October Halloween nail art challenge!

Hello Ninjas!

I spent all weekend learning cool new ninja moves and having a fantastic time with my fellow martial artists. I gotta say, ninjas know how to party; my body hurts more from the dancing on Saturday night than from getting thrown around like a rag doll during training. Good times all around!

This is my first attempt at a nail art challenge. I've joined a great group of ladies with a love for lacquer in a Halloween themed challenge. The first day is Horror Movies! I had these grand plans for a really awesome SAW manicure but it doesn't look nearly as pretty as I hoped. Ah well, that's why it's a challenge! Two coats of Essence Grey-t to be here, ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly to look like saw blades on the tips of the nails, and two art stripers were used to make this manicure. The lighting wasn't working with me so I made one black and white for a little variety.

New Storage!

Hey Ninjas!

Short and sweet post tonight between doing lots of nail art and packing for the Ninja Festival this weekend. I picked up these rainbow drawers at Michael's a few weeks back and filled them with polish! At first I filled the drawers with corresponding polish colors then I rearranged the top two drawers. The very top drawer holds base coats, top coats, files, and general manicure tools. The second drawer is for stamping and nail art supplies.

I ended up giving pinks and neutrals their own drawers at kind of odd places. The neutrals, which were mostly greys, went into the second blue drawer because many greys lean blue.  The pinks, some of which lean blue, went in the second purple drawer since I had used the second red drawer for base/top coats. The polish is a little heavy for the drawers to move freely so this isn't a permanent fix but it is nicer to look at for now. One day I'll have a proper helmer to keep them all in!

L'Oreal Brit Invasion

Good evening Ninjas!

I'm in the process of letting my nails dry so this might be a short post. There's a huge Ninjutsu seminar this coming weekend that I've already got a manicure request for (Co-worker wants me to go the grandmaster's belt, gold with red kanji) And I'm also participating in a Halloween nail challenge but I'll be out of town at the seminar through late Sunday night. Therefore, I'll have to do my Day 1 Halloween manicure early and probably schedule the post. Hubby thinks it's funny that I'm stressed about upcoming manicures; he just doesn't get it!

Tonight's polish is Brit Invasion from L'Oreal which came out with a handful of other British themed polishes in honor of the 2012 Summer Olympics being held in Great Britain this summer.  This was the only polish left in the display that I had any interest in. Brit Invasion is a really nice medium taupe base with a lot of gold shimmer. In some lighting the taupe would lean grey and in others it was decidedly brown. I really liked this manicure and the formula was very easy to work with! Two coats of color with nearly no clean up thanks to the nice shape of L'Oreal's polish brush.

Layering and Stamping!

Hello Lovely Ninjas!

Today is a glorious day :) I got to sleep in and it's the first day in two weeks that I've been off from work. Not that I don't love my job but I need a little recuperative me time at least once a week. Right now I'm listening to some fantastic music, surfing the web and sharing this neat manicure with you!

This is a continuation of the last manicure I posted. On top of the two coats of Chic Reloaded by Essence, I added a super pretty iridescent polish by Pure Ice called Oh Baby! This polish is a really awesome purple/pink/blue glass fleck multichrome. THEN on top of that, I stamped a full coverage flower design from MASH plate m61 with Sally Hansen Delphinium. This was not the easiest manicure to photograph and I actually had better stamping on my right hand but here are the pictures!

Zoya Winter 2012/13 Ornate Collection

Hi Ninjas!

This is a quick post with a press release from Zoya! This was supposed to wait until October 2nd but with the overwhelming response to their gift set pre-sale, they wanted to let their fans see what's coming up in the near future!

It’s time to celebrate... so make sure you celebrate in style!

The NEW Zoya Ornate Collection is the perfect to decorate your nails with stunning jewel tone colors and special effect pigments this season. Featuring six stunning, glittering, crystal shades in our new Power Pigment Full Coverage Formula. Superior coverage and dynamic color in one. All in the long-wearing, toxin free (BIG5FREE) formula you love... Each one is as beautiful as the next.

