Inktober Day 15: Outpost

I literally had to sleep on this prompt because "outpost" didn't scream innovation to me. Then I thought about what it might be like to be stationed at an outpost, and how the isolation might start to drive you crazy. And that led to something even crazier than isolation...zombies! So here's my zombies breaking over the walls of an outpost.

I used all LVX polishes for this zombie takeover:

• Jade
• Aria
• Serene
• Anthracite

Inktober Day 25: Tasty

There are A LOT of options for a prompt like "tasty", especially for someone like me, who has lots of favorite foods.

Pizza.
Ice cream.
Fruit.
Burgers.
Nachos.
Tacos.
Beer.

But probably the most colorful food I consume is in the pastry category. Or the deep-fried category? I'll need to consult my chefing and pastry friends for the distinction. But the prompt asked for tasty, and my answer is "donuts".

Inktober Day 25 - Tasty

There's also A LOT of color options for today's prompt to get the effects I needed for the delicious, delicious nail art, including:

• Zoya: Abby, Lillian, Nyssa, Spencer, Darcy, Ali
• OPI: Alpine Snow, You're So Outta Lime!, Mod About You
• LVX: Icon, Lemondrop, Mink

Inktober Day 16: Wild

"Wild" is one of the easiest prompts for me. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. So here is my menagerie of animals for day 16. I've got a zebra, giraffe, tiger, cow, and leopard.

Inktober Day 16 - Wild

I also used a menagerie of polishes for my polishes:

• Zoya: Chantal
• OPI: Get in the Expresso Lane, It's a Piazza Cake, A-Taupe the Space Needle, and Is Mai Tai Crooked?
  LVX: Sienna
  Color Club: Look, Don't Tusk
  INM: Black Hole

Inktober Day 14: Overgrown

I've officially made it 2 weeks into Inktober! To see all the posts from this year, click here.

Today is "overgrown", and while it's not my favorite look, I think it gets the point across, and I like the contrast of the vines against the brick wall.

Inktober Day 14 - Overgrown

The brick background is Sienna (LVX), with accents of McKenna (Zoya) and overgrown with Gravitron (Misa) vines.

Inktober Day 4: Freeze

Brainstorming nail ideas on paper by just writing down things that come to mind with the Inktober prompts has really yielded some interesting ideas. To turn "ring" into wrestling masks for day 1 made me realize that inspiration can come from the least predictable sources. So when I saw that "freeze" was the prompt for day 4, I brainstormed, and an old YouTube video popped right into my head. Anyone else remember Mr. Chi City's guide to impressing a girl who comes over?

"Hit em' with the freeze pop!" (Slightly edited.)

So I'm hitting "freeze" with some popsicle-inspired nail art.

Inktober Day 4 - Freeze

All the colors I used came from my LVX drawer: Porcelaine, Lemondrop, Santal, and Chambord.

Taking it to the Matte with LVX Spring & Summer 2017

Today let's take it to the matte! I've got a full review of another summer collection, this time from LVX. The way LVX chooses the colors is by going to all the runways for the season and scoping out the trends in color, so what you may typically think of as a "summer" or "spring" collection might not be what you see with LVX. Nonetheless, I was inspired by the colors they chose to make some matte floral nail art for you all today.

I literally used every single color for this freehand floral design! The pinks played perfectly into one another to give my flowers lots of dimension, and the combination of teal and purple is beautiful. The dark green accents the leaves really well too. To make it matte, I used my OPI matte top coat but the swatches were all done with a shiny top coat. Let's look!

LVX - Argonne

Argonne (2 coats) is a smooth, mossy sage creme...almost as smooth as a sage leaf actually is.

LVX - Camellia

Camellia (2 coats) is an exact dupe of Pepto-Bismol, and just about as smooth.

LVX - Coquillage

Coquillage (3 coats) is a light pastel off-pink white shade. I needed another coat than I normally do to get a smooth coverage though.

LVX - Reine

Reine (3 coats) is a little bit more of a crelly (creme-jelly) than a creme. It's a beautiful, neonish-purple, but it needs a top coat. It's stunning when it's full-shine!

LVX - Schiaparelli

Schiaparelli (2 coats) is a hot, warm pink creme. Simple as that.

LVX - Seychelle

Seychelle (2 coats) is a light pastel robin's egg creme. It's a bit chalky unfortunately, but that led to me deciding to make my design matte, and I think that was a good one.

Each of the colors is still available through LVX's site here (listed alphabetically). Though LVX is a luxury line, I've always said it's worth its money.

The products in this post were given for review purposes. The reviews are based entirely on my experience with the products and were in no way influenced by anyone.

