Illamasqua Serenity Rubber Brights & Stamping

I got my first Illamasqua today! I went to Sephora and tried all the testers and decided on Serenity.  I would've loved to take them all home with me but at $14 a piece, I decided one would be a good start.  I also really like the rubbery finish and mattes in general, so this was a really fun addition to my stash.

"Natural" Light

Photos seen here are two easy coats over Orly Bonder, no top coat. I say easy because I was anticipating some difficulty and it wasn't! My middle finger has three coats because I messed up while doing it, but opacity is reached in two.

"Natural" Light

"Natural" Light

I jazzed it up with some stamping. This is BM306 with Konad Special White.  Since my nails have a pretty dramatic C-curve, I usually can't stamp a full image design without messing it up.  My thumb cramps and I try, every time and then it dries so fast on the stamper that not all of it picks up.  I fix this by filling in the gaps with dots and rhinestones usually.  I have no issues with smaller designs, just the full image ones. Such a shame!

"Natural" Light

Only three fingers here because I royally botched my index nail.  Pro-tip: use the bathroom before doing your nails.

My first Illamasqua experience was a positive one.  I really like how the bottle fits in my hand too, although that's not really relevant to application or formula.  I also really like the color of this blue even though  I wanted to take all of them home with me!

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I still have polishes in stock at my Etsy store!

Oopsie Daisies Nail Polish Shop 

NOTD: Color Club Space Case

OH I LOVE IT.  It's obnoxious and bright and livened up a rainy day for me.  I felt twelve while wearing it but it is definitely a unique polish and a one-of-a-kind in my collection.  I realize this may not be everyone's cup of tea, it has a bold personality, but it so different.

Two coats of 'Space Case', No TC

There is holographic glitter in there, but it doesn't show too much.  When I was removing it, however, the holo finally showed its face and was everywhere.  It also shows holo in the bottle too.  It didn't show much on my nails in any sort of light, though.  But that's OK, I really love it despite that.

Two coats, no TC.

Two coats plus one coat of
Hard Candy Matte Top Coat

Sinful Colors - Savage

I was wandering through Walgreens and found this bucket of Sinful Color polishes that weren't on any 3 of the displays in the store.  I'm not sure if they are discontinued or what, but I picked two of them up plus a third I found on the main display.  The one I am showing you today is one of the bucket polishes!

Sinful Colors "Savage" and my Neener helping me with my mani.

She was VERY helpful, actually!

3 Coats and TC

This polish was strange.  It tried completely matte and stained LIKE A MOTHER EFFER. I forgot my base coat so I had to buff buff buff.  I did a pretty decent job fixing it though.

The flash in the last picture kind of brightened the color up a bit.  It's a bit darker and a little more "dusty".  It's pretty though, I definitely like it!  Sinful Colors are available at Walgreens for 1.99$ (=

i was sick & qipao looking mani

For the sake of all things sweet and juicy (wtf?), it is a damn miracle that I am here to type this to you today, at 4:45am.  Technically it’s Thursday at this point, but my internal clock couldn’t tell you that, I had to check a calendar just now.

Saturday evening around 4pm my friend called me to go to the store with her because she had to pick a few things up before her baby arrived (which it has - between now and then, it’s a boy! Congrats mama!)  Anyways, the second I walked in the door upon coming home I felt a kind of slight scratchy feeling in my throat like I needed a drink of water.  So I had a bottle of water and within in the next few hours it was all downhill. 

I’ve never, ever had such a fast onset of an illness before in my life.  It literally developed within 2 hours.  By 7pm I had a 102.0 fever, the chills, an intensified sore throat, dizziness and body aches that came from the left field beyond my wildest dreams.  I managed to take my sick ass to the doctor on Sunday morning and they said it was a virus that had to run its course. OK, thanks here’s your co-pay!

