China Glaze Sci-Fi

I thought I had posted on this one before, but I couldn't find the post. So, here it is.

China Glaze "Sci-Fi" is a metallic purple. Its from the 2009 Khrome collection which is a bunch of crome metallic colors. I actually thought it was more of a gray until I started playing around with the color and toppers and the lavender really came out.

Its a one coater, except that it tends to drag if you don't paint really fast and then let it fully dry.  >.<  So paint each nail fast, and don't go back to it until its fully dry, even if you miss a spot. If you do, you will see what happened to my middle fingernail. Not a killer, but if i weren't planning on layering this later in the week, I would add a second coat to that nail.

The color looks gray on my hands. Maybe its because its cloudy (snow is rolling in and by the time this post goes live Monday morning we should have at least an inch on the ground. It can pull off a metallic silver almost gunmetal color if you don't have gray next to it. It would be excellent for people that want a neutral that love wearing purples. Its just a Hint of color.

Disclaimer, I bought this myself. I got it online at a discount store (TonyNail) over the summer. It might be a bit hard to find since its a little older. But since it is in a discount site, I am guessing it might not be *that* hard to find.

Different DImension "I've Been an Angel All Year"

Sorry this is a little later in the day than usual, I haven't found my nail polish groove again. But I wanted to share my Christmas manicure. Well I might swap colors since I have another polish I haven't tried out yet, but as of right now, this is what I will be wearing tomorrow.

And even though its Christmas Eve, its just another day in our house. The husband is at work, we are dropping off food for LINK's Christmas Eve dinner. Link is the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen. Its housed by the church directly across the street from the homeless shelter, and our church usually is responsible to serve 4 times a year, as well as helping with the holidays. This year we are doing Christmas Eve dinner.

Anyway onto the nails!

"I've been an Angel All Year" is a milky white base with white, silver, and blue (matte and sparkly) glitters. Its pretty, and not totally "Christmas" so I can wear it all winter. Funnily enough my other seasonal collection color IS totally christmas (red and green glitter bomb) so if I end up with another post this week sporting holiday nails, you all know why.

Also, sorry for the cuticles, i ran out of orange oil and its not coming until the post Christmas clearance at Sally's. And I bumped my nails so there is a dent in the middle finger. I don't mind it, so its staying.

Like, love it? Want some more of it? I bought this from Different Dimension's etsy shop. As of this post she had a 20% off code (good until the 26th), so you can get your own for 20% off $8.50. She also has the option for overnight shipping including Saturday delivery if you NEED this for a New Year's party.

Now I am off to be domestic and super crafty awesome mommy (or at least to hand out cookie bribes and turn on Charlie Brown Christmas Special). I hope you all have a great holiday!

Painting Salt Dough Ornaments with nail polish

What do you do with those colors that you get that turn out to be a bad color for your skin tone, crappy formula, etc?

Here is one simple solution. Salt dough ornaments! Its Christmas Break here. That means no preschool and no autism resources for our area.

First make up a batch of salt dough. There are cooking recipes and non cooking recipes. I went with the easiest recipe I could find (i.e. no cooking)

Salt dough recipe:
1 cup salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup warm water

Mix flour and salt with a fork. Slowly add in water and mix into a dough. I used my hands at this point for mixing. Knead the dough for 5 minutes or until its a good consistency. You can roll this out and cut with cookie cutters. (We did ours free hand because I am awesome like that)

Bake at 200 for 2-3 hours. (I upped the oven to 325, the bottoms were slightly brown.)

Now once they are dry you can paint them.

You will want something over the table. I brought out part of the recycle bin (cereal box) and opened it up to cover most of the table. A paper plate will also work.

I was accompanied by a 2 year old and a 4 year old.

I regretted the nail polish as medium choice once we all started going. Especially since a few of the polishes I had pulled out to use up were from before 2006 and not 3 Free. If you haven't whiffed one of those lately, whew its STRONG!

But I used up one polish completely that was over 10 years old and with thinner it was still clumpy and streaky, and most of a green that looked terrible on me. And even a bit of the yellow that stained my nails. Overall I am quite happy.

So were my helpers. Even though the 2 year old won't pose, at least he helped paint!

The 2 year old kept painting everything red so we added a heart to the angel.

This was meant to be a giant heart, the back side she pained all green and said was a leaf. This side was decorated with Christmas Lights.

Top row (L to R) was a sun, then the baby Jesus, then candy cane. The baby Jesus we had to mix colors to get a brownish tan. Then his face was painted red several times by the resident red painter i.e. 2 year old. Eventually I said ok.
Middle row was a holiday tree, wreath, candy canes.
Bottom row was heart/Love, a doughnut with sprinkles. Glitter wreath with holly and one last candy cane.

