ellagee Laule'a collection Part 2 :-D

So today I have for you all the last half of the ellagee Laule'a collection. I loved this collection so much, but I have to admit the staying power is not what I've come to expect from ellagee polishes, at least on the shimmers. Since I have no other indie shimmers to compare to, and I've never had a problem with any of Laura's polishes before, I'm assuming it's the finish that makes them chip more easily and not the quality of the polish. With the gorgeous colors though, I feel like they're worth it! Onto the polish!!

This beautiful green shimmer is named Stairway to Heaven. Not being familiar with Hawaii, I'm not sure what this is referencing, but I know I had the song by Led Zeppelin stuck in my head...and now again while I'm typing this. Sigh. Anyway, this was actually my least favorite of the collection. I'm not sure why because she is a very pretty emerald green but I just wasn't crazy about this color on me. The formula on this was similar to the others, if you saw my previous post, in that I had to work kind of hard to keep the brushstrokes from showing, but I think that's typical for a shimmer polish.

Leilani is a gorgeous crelly with blue, purple, and iridescent glitters. I love this polish. I've had it on my toes since Mother's Day. I don't love it as much as Pua Melia, but I love it!! I'm a blue kinda girl though :-). Formula on this one was smooth and I had no trouble with the glitters. It's shown in two coats in the picture and I could have probably done another one. I wore this for two days on my fingers with no chips!

Aloha 'Oe is a beautiful purple with a little bit of pink. Formula on this one is the same as the other shimmers. I noticed more on this color than the others (and it truly may have been my polishing) that it seemed to wave or ripple a bit. You can see it on my middle finger in the pics.

Lanikai Beach is a gorgeous blue shimmer. I love this color! It has a silverish, teal sheen to it depending on the lighting, almost looking like a duochrome. The first picture is the most true to color. This was one of my faves of the collection! Formula was the same as the other shimmers on this one, but for the gorgeous color I'm willing to overlook short wear times.

I'm excited to see what Laura has coming out next...my wallet however, is not!! :-)

ellagee Laule'a collection, Part 1 :-D

Whew, ok so today I have for you all the first of two posts on the ellagee Laule'a collection. Let me tell you a little about this collection, from my point of view.

The last two collections Laura from ellagee came out with I liked, but I wasn't crazy over the top for them. So I knew when she announced she was doing a collection based on Hawaii I was in trouble. I started saving money back as soon as I heard the whispers. Then she released these. And I bought 7 of 8. Sigh. I knew it was coming. I was prepared. However I'm very quickly running out of room for all my polish, and Laura isn't helping :-) !!

Onto the beauties!!

This is Pua Melia. It is my favorite of all 7 I bought. Holy smokes, I LOVE this polish! It is everything a summery Hawaiian polish should be! It's got yellow and orange and pink and iridescent glitters with a white crelly base. CRELLY. PINK GLITTER. I'm in love!! Plus the formula is awesome and it wears so well!

Next up is Golden Sands of Waikiki. This was the sleeper of the group. I wasn't going to buy it, then I thought oh hell, I'm already buying 6 what's one more? Plus I don't have this particular shade of golden brown shimmer *wink* *wink* I was totally blown away! I didn't expect to like it, but I actually LOVED it! The color is so beautiful and looks so pretty with my skin tone! Formula on this one is a little streaky and it dried to a powdery like finish without topcoat. I have never bought an indie shimmer polish before though so that may be par for the course. These shimmers don't last as long as other ellagee polishes I have, and your brush strokes do kind of show if you're not careful! Also, this was a 3 coater for me.

Last for this post is Haleakala Sunrise. I can't pronounce it, but it must be Hawaiian for GORGEOUS!!! This was my #2 fave of the group. I am a sucker for pinks, and this one did not disappoint. In fact I'm still trying to figure out how to wear it again already without you guys figuring out I'm wearing it again. And again. And again :-) Formula on this one was a little streaky and thin and it was also a 3 coater, but OMG I love the color so much I didn't care! It also dried to a powdery like finish without topcoat. 

