Too friggen long!

Two last swatches before my nails hit the chopping block:

Color Club's Beyond The Mistletoe.  I'm pretty sure this is 4 coats.  I needed that many in order to hide the mani underneath!  It also took 2 coats of Seche Vite on top and then it literally peeled off in sheets 2 days later.  Well at least it wasn't a pain to remove like glitter normally is.

I also picked up Revlon's Whimsical when Walmart had them on sale last month.  This is 5 coats!!!! If I ever wear this again I will be using it over a solid base.  I did not like this polish much on it's own.  I just finished getting my nails perfectly white again and it seemed like this polish gave the appearance of stained nails underneath.  I like it much better in this photo than I actually liked looking at it on my nails.

So why did I trim my nails down to shorties again?  Well my little niece just turned 2 and it's friggen impossible to cake decorate with those claws.  So here's the reason I cut them:

More Tinkerbell.  I even bought her some Tinkerbell nail polish for her birthday.  Abby likes Aunti P to paint just her 2 index fingers and calls it 'cool'.

Later
P

Multi coloured stamping

Time for a new Soak Off Mani.

3 coats of Red Carpet Manicure in Violetta Darling.  Word on the street is that all the lavender soak offs, no matter which brand, fade and turn to grey...we shall see.  I did not like this colour as much as I thought I would.  It's a little too pink toned for me and very dusty looking.

I stamped it using plate BM212.  I took Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in Night Hydrangea and swiped it diagonally across the image and then filled in the outer corners with Revlon Emerald City.  I scraped straight across to blend them a bit and was pretty happy with the result.  I added a coat of China Glaze's Fairy Dust for an extra kick.

I'm going to be experimenting a lot more with stamping with multiple colours.  I find with the gel manicures it's sooooo much easier to experiment with stuff like this because you can just wipe it away and start again if you don't like it.

Later
P

Hell has frozen over

I never thought I'd ever wear a crackle polish but then again I also said early on that I would never spend $10 on a nail polish either.  This blog is making a liar out of me lol.

This is a coat of Color Club The Great Divide over top of my holo gel mani (haha yeah you gotta wait til Monday for that awesomeness!)  Yeah I hate it, lesson learned.  Problem is that it looked so pretty in the bottle:

So Color Club, can I please have this shade in regular polish?

Anyways I was browsing the polish section at the grocery store yesterday and there was a display that caught my eye.  It was a new Revlon display and the bottles were shaped differently so I ran over to check it out but unfortunately didn't have my camera with me.  Here's the only pic I could find off the internet:

It's Revlon Colorstay nail polish - the display had at least 12 shades and a base and top coat, it also said 'lasts up to 11 days'.  The display seemed to insinuate that it was like a gel manicure without the uv light.  It also indicated that the base and top coat were necessary and sorry, but at $8 a pop I'm not willing to be a guinea pig on this one so we'll have to wait until the reviews start coming.  $24 might not be a big deal to someone who hasn't already invested in a Shellac system.  I'm totally dying to find out if this stuff is any good because the colours were pretty awesome so somebody hurry up and try it please!

Later
P

Good idea, bad execution

This is 2 coats of Revlon Top Speed in Lily.  This is my 2nd Top Speed polish and I have to say I absolutely hate it.  There is nothing speedy about it and it's streaky as hell.  I could have used a third coat but I figured screw it.

I wanted to try another marbling idea I've had rolling around for awhile using clear polish again.  So I wanted to create a sort of interesting base by sponging on 2 colours.  I used 2 Studio M's: Magic Attraction and Sexy Siren.

And then I marbled it using clear and black polish.  I still can't get the marbling technique down and I ended up removing it right away...sigh.

Later
P

Halfway there!

So here we have my Shellac/Gelish combo on day one:

And here we are after one full week at Day 7:

I'm impressed!  Minimal regrowth and no chips at all!  My hands were majorly abused during those 7 days as well since I was sick and spent a few nights soaking in the hot tub, plus I had painted and removed regular polish on top at least 3 times by then.

So let's paint it some more!

