Emily de Molly Monet's Garden

I have been coveting this nail polish for probably close to two years.  Before I got in to blogging, I was a full-time lurker on the subreddit RedditLaqueristas.  Somebody posted a swatch of Emily de Molly Monet's Garden saying that they needed that polish.  I immediately decided that I needed it, too.  EdM is an Australia-based indie company, so ordering direct through her would have been super expensive.  I found an American stockist, but every time I checked, Monet's Garden was sold out.  Eventually, I gave up, figuring I would never ever own this amazing beauty.

Then, an amazing thing happened.  Courtney of Swatcher, Polish Ranger decided to sell off some of her polish stash.  And she lives in Canada, which means that my dollar has slightly higher buying power.  AND SHE WAS SELLING MONET'S GARDEN.  I'm pretty sure I cheered when I saw that it hadn't been sold yet!  Of course I snagged it right away.

So, now, after a little over two years of coveting this polish, I give you...

Monet's Garden by Emily de Molly!

This nail polish seriously did not disappoint.  Sometimes when you covet something for a long time and you finally get it, it's not as great as you'd built it up in your head.  Not so with this nail polish!

Glitter density on the brush to the nail matches the glitter density in the bottle.  With so many large glitters, that's really impressive!  And the glitter application is very easy - no smearing, and if I decided to dab over the same spot again to add some more glitter, the teal jelly base didn't streak, either.

Even though the base is very much a jelly, I still only needed two coats for full opacity!  I added a third coat on my middle finger, and while it did deepen the glitter layering a little bit, I don't think I would do three coats on all of my fingers next time I wear this.  It just makes everything take longer, and when I don't need three coats for polish to look good, I'd rather stick with two!

Of course, it wouldn't be a glitter swatch without a few macro shots...

This bottle shot was taken from the top of the bottle.  Where the polish and glitter had been sliding down the edges for a while.  And yet, look at all of that glitter!  *swoons*

In case you couldn't tell, I'm super super in love with this nail polish.  Hopefully I'll get some more Emily de Molly polishes in the future - now that I know about the American stockist and am no longer idolizing one particular polish!

Have you ever coveted a nail polish for a long time before buying it?  Which one was it?  Let me know in the comments!

Creative Cuticles Nail Polish: Creepy Cocktails collection

I have an awesome indie collection to share with you guys today!  You might remember seeing some of Creative Cuticles Nail Polish's Christmas polishes on the blog last winter; now, I have all 3 of her Halloween polishes to share with you!  I did receive these polishes in exchange for an honest review, and I want to assure you that I didn't promise to say anything in particular.  These words are my own and the fact that I didn't pay money for this nail polish doesn't influence my opinions in any way.

The Creepy Cocktails may have Halloween-y names and are perfect for Halloween manis, but they're also super versatile for any time of year!  As much as a love a good Halloween-themed glitter, I equally love a polish that I can use in anything.

O Negative, Please

The perfect blood-red nail polish, O Negative, Please is the most opaque in this collection.  Two coats was fully opaque with no VNL peeking out.  The formula is creme, but it felt like it leaned a tiny bit on the crelly side to me.  It's just so juicy looking, something I usually only see in jellies/crellies!

I don't really know what's going on with my ring finger in this picture; it looks a lot darker to me.

I guess maybe that finger was accidentally pointed out of the light, or something, I don't know. 

Witches Brew

Witches Brew is a beautiful dusty purple, perfect for fall and the ultimate shade of Halloween purple!  Two coats was mostly opaque for me, but there is still just a tiny bit of VNL.  It's not as noticeable in normal lighting, though - the lights I use for these photos are super bright, so the whites of my nails tend to stand out more than they do in other lighting.  The formula is very similar to that of O Negative, Please - a juicy, crelly-leaning creme.

My camera picked up this color a little weirdly, so I had to cool it down by adding some blue to the photo for color accuracy.

