Mermaid Shells?

It's officially my birthday and as I publish this post I am still one follower away from my birthday wish :( Hopefully that will change by the end of the day.

I finally got to use Deborah Lippmann's Mermaids Dream and I couldn't have been happier. This polish was a dream to use and was exactly what I had imagined and wanted.

I love the colors and textures of it and while Urban Outfitter's Sea Dust is an almost perfect dupe, it's just not perfect enough.

Look at this lovely polish!

 I used two coats in all these photos.

After a day, I got inspired to do some nail art and wanted to do a (sorta) half moon manicure that looked like a mermaid's shell bra.

I used A-England Lady of the Lake for the half moon, Color Club Lavendarling for the stripes, OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI for the dots, and LA Splash Golden Seahorse for additional stripes.

It didn't end up perfect, but I think the concept is solid so I will attempt it again at a later date.

After I finished my shells, I noticed that Golden Seahorse was looking eerily similar to Mermaid's Dream - it doesn't show up all in these photos though - so I decided to compare it to the original and Sea Dust.

I layered Golden Seahorse over Zoya Bevin (thumb), Zoya Wednesday (index) and Zoya Zuza (pinky). Mermaid's Dream is on my middle finger and Sea Dust is on my ring.

 Golden Seahorse is lovely, but is not even close to being a dupe. It looks most similar layered over Zuza, but it missing the aqua glitter that make Mermaid's Dream unique.

This was my first time comparing Mermaid's Dream and Sea Dust side by side and I think Mermaid's Dream is definitely worth the money. MD only took two coats to reach desired opacity while SD took three thick coats. SD appears a bit darker and looks smoother; part of what I liked about MD was it's textured look, so I definitely prefer the original.


Thanks for looking! Now I just have to figure out what my birthday manicure should be.

Lynderella Chocolotta Love

For whatever reason, Chocolotta Love was one of my biggest lemming. My friends called it the poop polish, but I just saw shiny prettiness!

Finally, I saw it on a blog sale for a price that I considered sort of reasonable and finally it became mine!

I decided to layer it over two different base colors, so I ended up with Julep Felicity on my left hand and Deborah Lippmann Sugar Daddy on my right.

Julep Felicity was also part of my August Julep box and thankfully behaved a lot better than its companion, Alfre. There are still some brush strokes, but they weren't nearly as prominent and two coats was perfect. My only complaint is that it is just an awful color with my skin tone, these pictures are actually making it look better on me than it really does. This polish is going to be awesome for stamping though.

I took advantage of the Nordstrom's sale and bought three Deborah Lippmann polishes: Sugar Daddy, Mermaid's Dream and Flash Dance. I decided Sugar Daddy would be an interesting and pretty base for Chocolotta Love and now I am in love with Deborah Lippmann polishes...sigh :( Sugar Daddy has a perfect formula and the color is just gorgeous, I hope you don't mind the the million and one pictures of it.

This is 2 coats

Gods! I love this polish!!! I love the duochrome effect here, I just wish I could have taken better pictures for you guys. 

Anyways, Sugar Daddy is not meant to be the main event so here is Chocolotta Love.

Two coats over Felicity:

Two coats over Sugar Daddy:

I should have layered this over brown and embraced the poop with fruit loops stuck in it appearance, but instead I chose some lackluster combos.  I'll have to try it over brown before I make a  final decision, but so far I am disappointed. Color combos are personal preferences, but Chocolotta Love had some formula issues; It was thick and hard to get consistent coats of glitter.

Here's one more photo for you and Thanks for looking!