Thursday, July 4, 2013

Fourth of July/Captain America Nail Art

Happy Fourth of July my American buddies!  To everyone else, look Captain America nail art!  :-D  If you follow me on Instagram, then you've seen my original version of my Captain America nails.  I decided to tweak them for the holiday.



My pointer and ring fingers were painted with three coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On.  It was a decent white, and if you were careful with the brush strokes, two coats would have probably been fine.  I did the red stripes with striping tape and OPI's Big Apple Red.  Big Apple Red is my go to stock red.  It is a good, classic red and goes on opaque with two coats.  My middle finger is Sinful Colors' Endless Blue and pinkie is Julep's America the Beautiful.  For my thumb, I used my red, white and blue polishes to paint Captain America's shield.  Finally the big white stars are actually from a star shaped paper punch from the scrapbooking section of Walmart.  :-)  I painted thick coats of white polish on a sandwich bag.  Once it was dry, I pealed off the paint and punched the star shaped holes out.  I pressed them on to my still wet polish and voila!  Easy nail polish stickers!

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Fishtail Nail Art

Not going to lie, I totally stole this nail art from Pearly Swirl.  The original blog post is here.  I saw her picture on Instagram and had to do it.  I pulled out my three favorite Sally Hansen polishes and got to work.



I started with two thin coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Back to the Fuchsia.  It's a creamy bright pink polish with a slight blue shimmer that went on smoothly.  There was a little bit of visible nail line going on, but for what I was going for it was perfect.  If I was just painting my nails with this I would have added a third coat and been great.  You're going to want to make sure the polish dries completely between colors or else you'll mess everything up.  Believe me, I've messed up with tape A LOT.  

Next I took a piece of Scotch tape and placed it near my cuticles with a corner pointing towards the end of my nails.  Make sure that you press the tape against your skin to take away some of the stickiness or you could peel off your polish.  On the top part of my nail I used two coats of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear polish in Celeb City.  It is my favorite silver polish ever.  After it dried completely I placed more tape the same way as before just a little higher up and painted two coats of blue polish.  For this one I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Calypso Blue.  It is the same consistency of Back to Fuchsia.  It even has the same slight blue shimmer!  

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Femme Fatale Lacquer- Mermaids in the Midst Swatches

UPDATE- I've worn this polish for four days and it was PERFECT until just now.  This is the longest lasting any polish has been on me in a very long time.

Not going to lie, looking at my nails right now while I type this I want to squee because I love this polish so much.  It's squishy and glittery and makes me so happy.



That is what Mermaids in the Midst looks like in the bottle.  It is described as a plum jelly base with holographic teal, gold, and purple glitters, the teal glitter being the biggest ones.  I've never owned a true jelly polish before and this one really caught my eye, to top it off the name has mermaids.  AND it was actually in stock.  Of course I had to get it.



For my picture I used four coats.  I know it sounds a bit excessive, but from my understanding it's not uncommon when it comes to jellies.  I would have been fine at three coats, but I had forgotten to put my top coat between coats two and three, so it ended up being four.  Even then, it wasn't as dark of a color as the swatches shown on the listing.  I am okay with that because I did really thin coats and I can only assume that thicker coats were used in for the picture.  Even with that my nail line was not visible, so even better.

In it's full dark plum, sparkly glory Mermaids in the Midst seems like a good color for the holidays.  I feel like I'll be using this color a lot during those cooler winter months.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

May Nail Art Part 2

Hey look! I'm finally continuing this nail art post!



In this third mani, all of the polishes except for the black one, which is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Onyx, I got from my swap last month with Megan over at You've Got Mail!  Seriously, that girl decimated my wish list.  There is like next to nothing left.

The pink is Essie's Peach Daquiri, which in really life looks a little bit peachier and less hot pink.  It was still a pretty neon color, which is why I had to use it.  Generally, I can't do neons.  Something about them turns me off.  Whenever I have tried painting at my nails with various neon colors, I always end up just staring at them, not because they're super pretty but because they are distracting.  Almost in a bad way.  This one though, I LOVED.  Maybe it's why I went the extra mile, or four, of doing some full nail art.  I swiped two medium thickness coats of this color for full coverage on three nails.  Then I painted three coats of Color Club's Magic Attraction for full coverage.  It is a silver and holo glitter with specks of pink in it.

On my middle finger, I used one layer of Shopaholic from Pop Culture Cosmetics, just a fuchsia glitter. On the remaining two nails I used my trusty dotting tools and black polish to make big polka dots and filled in the empty space with little ones.  The whole thing was topped with my usual Sally Hansen Insta Dry (in the red bottle), which you can see smeared the dots a little bit.  