In case yo are curious what sort of 'browning' a higher oven temp with do, the bottom right candy cane is flipped over to show the 'browned' side. Its very light.

I added some spare yarn and hung these on the tree. Happy Holidays!

Blog hiatus

Hey ladies!

I will be taking a bit of a blog break. For one, my nails have been bare. I even sliced part of one on the blade of a food processor. Don't worry it was off, I just assembling it. My hand is fine. I have a chip in the nail.

Secondly, I have been busy, busy prepping for my upcoming surgery.  That means cleaning the house, finding people to come in and help out, writing up a menu, and even freezer meals. If people are interested I can share the recipes I am making this week. They are all going to be freezer to crockpot meals for ease of preparation.

I will update when I get a chance. 

Ginger + Liz Heart Breaker

Random health issues will be posted at the end of this post.  First on to the polish!

Ginger + Liz is a three free, vegan nail polish line aimed for 'trendsetters.' If you pay attention to the polishes I like, well they aren't so trendy. More classic with the occasional fun glitter bomb. They are also, IMO one of the more pricey nail polish lines and harder to find in person.

Anyway, I is a bright purple with a wee bit of shimmer in the light. Not a normal shade for me,as I tend to more pinks. Ginger + Liz tries to play this color up as a more conservative shade compared to most of their neon shades.

 This is a cool color, but in direct sunlight it almost looks pink. There is a visible nail line though. I didn't notice it until I was editing photos. So make sure to do a third coat if it bothers you. I don't know what was going on, but my camera freaked out on me in that photo. It was even in manual mode, so I don't know how to fix that. But kapow! Color!

 This photo was done in the shade to show more how the color. Its a little more purple, and even my skin color is a bit more accurate. I think the sun reflecting on the shimmer really made it look different in the sun.

Purples really aren't my color. I love them until I wear them. They make me look more pale and make my hands look funky colors. So I probably won't wear this unless its layered under another color. I didn't paint my other hand, or even keep it on for the 24 hours I usually like to wear polish just to see how it wears. Nothing wrong with the polish itself, just not a good color for me.

Ginger + Liz can be bought on their website or at Urbanoutfitters.com. It retails for $12 for a full size bottle.

Now for the health update. This might get a little gross. I will attempt to stick with medical terms though. In less than 2 weeks I will be having a tonsillectomy AND a septoplasty. At age 30. Yeesh.

I went into see an ENT (ear, nose, throat doctor) about my tonsilloliths and chronic upper respiratory infections (sinitus, tonsilitis, AND otitis media I hit all the areas he specialized in). Turns out the septum in my nose (the flesh between the two holes) is not in the middle. This is very typical and its usually not straight in the middle, but one of my nostrils is about 80% closed. That means its harder for my body to clean out the stuff in my nasal area, leading to infections and well a month of torture for me. So I get to plan for 2 weeks of my life to literally not do anything while I recover from a throat job and a nose job (nose job is all internal so it will look the same). I will get a schedule of friends/family that can help come in and play with the kids, do some cooking, cleaning, etc. while I heal. And then I get to hope I don't have complications. A big cause of complications is doing too much too soon. I plan to do as little as possible. And eat a TON of popsicles. Yay for frozen clear liquids!

Cupcakes for Monday

Still taking a nail break of my own, but I have a 4 year old that BEGGED for some nail art.

I know, it should be pumpkin pie, but what can I say. Sometimes you just need cupcakes. Especially if you are 4 and you see mommy looking at nail art manicures on Pinterest.

We did a skittles manicure with colors she liked. Then white frosting was applied to the tips. After it dried I added sprinkles with the tip of a size 4 knitting needle. My dotting tool disappeared.

In case you are curious as to any of the colors, I will ID them.

Thumb: Booty Babe Hella Baloo
Pointer: Essie Mint Candy Apple
Middle: Zoya Lolly (matte!)
Ring: Sinful colors Unicorn (FYI this color stains! Use a blocking base coat or wear less than 24 hours.)
Pinky: Dare T. Wear Strip-Tease
Frosting: Orly Dayglow

P.S. My nails are still peeling and terrible. I keep trimming/filing and doing treatments. I am going into see a doctor tomorrow to discuss some health issues (like the fact that a 30 year old woman should have had her tonsils taken out back in the 80s *sigh*) and bring up the nails. My nails have never been really strong or nice, but this is crazy.

