Saturday, April 5, 2014

Two Birds Lacquer - Swatches, Review & Nail Art


Hello, all! Thank goodness it's the weekend! I had a rough week that included working several 12 hour days, so needless to say, I'm wiped! Today I have some spectacular polishes from a brand new Australian based indie called Two Birds Lacquer...and I could not be more impressed by these polishes! This is one of the best first collections I've encountered and I am so excited to see how this line grows in the future. Stacey, the founder of Two Birds, was also kind enough to share with you all a discount code to her Etsy shop - really, what's not to love here? :)

The Childhood Treats collection, was inspired by, well, Stacey's favorite childhood sweets! I really enjoyed that the colors and polishes were all different, yet were still cohesive through this theme. Growing up in the US, I only knew of one of the treats that inspired these polishes so it was fun for me to research each of them and see what kids in Australia grow up enjoying. Let's take a look!
Fairy Bread

The first of many treats I had never heard of, Fairy Bread has a yellow creme base, full of gold and rainbow square and hex glitters. The application was wonderful and I used 3 thin coats. I love a great pale yellow and I think this will work well with many different skin tones. 
For those wondering, I did some research and discovered that fairy bread is sliced white bread with margarine/butter that is then covered in sprinkles. It seemed very important to note that fairy bread is almost always cut into triangles, but NEVER into squares. This made me chuckle, but I thought I'd pay homage to the triangles and did some simple nail art over this. 
The ONLY treat that I had heard of (as I have enjoyed these immensely throughout my life), is Grape Nerds. This is a dark lavender creme full of purple, magenta and coppery glitter and is really lovely. It is slightly sheer, but the coverage was easily built up and had a great formula. Shown is 2-3 coats. 
So, I'm assuming that the grape nerds that Stacey is talking about is the same type that I grew up with...as in the tart little nerds candies! There were Strawberry and Grape flavored nerds, but I would usually just inhale an entire box so I hardly noticed a difference in flavors. I also never noticed the positions of the little nerd guys on each of the boxes! Their little blob bodies are quite suggestive, are they not? Haha funny how you don't notice these things when you're young ;) 
While I've heard of Mulberry Jam, I can't say I've ever had it. In the States, jam isn't typically a "treat" so now I'm really curious to see what deliciousness this is! This is a deep magenta (mulberry?) jelly (naturally) that is full of blue, white, orange, red and magenta glitters...with a few iridescent micro glitters for good measure! As this is a jelly, I thought I might end up needing a base polish for this, but it turns out that this reaches a good opacity level after 3 thin coats. Just love that! 
I wasn't quite sure what to do nail art wise with this polish, but then I figured, I would try and paint mulberries! Which turn out to be very similar to blackberries, looks wise. I tried to do the outline of each little seed of the mulberry but I'm not so sure they look like much of anything. Regardless, I think the pattern is still pretty cool to look at ;) I liked both the glossy and matte top coat so I figured I'd share both. Which do you prefer? 
Spearmint leaves is a shimmery green with white and green bar glitter mixed with white and green micro hex glitter. Is this not the best easter polish? I can already picture little bunnies frolicking in this....I'm not always a fan of bar glitter, but it just "works" with this polish. I don't mind it at all. The formula on this was great and I only needed 2-3 coats. 
While I've never had Spearmint Leaves, I do think they are available in the US (they seem familiar at least). They remind me of little leaf shaped gumdrops. Since these candies have a pretty distinctive shape, I decided to try my hand at painting the leaves. I think I did alright? They're abstract but I think they still look pretty cool. 
I had never heard or seen the candy called White Knight until I went looking after swatching this polish. These are chocolate bars with mint inside and wrapped up in a white and blue wrapper. I wonder if they're like York Peppermint patties? Anyway, I assume that the wrapper is what inspired this awesome white and blue jelly glitter! This is another one that I thought would need an undie, but I was able to get away with 3 thin coats. I really like the affect of the layers of glitter and polish on this one. Great formula and easy to use as well. 
The nail art accompaniment for this polish ended up being this candy's namesake - the white knight. I used acrylic paints and my detail brush to paint this and I'm really proud of how well this came out! I think I stuck to the original logo pretty well :) 
This might be my favorite polish from this collection. Once again, I had never heard of aniseed rings, but that didn't stop me from being obsessed with this polish. It's a black jelly base packed full of holographic and spectraflair and is just stunning. I wish I had sunlight when I was taking these so I could see the full effect of the glitter. This was 2-3 coats and had a great formula. 
I really wasn't inspired by the Aniseed Rings candy themselves, so I decided to be inspired by the polish alone...and that led me to doing galaxy nails! This is such a wonderful base polish for galaxy nail art! I don't know why I didn't see it immediately. I loved how this look came out so much that I actually painted both hands! Gasp! I used acrylic paints and a makeup sponge for this. 
And, because I'm so indecisive and obsessed with this look, here are two more shots of it ;) 
Overall
I LOVE this collection. I would wear every single polish any day of the week, any time of year. Some are more fitting for different times of the year, sure, but it's just a great, balanced collection. The formula on all of these was spot on and super easy to use. I love when I don't have to use undies with polishes so the ease of application for all of these just makes me love them more. Even the bottles and labels are professional and appealing. I don't think I can say enough good things about this. Can't wait to see what Stacey comes up with next!

If you're interested in your very own Australian made Two Birds Lacquer polish, you can use the code WONDROUSLY20 to received 20% off of your order! How awesome is that?? I'm tempted to go snag the other polishes in her shop now...additionally, these do ship from Australia, but as I recently discovered, the shipping of the entire collection is only around $15 which is very reasonable to me and it only took about 10 days to get to California from Australia. Pretty good in my book. 

Be sure to follow Two Birds Lacquer on Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date with new collections and promotions :) 

What do you think of this collection? Do you have a favorite polish? What treats did you grow up enjoying? 

Happy Polishing! :)