Double Saran Wrap Nails

Hey folks!  I hope everybody had a great weekend!  Mine was eventful.  So eventful that I didn't have time to do anything super complicated on my nails.  I had been playing around a bit with saran wrap (cling wrap) nails, trying to find some color combinations I like last week and decided to go with one of those concoctions. I give you my double saran wrap nails... (please excuse my messy fingers.)

I used Orly in Gumdrop for the base, then saran wrapped Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mint Sorbet and then saran wrapped Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Golden-I on top of it.  It reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on it.  I really like the color combo.  What do you guys think?

Birthday Nails/NOTD

My boyfriend's birthday was yesterday and he picked out my nail polish for the day.  I gotta say it was not a bad combo.  He picked out Lacey Lilac from Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear and Frenzy from Sinful colors.

Thanks A Lot Walgreen's...

So I have been at Walgreen's everyday this week buying a couple bottles of nail polish.  Most of them were Sinful Colors, but today I picked up a couple Sally Hansen to diversify my haul  for the week a little bit.  

From L to R: Sinful Colors in Nirvana, Queen of Beauty, Pandora, Summer Peach, Forget Now 





Part 2 from left to right Frenzy, Hottie, Irish Green, and Mint Apple.

 Part 3 from left to right Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Golden-I, Lacey Lilac, and Sally Hansen Salon Nail Lacquer in You-Gurt Style which I got at Big Lots for $1.50.

 I realized that since I have been really actively buying nail polish there are a bunch I haven't used yet, and figured I ought to swatch some so I know how they behave.  I have never swatched anything before so, if anybody has questions don't hesitate to ask.


First we have Sinful Colors in Summer Peach.  I don't get the name on this one.  This polish is a bright orange neon as far as I'm concerned, and there isn't much peachy about it.  In the picture there are 3 coats.  It was a bit streaky going on the first couple coats but the 3rd cleared it up nicely.  I skipped the base coat and I'm happy to report I experienced no staining.  


 Next we have Sinful Colors in Irish green.  I love the color on this one.  I love greens, and this is maybe one of my new favorites.  I found it with the neons at Walgreen's, but beyond the bright green color this polish behaves nothing like a neon.  It's a jelly!  I love jellies!  It's sheer of course and pictured is 3 coats.  It goes on pretty smoothly and doesn't cure to a hard finish, but I really love this polish.  I highly recommend it.



the last of my swatches today is Sinful Colors in Nirvana.  I'm typically not big on brown, but this one is kind of different.  It's a beautiful grayish brown cream polish with great coverage.  This is only 2 coats, and I feel like if my first coat had been a bit thicker I might have been able to pull off a single coat.  Usually I would say Browns are more of a Fall/Winter color, but this shade could easily work all year round.   




Thanks for reading!  
Micoleslaw

Some Beach, Somewhere

Hello lovelies!  I've been so frickin busy the past couple days.  I haven't had time to do my nails or really anything at all relaxing.  So today I thought I would harness some beachiness in my mani. It didn't show up as well in the pictures but I have some beachy stamping done over a yellow/orange gradient.

Here is a closer look at a palm tree detail I put on my middle finger.  The colors I used were Sinful Colors in Cloud 9 for the orange, and Finger Paints in Art Nouv-Yellow.  The stamping was done with Pure Ice in Really Rio.

Indie Polish giveaway.  What could be more awesome.


CHECK IT OUT HERE!

Glitter Galaxy Nails!

Alright, so this week's theme on reddit's 52 week challenge is galaxy nails.  I've always liked the looks of them, but I'd never actually done them.  I had seen many a tutorial and they looked simple enough, and I'm happy to say they are pretty easy to do.  I must also say that clean up is kind of a bitch.  I have glitter everywhere.  

I think they look lovely and all but as you can see I still have a considerably amount of glitter around my nails after cleaning them.  I suppose I might have put a little too much glitter on them (as if that is even possible). 

