NerdLacquer: Pinin for the Fjords

Happy Monday, Kitschies!!  I had a super-long extended Thanksgiving holiday, which was really, really nice, but it's back to the grind for me today.  We were lucky to share out Thanksgiving with Makeup Zombie and her clan - lots of great food, friends and conversations!  I also got to spend all day Friday with Mr Nate.  I went to derby practice on Saturday evening and about froze my fingers off - but I didn't come home with a gigantic new bruise, so that's always good.  It's been a good mini-vacation.

I have my second NerdLacquer to share with you today: Pinin' for the Fjords!  As much as I liked Data Squirrel, I liked Pinin even more.

Pinin' for the Fjords is one of 3 fun polishes from NerdLacquer's new line: Something Completely Different.  These 3 polishes are Monty Python-themed. I. love. it!

Pinin' for the Fjords is a delicate periwinkle base with loads of glitter.  Tiny specks all the way to large hex glitter.  The larger hexes don't show up as much on the nail as Data Squirrel's, but the base on Pinin' is a bit more opaque.  But don't let that get you down...there's still plenty of sparkle going on here!

All the pictures show 3 coats - I'm a chronic 3-coater.  You could definitely get away with 2, I'm sure.  The wear on Pinin' was great.  I applied this early in the week and didn't take it off til Thursday evening - at least 4 days of solid wear with very little tip wear and only one tiny area of chipping.

I got tons of compliments about this polish.  Tons.  People couldn't believe that all this sparkle came from one polish.  Granted, they weren't people in the know like us, but it was funny to hear their reaction, nonetheless.

The only drawback to these polishes is the removal.  Because of all the glitter, you have to use the foil method, but it's a small price to pay for the awesomeness that is Pinin' for the Fjords.

Pinin' for the Fjords, along with her buddies Crunchy Frog (who doesn't love *that* name?!) and It's Just a Flesh Wound (again, awesome!) are available on the NerdLacquer etsy shop page either individually ($8, each) or as a trio ($24).  If you hurry over there, Amanda has some great gift packaging available as well as a NEW holiday collection: Holoday.

A big thank you to Amanda, the creative genius behind NerdLacquer for giving me the chance to review her beautiful geek-filled polish!

*Product provided to Kitschy Suburbia for review - all opinions are 100% my own*

NerdLacquer: Data Squirrel

Good morning, Kitschies!!  I have a little something different for you today.  I have been given the opportunity to try out and review a new-to-me indy nail polish company.  Please let me introduce to you:

NerdLacquer by the one and only...

I was first introduced to NerdLacquer by Makeup Zombie and as soon as I heard about, it I loved it.  Nerd-centric nail polish collections?  Awesome.

The owner of the Etsy shop, Amanda, asked me what colors I'm interested in and lickety split...two pretty bottles of NerdLacquer showed up on my doorstep (super fast shipping!).  This is the first of the two I've gotten to try.

This little beauty is Data Squirrel.  On the NerdLacquer page, Data Squirrel, from the IRC-ing Sparklies series, is described as: "/msg nickserv identify DATA SQUIRREL tears through the dbase of glitters, picks just the right ones for maximum impact in a shimmering russet red base (turquoise, silver, red, copper, emerald) and hoards them away for the winter. Okay, screw hoarding. Let’s use them all now."  OK...for you non-techies...IRC is Internet Relay Chat (think chat rooms, version 1.0). 

The first picture was taken indoors with flash and you can see how the reddish-pink-with a touch of orange base has a bit of a shimmer to it.  I don't know whether to call it a jelly or a creme because it's more opaque than a jelly but it's more transparent than a traditional creme.  So...crelly?  LOL  This picture was taken outdoors in direct, bright sunlight.

Look at all those sparklies!!!  NerdLacquer does glitter perfectly.  I was afraid the finish of this would be a bit on the bumpy side and/or eat up top coat, but I'm happy to report (I don't like my mani to be bumpy - bug!) that neither was the case.  All that awesome glitter packed in a shimmery base and the finish is very smooth.  I used 3 coats of Data Squirrel (but I probably could've gotten away with 2) and 1 coat of ChG Fast Forward.

You get a bit of a different color depending on the light source.  The above picture was taken in the shade and the bottom picture was taken in bright, direct sunlight.  This is a work-appropriate color, IMO, with just a little bit of bling without being in-your-face.  I got a LOT of compliments on this one Wednesday!  LOVE!!

I've only worn this polish for a day (at the moment) but the wear has been great!  No chips, no tip wear (I'm lucky to get a day of good wear out of some polishes) and no lifting of any of the glitter.  Application was effortless - I didn't need cleanup!  

In addition to Data Squirrel, Amanda threw in a *new* polish for me to try.  I'll be posting about it soon, but it's from a new 3-piece collection with a projected release date of this Friday: November 18th!  And...wait for it...it's Monty Python themed!  How awesome is that?!  And as much as I liked Data Squirrel, I have a feeling I'm going to like Pinin' for the Fjords even more.

Amanda was great to deal with - every question answered, happily!  I'm so happy to hear that she's increasing her collections (as if 25 unique colors weren't enough?!) and I hope she adds more and more and more.  And did I mention shipping was fast?  Yeah, like, 2 days!  NerdLacquer is available through Etsy for $8/bottle or you can customize a trio of geekery for $21.   

*Product provided to Kitschy Suburbia for review - all opinions are 100% my own*

Born Pretty Store - A Review

Good morning, Kitschies!  It's a little less chaotic here in the clinic today - thank buddah.  I was about ready to pull my hair out by the end of the day yesterday.  What a difference a day makes, right?

Today I have my first official review for you.  A couple weeks ago I was contacted by Kevin at Born Pretty asking me if I'd be interested in reviewing some items from their store.  I roamed around their site and came across a few things I had already had my eye on (score!) and placed my order.  About 10 days later I got my package in the mail, which is pretty quick considering how far it has to travel!  Let's see what I got, shall we?

I picked the 5-piece 2-way dotting tool set.  I love that these come with different colored acrylic barrels with a fun swirl insert.  The sizes of the tips range from pretty big to itty bitty and there are more options than previous sets I've tried before.  The quality of these tools is better than others I've tried before - they have a good weight in my hand and the tips are well-anchored so you won't end up with a wobbly tip a few months down the road.  Of course I had to take these for a spin.  Wanna see?

I know...it's a pedi...so sue me.  Anyway...I started with a base of Sparkly Smurf (a Franken color I'll post on later) and then using red, orange, yellow and green acrylic paint, I dotted a rainbow on each big toe.

I've been kinda meh about my pedies lately, but I really like this, and it's mostly because of the little rainbow.  Using the dotting tools was super easy and they cleaned up nicely.  Sometimes it's hard to get all the paint off the tips of the tools, but I didn't have that issue with these. 

So...go now to Born Pretty and check out their dotting tools.  A set of 5 (seen at top) run $4.74.  Not bad, right?  Especially good since Born Pretty offers free shipping (a similar set on Amazon will run about $6 +shipping). 

The items reviewed in this post were provided to me by Born Pretty Store.  The information provided is my honest opinion and has not been influenced by the products in any way.