Every Month is Oktoberfest
September 2, 2012Here’s yet another polish that has me impatiently waiting for fall and winter (well, the polish and the ridiculous heat) – Every Month is Oktoberfest from OPI’s Germany collection.
I found the bottle color to be a bit misleading, though the polish is still gorgeous. In the bottle, this vampy polish seems like a deep red/burgundy and gold duochrome, but the first coat shows that it actually has a translucent purple base. The second coat deepens the color and brings out the shimmer. On me, it pulls slightly purple, even in full sun.
The formula is great… very smooth and only needs two coats.
Below you’ll see two coats of Every Month is Oktoberfest, topped with Barielle Ultra Speed Dry Manicure Extender:
Natural light -
Artificial light -
~Allyson
4 Comments
Darks | Girly Bits | OPI | Purples | Reds
OPI Bubble Bath
July 1, 2012Hi folks! Firstly, I apologise for the gap between posts for me… My life has been overwhelming lately! The bright side is that it’s exactly two months until I get a week in the beautiful South Island of NZ to spend some time in Queenstown with my family. Very much looking forward to it!
Today, I’ve got a sandwich to share with you. I absolutely adore OPI’s Bubble Bath, but sometimes it’s a bit … lackluster? Naked nails are always good, but whilst I wanted something a little bit basic for my nails, I didn’t want to dull it completely… So I decided to add a layer of Zoya’s Chloe in between coats of Bubble Bath.
Unfortunately, the mani was somewhat ruined by my Seche Vite being a bit rude. For some reason, the brush had picked up a buttload of dark blue from the previous mani I had done, and so I ended up with yucky little black specks all over my beautiful manicure. Boo!
Just a quick reminder that you’ve only got a few days to enter our awesome giveaway! Be sure to get in on that :)
~Sarah
2 Comments
Nudes | OPI | Pinks | Zoya
Well hello there!
June 14, 2012Hey ladies! My name is Cassy and I’m going to be posting here from time to time, and hopefully I will be a good addition! I’ve posted a little information about myself here for those that are curious.
Today I’m posting a manicure that I did inspired by a picture I found on pinterest (see my pin here). It’s called a Straw Manicure and I think it’s pretty awesome looking! I got lots of compliments on it and a few people thought they were nail stickers. Can’t be too crappy looking if people think someone printed a bunch of them out and made money off of it – then again I’ve seen some pretty terrible ones so nevermind…
Anyway, on to the nails~ I did this manicure preeetty late at night so I didn’t have really good lighting to take a picture so I did one with flash. Thanks to my new “lint free” cotton squares, I have a few stragglers on some finger tips. Try to ignore them…
The next day at work I took a slightly better pic with daylight and super flattering fluorescent lighting. Unfortunately I already had some tip wear :( that is probably because I threw on the top coat and didn’t do a good job of making sure it was all covered and dried. Oh well. I sported this for about four days before the chipping started to really bother me. If you’re curious how I did it or the colors I used, see below!
Base coat: Nail Life Gripper Basecoat – I dig this stuff, dries quickly and does a great job of keeping polish on my nails. I have a big problem with polish coming off entirely in the shape of my nail and this really seems to help!
White: OPI Alpine Snow (2 coats on most fingers, 3 on some)
Blue: OPI Thanks A Windmillion
Light Green: OPI Stranger Tides
Dark Green: OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down The Window (love this color name!)
Top Coat: Seche Vite fast drying top coat
Now, I’m not some kind of OPI fanatic, although I do love them. I just happened to think these colors went together really well. I had a fourth color picked out and decided against using it once I had the first three on – Finger Paints Hue Are You? It’s about as dark as Uh-Oh Roll Down The Window and with this much going on I’m not sure it would really be visible or change the look other than to make it busier. I liked that I had a decent amount of white showing.