Yes. That is a lot of damn glitter.  So much really that you can't immediately tell they are supposed to be galaxy nails, but c'mon, you can never have too much glitter.

I used China Glaze in Dorothy Who? for the base.  Then sponged on China Glaze in Flying Dragon and Ray-diant, and Sinful Colors in Paris.  Lastly, I topped it off with Twinkle, Twinkle by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear and a coat of Seche Vite.

Giveaway

Lacquered Me is having a give away in honor of their blogiversary.

CHECK IT OUT HERE!

Nails of the Day

1 coat of Chrome from Savvy followed by 2 coats of Electrify from China Glaze.

My First Franken

  Ok folks,  I have been frankening my butt off today.  I have tried in the past and was disappointed with my results.  Today, however, I caught the bug and just kept going.  The one I'm going to show you is my favorite so far.  I think I'm going to call it Denim Ice.  Thanks for checking this out.  Let me know what you guys think. 

 I really like the icy blue color and the glitter flecks that catch the light with every small movement. I'll be trying out the others soon and putting up pictures.  I'd really love some feedback.

I've never seen a color quite like it and I'm really pretty proud of my little arts and craft project. 

Nails of the Day... Yesterday...

 I did my first ever sponge gradient yesterday.  I'm sure with some practice it will look smoother.  I used China Glaze in Flying Dragon (Neon) and Purple Panic (Neon).  In the finished mani I feel like there isn't enough contrast in the colors, but they are neons so the color isn't as opaque as a cream.  I still like the colors together.

After finishing with the gradient I topped off my nails with L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Uninhibited, and I gotta say I LOVE this glitter.  Obviously it isn't sparkly like traditional glitter but I really dig the black glitter.

I look forward to doing more gradients in the future and hopefully getting better at it.  If any body has any handy tips I would love to hear them.  Thanks for reading! 

Yay for Stamping Plates

I have the best boyfriend in the world, sorry ladies but there is no other like my honey.  He recently ordered me a set of stamping plates and polish and things, and they came in today.  I am so excited that I cant even wait until I have my nails finished to tell you all about it.  I will however post again when I have used them on my nails.  Still not sure what colors to use or what design to use first.  I'M TOO DAMN EXCITED.  

On another note I went to Sally's today and got a few bottles of polish one which I was super excited about.  They got the new China Glaze glitter crackle polishes in.  I ended up getting Glam-more, which I had seen a swatch of and loved the look of it.  I couldn't wait to get home.  I put it over my existing mani and I have to say so very I am very disappointed.  It barely crackled and the glitter was pretty sparse so it was hard to tell.  I'm going to give it a second chance with a darker color later this week, but if It still is not living up to my expectations I am going to exchange it.

Highs and Lows

Hey everybody!  I figured I would post my haul from the past few days.  It's a pretty decent haul for me, and I'm mostly very pleased except one bottle I've mentioned already, but I will get to that when I get to it.  Anyhow.  Here we are....

 

As you can see here and from my previous posts The stamping plates and stamper my boyfriend got me came in.  He ordered the SHANY set of plates off of amazon.  They were very reasonably priced like $12 and let me tell you they work way better than I expected.  The only complaint I could possibly lodge is that some of the plates are slightly different than the photos showed on amazon.  Most noticeably the plate with the numbers on it.  I doubt I'd use it so it's really no big deal, but the font shown on amazon was kind of a cool techy looking font.  The font on the actual plate looks more like Times New Roman.  Which like I said I probably wont use it, and if I do i don't really mind anyway.   Overall I'm very pleased with them.  

 On to the polishes... Basically these next couple pictures just go down the line of nail polish.  I'll swatch/review these polishes as I get to them, maybe next month when I'm seriously going to cut back on my polish consumerism. 

