Find Me At My New Blog!

As some of you may know from my previous blog post, I've created a new blog and website! My new website is a place for me to share my love of blogging while also being a home to my design portfolio and services. My new blog will still have posts about beauty and lifestyle, but it'll also have posts about graphic design, social media, branding, and other topics I'm interested in! It's been so much fun here at Lipstick & Lacquer for the past few years, but I'm so excited about this new endeavor and I hope you'll join me over on my new site!

You can check out my new blog and website at www.laurenschroer.com and follow me on Bloglovin' here!

Blog Update

Hi everyone! Sorry for kind of disappearing this week and not posting! I've been hard at work on an exciting new project! 

I'm currently rebranding my blog and graphic design website and will be combining the two! I'll be relaunching my website and blog in 1-2 weeks! My blog will contain more design, blogging, and business related content, while still including beauty and lifestyle content as well! I feel like with my blog and design work combined into one website, it'll give readers a chance to get to know me better and I'll have a better opportunity to share more of my knowledge and interests too. My website will also be a place for me to share my design portfolio and services for anyone who's interested! I don't have a set date for the relaunch, but keep an eye on my Instagram and Twitter for any updates along the way! I'll of course post here when my new website launches too! I'm really excited about this new endeavor and I hope you guys are excited too!

Real Floral Manicure | Nail of the Day

For Easter weekend I wanted to do a fun, springy manicure! I came across this Ciaté Flower Manicure kit in Bada Bloom (such a cute name!) at Winners last summer, so I decided to finally try it out! It's a kit that comes with little dried pressed flowers, a nail polish, a top coat, tweezers, and a nail file. 

To get this look, I first applied Seche Base as my base coat. Then, I applied 2 coats of a pastel blue polish. The kit came with a Ciaté pastel blue polish in Ferris Wheel, but I found that after even 3 coats of it, it was still sheer and streaky in places so I ended up using a Formula X by Sephora polish in Infatuated instead. Once the blue had dried completely, I then applied a layer of the Ciaté top coat, followed by picking up and placing 1-2 flowers onto each nail. I used the back of the tweezers to gently press them into the top coat so that they'd stick. After doing each nail like that one at a time, I applied another layer of the top coat as they recommended. Then I took the nail file from the kit and gently filed any flowers down that were hanging off the top edge of my nails to smooth the edges. Once all my nails were dry, I felt like my nails were still quite bumpy and I could feel the flowers poking up through the top coat in places. To smooth them out as much as possible, I ended up applying another layer of the Ciaté top coat, and when that wasn't enough I went in and applied Seche Vite over the top. With those 3 layers of top coat my nails were much more smoothed out.

This manicure wore better than I expected over the weekend. After 3 days of wear, the purple flowers were all still in tact, but some of the pink and blue flowers had begun wearing off. I think this is a beautiful manicure if you have an event or just want a springy manicure for a couple of days, but it's not a super long wearing one. I think in the future I'll try just applying flowers to one nail as an accent nail, that way if the flowers wear off I can just repaint that one nail to go with the rest of my manicure. It was still a fun look to wear on my nails though and I got many compliments! People seemed to be really impressed that they were actually real flowers! It's a good manicure for people who aren't very good at nail art to try too, since all you have to do is place the flowers on your nails!

I don't believe these Ciaté manicure kits are still available, but it would be super easy to achieve a look like this with dried flowers you can find elsewhere. Ebay has a ton of inexpensive ones!

Would you ever try a manicure with real flowers? What other fun nail art decorations have you tried?

Also, I'm running an Instagram giveaway and it closes tomorrow! Check it out and enter if you haven't!!

Julep Maven Box | April 2015

I got my Julep Maven box in the mail the other day so I thought I'd show you what I got inside of it! I used my Jules points to get this box, so it ended up being free for me too which is always nice! I actually forgot what I had selected for my box when I received it, so opening it was a little bit of a surprise for me! I got the April Classic With a Twist box. This box included 2 polishes and a clear brow gel, which is new to the Julep product range. And, as per usual, I also got some candy in the box with a little packet of Gobstoppers (nail polish, brow products, and candy? Julep knows the way to my heart)!

The two polishes I got in my box are stunning shades for the spring and summer. I got Jenna, a tangerine creme, and Connie, a bright magenta plum creme. Both of these shades are quite unique to my collection and I'm really excited to try them out! I think they'd both make gorgeous toe colours as well. When swatched, Jenna applied evenly and opaque in just 1 coat, but Connie required 3 coats for an opaque finish because it had a slightly more jelly texture.

In this collection, Julep had quite a few new brow products available. I ended up choosing a box with only the clear brow gel because I wasn't particularly interested in the other ones since I enjoy my Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade so much. I'm always down to try a clear brow gel though, because it's such a daily staple for me! The product I received was the Lock Down Your Brows Iconic Brow Gel. It comes in a silver tube (which is always good, so I don't see how gross it'll eventually look inside) with a really tiny wand for precision. The brow gels I've used in the past have all had standard mascara wand type applicators, so I'm excited to try this small one to see if it works better for me! It claims to tame your brows in a natural way and last all day long without crunchiness or flaking. It also claims to condition the brow hairs and prevent breakage, as well as encourage regrowth in sparse areas. I don't know if it'll live up to those claims, but even if it keeps my brows in place all day I'm sure I'll be pleased enough with it.

I really couldn't be more pleased with this box. Sometimes in Julep boxes there are one or two products that I'm not super interested in, but this box was a hit. I really can't wait to use all of these products, and the fact that it was free just makes it even sweeter!

Sign up to get your first Julep Maven box for FREE!

(Because what's better than free nail polish?)

Pretty Pastel Polishes

Spring, to me, is a time for pastel nails. Especially with Easter coming up, I know I'll definitely be wearing some nice pastels on my nails. They're a fun way of having a colourful manicure without being too bright. You can even wear a different pastel shade on each nail for a fun Mini Egg-like manicure! Here are some of my favourite pastel shades!

Julep Kelsey / Julep Lilou / China Glaze In A Lily Bit / Essie Cascade Cool / Essie Bikini So Teeny / Essie Under Where? / Essie Fashion Playground

What are some of your favourite pastel polishes?