Revlon Sunshine Sparkle

I gotta be honest, I have a weakness for yellows. The only thing that holds me back from buying yellow polish is their formulas - they're generally streaky and really hard to apply. This was one of those yellows, but application was much better for this than Maybelline Banana Puddin'. This was four coats over one coat of Essie Marshmallow.

Then I decided to get funky widdit and added a layer of Wet n Wild Part of Five Glitters on top.

 Then, just because I was curious, I added a layer of Sunshine Sparkle on top of the glitter. I usually like similar manicures, but I don't think a sheer yellow is the color to do this with!

China Glaze Strawberry Fields

Here's a polish I haven't worn in a while! I actually didn't really like this that much when I initially bought it, but now I love it! This was two coats. The gold shimmer's really yummy.

Orly Royal Velvet

I absolutely love this polish! This was three coats. There are brush strokes visible but I honestly like it with this polish - it makes it that much more interesting! If you don't have this I highly suggest you go out and buy it right now :) I love it that much! It switches from a pretty dark blue with sparkle to a dark purple when you tilt your nail the right way. In my pictures you can see the purple on the sides of my nail. Love it!

Here it is in the sun:

And here it is under my OTT light (which is just a full spectrum light that emulates sunlight):

Hope you like it as much as I do!

Essie Demure Vixen

Good morning! Today I have Essie Demure Vixen to show you. Now, this isn't my favorite polish as nudes generally don't look very good on me, but I do like the purple shimmer. You can see it better on the bottle than in the nail in my experience, but it does give the polish a purple-y tinge. This was two coats, which makes it a perfect manicure for when you don't know what to wear!

Butter London Victoriana

This polish is AWESOME. This was two coats but I could have gotten away with one. Also, I added another tab under my header with a link to my Google Documents spreadsheet with all my nail polish on it. As I said before, I'm open to any suggestions so if you see a specific color you want to see on my blog please take a look and let me know either in comments or through email (lavenderparfait@gmail.com). Thanks guys :)

Just some housekeeping thing to mention - I edited my picture size on my camera because my pictures were HUGE (like 1000 x 1000 pixels or something like that). Hopefully this isn't too small. If it is, the next couple posts will have small pictures and then things will start getting better as I fiddle around with my camera.

Urban Outfitters Ashtray and Nicole by OPI Bring on the Tinsel

Hi everyone! I have some news. I put all of my polishes on a spreadsheet on Google Documents! If you have the time please take a look through it (I don't have very many polishes right now, I thought I had more!) and request anything you want swatched. Thanks! Click here to view.

Today I have Urban Outfitters Ashtray to show you. This is kind of a foily black/silver, but I love it! It has flecks of blue and green in it too. Really interesting to look at, I wish my camera could pick up its awesomeness.

Then I added Essie Matte About You on top, just because I was curious to see what it would look like matte.

Then I added Nicole by OPI Bring on the Tinsel.

Then I matted that too! Love it matted, not so much not matted though.

Franken and Clarins 230

Hi everyone! Do you know what a franken is? For those of you who don't, it's a polish that you mix yourself out of other nail polishes to make new colors. It's really addictive, so if you start doing it make sure you know what you're in for! I made this franken a couple days ago. I thought the polish going into the bottle looked really cool.

Here's the completed franken. Usually I can come up with good names for polishes I mix myself (I named a recent franken Too Lazy To Pee) but I couldn't really come up with one for this one that I liked :( Naming my frankens is usually my favorite part, too!

Then I added Clarins 230 on top. I made the franken just to wear with this polish!

Mmm look at the green sparkle!

Thanks for looking!

Essie Marshmallow and Deborah Lippmann Glitter in the Air

I swear Essie Marshmallow hates me. It seems like everyone else has good fortune with this color, but it just looks horribly streaky and puffy on me! Even the application has something against me - I can't apply this without having to redo at least one nail. Oh well. It doesn't even look that good on my hands so I'm not sure why I bother! Here is Essie Marshmallow, 4 or 5 coats:

Then I added Deborah Lippmann Glitter in the Air over it and waited for it to dry. When it did I added another coat of Marshmallow - I wanted the glitter to be milky :)

Thanks for looking!

OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui

I love this color - OPI is by far my favorite brand. Their colors aren't always 100% unique nowadays, but their formula really rocks. This is two coats of Suzi Says Feng Shui.

Petites and a Unicorn!

Hey everyone! I've been VERY busy lately so sorry I haven't been updating often. I'm interning in a lab and taking a pretty demanding neurobiology course, so I don't have much free time! I've decided that I'm not going to be writing much in descriptions for the next couple of weeks - most of you don't always read them anyways I'm sure :)

One thing I would like to say though - I added a new page called wishlist to the top of my blog under my header (the thing that says LavenderParfait). It's really for myself to keep track of my wanted polishes, but if you guys have any of them and would like to sell them to me or trade something for them PLEASE let me know! I would be ever grateful :)

Okay, now that I have all the talking out of the way, here's Petites Lime Freeze. My friend gave this to me for Christmas and my dad picked it as my mani :p

It's very sheer - this was three coats. I thought I wouldn't like it but it grew on me! It's not as frosty as it looks in the bottle.

Then, because today was unicorn themed on MakeupAlley nail board, I added a unicorn. This is freehanded! Lots of pictures, so please take a look after the jump :)

Waiting in line.