China Glaze High Hopes

This will be a down and dirty post. I have been hauling kids all over town to evaluation appointments as well as dealing with wonderful health dilemmas of my own. Hopefully an appointment next Tuesday will answer a LOT of my questions and solve a bunch of my health issues.

On to the polish!

China Glaze High Hopes is from the Spring 2010 Up and Away collection. Its a nice bright coral creme. Not a neon though, so if you love bright colors but neons are a bit much, this color is great. It looked a lot more 'red' with white and brighter light.

 Depending on length of your nails, you will need 2-3 coats. There was still visible nail line at 2 coats, so a 3rd for longer nails or those with really white tips. Application was nice. China Glaze does tend to have thinner formulas for their cremes. I like it, but it is a bit different than many brand's cremes and will probably need an extra coat because of it.

The third photo was comparing it with a different pink and it was a flop photo since the focus is off, BUT I wanted to show the color with a coral pink shirt I own. High Hopes is pretty much this same pink/coral shade but with a bit more intensity to the color. This wasn't in as intense light as the first photos, plus a more muted background help the color seem a little less intense.

The color is a lot brighter than the bottle though. The bottle was the same shade as my shirt in the 3rd photo. The polish is clearly more intense.

I bought this polish and all opinions are my own. You can find China Glaze at many beauty retailers and for super discount prices several places on the internet. I tend to buy mine online because I can get bottles for around $3-3.50 while at Sallys its about twice that price.

LynBDesigns Zero

Zero from LynBDesigns is from the Nightmare Before Christmas collection. If you have been living under a rock, Nightmare Before Christmas an animated cartoon that shows what happens if  Halloween Town ran Christmas instead of the North Pole.  Zero is the dog of the main character and he is a little ghost dog with a red nose.

Zero is a milky white base with big hearts, medium black hexes, white rectangle polishes, tiny red flecks, and a few sheer large hearts.

You can get full coverage in 3 coats. To get sufficient glitter coverage for me (I love my glitter) I needed 2 coats over a base. I tried this with some colored bases, but by the time I had as much glitter as I wanted the base color was pretty well hidden. Also, you will be fishing for bigger glitters if you want more of them. To me that is part of life with big glitter polishes. I didn't end up fishing too much though.

 I ended up wearing this over Orly's Dayglow. This is 2 coats of Zero over 2 coats of Orly Dayglow. The ring finger used to have a contrast color with Zero over it, but that didn't work out, so I quickly replicated the other nails. And as you can see I bumped it and got a couple of creases before it was totally dry. No worries though, I got my regular wear from the polish. I do tend to change my color every couple of days, so its not extended wear, but it did well for me. Nothing that my usual base/top coat couldn't handle. 

Also using white as the base means you can't see the white bar glitter or the clear hearts. They are both there. In fact you can't see it probably but there is even a clear heart on one of these finger. Its like where's waldo for nail polish. :-P

Disclaimer, I bought all polishes used in this manicure and all opinions are my own.You can buy Zero from LynBDesigns on Etsy. Follow her on Facebook for special promos and discount codes.  Orly can be bought at most beauty suppliers. This white came in the summer neon collection. As you can probably tell by now its one of my faves under glitter polishes.

Orly Nailtrition

Do you have cracked, splitting, sand looking nails? Me too. I have done one week of treatment and as of this post I am smack dab in the middle of week 2. Yeah!

Here is After 1 week:

All I can say is it really works. Its strange it didn't seem like my nails were growing but they are longer. It sort of seems like the nail is attached to the skin farther down on my finger which is good. Makes the nails less stubbins. I do have a bit of cracking on two nails that I will file down, but I am still pleased when the results I got. The strange yellowish looking stuff is where the skin is attached to the nail and it doesn't look as yellow in person. But its new growth IMO.

See the before shot (lighting slightly different sorry!) This was actually on day 2 of the treatment.

Amazing right? I am happy enough with the one week treatment that after swatching up a storm (ok only 2 colors) and wearing a couple of colors for 24 hours, I decided I wanted to do a second week as was recommended.

The hangnails were not affected by the treatment though, dang it! I need to use cuticle oil more.

Pros: strengthens nails!
Cons: Smudges/chips easy. See day 2, I already had bumps and smudges. I didn't have any problems with peeling off though.

I will post again after the second week!

Disclaimer, I purchased this product and all opinions are my own. You can buy this online or at beauty stores like Sally's or Ulta.

Lancome Mystery polish

Ready for a no-name mystery polish mani? Here it is! This is Lancome mystery in a warm gray shade. Its not on Lancome's website, and the bottle shape is different. Its a mini size (8ml).

