Rockjewel wears the ultimate wow-polish Lilypad Lacquer True Blood

This is THE nail polish!! I say it again: THE nail polish! There should be a warning triangle on the bottle: "Don't wear this polish while operating heavy machinery" or something like that. It is totally impossible to stop looking at it.

This is my first indie love, True Blood from Lilypad Lacquer. Also included in my first order of indie polish. I was so lucky to get this, and I didn't even have to struggle for it, no waiting in line online at a webshop, no nervous moment when checking out the shopping cart to see if the polishes are still available or not. 
I happened to stumbled upon Lilypad's Etsy store one day and was stunned! So many beautiful nail polishes! I took my time, returned to the store again and again. Finally, after a couple of weeks I decided that I dared to order. I think I ordered three or four, and a couple of friends joined and filled up to the flat rate 7 polishes limit.

Rockjewel strutting around with Lilypad Lacquer To Dance With a Peacock

I have a problem... And now you say "Only one problem???" OK, I have more, but only one I would like to admit to today. It is about the most fabulous polishes I own. I crave them, I am lucky enough to get them; I long for them to arrive and when they arrive I am so happy and.... put them in my untrieds drawer... It's like I don't dare to use them, or want to save them for a special occasion or so. The stupid thing is that there are not many special occasions in my life, at least not as many as my "special" nail polishes. Ergo: I need to do something about this. Force myself to take one of these fantastic polishes and put them on for an ordinary tuesday. Or thursday, or other ordinary day.

This week I actually managed to use one of these polishes on a tuesday. I do have to admit that it wasn't really an ordinary tuesday, I had a *date* with some really good and fun friends. In honour of the day, and the good friends, I chose to put Lilypad Lacquer To Dance With a Peacock on my nails. And, to use a worn out acronym, OMG!!!!! Up on my top five list! 

To start with, this is one of my favorite colors in any area, not only nail polish. I love this dark teal! Add a stunning linear holo to this and I scream HOME RUN!! The color spans from a really dark teal, over both blue an green tones. Added to that a lovely rainbow effect.

Created by Nicole of Lilypad Lacquer not only the color, effects and the finish are perfect, also the formula is fantastic. Two coats of perfect-ness! 

Rockjewel in search of the dark side with Lilypad Lacquer Dirty Soul

We all have dark sides, I know I have. ;-)

Lilypad Lacquer Dirty Soul is a polish with a name that should speak to these darker sides, but it might be a bit too beautiful for that. The base is a clean grey and added to that is a medium-grained scattered holo. In some angles there also seems to be a bit of linear holo, but the scattered holo is definitely dominant.  

The holo is fairly strong and flashes in turquoise, pink and copper. There is a "dirty" side of this polish too, but it only shows in indoors lighting. It is actually a really nice, deep grey color, still with a little bit of shimmer visible.

Rockjewel thinks of raspberries with Darling Diva Rooms on Fire

Raspberry, raspberry, raspberry... It is a strange name for a berry. Could it be because of the small thorns on the stems maybe? 

Never mind, Darling Diva Rooms on Fire is a beautiful raspberry polish with a really strong, blurple-flashing holo, and no rasp at all. It is from the White Witch Collection, from which I realise I own most of them... Well, they are beautiful, all with strong holo and stunning colors. Rooms on Fire is no exception.

The formula is good, two coats for perfect, opaque finish. Some minor issues with gooey-ness on the first coat, but nothing that caused too much problems. I personally think that the DD brusehes are a bit thin, I prefer a bit wider, flat brush. Still it is not difficult to apply the polish, it works fine.

Rockjewel presents Spring on a budget with polish from Nordic Cap and Gina Tricot

Yes I love indie polish and high end polish brands, but I'm not at all prejudiced against any polish. For example I own a lot of low-budget polishes. Here in Sweden nail polish from well-known brands, like OPI, Sally Hansen, Essie, are quite expensive. As a really nice counterweight we do have some less expensive brands, and also one real low-price brand, with Swedish origin.

Some would say that low price equals low quality, and sometimes that is true. But even though I don't have that much experience in this area I have noticed that the quality of even the most expensive polish brands span from lousy to perfect. 

Today I present two polishes with lovely spring colors. And they go together very well. One of them is the real low-budget brand, Nordic Cap Star Nails. It can be found in many ordinary supermarkets and costs no more than $1.50. Many nice colors and different finishes. Generally acceptable quality, some are really good and some not so good. 

Rockjewel thinks of Skagen with Lilypad Lacquer Where Oceans meet

As far as I know I have been at two places where oceans meet: Skagen in Denmark and Cape Agulhas in South Africa. 