I got a lot of compliments on those nails.  I had my nails painted like that when I was sent to New Employee training and people kept commenting on them.  People kept being shocked when I said that I had done them myself while I was bored.  To top it off it was super easy!  

My last bit of nail art was inspired by one of the boytoy's coworkers.  She is obsessed with the Minions from Despicable Me and she was having a birthday party.  So what better way to get ready for a party then to draw some Minions?

For the three nails I started out with two coats of Nicole by OPIs Hit the Lights from the Selena Gomez line on my left hand and three on my right.  Does that happen to anyone else where it takes more coats to properly coat the nails on your off hand?  The color is a touch splotchy, but I really like it because it reminds me of macaroni and cheese.  The blue overalls are Essie's Butler Please.  I used the same black as always for these along with China Glaze White on White for the eyes and teeth.  The edges of the goggles are Sally Hansen's Celeb City, the best silver ever.  


My favorite part of Despicable Me is the part were Gru wins Agnes the stuffed unicorn at the carnival and she screams out "IT'S SO FLUFFY, I'M GOING TO DIE".  At the time, I felt this was my fluffiest unicorn polish.  As of yesterday though, I own Dollish Polish's It's So Fluffy, I'm Going to Die!, so not the case anymore.  

My two accent nails were done in JENsations Unicorns and Rainbows, which she no longer has up anymore.  My other lovely, nail mail buddy Candace over at CinnamonKandy sent me this in out last swap.  For some reason, people seem to think I love unicorns.  :-P  This was an awesome polish very similar to that ice cream sprinkles trend that is going on right now.  The reason why I love this one is that the glitter is all the colors of the rainbow.  I ended up doing three coats, not because it needed it, but because I couldn't stop using it, if that makes sense.

Hope you guys enjoy this!  Hopefully I have some more up soon!

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

May Nail Art Part 1

May was a good month for me when it came to nail art.  I was actually pretty proud of the stuff I managed to pull off.  If you follow me on Instagram, then you've seen these already, but here you get a more in depth description and mini review on some of the polishes.  


For this first mani I used Julep's Janel.  Janel is a really pretty raspberry color and it took me two coats for this level of opacity.  Julep.com describes it as a frost, but it just looks like a cream to me, which is good, because I just can't seem to find any frosts I particularly like.  Also, I adore raspberry polishes.  They're like the perfect combination of red and pink, which are my favorite polish colors.  For accent nails I drew a black, white, and silver glitter starburst in the corner.  On my other nails I just did a coat of ORLYs Shine on Crazy Diamond.


To top it all off, I pulled out my Julep Freedom Polymer Top Coat.  I hadn't used it in forever and I could not remember why.  The day after I did this mani, I remembered.  The top coat just PEELED OFF.  Not my polish, put the Freedom Polymer stuff.  I sat there and sheets of clear polish just chipped off my nails.  Does anyone else have this issue?  Also it was kind of gloopy and didn't smooth over my nails evenly at all.  So if you looked at them, it was really obvious which parts hadn't been able to get some.  And it wrinkled on the base of my nails too.  Maybe I just had a bad bottle, because it looks like most reviewers loved it.  

For this next look I have to show you guys starts out with two coats of Picture Polish's Majesty.  It is described as a taupe/pink/nude color with a holo shimmer and no glitter what so ever.  I love this polish so much that I was almost sad to paint a design on top.  But I do love the final look of these guys, so I don't really regret it.

For the petals on these flowers I used my nail art brushes for the first time.  How exciting!  The petals are done in Illamasqua's Load, which the very sweet boytoy got me.  I have discovered that I love off white polishes and Load is white with a tinge of yellow, so yay.  The brown polka dots and edging of the center of the flowers is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Haute Chocolate and the yellow is Hit the Lights from Nicole by OPIs Selena Gomez line.  

So as I write this, I notice just how LONG this post has gotten.

Want to see the rest?  I will post a part two!

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Dollish Polish Swatches- Welcome to Rapture and Zombie Flesh

Hey look at me, I'm almost done playing catch up on my photos!  After this, I should only have one more and it's a pretty neat one.  :-)

As I've mentioned before, one of my favorite things about nail polish is the names that people come up with for the colors.  When I first got into nail polish, I found out about Dollish Polish and her famous shade of Zombie Flesh.  

Now there were all sorts of reasons why I needed this color, I don't really have that many green polishes for one thing.  I also love the layered of the look of the cream/jelly polishes with glitter, like Hard Candy's Candy Sprinkles or Illamasqua's Speckled polishes.  But finally, the main reason I needed this polish was it's fantastic name of Zombie Flesh.  It sounds gross, so I needed it.  


Zombie Flesh is a puke green creally with dark green glitter in various sizes.  The picture shows three coats of polish.  Part of the reason I love these kind of polishes is that the sheerness allows you to see the lower layers of glitter.  It gives your nails are whole different look than if it was just a straight cream polish.  