I got it in a blog sale mystery box, so it likely is an older bottle style or possibly was part of a kit/set since it a small size.

Its shown with a freebie mini from Kawaii Nail Lacquer on the ring finger. I didn't realize the Kawaii was so orange and black until it was on the nail. The orange glitters change to red plus there are purple to blue holo glitters so it can be deceiving at certain angles. I thought it would be more rainbow of a glitter, its not. Its nice, but felt a little Halloween to me. If it wasn't the week after Halloween I wouldn't think Halloween so hard.

 Above is in the shade and morning sun. Its also after 24 hours of wear. It wore really well considering I didn't wrap the tips. Oops!

 Here are the bottle shots. Looking at this photo I don't know why I didn't think the Kawaii would be orange, black and white. Sometimes I just don't really think before applying polish.

Disclosure: I buy all my polishes. The Lancome is one of those random not made anymore things. You can buy other colors online or in select department stores. The Kawaii was a freebie with purchase. She runs specials like this on occasion. Check out her Facebook page for flash sales and deal alerts.

Pomegranate Nail Lacquer Autumnesque

Still got the sickies around here. Boo. But I got the replacement part for the carpet cleaner so I have been a busy little bee cleaning house today. Yay! And I have been wearing s SUPER pretty color too.

Autumnesque by Pomegranate Nail Laquer is a mauve shade with gold shimmer in it. The website calls is 'copper' but clearly they are using that term loosely since I call it pink. Its more of a brown autumnal shade of rose pink IMO. 

It is a thinner formula than some, but not lacking in pigment. This was 2 coats and I might have even pulled off only 1 coat on short nails. One thing I have to say (mostly to myself) is wrap the tips. I did not, and the top coat shrunk the polish a little and there is little lines of white sticking out the end on several fingers.

If this brand is unfamiliar, its because its pretty small still and semi-indie at this point. Their polish is: made in the USA;"4-free" - Contain NO toluene, formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate (DBP) or camphor; and not tested on animals. So lots of good things there. The formula reminded me a lot of Zoya (which is 5 free, so a similar idea). The only thing I did not like was the brush. It was very thin. It took me 5 or 6 strokes to do the width of my thumb and middle finger nails. I guess it would be great for children's nails or people with really tiny nails. If you have really big ones though, the brush size might be annoying to you.

On the pinky finger I have Burning Leaves from LynBDesigns (freebie for the month of October with large purchase woot woot!) I used some thick top coat to tame the gritty glitter. I actually didn't like burning leaves on Autumnesque as much as I thought I would. Burning leaves is a gold/orange glitter bomb and it didn't go as well with the pink of Autumnesque as I initially expected. Not bad enough to remove the polish and try again, but I won't repeat the combo. A more true gold would look better than the orange and gold IMO. Then again you all might love the combination.

Disclaimer, I bought all polishes my self (technically Burning Leaves was a freebie with purchase, but I was not sent polish to review). All opinions are my own. If you want to try these polishes Pomegranate Nail Lacquer retails for $9 for a full size bottle and can be bought at http://www.pomegranatelacquer.com/ It is also part of their holiday Gift Set, which I want even though I have the color. See their website for more locations. LynBDesigns retails for $8.50 and while this polish cannot be bought, you can buy other polishes from her in her etsy store.

LynBDesigns The Man with Two Hearts

I missed a post last week and this one is late. Sorry! We have had all the joys of viral pink eye for our 2 year old and Lysol wipes on ALL the things and washing all bedding every day to prevent everyone else from getting it. Now that we are mostly recovered AND my week long nail treatment ended I decided to swatch.
'The Man with Two Hearts' from LynBDesigns is part of her "The Doctor is in" collection. Its a red glitter with small square glitters and two shades of red heart glitters. The hearts hide in multiple layers of the glitter since they are the same shade.  I did my thumb with two layers of THwTH below. I topped it with a generous layer of P.D. Quick Top coat by Butter London since it dried a little gritty textured. The rough glitter texture was not as noticeable with only one layer, so when used as a topper any top coat will work. If you layer this up use a top coat specific for thirsty glitter or thick layers of good quality top coats. For a super smooth finish you might want a second thicker layer of top coat, but I was happy with just one.

The color was ok on its own, but I decided I wanted to try it over a red. The red was of course OPI's The Color of Minnie. Its my favorite red and I can't find one that I love as much on my hands. So here is one coat of TMwTH over red.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE it as a topper. I didn't fish for heart glitters, so they were pretty sparse and I only ended up with one on the nails. You can't see them as well on the thumb photo (at top) but there were two in there. It was party because I applied thicker coats using more of a dab method. The fingers I just brushed the glitter on leaving thinner layers of polish.