The trip to South Africa was spectacular and I would very much like to return some day. I have been back in the country on business, but that was in the northern parts. Lovely that too, with safari and all, but the Cape area is special. A dream vacation would be a week in Umlani Bush Camp in the Timbavati Reserve followed byt two weeks in the Cape area. Must buy a lottery ticket...

Back to Skagen. This trip was not that spectacular but still left me with a lot of nice memories. I was there many years ago for an extended weekend with an old friend and our mothers. It was a really nice and relaxing weekend and since my friend's mother is no longer with us and my mother is old and her memory is deteriorating it is always nice to think back to this weekend when both of them where still with us in body and mind.

Rockjewel is starstruck by Femme Fatale Starfall

Starfall is my second polish from Femme Fatale. It has a kind of foggy, dusty tone of purple that I really, really love!! It is quite dark but has a light side too, very strange... It shifts from a dusty pink-purple to a dark blurple and has a fine-grained, semi-strong, linear holo. 

Since this is probably one of my top three favorite colors, Starfall should be put on my top three list. Unfortunately the formula is not as perfect as for example Lilypad's, it is a bit gooey. It might be fixed with a few drops of thinner, it's at least worth the try.

So if it does not end up on my top three list, where does it go?  I would definitely say that it is in top ten, at least. Maybe even top five, if thinner can fix the formula. 

Rockjewel turns businesslike with Jindie Nails Just Claws

This polish just happened to find its way to me in an order from somewhere... Cannot for the world remember which shop it was. Or maybe a swap/sale? No I think it was a shop. It's not important though because I like it :-)

Just Claws is my first encounter with Jindie Nails polish, and it was a pleasant one. Most of JN polishes have too much and too big glitter particles for my taste, but there are some really nice holos that I would like to own. To be fair, some of the "particle polishes", the ones with smaller glitter in, are quite nice too.

The color is a beautiful pink with tones in the purple and even a little in the orange direction. In the right lighting it is stunning, with a quite strong, both scattered and linear holo. In ordinary indoors light it is a quite ordinary finish but still a really nice and sweet pink that can offend no one and can be accepted by everyone. A color that says "I care about my nails but I want everyone in this meeting to listen to me and not look at my nails, at least most of the time."

The formula is good, could be a one-coater if it weren't for a few bald spots after the first coat. Could be my base coat that is the problem, but if so then it is worth it. Not going to change that. Anyway, this is not a big problem at all, after the second coat it looks perfect. Take a look!

Rockjewel goes D.U.I. with Dance Legend Chameleon Knight

I put it on. I thought it was a bit boring. OK, it was shiny, it shifted a bit in blackened gold and bronze, but nothing like swatches I have seen of it. Decided to wear it for one day anyway.

The morning after i got into my car and drove away to work. It was not full sun, thin clouds let the sun shine through a bit. I was driving, concentrating on the road and all of a sudden I caught a glimpse in the corner of my eye. Something fantastic! Silver, blue, gold, bronze, blurple! It was really, really difficult to keep my eyes on the road and the traffic, my nails were screaming for attention with all this beauty! Lots of ohhs and aaahhs, hoping for traffic lights to turn red so I could take another good look at it. 
Of course I could not resist showing this lovely-ness to some of my colleagues (those that appreciate beautiful nail polish) and got yet another bunch of ooohhs and ahhhs.

The formula is good. It's not sheer, but two coats are needed. It gets a bit streaky but this is not a big problem. The only real issue I have with this is that every little irregularity on the nail shows. A good ridgefiller is probably the solution, I think I need to buy one... 

Then the task of trying to catch this with the camera. Not possible... When I saw the photos I decided not to blog about this polish at all, but I picked out a few pics anyway that I think at least are ok, and here they are.
Don't let them discourage you from buying this polish, or any other polish from the Chamelion collection, they are truly beautiful!

Rockjewel gets no nightmare with Darling Diva Dreams

This will be a quick one, time to go to bed. But first some photos of one of my latest Darling Diva polishes, Dreams from The White Witch Collection. Lots of lovely holo polishes in that collection and now I own some of them.


Darling Diva polishes have a really good formula. Dreams is no exception. Ok, the first coat seems to be quite sheer, but it is still enough with two coats.
The holo is linear and strong, the color is a deep, but not to dark, color. You can see a lighter, cornflower blue, as well as a stronger blue color. Really beautiful. The photos do not show as much of the cornflower as I wanted.