This is Revlon Top Speed in Grape - 1 coat.  This was the first polish I've tried from the Top Speed line.  I'm not impressed.  This did not dry as fast as the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri polishes and it was really only dry to touch on the surface since about 5 minutes after painting I gouged one nail pretty badly.  The colour is amazing though and for some reason kept photographing blue but this pic is pretty accurate.

I was in a glitter kind of mood so I added one coat of Love My Nails in All That.  This was a cheap-ass $1 polish I picked up at a Walmart in the US.  It's got tiny green glitter and square purple and silver holo glitter in it.  I wish I could capture this better.  I like it.

Later
P

Oops

So apparently this post never actually made it to my blog 2 weeks ago.  Well here's a manicure pre-Shellac obsession lol.

2 coats of Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in Commander in Chic.  Pretty medium gray.  Can't say enough about the formula and brushes on these polishes - I love them!

I stamped it with one of the new Revlon foils - Princess (light blue) and plate BM205.  Again I could not get a good photo no matter what I did but it was just an okay mani anyways.  These new Revlons are good but not great for stamping.  They are more like Sally Hansen Celeb City in that they have a somewhat grainy finish as opposed to Pure Ice Silver Mercedes which is a smooth and clean metallic.

Later
P

Layering with Gelish

I'm still loving my Gelish manicure.  There are so many awesome things about this.  One of the best things is that I can paint regular polish right on top without ruining it.  So since I was wearing a nice dark vampy colour I figured why not try some layering out?

So one coat on top of Gelish Bella's Vampire from L-R:
Pure Ice Mint Dream
Sally Hansen HD DVD
Revlon Pineapple Fizz
Sally Hansen Prisms White Turquoise

I wasn't satisfied with any of those combos so I removed them with non-acetone remover and my Gelish was still good as new underneath!

So then I picked out 4 more layering polishes from L-R:
Sally Hansen Opal Truth
Sally Hansen HD Byte
Pure Ice Busted
Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor

And the winner was....

Pure Ice Busted with a subtle stamp in Sally Hansen Insta Dri Lively Lilac and image plate BM01.  This mani flashes a bit of gold and green in it as well.  I wasn't really able to capture it well but I love it.  It's amazing to me that I can paint whatever I like over top of the Gelish and it doesn't even dull the shine when I remove it.  I'm so glad I made the investment.

Later
P

Bling bling

This is 2 coats of Kleancolor in Midnight Queen.  There's a barely visible pink sparkle in this one.

And when I stopped by Zellers last week look what I found:

I had my Mom look for these when she was in the US last week and she couldn't find them so I was shocked to see them here.  They were in a display along with the pink glitter and Carbonite!  L-R: Facets of Fuschia, Blue Mosaic and the OPI is not from Zellers, I found it in a salon at the same mall for $5 - it's Skull and Glossbones.

So I slapped Blue Mosaic on right away:

Just one coat over Midnight Queen.  I didn't expect it to be that glitter-packed.  I was also surprised at the large green hex glitter in it.  It doesn't come through very well in the photos.

So it's not that I didn't like this mani, but I ended up taking it off the same night because I picked up the Shellac set that I purchased off Kijiji.  I was so excited to use it and I'll show you the results in tomorrow's post but here are the colours that came with it:

L-R: Romantique, Tutti Frutti, Cream Puff, Negligee and Red Baroness.  My plan is to use these as a base to strengthen my nails and also help my Mom and Sister to grow theirs out.  I totally plan on polishing over them so no worries about me disappearing here :)

Anyways, I was so excited I made a pit stop at Sally's on the way home to pick up a colour more suited to me haha.

I picked up Gelish Ooca Coocha Bing Bang Bam - Alakazy Alakazam (yeah uh that's the actual name of it, ugh) which is a teal layering glitter and the other is Bella's Vampire, a vampy wine colour.  These polishes are mini at 0.3ml and they sell for $18.95 with a Sally's card!!!  OUCH!  But the awesome chick at Sally's gave me a coupon for $15 off my purchase plus she gave me another one to use for later!  I could seriously kiss her!