LVX Summer 2016 Collection with Lemon Saffron Seasoning & New Nail Art Brushes

My little office space now lives in the 3rd story, with a window opening out into the tree tops. Squirrels bounce around, birds flit by, and I'm reminded of why I love summer. The heat can't beat the joy, so let's milk the last part of summer for all it's worth.

Lemon Saffron Nail Art & New Brushes

The LVX Summer 2016 collection features 6 colors that completely represent the good vibes of summer. I've already used LVX for lemon nail art in the past, but I was struck by another pretty lemon pattern that I thought went well with some of these colors, so here's LVX in lemon, part two!

These baby lemons were probably about as easy as raising an actual baby, with tweezers. And I still didn't get the level of detail I wanted. I'm really excited about the brushes I used for the designs though. If you're a nail artist, you've probably amassed at least 43 brushes for detailing your designs. I've got another 3 you need to add - the Winstonia Berry Wine brushes.

The bristles on these 3 brushes are very thin, which makes detailing easy and controllable. You don't even need to trim them, as the shortest one is the perfect length.

I've already used mine, so it doesn't look as thin as the freshly unpackaged ones, but trust me, you need it, especially if it's only $5.95!

LVX Summer 2016 Swatches

LVX - Saffron

Now, I know you all know how big of a fan of yellow I am. My blog's been yellow for years, and every post that includes a yellow raves about it, but Saffron (2 coats) was a tricky beast, even though it ultimately produced a gorgeous mani. In fact, truth time - I used my blog's name to cover up some of the messy yellow cleanup that failed on my ring finger in the nail art shot. See it? If you get any of this shade on your skin, you'll be stained a bit until a few hand washes sloughs off those stained layers of skin. The taxi yellow also has a bad formula, almost like an old polish that's dried out and has become thick and gloppy.

LVX - Bon Bon

Bon Bon (2 coats) is a baby bubblegum pink with a normal, controllable formula.

LVX - Coquelicot

Argh this is so frustrating! The two colors I was most excited about, Saffron and Coquelicot (2 coats) have awful formulas. This bright orange-red creme couldn't smooth out well no matter how quickly or slowly I moved.

LVX - La Mer

La Mer (2 coats) was a pleasure of a formula, and an interesting color too! It's a dark but bold tealy blue. You can see that even in the nail art up above, it works well and doesn't show colors beneath.

LVX - Lush

Lush (2 coats) is a lovely sage creme polish with the formula I expect from LVX - easy to apply and covers easily in two coats.

LVX - Serene

Serene (2 coats) is a sky blueish-periwinkle creme with another easy formula.

I want to recommend the whole collection to buy, but I'm so frustrated with the awful formula of Saffron and Coquelicot that I simply can't. So pick and choose what you like from the collection here, but do NOT miss the Berry Wine brushes from Winstonia here!

The products in this post were given for review purposes. The reviews are based entirely on my experience with the products and were in no way influenced by anyone.

Snow White Gets a Manicure - LVX Spring 2016 Swatches & Review

A Little Love

I want to start this post with something a little serious. I want to thank those of you following me on my blog here. Not my Facebook, not my Twitter, and not my Instagram, which is going to soon make things so that my posts are less likely to be seen. But those of you that read this, are getting all the details first hand, and quite frankly, this is where the juiciest stuff happens. (Read below for my unabridged thoughts on this collection.) So once again, thank you!

Snow White Gets a Manicure

I've decided to label tonight's nail art as "Snow White Gets a Manicure". Why? Well the colors of the LVX Spring 2016 collection spoke inspiration to me that included feminine details like my little birdie in the cage and itty bitty florals. Obviously Snow White got a little hood and added some gold bling, but other than that, she kept it pretty aligned with her morals.

I tried to pose a picture with a little bird sitting on my fingers, but birds don't flock to me like they do in the movies. I've tried...more than once.

LVX Spring 2016 Swatches

I liked this collection, because depending on which colors you pair with which other colors from the collection, you get an entirely different feel. If you put Fleur, Blush, Aria and Azure beside one another, it feels bright and happy. If you put Icon, Aria, and Azure beside one another, it's more serene and coastal. 

LVX - Aria

Aria (2 coats) is the color of sage before it's deliciously fried up in sweet sweet butter. It's about as creamy too.

LVX - Azure

Maybe I'm taking crazy pills, but I feel like LVX really missed a great naming opportunity with Azure (2 coats). Personally, I think it should be called...Blue Steel.

 

Source

LVX Winter Resort 2016 Swatches and Floral in the Folds Nail Art

I've swatched LVX plenty of times here at Nailed It, but one thing I always like about their collections is their willingness to go outside the boundaries of what you expect to see in a seasonal collection. Yes, winter is usually dark reds and silver. But did you know it's also teal? The Winter Resort 2016 LVX line stretches those tired color muscles for winter into something unique and original.

