My Mom's birthday is today and this year I got her I Love Nail Polish Birefringence. She tested mine out last week to see if she would like it. I also picked her up another gift which is a surprise from CherryCulture.com that I got in their 20% off store sale. So... since I was ordering from I Love Nail Polish... of course I had to get myself My Little Glacier Ultra Chrome. :-p

It's a really pretty greenish blue, silver duo chrome. It really does remind me of ice like a glacier. It's not nearly in your face as Birefringence or even Cygnus Loop. In regular light you only pick up on green, blue, silver colors. It does have other colors, which you can see in my underwater photo, but if you're trying to decide between any of the I Love Nail Polish ultra chromes, I would say go with Birefringence. That shows just about every color in every light, regardless if you have your hands in a bowl of water. Hehe. ;-)

These are similar to the Halloween nails I did with Birefringence a few days ago. This time I used 2 coats of I Love Nail Polish Cygnus Loop. 1 coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust. I placed a few stars & moons from Revlon Celestial FX. Then I stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Silver Sweep and used Winstonia Store plate W116. I finished everything with 1 coat of Seche Vite topcoat.

I did some early Halloween nails today with I Love Nail Polish, Ultra Chrome: Birefringence & China Glaze Fairy Dust. I stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Silver Sweep and used Winstonia Store plates W116 & W102. I finished with a topcoat of Seche Vite. I absolutely love how these turned out! Birefringence changes so many colors at different angles, and the China Glaze Fairy Dust gives it sparkle.

Yesterday I posted about my DIY lightbox & I Love Nail Polish, Birefringence. Today I have swatches of the other polish I ordered, Cygnus Loop.

Birefringence and Cygnus Loop look very similar in the bottle. Birefringence is more blue/purple with more multi colors at different angles. Cygnus loop is more purple/pink and even though the colors shift at certain angles, I still think there's more color shifting with Birefringence. They are both really stunning polishes. I only needed two coats and 1 topcoat of Seche Vite.

It looks like I got a new camera, huh? Nope! These photos were taken in my new DIY Lightbox! (More on that in a moment).


For my birthday I pre-ordered two of I Love Nail Polish Ultra Chromes. Birefringence and Cygnus Loop! They arrived the other day, but with everything going on, I didn't get a chance to play with them.

I decided to try out Birefringence first. I love these Ultra Chromes... they remind me of mood rings! The polish formula was really nice, not runny at all and I only needed two coats and 1 coat of Seche Vite topcoat. (I will post Cygnus Loop soon.)


It's been a little while since I posted about nail polish. With everything going on with my pets, I've been stressed out and was picking at my cuticles on both hands. So they weren't in the best shape to be photographed.

Also... the angle of the sun seems to be lower now since we're heading into fall. I didn't start photographing my nails using the sun until earlier this year when the sun was higher. Waiting for the sun to be just right has become very frustrating. I did an internet search last weekend looking for how to make a light box. I came across The Daily Varnish blog with a great post about making a DIY light box!

I followed her instructions exactly, (except I didn't have the black poster board... I have to get some). I bought the same light bulbs. (These are the $6 clamp lamps and the light bulbs I ordered from Lowe's). I used a ruler & a pencil to make straight lines before I used the box cutter. I taped my tissue paper down with clear packing tape, instead of gluing it. And my 12x12 box was the one my Lowe's order came in.