The other nail polish I bought from Dollish Polish was called Welcome to Rapture.  When I first saw the name, I squeaked like the nerdy little fangirl I am.  Nail polish with a reference to the boytoy's favorite video game?  Yes please!  I am a super supportive girlfriend. ;-)





Welcome to Rapture is chock full of different colored glitter.  The inspiration behind it is supposed to be that moment in Bioshock when you first see Rapture from the bathosphere, specifically all the different colors and lights you see.  I really like the way the glitter looks over basic polish.  For my picture I alternated between Sally Hansen's Calypso Blue and Zoya's Jacqueline. I really like the way it looks over different colors and how heavy the glitter is.  It is dense and disperses pretty evenly over the nail.  In my opinion, it is a good multicolored glitter to have on hand.  To bad Dollish Polish is discontinuing it.  :-(

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Pink Gradient Mani with Studs

Look at me!  I keep attempting nail art!  This was my first attempt at a gradient, it's not terrible, but I don't love it.  Don't they always say that you are your own worst critic?  ;-)


First off, I did three coats Ulta's Baby Doll, which was giving me trouble as always.  Maybe I'm just cursed to never be able to use light, delicate colors because they will never dry without terrible smudging or they will just be super streaky.

Anyways, after my base color finally dried, I painted two thick lines on my handy dandy make up sponge.  For this mani I choose Zoya's Sweet and Morgan.  I dabbed the sponge and still wet paint onto my finger nails to transfer the color over.  Before they dried, I did a quick coat of ORLY's Shine on Crazy Diamond.  Partially to blend the colors together, but mostly because I adore the light sparkling of holo glitter that it gives.

Finally, I drew a line of nail glue down my ring finger and stuck on my awesome Born Pretty Store nail studs that I love.  The glue dried kind of quickly so my studs ended up a little crooked, but I thought they still looked cool.

I topped the whole thing off with a thick layer of Sally Hansen's Insta Dry and called it a night.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Born Pretty Store Matte Top Coat Review

I adore getting mail.  Anything that is in the mail box with my name on it makes me very happy.  It doesn't really matter what it is, an envelope, a post card, a box.  I love it.  And before you say, "Well Lisa, what about bills?  Do you love getting those?"  I don't get physical bills, that's why I signed up for e-statements! :-P  But that's a whole different topic for a whole different blog.

For a while now I've been seeing a lot of blogs talk about the Born Pretty Store.  It's a great place to get all sorts of neat nail art supplies, jewelry, and accessories for cheap.  It's like eBay, but a lot more controlled and only from one vendor, which is nice.  I finally made an order from them a while ago and bought all sorts of cool stuff, like awesome studs that I used for my Las Vegas Mani, and some neon green glow in the dark polish that I'm going to use for a nerdy mani one of these days.  

I loved everything I had ordered, except for this guy.  Their Super Matte Change Surface Glossy Oil Nail Polish.  It was terrible!  Once it dried, it left my polish all bumpy and streaky.  It also shrunk away from my cuticles, leaving jagged looking edges.  I was not a happy camper.

For all I know, I did it wrong and it works just fine. But then if it's that complicated, it's not worth my time.


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Julep Spring Mystery Box and Spring Bunny Mani

Sorry I've been away for so long guys!  I moved, got a new job, and have been stuck in training for the past three weeks.  Things are finally starting to slow down again, so I'm back!

So after having a Julep subscription for five months, I finally went out and ordered one of the their Mystery Boxes.  I talked myself out of the Christmas and New Years ones, which I regret because they had nifty bags and it looked like the stuff people got was worth it.  The Valentine's Day box, from my understanding, kind of sucked.  I guess people got a lot of repeat and similar colors.  So I finally bit the bullet and got the Spring Mystery box.  All in all, I was pretty happy.  I got three nail polishes, Lauren, Camille, and Ashley, face and hand sunscreen, a nail file, nail polish remover pads, and hair ties.  Totally worth the $25 I spent on it.  



I wanted to do a spring mani using the polishes I got and I kept seeing bunnies on Instagram, so I felt like trying something new.  I painted my nails with two coats of Julep's Ashley, a pale orange with gold shimmer and used China Glaze's White on White for some polka dots.   Then I did a coat of Camille on my thumb and pinkie.  I kind of love Camille.  It's a clear chunky glitter  that almost looks holo and totally reminds me of the fake snow in snow globes.  It makes me want to do nail art inspired by the collectable snow globes from Fallout New Vegas.




And finally, on my ring finger I painted a bunny using my dotting tools.  The white is the same one I used for the polka dots.  His little blue eyes are Sally Hansen's Calypso Blue, and his nose and ears are Zoya's Sweet.  I painted on his whiskers with a black striper.  

