Thursday, September 24, 2015

Top Shelf Lacquer - Margarita Time: Swatches, Review & Nail Art

press sample 

Hello, all! Hope your Thursday is going well - it's almost Friday! Yay! I have a new to me indie to share with you today and I'm pretty excited about it! This is the Margarita Time collection from Top Shelf Lacquer who creates polishes inspired by one of my favorite things...adult beverages ;)

Let's get to it and see what this collection holds, shall we?

Blackberry Margarita is a deep navy blue polish with an intensely strong linear holo! It's beautiful. In the bottle this looked almost black to me but I was so pleased to see how it applied in this rich blackened blue. Shown is 3 easy coats, though 2 would have worked just fine as well.



Moonlight Margarita is a deep periwinkle creme with just enough linear holographic flair to add that extra umph! This was amazingly opaque after the first coat which was a great surprise but I've shown 2 coats here. Again, great formula. Really dying over this color.



Next up is  Lavender Margarita...which is a margarita I did not know excited! I've learned something new today :) This is a rich lavender creme with the same linear holographic flair as Moonlight Margarita. This is a bit more subtle than the previous shades and I've shown 3 smooth coats.



Purple Rita is is a vibrant orchid creme with the same linear holo flair of the previous two shades. I love that this color could would year round and still feel appropriate. The formula was once again easy to work with and shown is 2 coats.



So when I was scouring the web for potential nail art ideas, I saw that a Purple Rita (another Margarita I did not know excited) was sometimes paired with pineapples...and since I often like to pair complementary colors in nail art, I thought I'd try some pineapples over this...well, I'm not a huge fan of how they turned out, but I figured I'd share anyway.

Pink Lady Margarita is a softest shade of the collection. It's a pale medium pink creme with subtle scattered linear holo and another nice formula. I always worry that lighter shades like this will require a ton of coats, but this was almost perfect at 2...though 3 coats are shown here.



Prickly Pear Margarita is a vibrant magenta creme with the same scattered holo as above. I really liked this color! As you might know by now, I'm not always a pink polish person but I could see myself wearing this one. Shown is 2-3 coats (some nails I got a thicker second coat on than the others).



And, to pay homage to the prickly pear in the prickly pear margarita, I painted some prickly pear cacti!

Finally, we have Pomegranate Margarita, a hot pink jelly with the same intense linear holo flair that we saw in Blackberry Margarita. The holo on this one washes out the color just a tad, but I really didn't mind that. The formula was really nice, though I did need 3-4 coats to get the depth of color I was looking for. The good thing though, you wouldn't even notice you had 4 coats on as it was such a smooth application.



And my last nail art attempt was inspired by the name of this shade. I painted pomegranates hanging on their branch.

One thing I want to mention is the overall packaging that this came in. Amy, the maker, sent me her mini size (8ml)  to review but she puts a full size cap on this which is honestly the best thing in the world. It makes it so easy to work as well as photograph with. She also included (what I think are..) polish charms that sit around the bottle like shown below. It was just a nice litter touch.

Overall, I'm really impressed by this collection and brand so far. The formulas were great and if I had to pick, I'd say Blackberry and Moonlight Margaritas are my faves.

These will all be releasing tomorrow, September 25, 2015 at 8pm EST. There are full size bottles (15ml)  as well as the polish shots (8ml) I reviewed available for $11.50 & $7.50 respectively from the Top Shelf Lacquer Etsy shop. You can also grab the whole collection in each size at discounted rate.

Be sure to follow Top Shelf Lacquer on your favorite social media page to stay up to date with the latest collections and promotions!

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What do you think of these? Any favorites? I like that this isn't a traditional fall collection - keeps things fun for this time of year!