This was a thinner formula than the Medusa Cascade I previously reviewed. I believe Medusa Cascade uses more of a gel base polish and The Man with Two Hearts was more of a regular polish base, if that makes any sense.  So for me Medusa Cascade really wanted to be dabbed on, but this can be brushed on easily. Your mileage may vary, but this was my experience.

I think I just found my performance manicure. I have a solo (for 2 measures and 1 beat haha!) in John Rutter's Gloria this Christmas Season. We are supposed to wear holiday outfits. Of course that means Diva red.

Disclaimer: All polishes are bought by me and all opinions are my own. LynBDesigns retails for $8.50 for a full size bottle including shipping. Check her out on Etsy. OPI retails for $8.50 and can be found at select salons including JCPenny Salons among others. Find a reputable retailers on opi.com.

NYC Pumpkin and comparison shots

I got NYC Pumpkin for Halloween manis. Its a true orange with a shimmer. When I was applying it, I was reminded of China Glaze Riveting from the Hunger Games series. So I grabbed the Hunger Games bottle. OK it looked different, but I decided to apply CG to my other hand to compare. As you can see the nails on one hand are nubbins. :( I actually after this manicure decided to do a 1 week nail therapy. I did take before pics of the nails so we can compare, and that is as much info as you will get out of me. I was silly and didn't think to queue up posts, so you will get stash shots or manicures on my toddlers.

Anyway back to the polish. This is a shiny almost metallic orange. This is with 2 coats and on camera you can see a little visible nail line, but not bad. It was pretty easy application, no streaking and dried evenly, just not opaque.

This could go well as the base to pumpkin nail art if you were so inclined. But for less than $2, its great. I can't remember if this was in the $1.49 or $0.99 colors at walmart, but let's just say its some nice cheap thrills.


Now the comparison.

 Right off I could see the difference. China glaze is very much darker. But I had forgotten how it translated to the nail so I applied a quick 1 coat to my other hand.

 This has glass fleck type glitter/shimmer in it. Similar to the glass flecks style of Ruby Slippers, but obviously not ruby red. This is red orange..

And photos of the two together. I think if you tend toward cool colors on your nails you could still pull off the 'orange' in CG Riveting, but NYC Pumpkin is very much a warm golden orange.

I ended up applying several coats of Wet N Wild glow that I won in a giveaway in the dark to the Pumpkin and going out to a Trunk or Treat for our church. It didn't last the 20 minutes we were walking around. :-/ And I didn't take photos of it before. So no pics of that. I do think a big problem was the fact that you can't have a top coat with glow in the dark so one collision with a plastic pumpkin bucket and you are doomed.. But next time I will take photos before heading out. It did glow pretty well with the recommended 3 coats.

China Glaze retails for $7.99 and can be found various places online and in beauty stores. Last I knew this line was $1.50 at Sally's beauty supply (it was a spring collection). NYC varies in price depending on the color/finish, but its between $0.99 and $1.99 at places like Walmart and drug stores. All polish was bought by me and all opinions are my own!

LynBDesigns Medusa Cascade

Glitter bomb. Oh yes.

Medusa Cascade is from "The Doctor is In" collection by LynBDesigns. Its a fabulous top coat and could even be a stand alone polish. This is newly formulated, and I never tried the old version so I don't know what the differences could be.

And check out that font on the bottle label. Yeah this fan girl approves.

The clear base is slightly blue tinted so it will tint whatever you layer it over. I got full coverage with 3 coats, so if you want an intense glitter bomb nail without the wait time of a base color, go for it.

I tried this layered over white and just plain and I really liked the pop the white gave it. It sort of makes the polish glow from within. I am sure it would look nice with a darker base as well. My base color is Orly's Dayglow which was marketed to make neons pop, and it does great under glitter toppers as well IMO. If you have tried this base coat and hate the streaks, you are using too thin of coats. Make them thicker and you will have less issues with streaks. And no, thinner doesn't solve that problem, its just really a white that wants to be put on thickly and left to dry fully. I did 3 min between coats first try though and then ruined the nails before pics when changing a diaper. The glitter was dry when I bumped it and it literally slid off the white.  Do a full 5+ minutes for dry time for each layer of Dayglow. Just trust me on this.

And back to the sparkles.

