Twinsie Tuesday Winter to Spring Transition Polish

Good morning polish lovers! Happy Tuesday! 

Today's Twinsie Tuesday prompt is Winter to Spring Transition Polish. Confession time... I don't really follow seasons with polish colors. I don't think that's really any secret though. I do tend to lean more toward brights in the spring and darks in the fall, but that's about as "seasonal" as I get color wise. 

So this prompt was kinda tricky for me. So I just kept thinking spring. Spring spring spring spring spring......... BLUE! Sky blue to be exact. And what is my favorite sky blue polish? OPI Can't Find My Czeckbook of course! (I may or may not have a backup or two of this one... I think I'm an OPI hoarder) 

For these nails I applied 2 buttery perfect coats of OPI Can't Find My Czeckbook and topped it with Just Ricarda Glossy Glam. Do you see why I love this color? It's cheerful without being obnoxious. I love it. 

Be sure to check out the other Twinsie's blogs! Links to their blogs are below.

Thanks for reading! 

~casey

**The polishes in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use.**

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Anna at Going to the Showing

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Traci at DrinkCitra

Twinsie Tuesday, Seasonal Gradient

Good morning friends! I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I've been so busy at work lately that I haven't had much energy to do any blogging. BUT, this is Twinsie Tuesday, and I will always make time/energy for that! 

Today's prompt is Seasonal Gradient. This could be interpreted a lot of ways... but after seeing The Base Coat's Instagram post of a gradient using Zoya Carter and Arabella, I KNEW I had to do something similar. But I needed seasonal... automatically my mind went to wintry blues and silvers. 

For this manicure I started with 2 coats of Zoya Pixie Dust in Nyx, a lovely light silvery blue. Then I sponged on Zoya Pixie Dust in Sunshine, the most amazing deep navy blue Pixie you've ever seen, at the base of my nail. On some of the nails I got more Sunshine than I wanted, so I just sponged on more Nyx until I was happy. Gradients with Pixie Dusts are SO MUCH MORE FORGIVING than gradients with cream polish. Oh my goodness. Especially with these two, because they both have the same silvery glitter base... they just blend together seamlessly. 

Of course I had to throw some topcoat on there just to see what happened. Holy sparkles batman! 

Pixie Dust's can be kind of hard to get smooth and glossy. Any textured polish is for that matter, probably because they are designed to be textured. But if you use the right stuff you get amazing payout. For this ultra shiny and sparkly look I added 2 coats of ACI Gelous from Sally's and 1 coat of HK Girl Topcoat by Glisten and Glow. Wowza! They look like they're set in resin or something. Isn't it incredible? I've been wearing these since Sunday night and I love them. I am being very careful while driving though, it's been sunny and we all know how distracting glitter can be in the sun. No more car accidents for this girl for a long long LONG time please. 

So what do you think? Have you tried a gradient with Zoya Pixie Dust? Trust me, you really should! Find 2 that have a similar base glitter color and go for it. Do you like the matte or glossy finish better? I love them both, but my heart has to choose the glossy if I had to pick one.

Zoya nail polish can be purchased at Ulta, www.zoya.com, and many salons across the US. I get most of mine from the website, and I'm not ashamed to say that I own almost all of the Pixie Dusts. They are by far my favorite textured polishes out there today.  

I hope you all enjoyed this mani as much as I did! Be sure to check out the other Twinsie Tuesday Bloggers! Links to their blogs are below! 

Talk to you soon! 

~casey

**All products in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use.** 

Alaina at The Little Canvas

Amanda at Amandalandish

Amber at Nails Like Lace

Anna at Going to the Showing

Anne at Grape Fizz Nails

Casey at CaseyLane Loves Polish

Chelsea at Nailed Blog

ChiChi at I'm Just Me...ChiChi

Elizabeth at Did My Nails

Erin at Paint Those Piggies

Heather at Peace, Love, & Polish

Kelly at Tuxarina

Lakeisha at Refined and Polished

Maribeth at Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite

Marisa at Polish Obsession

Rachel at Top Coat It

Róisín at Cuti-CLUE-les

Stephanie at A Little Polish

Tiffany at Polished To Precision

Traci at DrinkCitra

Rain City Lacquer For Love Or Money Part 2

**press sample**

Good morning everyone! Today I have 2 more lovely polishes from the Rain City Lacquer For Love Or Money Collection. 

