Nail It Magazine

Hey guys, no new polish to report on (although I have a set of Julie G gumdrop polishes sitting here, waiting to be swatched and another set to giveaway... so be on the lookout).
That being said, I went to Walgreens the other day and picked up a bunch of stuff including the latest issue of Nail It magazine. I was hesitant because its 5 bucks which to me is about the same or almost the same as getting a bottle of polish. But I am SUPER glad that I did because I learned new things, read interesting articles (one in particular about men wearing polish), and was inspired to do some nail art.

This is the cover and I was so taken with the model's nails that I wanted to recreate it! They tell you how on one of the pages so it sounded easy enough
First I cut strips of electrical tape for the rectangles, placed them on my nails then used OPI Eurso Euro to paint the nail. Its the same color they used in the picture.
Then I removed the electrical tape and filled in the void with Orly Luck Duck. Despite green being my favorite color I lean more to neon greens so I dont actually have any true or kelly greens. I think I want to go pick up Essie Shake Your $$ Maker... but the one they used for the pic is apparently Essie First Timer... they dont make it very clear. Then I outlined the square in white.
Anywhoo, heres what I came up with!

I love this!!! SO much so that its been days but I still dont want to take it off! Instead I just touched it up! But it will be gone tomorrow :( Im going for a spa day which includes a mani-pedi, so they will wipe it clean.

What do you think? Have you seen this magazine yet? Go buy this now, its fun and has some great pics and product ads.

PS: what color should I get on my hands and feet at the spa tomorrow? Im thinking purple... or orange... or something neon if its bright enough (like blue?)

})i({ -Amy

Hard Candy Crush On Tin

OK, so this is my first Hard Candy polish... I decided I needed to get at least one after 3 of my friends (and I dont have all that many friends to begin with, so I can basically/truthfully say ALL of my friends) were wearing Crushed Chromes. Two of them were wearing Crush On Lava, the other was wearing Crush On Caribbean. I like Crush On Caribbean but I have too many polishes that look exactly like it... and when I looked at the huge Walmart display I was drawn to Crush On Tin (and Little Hottie, but we'll save that for another time).

This is a GREAT polish, I am very pleased to say the least. It went on very smooth, had good coverage and consistency  It wasnt so thin that it flooded the cuticles but it wasnt so thick that it was sticky.

This polish has a great luminescence to it. It sparkles but also has depth. I think of it as more of a black/gold chrome polish. My boyfriend saw it in passing and said "wow" and I wasnt even showing him my nails!

But that was last night and today I got bored. I wanted to see it matte and I am SOOOO glad that I did because it has a rich-ness to it now that it did not have before. It became so smooth and velvety.

And because I couldnt leave well enough alone I used Shandy plate SH23 to put some sort of abstract gold design on it with Orly Luxe.

I know everyone is all in a tizzy for Crush on Lava, but in my opinion if you buy just one polish from the Crushed Chromes set make it Crush On Tin; you will not be disappointed!

})i({ -Amy

Nails Inc. Edinburgh WINNER!!!

Ok people. This was the first of hopefully a couple more giveaways I would like to do bi-monthly or monthly... depending on how I feel (yes, it is all about me).

That being said I have learned a few things... Firstly, I want to make them longer... this was only a week long giveaway. I am going to try two weeks next and initially I thought if I did a giveaway every month then it would be open all month... but that seems like a hella long time. So we try two weeks next month. Next, I really want to see more promotion of the giveaway. I had a couple people repost it on their facebook, but I couldnt verify it... so I deleted those entries. If you want to repost and you leave me a link, make sure it works... or exists for longer than an hour. I may make it a daily option to repost... maybe. Le Sigh! Can anyone say "learning experience"? And lastly, I would love to hear any suggestions from you guys! I think I am still only doing U.S. mailing only... so far. I may open it up to Canada, maybe Australia (especially since I am so fond of the Aussies... my friends there used to say I was basically Australian with an American speech impediment! Oi Oi Oi), so I would like to hear suggestions more along the lines of  what kind of products, where to promote, those kinds of things. Enough of my babble...

THE WINNER IS:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

WOOT!!!!
So I clicked the "send an email" button... maybe two or three times because I expected something to happen, but nothing did... so I am going to send Kayla an email and it may be her third or fourth one from me, it may be the only one. Either way:
CONGRATULATIONS KAYLA!!!
You are the proud new owner of some Edinburgh!

Make sure to check back here next month because I am giving away a Julie G set of frosted gumdrop polish... I was looking at instagram the other day and I was saw a post from Casey (beauty101blog) about these textured gumdrop polishes available at RiteAid... of which maybe there are 5 in the Denver Metro Area (which is huge). SO since I couldnt really get my buns over to one, she mentioned a groupon about it and away I went! I then thought, why not get a set for next months giveaway since it will take about two weeks to get here anyways? SO LOOK OUT FOR THAT IN MAY!!! Im pretty excited, these will be my first Julie G polishes.

Congrats Kayla, you have 48 hours to respond to my email or I will pick another winner!

})i({ -Amy

Color Club Warhol and Nails Inc. Noho

Today is the last day to enter my giveaway!!! Go do it, and then look forward to another one for next month... it will be even better (cuz its a set!)

 

But back to the mani at hand!