This is 1 layer on the pinky and ring fingers, 2 layers on pointer and middle. The glitter does sort of want to do the dab technique application, so that is what I did for most of the fingers. The ring finger I actually just brushed it on though. Still a nice look, but I could see needing more coats for complete coverage if you do it this way.

The glitter died a little bumpy, but not gritty. Actually it dried about as bumpy as some glitters do WITH a generous top coat so I was really happy with it. A top coat made it completely smooth.

Click on the photos to zoom in. You know you want to see the rainbow holographic action going on. There are tiny glitters that are holographic as well as the bar glitters and some of the stars. There are silver rainbow holo stars and some dark blue stars that turn green to blue to purple. The light blue stars are matte.

This one has a bit of the color washed out because it was in the clouds. They have been rolling through all day and its been variations of sun and bright but no sun, and dim cloudy.

I love this color! Seriously. I tested out the polish for opacity and then reapplied it twice thanks to a diaper fiasco and I still don't want to take it off. I didn't even get annoyed that I had to apply it again because its so dang pretty. Oh and because I used a glue base coat so at least it was fast and easy between applications. I also admit after testing application on one fingernail I went back and bought more. What can I say, I really like them!

LynBDesigns nail polish retails for $8.50 including shipping to the US. Yes seriously! I believe she only sells polish within the states, but she sells lip balms, and other goodies outside of the US. She also runs great coupon codes frequently so read the shop announcements when you go there or check her out on Facebook page for coupon codes. This polish was bought by me and all opinions are my own. 

Battle of the White polishes!

 I decided to see what white base was the best for under a neon. I used all the whites I had in my bin including OPI Tutu which is a sheer jelly and not really a white but more of a control in the experiment. After reading reviews I though China Glaze White on White would perform the best. Its rather popular for white due to price and its a nice white cream that tends to perform rather well. How they did will be shown in pictures and with descriptions below. The funky texture on my hands is because I took the photos inside the screen door. It didn't seem that obvious until I was editing pictures, sorry!

So first up the whites on the nails in all their glory. Sorry for the dry cuticles, these pictures were from when I tried using 100% acetone to clean up cuticles, and its DRYING. Using vasoline on the cuticles will help save your hands, but I didn't realize that at the time.

 On the pointer finger, I have OPI Tutu which is a sheer jelly and I mostly used this as my control in the experiment. This is essentially how it would look if I didn't use white under the polish. I only did one coat because I know its sheer.
Middle finger is OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls which is a slightly gray tinted white cream from the Spiderman Collection. This needed 2 coats to be solid. As you can see its more gray than the last 2 nails. Also, this needed the *longest* dry time of the bunch.
Ring Finger is Orly's Dayglow (won in a giveaway from Apple Laquer! Yay!). Dayglow is labeled as a 'stark white cream' but there is some shimmer type action going on in the bottle and it almost seems more like an opaque jelly on the nail based on how it wants to be applied. This was sort of streaky. I added a couple of drops of thinner, that didn't help much.I found out it just wants to be put down in a thick coat and then let it dry a little longer than you would for thinner coats.
Pinky is China Glaze's White on White. White cream, I have used this before pretty much a 1 coater, but I have had issues with chipping within a day/hours of application. I did add a second coat just to make sure it was a good solid white base.

 Adding the neon was an issue for me. Turned up Turquoise dries matte. And it start looking matte before it was actually dry. So you can see brush marks  from where I added more polish and the other layers weren't dry. So wait several minutes between coats even if it SEEMS dry.

And here they all are with a top coat. See that middle finger? Yeah OPI boyfriend smudged. It really really needed a long dry time for me. Longer than I anticipated that is for sure. The brush strokes actually started with the first layer and got worse after each layer.

My faves as a base for neons? Orly Dayglow and Chine Glaze White on White. They both made the neon POP! I would say for the least amount of layers and thus fastest mani, use China Glaze White on White. If you have a longer amount of time and get the white base solid before adding the neon the Orly performed really well and made the color pop. This was my first time using Orly Polish and I was pretty pleased with it. Again, I would recommend doing thick coats just to even out the white base, but it wore a lot better than the OPI and the China Glaze.

Third option for a neon mani would be OPI Tutu or no white base at all, just a clear base. It took an extra coat or so to get the same depth of color, and it wasn't quite as bright as the white bases, but if you don't really want another polish in your box you can feel free to skip it.

OPI Boyfriend seemed to darken the turquoise and it was not very exciting or neon once darkened. I did use an extra coat on the first two trying to get them to look as good as the last two (part of why I got lovely brush drag marks). PLUS the chipping! After waiting for.ev.er for everything to dry this one still was not dry. And I love OPI polish in general so I was rather bummed. I don't know if it was the base or how the base and the neon worked together.


