Mani of the Day - Julep Elaine

Julep Elaine is a beautiful purple texture (although it’s never been listed as a Stardust polish). This is two easy coats. I really wish they still made this one, it’s fabulous!

Mani of the Day - Orly Stronger than Ever (Breathable Treatment + Color)

Hello everyone! Today I have another Mani of the Day, today I have the only polish I picked up from Orly’s Breathable line – Stronger than Ever. Now the Breathable polishes are filled with all kind of healthy goodies and free of all sorts of nasty stuff, and can be worn without top or base coat, but honestly, I don’t particularly care about any of that stuff because I really don’t wear any particular color long enough to warrant caring about how all the benefits of the polish, so I just picked out Stronger than Ever for the color. Everything in the Breathable line besides Stronger than Ever is a crème, and nothing in it stood out as being something I needed. But Stronger than Ever really caught my eye. I really love red polishes with gold glitter, and in the bottle, it was really stunning. However, the formula was kind of weird. It was actually kind of sheer and watery. This is three coats. And when it dried, it really felt like a lot of that awesome glitter went completely flat. In some lights it’s just as stunning as the bottle but most of the time it felt very much like a flat foil. I’m not very impressed, although it’s not the worst polish I’ve ever tried. I’m going to keep this one around for comparison purposes, but I don’t think I’ll ever wear it again. And unless they include a few more interesting colors in the Breathable line, I don’t think I’ll pick anything else up from it.

Mani of the Day - Julep Stephanie (Classic with a Twist)

Good evening everyone! Today I have another mani – Julep’s Stephanie, from last August's Endless Summer collection. I love this so much! Stephanie is a summery strawberry red with holographic glitter. Now, a lot of the holo glitter takes a red tone because it’s underneath some of the base color, but even if it’s not the strongest holo in the world it’s still absolutely awesome! The holo glitter is actually these tiny irregularly shaped shards, but they lie completely flat. Plus Stephanie is completely opaque in two easy coats. Go check this one out!

First Post: Mani of the Day - Julep Gemini over Deborah Lippmann Defying Gravity!

Hello and welcome to Lady of the Lacquer! I'm Gina, your lovely guide through the world of nail polish. For my first Mani of the Day, I present to you Deborah Lippmann's Defying Gravity from the Wicked Mini Trio topped with Julep's Gemini from their 2016 Zodiac Collection. Now, I'm going to let you in on a little secret - I don't really care, for the most part, for green nail polish. I know, only my first blog post and I have to turn in my nail polish lover card. Not to say I hate all green nail polish, but it's one of the colors I admittedly wear the least. While everyone else always flocks to get the new green or blue in any collection, I sneakily grab the reds and pinks and head to the checkout line as incognito as possible. Plus there's a lot of shades of green I just don't wear on my fingers particularly olive green (I'm really not looking forward to reviewing the Zoya Wanderlust collection, because I'm going to like Mandy and Journey and Sonja and the pink crèmes and hate Arbor and Scout. I think Scout kind of looks like cat vomit. There, I said it.)

The greens I tend to like tend to be emerald (like Lippmann Laughing to the Bank), minty (like China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint), sea foam (like Julep Alyssa or Orly Vintage), or teal (like Zoya Cecelia). The greens I like that don't fit into any of those categories I could count on my fingers. But these two are absolutely wonderful.

Deborah Lippmann Defying Gravity is a jade-green (more along the lines of OPI's Jade is the New Black as opposed to Chanel Jade) crème with the formula we all know and love from Lippmann, two flawless coats. Now, Defying Gravity was from the time before the Gel Lab Pro formula, which almost paints itself, back then Lippmanns weren't as guaranteed to have the best formulas ever. But Defying Gravity is amazing anyway. And, as much as I like Zoya's new Elphie Pixiedust polish, Defying Gravity is still the best Elphaba themed polish in my book. Defying Gravity was formulated to match the green Elphaba makeup they use on Broadway, and I love that so much. I'm going to do swatches of this solo at some point.

Julep Gemini is described as a "chartreuse" by Julep, but I must say it's a little darker than what I think of usually as chartreuse. I thought chartreuse, by its very definition, was lighter and brighter than this. I'd probably call it jade like Defying Gravity. I was expecting it to be far sheerer than it was, but I'd say you could get this opaque in two to three coats. I just wanted to preserve my bottle. It's so beautiful. That said, I was expecting this to be a stronger duochrome, more of a golden green to jade green, but it's mostly the same color throughout the nail. Of the three Zodiac polishes I've worn so far (Gemini, Cancer, and Leo), this is surprisingly my favorite. Cancer was unfortunately incredibly bubbly on me (but I must say I was incredibly surprised with its opacity. I was expecting it to be the sheerest of the lot, but I wore it over a red crème and I couldn't see any of it under one coat of Cancer) and Leo, while rather nice, wasn't quite as enchanting as Gemini.

 This is one coat of Gemini over two coats of Defying Gravity. It looks a little olive-y here (I'm having some trouble with the color temperature on my camera), but it was much cooler toned in real life.

The Wicked trio came out almost four years ago, so you won't be able to find it in any stores but eBay might have some. Defying Gravity also came with pink shimmer Popular and green glitter One Short Day (the later of which I no longer have, thanks to a mishap.)

Gemini and the rest of Julep's two Zodiac sets are available here.