Desserts First

This weekend brings to pass another birthday for me, and one of the post-birthday perks is getting to eat leftover birthday cake for breakfast. This Kate Spade tote is probably one of my best handbag purchases to date because I use it as my daily work tote. There's also the compliment factor: From my local baristas to random women I encounter, this bag is always collecting compliments. The fun color blocked design and cheeky quote have a very whimsical and appealing nature.

I've finally got a real adult job as a Graphic Designer and I'm wrapping up a brand redesign for a local client that has me feeling pretty good about my talents and renewing my passion for art. I've also discovered through this job that I genuinely enjoy designing wedding invitations so I'm putting together some stock design suites when I have some spare moments. I always was scared pursuing it as a job would ruin this field as my hobby, but I'm finding that the old adage is true: "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life". When your work makes you fulfilled it's easy to get up in the morning.

As you might be able to tell from this post I'm taking my blog in a new direction. I've been a nail blogger for three years now and while I still love painting my nails it's no longer my only beauty-centric interest and I find myself wanting to wear and enjoy my polishes rather than removing one each day and having swatching marathons.

I'm going to start posting about other beauty topics, along with a mixture of lifestyle posts and these little weekend wrap-ups that cover updates and thoughts about work, life, and blogging.

My blog is my outlet and it's fluid. It will change with my interests and my thoughts and I hope you enjoy my new posts, whether they are frequent or few and far between.

Happy Weekend!

Essie Fair Game

Nothing to Disclose

Have you ever immediately regretted a polish purchase right after that first stroke of application? Who am I kidding, of course you have! With our vast collections of polish as bloggers there is bound to be more than one regretful polish purchase. Today I'm sharing one of my inst-regrets, Essie Fair Game.

Fair Game wasn't a horrible formula, but it was on the thicker side and not very self-leveling. The color was hard for post cleanup because the top pigment would come off but leave the silvery layer still on the nail. I'm glad I use a peel-off base for swatching because this one would have left my cuticles a metallic mess for the rest of the day! My swatch is two coats of Fair Game with base and top coat.

Being disappointed with this color makes me regret not snagging one of the other polishes from the Fair Game Resort collection instead. It's also a little hard for me to swallow that I purchased this in 2011, the same year I started my blog, and I'm just now getting around to swatching it! Oops.

Being that my sister has been eyeing this color and she is devoted to only Essie, I'll be passing it along to her after fixing the formula with a few drops of thinner.

What polish do you regret purchasing? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

Color Cues: Week 13

Nothing to Disclose

If you've been blogging for any length of time you know that staying inspired is one of the great blogging challenges, right behind staying consistent with your posting. Being that this blog is my hobby there have been times where I've failed on both of those accounts, but I always find my way back to Lovely In Lacquer.

I'm also incredibly stubborn and hard on myself, which is why I refuse to let a good idea like Color Cues die! So here we are lovely readers, once again. This week's Color Cues is brought to you by a lovely artist who goes by Alicia Marie. I found her art on Society 6, a superb source for artsy fartsy inspiration.

I was inspired by her only piece on the site, titled very simply 'Watercolor'. Painting has always been a source of happiness in the world of art for me and when I was taking painting class every semester in high school I always especially enjoyed the challenge and simplicity that watercolors provided.

With the recent popularity of the OPI Sheer Tints we've seen a huge influx of watercolor style nail art, including the popular Lead Light technique. Alicia Marie's Watercolor reminded me of that but more so of the doodles I loved to do on my notebooks. I was never an accomplished doodler but I did frequently do the same looping and dots design featured in this week's inspiration piece.

I'm very out of practice with nail art but I keep telling myself that once I get a properly sized paintbrush I'll rediscover my love of painting on these very small canvases.

Do you draw any inspiration from this new watercolor nail art style? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

Guilty Pleasures Polish Gladiolus To See You

Gifted Item

A couple months back I stumbled across a thread in a Facebook group by Guilty Pleasures Polish, where she was looking for names for her new spring collection. Feeling lucky and inspired I submitted names for the collection and was surprisingly chosen as a winner.. three times! She was rewarding the creators of the winning names with mini bottles of the polishes that you had a hand in naming.