Let's get right into it shall we? 

First up is Sending Flowers.

Rica describes Sending Flowers as a mix of matte purple, lavender, pink, holo silver, and white hexes and circles in a clear base. There are also some pretty little purple stars hiding in there too. I wasn't able to get any on the nail, but they're in there. :) 

For this mani I started with 2 coats of OPI Miss You-Niverse then added 2 coats of Sending Flowers and topped it with Glossy Glam. 

I love this glitter, I'm a sucker for purple and when you mix in some holo I'm sold. The application on this one was great. 

Quick tip for you, if you're using a glitter polish that has bigger pieces store it upside down for a little bit before you use it. It will bring those big glitters to the top so the brush will catch them easier. :) 

Next up, Cold Heart Cash.

Rica describes Cold Heart Cash as a pale blue crelly base with mint, dark blue, green, and silver holo glitters in various shapes and sizes. See that green holo circle in the macro! So pretty! 

This mani is 3 thin coats of Cold Heart Cash topped with Glossy Glam. In real life the base is a little bit bluer, but I just couldn't capture it. This was one of my instant favorites from the collection as soon as I opened it. I love me some jelly sandwiches in a bottle! The formula on this was great, the only placing I had to do was the placing I wanted to do... you know how I like to pick out big glitters and put them where I want them. 

The Love Or Money Collection will be available for preorder this Thursday 01/09/14 at 7 pm PST on Rica's website here. 

What do you all think of these polishes? I am loving this collection, so much variety all packed in to one! 

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for 2 more Rain City Lacquers tomorrow morning! 

~casey

**The Rain City Lacquers in this post were provided to me in exchange for a fair and honest review. For more details please see my disclosure policy.**

Pipe Dream Polish Sapphire Attire

**press sample**

Good morning friends! Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend. We spent the weekend with my in laws celebrating Christmas. I have been really bless with a very sweet set of in laws, I know not everyone feels that way. But they really are very kind and fun people. (That explains my exceptionally fun and kind hubby huh? :) ) The highlight of the weekend was when a family friend (who is a farmer and farm equipment mechanic) started asking me details about nail blogging. He then wanted to see an example of a "swatch and review", so I showed him my recent review of Red Light. He read it out loud to the room and it was hilarious. Hearing a man that is normally talking to my husband about farm equipment, cars, or the 3 Stooges say "I don't usually like red polish on myself but this is gorgeous" really had me giggling. And on a side note, it's a little embarrassing hearing your posts read out loud. Anyone else feel that way? 

Anywho, lets move on to the polish and start this Monday off with some GLITTAH! 

Today I have Pipe Dream Polish Sapphire Attire. 

For this mani I started with 2 coats of Orly In the Navy on my pointer and middle finger, and 2 coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls on my ring and pinkie finger. I put 2 coats of Sapphire Attire on top of those. Then I topped it all off with Just Ricarda Glossy Glam. (Shout out to my sweet friend Elena from ecklipsed by color for giving me Orly In the Navy for Christmas. It is INCREDIBLE! And I never buy Orly so I wouldn't have gotten my hands on it if it wasn't for her. Thank you sweet friend! You should all be following her Instagram and blog, she's the sweetest and most fabulous fashionista I know. :) )

Sapphire Attire is a clear based polish filled with bright blue, black holo, and silver holo glitters. 

You guys, this blue. I can't even describe it... the best thing I can compare it to is blue LED Christmas lights. You know how they almost hurt to look at? Like your eyes can't register their awesomeness? It's kind of like that. They look like they are lit up. It's incredible. My birthstone is sapphire, and I have a weakness for them. This polish looks like it has little glowing sapphires in it, it's amazing. Then you add not only silver but black holo to it too?!? Insane genius! 

