As promised: Half-moon manicure

I know it's about a week overdue, but here is a look at that half-moon manicure I promised!

This is basically the french manicure's gawdy cousin. I used a base-coat of Nailtien, 2 coats of OPI's "Take the Stage", and then free-handed 2 coats of OPI's "Rising Star" for the half-moon.

Both of these colors are fabulous foils. The oranges are so vibrant, and a fresh change from all of the neon-orange you see this time of year.

The only issue I have is that there is a significant amount of pooling near the cuticals, which makes it difficult to have a clean finish.

Ratings:

Application: 5 out of 10. Nice coverage, pooling is a serious problem.

Color: 8 out of 10. Very vibrant, has a nice metallic sheen. They go together well for this particular style of manicure.

Clean-up: 3 out of 10. Pooling makes meganchair impossible. Also you wind up with orange shimmer in all the nooks and crannies of your skin after removal.

Appearance: 7 out of 10. I'm happy with this manicure overall, but I wish it looked a little neater.


Tomorrow we're getting back to basics with a Sinful Colors polish!

Better than crackle!

I introduce you to what should be the newest texture craze: The rubber finish!

"Faux Pas" by Illamasqua is quite possibly the coolest thing that has happened to me since OPI reintroduced crackle.

This is a deep eggplant creme, with a semi-matte finish that gives the end product a rubbery look and texture. Everybody I showed them to today wound up grabbing my hand to touch them!

I can't stop gushing about it. I was even impressed with the brush's extra-long bristles, light touch and easy spread. It was shipped on a nifty bed of shredded black paper, and with this snazzy promotional brochure!

Ratings:

Application: 10 out of 10. The formula is just thick enough to paint on smoothly and easily, witout clumping or streaking. Right after applying I was worried that it would show all of the brush strokes, but after about 30 seconds of dry time it was smooth as...well, rubber! It was like magic! The rubber finish also meant that it had an incredibly short dry time, so I didn't have to stay up too late worrying about the dreaded "sheet-smudge".

Color: 19 out of 10. The egplant color lends really well to the rubber finish, but they also have a black and a red. I would love to see Illmasqua apply this finish to other, less-obvious colors like orange, green, yellow, etc.

Clean-up: 8 out of 10. I know this sounds crazy, especially to you professional polishers who like to leave a gap, but it came away with acetone almost too easily. Even the slightest error with my meganchair clean-up (eye-liner brush and acetone) meant the nail was wiped clean and needed to be redone. I'm sure this would make it ideal for most people, but my OCD insists that the entire nail be covered.

Appearance: 10 out of 10. I just can't express how truely awesome this nail polish is. It will probably be my weekend color for all of october!

Special thanks to Scott Watson, who took my "OMGBUYMETHIS" post on facebook seriously. Thanks Scott!!!

It's a good week for nail polish...

I thought I was pretty lucky to find yesterday's "Space Cadet" by Orly, but now I'm two-for-two with duo-chromes! Introducing "Molten Gold" by Nina's Ultra Pro line!

While this polish doesn't have as nice of a "flash" as "Space Cadet", it does show off it's different colors in various lighting. Sometimes it is a deep pink, in others it's a rosy-gold, and still others an orangy copper. Scroll through the pics to compare!

It has a great metallic shimmer finish, which is accented by a coat of Sally Hansen's MegaShine.

Ratings:

Application: 6 out of 10. Took four coats to cover streaky application.
Color: 9 out of 10. The opposing colors in this duo-chrome look awesome. It practically looks like a different polish in different lighting.
Clean-up: 7 out of 10. It took a bit of scrubbing with a cotton ball and non-acetone remover.
Appearance: 10 out of 10. Overall, this is a great polish. My husband summed it up pretty well when he said "It looks like you should be wearing an evening gown...". I think "classy" is a good word to describe it. The color flash makes it unique, but the colors are main-stream enough to look great for a special occasion.

I received a very special package in the mail today, so I'll have a surprise for tomorrows review! You'll love it!

Finally! A good duo-chrome!

Let me introduce you to Orly's "Space Cadet":

...I know, right!?

Space Cadet is a peacock (purple w/ green flash) duo-chrome micro-glitter in a transparant terquoise base. So not only is this the duo-chrome to end all duo-chomes, it is also a metallic foil! I know! Check it out!

