Lacquer Legion: Trekker Galaxy

When the Lacquer Legion declared Fandom as July's prompt, I may have squealed out loud. As you may have read on the Story of This Blog, my first serious nail art undertaking was Star Trek fan art. At the time I wasn't taking photos of my nails, but it was fairly simple-red nails with one yellow and one blue accent nail featuring the Starfleet insignia. For this month's Lacquer Legion mani, I decided to recreate that vibe using one of my very favorite techniques: galaxy nails.

Galaxy nails never get old for me, and are another technique that I tried very early in my nail art adventures. They come in endless variations, always look spectacular, and are ridiculously easy. I'm also fascinated by space (I'm obsessed with the "The Planets" manis that Nichole at Pretty Girl Science has been posting-but I'm obsessed with PGS anyway), so I end up staring at them all day. For this set, I went outside of my norm and used a deep purple, Julep Padma, instead of black as my base. Then I went crazy with colors, infusing a little turquoise this time with my usual array of white, pinks, yellow, and barrage of multi-sized glitter "stars." I used bits of sponge held precariously with tweezers, but a friend recently sent me a tutorial that used an eyeshadow sponge and looked even easier, so I think I may pick up some cheap ones to try that next time. Then I used a striper to shape out my Starfleet insignia in Sally Hansen Color Foil Sterling Silver and outlined in black (which, incidentally, is why the purple background instead of my usual black-to ensure my outline would stand out). Unfortunately, the gloomy Indiana weather made it really difficult to get a decent shot of the colors in this mani, so I was stuck with one that had a big, ugly shadow across the bottom as my best photo of the color scheme. Figures.

While I was tempted to do something more dramatic, like my Wonder Woman themed ComicCon nails, for this awesome prompt, a recreation that pays homage to my nerdy nail art roots just felt right. Plus...galaxy nails!

Lacquer Legion: Glam Glitter Flames

This month's Lacquer Legion prompt is Glam, which I was super excited about! After running through a dozen ideas in my mind, I decided to keep it simple: muted tones with a little sparkle, using one of my most glamorous polishes.

As tempted as I was to glitterbomb the heck out of this prompt, I've always found glamour in simplicity, a la Kaley Cuoco, J Lo, and Isla Fisher's sparkly nude gowns. These flames are Julep Love, and the base is Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro in Bare Naked, my favorite nude. Love is a special edition polish with a glamorous gold top, lending it the perfect street cred for a Glam mani.

Wanna see some more pictures? Ok!

I admittedly went a touch crazy with the photos, but capturing this mani was a little difficult because of the monochrome color scheme-plus I tried my hand at outdoor photography this time.

Love was a free gift with the February Maven box, and since then has not been available to purchase. As of right now, though, you can pick it up in one of their Mother's Day gift sets. Will you be participating in Lacquer Legion this month? Even though I got impatient and leaked mine early, you still have time to create nail glam and post it to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with hashtag #LLGlam on April 28th. Tag me at @SecretNailBlog on Twitter so I can see your art!

Lacquer Legion: Lucky Star-Dust

I had so much trouble coming up with this month's Lacquer Legion design! The prompt was "Lucky," and while I feel quite fortunate in general, translating that to nails in a way that wasn't cliche kept evading me. My original design idea was "Lucky Star," but when my hand painted stars didn't excite me, I decided to take a more interpretive view of the prompt with a design I've dubbed "Lucky Star-Dust," using some amazing colors that I've lucked into.

The base color on this is A England Sleeping Palace, a stunning plum with a soft scattered holo sheen that is reeeaallly difficult to photograph, but I promise, it was worth the wait. If you happen to follow me on Twitter, you may know that finding this color has been somewhat of an odyssey for me. I fell in love with swatches of it, but being a US lover of the brand, I have limited access to A England polishes. There are two distributors that I know of that ship within the US, Beautometry and Llarowe, and both of them have been out of Sleeping Palace for weeks. Then, by sheer luck, I popped over to the Llarowe page, and it was in stock, just in time to arrive for this prompt! Now, I am not a woman of great means, but I had just unexpectedly come into a small amount of "fun money," meaning that not only was Sleeping Palace in stock, but I was in the unique position to be able to spend $10 on a bottle of nail polish guilt free. If that's not lucky, I don't know what is!






The polishes I used for my accent nail have lucky origins as well. I started out with a layer of Glitter Gal Turbulence, my linear holo staple. This is another hard-to-find-in-the-States polish that I was lucky enough to win in the Adventures in Polishland New Year's Eve Manicure Contest (oddly enough, the other polish I won was Dragon, the polish that hooked me on A England). This created a sheer layer of color underneath to make my glitter accent look more solid. Once it had dried, I slathered on two layers of Julep Joelle.




I've said before that Joelle is possibly my favorite polish, and it's the only polish in memory that I've been in real danger of running out of. Joelle is beautiful, and I almost didn't own it. Joelle was part of one of my first Julep Maven boxes. That month I ordered outside of my style profile because I wanted Misti, a stormy blue-grey, and Joelle was just a tagalong. I like Misti, it's nice, but Joelle became my new BFF the second I put it on. It's a holo glitter in a smoky transparent base- it's perfection in a bottle, and I never would have noticed it on my own. Sheer luck.

Once Joelle had (mostly) dried, I went to work on my gradient. I did a makeup sponge gradient with Sleeping Palace and Turbulence. Turbulence is almost like a superfine version of Joelle, and it's so sheer that it made the perfect near-invisible median between my glittery tips and my sparkly plum gradient. Sleeping Palace applies beautifully, but is an unusual formula in that it paints on completely opaque, almost in one coat (I'm wearing two coats in these photos), but in a gradient, it's very sheer and buildable. This let Joelle shine out from underneath and created the exact look I was craving: a purple mist swirling up on a glowing field of glittery stardust. My Lucky backup design became a look I can't stop staring at.

Want to get in on the Lacquer Legion fun? Post your Lucky manicure to social media using the hashtag #LLLucky today, and be sure to check out all of the other inspired looks!