Stay tuned for installment #2 of the Laule'a collection coming on Friday!!

Twin Nail Tuesday!!

Ah twins! I love them. Of course, I have twins...two boys...who are 13 and NO help when it comes to polishing or anything girly. Sigh. Oh well, I always say the only reason they're still alive is they aren't girls!!

Anyway, Heather at I Feel Polished, who is so awesome, so amazing, and so supportive of my blogging and nail art attempts, asked me if I wanted to do a twin nail post with her.

Uh, YES!!!!!!!!

I came up with an idea and Heather said, "Ok, you do it, send me pictures, and I'll recreate it." Except I had issues creating it in the first place, much less getting it good enough to put pictures up for the whole wide world (in theory) to see. So Heather came up with an idea and took pictures and I said, "Oooooh, I can do that!!" So here they are, in all their glory, Heather and I's holo twin nails!

For these we used ellagee Countdown to 2014 (a LE silver holo that I once told everyone on ellagee's fan page I loved so much I would marry it...), Hear Me Roar (a hot pink holo), and Moonlit (a dark blue crelly-like polish with dark blue very small glitter). Heather and I are both HUGE ellagee fans, so what better way to show that off?

Funny story about this too...for the second time Heather and I did the exact same thing, at different times, 670 miles from each other. I put the pictures she sent me in an order I thought matched with the ones I had taken and posted them...she did the very bottom photo mashup then e-mailed it to me. If you look, you'll see she grouped her pics exactly like I did!!!

Hope you love these as much as I do, and don't forget to follow the blog via Bloglovin, like me on Facebook, and follow me on Instagram!!

Dreaming of green!

With all the hype about the ellagee/You Polish collaboration, I've been going crazy trying to figure out what they're coming up with! So crazy, in fact, that I'm now dreaming of ellagee polish!! I actually dreamed up the design for these nails, and while they're pretty simple, they turned out really cute and very springy!

First, I polished two coats of ellagee You Just Kissed Yourself a Princess. It's a light, slightly minty green crelly with darker green, white, and iridescent glitter. I love the iridescent glitter because it seems to give a whole new dimension to this polish! Then, after that was dry (or one episode of Covert Affairs later--I'm trying to learn patience while doing nail art), I taped off the end of my nails using striping tape and used Bashful Sadie, a darker green cream from ellagee's new spring creams, to polish my tips. I love how these turned out, and why I dreamed them up I have no idea, but it was a good thing!

PS The boo-boo on my middle finger is almost healed. Yay for that!

Cheer!!

I have the most awesome spring crelly today! It's called Cheer and it's by ellagee! Believe me, yesterday was a good day to cheer, my Cardinals won their season opener, I got nail mail, and it was 78 degrees and sunny!! All reasons to cheer after this horribly long, cold winter! Onto the polish...

Cheer is a white crelly with different colored glitters. My eyes aren't fabulous, but I see aqua, purple, and orange small hexes and large aqua and orange circles. It's the perfect spring polish!! I even included pictures of my nubs (the two nails I broke shampooing the carpet) because my index finger nub got the only large orange circle! This polish makes me so happy, and last night after I polished I stood there just staring at my nails. I have to admit, I'm in love with the aqua circles :-) I used three thin coats for opacity but you could definitely use two thicker coats and be just fine. I have three more new ellagee polishes and I can't wait to use them, so be looking for them this week!!

Holy Magenta!

I was wandering around Walgreen's the other day killing some time when I stumbled upon this polish...and I had to buy it! It's called Dream On by Sinful Colors and it is the perfect magenta color! I decided to break up the monotony with an accent nail of Land Lia Blue Wizard and I think the combination is simply amazing!

Dream On is a matte finish polish, which I didn't realize until I saw it written on the bottom, after I couldn't figure out why it was drying funky haha!!! But with ellagee Glass top coat it shines so beautifully! Blue Wizard is a glitter crelly and I had a few problems with the glitter wanting to stick off the end of my nail but I got it figured out! I love this combo so much!!