Later
P

Good Mourning/Black Friday

Sorry just a bit of Megadeth humor that I couldn't resist.  It seemed the most appropriate title post for this:

Sally Hansen 10 Day No Chip in Black Berry.  1 coat and it's my favourite black creme of all time.  I will mourn it when it's empty.

I sponged a little Revlon Belle on the tips and then a little bit of China Glaze Dorothy Who on top of that?  I didn't realize at the time that the double effort would be a waste.  This was all just a base in order to showcase:

Blue Eyed Girl by Kleancolor - 1 coat.  I kept second guessing whether or not to use a second coat but I think because I did the tips in blue, a second coat may have been overkill.  So this mani got me more compliments than any other polish I've worn!  A complete stranger came up to me in a coffee shop and said 'omg let me see your nails!'  That was pretty awesome.

I wore this when I was at the salon last week and the girls were fawning over it too.  The salon owner cuts my hair and we usually talk a bit about nail polish and sometimes I'm the one schooling her lol.  She always tells me about all the new products coming out and I was super excited when she told me that she's getting the LCN magnetic polishes in shortly.  So she's going to call me as soon as they're in and I can't wait to try them out! 

Have a great weekemd!

Later
P

Stamping with Carbonite

This is 2 coats of OPI's Stranger Tides.  I found this one in a clearance basket a few weeks ago.  This is one reason why I usually refuse to buy new OPI collections when they first come out.  The shades I want always end up in the clearance bin eventually.  It's awesome that I love the unpopular colours!

Sorry this is a really shitty photo but it's a small US haul I had a few weeks ago.  I found Revlon Carbonite at Meijer but I didn't realize at the time that it's a dupe for Chanel Graphite.  It was $4 in a display on its own and I thought it looked pretty unique.  Also I'm probably the last blogger on the planet to buy Revlon's Royal.  I eye it up every time I'm out shopping but I've never seen it cheaper than $6 here in Canada.  Next up is Studio M's Sweet Dreams - I was on a hunt for purple cremes and picked up Sinful's Verbena on the far right as well.  The LA Colors polish is Aqua Crystals (glitter) found at the Dollar Tree.  Lastly, I finally found Sinful's San Francisco at Walgreens.  I've been looking for that colour forever.  Pretty small haul overall.

So as soon as I got home I broke out Revlon Carbonite because I knew the colour would look awesome with Stranger Tides.  I used plate BM207 and aligned the stripes straight across instead of diagonally as the image was intended.  I thought it was decent.  I don't mind the loud patterns when the colours are subtle.

Later
P

Definitely Not So Blueberry

Seriously WTF Revlon?  It ain't blue and it sure as hell doesn't smell like blueberries.  This took 3 coats for full coverage.  The photo doesn't show it but it has a subtle pink shimmer.  If you're on a diet and trying to stay away from sugar then by all means wear this polish!  It smells like sugar.  In fact after about 15 minutes of wearing it I wanted to throw up from the sweet smell.  I even added 2 top coats, a stamped coat and a glitter coat and it didn't reduce the smell at all.

I stamped with Pure Ice's First Time - a moss green chrome polish, and plate BM202.  It pretty much turned out to be a hot mess so what else could I do but add glitter right?

My camera hates holo glitter for some reason.  It can't focus properly.  Anyways, this is a coat of Savvy in Tinsel which is pretty much a dupe for China Glaze's Fairy Dust.  I did actually wear this for a day because I was too lazy to take it off but Not So Blueberry will be going to my sister just like all the other polishes I hate ;)

Later
P

Sleepwalker

First thing - I just popped by Walmart on my lunch and they now have Essie's!  Small display though, maybe 30 different colours, not like the large displays in the US Walmarts, price is $8.96.  Glad to see they're not completely hosing us Canadians.

So here is one coat of Revlon Lunar.  It's not a good stamping black though, I used one thick coat.

And this is a coat of Wet and Wild Sleepwalker - Fine orange glitter in a black jelly base.  This polish is a twin of China Glaze's Lubu Heels, just slightly different coloured glitter.

