My first ruffian

I'm not exactly sure why I've never tried a ruffian before because I love the simple elegant looks.  I decided to try it out in soak off gel.

I started out with two coats of Quo by Orly Gels in First Class (Rage dupe).  I didn't have much hope for the Orly Gels at Shoppers but it looks like they're actually doing quite well and they DO have an LED lamp you can purchase now.  Shoppers also started stocking the Nailene Sensationail gels as well but I haven't heard a lot of good things about them.

I finished it off using OPI Gelcolor in Lincoln Park After Dark.  I'm holding a Gelish bottle here because you couldn't see the mani against the black OPI bottle.  This colour had the absolute worst shrink-back of any gel polish I've tried to date.  On the plus side it was nice and thick so I thought I could get away with one coat but I had to do a second layer due to the shrink-back.

I added a couple of my new square gems for an accent.  I really love the ruffian look now that I've tried it but unfortunately I made an error in using the Orly which is so close to my skin tone.  It looks great up close, but from a distance it looks like I've got massively grown out polish.  I also tried to make the gap on my shortest nail (the middle one) smaller so that it would give the illusion they're all the same length, but that didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped either.

I may do some nail art on this later if I can find the time.

And I've been wondering for awhile...what the heck is up with this Indie craze?  Girls are paying upwards of $10 per polish for some clear base stuffed with craft store glitter?  I don't get it.

Later
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No mani today

I'm still wearing my soak off glitter mani but I've got a few items of interest to share anyways.

First up, I noticed all the Dollar Giant stores in my area have become Dollar Trees - yay!  However the stock hasn't changed but I'm hoping we'll see some of the Sally Hansen packs make their way up here shortly.

In Claire's on the weekend I noticed some new polishes that looked awfully familiar....

They are $7.99 (!) each.  Don't they look exactly like the Color Club Take Wing collection?

That's because they are!  Sorry for the crappy photo, it's really hard to be discreet taking photos in stores.  I'm happy to see this but not happy about the price, especially when you can buy a package of 2 of the original Color Clubs at Winners for $7.99 - which I actually saw on clearance for $5 a week ago.

I wish I could tell you where I ordered this from but I didn't get a confirmation email from the website and the paypal transaction lists an asian girls name.  What I can tell you is that I paid $9 for all this, the soak off was $3.50 (it's a tiffany blue).  It was sent from China and took 2.5 weeks.  If this knock off gel turns out to be good I will have to try and figure out where I ordered it from so I can get some more.

But then it may not really be necessary because...

I found OPI gels!  My bf moved to new place in Mississauga and I noticed a Nail Salon Supply in his area.  When I finally made a trip to the store it turned out they were closed on Saturday which means a couple of things good and bad.  Good - they are an actual salon supply so they likely had soak off gels at great prices.  Bad- they may not sell to non-pros.  So I sent the bf in with a list and he called me right away saying he was pretty much lost and I needed to go in myself.  I told him to pass the list on to the clerk and while she was looking for them he spotted a display of OPI Gelcolor!  And lucky me, they actually sold them to him along with a bottle of Shellac I forgot to take a photo of.  The Shellac was only $13 which is even cheaper than the ones I ordered from Amazon!

I am seriously dying to take a trip to this place myself!

Later
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Rainbows and bling

Well this is looking like this is turning out to be a one-post-a-week summer.  I simply just don't have the time to paint my nails as often lately.  Never have I loved soak-off gels more than I do right now :)

I did manage to do one regular mani last week over my gel.  I painted 1 coat of Layla Flash Black over 1 coat of basic black nail polish.

And this photo has a coat of Seche Vite on top.  Everyone says that top coats diminish the holo effect of a polish but I find what it actually does is 'cloud' it a bit.  The holo is still clearly there just not as bright.

My current gel mani is 2 coats of Ez Flow TruGel Frosted Amethyst which is a very sheer frosty lilac.  I tried 3 coats of it on my sister last weekend and it was still sheer so it probably would take at least 5 for opacity.  I topped it with 3 coats of Ez Flow TruGel Winners Circle which I used as an accent nail previously over Shellac Asphalt.  It's a clear base with probably 50% silver glitter, 25% pewter glitter and 25% pink glitter which makes it look mostly lilac.  The application here is not the best since I had my sister paint them but she did an alright job.

I noticed when we did my nails that I actually missed the base coat on one finger so I decided to leave it and we'll see what happens when you don't use base coat...

Later
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Gel marble and quickie swatch

From my recent haul this is China Glaze Smoke and Ashes:

The bottle flashes these awesome teal/purple/orange colours that just don't show up on the nail unfortunately, but I still like the colour.

I decided to add a little oomph to it:

With a coat of Nfu Oh 40.  I don't wear these as often anymore sadly since they tend to stick in the gel polish, but with a coat of regular polish under them it's not a problem.

So then I did a new soak off gel manicure.  I painted one coat of Ez Flow TruGel in Racy Red.  Then I painted a second coat of it but before I cured it I added a stripe of Shellac Asphalt right down the middle and then a stripe of Gelish Good Gossip (red sparkle) down one side.  I used a striping brush to try and create a marbled effect and dusted it with a tiny bit of charcoal glitter.  It seems to me that this gel mani didn't take as long as it normally does but that's probably because I'm anal and knew this would have a messy look to it so I didn't take as much care as I normally would.

I got quite a few compliments on this.  I really like the marbling effect but I'm not crazy about the colours I used.  I may try out this technique again someday.

Later
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