I was really proud of myself for actually being able to pull this one off.  People kept complimenting them and were surprised that I had done it myself.  :-)

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Nails Inc Baker Street Swatch and Comparison

I have a friend adores BBC's Sherlock, like to the crazy fangirl status.  But then so do I, so who am I to judge? 

One day she was shopping and fell in love with this blue nail polish by Nails Inc.  When she noticed that it was called Baker Street, she had to have it.  She let me borrow it.  It was a pretty blue creme that I did two coats.  You can see that there is some balding on my pinkie, so that dissapointed me a little bit.  I also did two accent nails with Pixie's Gold Glimmer from the holiday pack.  Yeah, it really doesn't look gold, but actually silver. 


 
 
The more I looked at Baker Street, the more familiar it looked.  Finally, it hit me that it looked an aweful lot like Essie's Butler Please, which I used in my very first blog post!  


 
 
The only difference that I found was that Baker Street was patchy at two coats and Butler Please was not.  Also, Baker Street started chipping pretty quickly, so that was dissapointing.  But that just might have been me because polish never lasts very long with me.  

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Pinata Snow Mani

Today is only a quick mani guys.  I pulled out the polishes with the intention of just something simple for an interview and I swiped on three coats of Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Ivory Skull.  Like I mentioned before in the Colorful Leopard Mani, this white isn't my favorite because it takes so many coats to give full coverage, but I haven't gotten around to replace it because I've been lazy.

I was going to stick with just plain white, but then I wasn't paying attention and my bottle of Ulta's Pinata-Yada jumped into my hand and demanded I use it.  This is probably my favorite glitter polish ever, probably because it has a ton of different colors in it.  It has red, fuchsia, blue, green, silver and gold glitters in various sizes.  


Wednesday, March 13, 2013

What Wizardry is This? OPI and Liquid Sand

So for those of you who don't know, one of the nifty new things in nail polish right now are textured, matte polishes.  OPI was the first to come out with them in the form of four new polishes that were part of their Mariah Carey line.  They were chock full of glitter, which we know I love, but there were also little stars.  Considering how annoyed I've been getting lately with polishes that had confetti, I thought it best to stay away from the Liquid Sands.

Then Zoya came out with their Pixie Dust lines and I thought that they were awesome, unfortunately none of the colors really sung out to me enough that I needed to spend the extra money on shipping, so I controlled myself.   A couple smaller lines came out with textured polishes, like Milani, but they're not sparkly so I'm not interested.  Without the glitter they just kind of look like you messed up your polish while it was still wet and was too lazy to fix it.

Finally, OPI came out with the press releases for their line inspired by Oz the Great and Powerful and I saw this baby.  I NEEDED it.  Usually when I buy polishes, it's either when they're on sale or online and cheaper.  I really hate spending a full $9.50 on a bottle, but as soon as I saw the display at my Ulta on Saturday, I plucked it off the table and clutched it in my little hands.  I was so excited to find it, that I wasn't even upset that Ulta's usual $3.50 off of $10 coupon doesn't work on OPI any more.  Did you guys know that?  I had to pay full price for this sucker, and looking at it now on my nails, I regret nothing!



What Wizardry is This? is a chocolate colored polish with gold glitter and that totally awesome texture feel to it.  It went on in two coats perfectly and dried pretty quickly.  To keep the texture, you of course don't want to add a top coat.  It'll make the polish smooth and shiny, taking away the totally awesome bumpiness and matte look.  Also, sorry about how red my hands look.  I think it's the terrible lighting in the kitchen.

I'm a sucker for the feel of things, and while I do love a smooth and glossy nail, I adore the sandpapery texture of this nail polish.  I even showed it off at work by walking up to people and demanding they rub my nails.  Yeah, if my coworkers weren't used to me they'd think I'm a weirdo or something.



I've had this polish on for three days now, and for me that's a long time.  I don't even want to change my polish yet.  Usually by now the cheaper polishes have peeled off and most others are chipping away, or I get bored with the color and NEED to change it out.  This Liquid Sand color is still holding up strong with only the single chip on my middle finger.  Looking at it now, I might finally splurge on some of the Zoya Pixie Dusts.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Julep Maven March Box

It's that time of the month again!  Julep Maven boxes are being delivered and I got to play with my new colors last night.  The March colors were inspired by a childhood favorite, sidewalk chalk.  The colors are pretty pastels that are great for Spring. 

I chose It Girl this month, partially because I really like Simone and Shanae, but mostly because I didn't want the Rock Star hand cream at all.  I just can not stand floral scents, they just all smell gross to me.  The box ended up including Simone, Shanae, and Teri, along with a Strawberry Mint lipbalm. 



