camera was having a hard time capturing the holo-awesomeness of Blueberry Ella-ment but trust me when I say it's definitely there in person. I love this color so much that I planned my outfit to my cousin's wedding around it :-) What can I say? I love blue and I love ellagee polish!!

Super fruity,

The Unprofessional Polisher

Fast mani makeover :-)

Oh you all...baseball season is making my life crazy! We've been playing two and three nights a week so we can makeup games we missed at the beginning of the season due to Mother Nature's crying jags. I haven't had much time to do my nails, and I've been refreshing two and three day old manis so I don't have to spend much time on them.

This mani started with ellagee The Only Water In The Forest. I describe this color as a dirty mint green. It has shimmer to it too, and I'm on a green kick lately, so I decided I was going to use it even though I've already featured it on the blog :-)

After a couple of days, it was looking pretty scruffy, so I got the idea to use it as the base for a watercolor mani--

For this I used ellagee Forgetful Lucy, a Cover Girl lavender, and Zoya Edie. I just polished on some blobs and used a brush dipped in acetone to mix and smooth them. Then, I topped it with ellagee Rainbow Syrup, because, well, you should Rainbow Syrup all the things!! It took me roughly 20 minutes to do and my mani was refreshed and ready to go for another 2 days :-)

Rainbow Syrup all the things!

The Unprofessional Polisher

Twin Nails #2 with I Feel Polished!

Today I have a twin nails post with my friend and fellow blogger, Heather at I Feel Polished! I was needing some inspiration for our twin nails, and one day it was right in front of me...my shower curtain!! Here's what I came up with:

For these nails, I started with two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Then I used one coat of ellagee Rainbow Syrup to give it a sort of opaque sheen since my shower curtain is not clear but grayed out. Then, using a dotting tool I alternated dots of Zoya Pippa, Revlon Urban, Zoya Tangy, ellagee Delphinium, and ellagee Bashful Sadie! It's pretty darn close to what my shower curtain looks like!

And here are Heather's nails:

And here are our nails together in an awesome collage Heather did for me:

It's so much fun doing twin nail posts, especially with Heather who has been so supportive and encouraging when it comes to my blogging! She's an inspiration and a very lovely lady inside and out!!

Have a great weekend!

The Unprofessional Polisher

ellagee 1985

Ohmygawd, I like, totally have some, like, totally awesome neon nail polishes to, like, show you today!

Ok, I can't talk like that anymore! Missourian does Valley Girl doesn't really work lol!

I have 3 polishes from ellagee's 1985 collection for you! They are NEON, they are SHIMMER, they are GLITTER, and they are absolutely CRAZY awesome! What can I say, I'm a child of the '80s and I love me some neon polishes :-)

First up is Like, Totally Coral. It is a shimmery coral neon with a pink tone. I love this polish because A) it's a neon and B) it's the only coral polish I own that doesn't look carrot orange on me. Formula on this was superb for a neon. Typically neon polishes are streaky because of the pigments used, and this one was awesome. I loved it so much and it wore so well I had it on for FOUR DAYS! That is absolutely unheard of for me! Like with most neons, to get the color to really pop it should be applied over a white base. Here is two coats of Like, Totally Coral over white:

In my "lightbox" aka the bathroom sink:

In natural light--pardon my foot I didn't see til just now :-\

With an LED light--I love how you can see the pink shimmer in this one!!

Lime-O-Rama is exactly what the name suggests...it's a lime green neon polish! My son says it's "Mountain Dew can green". I say it's AWESOME! Formula on this one was a little streakier than Like, Totally Coral, but I was also in a hurry to get my nails done because we had a ballgame to get to, so it could be that I wasn't as careful with the undies on this one.

Lightbox

With flash--look at the shimmer <3!

Full sunlight:

Last but certainly not least is Bust A Move, a glitter topper with matte neon blue glitter shreds and hexes and holographic purple squares. I have to admit, I bought this JUST for the name. And every time I say it or type it, I start singing the song!!! Shown here over Like, Totally Coral:

Lightbox:

Natural light:

All in all I LOVE this collection and wish I could have gotten them all! Like, Totally Coral and Lime-O-Rama both retail for $9.50 and Bust A Move retails for $9 and all three plus the rest of the 1985 collection can be found at www.ellagee.com!

See ya on the flip side, yo!

The Unprofessional Polisher

America the Beautiful by ellagee!

Hey everyone! Today I have three polishes from the America the Beautiful collection by ellagee. I am very much a patriot, and wish our great nation could regress to some of the principals our founding fathers held near and dear, but alas I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. My brother fought for this nation and was wounded in Kuwait in 2005, and every time I hear the national anthem I tear up a bit. When I saw this collection, I knew I had to get them!!!

