So this morning I was supposed to get ready to go hang out with my brother Andrew... but I was reading nail blogs and losing track of time. I still hadnt done my nails yet and they were bare! I couldnt leave the house like that and I was in a hurry. I had just read Nailed It's post about wraps and it inspired me to put on OPI Pure Lacquer Nail Apps in Fishnet I had bought at Beauty Brands two weeks ago...
They were SUPER quick and easy to apply but I left the top protector on while I applied and then removed it to finish the tips.
I also used a topcoat when I was done... additionally, these pictures were taken after I came back from a busy day of activities.
They are a bit more iridescent then they look in the pictures... and a bit on the sheer side. I was very pleased with this experience.
They held up quite well through the Pompeii exhibit at the museum
It was a very interesting exhibit, this is just some of what we saw.
This is my "baby" brother contemplating the mysteries of the universe as he is known to do on occasion. I bet he'd love to know that this made it to my blog!
Anywho, we went to the museum then to the mall then to a bunch of other places to just wander around... it was a busy day, and I bought tons of polish as per usual: Nails Inc Baker Street with the bling cap, Essence Out of my Mind, Essence Hypnotic Poison, and Zoya Arizona. The Essence were .49 cents each, Arizona was 4.99 and Baker's Street was 10... I got another wrap for 2 bucks (for another emergency) and some ornaments for next Christmas. Biggest plus of all? Boyfriend got me this sticker to put on my helmer... who will now be known as Helga (because "my helmer" sounds so impersonal for something so magnificent, and it makes her sound like a powerful beast of a lady).
HOW COOL IS THIS? I would love to think that applying polish may one day lead to super human powers... maybe like getting a batch of radioactive lacquer.
Anywho... what a busy day. I am so pumped full of energy and rearing to go, but I really need to be gearing down now. Goodnight all!
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
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?
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?
What an ordeal!!! I have my nails painted all Halloween-y and am super excited about it. Today has been a bit of a post dump this is my third, but I did these nails last night and just in time for Halloween.
I used so many polishes for this mani. Since I am no good at nail art on my own fingers I went for a mix of finishes and textures. Nail polishes in order from left to right:
Mini OPI Alpine Snow
Essence Grey-t To Be Here
Essie Matte About You (for a matte topcoat over a matte polish)
Piggy Polish Nocture-Nail
Illamasqua Nurture
Cult Nails Deal With It
Urban Outfitters Tiny Shorts
The New Black shimmery orange
China Glaze I Herd That
OPI Ya'll Come Back Ya Hear?
OPI The Living Daylights
Butter London Gobsmacked
OPI Black Shatter
China Glaze Liquid Leather
LA Colors Art Deco black striper
ManGlaze Matte Is Murder
So I know that there are more polishes here than I have fingers, but the effect I was going for required it. Every nail is different, and they mostly came out the way I wanted.
On my right hand from my pinkie to my thumb:
I used TNB orange shimmer with CG I Herd That. This is the first time I've used the CG orange glitter. I think its a nice fall orange glitter.
I used CG Liquid Leather and a nail sticker. I LOVE LIQUID LEATHER. It is by far my favorite black. Its really like a black jelly, which is why I think it goes on so well
I used Illamasqua Nurture, I literally just posted a swatch of this but I really used it like a week ago... you know how I feel. I used my Seche Vite over the top so it was shiny
I used ManGlaze Matte Is Murder. I think ManGlaze has the best matte polished I've ever used. I love the application, they don't dry too quick when applying and they look great even with a shiny top coat. I used Essie's Matte About You as a topcoat over this. I really value the use of top coats
I used Tiny Shorts on the thumb. I swatched it a while back and I like the color a lot.
Left Hand thumb to pinkie:
I used Butter London's Gobsmacked. This has to be one of my favorite polishes. If I were stranded with one polish for the rest of my life, this would probably be it. Its super sparkly but deep and dark.
I used Cult Nails Deal With it and OPI's Black Shatter. I did these nails a while back but didn't post about it ( I literally so my nails everyday, I don't have time to post about it.)
This is OPI's Ya'll Come Back Ya Hear? from their Texas collection. This is a very thin orange jelly despite looking very opaque in the bottle. I made a jelly sandwich with OPI The Living Daylights which I also posted about today. Its a nice combination, I may do it for a big Denver Bronco game because the blue glitters stand out over the orange (and I'm in Denver.)
I used Essence Grey-t To Be Here. This is my first Essence polish, I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to my polish. I dont like to buy a lot of cheap stuff, but the color is phenomenal! It's a light grey with pink micro flaky things in it. Its gorgeous! At .99 cents GO BUY IT! I used the LA Colors black striper to make it look like a tombstone EDIT: I also used Julep's Meryl cling wrapped over the top to make it look like stone.
I used the mini bottle of OPI's Alpine Snow to make the base of a ghost and then used the LA striper to make the outline and actually used a dotting tool with CG's Liquid Leather to make the eyes and mouth.
They all look a bit dull because I used the Piggy Polish glow in the dark Nocture-nail over the top of everything. To get a good glow you have to use like 4 coats of it. So it distorted a lot of the colors. VERY sad on the CG Liquid Leather with skull and crossbones nail... it was so richly black before I put the glow on... le sigh. This is also why I was obsessed with top coats on this mani: Piggy Polish uses formaldehyde in their polish and I put my fingers in my mouth a lot.
It looks pretty cool and I am going to try to keep my nails like this until Wednesday... TRY is the operative word there. We'll see.
I want to see your Halloween nails! Email me at drama.ocelot@gmail.com and I will post the pictures I get before Halloween!
