Polished to the Nines: Polish Pickup

WHO/WHAT:
(click for direct links)

1850 Artisan Polish | Ballerina
Cuticula | Confection Nail Fortifier
Cuticula | Seamless Ridge Filler
Cuticula | Cloud Cover Matte Top Coat
Girly Bits | Not Waterlilies
Lilypad Lacquer | Rainbow Wings
Polished For Days | Painted in Mauve
Supermoon Lacquer | The Great Wave

When:
April1 5, 2019, at 11am EST
Ends - April 8, 2019

WHERE:

https://the-pickups.com/

INSPIRATION:

The theme for April is Famous Works Of Art.
I have listed each with the swatches down below.

PRICE/CAP/LIMIT:
1850 Artisan Polish | Ballerina | $12.50 | 100 bottles available
Cuticula | Confection Nail Fortifier | $8.50 | No Cap
Cuticula | Seamless Ridge Filler | $7.50 | No Cap
Cuticula | Cloud Cover Matte Top Coat | $7.50 | No Cap
Girly Bits | Not Waterlilies | $13.00 | 375 bottles available
Lilypad Lacquer | Rainbow Wings | $15.50 | 180 bottles available
Polished For Days | Painted in Mauve | $12.50 | 220 bottles available
Supermoon Lacquer | The Great Wave | $12.50 | 90 bottles available

1850 Artisan Polish | Ballerina

Ballerina is described as a ballet pink that glows with copper and aurora shimmers. It is filled with iridescent red to green flakes and delicate gold microflakes.

Inspiration: The ballet paintings of Edgar Degas

Ballerina has a wonderful formula! It goes on smoothly and evenly. It also removes easily.

My swatches show three coats plus a glossy top coat.

Cuticula

Cuticula is bringing us three of her products for this April's Polish Pickup! I am going to begin with the Seamless Ridge Filler Base Coat.

Seamless is a ridge filling base coat. What that means is if your nails have ridgelines or unevenness to them, this base coat will smooth it out and give you a perfectly smooth canvas to work it.

I can personally not sing enough praises for Seamless. Last month I got a pretty mean looking crack in my nails trying to open a box from Amazon. I promptly went to Sally's and got a repair kit and patched my nail.

Well, I did a terrible job. It was bumpy and not pretty looking. Buuut I used Seamless for everything I swatched for several weeks, and it saved my ass. You could barely tell I had any kind of patch on my nail, in fact, I'm not even sure anyone but me could tell anything was amiss.

In short, if your nails aren't as smooth as you'd like for any reason, this is the base coat for you. It fills in and smooths the nail bed out and leaves behind a gorgeous milky white matte-ish finish. You can barely tell you're wearing a base coat. It looks awesome on its own.

Seamless this month is offered as unscented. It's fast drying and free of formaldehyde, toluene, DBP, formaldehyde resin, and camphor.

Confection | Apple Berry Scented

Apple Berry scent is described as fresh crisp green apples harmoniously blended with sweet strawberry, blackberry, raspberry and hints of blueberries.

Apple Berry smells amazing! I cannot get enough of this scent, it's the perfect blend, the apple scent is what grabs my nose first, then the berry blend follows for some added sweetness.

Confection is now nut oil free!

Confection Nail Fortifier is a creme that is used to nurture your nails. It's made to be applied to your nails/cuticles (or your entire hand, which is how I use it mostly, a little goes a long way). You apply it to the skin/nail bed and rub it in. It will leave you with healthy, nourished and moisturized nails. It's also non-greasy which my keyboard really appreciates ;)

Nail Fortifier will come in a 1 oz size jar with sealer inside the lid.

You can use this product as many times as you'd like throughout the day.

This scent inspired me to try my hand at reverse stamping so I figure I can annoy you guys with a few more pictures of the nail art.

Cuticula | Cloud Cover Matte Top Coat

The final product Cuticula is going to offer is her Cloud Cover Matte Top Coat.

Cloud Cover is fast drying and 5 Free (free of formaldehyde, toluene, DBP, formaldehyde resin, & camphor).

It dries to a beautiful, spot free, chalkboard-like finish.

This matte top coat is what I always dreamed of when I first became aware Matte Top Coats were a thing. I went through so many and they each had things I didn't like. White spots, not being matte enough, slow drying, etc. Then I tried Cloud Cover and it had none of those issues! I was in love!

If you're looking for the perfect matte top coat, this is it right here.

I'll let the pictures speak for me.

Girly Bits | Not Waterlilies

Not Waterlilies is described as an intentionally sheer cyan blue base with amazing copper-red to green color shifting shimmer, and blue to aqua color shifting iridescent flakes.

Inspiration: "While skimming works of art for inspiration, I came upon a wonderful lithograph by Sunol Alvar, and I immediately thought of this polish that I have had sitting in my arsenal of prototypes for a while. I added some blue colour shifting flakes to my original prototype and Voila! This is 'Not Waterlilies' =)"

Not Waterlilies has an excellent formula. It was so easy to work with. It went on smoothly and evenly. It also removes easily.

My swatches show three coats plus a glossy top coat.

Lilypad Lacquer | Rainbow Wings

Rainbow Wings is described as having a teal green, blue base with multicolored, multichrome flakes and iridescent chameleon flakes.

Inspiration: Laura Zollar

Rainbow Wings has a wonderful formula. It applied smoothly and evenly. It did not stain, and removal was easy.

My swatches show two coats and NO top coat.

Polished for Days | Painted in Mauve

Painted in Mauve is described as a mauve linear holographic polish with a pink to gold to green microflake shimmer and micro holographic flakes for some extra sparkle.

Inspiration: Lady in Mauve by Lyonel Feininger

Painted in Mauve has a wonderful formula. It's sooo holographic! It applied smoothly and evenly. I had no application issues. Removal was also easy.

My swatches show two coats plus a glossy top coat.

Supermoon Lacquer | The Great Wave

The Great Wave is described as a medium blue holographic polish that is filled with blue-to-red and cyan-to-purple multichrome pigment, teal-to-red and turquoise-to-violet color shifting shimmer, blue, gold, and turquoise shimmer, blue, gold, and white sparks, and holographic and metallic blue, gold, and silver microglitter.

Inspiration: 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist, Katsushika Hokusai

The Great Wave has a wonderful formula. It went on smoothly and easily. It was almost opaque in one coat. I had no staining. Removal was easy as well.