Essie Turquoise and Caicos

This polish really changed my opinion about Essie.  My first few Essies sucked; I believe the particular bottle of Knockout Pout took 5 coats to reach opacity.  That's too many coats.  Turquoise and Caicos is a particularly sheer polish, but only took 3 coats.  And it's a beautiful color and it lasted nicely on me.  No chipping. I always get chips.  I'm just really tough on my hands.  The manicures I give to friends and family last over a week, I'm lucky if mine make it a day.

Turquoise and Caicos is a semi-jelly finish.  The first coat had me laughing because I never thought it would reach opacity.  It basically just tinted my nails to turquoise and I was all "Oh, crap."  The second coat looked promising and by the third, I was in love.  It really is such a simple color but it is done extremely well.  I like the unique flare of it being somewhat jelly.

AveYou Haul + Essie + Magnetic Nail Polish

First we'll start with my aveyou haul!  Their warehouse (?) is about an hour from where I live, so I got it the next day! THAT WAS EXCITING. I used my kgb gift certificate code thing and after all the math is done, I spent around $40 on $80 worth of stuff! WHOOO!  Aveyou.com still has a code you can use, "GiveMe15", without the quotes, and you'll get $15 off a purchase of $75 or more.  The code is good until January 2012.

On to my pretties!

Warm & Fozzie - Excuse Moi - Ski Teal We Drop - Teenage Dream

Da Bush - School of Hard Rocks - Changing Lilac - Turquoise Wave

I have two from that haul to show you now.  The first is Essie School of Hard Rocks.

3 Coats. Easy!

Then I got bored and decided to put Turquoise Wave over it.  This was my first time using the magnetic polish so it's not perfect, but I like how it came out!

It's so cool in real life! Ohmigod it looks 3D.  When you move your nails back and forth and stuff, it looks like you're looking at something with those dorky glasses. Love it! Easy application, easy to figure out, my pinky was the first shot - can't you tell?  I love how it looks.  These were $15.50 each so I will not be buying anymore, probably ever. But I'm glad I got two pretties to play around with now.

What do you think of the magnetic nail polish trend?

watermelon mani and a confusing haul

HELLO! It's 2:00am. Ever just wanna type in caps? I really do right now, I want to yell this post at you. But I won't. I just want to megaphone this whole post. But again, I will do no such thing.  I wanted to make two separate posts but decided to make on mega post because it felt right.  I will be covering a haul and a watermelon inspired manicure. Onward!

WATAMELON.

It's "inspired", therefore not a direct representation of a watermelon.  I've done the watermelon manicure on the kids at work: red base color, green french tip and black polka dots.  It's actually cute but it wasn't working for me this time so I dodged it.

2 coats of Essie "too too hot" (red)
3 coats of L.A. Colors "Energy Source" (white)

My biffle, Coryn, gave me the Essie.  SO WATERY. It flooded my cuticles before I even knew what happened.  But for once, it didn't take 42 coats like all my other attempts with Essie have, so can't complain!  It's really pretty though, once I realized it was watery I just used less polish and it was fine.  Then I added black and white dots with my dotting tool.  The watermelon shapes I got at Sally Beauty Supply for $5.50 along with a bunch of other fruit shapes.

They're flat. My nails are not.  A tiny bit of practice and I'll be able to get them to lay flush in no time!  Super cute designs though.  They also had a flower wheel but I was really drawn to the fruitsies.  OK HAUL TIME.

So it's official.  My drawers used for polish are PACKED full.  So any polish I've been purchasing lately just sits on my desk.  Right now I count about 25 just sitting here.  I can barely move my mouse anymore.. so what does this girl do? DUH - SHE GOES TO A DOLLAR STORE AND BUYS A TON MORE.

"dizzy" - "yellow aura" - UGH THE STICKER IS GONE.

"Hallucination" - "Nude" (wtf?) - "Floral Wind"

"Hallucination" looks like glass slippers to me, love that!  The middle polish is a clear jelly base with holographic glitter, stars and moons. So, naturally, it's "nude"?.....?? This dollar store brand takes their business seriously as you can clearly see.  Also, the random decision to capitalize some polish names and leave others makes me "lol".  One I have from a month or so ago actually has a typo and is "royal puple". NOT A WORD.

"Broken Hearted"- "Black Shimmer" - "Planet"

 WRONG. WRONG. IT'S ALL WRONG.  First, this picture sucks. It's really dark; my bad.  Second, "black shimmer" is actually black glitter. It LOOKS like its in a black base, but oh no, dollar store scammers got me this time.  Its CLEAR. It's black glitter in a clear base.  And it's not even glitter, it's just tiny black plastic squares, lol. In this case, I got what I paid for. So now I have 9 new polishes to add to my desk.  Nice, I'll just keep my diet coke on my head.

lets do it, LETS FALL IN LOVE!

Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love!

