Knowing when to stop

I think I've finally hit my breaking point with polish hoarding.  I took my usual first-of-the-month trip to Sally and got some pretty sweet deals:

All of this for $21!  Yes that's $3 per polish!  The Orly set was $8.99 and came with a free purse plus I love all 3 colours.  Um yeah I paid $8.99 several weeks ago for just ONE of the Orly mineral effects polishes!  The China Glaze set was $6.99.  I really wanted Twinkle Lights and there were none left on the shelf display.  In fact the shelf display was pretty much bare at noon on the first of the month - wtf?  Anyways China Glaze polishes are $6 at Sally's so why would I buy just one if you can get two more for an extra $1?  And that last little lonely polish?  Color Club!  That was a welcome surprise at Sally's.  It was $6.29 but I had a coupon and I don't own any Color Clubs with the cute little flower on the lid.  Plus it's scented like mint :)

So why, according to my post title, do I have a problem with such an amazing haul?

Green polishes are my weakness.  I love green and they really don't make enough varieties of green.  I would have picked both of those greens in those sets I bought anyways, but when I swatched them I kinda said 'oh shit, I really need to stop buying polish'.

1. China Glaze Holly-day
2. Joe Mallard
3. OPI Don't Mess With OPI
4. Orly Lucky Duck
5. OPI Jade Is The New Black

None of them are exact dupes however the China Glaze and Joe are pretty damn close and so are Lucky Duck and JITNB.  But to the average person they probably all look the same.  I really don't need all 5 of these.

But enough of that, I made some frankens!

I took my ugly coral coloured prism and tinted them fuchsia and dark dusty rose.  They did not translate well when swatched but look perfect in the bottle...sigh.  The one on the far right I'm most excited about.  I really wanted a dark brown creme with blue shimmer and I got it almost spot-on.  I used Revlon Chocolate Truffle and Sally Hansen Marine Scene with a bit of Revlon Beach.  The shimmer turned more teal than blue but that's okay because I love it.

See how the holo's didn't turn out the same?  Weird.  I think they're reversed there as well.  The brown is the first franken I've made that I've actually considered giving a name.  I don't know why I don't name my frankens but this is the first one that I'm totally in love with.

This was 2 coats over my current gel mani which has now reached Day 9.

Then I stamped with Kleancolor Metallic Jungle and plate BM209.  It didn't show up enough so I grabbed the Color Club Foiled Collection and my dotting tool and went to town on it.  It would have turned out better if my stamping was straight but I was too lazy to fix it this time.

Later
P

My boyfriend kicks ass - part 2

I would have preferred to test this out on bare nails but I've been doing the gel thing lately and I didn't have much choice.  So this is over top of my previous Charla-dupe gel mani.

I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Hologram (which, by the way, has become sort of chunky similar to Nfu Oh 61?!).  Then I added 3 coats of my Holo Auto Paint Top Coat.

Although I don't yet own any of the Kaleidoscopes, I think this is probably similar.  It definitely shows more holo than the Tronicas but it's not really linear.  I guess the closest thing I own to this would be the Milani 3D's, but it even more holographic than those as well.

I didn't wear this for very long since it was a lot of layers of nail polish and it drove me nuts.  I had to add 2 top coats to this as well because it was a bit gritty.  I do like it a lot though.  So I stripped it back down to my gel mani and did a quick stamp:

I really liked the fishnet pattern so I decided to try it out again.  This time with Billie French White and BM209.

And here's a parting shot of my bottle of rainbow-y awesomeness:

Later
P

Fishnet stamping

So I'm still rocking the Shellac/Gelish combo but I removed the stamping.  I added one coat of China Glaze Ruby Pumps and although I couldn't quite capture it here, it looks amazing!  The green sparkle underneath adds crazy depth to it and I love it.  What I don't love is that this solitary coat of Ruby Pumps ate top coat like you wouldn't believe!

So I added a stamp to it.  I used image plate BM209.  I also tried 4 different black polishes with this image and the only one that actually picked up the whole image properly was my good old Konad Black.  I guess sometimes there is really no substitute.  I was having a love/hate relationship with this mani.  Sometimes when I looked at it I was reminded of Spiderman and then I didn't love it so much.

So just to avoid any confusion I figured a heart shaped stamp would confirm that this was definitely NOT a Spiderman manicure.  I used Color Club's Antiquated from the new Foiled collection and konad plate m18.  Maybe I should have saved this one for Valentine's Day?

Later
P

Blinding blue

This is 2 coats of Orly's Stone Cold from the new Mineral FX line.  This polish did not need as many coats compared to similar polishes which makes me happy.  These are more expensive than the regular Orly line but I think it's worth it.  These types of polishes are so much easier to remove than glitter and it's definitely just as blingy!

So I stamped it with Pure Ice's Silver Mercedes and plate BM209.  Then I did a crappy job of lining it with a striping brush.  I wish I'd left it alone.  This post makes me miss my nails now that they are short :(  But on the upside, hey it's much easier to type!

Later
P