Lynnderella Fiddle Dee Dee Swatches and a dedication

 So today is going to be a mixed feeling post. I'm excited to show you swatches of Lynnderella's Fiddle Dee Dee.  This is a Limited Edition polish that is available in her Ebay store  I'd like to thank Lynn personally for sending me this polish because it has really helped me have a little sunshine in a dark part of the year for me. It's really stunning!

 I want to share with you guys a little about why it means so much to me before we get to the swatches.

Today marks the 4 year anniversary of my grandmother Madeline's passing.  It's still hard for me to talk about sometimes, although it's a little easier than before, so pardon me if I ramble a little bit. So many emotions hit me and I might lose focus lol, that and I'm probably a bit of an over-sharer.

 It was a rather traumatic time for me, as I was the only one of our direct family with her in her final moments. She had tripped on some stairs the night before while she was out at a Christmas party, gone to the ER, they had scheduled her to check in for surgery the next morning for a broken arm, and sent her home.

 I had to work and couldn't get off because we were short handed, so I was going to help her get ready to go to the hospital, and stop by on my way home, since my Dad and Aunt were going to be with her during the surgery. It was snowing and sleeting outside so they had left to be on their way to where we lived a little while before.

  She collapsed onto the floor when we were putting her jacket on before she was left. My previous career was in the medical field, so I switched into crisis mode. She had stopped breathing and had no pulse, so I called 911 and started CPR.  The EMTs came, but I pretty much knew they weren't going to be able to save her.

 It was pretty rough for me, because it was my job to help save people and take care of them.   I'd done CPR before and had someone not survive, but it's a different ballgame when it's your family. I felt like a failure.  That I had stopped CPR to call 911 and that had somehow caused it to not save her. Basically I blamed myself. I've accepted now it wasn't my fault, but for a long time I didn't. I had severe anxiety that I would compare to PTSD and couldn't sleep because I'd replay those moments over and over, to the point I wasn't sleeping and was having a hard time getting through the day without feeling like I couldn't breathe.
My Grandma Madeline taught me to never let anyone push me around and to always try to do what's right even when someone else thinks it's wrong. She taught me to always be strong and to try to be a lady unless the situation called for other avenues. She spoke her mind and she always tried to help others. I miss her terribly and think about her every day.

She loved her husband, her children, her grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and did everything she could to make us feel that we were important and special. She loved to dance. She made the best cheeseburgers . She loved to laugh. She loved Jack Daniels and Malibu Rum. She gave the best hugs. She was so proud of all of us no matter what. She helped give us opportunities that she didn't have herself as the oldest of 9 children. She loved red nail polish and she told me she always wanted a red rose tattoo. She was an awesome lady, who had great taste in clothes, and she was comfortable in a snazzy dressy outfit done up to the nines, or padding around her house in her front pocketed smock shirts. 

She was and always will be a driving force behind me and the way I live my life. So in her honor, today I wear Essie Scarlett O'Hara and my new LE Lynnderella Fiddle Dee Dee. I really feel like it's appropriate since this whole mani is made with polishes inspired by strong women, because that's what my Grandma was. I don't know where I'd be without her.  My story should show you that we all need hug and kiss our loved ones way more than we do, and always say what you feel, you don't know when those chances will be gone. Don't hold it in, we're not promised tomorrow, only today.  Treat others with kindness

It means a lot to me that this polish was sent to me, so thank you once again Lynn for making this day a little more tolerable and creating a beautiful polish.

My Grandma- check out her nails! Always some shade of red or pale pink!

  Fiddle Dee Dee  

multi-colored glitter polish with large squares, bars, butterflies, bars, diamonds, hexes, hearts, and stars.  There are metallic and holographic glitters. It's really beautiful if you can't tell by this bottle shot.

One coat of Fiddle Dee Dee and a little dabbing for glitter placement. Two coats of Seche Vite were used. I got a little crazy with the brush and ended up dragging some of the Essie on top of my pretty butterfly glitter :( 

I was just going to leave it as an accent nail but I had to have prettiness on ALL THE THINGS! Amazing right?!?

If you'd like to try and snag one of these lovelies please check out Lynn's Ebay store located here.

