Picture Polish Imperial and an Update

Hey guys! So, I have a killer mani to show today, but I also want to make an announcement regarding the blog.

I was seeing a large hit count when I was doing the tri daily challenges through Instagram,  but I just don't have the time anymore to do them that often and also to plan in advance.  I started just randomly trying to post at least twice a week, but I realized I in post more in Instagram.  It's just easier for my busy lifestyle.  So, having said that,  I tried something new this week by posting on Instagram and then sharing that pic on my FB page. I want to do it all, I really do. But this year is proving to be pretty difficult.  So, please make sure to check out my Instagram,  at gawkishpolish,  and then I'm also going to post on Twitter, since all of those are so similar in posting style.  Twitter will be gawkish_polish. I did have a twitter account a while ago,  and it kept getting hacked so I forgot my password.  Whoops.


So, anyways,  here is a beauty that I've never worn. I'm such a loser for never wearing this. It was on my polish wishlist,  and a lovely woman got it for me in a swap a couple of months ago.  Its a true purple with copper glitter and a blue / purple shimmer. It's so pretty and just sparkles. I of course need a swag nail or I will get all twitchy,  so this is a base of OPI Samoan Sand and then I added some purple and copper colored glitters to compliment the sparkles in Imperial.

Picture Polish is what you call an indie, as in an independent polish maker that isn't super mainstream (like OPI, Essie,  etc). PP is based out of Australia,  so the polish temds to be on the pricey side. I'm a fan. I love Imperial,  the color was so unique and I guess if I needed to pick one negative,  is that it dried semi matte. I slop my HK Girl Topcoat on everything if I don't want it matte, so that didn't bother me.


So, anyways,  please make sure to check in on the other social media sites that are for this account.  I'm not going anywhere,  just easierwhere.  =)

Happy Monday girls... have a great day
April

Springy Flowers

Did you all have a good weekend?  I was non-stop and I'm paying for it this morning.  A service organization I'm a member of had a work day and we dug holes for a retaining wall, scraped and painted a porch, removed debris and tons of yard waste all for an 80 year old woman that just couldn't do it anymore.  It waas so satisfying although I could only help for a few hours.  Worst part? The news station interviewed me. It was like my worst nightmare came to life.

Anyways,  I have a ome floral nails for you today.  I tend to gravitate towards purples and lavenders, so that's what I grabbed here. This is probably one of my top favorite polishes, OPI Do You Lilac It? and OPI My Vampire is Buff.  I just freehanded on some dots and stripes,  and topped with the flowers on two nails. It was really kind of boring and flat, so I added a topcoat of Essie's Pure Pearlfection to give it a light shimmer.

Sunday was great until about 4 pm hit. Then the skies opened up, the wind kicked up into overdrive and now it is supposed to rain for the next like 10 days. Good thing I snapped this while I still had some sunshine!

Have a great Monday!
April

Doctor Lacquer Dopamine

Hello!  Did you have a good weekend?  Easter weather here was amazingly beautiful.  But wait for it, it's Iowa, so we went from 90 degrees back down to 50-60. Sigh. Oh well, at least I know summer is coming.

What I have for you today is a polish that I ordered last week. It's made by Doctor Lacquer,  and this one is called Dopamine.   Doctor Lacquer is known for their thermal polishes, and I've been dying to try one. So of course,  I gravitated towards this one... I mean, come on. Purple base, circle glitter,  golden yellow, bright yellow glitters AND then it turns aqua when warm? This should have been called April.

Cold, purple

Transition

Warm, aqua

Here's what I learned with thermal polish:
1. Don't apply this sitting outside on an almost 90 degree day. That was weird.
2. My hands are apparently mostly cold all the time. I pretty much knew this, because I'm that annoying girl in your office that no matter how warm it is, I still whine that I'm cold. But I thought it was interesting that my thumb and pointer would be in the transition phase, when  my pinkies would stay purple almost all the time.
3. Taking it off was cool. I used my OPI Glitter Off,  so I was able to peel this, and it at the time was blue since I just came home from the gym, and then it would come off purple. Fun!


I would totally recommend this brand. I purchased this polish from their Store Envy store, but they also have an ETSY store.

Now I need more thermals. Pronto. =)
Cheers,
April

Plum and Gold

Hey, happy Monday!

Did you have a good weekend? Mine was great- we had an awards banquet for an organization that I'm a member of on Friday,  and the DH's birthday was this weekend too, so, shocking- we visited a new brewery about 40 minutes away.  (It was awesome).

I did this nail look for the awards banquet for Friday.  I didn't want to be too crazy, so I stumbled upon a similar look on Pinterest.  I tried to find the original source of this, but the links are dead. If anyone knows, comment below so I can give proper credit.