Maybe it's the run of disappointing duo-chromes I've tried lately, OPI's "Not Like the Movies", Wet n' Wild's dupe "Gray's Anatomy", and Zoya's "Ki" all want to be "Space Cadet" when they grow up. Pun intended!

Here's the best part; not only is the flash evident even in soft white light and office florecents, but the whole nail flashes at the right angle! More importantly, you can see all colors in this polish's spectrum just by looking at the nail, without movement. This might be less noticable on people with a flatter nail-bed than mine, but most of the time the sides appear mossy-green, the dead center of the nail is a deep purple, and everything in-between is a pinkish-copper. On top of that is a light sparkle from the micro-glitter.

This is also the first duo-chrome I've seen that is able to portray really vibrant hues instead of muted pastels. Just look at this purple!

Unfortunatly it does have it's drawbacks. The turquoise jelly Orly uses for the suspension base dyed my nails through 2 coats of Nailtien base coat, which was even more annoying since I had just sanded off the stains left from Wet n' Wild's "Teal of Fortune". It was also a huge pain in the ass to get off, and wound up using the soaking method (with pure acetone) to remove it, and still had copper microglitter in every microscopic imperfection of my hands.

Ratings:

Application: 8 out of 10. Kinda blotchy during application, but a coat of Sally Hansen's "Megashine" evened it out.
Color: 10 out of 10. Everything a peacock duo-chrome should be.
Clean-up: 5 out of 10. Pure hell.
Appearance: 10 out of 10. The end product is just beautiful.

I would say that the result is well worth the few drawbacks. Congrats to Orly on making one of my new favs!

Ulta's Plum Perfect

I went on a nail polish shopping spree today! I hit up basically every store in the entire Polaris area that sells the stuff, and came away with six brand new colors, including today's Plum Perfect by Ulta.

This is a really rich creme, in a dusty violet color (which is much more muted in real life). The color really is lovely. In my opinion, it is straddeling the line between "retro-edgy" and "Grandma's church-goin manicure".

I had some diffuculty with application because this particular formula was kind of streaky. Fortynatly, it dried to a perfect high-gloss finish. No top coat needed!

Ratings:

Application: 7 out of 10. Streaky at first, but did end up looking great.
Color: 8 out of 10. Nice muted fall color, but not something I would wear all the time.
Clean-up: 9 out of 10. Came off easily with acetone free polish remover!
Appearance: 8 out of 10. Very glossy, and it is a lovely color, but I normall lean toward more "out there" colors.

More to come this weekend, including Icing, Orly, Warpaint (by Hot Topic, including a glow-in-the-dark with microglitter!), and pixel.

A tip for everyone in the Columbus area, the Trade Secret in Polaris Fashion Place is going out of business and everything is drastically reduced. OPI is about $6 a bottle, and I bought several OPI lotions for a buck! Happy hunting!

What's your name?

Hello everybody! Sorry for the delay in posting, but I've been having a lovely bout of kidney stones! You would think all this time off work would give me lots of oppurtunities to paint and re-paint my nails, but sadly sitting hunched over my desk is the last thing I want to do at the moment. That being said, this manicure is actually about 3 days old.

Sinful's "What's Your Name" is a near-black polish packed with teal micro-glitter. These pictures just don't do it justice. Everyone thinks I've been loopy on my pain pills because I just keep staring at my hands (that and the fact that I am loopy on my pain pills...).

It went on like a dream, so smooth and glossy. The only issue I had was a little inconsistancy in the opacity, some nails took two coats, some needed three.

I'm also a little dissapointed by the amount of shrinkage and chippage for not-even a week of wear. Sinful usually leads the pack in chip-free polishes, especially their glitters, so this was a suprise. In this image, you can clearly see the shrinkage on all of my tips, as well as a good-sized chip on my pinky. I have 3 medium-sized chips overall. This is also as close as I could get to capturing the gorgeous teal micro-glitter.

 

Ratings:

Application: 8 out of 10. Close to perfect, but it had inconsistent coverage.
Color: 9 out of 10. Awesome, awesome teal glitter in near-black base.
Clean-up: 8 out of 10. Easily removed, but left a slight stain on the rough parts of my cuticles, as all dark colors are prone to do.
Appearance: 7 out of 10. Color and shine are great, chipping and shrinkage bring the score down. 

Still, the sheer-awesomeness of this color makes up for it's low durability. I think you'll be seeing this color on me again soon! Wouldn't this look great as a marble with a light base? That would really make the teal pop!