I was inspired by this collection's soft, vintage shades to create "Floral in the Folds". These tiny little rosebuds were done with Bordeaux on a base of Lait.

Floral in the Folds

I'd love to recreate this delicate look using different shades for wedding nails!

LVX Winter Resort 2016 Swatches

Like all LVX collections, Winter Resort 2016 comes with six colors. Five out of the six are luscious, easy-to-apply cremes that cover in two coats. The last is a unique metallic that's already running low in the salon. Let's start with Saint.

LVX - Saint

I've dubbed Saint (2 coats) as a "gray-ple" taupe creme. It's very soft and subtle against my pale winter skin, but it doesn't wash me out.

LVX - Lait

Lait (2-3 coats) can be difficult to apply because it can look a little patchy due to it's slightly sheer formula. I'm happy to take on the challenge for this perfectly off-white, tinged nude creme. If you can't get the right coverage at 2 coats, you just need one more thin one.

LVX - Malbec

If you Google "malbec", you'll likely get image results for a dark red win. Alongside it, you may also see this LVX shade similarly named Malbec (2 coats). I would describe it more as a dark mulberry shade. What separates it from the wine could also be the flecks of holographic sparkle that turn it into a metallic polish. How great would wine be if it also included rainbow sparkles? Basic bitches would buy that up in a heartbeat (me included).

LVX Fall 2015 Collection with Marvelous Marble

I'm not sure if you guys know, but LVX as a brand has no sheer colors. Their formula is all full-coverage...until now! They're branching out of their prudish ways to reveal a little more nudity...of the nail. The Fall 2015 collection offers two shades that are slightly more sheer than any in the past, and I can only see it going off from there.

There are two sheerish shades, and I liked the idea of pairing one of them with gold in particular, and after a Pinterest inspiration binge, I found a pattern I liked a lot (here). Here's what I came up with.

I used a non-LVX shade for the base (I Cannoli Wear OPI from OPI...obviously), but the other three shades are all from the collection I'm reviewing today: Rhone, Militaire, and a line of Monarch.

To get the marble texture, I striped random, squiggly lines of Militaire very lightly. Some of the lines I watered down with a little acetone before and after I applied. It was a lot of back and forth, smudging with acetone and then retracing with fresh polish. Ultimately I think it looks pretty accurate to what marble is, don't you think?

Now let's take a look at the collection.

First, I have to say this is one of the most well put together collections I've seen for fall. All the colors make sense, and they all work well with each other. I've already used all of these colors on clients and they're all thrilled each time. I say I'd have to agree!

LVX - Militaire

Militaire (1-2 coats) covers amazingly well! If I'd applied just a tad bit more carefully, 1 coat would've been plenty. This color does have a militant feel to it...kind of that greyish-green you'd associate with a military or army uniform. Really great creme!

LVX - Monarch

Monarch (3 coats) is a yellow-gold foil that needed a little more than 2 coats for nice even coverage. It gave the marble tips I made the perfect midas accent.

LVX - Rhone

Rhone (2 coats) is the first sorta-sheer in this collection (you can see the free edge of my ring finger a little in this swatch). It's a nude blush creme.

LVX Summer 2015 Swatches - Cartoonish Nail Art

During my time as lead at the salon, I brought the LVX line of polish in for clients to enjoy on their nails or toes. Each time we get a new collection in, people show interest, but nothing quite like how popular the Summer '15 line from LVX became! We're practically out of each color already. Not surprising though, considering how amazing they are!

I'm really inspired by creative patterns in amazing colors, so when I stumbled across Instagram user Lilly Friedeberg, an illustrator and designer based in Düsseldorf and Berlin, I knew that her work would be perfect for the LVX Summer 2015 collection nail art. Check it - I call it "Düsseldorf Doodles".

Each color (besides the black and the base, which is My Boyfriend Scales Walls from OPI) is from the Summer '15 collection below. How perfectly do they go together?!

LVX - Avenal

Avenal (2 coats) seems more yellow in my nail art, but in actuality, it's a pastel pistachio creme.

LVX - Caicos

Caicos (2 coats) is a hugely popular color, even for clients who are scared to go outside their pink and red comfort zone. Maybe that's because it reminds people of the waters they wish they were dipping their freshly pedicured toes in, along the sands of Turks and Caicos.

LVX Winter 2014 Swatches and Pretty Painted China Patterns

Today I'm showing you swatches from the Winter 2014 LVX collection. Like all LVX collections, there are 6 shades, all inspired by the looks showing up on the runways. To see check out a few of the looks, be sure to click the name of each swatch below.

This collection brought about one of the nail community's most newly coveted shades, Denim. I fell in love with it as soon as I swatched it (keep scrolling to see it), and I loved the idea of pairing it with Mineral (also swatched below). I thought a simple, freehand flora design would be perfect!

