Darling Diva Polish - Invoke The Spirit

This polish is absolutely breathtaking!! It's full of large iridescent hexes of blue, green, silver, & coral, clear hexes, small & medium sized blue hexes, green moons, and holographic silver stars, all in a sheer dark grey base that's loaded with blue iridescent micro glitters! Plus it glows in the dark! The glow is not a very bright one, but considering the polish looks so incredible in the light, I really don't care! Lol. Application was a bit tricky with this one, but that's to be expected with such large glitters. In the end it's totally worth the effort that it takes!

This is 2 and a half coats of Invoke The Spirit over black & topped with 1 coat of topcoat. I used a combination of regular brush strokes & dabbing. I also used a toothpick to place some extra glitters where I wanted them.

Click on any pic to enlarge :)

Outdoors, overcast:

On my right hand I layered 3 coats of Invoke The Spirit over white. I used the same methods that I used when layering it over black, except this time it was even more challenging. To get it looking completely opaque I literally globbed it on. The end result is pretty cool, but I still think it looks way better over black.

And of course because this is a glow in the dark polish I just had to try to capture a shot of that. Unfortunately it didn't come out too well.. but you get the general idea.

I purchased this bottle from the Darling Diva Polish Etsy page.

Check out Darling Diva Polish on Facebook here.

And since this polish is based on the movie The Craft.. let's call the corners, shall we?:

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Black Cat Lacquer - Six Feet Under

Six Feet Under is a grey jelly packed with small & medium sized silver hexes and black shards of various sizes. I wasn't so sure if I was gonna like this one, but it actually looks really cool on. It also happens to bear the name of one of my favorite TV shows of all time, so that definitely earns points in my book!

This is 3 coats of Six Feet Under topped with 1 coat of topcoat.

Click on any pic to enlarge :)

Direct sunlight:

Indirect sunlight:

Please pardon the bubbly topcoat..

Shade:

I purchased this bottle from the Black Cat Lacquer Etsy page.

Check out Black Cat Lacquer on Facebook here.

And now for the best TV show ending of all time (in my humble opinion)!:

Makes me tear up everytime :'(

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Girly Bits - Crunchy Leaves

I'm temporarily interrupting "Extended Halloween Week" to show you my Thanksgiving manicure. I absolutely love this polish & I just had to show it off right away!

I actually won this polish (along with Girly Bits Indian Summer) from the giveaway that Ashley is PolishAddicted had last month! I'm extremely happy that I did because I wanted both of those polishes soooo badly. This one in particular because not only do I have a thing for brown polishes lately, but also because it represents the month of November in the Girly Bits Calendar Girls Collection, which just happens to be my birth month! If you haven't checked out Ashley's blog I highly recommend doing so. Her blog is one of the first blogs I started following & it's still one of my favorites! Thanks again Ashley!! <3 

Crunchy Leaves is the absolute perfect name for this polish. It's a stunning glitterbomb filled with small hexes of orange, copper, brown, and itty bitty red bars, all in a sheer brown base that has gold shimmer mixed in with it! Even people who don't like bar glitter probably wouldn't mind this one too much because the bars are so small, you don't even realize they're bars until you look super closely at them! Application was easy peasy, not too thick or too thin, and no need for dabbing. I thought this polish might be gritty & need multiple layers of topcoat because of all the small glitters, but I'm very happy to report that it only needed 1 coat of topcoat to become totally smooth. Once again another score for Girly Bits!

This is 3 coats of Crunchy Leaves topped with 1 coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri. 

Click on any pic to enlarge :)

Outdoors, indirect sunlight:

Indoors, without flash:

Indoors, with flash:

This polish can be purchased from the Girly Bits website -  it's currently on sale for $9! It can also be found on Llarowe, Harlow & Co., Mei Mei's Signatures, and Overall Beauty.

Check out Girly Bits on Facebook here.

Thanks for stopping by & Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Naild'It - Bibbity Bobbity Boo

I just want to start off by saying.. I friggin' love Naild'It! I've acquired quite a few of her polishes this year, and I've yet to be disappointed by any of them. She is majorly talented!

Bibbity Bobbity Boo is a gorgeous Halloween glitterbomb packed with hexes of various sizes & colors including orange, purple, fuchsia, & holographic aqua, all in a clear base that's loaded with silver shimmer! It's sooo sparkly and beautiful that I would feel perfectly comfortable wearing this year round! After all, who's really gonna guess it's a Halloween polish just by looking at it? Application was great - the glitters are so plentiful that I didn't even have to do any dabbing to get them where I wanted them! Incredible.

On all my fingers *except* my ring finger I have 1 coat of BBB over black. On my ring finger I have 3 coats of BBB by itself. All fingers were topped with 2 coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri.

Click on any pic to enlarge :)

Indoors, without flash:

Indoors, with flash:

I purchased this bottle from Overall Beauty for $11.

You can check out Naild'It on Facebook here.

I couldn't help but think of this classic song from Cinderella while wearing this polish:

I hadn't watched this movie in so long I forgot just how cute this scene is!

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Black Cat Lacquer - Death Becomes Her

I'm officially dubbing this week "Extended Halloween" here at Nails And A Westie! Not to sound like a broken record, but because of what happened with Hurricane Sandy, I wasn't able to finish posting the rest of the Halloween polishes I bought.. so now is the time!