Zoya WINTER/HOLIDAY 2012/13: ORNATE Collection

·         Blaze (ZP641) - Cranberry Glitter Glam Crystal - Featuring Power Pigment Full Coverage

·         Electra (ZP642) -  Holographic Tinsel Special Effect- wear it alone or layer it for extra drama

·         Ziv (ZP644) - Gold Foil Glitter Crystal - Featuring Power Pigment Full Coverage

·         Storm (ZP645) - Black with Multi Color Crystal Shimmer - Featuring Power Pigment Full Coverage

·         Aurora (ZP646) - Plum with Multi Color Crystal Shimmer - Featuring Power Pigment Full Coverage

·         Logan (ZP647) - Green Foil Glitter Crystal - Featuring Power Pigment Full Coverage

ZOYA IS THE NEW COLOR OF FASHION!

Ultra long-wearing, glossy nail lacquers by Zoya are BIG5FREE - all formulas are completely free of harmful industrial chemicals such as toluene, camphor, formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) that are known to cause cancer and birth defects.

Find over 300 other Zoya shades at www.zoya.com. Each and every name has a color as unique as the women who inspired it.

$8.00 ea. US. Shipping October 15, 2012.
Zoya.com


What do you think? I find it interesting that they're calling the holos "Power Pigment" but I'm excited either way! I'll probably pick up all of them except for Electra since I'm not a huge lover of glitter bombs or string glitter. Also, don't forget to check out the awesome gift set that allowed me to share this with you early!(This is my Share the Love link) Gilty Pleasures 18k Real Gold Nail Polish!

Post contains information provided by the Zoya media team as well as an affiliate referral link that allows Lacquer Ninja to purchase more polish for review.

Essence Chic Reloaded

Hello Ninjas!

It's stripe week again at the dojo so Hubby and I got our first stripe on our blue belts. I also had a lot of fun in my first official Mon Jin (Black Belt Club) class last night. It's a cool opportunity to work with so many belt levels on those nights because it's open to anyone with a black uniform! That ranges from a Blue-White belt to a Fifth Degree Black belt!

Tonight's manicure is two smooth coats of Chic Reloaded from Essence. This is one of their new colors with the new bottle design. Chic Reloaded is a fantastic multi-chrom polish that flashes purple, teal, and gold in the right lights. This has a slightly metallic finish and the base color is a really nice charcoal grey. There are some funky hand angles in this picture in my attempt to capture the colors to the best of my ability.

Meet the Ninjas Part 1

Hello Lovely Ninjas!

Today I'm starting a short series of posts that I'll mix in with my usual nail polish posts, "Meet the Ninjas". In these posts I plan to introduce members of my family which will be three furred pets and my Hubby! Today, I'll start with our oldest pet, Izzy.

Izzy was born October 12, 2008. Hubby and I adopted her from a rescue and brought her home December 7th. She's listed as a "Retriever Mix" which must mean her father. Her mother was a lovely tan dog with large white spots, short hair, and upright ears. Izzy has none of these things. In fact, Izzy looks like an oversized Border Collie. She's about 60lbs now and stands around 26 inches at her shoulder. We usually refer to her as a Border Collie mix and have had people guess that she might have Flat Coated Retriever, German Shepherd, or even Doberman in her. I might be able to see the first two but Doberman? Nah.

She's a super friendly dog that loves adults and teens. Children scare her because there was a literal herd of them at one of our apartments that would rush her all at once trying to pet her. I'd be freaked out by a hoard of kids too! She loves bananas and is willing to eat just about anything we hand her, including medicine. She isn't a fan of fish or celery though, she'll roll in fish and ignore celery but eat uncooked potato. Izzy's special like that.

 

Scherer Chameleon Corona

Good evening Ninjas!

Tonight Hubby and I will be finishing up Spartacus Vengeance so we thought it would be a great idea to go to a local restaurant also called Spartacus. It was a great dinner with flaming cheese and fantastic Gyros.

This manicure is two coats of Scherer Chameleon Corona over two coats of Zoya Farah. Knowing that Corona would be a sheer polish, I wanted to make a great blank slate to highlight it. Crorona is a pink glass fleck polish with light teal and hot pink shifts in the right light.

Farah provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

OPI Fall 2012: Germanicure by OPI

Hello darling Ninjas!

Now that I've finished watching all available Walking Dead, we're on to gladiators! Currently, we're watching Spartacus Vengeance. I'm still pretty upset about the actor Andy Whitfield's death, he was absolutely epic in his role. The new actor, Liam McIntyre, is a pretty good actor but it's just not the same. We're only three episodes in, I'm hoping I'll acclimate to the new face and voice soon. Until then, I'll be happy Crixus is still around and be freaked out by Lucretia.