The steps for this look are pretty easy but I will break them down for you:
1. Paint nails opaque white – let dry completely, 2. Get something you don’t mind getting polish on that’s flat. An art palette would be wonderful but I just used a piece of foil on my desk, 3. Put a blob of all the colors you are going to use. Now if you want to go slow and take your time, do one color at a time to avoid letting the others dry by the time you get to them. I did one color at a time on all ten fingers then moved to the next. However you want to do it will work I just figured this would let each color dry a little in between., 4. Using a straw (I used a McDonald’s straw, but I think next time I will use a smaller one – not tiny just smaller so the circles are more obvious on my nails), dip one end of it in the polish and move it around a little to pick up some of the polish then using the straw, stamp it on your nail in random places. 5. Repeat with each color you’re using, 6. Once dry, finish with top coat to seal it in and protect the design (hopefully better than mine!).
Hope you guys liked it, I will try to find another picture or tutorial and try it out in the coming days. Hopefully I will get better pictures (and results!) Until next time~
~Cassy
6 Comments
Blues | Greens | OPI
I wish I ate mainely lobster.
April 18, 2012Mmm, Lobster.
I Eat Mainely Lobster, part of OPI’s Touring America collection, is one of my favourites, and for good reason: I’m a sucker for anything with shimmer, and anything coral. I’m constantly bickering with my boyfriend over the colour of this one. He’s determined that it’s red. Just red. Boring, simple, dull red.
James? It’s not red. (Okay, maybe these photos make it seem a little, very a lot red.)
The greatest thing about IEML is that it really seems incapable of sticking to a primary colour. As soon as you enter a different lighting, the polish takes on a different colour. In some lights, it really does look a vibrant red. In others, it looks bright orange. Occasionally I can catch this very pink, which is always fun too.
Did I mention the shimmer this one has? It’s very subtle but in the perfect light? Perfection. Not so much that it dominates, because the colour definitely deserves the focus for this polish, but just enough that it adds a little extra. It’s impossibly hard to pick up in photos, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one! You can see it a *little* in the photo just above, but it’s really so much nicer than that. Besides, it doesn’t help that I decided to top off this manicure with a flakie, Speck-tacular by Australis (which, by the way, is a near perfect colour match for IEML, on account of its primary orange/red shift.)
***
And now for something completely different!
This is a screencap of our current unique hits! Once this hits 5000, I’ll be hosting a giveaway which will consist of a reasonable amount of polish! So get our name out there. Tweet us! Tumble us! Plug us! I want to get this giveaway going as soon as possible, but hey, I can only do that once that number gets to a big five-oh-oh-oh!
EDIT:
Just a quick note to add that you can now follow The Lacquer Diaries on Networked Blogs. We have our widget in the sidebar, so you can follow us with just an easy click. I would love to implement Google Friend Connect, as I know a lot of the community uses that, however, Google have discontinued it’s service for anyone outside of the blogger/blogspot.
~Sarah
5 Comments
Australis | Corals | OPI
Planks a Lot
April 8, 2012
I tend to have a love/hate relationship with cremes, and I don’t think I’ll ever truly be able to explain why. Some days? Can’t get enough of them. Others? I’d rather my nails were bare than wear a creme. Lately, I’ve been on more of a shimmer and glitter kick than anything, and so I’ve somewhat been neglecting the beautiful cremes that I do have in my collection.
One creme I do find myself coming back to quite often is OPI’s Planks a Lot, from their 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean collection. Believe it or not, this was one of the first OPIs I purchased, and probably one that triggered my fascination for nail lacquer.
Planks a Lot is a lovely lavender purple with slight hints of grey and is completely opaque within two coats. It’s definitely one of the least murky colours of the entire PotC collection, which is probably what drew it to me in the first place. I do apologise for the god awful photo: We were having terrible weather last week and my apartment’s lighting leaves much to be desired. The actual colour of Planks a Lot is a lot lighter, probably a few shades darker than Done Out in Deco.
The biggest disappointment I have with Planks a Lot is how it wears. Generally, if I’m not working, I can get three, sometimes four days on my manicure without a hint of chipping or wear at the tips. Planks a Lot? Even with a good base and top coat, I have chipping after a day, two if I’m lucky. It’s a colour that I’d definitely wear a lot more of if it weren’t for this. Boo!