Their look was black and gold, but I love, love, LOVE OPI'S Do You Vant to Bite My Neck, and I wanted to do something less harsh. The gold I used a dotting tool and my favorite accent gold polish, Maybelline Bold Gold.  I swear by that polish. It's fantastic.  I did do a few dots of a lighter purple on my left hand, and I didn't really care for it, but it wasn't too noticeable.

Classy, but with a punch. Kind of like me.  =)

Have a great day ladies!
April

Day 7 of the Nail Art February Challenge

It's the weekend! !!!

I'm so excited.  For reals. I am so I busy the first week of the month that the first weekend is like chocolate coated. With sprinkles.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this prompt, which is XOXO. Of course I needed it to be slightly different,  so I did an abstract XOXO.

The textured polish here is L'Oreal Too Dimensional on top of one of my faves, OPI'S Do You Lilac It? The pink is Essie's The Girls Are Out. I taped off the criss cross, or the X's, and then I free handed the O's.

Funny story. I did this pretty late last night, and I turned on the comedy station on Pandora for background sound. I do NOT recommend doing this. You should see my right hand. You can see every move where I laughed. It looks like my 8 year old niece painted them.

Hope you all have a great weekend. Is it beer thirty yet?   ;)
April

Texture the Week Away

So I totally hate the first week of the month.  I am very active in several committees and boards,  and they all meet the first week. I'm exhausted.  I did this mani earlier in the week, but then didn't have time to blog about it.  I changed my polish because I have the worst habit of if my polish chips, then I tend to bite or peel the rest of it off.  Especially if it's a glitter,  I totally bite it rather than remove it.  I'm terrible.  *PSA... Kids, do not try this at home!*

Anyways,  I stopped by Walgreens to pick the DH up some cold meds, and I had to wander by the beauty section.  Have you seen L'Oreal Gold Coast collection??? I think I fangirl squealed a little when I saw these. They are textured polishes,  and also have some chunky glitter in them. I spent almost 30 minutes trying to decide on which ones to purchase.  I'm not a huge fan of texture polishes,  so I hem-hawed over these forever.  One of my favorite texture polishes is OPI'S Alcatraz... Rocks! And it's a dark purple with major shimmer in it. Its beautiful,  and I thought, geez April.  These are kind of close to that beaut. Well dammit, I bought 3. This one is Sexy in Sequins.

This is only 2 coats, but I probably could have gotten away with one. I used a super ugly but pretty China Glaze green, Budding Romance for my accent nail and topped it with a gold stud.

Now I got super frustrated that my camera wouldn't pick up the duo chrome amazeballs shimmer this, so I took it inside.  You can see it in the bottle what it looked like on the nail. Stupid camera.  Why couldn't you photograph like that???

I snagged up two other colors, and Too Dimensional is one of the prettiest shades I have ever seen. It also is a one coater. Hidden Gems was ok. This is the one I argued with myself over forever and I ended up purchasing.  Its weak sauce on the first coat,  but full opacity on the second.

Here's another shot at a drugstore brand of a texture polish.  Will you try it out or pass it up?

April

Lavender Gradient with Sephora X

Hey guys... so is it frigging cold out, or what?  Schools are canceled,  church services were canceled on Sunday... it's so darn cold. I'm hoping for a little spring weather,  so I broke out the cheerful spring colors to maybe get in a warmer mood.

I forget sometimes about doing thise old school techniques like gradient.  I start out with a white base, in this case I used Essie Blanc,  and then sponged on three different shades of purple.

The main reason for this is to share this amazing shade from the Sephora X line, Freaky Like Freud. Its an insanely holographic lavender top coat,  and it just explodes with rainbows when the sunlight catches it. I finished off with a leafy stamp from the Pueen Love set.

This definitely brightens my spirits a little,  but to have a day over 20 degrees would be nice too.

Stay warm, my chickadees... I'll be the girl in the knee length wool voat, scarf and hat. You may be able to recognize the tip of my nose peeking out.    =)

April

Sunday Spew

What a lazy day it is today!  We are in the process of of getting our first decent snowstorm and so I ran out before it got icky. I was supposed to meet my dad for dinner to celebrate an early birthday for me, but this dang snow has shut down bridges and roadways.  I don't want my daddy out there in this!!!


I've got what I am affectionately calling a Sunday Spew today. When I wasnt feeling too much like I wanted to blog, I still took pictures of what I was doing to share.

