Re-review: Nerd Lacquer All of Time and Space, Warrior Ethos and Event Horizon

It's no secret I think indie polishes are awesome.  I love them for all their sparkliness, uniqueness and that they're just made by people.  In their houses.  Sometimes though I just have to go back to the indies that started it all for me, the irreplaceable Nerd Lacquers.  I'm lucky enough to own about a dozen and I thought I might let some of my favourites see the light of day.  Let's take a look at Warrior Ethos, Event Horizon and All of Time and Space.

Back in early 2011 when you could actually buy Nerd Lacquers, there was nothing else like it around.  There were a handful of Etsy sellers but not much beyond that.  It was the sparkliness and all-around differentness that drew me in.  Warrior Ethos was one that especially caught my eye.  It's a beautiful, blood-red jelly polish with black, iridescent and red glitters of all sizes.    With these kinds of polishes, you need three coats to let the glitter build up in layers, getting a real sense of depth.  

I don't even have words to describe how much I love Event Horizon.  Look at the macro shot on my thumb, look at how much glitter is packed in there!  There's too many different kinds to name, suspended in a deep blue-green jelly.  Just like Warrior Ethos, the more coats you add, the deeper the polish looks.  This one has a whole bunch of holographic silver glitter in there so not only is gorgeous, it's sparkly too.

Finally, at least for today, we have the much softer All of Time and Space, an awesome mix of pink and silver glitter in a mint green base.  This one has more of a frosty finish than the first two but it's that pink shimmer that's mixed in there with the glitter that gives it a different kind of dimension.  I feel like this looks almost like Monet's Waterlilies, although that could just be me stretching to find another way to describe how much I love this polish.

The Verdict: It's been well over a year and just no one has been able to come close to making the same complex polishes as Nerd Lacquer.  I don't mean to disparage other brands - they do their own thing - but Nerd Lacquers were just such an amazing mix of glitter and perfect base jellies, flakies, everything.

I'm also posting this because I'm sad the Ninja Polish site crashed when these were going on sale again recently.  Doesn't hurt to take a look at the originals!  Speaking of, I have reviewed all these before but let's just say I'm a bit better at doing this now.

Rainbow 90's Computer Logo Nails!

You know you have a problem when a perfectly matched rainbow pot of glitter just isn't that exciting because it isn't holo.  I realised the other night that this is stupid and I should try it out.  Not everything can be holo, Laura! The hardest part was choosing a background colour because I've done a rainbow over black literally a million times.  Let's take a look at rainbow glitter Hooplah from Impulse Cosmetics over Revlon Royal.    

I'm still so mad at my middle finger for being an asshole and breaking that even my favourite blue jelly, Revlon Royal, can't even fully distract me from how uneven it is.  Blerg.  Anyway, I chose Royal mostly because it was already there, on my desk, and it's the best blue ever.  It does need a few coats but it's worth it for how shiny it comes out.  Once dry, I used my usual technique to create my chevrons.  Starting at the top of my nail in the middle, I placed one piece of glitter in each colour, spaced evenly.  It's then just a matter of building out each side.  Keep an eye on your spacing as you go and you should get a nice even chevron.  Voila, mid-90's computer logo rainbow nails!

The Verdict:  Have to say thanks to my trainer Ben, because these totally look like a 90's computer logo.  Which is good.  I'll always love Royal, it's my perfect blue that I think only benefits from being a finicky jelly.

The Other Hand:  I'm continuing my streak of being honest about what's on my left hand and this time I used the same base colour and just sprinkled the glitter over my thumb and ring fingers.  I find sprinkling better than dunking because then you don't get patches with too much glitter that won't lay flat.

Review: Sephora X Outburst

As you can imagine, I was pretty excited when the new Sephora X polishes came out.  Not only were there a million of them, but I could go see them in person, circling the huge stand and singling out my prey.  I'm not the most happy that the good ones are FIFTEEN dollars each but what am I going to do, not buy any?? That's silly.  I have few now but my favourite so far as to be the incredibly Outburst.  LOOK AT IT:

I wasn't sure how opaque or thick Outburst was going to be so I started off with one coat of Essence A Boy Next Door, the best match I had to the blue jelly.  Turns out I didn't need it but oh well.  Once that coat was dry, I applied three coats of Outburst with its mixture of gold holo glitter in two sizes, suspended in that amazing blue jelly base.  I really didn't need the third but I wanted to see if the layered effect intensified on the last coat.  Even with three coats I had no problem getting this polish to dry and omg, the depth of this polish is just stunning.  Since it looked like the sea I applied two different seahorse nail charms from Hex Nail Jewelry. LOOK AT IT MORE:

The Verdict: I've been thinking about it and I'm really struggling to come up with a commercial polish I like more than this.  It's that amazing.  I had so many people comment on my nails because they were just so sparkly.  More than have commented on a lot of my glitter placements!  I even wore this for two days and that just never happens.  So good.  Worth the $15.