Hella Handmade Creations February 2023

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Hi friends! Today’s blog post is for the February Hella Handmade Creations. As always, I am in disbelief that it’s that time of the month already. If you missed my Polish Pickup blog post, I did cut my nails on a whim the other day. So this post will be a mixture of long nails and short nails.

The February HHC shop opens up on the 14th on the HHC website. I will be going live later today at 3PM to do a HHC Wishlist With Me video. If you want to come hang out, check out my YouTube channel over here.

Live Swatch Video

Hella Handmade Creations is a monthly indie polish collaboration. Makers each pick their own theme and make a series of polishes based on that theme. Each month brands have a new polish, that is exclusive to the Hella Handmade Creations website.

Bee’s Knees Lacquer – Love Hurts

Theme: Ice Nine Kills (NEW THEME!)
Inspiration: the I.N.K. song Love Hurts
Description: born from an oops batch of our popular color Tell Them To f*ck Off, this is a light purple (that leans a little blue) with the same glowy green to blue shimmer
Price: $13 for 15ml | Cap: None

Love Hurts had a fantastic formula. It does start off very sheer so you will want to build it up to get the most opacity. This is not the polish to reach full opacity with, you will want an opaque base if you want to hide your VNL.

I LOVE this shimmer that Bee’s Knees uses for these Doomicorn siblings. It’s a super glowy shimmer that doesn’t show any brush strokes but you get a whole lot of OOMF. In lower lighting, it will appear more opaque and in brighter lighting the polish will look a lot more sheer.

My photos show Love Hurts in 3 coats plus glossy top coat.

In my opinion, this is close enough to Tell Them To F**k Off that you probably don’t need both if you have one. They’re really really really similar.

Bee’s Knees Lacquer
15ml, 5+ Free, Vegan & Cruelty-Free
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Facebook Group

Color Spectrum Polish – Drink Up Coo…

Theme: Animal Crossing 
Inspiration: Brewster the pigeon milk slinging pigeon
Description: a deep teal with black micro flakes and a holo magnetic strike
Price: $12.50 for 13ml | Cap: 100

Drink Up Coo.. had a fantastic formula. It was on the thicker side but I didn’t have any application issues. The thickness did made this polish fairly opaque so I only needed 2 coats to reach full opacity.

The polish magnetized very easily for me. In general, I find the holographic magnetic pigments to not be the most holographic in the lighting in my home. To best see the holographic, bright direct sunlight seems to be best in my experience.

For this polish, I found the magnetic effect mainly looked silver but I could tell there was a twinkle of holographic in it. I tweaked my lighting a bit in photo #5 to try to mimic natural lighting.

One thing that made me really happy about this polish is that the base color is the PERFECT color to represent Brewster the pigeon. I am a massive Animal Crossing fan and this polish made me very happy.

My photos show Drink Up Coo… in 2 coats plus glossy top coat.

Color Spectrum Polish
13ml, 7 Free, Vegan & Cruelty free
Website | Etsy | Instagram | Facebook | Facebook Group

Crystal Knockout – Clouds On the Ground

Series: Habitat of the Cat 
Inspiration: the elusive beauty of the Clouded Leopard in its jungle home
Description: A dark emerald jelly base with green matte glitters in different shapes and sizes and iridescent color-shifting flakes in copper, gold, and red
Price: $12 for 15ml | Cap: None

Clouds On the Ground had a good but thicker jelly formula. The thickness was not at all unexpected since this is a very densely packed glitter polish.

I found all of the glitters spread out very evenly and easily. I didn’t need to hold the bottle upside down or do any fishing but for disclosure, I did run this one through my nail polish shaker prior to swatching it. In general, I find glitter polishes by this brand don’t need any special techniques to get great glitter coverage.

I found that since this polish is in a jelly base, you do need to build it up to get the opacity however the thickness does make the nails look a little chunky. If coverage had been fuller, I would have stopped in 2 coats because the glitters were really making my shorties look a little chunky.

My photos show Clouds On The Ground in 3 coats plus 2 coats of top coat. I did opt to pair this polish with glitter smoothing top coat before my quick dry top coat. I can’t say if it was 100% necessary but that’s my go-to with glitters.

Removal will of course be on the more difficult side due to the glitters. Soak this one off or use a peel off base coat for easy removal.

Crystal Knockout
15ml, 5 Free & Cruelty Free
Website | Etsy | Instagram | Facebook | Facebook Group

Heather’s Hues – Stop on a Dime

Theme: custom paint jobs on import cars
Inspiration: Subaru Impreza WR
Description: a grey-lavender crelly filled with a beautiful blue-violet-pink aurora shimmer
Price: $13 for 15ml | Cap: None

Stop on a Dime had a fantastic formula. It does start off a little bit uneven but I found it built up really nicely. I loved greyed out colors, especially purples so the base color on this polish was perfect for me.

While I do love the shimmer in this polish, it is one of those shimmers that is both subtle and strong at the same time. Admitedally, I felt a little underwhelemed by this one. Like it’s gorgeous, I love the base color but I kept feeling like I would have liked the polish more with flakies or holographic?

My photos show Stop On A Dime in 3 coats plus glossy top coat. This will likely be a 2-3 coater depending on your nail length. The polish also dries down a little bit dull so you will want top coat for a glossy finish.

Heather’s Hues WiTS in Cherry

Theme: Little Trees car air fresheners!
Description: an irresistible blast of juicy sweet and tart cherries
Price: $9 for 2 ounces | Cap: 40

Y’all know I love me a fruity fragrance and this one is just that!

Heather’s Hues
15ml, 5 free, Vegan & Cruelty Free
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Facebook Group

Night Owl Lacquer – Put Sugar on Your Toes

Theme: Gilmore Girls
Description: a clear base filled with lavender micro flakies, pink/gold/green micro flakie shimmer and holographic flecks
Price: $13 for 15ml | Cap: None

Put Sugar on Your Toes had a fantastic formula. I was really surprised at how opaque this polish is despite it being in a clear base. I think most people will be good in two coats.

This is going to be one of those polishes that are very difficult to pin down what color it is. In my notes, I called it a purple leaning periwinkle but I can see where Lindsay was going with saying it’s lavender.

The micro flake shimmer was VERY color shifty! I was seeing all of the described colors. The microflakes do not dry textured but they will make removal very messy. On top of being color shifty, this polish is also incredibly holographic. I swatched this one at night so no daylight shots, but I did tweak my lighting in photo #5 to better show the holographic.

My photos show Put Sugar On your Toes in 3 coats but it was opaque in 2 coats. I think I added a third coat because I had a little bit of VNL on the clear part of my nail.

Night Owl Lacquer
15ml, 5 Free & Cruelty-Free
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Facebook Group | TikTok

Sale Info

The Hella Handmade Creations store opens on the 14th of every month at 12:01am Eastern Time and closes on the 21st at 11:59pm HST (4:59AM Eastern time on the 22nd). All items sold are on a pre-order basis and won’t ship until around 4 weeks after the sale period.

Hella Handmade Creations
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Facebook Group | Facebook Chat Group

Multiple orders to the same name and address are combined and shipping overages are refunded. Shipping price is based on weight. Shipping is available internationally and there is a Facebook group for international group buys.