 
Starting us off is another recent amazon purchase.  L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Uninhibited.  It's a black glitter, folks, and I haven't put it on my nails but I'm excited about trying it out.  Next is L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Synergy.  I'm liking the looks of this one too.  I realized this week I didn't have gold glitter really and ended up scoring 2 bottles.  This one I got at Rite Aid on clearance.  Next is Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Multi-Faceted.  All I can say is gorgeous.  More black glitter mixed in with blue and silver.  If I hadn't gotten the stamping stuff in, I would be wearing this one right now.  Lastly we have Sinful Colors in Paris.  I like Synergy better but Paris is really not even in the same ball park.  The glitter is much more dense and all fairly small pieces from what I can tell, whereas Synergy is chick full of larger holo hex pieces. 

 
Sinful Colors in Flirting Nails, Cloud 9, and Beautiful Girl; and Essie in Sand Tropez.   Flirting Nails I bought mostly because I have very few browns/nudes and I like to have a well rounded collection.  I'm sure I'll use it eventually, but I like bright colors mostly, browns aren't really my thing.  Cloud 9 is really lovely. I don't have many oranges, which I guess is why I ended up getting it.  It is a really nice shade.  I plan on doing something with that fairly soon.  Beautiful Girl I already used as the base color in my pink leopard mani that I posted in my first blog post.  It's a nice cream color with good coverage.  Lastly, we have my first Essie!  I had been recommended Sand Tropez because the nudes I have tried left a lot to be desired.  I haven't tried it yet, but I will soon.

 

 
Here we Have China Glaze in Black Mesh (crackle), Dorothy Who?,  and Glam-more (crackle).  I haven't used black mesh, but I know what I'm getting into.  I love crackle, but I only had 2 and one of them was a white that truly looks like dried cream cheese on my nails (gross!).  Black mesh was just something I felt needed to be added to the collection.  Dorothy Who?  had been suggested to me a while back and I never bothered getting it because it looked pretty darn close to another blue I had in my polish arsenal.  After taking a closer look it's very different.  Can't wait to swatch it.  Lastly is the thorn in my side this week.  I tried a couple times to use Glam-more, because it was something unique and different in the way of crackles, but on my nails it just didn't work for me.  It barely crackled.  The glitter wasn't dense enough for my liking, either.  Below is a test I did on paper, which looks acceptable.    

This really only frustrated me more.  I'm going to take it back and exchange it I suppose.  I was pretty disappointed.  The color of it is great.  I'm not trying to discourage anybody from trying it.  I may have just gotten a bad bottle or something.  Anyhow... Thanks for checking this out. 

Stamping Success!

OK, so as promised here is my first (of many) stamped mani.  It's far from perfect but everything worked great.  I really couldn't be happier with the plates/stamper.  Sorry for the crappy quality pictures again.  I have been looking for my camera and I still haven't found it.  I might have to wait until my birthday gets here and hope that my darling boyfriend can pick up the hints I plan on laying down.

I used Sinful Colors in Easy Going for the base.  It's a really light light pink for those of you aren't familiar with it.  The stamping was done with China Glaze in Rose Among Thorns, which is a great reddish pink neon.  

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the results.  I'll definitely be doing more stamping in the future.

Awesome give aways here folks... 

konadlicious.blogspot.com

jutmelchior.blogspot.com

justaddpolish.com 

The Dawn Of A New Era

So, here is a bit about me...

I am a reformed nail biter.  My nails have always been messy and gross and I never took much pride in them at all until about a year ago.  I'm still a newbie in the lacquer community, but I'm learning as I go, and constantly trying new things.  It's been a LONG time since I have blogged, and I'm not sure how often I'll post but I figure maybe this could be an outlet for me to show off my nails to some folks who appreciate the time and effort put into them (my boyfriend is just not impressed any more... men...). 

To start us off I give you my most recent manicure.  The picture isn't awesome (note to self: stop taking pictures of your fingernails with your cell phone), but they were super easy to do.  It was really the first time I had done leopard print on my nails and I have to say I freaking love them. 

The base coat is Sinful Colors in Beautiful Girl, the middle of the spots is China Glaze in Rose Among Thorns (which is a neon, and it really makes the whole thing pop), and the edge of the spots is L.A. Colors in Fiji Purple BCC 559.