First up is Give Me Liberty, a red jelly with tiny holographic glitter. O.M.G. SOOOO pretty! The holographic glitter makes it look like tiny fireworks are going off when you move your fingers! Application was smooth, and the pictures below show two coats. For the pics I probably could have used another coat, but in real life there was no visible nail line. I actually wore this polish for 3 days without any tip wear or chipping! And I had no staining upon removal ;-)

Next up is Let Freedom Ring, the blue jelly counterpart to Give Me Liberty. Again it's full of holographic glitters...my stars but it is gorgeous! Of course, I love all blue polish but this one, WOW! Formula was smooth and long wearing and it didn't stain! Again the pics are two coats but I probably could have used three.

Last but certainly not least is Our Flag Was Still There, a gorgeous red, blue, silver, and white texture polish! Oh my, but it is sparkly!! I decided to use it over Let Freedom Ring for some nail art! Formula on this one was a little thick but it's a texture so that's completely normal. And WOW! I got TONS of complements on this! Plus, our school colors are red and blue, so I wore it to my boys' baseball game and it was totally fun!

All in all, I'm so glad I bought these polishes because all three can be used at other times besides Independence Day time! All were definitely the quality I've come to know and love from ellagee! If you're interested in getting them for yourself, visit www.ellagee.com! Give Me Liberty and Let Freedom Ring both retail for $9.50, Our Flag Was Still There retails for $10.00.

Ever patriotic,

The Unprofessional Polisher

OPI Sheer Jelly Sandwich

I haven't done a lot of nail art lately, mostly because it's ball season for us right now and with two boys playing (on the same team at least!) I don't have a lot of time to sit down and do involved manis! But, I've gotten tired of just polishing and going on, so I jazzed things up a bit!

I love pink, and I love glitter, and a few months ago I bought 2 OPI Sheer Tints. And this one has been sitting in the untrieds bin just waiting to be used. It's Be Magentale With Me, a pink sheer polish that OPI created to use to give a pink tint to any nail polish. Well, I decided to use it in a jelly sandwich of sorts!

First, I painted basecoat then one coat of Be Magentale With Me. Then I used ellagee Loved By No One More Than Me, a glitter topcoat with silver and pink circle glitter and silver shimmer. Next I used another coat of Be Magentale then used topcoat over that. I loved this mani, and it totally reminded me of one of my fave ellagee polishes, Shirley Temple, only not thermal :-)

Although I loved this mani, I hated that I had VNL because everything I used was sheer, plus can I just say removal was HORRIBLE!!! It was basically like removing basecoat and 4 layers of topcoat with glitter! Even the tried and true cotton ball/acetone/rubber fingers method didn't cut it completely. Next time I think I'll use something else and save Be Magentale With Me for what it was truly intended for...like spicing up all those nude cream Zoyas I bought!!

Neon Rainbows!

Ok so I have a mani for you today that is so simple, yet I loved it so much after three days I was loath to take it off. Maybe because it was bright and almost obnoxious, maybe because it was a little holo-y, maybe because after three days it still hadn't chipped!!! Anyway, I LOVE this one, I think behind my brown and pink dotticure this one is my favorite I've posted since starting my blog.

One thing I hate about neon polishes is that they are SO HARD to photograph! Their neon goodness never seems to show through. For this mani I used two coats of Sinful Colors Snow White, then one coat of Fing'rs Heart 2 Art You Had Me At Yellow (for someone who is a Jerry Maguire fanatic and likes Kenny Chesney, I couldn't pass this polish up simply on principle) a neon, highlighter yellow cream. Then, I used one coat of ellagee Rainbow Syrup to make it a little holo-y.

I was so disappointed that the pictures didn't show the neon or the holo goodness of this mani. So I got a brilliant idea...

I stood in a dim area of the house where there was enough light the flash wouldn't go off. Then I held a small LED flashlight under my chin pointed at my hand and took a picture.

VOILA!!!! Neon rainbows!!!

Oscar the Grouch nails

I'm not sure what exactly happened with this manicure. One of my favorite glitter toppers is from Different Dimension and it's called To Infinity And Beyond. It's part of the You've Got A Friend In Me duo...and being in love with Toy Story I had to buy it. Also, I tell my boys all the time I love them to infinity and beyond because they loved Toy Story when they were little and they identified with it :-)

I had ellagee's Bashful Sadie that I used for tips on another mani, but I wanted to use it as a base for this one. It's a minty green cream and since To Infinity has lime green and green glitters as well as purple, silver, and white, the colors of Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story, I thought "Whoa, that'll be perfect!"

Um. Not so much.

When I did these, my niece was over and when I got them finished I said, "Wow, these so look like Oscar the Grouch nails!" And she agreed 100%. And so the name was born...