Simone is a lilac color with the barest hint of a blue shimmer.  It's visible in the bottle, but on the nail, the shimmer dissapears.  Shanae has the same shimmer, but in a pastel mint color. Teri is different from the others, only in the sense that it is not quite as pale.  It is creme, coral color.


When I first opened my Maven box, I knew that I had to do something involving all the colors.  Eventually, I decided on just doing diagonal stripes.  First I painted my nails all in Teri, then did a line of Simone, Shanae, and painted the very tips in Teri again.  To give it that complete chalk look, I added Julep's matte top coat and called it a night.  Teri painted on solid in one thick coat.  Simone and Shanae took two medium coats.  I love the way the colors ended up looking together.  Maybe next month I'll use all three again and braid them together. 

To finish this post off, I thought I'd throw in my most prized piece of sidewalk art.  When my mom found it in our backyard, she was annoyed.  But whatever, I regret nothing!!


Sunday, March 3, 2013

Las Vegas Nail Polish Haul

So almost two months ago I declared I would not buy any nail polish for six weeks.  The end of the six weeks actually fell on my Vegas weekend, so ever better.  Once I was there and had already done a little nail polish shopping at Sephora and H&M, I walked into one of the two ABC Stores in Planet Hollywood Miracle Mile and was greeted by this display.


So of course I bought some for myself.  Along with some for my mom, my partner in crime, and totally awesome nail mail buddy Megan at You've Got Nail!  This is what I ended up getting through out the weekend, minus two more cuticle oils, one color change polish, and two more regular polishes that were all for Megan and all Island Girl.  I didn't need her seeing my haul picture then knowing what I had gotten her!

As soon as we got home, I HAD to try one of these, it was like an itch that wouldn't be sated until I tried something.  I ended up picking Island Lei, a pink metallic color with silver shimmer in it.  It painted on in one opaque coat and I love the color.  The only problem was that the color came off in huge sheet.  It's okay if you're like me and end up changing your polish ever other day, but for normal people, not so great. 

Just to finish this all off, I'm going to add a picture that has nothing to do with nail polish, but it's nerdy and in Vegas, so it's acceptable.  I went to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, all excited for a ice blended mocha, then they charged me $7.  Seven dollars for a coffee?!  I almost threw a fit until I saw their tip jar.

Fluttershy is my favorite pony, ever.

Monday, February 25, 2013

First Attempt at Water Marble

So at the beginning of February I was going to do a nail art contest.  I was super excited for it and totally pumped, and then I kept messing it up.  This was my last attempt.  One of the themes was candy, so I was trying to replicate salt water taffy using the water marbling technique.  

For those of you who don't know, water marbling is when you take a cup of warm water and drip alternating drops of polish in.  Then you mix them together with a tooth pick so that the colors mesh and mix together.  Finally, you dip your nails in the color and voila the paint sticks to your nails.  



For this mani I used OPI Big Apple Red, Zoya Morgan, and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Ivory Skull. I painted my pinkie with Morgan too then did a top coat of ORLY's Shine On Crazy Diamond, just to jazz it up a bit. 

I've used Ivory Skull in my Colorful Leopard Mani and I reviewed Morgan in my Zoya 3 Free Special post.  Big Apple Red is my stock, solid red polish.  It is a creme and becomes fully opaque in two coats.  Shine On Crazy Diamond looks like just a basic glitter until sunlight hits it.  Then it becomes a holographic disco party.

I am pretty proud of my first attempt at water marbling, thought next time I wouldn't pair red and pink because they just look too similar.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Las Vegas Mani

So the boytoy took me to Las Vegas for Valentine's Day.  We walked too much and drank a lot, though he did take me to a fancy French dinner, so I guess it's okay.  Also, I got to finally end my month long "no new polish" fast, so of course I bought too many.  My next post will show off that haul, but now back to the important stuff.

For my nails, I used L'Oreal's Limited Edition Project Runway Nail Stickers in Enchanted Queen.  When I first saw these months ago, I knew I needed them for my next Las Vegas trip.  Red, black, and white nail stickers with card suits and stripes?  They were a mandatory purchase.  

Maybe it's because I had such high hopes for these guys, but they kind of sucked.  First off the ends would never file smooth.  My thumb was always catching on stuff and the pointer finger on both hands peeled off as soon as I had finished.  Lucky for me, I happened to have China Glaze's Lubu Heels on hand, so I ended up painting my pointer finger with it. 

Also if you look at my ring finger you can see air pockets.  No matter how much I smoothed it out, there were always bubbles.  The other two black nail stickers peeled off by the second day of our trip. 


The last thing I did for my failing mani was add a row of square shaped studs to each of the black nails.  That was probably my favorite part of the whole thing.  It was nice addition to the whole thing and the only thing that kept me from just peeling off the stickers and just painting all of my nails with Lubu Heels.

