Reverie Nail Lacuqer Hot Chocolate + nail art

This polish has been sitting around in my stash for far too long without being shown off!  I won it in an Instagram giveaway from Reverie Nail Lacquer quite some time ago.  I think it's from the winter/holiday 2014 collection.  I actually did swatch it back then, but I never wrote up a blog post about it and forgot how many coats I used and everything, so it never got published.

Anyway, I decided to don this beauty again this week because it's the first week of autumn!  Huzzah!

Hot Chocolate is a truly gorgeous chocolate brown holo.  It's a bit sheer, so I have one coat of Hot Chocolate over one coat of Zoya Nyssa (which is a beautiful chocolate-milk brown creme).  Talk about chocolatey goodness!

This polish definitely makes me crave a steaming mug of hot cocoa.  You haven't lived until you've tried my Mom's instant hot cocoa mix!  Although hers is a lighter shade of brown than this polish. ;)

This first week of autumn has been infuriatingly cloudy and rainy, so I didn't get any sunlight pictures; but here's a direct light shot for you!  I absolutely adore the holo flashes in this.

I won this set of vinyls from mrspoole1128 on Instagram - aren't they great?  The red polish is Zoya India.  She's not holographic, but she's absolutely stunning!

This is the first of many autumn manicures that will be headed your way this year - but I do still have a couple of leftover neon manis to show you as well!  Since it's September 30, though, I'm thinking that the next month's worth of posts will be all Halloween-themed.  So stay tuned, because I have some great ones planned!

Reverie Nail Lacquer: Nightfall

Remember from my post on Andromeda and Mermaid Scales how I said that Reverie threw in a mini bottle of polish that wasn't in the store?  As it turns out, it was a sneak peak at their 2014 fall collection!  I felt super special, and wanted to be sure to swatch it before the collection was released!  So let's get to it!

Nightfall is a gorgeous purple holographic polish.  The sparkles have a green tint to them.  Not in a weird, puke-y green way, and not in a Barney the dinosaur way, but in a beautiful, shimmery kind of way!  It looks so elegant.  In some lighting, it almost has a taupe-ish hue to it.  (Between Mermaid Scales and Nightfall, I think I'm a little obsessed with holos and now I want them ALL.)  Unfortunately, my stupid camera wouldn't capture the green very well, and the Universe didn't play nice and give me a sunny day today.

Nightfall is not as sheer as Mermaid Scales.  Two coats looked great, but it was still a liiiittle bit sheer for my taste, so I went up to three coats.

The focus is bad on this one, but it helps to show off the rainbow effect of the holo.

I wish it also showed off the green tint!

On my left ring finger, I used one coat of Sally Hansen CSM "Trouble Maker" as a base coat, and only two coats of Nightfall.  I adore it!  It helps to bring out the purple in the holo, yet also brings out the rainbow shimmer effect.  I think I wish I only used one coat of Nightfall.  Trouble Maker shows through pretty well in the photo, but in person it's masked a little too hard.

On my left pointer finger, I tried using a coat of Nina Ultra Pro "Black" as a base, and I wasn't crazy about the effect.  It sort of brings out the green in the holo, which is kind of nice, but I definitely prefer either no base color or purple.  In this picture, it looks pretty neat and galaxy-like, but it's a bit... weirder in person.

Reverie's fall collection will be available for preorder this weekend, Friday September 12th through Sunday the 14th; its official release date is Saturday the 27th.  Check out Reverie's Facebook page and their shop!  I really really want Lagoon from this collection - but thanks to my recent polish-buying embargo, I'll just have to work out extra hard if I want to buy it!  (Though I DO have a birthday sort of coming up... *wink*)  What are your favorites from the collection?  Scroll through Reverie's Facebook page, or check out The Mercurial Magpie's review, to see the polishes and let me know!

PS You can now find me on Bloglovin'! Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

My First Reverie Nail Lacquer Purchase!

Ever since I hit my first milestone in my weight loss journey about two weeks ago, I've been on a bit of a nail polish spree.  It's gotten to the point that I've banned myself from buying any more nail polish until I hit my next milestone.

