Laquerlicious Unity Swatch Spam

Disclaimer:  This product was offered at a reduced price or at no charge to manicuremanifesto.com in exchange for published reviews.  All reviews are fair, honest and reflect my personal opinion.

Hello readers!  I gave a sneak peak of my nail mail from Laquerlicious Unity on facebook a couple weeks ago.  To start of the weekend I have a very picture heavy post featuring these six awesome polishes.  Bonus points for Laquerlicious, we both make the same purposeful typo in our interpretations of 'lacquer'.  I'm pretty sure you guys are more interested in polish than spelling though so let's get to the swatches!

Lady Liberty

Lady Liberty is a minty aqua creme with various shapes of small gold and copper glitter.  The formula was great.  It went opaque in two coats and dried quite smoothly.  This polish dries with a waxy finish so you'll have to add a top coat if a glossy shine is more your style.

Photos show two coats of Lady Liberty with one coat of CND Super Shiney top coat in natural sunlight.  I think this polish represents its inspiration perfectly.

Supreme Queen

Supreme Queen is a dusty blue creme just packed with flecks and small glitter in multiple shades of blue, purple and silver.  Because of all this glitter this polish does dry with a somewhat rough finish so you'll need to use a thicker top coat to smooth everything out.  This pigment packed polish only takes two coats to become opaque and dries with an almost matte finish.

Photos show two coats of Supreme Queen with one coat of Seche Vite under a mix of fluorescent and incandescent lighting.  I love flecked polishes and this one is no different.  I have no issue using a thicker top coat if it means this is the finish that I get.  I also love that despite being packed with glitter this polish is soft, shimmery and delicate.

Divine Doll

Divine Doll is a shimmery purple creme packed with purple flecks, blue flecks and small copper hexes.  The end result is a shimmer flecked finish that looks delicate despite being packed with glitter.  This polish does dry a bit uneven so I just used a thicker top coat to smooth it out.  Application was easy and it became opaque after two coats.

Photos show two coats of Divine Doll with one coat of Seche Vite in natural lighting.  This is another great flecked shimmer polish and a great option if you love glitter but want something a little more subdued and delicate.

Diamond Diva

Diamond Diva is....yes, another glitter packed shimmery creme polish.  It's one of my favorite finishes.  I couldn't choose which ones to buy so I bought almost all the different ones she had.  This one features a bright magenta creme base packed with fine pink, blue and purple glitter.  It also has some larger iridescent hexes and squares.  It took two coats to become opaque but dried a little bit uneven.  I just used a thicker top coat to make everything nice and smooth.

Photos show two coats of Diamond Diva with one coat of Seche Vite in natural lighting.  I think my favorite part of this polish is the iridescent glitter that seems to glow when it catches the light.

Teal Glaze

Now for something a little different from the previous glitter containing cremes.  Teal Glaze is a dark teal jelly polish with lots of fine teal litter and a sprinkling of fine fuchsia glitter.  The result is a squishy jelly finish with glitter throughout that catches the light.  It took three coats to become opaque and dried smoothly.

Pictures show three coats of Teal Glaze with one coat of CND Super Shiney top coat under a mix of fluorescent and incandescent lighting.  This polish is really pretty and a great option if you love dark vampy colours.  I found that outside the jelly base appeared like a rich deep teal and in indoor lighting it looks like a blackened teal (like in the pictures).

Peacock Tail

Last but not least I had to try a full coverage glitter.  I just couldn't resist the teal goodness.  Peacock tail is packed with teal holographic glitter in a range of sizes.  The result is a micro-dimensional glitter with predominant flashes of blue and green and a rainbow shimmer in sunlight.  It only took two coats to become opaque and dried far more smoothly than I was expecting.  It only took one coat of Seche Vite to smooth it out.

Photos show two coats of Peacock Tail with one coat of Seche Vite under a mix of fluorescent and incandescent lighting.  I am in love with this polish.  It has so much depth and sparkle.  My boyfriend even commented that he really liked it.  This one is definitely a keeper.