For those of you that don't know, Lubu Heels is a black jelly with tiny red glitters, like those iconic Louboutin heels with the red undersides.  The red is subtle unless you look at it with direct sunlight, so it's a nice little surprise.  The only downside is that you have to do a base coat of black polish to keep it opaque.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Valentines Day Barbie Glitter Nails

So I know this is super late, but in my defense I was trying to pack for Vegas and do a ton of laundry, then we actually went to Vegas. Then there was no chance of me actually blogging in Vegas because the boytoy demands all of my attention.  But I have a Vegas mani to post and a haul to talk about.  Super exciting stuff here.  

This is my mani from Valentines day.  I swiped on two coats of Sally Hansen Back to the Fuchsia which is a bright pink creme polish with just the lightest hint of blue shimmer in it.  If it wasn't for the blue shimmer, it would probably be a dupe for Zoya's Morgan.  Back to the Fuchsia kind of reminds me of Lush's candy scented shower gel, Snow Fairy, at least color wise.  


Afterwards, my natural response was to pile on as much glitter as possible.  I did a coat of Laquerlicious Cherished Cherub for glitter and Nicole by OPI's Love Your Life for the hearts.  Cherished Cherub has orange hearts, but no matter how much I dug around in the bottle I could not pull out any hearts.  It was a pain to get off, but I didn't have any chipping what so ever when I finally took it off.


Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Hex Lizard Mani

In case I have not already mentioned it before, I am a nerd.  I play video games, I watch nerdy shows, I read comic books, and I love the Avengers.
OPI's Amazing Spiderman line caused my love of nail polish, more specifically Just Spotted the Lizard did. It is definitely one of my favorite polishes.



The color changes from green to gold based on the angle that light hits it. I did two coats of polish and look how pretty it is! I've noticed with metallic duochrome polishes you have to do two coats. The first coat is always way too sheer and kind of ugly. The second coat is what makes it pretty. People always comment about how it looks like beetles.



I added very light green hex glitters on my thumb, middle, and ring fingers. They added a nice reflective quality to my mani that I kept getting distracted by. Now if I only had the patience to lay down the glitters in order so they completely covered my nail, I would be golden.


Thursday, February 7, 2013

Colorful Leopard Nail Art

My mom wanted me to do her nails, and by "wanted" I mean demanded.  She went on youtube and watched videos until she decided that she wanted leopard print.  She picked the colors and I just did as I was told.  

I started with three coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Ivory Skull because it was really bad at going on smoothly.  I don't like it very much, just because if I'm using something as a base, it should cover really well in just one or two coats.  Three is far too many.  For the spots I used one of the bigger ends of my dotting tools and just scattered a few of each color on every nail.  The black was done with a smaller tip, I just made sure to not completely surround the dots.  Make sure you fill in empty space with small black dots and you're done!  


Look at my poor mom and her beaten up skin.  She works with her hands and her cuticles dry out really easily.  Any suggestions for what she should use?

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Deborah Lipmann Mermaid's Dream

So I have a Bachelor's in Creative Writing specializing in Fiction and my writing tends to stick to fantasy for the most part.  Like any proper girly girl, I love unicorns, mermaids, fairies, and all sorts of fantastic creatures.  Hence, why when I see nail polish with "mermaid" in the name I have to have it.


Mermaid's Dream is my first Deborah Lipmann.  I spent far too long comparing the different colors I wanted until I finally decided on this one.  After all of my blues and mermaid colors, this one is still different from them all, which makes me glad I invested the $18 on it.
In real life, it is actually a touch more mint green and little less teal.  Mermaid's Dream is a thick glitter with specks of holo glitter that I did not actually notice until I was in the sunlight.  The holo was a nice little sparkly surprise.  There are also navy blue glitters running through it.  I layered one coat of Mermaid's Dream over Sinful Colors' Mint Apple, partially because both were perfect matches for each other, and partially because I did not want to have to attempt to remove three coats of solid glitter.
The last thing that I love about this polish is how forgiving this formula is.  It completely filled in the still healing ridges I have left from my six month stint with acrylics.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

February Nail Art Challenge - Day 3 Flowers

So day three is off to a better start then my first nail art attempt, so yay.
Flowers were a lot easier to pull off then hearts, for some reason, so I am really happy with this mani.  When I first started trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with for the flowers theme, I was at a loss.  Then I started playing with my cousin's nail polish and fell in love with this blue.