Sapphire Attire is part of Pipe Dream's upcoming Glitterandom Collection, releasing this Friday January 3rd at 12 pm EST.

Pipe Dream Polish can be purchased through their Etsy store here. 

Glossy Glam can be purchased through their Etsy store here. 

Be sure to follow April on Instagram for updates and more pictures. I've got the remaining 6 polishes from this collection coming to you this week... trust me, you are going to want them. :) That's all I'll say for now. 

I hope you all have a lovely day! Thanks for reading! 

See you tomorrow!!!

~casey

**The Pipe Dream Polishes in this post were provided to me in exchange for a fair and honest review. Please see my disclosure policy for more details.**

Dark and Difficult Times

Good morning polish friends!!! I hope everyone is having a good week so far.

Today I have a new to me indie brand called Polish TBH. I have been eyeing Chrissy's polishes on Instagram for a while. And as you all may have noticed, I love Harry Potter. So any Harry Potter themed polish jumps out to me. This one was just so pretty and so different, I had to nab it. 

Light Box

Light Box

Light Box

Full Sun

Full Sun

Isn't this beautiful? Plus the name and description of the polish sent me right over the edge. This is from her listing description: This is a darkened blue gray with a mix of holo black and charcoal glitters as well as red and green color shifting flakies. Reminiscent of the gloomy skies seen through out the Harry Potter series. The name comes from a favorite quote from Albums Dumbledore "Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy."

That quote is one of my favorites from the Harry Potter series. So many good life lessons in those wonderful stories. But, this is a polish blog not a "OMG I love all things HARRY POTTER!!!" blog. :) 

This color pulled gray in some light, blue in others. I had a really hard time capturing it, so I am posting it in a few different lights to try and capture the beauty. And macros to show those beautiful glitters and flakies!!! 

The formula on this polish was great, the glitter flowed well and distributed all on its own; no placement necessary. It was a bit sheer for my personal taste, but sometimes that's the price you have to pay for this amount of squishiness. 

Shown is 3 coats with 1 coat of Glossy Glam. I loved wearing this one and just couldn't stop staring at my nails. There's lots of depth and variety in there, that's my favorite thing about indie polish!!!

Polish TBH can be purchased through their Store Envy store here. 

Just Ricarda's Glossy Glam can be purchased through their Etsy store here. 

What do you all think? I love this one. 

I have a Halloween mani to show you tomorrow, can't wait! :) 

Happy Wednesday!

~casey

**All polishes in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use. Glossy Glam was purchased at a discounted blogger rate in exchange for honest reviews.**

Frozen Over Gradients

Good morning everyone! Happy Monday! Sorry I've been kind of sporatic with posting lately. I'm hoping to get back into a schedule very soon.

Today I have a Pipe Dream Polish glitter topper to show you all. I wanted to do something unique with this one, so I opted for gradients. I love a glitter gradient, they aren't difficult at all and they have a big impact. (my favorite combo)

Natural light, sun.

Light box.

Light box, macro.

Light box, macro.

For this mani I used Wet-n-Wild Blank Canvas and Teal Slowly and See. (I really don't understand the name of that one, this color is all blue, no teal...) 

I started with 2 coats of each of the colors. Then working with the bottle brush, I painted the glitter on halfway down the nail lightly, then slightly more a little ways up, etc. Glitter gradients take a little practice, but they are definitely one of the easier nail art techniques to do. After I was satisfied with my glitter I topped it all off with a coat of Glossy Glam topcoat.

Here is what April says about Frozen Over in her Etsy listing: This polish is from the Like the Weather collection - all these polishes are taken from song lyrics of songs that have a reference to the weather! 'frozen over'' is from Kate Bush's Under Ice. It is made of teal, aqua, frost white, and silver flakies in a clear base. I love this glitter. It's sparkly but not super sparkly, the blue, silver, and white combo are so nice. It's just a really pretty glitter. 