The three colors I named were Gladiolus To See You, Good Morning, Glories!, and Impatients-ly Waiting.

Today's swatch is of Gladiolus To See You. This shimmery coral pink is a perfect layering combination with Essie Cute As A Button, which I've paired it with. The polish itself is super sheer and probably wouldn't reach opacity in upwards of three coats, so I chose to layer it instead. My swatch is two coats of Cute As A Button with one coat of Gladiolus To See You.

The formula was fairly standard and aside from not being opaque I didn't have any issues. The shimmer is slightly frosting so you do get some brushstrokes, however it's not anything incredibly obvious.

Overall I'm incredibly flattered that my names were chosen, and it's always neat to have polishes in your collection that come with a story.

What do you think of this color? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

OPI Yodel Me On My Cell

Nothing to Disclose

Eep! Hello lovely readers, I've been away for far too long. It's been five days since my last post which feels like an eternity! My work schedule changed and I had to move some things around to make time for blogging, but I'm coming at you with a swatch from OPI today.

Yodel Me On My Cell is from the 2010 Swiss Collection. It's kind of crazy to think this polish is already four years old! This polish comes from a collection which had a lot of other hit polishes like Diva of Geneva and Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous. I can't be the only one who misses when OPI did collections like this!

This polish is a stunning teal blue with turquoise and glass green shimmer throughout. OPI really hit it out of the park with this color and I think that's why it's so popular. There's some light brush strokes but nothing that would be visible if these weren't macro shots of my nails. My swatch is two coats of Yodel Me On My Cell with base and top coat.

The formula was rather thin, but I think it was an advantage for this particular color. Yodel Me On My Cell has so much shimmer that the thinner layers act like a jelly and allow the layers beneath to show through and create a lot of depth.

This color was so hard to photograph. Normally if the photo doesn't turn out I can slightly tweak a few settings in photoshop to get a color accurate swatch, but this one wasn't having any of it. The color looks slightly more green in person, and the shimmer is richer.

What year do you think OPI put out the best collections? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

Essie Cantaloupe

Nothing to Disclose

I'll admit, I have a deep affection for the J. Crew aesthetic. I'm constantly browsing the site, getting email updates, and I always stop into the store when I'm at the mall. My sister is hands down the more fashion forward of our pair, and she is always curating a specific look to her entire wardrobe which I admire. This includes her very selective choices in nail color, unlike myself who just buys every color I'm in love with (obviously).

Essie Cantaloupe is a color I snagged from my sister's small collection and I have to say that I'm smitten. It's the perfect "J. Crew-esque" warm weather shade with it's terra cotta pink color. Cantaloupe is sure to be in much heavier rotation on my nails this spring since I now know she has it! My swatch is shown with base and top coat.

Cantaloupe's formula was fantastic, applying evenly and smoothly in just two coats with minimal clean-up required. I'm still hunting for the perfect color to wear on my beach vacation this summer, and Cantaloupe's effortlessly classy, chic, and fun hue has definitely earned a spot for final consideration.

What's your favorite store to shop at? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

Lilla Smalto 15

Gifted Item

Happy weekend my lovely readers! I hope all of you who also occupy North America are having a beautiful spring day, and those of you who come from all over the world, I hope you're having blue skies and sunshine no matter the season. Today I'm swatching the second of my trio of Lilla polishes!

Smalto 15 is a gorgeous silvery gray polish that can best be described as the silver sister to Essence Irreplaceable. The entire time I was polishing my nails along with after the polish had dried, I couldn't help but draw similarities in the shimmers of the two colors. There is something luminescent and dainty about this gray polish that pushes it to a new level and left me feeling like my nails looked very sophisticated and subtle but not boring.

My swatch is three coats of Smalto 15 along with base and top coat. The formula was thin but easy to work with, and I would probably layer it over a gray base like Zoya Dove next time to conserve polish since the bottle is so small.

Upon removal this color will definitely leave your cuticles shimmery, so use a manicure scrub afterwards to clean up and remove any excess sparkle!

What do you think of Lilla Smalto 15? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!