Happy Holidays

Different Dimension Santa Baby Collection and Bonus shade

With Christmas right around the corner, you know there's sure to be holiday collections rolling out from our wonderful Indie girls. I have for you today a beautiful collection from Missi at Different Dimension! A collection of 8 shades based on the cute holiday song "Santa Baby" and a bonus holiday shade!

"Think of all the fellas I haven't kissed." 

A really pretty 2 coat glitter with blue/teal, and purple holographic glitters. This is two coats over Beauty Secrets base coat and one coat Seche Vite. Applied very well, not clumpy or thick at all like I'd expected with how tiny some of the glitters are.

"Santa Baby"

One coat was used over Borghese Pistacchio. A pretty mix of Red, White, and pastel pink hexes, red and white microglitters and tiny holo glitters 

Out of focus shot to show the sparklies!!! So pretty!

"I've been an angel all year".  

A pale ice blue base with white, silver and light blue holographic microglitters,  This is two thin coats over FingerPaints Paper Mâchè and Seche Vite topcoat.

"I've been an awful good girl"

Easily one of my favorites out of this collection. Pale pinky white base, with a pink shimmer and small holo pink hex glitters, light purple holo glitter, and holo microglitters in the same light purple and pink color scheme.

"Hurry down the chimney tonight"

Clear base with metallic red and pearly white shreds with matching red and white bar glitters. This is one coat and a little dabbing for shred placement over FingerPaints Black Expressionism. I'm not generally a fan of shred glitter, but I do like this polish for it's versatility. You could use this one for Christmas manis, Valentine's Day or Independence day also.  I experienced no curling of the glitters , and other than me being OCD about some of the shred's locations, it applied beautifully!

"Out of space convertible"

Black jelly base with tiny blue, pink and purple holo glitters. To the untrained eye, could pass as a Butter London Black Knight Dupe. Again, no clumps with application even though it's chock full of     these little beauties. Two different shots one shaded, and one full on out of focus sun to showcase the holo effect.  This is a buildable jelly opaque at 3 coats, but for this photo is only one over FP Black Expressionism. 

**Sparkle Shot!!!!**

"Sign your 'x' on the line"

Clear base with large silver and smaller gold shreds. This is another pretty versatile polish. Could be used over just about anything to liven it up with some classy bling. One coat and some dabbing of the bigger silver shreds over Wet N Wild Saved By the Blue.

" I'll wait up for you dear"

Clear base with metallic green and red glitters. Very Christmas-y, applied like a dream. One coat over Ulta Salon Formula High Rollr and then matted. I love the simplicity of this one. I will be wearing this combo to Holiday functions for sure!

And now for the bonus shade!!

"Christmahanakwanzika"

Named for  three major winter holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza. Christmahanakwanzika is a glitter bomb, with green, yellow-gold, red, black, and blue hex glitters with red and green microglitters. A LOT going on in this polish! I chose to just wear it on it's own over Beauty Secrets basecoat. This is two coats and one coat of Seche Vite. 

This collection gets an A++ from me. I love how all the polishes really look like considerable thought was put into the glitters used in each one. The quality of each polish is outstanding, and I had no application issues other than just placing a few of the shredded glitters. Each shade retails for $8.50 or you can pick up the entire Santa Baby Collection for $60.00 at Different Dimension's Etsy shop here, . The shop also offers cuticle balms and lotion bars to help keep your lovelies lookin' lovely. Make sure to check out the DD Facebook Page to get the latest updates on sales and new collections!

This collection was sent to me in return for an honest review.

Perception Nail Lacquer- Once Upon a Time Collection!

K so I have some awesome polishes to review for you guys! I purchased these from Amy over at Perception Nail Lacquer, she's such an awesome person. She makes pretty polishes, for a great price, and has super fast shipping. Seriously there is none of this 10+ day waiting stuff from her shop!  

I bought the whole Once Upon a Time Collection, that's inspired by the ABC show's characters (which I luuuurve), that coincidentally starts back up on September 30th! I'm so excited, I hope they make more episodes this season!

 On to the polish! First off, I love her bottles and her labels. The labels are an oil-resistant label, which I love since I'm always scared of messing the labels up on my indies with my hands, and have resorted to taping over some of them, which I hate doing, since I can never get the tape on there "just right". I love the bottles too, they remind me of Cult Nails' bottles a lot. The brushes on them were all fabulous! 

 L-R Perception Nail Lacquer Prince charming, Grumpy, Evil Queen, Snow White, Emma Swan, Rumplestiltskin.