Ooze On The Rocks

I love the name of this one!  Ooze on the Rocks is a wonderful slime-green, absolutely perfect for Halloween manis but also great for any of your bright green needs.  This one is a true jelly, so it's the sheerest of the bunch.  I have three coats shown on my nails, and you can see that there is still just a hint of VNL.  Again, that VNL stands out more under my photo lamps than in other lighting, but if you want a fully opaque mani, I recommend either layering this on top of white or building up to four coats.

These polishes are set to release on October 1 in Creative Cuticles Nail Polish's shop.  Will you be adding these ones to your collection?  Do you have any favorite, must-have Halloween polishes or mani designs?  Let me know in the comments!

Aliquid Lacquer: Egeria

Aliquid Lacquer has a really awesome collection of polishes inspired by ancient Roman mythology and tradition called When In Rome.  She releases one new lacquer every month, and each month's lacquer generally has something to do with that month.  For example, July's polish Neptunalia (which I think I really really need) is inspired by the Roman's midsummer tradition of honoring Neptune, which took place on July 23.

Here's the description of Egeria from Aliquid Lacquer's website:

Egeria was a water nymph and patroness of childbirth, wisdom and prophecy. She befriended Rome’s second king, Numa, and advised him on how to set up the religious and legal practices of Rome. When Numa died, Egeria was transformed into a spring, which people would visit to ask for her inspiration.

So that explains why the polish Egeria looks exactly like a beautiful, sparkly pond.  I absolutely love the holographic glitter in this.  And the non-holo pink glitters break up the holo sparkle just enough to prevent you from getting totally lost in the sparkly reflections - just like a lily would do in a real pond!  Egeria actually reminds me a little bit of Monet's Gardens by Emily de Molly - an Australian indie polish that I've been coveting for over a year but always seem to miss out on through EdM's stockists that ship to America.  Owning this polish satisfies my needs of having a pond on my nails. <3

woohoo, holographic glitters!

As far as application goes, Egeria is quite nice.  I had to dab a little bit in order to get an even distribution of glitter across my nails, but the jelly base is thin enough that I didn't end up with any awful globs of polish anywhere.  (Well except for on the inner corner of my pointer finger, but that's because I accidentally got too many glitters stuck there.)  I did end up with a small thin spot near the cuticle on my middle finger, which I didn't notice until I was taking the photos - so be aware of that if you use this polish.  Just make sure that you cover all parts of your nail on every coat and you'll be fine!

so dense with glitter!!!

  
Two coats of Egeria is pretty much opaque, but there was a tiny bit of VNL, so I built up to 3 coats on my pointer and pinkie fingers.  My middle and ring fingers just have 2 coats.  What's really great about the thinness of the jelly base is that 3 coats doesn't look ridiculously thick on my nails.  Sometimes, when I use 3-4 coats of a glitterbomb for opacity or glitter depth, my nails end up looking kind of spherical, but that definitely didn't happen here.

 

I had to take the photos for this polish on my phone, because my Canon camera absolutely did not want to pick up the color.  The pink glitters showed up all right, but the teal base might as well have been gray for all my camera cared!  Yuck!  I really prefer the photo quality of my camera, but sometimes, sacrificing pixel count and focal length is necessary to show color accuracy.

I've never known much about Roman mythology, except for my highly biased opinion that they stole their ideas from the Greeks.  But the When in Rome collection is educating me on Roman mythology one month at a time, and teaching me that they had a lot of very unique gods, goddesses, spirits, and traditions!

What do you think of this polish?  Who's your favorite Roman mythology character?  Which When in Rome polish is your favorite?  Let me know in the comments!

Jior Couture: Part of the Merry Movie Collection (retiring soon!)

I'm super excited about this post, because for the first time since I started blogging, I received these polishes at a highly discounted price in exchange for swatches and a review!  So, to start off, let me promise you that I did not promise to say anything in particular; all of the words and opinions you'll read here are 100% my own and are influenced only by the polish itself, not the low price I paid for it.

These polishes are all from Jior Couture's Christmas 2014 collection, and each one is inspired by a different Christmas movie.  The colors are very versatile - they don't scream "Christmas on my nails" the way you might expect.  Which is awesome because, as much as I love a super-Christmasy polish, I like to feel like I can wear my polishes at any time of year and not feel out-of-season.