First up are some fall looks that I did for November.  Have you checked out the blog, Chalkboard Nails? She came up with this distressed look that I wanted to try, but I wanted it to be more fallish. You do this look by scraping off almost all of the polish off of the brush, and then dry brush it onto the base color. I added a gold flakie, because every girl needs a little glitter in her life.

Next is what I did for Thanksgiving. I believe this is based off of a tutorial from Polish and Pearls. I just saw this on Pinterest and I needed something quick and easy to do.  Since im not a huge fan of a lot of white, I went to my good ole standby, My Vampire is Buff. Then just freehanded the feathers and turkey lurkey. I kind of like his wonky eye. Lol

Now I've got the polishes from a subscription box, the I.N.N. Box by Inzuri. This is an interesting subscription,  because there are 3 collections monthly and you select which one you want. You also receive a beauty product. It's $19.95 per month,  which ends up being around $25 with tax and shipping.

I received two China Glaze polishes, and one Orly.

First, the Orly. This is Masked Ceremony which is a dark charcoal with silver shimmer, magenta glitter and silver square glitter.  I liked this in the bottle, and I love the square glitter.  I hate how it looked on me. Definitely not a favorite. The formula was fine, I had no issues.  Maybe at a different time of year I would give this another shot.

Next, China Glaze Bizzare Blurple. I was really excited about this one, since I love purple polish. It was a great color. Great formula.  I used two coats for these pictures.

Finally is China Glaze Blue Bells Ring.  This was probably the one I was looking the least forward to because I use blues for accents,  not typically a solid nail color. When I saw the bottle,  it was really frosty looking, and I psh-shawed it immediately.  I'm kind of a spaz and I swatch out all of my polishes on a swatch wheel, by brand, number the wheel and then number the bottle. I apologize to China Glaze for dismissing this color. It's stunning. I was shocked when I swatched it. This could easily be a one-coater too. I used two though just to be safe.

And then the last for this post is a little gem I found at Walgreens the other day. I went in for some cough drops and I just had to swing past the polish. After digging around the tacky perfume value sets, I saw the perfumery display from Revlon. Not a fan of scented polish. Ive had a few in the past, but nothing special.  So just looking through this half-heartedly,  I almost screamed.  This is so close to Deborah Lippmann's Mermaid Dream, and I only paid $4.99 for it. The DL version retails for $19. And then it smells like mint? Extra bonus.  These are two coats of this little beauty.

Whew! That was a lot of posting, so I hope something looked appealing in there for ya! Stay warm my friends.  I will have a winter look to share and also a birthday manicure for you all to check out. Until then, have a wonderful day

April

It's Very Purpley

I totally fail. I have an excuse though.  My Hawkeyes won on Saturday so now we are bowl eligible! I may or may not have drank for 13 hours straight that day.  Hmm.

Anyways,  you all know I have a thing for purple polish.  I'm not sure what inspired me to mix it with gold,  but I LOVE it!

I've got so many purples here that it's probably better for me to start with the gold.  It's Maybelline Bold Gold... I saw someone else using this as their preferred stamping gold,  so I picked it up. I agree.  It's a great stamper.  Get it.

My middle finger has Pueen plate #42 with a base of OPI Do You Vant to Bite My Neck.  Vant to Bite is also the base for my pinkie finger. The gold glitter on the pinkie is Zoya Maria-Louisa.

For the ring finger,  that is OPI I'm Feeling Sashy and then I cut scotch tape with chevron scissors and it's colored in with Bold Gold.

On my pointer and my thumb (even though it's not pictured) is OPI Pamplona Purple... Which has turned into one of my new favorites. The glitter on top is an old Sephora by OPI that I got when they closed out the collection.

I'm such a nerd.  I wore a purple sequined top today that matched my pointer fingers perfectly.

Thoughts?  I think I'm getting better at stamping,  but still need some  practice.
Did I mention we got snow today? Snow. Ugh.  So it begins...

April

Zoya Winter Zenith Collection

I had a coupon for Ulta and I knew I needed to use it for nail polish since you could use it on the good stuff.  I had eyeballed some of the different winter collections that I saw and picked up a few that I liked.  (side-note,  it was extremely shocking that my Ulta had these,  since it took them months to get the fall collection in.)

I only chose two of the batch because I'm not too keen on the textured polishes anymore,  and the others looked like ones I already have.

First up is Belinda,  a GORGEOUS royal purple with a magenta flash.  This is so incredibly pretty.  I have a weakness for purple polish as it is,  and this one does not disappoint. The formula is almost  a one-coater,  but I did two to make it completely opaque. It just looks so regal and rich.