Valentine's Day is just a few weeks away so perfect timing to get some v-day manis in order!  I have on here I did and hated at first, but as I added each element I started to embrace it.

Started with a base color of Essie's "Knockout pout".  Ok, not joking on this one, FIVE COATS and still some bald spots!  I will not be using this polish again, most likely.  What are we paying 8$ for?  If I wanted full coverage it would've required SIX coats! LUDICROUS!

So yea, five coats.  Bright baby pink creme.  Super cute though.

 This was the final product after about an hour of decisions lol.

left to right;

-nailtekII as basecoat
-art club in white and shimmery purple (tips)
-essie's "knockout pout" (base color)
-opi by nicole "step to the beat of my <3" (heart glitter on middle nail)
-pure ice "dont you wish?" (glitter over the tips and middle finger)
-sally hansen insta-dri topcoat as topcoat
-used BM02 plate for the lips
-used BM11 for the tips
-used art club for the stamping

 What do you think?! Even lazy jellyfish do it!

Franken Attempt; "In Love"

I decided to give frankening another try (even though I have a strong aversion for that word and prefer the term “hybrid” but I will try to stay as relevant as possible).  I mixed about a quarter of each of these to get this color I chose to name, “In Love”.. mostly because I am IN LOVE with it!  They're all cremes, so there's no shimmer or sparkle, just very plain and understated.  Looks like artificial peach!

guest nails & another haul

Went shopping today! Got a bit of a haul along with a beautiful scarf from New York & Company and some new shoes for the future professional me (=

I went to Essentials at the mall and found a couple Essie polishes on sale for 4$.  I picked two I liked most, “Mistique Pink” and “Knockout Pout”.  I also went to Five Below again, of course, and picked up three new polishes, they are: “Elephunk, Tribal & Daiquri on Deck” so cute!  I also found a Color Club Art Club nail art polish in BROWN. Mochalatta to be exact.  I don’t know if I will ever need it, never thought to myself, “damn, I need brown nail art!” but if that day ever happens, I am soooooo beyond prepared.

 

Also have some guest nails for you :D  My BFF came over to get her Christmas presents finally and I promised her a mani.  She originally wanted China Glaze’s “Ruby Pumps” but after showing all my new polishes she went nutso over “For Audrey” (as most first time witnesses do) and quickly changed her mind!  I gladly obliged because that’s what BFF’s do. (So I hear)  Anyways this picture is pre-cleanup so they’re a little messy.

 

She has such cute little hands and perfect natural nails.  I get jealous because I have naturally larger build than most (Hell, I am six feet tall!) so everything else tends to run big on me, too.  I was super excited about finding cute shoes today, you can only imagine how much I frickin’ despise shoe shopping!

I am going to wear Elephunk tomorrow because I am going to visit my grandparents in Pennsylvania and don't suppose something obnoxious would be my best bet haha.  I will take pics of my nails for a NOTD later this week (=

As always, click to enlarge & please comment!

notd done by salonist

so, my friend treated me to an actual manicure at a salon. i decided to get a french manicure since i love the look but have trouble doing my right hand neatly. the lady went straight for the clippers and said she was going to cut my nails. stop right there. haha i never reacted so quickly! i yanked my hand away and snapped, 'NO! file them.' my nails arent overgrown.. theyre not jagged or mismatched sizes. why was she going to cut them off?!

anyways, she used essie's 'mademoiselle' and an unknown white polish for the tips. i like it, but it chips easily. ive already had to patch it up a few times and put a new topcoat on it and ive only had it for about 36 hours. hmph. this is why i dont get manicures. the money spent on them isnt always worth the quality of work, especially when you can do your own at home. which i do, aside from a french.





in completely unrelated news:

classes started up again on tuesday. so being back in school means either two things. 1. i wont be posting as much because ill be busy or 2. ill be posting twice as much avoiding school work.

im taking;
math (online.. weird i know)
educational field experience (extremely intimidating)
speech/public speaking (already butted heads with someone in this class -_-)
educational psych (first class is tomorrow)

i know im only 22 years old, and i know i dont know much about life. im a firm believer in, 'the more you know, the more you realize you dont know', but there is an older woman in the class with an abrasive 'take charge' attitude and was acting as a dictator on our group speech. i spoke up and emphasized that everyones opinion was important and i felt that we should all voice our opinion instead of listening to her command. im assuming shes in her early fifties. she immediately copped a 'tude. a public speaking course is bad enough, i dont need enemies -_- ill keep ya'll posted.

field experience is 3 hours a week in the AM, which will be nice since i was laid off in september and havent been up to too much. i have class for it on weds but ill be in the classroom again which i miss dearly. since my classes are mostly night classes, mornings are mostly open.

i have an opportunity for an unpaid internship at a charter elementary school specializing in visual and theatrical arts. it really piques my interest, so if i decide to embark in that, there will be less of me around (i guess?) i somehow always find some time for this nonsense (= im completely enthralled for the new semester!