The first one I swatched was Prince Charming. It's an awesome blue with silver holographic glitter, when I saw it, all I could think of was how it matched David/Charming's eyes. It has a teal flash to it, that I just couldn't quite get on camera.  This is 3 coats over basecoat.

Prince Charming Full Sun

Prince Charming- Indirect Sun

 Next up is Emma Swan. She's easily my favorite character on the show, her no-BS attitude makes me love her. This polish is a red and chameleon microglitter. Gorgeous.I didn't use a base color under mine because I wanted to show the real deal.  I have some VNL but I really didn't honestly even mind since this polish is so pretty! This is 3 coats over basecoat.

 Now remember when I said Chameleon glitter? Here's the flash: kind of a greenish-gold. Kinda looks like Emma's fiery personality to me! :)

 On to Rumplestiltskin. Now this polish, I can't even tell you how much I liked it. I'm not a big fan of Jellies, just because for me, some of them are sooooo hard to work with. You fight with streakiness, dry time, all that good stuff, so I normally pass on them. This one though, I just can't say enough good things about. It's a brown tinted jelly, that borders on black, with gold holo glitter. Application was super easy, minimal streakiness and I'd say you could go opaque in 4 coats or less if used with a base color. Dry time was great. This is 4 coats over basecoat. The holo-y goodness in full-on sun was too much for my camera.

Perception Nail Lacquer-Rumplestiltskin Indirect Sun

 Grumpy- a clear base with white microglitter and black squares. This is a perfect top coat to refresh a mani or just to give it a little something-something yanno? I used one coat over Sinful Colors Rain Storm, just to try and show case the white shimmery glitters. Loved it. 

 Evil Queen- a light grey-tinted jelly base, with black diamond glitters and hearts. The smoky base will need to be used over a color that you don't mind it slightly changing, but it's beautiful. I fished a little for the hearts, but no biggie. This is one coat and some dabbing of the diamonds and hearts over Sally Hansen Compete Salon Manicure in Eel Skin.

 I saved the best for last. Snow White. now at first glance this polish doesn't look like much. A basic glittery topcoat right?  Prepare to be astonished. It's a iridescent flakie with a clear base, I saw pink, blue, green, and purple flashes, IN THE SHADE. Loved it, I wish I would have taken a pic in the sun. But when you see how it looks in the shade, you can imagine that it looks sooo much better in the sun. This is one coat of Snow White over Essie Licorice.

 My overall opinion of this collection is WOW. Perception's base formula is amazing. it's not clumpy, chunky, a PITA to work with, nothing. Dry time was great on all of these polishes, and with the exception of fishing for a few of the hearts in Evil Queen, I'm really impressed. If you haven't had the chance to check her out, you're missing out. So go do it already!!

Perception Nail Lacquer is available on Amy's Page here and you can also contact her on Facebook here. Upon the writing of this post, she is also taking custom glitter orders as well.  I can't wait to see more of what she has to offer!

BL Slapper and Lush Lacquer Dreamsicle Swatches

 Hey guys! Today I have for you Butter London Slapper and Lush Lacquer's Dreamsicle! These swatches were picked by Pony Lauricella over on my FB page after I posted this haul/swap photo below. It was a jumbled up mix of random polishes that I'd acquired during the last month or so

 So the deal was the first person who could correctly identify a polish brand and color could pick my next swatches! Sometimes I have SUCH a hard time figuring out which polish to try next, I get overwhelmed with all of the pretties staring back at me...I'm sure I'm not the only one! How do you guys pick your manis? Please leave me a comment below letting me know your methods!  

 Pony chose BL Slapper and LL Dreamsicle, and let me say first off, I am a HUGE butter London fangirl. Love the names, colors, and the formula on every one I have is divine. Slapper is Brit-speak for our American word "slut"...like I said love the names, they make me giggle!

I will say this outright, these two polishes gave me some much trouble to accurately capture the gorgeousness of them. I literally took 30 or so pics inside and out, and these are the best. I've just gotten a new camera so I'm slowly but surely trying to figure out all the new "bells and whistles".

 Butter London Slapper is advertised as a very bright and bold true teal. I have no other color like this is my collection. It is such a bright teal that I'd say it *almost* borders on being neon. Slapper is part of butter London's Spring/Summer 2012 collection.