Lighting : shade

The other one I purchased was Mosheen,  a holographic bar / feather glitter with holo specks too.  This was a surprise for me,  since I've tried the feathered polishes and they were just  Ok... I think I don't care for how the little flakes peak out along the tip of the nail. This one does the same,  but I forgive it because it's so unbelievably stunning.

We're lucking out today with some lovely sunshine,  and it picked up every little holo speck flash...  Just beautiful. Please forgive all of the pictures,  but I was capturing so many pretty ones!

Lighting : shade

I also really wanted Dream,  which is a deep blue with a scattered holo,  and Payton is a nice burgundy with light holo sparkle... But I figured I wouldn't wear them as much as these two.


I picked up one of Essie's new Luxe Effects polishes as well,  so I will swatch that one out to show you. It's shockingly beautiful also.

Too early for holiday collections? I'm torn.  Now that I am out of the retail sales world,  I enjoy the holidays. Although my birthday is around Christmas time and I'm always a little bitter about that... Too many cheap relatives!

Have you gotten any of this collection?
April

Pointed purples

Today I finally took off the last Mani I did,  the one with the purple and black  blocking.  I'm still pretty obsessed with nude polish so I redid that for my base and then did one of my favorite looks.  Pointed nails.  Have you seen the crazy super pointy claw nail shapes lately? They are weird and lovely at the same time.

The blue color is from Ciate, Pepperminty.  You just take the brush and swipe it towards the middle and then repeat on the other side. Let that dry,  and then go over it with the purple color...  I used OPI Pamplona Purple.  I added a stud to the ring finger and called it complete.

I actually got dressed this morning before I did this look,  and didn't even realize that I was wearing  a flannel that was the exact same colors.  What a weirdo.



In other news,  I finally uploaded my existing pics to Pinterest.  Follow me here and help get these out there for me.  I would really appreciate it.



Thanks so much! Let me know what you think!
April

Day 26, Inspired by a Pattern

First of all, hilarious side note. When I was typing "pattern" above for the title, it wanted to auto correct to Pattinson.  I think I may have an obsession with a certain beautiful vampire actor.  Whoops!

Ok, back to the challenge.  Today is inspired by a pattern,  and I really had a hard time trying to find something that I could translate to nail art. I remembered this awesome application that I have on my phone and tablet, called Pattrn. You use the website Colourlovers and color in templates where then they get uploaded onto the app. You favorite them, and then you can set it up that your background on your phone changes every day between your favorite patterns.  It's pretty slick.

So I found this one:

source: Colourlovers Paisley Meadows

I like the paisley look, and I really liked the color scheme.  So I took 4 different colors and started at it.

My base is OPI'S My Vampire is Buff (wait a minute... is that where the Pattinson thing came from earlier? ), and the accents are OPI's Vant to Bite My Neck, Essie In the Cab - ana and Essie Butler, Please.

I did all this free hand looking at the pattern.  I like it! And I think it translated nicely. I'm shocked that I really liked the nude color... that's not typically my style. But its a great neutral!  Its shiny, and a perfect creamy off-white. Highly recommend it.  My ring finger got a little bleedy when I put on the top coat, which I was totally bummed about. I'm also having some mega stressful days lately and its hard to keep my fingers out of my mouth.  =(   It's so hard even when you haven't bitten them in years,   but there's that small comfort in an old habit.

So, today was also Christmas at the homestead as I FINALLY got my September Blackbox AND I also got the new set of Pueen stamping plates that I ordered. Yay! Goodies of those two to show later.


So, lemme know your thoughts  on this paisley princess.


Hope you all have a great weekend!
April

20 Days of the Challenge

Well hello there.  I cannot believe that I've made it to day 20. I seriously thought that I would be so far behind that I would just quit around day 10. But I made it to the dreaded water marble.

I actually re-did this one from my first look because it was a hot mess. I took a deep breath,  watched several tutorials,  and did a do over.

I cant remember what tutorial I watched, but it was a similar design from this one. And let me preface this with that I've only really attempted water marbling a few other times. And I'm kind of partial to purple nail polish.

I used three different colors here for the marbling: Essie Jamaica Me Crazy, OPI Do You Lilac It and Essie No More Film. My base was a light coat of Essie Lilacisim.
So, you drop good size blobs into water and repeat with other colors.  Take a toothpick and then cut in your design.  Dunk your nail in and then collect off the excess. Bring out your nail, and the design is transferred onto your nail. Oh yeah. Best part? It comes out of the water dry.

I think with a little more practice this could be very cute. My pinky got a little funked up, but ended not being as annoying as I thought it would be. I definitely need to check out some more ideas and tips. I saw one that was a striped look that I really liked.

So that's all for today! Let me know what you think!
April