So from Saturday evening til about Wednesday afternoon I had taken roughly 18 showers to try and keep warm, taken well over the recommended dosage of Advil and Exedrin to keep the fever at bay (which by the way, was at a steady 103.3 for THREE DAYS, I’m sure my liver will be thanking me later), and had not slept more than 1 consecutive hour.  I kept blacking out from delirium from my fever.  I’d wake up and not remember falling asleep, but the same episode of a show would still be on, so I was literally just going in and out of consciousness.

Didn’t do my substitute hours at work on Monday and haven’t been to class yet this week.  The only things I have eaten are popsicles and chicken rice soup and water.  I feel about 75% as of now, which feels amazing compared to how I was earlier this week.  But I am pissed, me and the boy had plans for Sunday and Monday that had to be canceled. He was very understanding and just wanted me to feel better, but I wasn’t understanding of the laws of crap and still remain bitter. 

Anyways, I am feeling a lot better and finally have the energy to sit at the computer long enough to do anything semi-productive.  Since this is a nail polish blog and not a “Cathryn what are you going to bitch about next blog” I will show you a mani I had done before the damned bubonic plague hit me.

I used a coat of China Glaze Matte Magic over my previous post's manicure and jazzed it up with some nail art.  I cannot even tell you what I used aside from white and gold nail art polish and one of the BM plates; that's about as detailed as I can get, lol.  The fever erased my short term memory.

Reminds me of one of these numbers.  A qipao it's called.  I didn't do it on purpose but I couldn't see anything else when I finished!  Image is from here, it is not my picture.

And here it is again!

Ok lovies I certainly did not forget my giveaway that I will be doing soon.  It may be a day or two behind because of how backed up I am on all other aspects of life right now but it will be up and posted by Sunday.

mint apple refresher (=

Hello ladies (= as mentioned in a previous post, I have some extra time on my hands so I hope I can update and post as well as view, read and share with all of you!  It is official though: got all my grades back and I have my associates degree, should be arriving in February!

This next NOTW (Nail of the week!) has been one of my favorites because it didn’t start out as a NOTW, more like a NOTD.  But I have continually added onto it so much that its actually lasting a long time but each new addition gives it a little bit of a refresher so a) it looks fresh and b) I don’t get bored of it!

The layering goes as follows;

Sinful colors: Mint apple

ORLY: liquid vinyl

Art Club: Black

Art Club: Silver Glitter

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top coat

China Glaze: Matte magic

It started out with two layers of mint apple, and then I added one more for total opacity.  I am out of basecoat and haven’t had the thought cross my mind to purchase any new ones, so I didn’t use one, lol.  I then sealed it with one coat of the Sally Hansen topcoat.

It wasn’t until the next day that I added the flowers on the thumb and ring finger with a little bit of sparkle.  Being the awful disorganized mess of a person I can be, I actually misplaced the fauxnad plate I used so I don’t even know which number it is! M24!  I used the Art Club polish for it though, the thick formula works great with konad and fauxnad!  Two days later I decided to give another try on a French tip.  (My favorite concept yet worst execution! Love the classic look but haven’t been able to get it down just right.. until now!)

I used this tape that I bought for Christmas presents from Five Below for a dollar xD  I will definitely be investing in some French manicure strips because this tape is a double edged sword. 

Pros:

leaves the CLEANEST lines I’ve done yet

perfect amount of sticky that doesn’t pull off base coats

Cons:

Is 100% clear and VERY hard to place straight.

Not meant for nail care so leaves the tiniest little gaps on the edges (that I fixed with Art Club)

I loved the final look!

A day or two later, I decided to mattify my mani and loved it even more!  I am not sure WHAT caused this problem, but about half and hour after applying Matte Magic, the edges of my nails were really white, looked like a bad case of dry cuticles.  They still are and I don’t know how to get rid of it )=  My cuticles were just oiled and lotioned before I took these pictures, so I don’t think it was the actual dryness of my cuticles.  I really don’t know what caused this chemical reaction!  Anyways, the final product;

thanks for viewing (= i love to hear comments and feedback so let me know what you think!
(ALL images are clickable!)