Conclusion

I am really loving these polishes.  The flecked cremes are so unique and the full coverage glitter was so easy to apply and get opaque.  My personal favorites from these six polishes are Supreme Queen, Lady Liberty and Peacock Tail.  If some of these polishes caught your eye they are all available in the Laquerlicious Unity Etsy shop.  A few of them are even on sale.  You can also check out the Laquerlicious facebook page for promos and some great swatches.  I can't wait to see what comes from this indie maker in the future.

Sugar Spun Nail Art Tutorial

Hello readers!  Today I decided to take my fan brush's virginity and use it in my first attempt at sugar spun nails.  The end look is delicate stripes crisscrossing your nails.  I love this idea because a) each nail isn't expected to be 100% identical so if you mess up, no big deal! and b) the actual technique is pretty simple so you can achieve a good look on both hands.  I used Laquerlicious Unity Supreme Queen as my base colour and Zoya Carly and China Glaze Gossip Over Gimlets for the striping. Here's what my nails looked like after my first try and here's how I did it!

What You'll Need:

A fan brush

A base colour polish

Two accent colour polishes - these are for the stripes.

Top coat

How To Do It!

 1.  Apply base colour and wait until it's dry to the touch.

2.  Take your fan brush and lightly dip the brush tips into the first accent.

3.  Lightly drag the fan brush tips across your nail.  If the stripes do not cover your entire nail re-dip your fan brush in the polish and drag starting from the opposite side.

4.  Repeat steps 3 and 4 using your second accent polish.

5.  Wait a few minutes for stripes to start drying and add a topcoat. (The time in between helps avoid smudging the stripes.)

I think you could do cute crisscrossing stripes with this technique too and end up with a kind of woven look.  I'll have to give that a try at some point.  I hope you found this tutorial helpful and I'll be back with more polish later this week!

Laquerlicious Unity Pebble Stone Swatches & Review

Yesterday manicure was light and bright so today I decided to go with something nice and dark, Laquerlicious Unity Pebble Stone.  I picked this up recently when they had their free international shipping promotion.  As a Canadian, I can never pass up free shipping.  It's a rare occasion.  Pebble Stone is a black jelly base full of a variety of glitter.  Looking at my nails I can pick out black, blue, yellow, purple and silver but there could be more colours in there.

I used two coats to reach opacity.  Unfortunately the formula was a bit thick and application was quite finicky.  It dried quite rough and even after a coat of Gelous it wasn't completely smooth.

Pictures show two coats of Pebble Stone with one coat of Gelous in natural sunlight.  I love the colour of this polish but I'm a bit turned off by the formula.  I have tried other Laquerlicious Unity glitter polishes and they were much easier to apply so hopefully this problem is unique to this colour.  In the future I think that I will start out with a dark base colour and just add a single coat of Pebble Stone on top.  That should help with the rough finish.  When I last checked Pebble Stone was sold out and was slated to be discontinued but you can still get lots of other Laquerlicious Unity polishes from their Etsy shop at https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaquerliciousUnity.  Check out the "last call clearance" section for some great sales prices.  Are you willing to put up with a not so great formula if you love the polish colour enough?

Laquerlicious Unity Salt Water Swatches & Review

I couldn't resist buying some polishes from Laquerlicious Unity a few weeks ago when they added lots more to their clearance section and had a free shipping promo.  One of the polishes I got was Salt Water.

This polish is a mix of large teal hex glitter, medium holo teal square glitter, small teal hex glitter, tiny teal hex glitter, medium white hex, medium white square, and small white matte square in a clear base.  Despite being packed with glitter, this polish was really easy to apply and didn't require any dabbing to get  good distribution of glitter.

Pictures show two coats of Salt Water over three coats of Butter London Henley Regatta with one coat of Gelous in natural sunlight.  I am in love with this polish.  The big variety in glitter size and the mix of iridescent and matte glitter adds great visual texture (with minimal actual physical texture).  My nails are just so sparkly I catch myself randomly staring at them.  If you want a bottle of your very own there are still some available for $5 in the Last Call Clearance section of the Laquerlicious Unity Etsy shop.  What do you think of this polish?  Do you like glitter toppers or do you prefer a full coverage polish?