I know I've promised you half-moon manicures with the burnt oranges from OPI's Burlesque line (terrible movie, great polishes!), but that will have to wait until I can stand sitting up for long periods of time. Here's hoping!

Another dissapointing duo-chrome...

I'm not sure if the nail polish gods hate me, or if there is something in my body chemisty that makes duo-chromes simply fail. I was really excited by the prospect of Zoya's Ki, because it looked great in the bottle and even better on the swatch in the store. But while it was supposed to be a stealy-violet with a shamrock-green flash, this is what I got:

Looks like a pretty kick-ass purple huh? Which is all well and good, but where is my damn green flash!? I tried it under multiple light sources, all to no avail.

I like the color as it is, but I was hoping for a duo-chrome that didn't require me risking skin cancer to see.

Ratings:


Application: 6 out of 10. Kinda clumpy. I also had some issues due to it's transparency. It really needed 3 coats to reach full coverage, but that many coats lead to pooling at my cuticles.
Color: 7 out of 10. Awesome purple, but you might require a professional stage lighting crew to see the flash.
Clean-up: 7 out of 10. Acetone removed the color easily, but I was left with ragged edges where the excess polish had pooled.
Appearance: 8 out of 10. It has a nice shimmer AND shine without a top coat. It also leaves a really smooth surface if you've avoided the clumps carefully enough. Little to no shrinkage.

Overall a cute, trendy color at the moment. Next time I'll be re-visiting the burnt oranges from OPI's Burlesque collection to show off a half-moon manicure!

Update: Frrrrench Manicure

While I was out yesterday, I noticed that this holo looks much better in the sunlight than it did even in my bright indoor lighting. Check it out!

Look at that sexy holo glitter. Much nicer in the sunlight. The distance show doesn't show the glitter as nicely, but it's a bit sharper:

In light of this discovery (no pun intended) I'll be going out tomorrow to look for an artificial sun lamp.

I didn't think I would like these nails as much as I do. I'm hesitant to change them, despite having just bought Ki from Zoya. I'm hoping it's a more vibrant version of OPI's Not Like the Movies, it seems darker on the sample nails, but at the beauty shop I was at OPI was on a white nail board, and Zoya was on clear. We'll see!

Frrrrrench Manicure

Let me begin today's blog by saying that I am not a french manicure type person. I cringe whenever I see the standard issue acrylics with stark white tips, and automatically think "Soccer Mom".

I can, however, appreciate how nice a french manicure can look when it's not on 2" plastic nail beds. I'm in a play this weekend, in which I am required to appear somewhat "innocent" for the better part of the show. I toyed with the idea of frosty pinks and lavenders, but nothing says "school girl" better than a french manicure with OMGGLITTER!

While I wanted to give the scotch tape method a try, I simply don't have the time to let the base color dry completely. So I free-handed the tip to varying degrees of success.

I began with a base of Nailtiens (because Thursday's application of Sinful's "Hottie" kicked my ass!), folowed by two coats of Sinful's sheer pink shimmer "Social Ladder", and the tip was two coats of Sinful's "Snow Me White".

I had some problems with "Social ladder streaking over the Nailtien, which I think can be blamed on the Nailtein and not the color, as it's usually very smooth when used without a base coat. This is also the first time I've tried any amount of detailed work with one of Sinful's brushes, and I was less than enthused. It seemed to have a way of grabbing clumps and strings that clung to the brush, no matter how often I scraped it against the lip of the bottle.

After about 10 minutes of dry-time, I applied 2 coats of Wet n' Wild's "Kaledoscope", which is a holo silver glitter in a clear base.

I had some serious problems with glitter clumpage.

It was nearly impossible to get an even coating of the glitter, and I couldn't play with it too much for fear of the white streaking. Some of my nails came out quite streaky:

Overall I give this manicure a 7 out of 10. While I was really pleased with the french tips themselves, and pleasantly surprised at my ability to free-hand, the holo glitter pissed me off enough to be bitter about the time spent on this look. Next time I'll choose a better brand, or skip the glitter entirely.

Lush's Ultrabalm

As I'm sure you realize, changing your polish as frequently as I do, and using as many chemicals on your hands as I do, can lead to some pretty serious skin issues. Lately I've been struggling with tough cuticles, no matter how much I filed or clipped them.

I'm not a huge fan of petroleum-based hand creams, other than the obvious greasy feeling, I'm not thrilled with the idea of slapping an oil refinery by-product on my skin. I was using cocoa butter to varying degrees of success for sometime, but that lead to an awkward problem when I realized that my dog would freak out and obsessively lick my hands whenever he smelled it on me. Believe it or not, dog slobber is not an effective moisturizer either.