Opi Boyfriend is best not layered under a neon. Its fine for nail art or with a glitter or something on top, but it made the neon more drab. Its also nice for a white nails that is less white out looking. But again this was experimenting with layering and in this experiment it was a big fat fail for me.

You can buy these brands and polishes at various retailers on the web as well as in stores (though some of these colors/collections might not all be available now). All opinions are my own, and with the exception of winning the Orly in a giveaway, I purchased all the polishes myself. Prices can rage for the polishes, but retail prices are $7-10. China Glaze is the least expensive and you can find online retailers that sell it for $3ish every day.

DaringDigits Disco Diamond

Daring Digits Diamond disco is a clear based glitter top coat. It has tiny little holographic sparkles as well as larger octagon and large diamond holographic glitters. Its AMAZING in the sun. Simply stunning.  Save this one for a day you will be out and about a lot. Its nice indoors and on cloudy days, but when the sun hits it Bam!

Daring Digits Diamond Disco

This is 2 coats over a graphite gray/black color.

And just to show how this polish wears I took a couple of photos late in the day of day 3 of the mani. Keep in mind I don't baby my hands.I washed dishes, cleaned up a few spills and even did some serious packing for a friend on day 1 of the mani. The 3rd day was also, you guessed it cloudy. Still nice, but not nearly as holographic.

Daring Digits Diamond Disco on day 3 of wear

And above is compared to the first day in full sun.

My only complaint, is easily fixed by me with better application. If any of the big diamonds are near the edge they are pokey. I did clean up on the middle nail and the corner of a diamond stuck out a little. It was catching on everything and rather annoying. Obviously not THAT annoying since i wore the polish for 3 days, but next tiem I wll make sure there aren't any diamonds on the top edge as well as the normal hanging off the end of the nail.

Daring Digits retails for $7.75 for full size and $4.25 for minis. You can find her on etsy! All polish was bought by me and all opinions are my own. And yes I do want to wear this again.

Catching up!

Sorry I missed Monday's post! I have taken some photos and didn't get posts written. I also did my nails and never got good pics twice. So, today during preschool when I only have one kiddo at home I plan on getting at least tomorrow taken care of. My nails are actually rather LONG for me, like to the end of the fingertip. I have to show them off while I can.

Also a post on hangnails and care/treatment is coming. Winter is coming and if you get dry skin issues in the winter, you are more prone to hangnails.

And I am hoping to keep this schedule for posting, however my 33mo old has officially gotten a diagnosis of autism so I get to add 25-40 hours of therapy a week for him. Fun times! This is also a reason why I will never have long nails, playing with kids all day just doesn't make for nails past the fingertips. 

Pumpkin Patch Nails with Zoya Lianne

So this is a quick and dirty post with a not very nice photo. What can I say, it was nail art time with my 4 year old and you can't make mistakes with black.

Zoya Lianne is a tangerine orange with gold shimmer. I put it on and it needed pumpkins. My 4 year old hopped on that wagon as soon as she heard the idea. So the pumpkin match manicure was created. And, just in time for a trip to the pumpkin patch.

The art was all done with the brush from inside the bottle. Yeah seriously. The little hands had 1 coat of Lianne as the base, my hand has 2 coats. Black is Sinful Colors.

Also, I don't know if you can tell or not but I have a hangnail on the jack-o-lantern face on my middle finger. Grrr. It was dry skin and a bit of nail sticking out because of the dry skin and I messed with it. Darn it. I am working on intense moisturizing to heal that. There is another that isn't as obvious on the ring finger nail. That will teach me to use the 100% acetone remover my husband got because it sounded like it would work better.

Zoya retails for $8 and is 5 Free and cruelty free. You can find Zoya on their website and at a few retailers. I have yet to find it locally, but their website shows there is one salon that carries it locally. If you don't have an account with Zoya and sign up with my link I get Share The Love points which are probably awesome (haven't got any yet, lol!) https://www.artofbeauty.com/rd/01513464

China Glaze Joy

Joy is a nice plum purple metallic from Spring 2009 Romantique collection. I have a couple of polishes from this collection, but I think this one its my fave. Plus plummy purples are totally fall friendly, so I am wearing it.

Joy is an awesome one coater. Yes seriously. Aside from that blip on my pinky (from clean up oops) it would have been perfect. I wore this today and meant to take more pics in different light, but I did some serious packing and cleaning for a friend and its chipped beyond belief. So just the bright morning sun photo.