  These pictures do no justice to this color. It's soooo much more of a brighter teal than my camera could capture. Formula was great and both photos are two coats. I had no staining after removal which is very uncommon for a teal polish, at least IME.

Next is Lush Lacquers Dreamsicle. I got this lovely from a great girl on FB who was doing a sale. Lush Lacquers are available on etsy here. If you're wanting to try some indie brands without the late night/early morning restocks and flash sales, these are the way to go. Their colors are always in stock, I have heard that shipping can be kind of slow though. They are reasonably priced too, at $8.75 for a full-size bottle. They also offer several different options for package deal of mini-sized bottles as well.

Dreamsicle is a baby blue based polish with silver and blue holographic glitter, tiny holographic bar glitters, and to my eye a touch of subtle pink shimmer. Really beautiful IMO. The picture above is 2 coats just over base coat.

This is one coat over 2 coats of Essie Lapiz of Luxury. I could not take a full on sun photo of this polish because of all the holo goodness in the glitters. They kept throwing sparkly lines all over my photos lol. Super shiny little rainbows everywhere!

My little guy and I went to eat dinner after taking these photos and our waitress noticed my nails right away! So definitely an attention grabber! So happy I bought them!

Butter London retails for $14 at numerous places(Ulta, Nordstrom and their own website here, I'm sure there are other places as well), and Lush Lacquer for $8.75 on etsy through the link above.

Can you guys guess any of the others in my top photo? Any you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments below!  I'm going to be working on the new Fingerpaints Fall Collection later, and hopefully have them up tomorrow!

Hello Nail World! Welcome to my blog!

So I had been toying with the idea of making a nail blog for a veryyy long time finally decided to take the plunge. So today I have for you not only my first ever blog post but also my first Indie polish purchase! I know, I know, I'm way behind! 


I'm so excited to show you swatches of the Dollish Polish Super Mario Bros. Collection as well as The Many Shades of Mr. Grey.


I was lucky enough to snag these babies a few weeks ago from Dolly's Big Cartel store located here. Her polishes are also available for purchase on Llarowe.  The Mario Collection is scheduled to be offered on Wed. August 1st, 2012 at  1 p.m. and 7 p.m MST.  


Being a Nintendo nerd from wayyy back and a book fanatic, I HAD to have these! So after a long wait, many page refreshes, a potential power outage, and basically mainlining Mtn. Dew in order to stay awake I managed to purchase a full size Mario set, as well as a full size Mr. Grey!  What an interesting experience to pop my proverbial "indie cherry"!


On to the pretties! The Super Mario Bros Collection is a set of 8 polishes based on the popular Nintendo Game characters.  While The Many Shades of Mr. Grey is inspired by the book "50 Shades of Grey" and it's main character.


Please disregard the haggard shape of my cuticles through the process of these swatches...as repeated acetone baths are not my friends. 


Bottle Shots of The Super Mario Bros Collection- courtesy of Dolly's Big Cartel Shop page linked above

First I have for you It's A Me Mario! This polish is a clear base with tiny red and blue hex glitter ,slightly larger blue and red hexes, and silver holographic star glitter.  Very pretty in the bottle as well as on the nail. You WILL dig for the stars and they will most likely require something like an orange stick or other tool to press them flat on the nail.  Gorgeous over white!  This is one coat and some dabbing over FP Papier Mache. 

Next up- A Peachy Princess! This is the one I was most excited about! Princess Peach is by far my favorite Mario game character. This polish has different shades and shapes of  holographic, matte, and metallic pink glitters in a pink tinted base. A beautiful polish in the bottle, I'm not sure if it was just my  bottle but I had a horrific time trying to apply. 


Now from what I've read about the whole indie polish scene, sometimes application is "challenging". But those pink square glitters are definitely not easy to get out by any means and I shook mine pretty constantly to keep them from sinking almost immediately.  It really is pretty after you get the glitter placed though. This is one coat and dabbing over Essie Play Date.

Dino-Mite Yoshi- Who doesn't love Yoshi?!?! Inspired by the cute little dinosaur that's down to help Mario and Luigi on their quests. This one after the whole swatching process was easily my favorite application-wise. The matte glitters in pastel green, bright green, red, orange & white in a clear base applied beautifully. This is one coat over Sinful Colors Innocent

Go Luigi!- Various sizes of blue and green glitter and holographic stars. Basically a blue/green variation of It's A Me Mario! Same problem as noted above with IAMM. I fished forever to get the stars out and had to press them down after getting them on the nail. I do love how it looks, so in the end it's worth it. This is one coat and some dabbing over Zoya Pippa.