I really like it but much like Lubu Heels, you don't really notice the glitter unless you look closely.  I think these 8.5ml bottles are the perfect size for nail polish.  Enough that you can get several manicures out of them but not so much that they will be sitting in your stash for years.

So I threw a matte topcoat on it and dotted with Revlon Copper Penny.  I didn't like it much but what I did like was that the dots reminded me a lot of metal studs.

I'm really having a problem trying to find time to paint my nails now that summer is here.  I have no intentions of giving up the blog.  I guess I'll just have fewer posts during the summer, sorry.

Later
P

Overkill

So after I painted 3 coats of Wet and Wild Fast Dry in Magic Trident I wondered whatever possessed me to buy this and then decided to have some fun with it.

I sponged the following:
Revlon Copper Penny
An unnamed old rusty gold polish
China Glaze Ruby Pumps

Then I added two coats of Elf Golden Goddess.  I absolutely hated this.  So I stamped it in an effort to make it a little more tolerable.

Plate used was BM223 in Wet and Wild Black Creme like usual.  I liked it actually, but not to wear out of the house :) 

Oh and just because this is a short post today I wanted to share something yummy I had yesterday.  I have a serious addiction to Cherry Coke.  We don't get it here in Canada so when I go to the US I stock up.  And when I was in Michigan last week I found this new jell-o where you can mix in your favourite pop or juice...

Mmm Cherry Coke jell-o!

Later
P

Showing my age...

Back in my very early 20s this colour of polish was pretty much unheard of.  This was my all time favourite polish back then.  I was a bartender and used to get all sorts of comments on my blue nails.  This is 2 coats of Revlon Street Wear in Midnight.  I laughed when I cracked this open because I had forgotten what nail polish used to smell like.  This is the only polish that I've worn so often that there's only half a bottle left.  It also took forever to dry!  Even with fast dry top coat on it, it was still gummy enough to scrape off 2 days later!

And since my sis showed up on Thursday with all my new polishes, the first one I cracked open was Nfu Oh 51 and added a layer over to my existing mani.  Holy crap these things are money well spent!  I couldn't bring myself to stamp over it though.  I've got so many new polishes to play with now plus my new bundle monster plates which I try out in tomorrows post.

Later
P

Stampin' Joe

2 coats of Joe in Storm.  I love these polishes but they gotta do something about those lids!  This colour again looks familiar eh?

I didn't swatch them but this is in comparison to China Glaze Below Deck and Color Club Soft As Cashmere.  Doesn't match either of them, but it's not too far off from Below Deck.

Rexall/Pharma Plus last week had a big sale on all in stock nail polish and I picked up a couple of Sally Hansen Insta-dri's for stamping:

This is Jade Jump and plate BM03.  Wow does this ever stamp beautifully! I should have left it alone right here.

But no, I was in a stamping mood.  This is konad plate m53 and Revlon's No Shrinking Violet.  I'm really bad at matching colours.  I think it's just something you have to have a good eye for.

I also made my resin ring post into a sticky above for quick access for anyone who needs it.

Later
P

A girly mani

This is 2 coats of China Glaze's Light as Air which came in the spring mini set I picked up at Winners 2 weeks ago.  As much as I love the colours and selection that China Glaze has, I'm not overly impressed with their formulas.  I find there are better formulated polishes for much cheaper.  This colour however, looked familiar to me, so I did a comparison.

Turns out I was wrong.  The nail on the right is 3 coats of Secret Rendezvous from Color Club's Alter Ego Collection.  Sorry the pic was pre-cleanup because I removed it right after.  Secret Rendezvous is a very sheer polish and not what I'm used to seeing from Color Club.  But having said that, the Color Club definitely looks and feels like a higher quality polish in comparison to the China Glaze.

I applied a little China Glaze Fairy Dust down one side of the nail and then stamped with konad plate m15 in Revlon's No Shrinking Violet.  A little too girly for my tastes but some of you might like it.

Heh I'm counting down the days until my sister gets here with my new polishes...4 days to go!  I placed a last minute order for some Nfu Oh's so I'm crossing my fingers that it gets to her in time!

Later
P