So you see where I hit the nail when I was cleaning up the pinky? That is the one nail that didn't chip. Ha! The others do look like I packed 10+ boxes of books and office stuff as well as washed dishes by hand. Yep. See things like this are why I have short nails. I use my hands.

I love this color. I want to wear it on my toes. Its a nice metallic type finish but not a foil and not streaky. The opacity in one coat means it should stamp great for anyone that is looking for stamping polishes.

I can find China Glaze at my local Sally's Beauty Supply for about $7 unless on sale, as well as numerous online retailers for less than retail prices. I bought this polish myself and all opinions are my own.

Daring Digits First Love

Ahhhh indie polish. On my blog. This might be very, very bad. But hey, I ran into a sale and a bad day at the same time. So this happened.

First Love is large pink and white heart glitter with a purple to blue duochrome 'interference base.' I put that in quotes because that is what Daring Digits calls it in the description. It is essentially a white-ish looking base, but it has a color flash from the itty bitty duochrome sparkkles. I didn't see many good photos of this online so I tried to get some. Try is key because its a little hard to catch color flashes in a still photo. IMO the bottle shot better than the nails themselves. Darn you rain for changing my lighting on me.

 Natural light

 Bottle shot showing the interference base. See that shimmer.

Flash

This is 2 coats of First Love over OPI's My Pointe Exactly. Check out the previous post to see the undies alone. The base totally changed the look of the gray with that purple blue duochrome going on. I had to fish for the big glitters. Once I grabbed a few glitters on the brush I split them between the nails.

My only complaint is a minor one. And probably my own fault. When I was fishing for glitter, I ended up with gobs of polish on the nails. It took for.ev.er to dry that last coat. So if you tend to use your hands a lot, like short nailed me, you should totally paint this at a time where you won't need your hands. Like bedtime. But not too close to bed or you will get blanket creases. Or use a tooth pick to fish out the hearts instead of the brush, but that would require a toothpic.

P.S. I really liked the duochrome as a topper even without the big glitters. So don't feel pressured to add the glitters. Unless you are blogging about the polish and taking better photos than me, then add the glitters. I couldn't find any good photos of this color online when I was shopping, so I want there to be awesome photos out there.

This polish was bought by me and all opinions and photos are my own. Daring Digits can be found on etsy. Full size polishes are $7.75 and minis are $4.25. She has some fun geekdom inspired polishes, so go check her out.

OPI My Pointe Exactly

The worst part of mommy being sick is that the house gets trashed. My house is a nightmare. My kids haven't been sleeping well. As a result no one has been sleeping well. And its been cloudy and gloomy for days. Don't get me wrong, I love rain. We need rain. But I am feeling a little cabin fever. We went out today and picked a TON of pears. Well most of them were on the ground, after all the rain storms. But pears. Out. The. Wazoo. I look forward to the pear sauce, preserves, and cinnamon spiced pears this winter. The water bath canner will be getting a workout this week!

Now on to the polish. And I think my nails will always be short and that is ok.

Natural light.

My Pointe Exactly is a sheer jelly. This took 3 coats to be this opaque. There is some nail line visible, but I used very thin coats to encourage fast drying. It has been humid here lately. Thicker coats or a 4th layer would probably take care of it. Application was really great even in the super humidity of open windows and Midwest thunderstorms.

The color is sort of a brownish shade of gray or maybe more of a nude meets gray. Makes me think of gray pantyhose more than tights or thin fabric blouses where you can just see the hint of skin beneath it.And dang its so shiny. This is top coat free and it doesn't need a top coat. OPI is usually nice and shiny, but I just love the shiny finish on jelly polishes.

 Flash photo.

 I love the NYC Ballet collection, (what I own and I want Pirouette My Whistle which is the only one I am missing). The colors are all simple, sheer, and classy, but they can be a nice background for something bold. It would also probably make some nice jelly sandwich manicures, but I don't really care for those. I like my glitter more sparkly.

But, here is the bad news for me at least. I was sitting here in poor lighting typing this up, and looked down at my nails and didn't like the color. It seemed sort of dead/zombie. I don't know why. Maybe its the slightly brown tint to the gray, maybe its the jelly base keeping it semi sheer. So natural light = love. Dim indoor late night is blah and makes me think of frostbitten finger or dead hands.  I might be watching too many creepy shows thanks to Halloween.

This nail polish was purchased by me and all thoughts/reviews are my own. OPI retails for $8.50 and can be found at large retailers like JCPenny, Beauty Brands and from many salons. Find a reputable retailer near you at www.opi.com