So I didnt intend to do this mani at all last night. I really wanted to do a neon gradient with OPI Turquoise Shatter over the top...but I just couldnt get it to look the way that I wanted... then I thought I would do a neon yellow mani with gradient blue dots 

(OMG that wheel was a lot harder to photograph than my nails... )

But to get the yellow to stand out I had to put on white undies, and I kept hitting my fingers on the plethora of other things on my desk... so I got fed up and cleaned it all off. I almost didnt even paint them after that, I was so dejected... BUT THEN!!!! I remembered how my friend was complaining about pink nail polish (she NEVER wears pink and how she came about wearing pink polish is a longer story than even I would like to tell)... but anyways, I was telling her to "rock" the pink up a bit by adding a black accent nail and maybe some studs... at which point she confessed that every time I use little accent bits on her nails, like studs or rhinestones, she never keeps them!!! Even the "bitch" hex charm I put on her nails last time I did them...

Anywho, that conversation inspired these nails!

I love neon colors and Warhol is a great polish! Jackie-Oh! is probably my favorite neon pink that Color Club does, but these are pretty similar, enough so that you dont have to have both. This is my first time using Noho, even though I bought it so long ago. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the effect. I cant wait to go buy Soho Mews and Shoreditch Lane...

})i({ -Amy

Nails Inc. Edinburgh GIVEAWAY!!! U.S. ONLY

Sorry international readers... I need to find out more information on shipping nail polish internationally before I open a giveaway to you... I'm scared. If someone has had good or bad experiences shipping internationally you should email me about it Drama(dot)Ocelot(at)gmail.com... help me to not be afraid... or justify my fears.

Onto the POLISH!!!

So this is probably not the newest polish, but I got super excited because I hadn't seen it in any of my Sephoras until last week. I have been waiting for this feather stuff!
I decided it was also time for a giveaway, because any of you who actually read my book length posts deserve a medal... or free stuffs. I am going to try to do a little giveaway like this once every couple of months, because its really easy to just buy two of a lacquer and it will give me an incentive to stay current with trends. I never really buy the newest latest and greatest... Im usually just hunting for stuff that I like, and then I jump on the bandwagon later and act like "OMG look what I finally found out is great!" its kind of lame when you think about, try not to think about it.

So I didnt know what underwear to use with this...
I tried sans underwear

This is two to three coats of Edinburgh... I say two to three because it was two with some retouching on both the first and second coat... by the way, this is a lumpy polish...

Then tried American Apparel T-Shirt (my favorite white undies), Essie Haute as Hello (one of my favorite peachy colors that kind of matched the orange bar glitters), Ciate Cream Soda (a nice neutral light gray), Kleancolor Lake Mist (the only powdery blue shade I have... mental note: go buy a cream powder blue polish), and Orly Chocolate Martini (because I thought "Hey, why not try an intense coppery color... why not?"). Before and After

So I hate the way it looks over the copper, I like the how the orange and blue glitter pops over the white, and the glitter seems to fade over the orange and blue polish...

This is what I ended up going with!

I thought the glitter looked really nice against the gray... and I wouldve used an orange stamp but it didnt show up very well...
I think I like this polish best on its own, especially since thats when it looks the most like feathers. It does layer up pretty quickly but the only drawback is how lumpy it gets.

So what do you think? Want to win a bottle? Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

By the way, I had to chop off all my nails because remember my last post where I talked about buffing my nails down? Yeah, well apparently you shouldnt peel your splitting nails then buff them until they are paper thin and then go partake in strenuous hand labor... apparently.

})i({ -Amy

Ninja Polish Ambrosia

K, No time for banter

BLAMSKIES!!!

I really put some effort into this mani... 

Where to start my tales??? 

So I have a real problem with splitting... It was getting better when I wore gloves to sleep with moisturizer and cuticle oil every night, not cured but better... but I stopped doing that when I had to go back east and havent started up again. Then it got a little better when I wore Orly's Nailtrition but it says not to use it consecutively for more than two weeks... and THEN theres my other little problem. 

I see that little bit of lacquer covered nail lifting off the rest of the nail and I CANT HELP MYSELF, I have to peel it back slowly and a little at a time... It is so satisfying. Like squeezing a big blackhead you didnt know you had but catch site of in the mirror during your makeup routine, so big it looks like a mole. Yeah this is just like that for me. I cant help myself!

SO I peel the damn thing back and then paint my nails again and it leaves this unsightly ridge and it looks horrible and then just causes the next peel when it grows out.  YUCK circle of never ending manicure ruination.

So this time I used one of those nail buffer things... you know? The ones from the dudes at the mall who catch you and molest your hand with that huge nail file looking thing with four sides? All to leave you with that one shiney nail? NO? I guess nail polish addicts dont get subjected to this because we're always wearing polish... but back when i didnt wear polish my naked nails were molested in this fashion all the time... those damn sales cart people.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT

I buffed the crap out of all my split nails.... all of my nails really, even the non split ones, I smoothed down the edges where new splits were occuring and I buffed out all the ridges on my nails. HOPEFULLY this will prevent some splitting in the future FINGERS ARE CROSSED! But more importantly this occured to me to be the best way to treat my nails before I use chrome polish or others that show the shit out of ridges. And you all had to read through that crap to get that little gem of advice damn it! HAHAHA! 

Anyways, I went through all that work so I figured I might as well clean up my cuticles and then after I was done painting, clean up some of the mess in the beds of my nails and TADA! I think these might be the best my nails have ever looked for you!

Onto the polish:

So I really like this color, I decided I needed to put on something special after all that hard work and this was the winner! Thank You, Cynthia! 

It went on super smooth but a bit sheer. This is three coats of slightly thick shimmery perfection. It reminds me of Takko Lacquer, both in color and consistency  It has a slightly orange color in the shimmer but also some yellow and even green (in certain lights). It is so rich and glowey, it looks like wildfire on my nails! I am LOVING it!

What do you think? Anyone ever use one of these nail buffers? Am I just late in the game? WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME!!!!? Anyone have any suggestions how to stop the damn splitting??? 

})i({ -Amy