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

Photo Dump

This is where all of my late posts go to die... stuck in dumps without their own posts, le sigh.

If I could be bothered to take a bit of time and draw this better it would be my header on my blog... But I cant draw on computers very well

This was a Christmas Nail that didnt make it. If I could, I would go back and replace one of the earlier ones with this one... meh. Its Urban Outfitters Holo Pink with some of my stripers in red, gold, and green.

Boyfriend bought me some last minute Christmas gifts the day after Christmas. This is Butter London's British Racing Green!!! I have heard on the grapevine that deep green will be the color of 2013, IM READY FOR THIS ONE!

I bought myself the documentary Nailgasam and it kind of inspired me to screw around with patterns and neons... these are unnamed Color Club colors and my  Sally Hansen art pen. I may have to develop this idea further.

I have been listening to this song non-stop for two weeks now... Im not really big on hip hop or rap or whatever, but this is my jam! I am kinda messing around with ideas for inspired nails.... if I ever do a challenge you can bet your ass I will use this! The "thumb" and "pinkie" are the color of blue like the polish they close up on :14 seconds in. The "index" is his sweater on 2:42, the middle is the dress from 1:40 and the "ring" finger is the suit on 2:57. I LOVE THIS SONG RIGHT NOW!!! WARNING: Explicit Language

Finally, I have been dying to show off my Helmer.

I really love stickers, but since I dont put any on my car I end up saving a bunch of them... like the "I Brake For..." I just end up collecting them. So when I decided I needed a Helmer I began buying more stickers! A lot of them came from RedBubble.com mostly the nerdy ones!

These little gems came from 23 Madison Studio She draws and makes these cute little stickers. The one I bought had 20 little different lacquer bottles.

 OK: Now on to the contents This is the top drawer. I keep my dotting tools, gems, stickers, filmo, orange sticks, nail art pens, magnets, cuticle scissors, nail clippers, flocking powder, striping tape, tweezers, oils, files, falsies, and nail wraps in here... among other things

 Drawer two has my base coats, topcoats, glitter top coats, cuticle remover and stripers.


Drawers three, four, and five have my polishes in them... semi color coordinated. The pictures have most of them... a few empty spots are stuff I havent put away and then there are about 7 new ones I havent made space for yet.

The last drawer has boring stuff in it, random cuticle care kits, business cards, lotions, acetone free polish remover (for jewels and stuff) extra cotton balls (I keep my cotton balls in a nice glass jar with lid that I picked up at Hobby Lobby... kinda decorative) and my favorite lotions, oils, polish remover pumps and jar scrubs are on top of my desk. Its a pretty good set up because my desk has a glass top, so when I want to do nail art or dotting I just dab the lacquer right onto my desk and clean up is super easy!

Yippee! So that was what I really wanted to show off... I think its pretty cool. This has been my favorite photo dump yet!

What's your favorite way to store polish? Any good products I should know about?

})i({ - Amy

OPI Live and Let Die

So in an attempt to have my hands and nails look a little better I've put in a little effort. I bought a "rescue system" from the brand Jessica. It contains a Hydracreme lotion, a Phenomenon oil, and the Nourish therapeutic cuticle formula. I put the lotion on and then put the oil on my cuticles, then put on some gloves from Earth Therapeutics and went to bed. In the morning I used Revlon's gentle cuticle remover, then used the Jessica cuticle cream, and then painted my nails with OPI's Live and Let Die.

It shows in the pictures how much better my hands look after using this system just once. Plus I bought all this stuff discounted. The Jessica set cost me $10 bucks... and the gloves were $3. But the nail polish wasn't on sale, it's from the new Skyfall collection.

I LOVE this color. Its now my favorite green. It's a deep forest color with golden flecks. The formula goes on smooth and could be a one coater (I had a little difficulty with application over the cuticle cream). These pictures are two coats, fully opaque. I think at Christmas I will use this color with Zoya's Toni for a good subtle Christmas mani.

The color is lovely, the application was easy, and my hands have never looked this good!

What do you think of OPI's Skyfall collection? How about favorite fall green polishes?

})i({ -Amy

Illamasqua Nurture (Rubber Finish)

I LOVE green! It is my favorite color. That being said I own probably 5 green polishes and maybe a couple green stripers. So when I heard about Illamasqua's rubber finish I was intrigued enough to buy one, and their green was perfect! But I can't get a good picture of it, you can find it HERE.

The polish goes on gloopy and dries quickly. It makes it kind of a difficult polish to apply. But the color is great and the finish is different. Its not really matte, more satin, but less shiney. This is three coats... I hate how I cant really capture it. Its a good color, with a workable formula. As you can see it does even out, but looks horrible on my right hand, very uneven and bumpy. I like Illamasqua's regular polish, the rubber was kind of fun though.

I have had this polish for a while now, but never used it. I cut my nails super short and have had difficulty growing them out again, but I like bright fun colors on short nails so I thought I'd give it a go.

On that note, any suggestions out there on how to grow my nails out? I have been using cuticle oil and not cutting my cuticles (as you can totally see in every FREAKING photo - my nails have been a mess since before the blog started), because I heard somewhere that the key to healthy nails are healthy cuticles. I also switched base coats recently to Orly's Nail Defense for strengthening and repairing (super recently: only for the last two manis... not even posted yet!) I just don't know what to do! I used to have the strongest nails and they were always very long. I think it might have something to do with eggs. I used to eat way more eggs than I do now... but I still drink the same amount of milk, I dont know if these things affect anything. When I studied nutrition I learned that more vitamin A and protein are good for growing out nails, which seems to work but they keep flaking and breaking... LE SIGH! 

In need of some help here! Would love to get some comments about nail health...

})i({  -Amy