Believing Is Seeing

Believing Is Seeing is inspired by the movie "The Santa Clause," which I've actually never seen.  And even though this soft pink crelly is a Christmas polish, it really looks to me more like a spring polish!

A beautiful delicate pink crelly with several different colors and sizes of glitter, Believing Is Seeing really surprised me.  Pink is simply not my favorite polish color, and I've never seen a pink polish that made me go, "Ooh, I need that!" the way most blue polishes do.  So I wasn't really expecting to be terribly impressed by this polish, but wow, it is gorgeous!  I love the subtle, delicate shimmer in the base (which is much more visible in the flash photo).  And even though the glitters look pretty dense in the bottle, they come out pretty sparse onto the nail.  I suppose that could be a negative thing for some, but I liked the delicate effect of fewer glitters.  More "Oh, what a pretty polish, and look, it has some glitter in it!" and less "Ooh, what a dense glitterbomb!"

As far as application goes, Believing Is Seeing is really great.  It's very smooth, and the glitters don't cling to the brush or wipe off the nail.  It is very sheer, though, so if you don't want to see the line of the whites of your nail, I highly recommend using a base of white or a similar shade of pink.  Otherwise, you might need to build up to 4 or 5 coats; I stopped at 2 on my first two fingers, and went up to 3 coats on my ring and pinky fingers.  Three coats is opaque enough that from a distance you can't really see the whites of my nails, but up close and in the photos it's still sort of visible.

I recently got a macro lens for my phone's camera!  I haven't quite mastered the macro nail shot the way 

The Mercurial Magpie has, but in-the-bottle shots are pretty easy, so feast your eyes!

Son of a Nutcracker

Son of a Nutcracker is inspired by the movie Elf.  It's a really fun glitter polish in a pinkish-red jelly base.

 

I was actually really surprised at the opacity of this polish - two coats was pretty opaque!  I built up to three coats on my pointer and middle fingers, but left it at two on my ring and pinky fingers.

Application was pretty nice, but in order to get a nice distribution of glitter I did have to dab a little bit.  And I was slightly disappointed at how hard it was to grab those big white hex glitters - there are so many in the bottle, yet I could barely get them onto my nail.  But all the rest of the glitters went from the brush to my nails quite easily.

There's an incredibly subtle shimmer in the base of this polish - so subtle that it definitely doesn't show up in my camera even in macro mode, but if you look really closely in person, it's there!  I think subtle shimmers are one of my favorite features in nail polish.

Means A Little Bit More

Means A Little Bit More is inspired by the movie How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  (The cartoon or the live-action version?  I'm not sure, but either way this polish nails it!)  Of these three polishes, it's definitely the most Christmas-y, but I still think it would look nice in a mani any time of year!

Its green jelly base is very sheer.  If you want complete opacity, you'd probably need at least 5 coats of this one - or just use a base color.  I have three coats over naked nails here and, although my nails are tragically short after a ghastly break, you can still juuust make out a little bit of the whites of my nails at the tips.  The break that I suffered led me to cut my nails down so short that there's barely any whites left - and on my middle finger, one side broke so far down that I wasn't able to cut it into an even shape.  It was heartbreaking :(

Anyway, the polish!  I absolutely loved this one.  Application was super, super smooth - the glitters landed where I wanted them to and stayed in place, and it was nice and easy to get a good distribution of every size and color of glitter!  Pink, blue, red, silver, they're all there looking super festive and pretty.  I really like the sizes of these glitters - I think smaller glitters apply easier and look a bit better on my nails.  That's not to say that I completely dislike larger glitters - you all know that I love a good crazy glitterbomb! - but sometimes it's refreshing to use a, for lack of better word, simpler glitter polish.

 

So, that's it for this post.  These polishes are all available for purchase at jiorcouture.com, and they're on sale because they're going to be retiring this week!  If you're interested, hurry over to the shop!  There are three other great-looking polishes in this collection.

What are your favorite Christmas polishes?  Do you ever miss pairing traditional Christmas colors together throughout the spring and summer?  Let me know in the comments!