Denim is that gorgeous blue I'm holding, and Mineral is the base. It looks like patterns on china, don't you think?

Now that I've thoroughly excited you...let's see the swatches!

LVX - Denim

This...is Denim (2 coats). For anyone who died a little on the inside when Sally Hansen changed the recipe for Pacific Blue, this may be your reprieve. Though it's not an exact dupe, it sure is close, and it's beautiful.

LVX - Femme

Femme (2 coats) is another new favorite of mine. I'm such a sucker for baby pinks, and this awesome formula makes it irresistible.

LVX Fall 2014 Collection - Swatches and Valentine's Day Nail Art

Still yearning for some grey polishes, even after Tuesday's Fifty Shades tribute? Then check out today's post for the 2014 Fall collection from LVX, featuring a few more greys, pinks, and more, inspired by Fall 2014's runway looks. As you're well aware, LVX polish draws inspiration for all of their colors from runway looks and trends. I wonder what they're finding at this year's NYFW!

For swatches of the whole LVX Fall 2014 collection, keep scrolling. For some Valentine's Day fun, scroll no further! The collection's perfect pink, Peony, was just right for the world's favorite flower-bearing holiday. I paired it with another shade from the collection, Espresso, then accented it with Cerise. How adorable are those little lub-dubs?!

Though you can't see it, my thumbs also had a little red heart hidden among the chocolate hearts.

Let's look at the colors without art now.

LVX - Cerise

Cerise (2 coats) is a bright fuschia. Initially I thought it was more of a bright cherry, but the pink tones are pretty apparent.

LVX - Anthracite

Anthracite (2 coats) is a dark and rich charcoal grey. I like what LVX suggested - using this as an alternative to black. It's really dark!

Next is Peony.

Cosmoprof North America 2014: LVX

Tonight I've got another post from Cosmoprof 2014, this time from LVX. Remember, you can see all of them by browsing the CPNA2014 tag.

LVX at Cosmoprof 2014 

I've reviewed LVX polish before (here). What sets LVX apart is its deep integration with the world of high fashion. Each year, there are 4 seasonal collections released, each with 6 colors and right in line with the seasons of fashion. What's more, the colors are carefully selected after closely studying thousands of runway presentations from renowned designers, including one big designer that provided plenty of influence in past collections, Alexander Wang.

The founders (who I had the pleasure to meet) are Branka and Rade Tomic. (Who doesn't love a family polish? The duo are siblings!) They take their dedication to fashion and luxury very seriously, and have sponsored several shows with LVX. While they say they haven't been to international shows yet, they've been to New York and Miami, where they adorned around 20 models' nails with LVX lacquer.

The fashionable lady doesn't need to worry when she reaches for a bottle of LVX. It's "fashion with a conscience". Their formulation's are 5-free, vegan and cruelty-free, which means it's never tested on animals. This is great news for our Boulder salon, as clients request vegan and cruelty-free polishes more and more.

Fashion extends to the packaging and display of LVX polishes as well. Take a look at the upcoming Fall collection, announced for the first time at Cosmoprof (and available soon). Very sleek!

So what's new with LVX? I sat down with Branka and Rade, and they shared that LVX has a full manicure system in the works. That would include things like oils, base coats, top coats, removers, etc. With this, they hope to offer healthier alternatives to what's already on the market. And while no gel systems (or gel hybrids) are in the making, they were happy to offer me a sample of their top coat, which is touted as gel-like, just as their polishes are.

Additionally, LVX is partnering with the National Breast Cancer Foundation in October and donating 100% of all profits from their signature pink, Lolli. 100% is huge, and really makes LVX a standout and standup brand in my mind!

LVX Polish Review & Nail Art

With that in mind, here's a look at two colors I picked up at the show, combined to recreate a nail-friendly designer's pattern. Here, I used Lemondrop and Porcelain to mimic the Kate Spade lemon pattern. 

I loved the colors, especially Lemondrop. I had trouble with application myself, finding it a bit streaky, but I liked them for nail art.

Added a slight filter to give it a more vintage look, similar to the lemons.

LVX - Lemondrop

LVX - Porcelain

In both swatches, I used their top coat and liked it. I tried it over my nail art as well, and unfortunately, it didn't even out the bumps that inevitably show up when working with polish for nail art. Seche Vite's still better for that in my opinion. The top coat does dry quickly though, which is always a great bonus.

I look forward to seeing the official release of the Fall line, but in the meantime, their Winter Resort collection is live! It's full of deep colors, several with shimmer. I really enjoyed sitting down with and grilling the Tomics about LVX, and I'm eager to see what the manicure system looks like!

The products in this post were given for review purposes. The reviews are based entirely on my experience with the products and were in no way influenced by anyone.