It is Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Blinding Blue.  I probably would have been fine with just one coat, but there was just a touch of visible nail line so it was a two coater.  I might have to find my own bottle of this for a lot of the nerdy nail art I have planned.
For the flowers I pulled out the dotting tools and used the biggest end I had.  The orange is Essie's Fifth Avenue, a bright red orange that paints on in one coat.  I'm very glad that I bought it on a whim.  The yellow is Milani's Totally 80's.  It's supposed to be neon green, but the formula is so thin that even with three coats on top of white polish it looks yellow.  I loved the name, but not so much the actual polish.
I love the way this ended up.  It remind me of 70's retro curtains, all bright colors and funkiness.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Rhinestone Bow Nail Art on Purple

Apparently I've created nail polish addictions in some of my friends.  The person most effected is my partner in crime.  I've been promising to do her nails for a while, and I finally got a chance to last weekend.  This is what we came up with.


I did three coats of Essie's Sexy Divide because it took that much to cover the bald spots.  It is a very pretty dark purple that would be great for the winter.  The stripe and bow are from Konad stamping plate m56 and the white Konad stamping polish.  I stuck a rhinestone in the middle of the bow and then coated the whole thing in top coat.
She got a ton of compliments on the nails and one lady even asked if I had a business card.  

Friday, February 1, 2013

February Nail Art Challenge - Day 1 Hearts

Since we know I love instagram, it would come as no surprise when I say that I found a nail art challenge and had to do it.  This is Californails' challenge, aptly called the "Totally Doable, I Have a Life! Challenge".  Instead of doing a new nail art every day, you are challenged to create something new every few days.  It's good because then it forces me to try new things.


Okay so maybe it's not the most impressive thing, but this was my fifth attempt.  I just got so frustrated with everything that I just gave up and stuck heart shaped confetti on my ring finger on top of Opi's Princesses Rule!  Originally my plan was to stamp multiple hearts on my nails.  First I used Julep's Grace as a base to keep Princesses Rule from being so transparent.  Unfortunately, it just would not dry.  It kept getting smudged and shifting around.  I suspect that is why Julep's Madison smudged when I used it last time in my first post here.  
So I just took it all off, and did three coats of Princesses Rule.  Then the stamp hearts smeared everywhere.  I took off all the nail polish again and tried cutting heart shapes out of some tape to sponge on some red hearts, and the tape messed up the pink.  Eventually, I just suck the nifty confetti on top of Princesses Rule, heavily covered the whole thing in top coat and called it a night.  
So maybe the challenge isn't off to a fantastic start, but I'm still going to try my best to go through with it.  Next challenge is flowers, hopefully it goes better than this one and I don't cop out by using the flower shaped rhinestones I have sitting in my box of nail junk.  
On the plus side, I do love Princesses Rule.  It's a shimmery, girly pink that is really subdued for when you want to change things up from the usual crazy colors.  It is really sheer though, in the pictures I used three thin coats to get that amount of coverage and there is still a little bit of visible nail line.  

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Zoya 3 Free Special: Morgan, Sophie, Ginger

Whenever I buy nail polishes, a lot of the time I pick them based on the name.  Sure I have a bunch of duochromes just because I love the color shift, and I have a ton of blues because I love oceanesque colors.  But in the end if I like the name of the color, I have to have it.  For example, I have a giant lemming for China Glaze's It's a Trap-eze, because of the internet meme based in Star Wars.  Every time I see swatches, all I can think of is Admiral Ackbar crying "it's a trap!"

The same rules apply to names.  Any and every company that has a trio of nail polishes called Morgan, Sophie, and Ginger, I have to have them.  So when I heard about Zoya's 3 Free special and I found the colors, I had to get them.

Ginger was probably my favorite out of all three.  It's a great bright orange with gold shimmer. In the picture I'm wearing two coats, only to cover a few bald spots.



Morgan is a Barbie pink creme that I wanted to love so much, but it fell a little short. It was really thin and needed three coats to cover a visible nail line. It was bright and really pretty, but it started chipping right away.


Sophie was the one that surprised me the most.  It wasn't particularly impressive in the bottle, and this picture does not do it justice, but it got onto my nail and I adored it.  It's a brick red creme, and surprisingly I do not have a color like it in my stash.  I have multiple bright reds, but nothing like this.  I painted on smoothy and like Ginger, only needed two coats.  I topped it with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Anti Chip top coat for the glossy shine.


Saturday, January 26, 2013

Julep Cindy Swatch

When I first started getting in nail polish, I spent a whole bunch of time reading blogs, and on Pinterest.  I kept hearing about Julep, and their Maven program.  Come on, $20 a month for at two to three nail polishes that are trendy and chosen to best fit your style?  It's a steal!  Especially considering that they're fabulous colors and good quality.