The application was easy, I didn't have to fish for any glitter and it didn't go on too thick. (that can sometimes be problematic with gradienting with glitters) And, I have to say that April has restored my faith in the mini bottle. These bottles are a nice size and the brush is actually workable, nice change from some of the mainstream brand's minis. (you know who you are...)

Pipe Dream Polish can be purchased through their Etsy store here. 

Glossy Glam can be purchased through their Etsy store here. 

What do you think? I loved this mani, it was perfect for "Mall Day" shopping on Saturday!

I hope you all enjoyed this post. 

Talk to you soon!

~casey

**All polishes in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use. I purchased them at a discounted rate in exchange for an honest review.**

Zoya Neve

Good morning everyone! How's your week so far? Mine isn't great, but it isn't terrible, so I can't complain too much. 

Today I've got a swatch for ya. A couple of weekends ago Zoya did their yearly BOGO sale and I bought a few (ahem, 8) polishes. Neve was one of the first polishes to hit my cart that day. Ever since I started seeing swatches of it I knew I had to have it. I have a weakness for blues and purples, this is something in between... with amazing sparkle. It reminds me of sapphires, which is my birthstone, so it was a no brainer. 

Zoya describes Neve as a sapphire blue metallic. There are lovely little purplish pink sparkles mixed in there, it's lovely. I'll let the pictures do the talking. :) 

Sunlight

Shade 

Light Box

Light Box macro

Sunlight macro!!!

See all those pretty colors in the macro? Oh my. This polish is a stunner. It would work for any season in my opinion. Application was a little watery, but I think that's just the formula on polishes like this. It wasn't unmanageable, and my clean up brush helped fix things for me. The coverage was great too, this is only 2 coats, which is big for me. I almost always need 3. 

I topped this off with Glossy Glam, which is why you can see my camera lens in the reflection in some pics. :) 

What do you think of this polish? I love it. Can't wait to create something with it! 

Talk to you soon! 

~casey

**The polishes in this post were purchased by me for my own personal use.**

Bestie Twin Nails with Anna!

Hi everybody! I hope you're doing well today. I am so excited about today's manicure. 

A while back I met a really sweet girl named Anna on Instagram. Her first user name was omgnannerz. Truth be told her name is why I followed her, something about it made me certain I'd like her. :) Then she decided to make a "nails only" account under the name polishfrolic. Love it too. :) You really need to go check this girl out, she has got some serious talent and way too few followers. 

So, Anna and I were talking one day on kik and decided we should do some bestie twin nails. For those of you that don't know what these are, well, the name is pretty self explanatory. You get together with one of your best nail pals and come up with some coordinating manis. Everyone does these differently, but I love the way Anna and I did ours. The only rules we had were navy, roses, stripes, and some kind of glitter. The reason I like this type of twin mani is because it shows just how differently everyone interprets manis. 

So here is my mani. Last week I saw a gorgeous vintage rose mani on Instagram, kayleehazacupcakee. She did dainty little pink roses on a black background. I have no idea why I never thought to do vintage roses on a dark background, they look great! So she was my main inspiration. Her and all the new Zoya's I got last week. This mani is almost all Zoyas. Does anyone else do that? I try to use all the same brand in my manis... I don't know why, but I feel like they play better together. Plus, its Zoya. The formula is amazing... always.

Direct Sunlight

Shade

Light Box

Light Box

Light Box

Light Box Macro

First of all, I have to say I'm SUPER proud of this index finger. Anna helped me figure out how to do glitter placement from polish, and I did it! It's not perfect, but I love the way it turned out. My topcoat is so shiny it was hard to capture, but you get the idea. 

Colors Used:

Zoya - Sailor (navy blue)

Zoya - Nyx (PixieDust)

Zoya - Sooki (red)

Zoya - Yana (pink)

Zoya - Josie (dark green)

Zoya - Neely (light green)

Zoya - Blu (light blue) 

FingerPaints - Santa's Magic (glitter)

Glossy Glam topcoat

I am so in love with these nails! I used striping tape for my middle finger, dotting tools and tiny brushes for my little roses, and a tiny dotting tool and a dash of patience for my glitter framed finger. 