I had tried lemony-flutter, the cuticle cream made by LUSH a fantastic bath and body company that supports ethical product sourcing and vegan ingredients. While lemony-flutter smelled great and felt wonderful, it just couldn't keep up with my nail routine. It absorbed very fast, and didn't seem to do much for my hardened cuticles.

Today when I stopped by my local Lush counter, a rep suggested I try Ultrabalm. It's advertised as an all-purpose body balm, which can be used on everything from your lips to cuts and scrapes, so I'm not sure why I never thought of using it on my hands. While it is advertised as being "light" and "readily absorbed", I found my results to be rather the opposite. It's plant based waxes really helped soften the skin around my nails, and the thicker texture meant that application was easy. After using it just 3 times tonight, my rough spots are noticeably softer, and the redness and irritation from last-nights glitter fight seems to have calmed. It does leave a slightly greasy feeling immediately after application, but that goes away quickly.

I would recommend this product to anyone who changes their polish as frequently as I do, or even to casual at-home manicurists. I'm sure you'll see more Lush products in reviews to come!

Frosty Claws!

 I think I accidentially jumped straight over fall shades and into winter. I was hoping Hottie by Sinful Colors would have the same bold, almost neon-blue color as it is in the bottle. Alas, it came out less Californial Gurls and more Cinderella. Though the bright flash in the photos shows a bright-blue, it's more of a light, powder blue in real life.

If Jack Frost had an illagitamate love child with the Little Mirmaid, this is what the baby's nails would look like.

There are other problems with this polish. First, it took 5 coats to get full coverage. FIVE! Second, while I understand that removing octogon-shaped glitter is always going to be a challange, these glittery bastards refused to let go of my cuticals, despite using straight acetone and an orange stick. Seriously, my skin is red from all the chemicals and scraping. (I'm hoping that some of the glitter on my skin will come off with wear). There is also a serious shrinkage issue, even before I layed a top-coat of MegaShine. So much so that I had to file the nail after application to reduce the amount of white peeking over the tip. The worst part was that the shrinkage was not exactly uniform due to the octogon glitter from hell, so I bassically wound up tearing the tip of the manicure every time my file caught on a piece of titanium glitter. Oh yeah, Did I mention the clumpy formula?

I guess the finished product looks nice if you dig the sparkely-pastel thing. Otherwise, I would only reccomend this product used as an over-coat, and then very sparingly.

Ratings:


Application: 3 out of 10, very clumpy and streaky
Color: 4 out of 10. Nice color on it's own merit, but noting like the bottle.
Clean-up: 3 out of 10 Evil, evil glitter.
Appearance: 6 out of 10 It has a nice depth, and the glitter, though a total pain in the ass, does shine like the dickens. It also has a much smoother finish than most glitters, and took the top coat very well. The overall appearance rating took a big hit because of the unusual amount of shrinkage from the tip.

Next time I'll be taking a stab at a scotch-tape french tip in pinks and whites.

Teal and Purple Water Marble

Hurray for marble! Is it time consuming? Yes! Is it messy? Yes! Does it waste perfectly good nail polish? Yes! Is it frustrating? Hell yes! Does it look OMGAWESOME?! YES IT DOES!

My local walgreens is having a sale on Sinful Colors nail polish, 99cents per bottle. I had pretty much exhausted my options for polishes that spread well duing water marbeling (and they were mostly pink, blech!), so I set out speciffically to find colors that would look nice together. I came out with Let's Talk, a deep purple shimmer, and Rise and Shine, a teal cream. I also picked up Snow Me White (which is a very dirty name, in my opinion), to use as the base.

This time, I made my own video to help others looking to duplicate the pattern. Here is the most important part: distilled water. Using tap water is simply an excercise in frustration.

The finished product, including Sally Hansen's Mega Shine topcoat:

And up-close!

Not too shabby! I'm especially pleased with how vibrant the white base made the marbled colors.

I picked up a few other things while I was out, including Sinful's Hottie, a blue holo glitter, and Kaleidoscope by Wet n' Wild. I know, I know...Wet n' Wild is the cheap stuff right? This might be true, but their Gray's Anatomy lasted a hell of a lot longer, and in my opinion, even looked better than OPI's Not Like the Movies. And hey, it's always 99cents!