At some point I got Cindy, I don't remember if it came in a box or as an add on.  I just remember picking it because I didn't have any green polishes and it was sparkly.  For the longest time it just stayed in my nail polish case and for whatever reason I never picked it up.  Well I finally used it and it is fantastic.
Cindy is a grassy green jelly with tiny green and gold glitter, though it is a little hard to notice the gold in the picture.  I had to do three coats to get this coverage because at two I still had a little bit of a visible nail line.
I got a ton of compliments on this color.  My favorite was "I like your nails because they're my favorite color.  Green, like money."

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Laquerlicious Mini Haul and Swatches


I love Instagram, just saying that off the bat right now.  If I ever get a few minutes, first thing I have to do is check my Instagram feed and see if anyone has posted anything new.  It's kind of an addiction really.
So I was trying to find a good nail polish for Valentine's Day that is glitzy enough to work for Las Vegas, since the boytoy is taking me to Vegas.  :-)  Darcy from Sparrow Nails helped me out on Instagram and suggested Laquerlicious on etsy.  And since I lack self control, I couldn't buy just one.
 
Ocean Treasure and Cherished Cherub are gorgeous sparkly babies that made me really happy.   Both colors are jellies, full of glitter shards and shaped confetti.  Cherished Cherub I'm holding off on using until next month, but I didn't have a problem swiping Ocean Treasure on my nails.
Ocean Treasure is a blue jelly with blue and green shards and little silver stars.  It layers beautifully, leaving the glitter to look like it's at the bottom of the sea.  My only problem was that it was so hard to get the stars.  On my entire left hand I got one.  I tried digging in the bottle, and I just could not find any.
I really do love the color, I just hope that next time I use it, the confetti isn't so sparse.  If you're interested in the polish check out Laquerlicious Unity.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Ocean Zebra Nail Art



Isn't this exciting?  I finally got myself a Konad Stamp kit and of course I pull out the animal print.  I used stamp plate M57 for this and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Onyx for the zebra stripes.  They are on top of Nicole by OPI in Mer-Made for Each Other.

Mer-Made for Each Other is a duochrome that shifts from green to gold to aqua.  If I didn't have an obsession with blue duochrome, I probably would not have picked this one up.  I already have similar colors in brands I like better.  What really got me to buy it, was that this color looked like liquid peacock feathers in the bottle.  As soon as it got on my nails though, it was true to its name, and I do love me some mermaid polishes.  It did paint on a tad streaky, so I ended up needing three coats.

Now that I think about it, I probably should have taken a picture of Mer-Made before the stamping.  I'll remember for next time.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Mani with Essie Fair Play and Set in Stone





I was at the boytoy's house last week and he decided that he wanted to help pick out my nail polish.  So he dug through my bag of nail polishes that I happened to have with me (because I usually have my base and top coats, and a couple colors with me for some odd reason) and he chose Fair Play and Set in Stone to accent. 

Essie's Fair Play I got at ULTA on clearance, which is awesome because I never see Essie on sale.  It is a slate color that started out almost blue when I first put it on, but two days later looked entirely gray.  It went on pretty smoothly, I did two coats on my nails and three on my thumbs.  I guess because they're bigger nails there's more room to have balding?  The color was really pretty on it's own and demure, but I can't leave well enough alone.

Set in Stone is a awesome combination of glitter and chunky, reflective hexagons that I kept getting distracted by.  It sucked to get off, like all glitter, but it is one of my favorites right now.  I'm trying to keep myself from putting it on top of EVERYTHING. 

At the end of the day, I still love Essie.  I think I'm going to do this again after the damage from my acrylics grows out so my nails look smooth and pretty. :-)


Sunday, January 13, 2013

JULEP MADISON AND ESSIE BUTLER PLEASE SWATCHES




It has been brought to my attention that painting two accent nails is the new trend.  To me, that just means that I don’t have to pick just one polish whenever I paint my nails.  :-)
When I got home from work last night, I thought Julep’s Madison would be a good accent to Butler Please.  So at 8 pm I started painting my nails and at 11 pm I jumped into the shower before bed.  Imagine my surprise when I noticed that all of the nails with Madison were smudged.  The Essie polish was perfectly smooth as always, but for some reason Julep failed me!
In the bottle, Madison is a bright pink neon and on the nail it looses some of the rosy hue.  In the picture it looks almost orange, but then that might just be the fault of my iPhone.  I am actually really sad that it took so long to dry because I love Julep.  Some of my favorite polishes have come from Julep Maven boxes and they always seem to last the longest with the least amount of chipping.
Butler Please is probably one of my favorite blues, and I do adore blue polishes.  It is a cobalt blue creme.  It dried with almost a matte finish, but with a top coat it was super glossy and awesome.  I wish I had gotten it sooner and had stamped it with silver snowflakes for a holiday manicure.
In the end, I still love Essie and I’ll give Madison another chance another day.  Hopefully, it’ll dry better next time.