Death Becomes Her is a matte glitter packed with green hexes (small & medium), lavender squares, black hexes, tiny violet hexes, and even the occasional green moon!

On all my fingers *except* my ring finger I have 2 coats of DBH over Kleancolor Pastel Blue (which can be seen alone at the end of this post). On my ring finger I did 3 coats of DBH by itself. All fingers were topped with 1 coat of Gelous & 1 coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri.

Click on any pic to enlarge :)

Outdoors, overcast:

Indoors, without flash:

My bottle of Gelous is getting old, so it created a lot of bubbles..

Love that green moon! <3

Kleancolor Pastel Blue is.. you guessed it, a pastel blue creme. Like the other Kleancolor pastels I've reviewed, the consistency of this polish wasn't great, but after 3 coats it looked decent enough (especially because I knew I'd be putting glitter over it).

Outdoors, overcast:

I purchased Death Becomes Her from the Black Cat Lacquer Etsy page, & the Kleancolor from Amazon.com (it came in a multi-pack of pastels).

You can check out Black Cat Lacquer on Facebook here.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Lush Lacquer - Birthday Cake

My birthday was just the other day, so I figured what better time to wear "Birthday Cake" by Lush Lacquer! I bought this polish months ago and was specifically saving it for this occasion. The name suits it perfectly - it really does remind me of Funfetti cake with sprinkles on top! It's a white crelly loaded with small hexes of purple, orange, light blue, & fuchsia, medium silver holographic hexes, and bar glitters of gold, light blue, light green, & silver. Application was good - it went on a bit sheer at first, but by the third coat it was completely opaque. It's so delicious looking, I absolutely love it!

This is 3 coats (I used a combination of regular brush strokes & some dabbing) of Birthday Cake topped with 2 coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri.

Click on any pic to enlarge :)

Outdoors, indirect sunlight:

Indoors, with flash:

Indoors, without flash:

I purchased this mini bottle off of the Lush Lacquer Etsy page (I chose the pick 3 for $14.25 option, which averages out to $4.75 per bottle). It can also be purchased from Llarowe (full sized bottle only) for $11.

You can check out Lush Lacquer on Facebook here.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Mother Nature can be a real bitch..

I deeply apologize for my absence. As I mentioned on my Facebook page, because of Hurricane Sandy I was without electricity for 14 days (from 10/29 to 11/11) and was unable to do much of anything. I live on Long Island, NY and the storm hit us pretty bad. Luckily me & my family are alright, and nobody I know was was hurt. The only damage we sustained was a rather large fallen tree limb (that took many other branches down with it) in the backyard, and thankfully, it did not hit the house. Many people had far worse things happen, so I'm extremely grateful that was not the case for us.

The following story is my personal experience with Hurricane Sandy & what happened in the days to follow.. 

The storm hit on Monday Oct. 29th. & we lost electricity almost immediately. The winds were 70-80 mph, and I swear we saw some cyclones. That night the sky kept flashing blue - I'm not sure if it was lightning or some other form of electricity but it was very frightening, and unlike anything I've ever seen before.

Being without electricity for such a prolonged period of time was beyond frustrating. I've never realized how heavily I depend upon it in my day to day life. I felt like we were living in The Dark Ages. No lights, no T.V., no Netflix, & of course, no internet. Nothing but the radio to keep us entertained.. and the radio leaves a lot to be desired. We also had no heat - and therefore no hot water. I'm an obsessively clean person & not being able to shower was killing me. Eventually I gave in.. have you ever taken a shower in ice water? I did.. and it was not fun. I don't recommend it at all. 

Then to make matters worse, we got a North Easterner (aka Nor' Easter') on Wednesday Nov. 7th. This storm was only supposed to be rain, but because of the quickly declining temperatures it turned into a snow storm. Actually it was more of an ice storm. So it's 20 degrees outside & the ground is covered in snow & ice and we still have NO HEAT! It was so cold we could actually see our breath when we spoke - and this was indoors!! Insane. Even Holden (my Westie) was shivering, so I put on his sweater & wrapped him in blankets to warm him up. At this point I had this horrible thought that we might not make it. I know it sounds morbid, but I truly believed there was a strong possibility we might all freeze to death. Thankfully, I was wrong.

In the next few days the temperatures started increasing, and the snow & ice melted. But we still had no electric. Finally on the night of Nov. 11th we got it back! And there was much rejoicing!!

So that's why I've been away for awhile. I was so bummed that I didn't get to share this awesome post that Michelle from Things I Love At The Moment did where she gave a shout out to my blog in her October Monthly Favorites (you can check it out here)! I was so psyched because I love her blog & to find out she loves mine as well was mind blowing! Thanks again Michelle!! <3

Plus I didn't get to finish swatching all the Halloween polishes I bought this year (I think I may have gone overboard..), but I'm hoping to do that soon.

This past week I've just been trying to return to normality, but it's going slow. Hopefully by next week things will be back to normal here on the blog. Until then, I will leave you guys with some pics of what my backyard currently looks like...

branches, branches, everywhere

really happy this big boy didn't land on the house!

Thanks for stopping by!