Blackout take 2

Okay, so I promised another shot at Icing's Blackout, this time on my fingers instead of toes! While it's by no means a dupe of Nfu.Oh GS-14, it's passable enough to keep me from spending $12.50.

I added a topcoat of Sally's Mirror Shine, to mixed results. It give it an even more fab shine in low lite or yellow light, but under the florecents at the office the shine makes it impossible to see any of the holo glitter. Like the Nfu.Oh, it's best viewed outdoors.

Here's an up-close shot. As you can see, there was a tiny bit of shrinkage, both at the tip and at the cuticle. I've worn it for about 2 days now and I only have minimal chippage, which is impressive based on the amount of typing I do.

More marbling to come this weekend!

Resting my nails

I know there is no solid scientific evidence for this, but I feel like it is important to let my nails "rest" for a couple days each month. I use this time to apply a vitimin coat, use my stain remover, and moisturize the skin around the nail.

Right now, they have a really unsavory blue tinge thanks to Wet n' Wild's "Teal of Fortune". This stuck even after 2 light-colored polish changes with pure acetone. I'm not sure if my bleaching kit will remove this since it is geared toward yellow stains...

More marbling to come at the end of the week!

Oh, how I wish I had Nfu.Oh GS14

I'm so bummed that Nfu.Oh GS14 is out of my price range at the moment. I've seen lots of love for it lately, but it is about 4x what I would normally pay per bottle, plus you have to buy a special base coat to keep it from clumping.

So...imagine my suprise when I was cleaning out my collection to find a similar looking polish from Icing, "blackout" is also black with micro-halo glitter! Having just put a new marble on my nails, I decided to slap these on the toesies since I couldn't wait to see how it compared.

 (excuse my fugly feet)

I'm happy with the results overall, the only issue I have is the eye-blinding amount of light that is necessary to get the full effect of the halo glitter. It seems to me that the only time you would get the "wow" factor is outdoors in the summer, and black is not typically a color I would wear in that season. I'm sure it would be amped up a bit on my fingernails, but it still wouldn't be 100%.

I think that all things considered, this is still a better polish than Nfu.Oh GS14 for the money. If you already wear black polish on a day-to-day basis, this would be a great way to spice it up, but maybe not a great investment if you don't wear dark colors very often. Save your money for the irreplaceable Nfu.Oh 61!

First attempt at water-marbeling!

Actually, I should probably say my first "sucessful attempt at water marbeling. I spent most of yesterday about to pull my hair out, while drop after drop of polish sunk to the bottom of the glass, or refused to disperse at all. After much groaning and throwing of cotton balls and orange sticks, my husband came over to see what all of the fuss was about, and of course, each drop preformed perfectly under his skeptical gaze.

After doing some more research on the interwebs, I decided to invest in a 98-cent jug of distilled water from the local Kroger, and it made a world of difference. The laqure disperced evenely each time, and the film stuck together longer, making for a smoother application and quick clean-up.

The only downside for me is the inability to get a uniform look. Perhaps it's just a slight case of OCD, but having 2 "candy-striped" nails next to "swirly" nailes really upset me. I suppose I could fix this with practice over time, but at the moment it's just too time consuming and labor intensive to wipe it off and try again.

The most labor-intensive part was removing the polish from my fingers after each dip. It was simply hellish, and this was after applying petrolum jelly to each finger. Perhaps it wouldn't have been as noticeable if I were using pastels instead of navy blue and pink. After I cleaned the bulk of the polish off with cotton balls and Q-tips, I used the meganchair method to leave a nice, clean edge.

You may notice that I don't use the meganchair method to create her famout "gap" between the cutical and the polish. I am not a fan of the gap overall. In my opinion, it looks like an acrylic nail that needs filling. To that end, I almost always paint over the edges of the nail to be sure I cover 100% of the surface. Depending on time constraints, I either use meganchair to remove the excess with pure acetone and a sharp brush, or I simply peel the polish off my shin after taking a hot bath or shower. Both work equally well, but I honestly think the acetone is a little less damaging to my cuticals, considering that I am otherwise forcing enamle off my skin.

I used 1 coat of Sinful Colors "Cream Pink" as my base, then marbled with  Sally Hansen Salon "Navy Baby" and Wet and Wild "Gray's Anatomy" (aka: the knock-off of OPI's "Not Like The Movies" in their Katy Perry line). Finished with Sally Hansen Mega Shine.