One of the many purchases I made was from my second-ever indie brand, Reverie Nail Lacquer.  Another blogger, The Mercurial Magpie, had reviewed RNL's 2014 summer collection, and I fell in love with Andromeda, a blue-purple jelly glitter bomb.  I was good and put it on my wish list, until a few days later when The Mercurial Magpie posted about RNL's flash sale - 20% off an entire purchase for only a couple of hours!  Too good a sale to not take it up, I decided, so I ordered Andromeda.  And then I decided to order a mini bottle of Mermaid Scales, a gorgeous blue holo polish that Mercurial Magpie had also reviewed.

When I unpacked my order, I pretty much fell in love with Reverie.  Not only did they throw in a scratch-off coupon code for 5% off my next order and a small nail file, they also threw in a sample of cuticle balm AND a mini bottle of Nightfall, a purple holo that seems to have been taken off the shop (or maybe isn't in it yet?).  Oh my goodness!  It's like a little care package from a close friend!  Everything was packaged very well - each polish had its own piece of bubble wrap, and the bubble-wrapped polishes were placed in a plastic baggie, which was wrapped in cute wrapping paper, which was surrounded by packing peanuts in the box.  Almost zero chance of bottles leaking or breaking!

I just couldn't resist showing off the contents of my purchase. :)

So, without further ado, let's get to the swatches and reviews of the two colors that I ordered!

Reverie Nail Lacquer: "Andromeda"

Andromeda is a gorgeous purpley-blue jelly polish that got bombed with glitter.  Stars, circles, hexes, tiny glitters, you name it, it's there!  I love, love, LOVE jellies that are loaded with glitter!  They create such depth on the nail.

 

Application is quite easy for a glitter bomb.  It's generally tricky to get a nice spread of the glitter, but these glitters apply nicely.  Any holes left after one layer can easily be filled by the next one (or even the previous one!).

Four coats for this one, mostly to add one more layer of glitters.  Three coats is plenty opaque, but if you've been paying attention to my blog so far, you'll know that I like a LOT of layering!

Look at all those air bubbles hidden between the glitters.  Oops!

Andromeda photographed a bit more blue than it really is.  It's much, much more purple in person.

Reverie Nail Lacquer: "Mermaid Scales"

Mermaid Scales is my very first holo polish, so I was SUPER excited to get it out in the sun.  It is SUPER dazzling!  It's like there's diamond dust on my nails.

These photos really don't do this polish justice.  It's SO much more brilliant in person - and the color changes so drastically in different lightings!  Sometimes it's so periwinkle that it's almost completely purple.

This is pretty sheer.  I'm not sure if that's common for holos, or if it's because of the light color of this one, or if it's because I got a mini bottle.  (Minis generally mess with application, because science.  (They tend to evaporate and get gloopy more quickly than a full-sized bottle.))  I did four coats.  Three coats was still really sheer.

 
This would look really great over a dark creme, like The Mercurial Magpie did in her review.  I'll definitely try that out in the future - perhaps on top of Zoya's Ryan? - but I wanted to swatch it on its own for the first time.

The focus is a little off on this one, but I think that helps to show off the rainbow effect of the light dancing off of the holos.

Application was really nice.  It applied as smoothly and flatly as any creme.  Cleanup around the cuticles was a liiiittle bit difficult, as the teenyweeny holo glitters tended to cling to my skin.  But that doesn't make me like this polish any less - I'm super happy with it and I'm probably gonna end up sad that I didn't shell out for a full-size bottle!

I haven't had a chance to try out the cuticle balm yet.  Well, not on my cuticles.  I um. didn't read the label very well, and the tube is the kind of twisty-bottom that I see in chapstick...  so I put it on my lips...  Hey, it seems to work for that, too!  I was sitting there going, "Wow, this chapstick is super tingly!" not even realizing that it's not meant to go on my lips.  But it's pumpkin spice scented - the perfect scent for almost autumn!  It seemed to hydrate my lips pretty well, so I can only assume that it'll be nice on my cuticles.  Heh.

I'll swatch and review Nightfall soon - maybe not next, but definitely in the next couple of posts!  And I will definitely be adding Reverie Nail Lacquer to my list of favorite nail polish brands.

Happy Labor Day weekend to my US readers!  And happy normal weekend to my international readers!