So I originally made this post while waiting in line to get into the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows P.2. Now I'm just editing it so it makes sense and isn't a jumble of words and pictures :). I decided to do a themed manicure for the premiere. I started out first with OPI Chick Flick Cherry:

Then I added Revlon Gold Rush on my ring finger for an accent. Next I cut off pieces of tape and put them on my nail so there would be a blank spot that looked like a lightning bolt. Sorry that this picture is so poorly lighted, I took it while I was in line.

I hope you like the final result! The premier was SO much fun but I'm so sad the series is ended. Here is a picture of me from the premiere:

I didn't get to dress up for the premiere unfortunately, but I did dress up the day after the premiere! I hope everyone who went had fun and I hope the Potter depression doesn't last long :)

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

Today was the closing day of my giveaway, so I closed the comments and went to Random.org to generate the user who won. There were 68 comments on the giveaway but two people commented twice, so there were 66 people who entered.

Comment number 55 won, and that was JQ! Congrats JQ! I'll email you and you have 36 hours to respond until I choose another person. Thanks to everyone who entered!

OPI Gal Meets Gal-Veston

Good morning! Today I have one of the OPI "sorbets" (AKA jellies) to show you. I bought all the jellies from this collection, that's how much I love them! This one is OPI Gal Meets Gal-Veston, probably my favorite from the collection.

After I took these pictures I decided to give my Black Shatter a chance. Black shatter just isn't my cup of tea... I know a lot of people love it but I bought it and this was my first time using it!

Bleh... still don't like it. Oh well! Thanks for looking! :)

Sparkly Mermaid Nails?

Hi guys! I was originally planning on waiting until I got these cropped and watermarked to put them up, but I can just do that when I have access to a computer! If anyone knows of a good photo editing app for the iPhone or iPad please let me know!

So anyways, this is Sephora by OPI Caught With My Khakis Down topped with OPI Sparkle Teal Sunrise. I had this on my nails for 4 days and it barely chipped, I just had some minor tipwear! This is actually a picture taken on day 3.

And here is a picture of the Sephora by OPI all by herself. I love it! Sorry about no polish bottle, I was away from home!

Thanks for looking!

Chanel Peridot

This was definitely a splurge for me, but it was so worth it! Chanel Peridot is from the Chanel fall line of makeup. There are two others in the collection: Graphite and Quartz. Those two didn't interest me much, but I think Chanel Peridot is one of my favorite polishes EVER! I can't stop staring at my nails, that's how much I love it! I'll have to go back and buy myself a backup, I don't ever want to run out of this stuff!

The formula was amazing, and I usually don't like Chanel's formulas. This was super easy to apply, looked great in one coat and didn't chip at all! I used two coats on my swatch pictures just to make sure everything was covered, but I could have gotten away with one.

Here's a bottle picture. It looks great even in the bottle, ahh!

Now here it is on my nails. This is in the shade.

Beautiful right? But wait until you see it in the sun. It freakin' GLOWS.

I swear I could wear this for the rest of my life if I needed to! I like it even more than the original holographic version of OPI My Private Jet, and that means a lot! Hope you guys love it and can find a bottle :)

Water Marbling Tutorial

Wow, I can't believe I've hit 100 followers! I guess another giveaway should be in order, but I don't really want to hold one when my other giveaway isn't even over! I think I'm going to hold tight until that one ends, but no promises! Thank you so so so much everyone! :)

Now here's the tutorial I promised you! Below is what my water marbled manicure looks like. I used China Glaze OMG, Wet n Wild French White Creme and China Glaze 2NIGHT.

The tutorial is long, so please view it after the jump!

Cozu-Melted in the Sun

Hi everyone! I hope you aren't too tired from partying yesterday :) I have a nice summery color to show you today - OPI Cozu-Melted in the Sun. This is the black label version of the color, meaning that it is made with the old formula OPI had that wasn't Big-3 Free. Their formula now has no harmful chemicals in them, but you can still find old formula bottles in nail salons. This was 3 coats. It's a nice refresher mani after wearing crazy colors!

4th of July

Happy Independance Day, American ladies! I'm celebrating by going to my friend's neighborhood's park and watching fireworks. First I painted my nails with Wet n Wild French White Creme as a base. Then I used OPI Chick Flick Cherry and ORLY Sapphire Silk for the swirls. I'm planning on posting a tutorial on the water marble technique soon (hah I say this a lot...), hopefully Wednesday-ish. I tried doing this twice and I definitely like the results I got the second time around better. Which one do you prefer?

Here's try one:

And here's try two:

And here's my right hand:

Have a great 4th everyone! And to those of you not celebrating, I hope you have a great day!

I lost my camera...

Well as my title suggests, I have no idea where my camera went that I usually take pictures with, which is weird because I just used it on Monday to take pictures for my giveaway! So for the time being I'll be taking pictures with my iPhone, which has a decent camera anyways. I'm also going to be playing with my lighting for a bit until i can find a lighting style that works for me.

Anyways, here's one of the Island Girl polishes I bought. This one is called Island Sunset. It's a super pretty polish with a maroon jelly base and holo glitter. The glitter is super thirsty and even with one coat of Seche Vite and three coats of Gelous it wasn't smooth. But even so, the holo glitter is worth it!









Thanks for looking!