Tonight's manicure is two easy coats of Germanicure by OPI from their Fall 2012 Germany collection. GbO is a dark brown jelly base with crimson shimmer that occasionally flashes gold at extreme angles. This is a great fall color and the second of my two picks from the Germany collection. A good warm compliment to the purple based Every Month is Oktoberfest, this is just an awesome polish.

Zoya Myrta

Hey Ninjas!

Still carrying on the Zombie theme from last post since we're on the last few episodes of The Walking Dead season 2 here at home. Shows and movies about Zombies tend to make me wonder what I would do in the event of an apocalypse, how about you?

Tonight's polish is Myrta from Zoya's Surf collection for summer 2012. Myrta is described as, "Warm medium orange coral with red undertone, gold and silver metallic shimmer, and a foil-like finish." That's pretty accurate though I don't think I would have described it as coral when I first saw it. There is a definite metallic finish to this polish with multiple colors of shimmers in it but I still consider it distinctly orange.  This is two thin coats of Myrta over Nail Envy and under Seche QD.

Myrta provided by Zoya PR for honest review.

Monochrome Manicure

Good evening Ninjas!

Tonight has been a night of zombies for me. There was a huge dojo party to celebrate a Second Degree black belt graduation as well as a number of awesome peoples' birthdays. The party had a zombie theme and I went all out with the makeup for me and a friend. I think I'll save the pictures until closer to Halloween though, they're pretty scary!

Tonight's manicure was one I wore for quite a while because it lasted well and I just loved how it looked on the nail. This is two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement with an awesome coat of Pretty & Polished Valentino. I got a mini bottle of Valentino in a great swap I did a while back and I could not be more happy with this polish!

This is a little wooden "Armless Doll" mirror from Japan and a student gifted me with.

Blue Belt Manicure!

Hello lovely Ninjas!

All of the winners of my Blue Belt Giveaway have responded to their emails. Prizes will go out early next week to their new homes. Thank you to all who participated! Hopefully there will be a Red, Green, Brown, and Black belt giveaway in the future of my blog :)

Hubby and I after graduating :)

I had a very specific design in mind for this manicure. I had applied to the Mon Jin (Committed earning a Black Belt) Program before this graduation and knew the uniforms that are given out to Mon Jin members are black with red Kanji on the back. To represent the Blue belt we would be receiving, I used OPI Swimsuit... Nailed it! from last summer's Miss Universe collection on my pinky and thumb nails. Two easy coats for a gorgeous glowing blue foil that personifies the water element we're studying. On my middle three nails I did three coats of the cream version of Black MAgic from last year's Fantasy Maker's collection by Wet n Wild. On top of that, I did the Kanji for To, Shin, and Do on separate nails with a red nail art polish by Color Club. Here's the awesome finished product :)

Left Hand

Right Hand

Mimicking the uniform

My new uniform!

To: Blade

Shin: Heart

Do: Way

Giveaway Winners!

Hey Ninjas!

Quick post to say that the winners of my Blue Belt giveaway have been chosen! So far only one has responded but I gave each of them 48 hours to respond. Check and see if your name is listed below then check your email!

Doctor Who Layering!

Hello Ninjas!

Sorry for the late post, I didn't get a chance to edit my photos earlier in the day so I had to do it after work and tomorrow's manicure. Tomorrow is Graduation and it is also the LAST DAY of my Blue Belt Giveaway! Don't forget to enter if you're in the US or Canada, there are three awesome prizes to be won that you can check out in the original giveaway post here.

Tonight's manicure is one that started as a layering experiment and ended up being a nerdy tribute to the7th  season premier of Doctor Who 2005. I started with three coats of SpaRitual Blue Moon which is a sheer ultraviolet jelly base with both purple and blue glitter throughout. On top of that I did one coat of Max Factor Fantasy Fire that I swapped for. FF is the purple jelly based multichrome effect polish that is hailed as the twin of Clarins 230 aka Unicorn Pee. After wearing that awesome combo for FOUR whole days with no chips, I did a little nail art that made my index finger and thumb into a Dalek which is The Doctor's number one nemesis!

Egg egg egg eggsterminate, EXTERMINATE!

I think my Dalek turned out pretty good, this is sort of what I was going for:

http://pics.livejournal.com/irreparable/pic/004rwdw7

Blue Moon purchased with a gift certificate from my sponsor SkinCareRx.com