Lacquer Ladies Day Out

This is one of those times when what I'd planned to post is not what I'm going to post, mostly because I decided I didn't want to sit at a desk for a big chunk of my Monday off. Thus the textures I was planning to write about today are getting bumped to tomorrow, because I can't wait one more minute to share how I kicked off my holiday weekend: journeying to Girly Bits Cosmetics with fellow lacquer lovers and having a polish making workshop led by Pam herself.

Of course this excursion required a Girly Bits-intensive manicure, so Friday night I incorporated three of them into this look:



I started with a base of one coat of CND Plum Truffle, a deep raspberry creme. On most of my nails, I topped that with one coat of Girly Bits Into the Night, a black jelly with multi colored and holo microglitter. On my accent nail, I layered one coat of Girly Bits Razzle Dazzle (hot pink/holo/purple microglitter in a rapsberry jelly base) over Plum Truffle, then added a coat of Girly Bits Visions of Sugar Plums (iridescent/purple/pink small and medium glitter in a warm purple jelly base) over that. Then I decided that wasn't accent-y enough and added another layer of Razzle Dazzle. I topped it all off with Diamond Dry.



Blurry low light shot so you can see the pops of color that spark off these Girly Bits:



Saturday morning, I was joined by two Instabloggers (is that a word? I think that's a word), Tracey of traceyloveslacquer and Melissa of honeybee_nails. We piled into my car and headed to Canada. The wait at the border was a big longer than I'd hoped, but I figured we still had time to stop at Shoppers Drug Mart and Rexall in Windsor, so we did. (Of course I took some photos in the shops; those will be in my next display post, probably in a week or so.) Shopping accomplished, we continued on our journey to to meet mrsrexy of Canadian Nail Fanatic and nailXchange (who is still not back to blogging) for a pre-workshop lunch. We had a reservation, but it appeared that was not at all necessary as the restaurant was not very full.

And then it was time for the main event! We made our way to the Girly Bits studio, where we were greeted by Pam and her assistant Tara (whom mrsrexy and nailXchange and I had met at the show back in November). There was a large worktable setup with supplies and place for each of us to play, and we gathered around that while Pam gave us a demonstration of how to create a nail polish and answered our questions about her process and the brand. I admit I had a tiny bit of trouble focusing as right behind her was this glorious display of glitter:



And that was not even half of the glitter in the room, either; there was another shelving unit with neutral and metallic colors, and packets and jars in a rainbow of colors laying out on the table. Here's the teal/turquoise section:



When the time came for us to start on our own creations, of course I reached for purple glitter first. Then for some light purple glitter, and purple and lime and teal holo glitters, and teeny tiny silver holo glitters. I had great fun adding a little of this, a little of that, a little more that first thing, and so on until I had a mix I really liked.




Glitter was not the only option, of course. There were holo and shimmer pigments, too, and colored bases. Pam was there to help us figure out which of the ingredients we needed to turn our ideas into actual polish that matched the vision in our heads. There was a lot of talking and smiling and laughing as we worked.



At the end of the afternoon, we all had polishes that we'd mixed and tweaked and pondered until they were just what we wanted. My two were a mostly purple glitterbomb I called Party at Pam's and a brown jelly with glitter and shimmer I dubbed Unexpected Brown.



Here are all our customs posing for a group shot.



Happy faces at the end of a successful workshop; left to right: mrsrexy, Melissa, nailXchange, me, Pam, Tracey.



Our lovely hostesses, Pam and Tara:



Mandatory nail shot:



When we left Pam's, we weren't quite ready to let the fun end, so we decided to have dinner in town. The first place we tried had an hour wait, which was not going to work at all, but we found another place nearby that could get us in right away, so we happily spent another hour or so talking about nail polish and other things while enjoying our meal. Eventually we had to part and head home, of course, but the memories of this wonderfully fun day will stay with me. Many thanks to mrsrexy for making the arrangements and to Pam for letting us invade her studio for the entire afternoon.