Rockjewel votes for sample to be permanent at The Devil Wears Polish

My intentions for today's blog was to show Dark Choclate Raspberry from The Devil Wears Polish. Unfortunately the photos were a total failure! The lovely chocolate color with the raspberry shimmer turned into an almost blurple color with not so much shimmer. 

Instead I decided to try the bonus polish I got with the shipment. Big thanks for that TDWP, from all three of us! :-) And it is soooo beautiful!!

The _name_ is Prototype Sample... I am trying to come up with a better name, I'm going to try and convince TDWP to put this into production, it is so lovely!!

Rockjewel feels intoxicated with Dance Legend Wow Prism Poison

Got some really nice shipments this week. One was from Dance Legend. Normally you must be prepared for a long wait when ordering from Dance Legend but this time it was actually a bit shorter shipping time than the order we placed in October last year. I think this took 4 weeks from placing the order until it arrived. That's fair I think. Last time it took about 6 weeks. You can get these polishes from other suppliers, but they only carry a chosen selection of the DL polishes. I think it is worth the wait when you can choose among all these beauties.

The quality of the Dance Legend polishes is generally high. The quality of the swatch photos in the store is also very high BUT... the photos do not always show all the beauty you can find in these polishes. 

Sometimes you buy polishes after seeing some really beautiful swatch pics and maybe get a little bit, but only a little, disappointed when you put it on your own nails. Almost always the polish is still lovely and there are no regrets buying it, but still... With time you learn that this is the way it is, and the expectations get a bit more realistic.

When it comes to Dance Legend it is sometimes the opposite, especially with the holos. As I said the pics are really beautiul, but many of the polishes are even more beautiful in real life.

Rockjewel needs no sweets with Mentality Gumdrop

Mentality gumdrop is a polish that reminds me of a sort of Swedish candy called blue fish. It is a hard candy with a specific, salty licorice taste. It is really tasty as it is, and it is also popular to make candy shots with. It's quite easy. Just put some candy in vodka and let it melt down. Drink it as shots. 

Well, back to the reason for this blog post: Mentality Gumdrop. It's a polish from the Candy Jelly Holo collection. I got this in a blogsale and it is a real sweety. I would love to get some more from the same collection. And from other Mentality collections...

Rockjewel relaxes with Lilypad Lacquer Sunset At Sea

Lilypad Lacquer is not only about holo polish, and here is a  beauty to prove that. This is Sunset At Sea, a duo/multi-chrome polish that spans from a dark blurple to brick red and even a hint towards mustard. 

I have a few more from this collection, they all seem to be equally gorgeous! I will show them all in due time :-)

The formula is good, but unlike the LP holos this needs 3, maybe even coats on its own to be opaque. I used white undies here (which unfortunately shows in the pics...) and then two coats of Sunset... It is really beautiful on its own, but white or black undies lifts the colors yet another notch. 

I didnt do a good job with this mani. Messy, not a good cleanup etc. etc. etc. But if you can look at the polish, and only the polish, I'd be grateful :-)

Rockjewel prepares for spring with Lilypad Lacquer Rose Gold

Rose Gold from Lilypad Lacquer was the last one that slipped into the latest shipment from Australia. I wanted Vintage Rose but that was sold out so I took this instead. It is not "my" color at all, and it is not the best color on my winter pale fingers, but nevertheless it is a really beautiful polish! I long for some suntan on my hands, I think this polish will be stunning then.

Rose Gold has a nice, shimmering finish. A lovely, mostly scattered holo, a bit more visible than in the photos.
Perfect formula as always, two coats in these pictures. And please try to disregard the pale skin...

Rockjewel heartily welcomes Lilypad Lacquer Heart To Heart

Continuing my quest for testing all my untrieds it's time for Heart To Heart. It is a deep, deep blood red nail polish with a blue flashing, linear holo effect. It is one of those polishes... Those polishes that are VERY difficult to catch the beauty of with a camera. The almost jelly-lika red base does not show much, the holo effect shows a lot and is beautiful, but takes over the red a bit.
Nevertheless it is a fabulously vampy polish that I fell deeply in love with. That one too... Lots of Lilypads on my top list :-)

The holo effect is a bit less visible in ordinary lighting, like grey daylight or lamplight, than some of the other Lilypad holos, but the deep red color is more prominent instead. I don't mind. At all! 
When I swatched Heart To Heart I was a bit worried that it might need three coats to be opaque, the base looked a bit jelly-ish. But behold, two coats were perfect and enough!

As I said it was impossible to catch all of the beauty on the pictures but at least I tried...