Essie Bikini So Teeny, Plussed

Today, in a better late in the day than not at all post, I have a not at all recent NOTD look from a few months ago: Essie Bikini So Teeny topped with Liquid Afterglow Lacquer Unicorn Tears. The Essie, of course, is an old favorite (it made my Top 20 for 2012). The Liquid Afterglow is a Michigan-based indie brand that later changed their name to Holochondriac Polish and then still later stopped making polish; I'm glad to have the colors from them that I do.





I love that Unicorn Tears has square glitter in it, such a nice change from all the hexes out there.



This mani was so long ago that any notes I took on it were in my previous swatch notebook, which right now is literally thousands of miles away, as I left it at home, forgetting I had these photos yet to post. Oh well. I did snap a photo of the lineup of products used, so I can say for sure I layered Nutra Nail Stressed Nail Rehab (got this on clearance; it's odd stuff) and Salon Sciences Starting Over After Artificials under the color and Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Top Coat over the glitter.



Looking at these photos again, I'm thinking I need to pull out Bikini So Teeny again for some winter manicures. Those can happen as soon as I get home ... snow is falling there now. Too soon to ski, though.

Liquid Afterglow Lacquer Sampler

Today I have swatches of polishes from the Michigan-based indie brand Liquid Afterglow Lacquer. Most of her polishes feature glitter, so of course I had to get some to try.

Let's start with Cloud 9, which has a light blue milky base with glitters mostly in cool colors of purple, blue, and green but with some accents of pinks and white. There is also a hint of shimmer in the base. I swatched it at three coats plus topcoat. (Unfortunately the topcoat felt like shrinking, especially at my tips; at least I wasn't doing a full mani with it.)







Because more glitter is pretty much always better, I added two coats of a topper called Starburst to Cloud 9, then slicked on clear topcoat. Starburst has purple, pink, green, turquoise, and other glitters, including a few stars, though I didn't manage to coax any of those onto my nails this time.







Bunny Dreams is another milky base glitter mix. The base looks white-ish in the bottle but definitely pulls pale pink on my nails. The glitters are mostly pastels in pink, yellow, and blue. Like Cloud 9, I did three coats of this plus topcoat for my swatch. Unlike Starburst, I did get some stars to come out of the bottle and onto my nails.







Bunny Dreams also got the Starburst treatment, but only one coat this time (no clear topcoat).



I Skittled four milky glitters with white to lilac bases and mostly cool-toned glitters; top to bottom: Aurora, When Worlds Collide #1, Star Dust, Shattered Star. These are all three coats plus clear topcoat.







Of course I had to try Starburst over this quartet:





Cloud 9 and Bunny Dreams are still available from the Liquid Afterglow Lacquer website; the others are sold out but there are many new pretties available. Which I should not have looked at because now I want more. Must resist, at least until I work through more of my backlog.