1-up- Also another one I was looking forward to. I did 1-up mushroom nail art a while back and got rave reviews. I love Kelly Green so this polish was definitely for me. Kelly Green matte glitters, white squares, hexes, and bars in a clear base are listed on the Dollish Page as being in this polish but my bottle had no squares to be found. While the end result looks fabulous, I yet again struggled to get the bigger hex accents out of the polish those hexes and bars did not want to come out even with profuse shaking during the course of a 4-finger swatching. 1 Coat and dabbing over WnW On a Trip. Did I mention that I loved the green? 

 This is the Koopa King- a clear based Golden Yellow matte glitter, accented with Red & Green and that has black bar glitter, as well as holographic diamonds inspired by that menace Bowser who is always causing the Mario Bros trouble. I didn't have many problems with sinking with this one but  just like Bowser, those diamonds were a PITA to get out LOL. This is one coat and dabbing over Essie Orange It's Obvious. I'm LOVING the black bars, not one issue with curling or not laying flat!

Wicked Wario-Clear-based ultra fine purple matte glitter accented with Yellow, Green, & White glitters. This was another fisher, Wario was not giving up the goodies easily!! I had to shake after every finger, dig for the white squares, mine started sinking as soon as I stopped, and still barely came up out of the bottle, even with swirling . Very veryyy pretty on the nail, but definitely not something I was able to slap on with a quickness. I'm a purple fanatic so I'll still use Wario, just when I have more time not swatching a whole collection obviously. This is one coat and some dabbing over Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac. 

Toad-ally Awesome A clear base with Multi-size matte white glitters accented by Blue, Yellow and Red inspired by the cute little Toadstool helper of the Mario Bros. The small whites came out with no problem, but I had to dig around a little bit for the cute blue squares, red and white hexes, and those small gold squares, I gave up on trying to get them out lol.  What I found worked best was swirling my brush around and kinda picking the glitter of the wand part of the brush with my orange stick and placing them. Very cute on the nail, could be used on numerous colors. 1 coat and some dabbing over Rimmel Black Satin.

Last but not least, we have The Many Shades of Mr. Grey- a beautiful glitter that once I saw a bottle shot, I was in love. This polish is packed with Grey-hued hex glitters from micro-sized to large size in a clear base. Edgy and gorgeous just like Mr. Grey himself :). This applied beautifully with minimal effort, and I'd daresay you could get opacity or fairly near opaque with 3-4 coats, if you wanted to go that route. This is one coat over Orly Decades of Dysfunction. Going to be a date-night mani for sure hehe!

With the exception of Mr. Grey, Dino-mite Yoshi, and the minimal issues with the Koopa King, if you are going to plan a full mani with the any of the other glitters, I'd suggest setting aside a fair bit of time and make sure to have an orange stick, skewer, tweezers or other tools on hand to help with glitter placement. Drying time was average, and I really didn't notice any residual grittiness but I'd recommend 2 coats of TC for Luigi and Mario, just to make sure your stars stay down.


Overall, I'm happy with my purchase from a collector's standpoint, but not so much from a person who's just hopped on the indie wagon. I was a little disappointed in how many application issues I had with the some of these polishes, and I am by no means a NP n00b.  Honestly, some of the problems were probably just me being in a rush, which is the story of my life!  I'm still SUPER excited to see what Dolly and the other indie gals have to offer and will hopefully be featuring more of them on this blog in the future! I will definitely be purchasing from her again!


A great learning experience for an "indie newbie". These polishes will make a great conversation piece, and hold a special place for my nerdy 80's-90's kid self, but I highly doubt I'll use them on a consistent basis just based on how much time it took to get them to look the way I wanted them to. Totally worth the purchase though! It made me feel good to support someone I have watched on YouTube for quite some time and used many of her nail art ideas!




The Super Mario Bros. Collection full size 8-polish set retails for $70 plus shipping on the Dollish Polish BigCartel Site and Mr. Grey is priced at $8.75. No word on pricing of the full-set on llarowe or at least none that I have heard.






All products mentioned above were purchased myself.