What do you all think? It's going to be hard for me to take this one off. I love it and I'm really proud of my work. I have a hard time with being proud of my manis, but this one I can freely admit that I did a good job and not feel like I'm being conceited. :)

Here is a pic of Anna's nails. Aren't they lovely? I love how she put her roses on top of the stripes. 

Do me a favor and go check out her Instagram here. Follow her, you won't be sorry! :) She's going to be making another appearance here on my blog very soon!

I hope you all enjoyed this post! I really enjoyed doing these nails. I need to get back into doing more nail art. I love it. 

Talk to you soon!

~casey

**All of the polishes I used for this manicure were purchased by me for my own personal use.**

Freckles

Good morning everyone! Happy Sunday to you! I hope everyone is having a nice weekend so far. 

Today I have a fabulous indie polish for you. It's no secret that I love indies, and my love for them started with Lush Lacquer. The first indie I ever purchased was their polish Clowning Around. It is a fabulous neon glitter in a clear base with varying sizes of hex glitter in all different colors. I fell in love with it the very first time I saw it, and I remember how excited I was when I finally decided to purchase it. Once I got it on I still loved it, but large hex glitter isn't my favorite. I love the way it looks on others, but I think because my nails are relatively small it just doesn't always lay right on me. Plus it is a little trickier to work with. 

So, when I found out that Lush Lacquer was releasing Freckles, the little sister to Clowning Around, I was ecstatic. Clowning Around has 6 different sizes of hex glitter, Freckles only has 2; and they are all small. This polish is amazing. If you are on the fence about trying an indie, I highly recommend this one because it's really versatile. I bought it for myself as my "birthday polish gift" to myself. Sounds weird, I know. I've been planning a birthday manicure since my birthday last year, and this polish is perfect for what I've got in mind. 

Freckles is densely packed with neon hex glitters, there is no need to place this baby. It flows on all by itself in a nice, dense, layer of colorful goodness. For this manicure I decided to layer it over my favorite blue, OPI Can't Find My Czeckbook. You don't see a lot of people layering these neon glitters over color, and I have no idea why. The result is fantastic; it totally changes the look of the glitter! They are such chameleons, I can't wait to try it over many more. 

For this mani I used 2 coats of Can't Find My Czeckbook and 2 coats of Freckles. I could have left it at just 1 coat of Freckles, but really the only thing better than glitter is more glitter... So I couldn't help but add 1 more. Then I topped it off with my beloved Glossy Glam. I've had this one for 3 days and it is still just as shiny and bright as the night I put it on. 

Here are some pics. I'm going to apologize here because I feel like I need to. I'm still working out how all of this works and I feel like my lighting isn't always the best. Sometimes I have lobster hands and other times my fingers look like ghosts. I think I'm getting better, but it's a learning process. But, even with lobster hands you can see how awesome this combo is! 

Light Box 

Light Box

Light Box Nail Macro

Light Box Bottle Macro (look at all that glitter!!!)

I took these light box photos the night I painted them, but then the sun didn't show up much the next day. So this picture is after a full day and a half of wear, including my usual routine which USED to really scuff my nails. Check out how great Glossy Glam holds up! It's amazing stuff, I can't say enough good things about it. 

What do you all think? Isn't this glitter fun? I can't wait to incorporate it into my birthday manicure. Or maybe birthday manicures, because I'm getting so many ideas that I might have to do them for the whole month of September. 

Lush Lacquer can be purchased on their Etsy store here. 

Glossy Glam can be purchased on their Etsy store here. 

OPI can be purchased at salon retailers, Ulta, and many other online retailers. 

**The Lush Lacquer in this post was purchased by me for my own personal use. I did receive a blogger discount in exchange for an honest review.**