Galaxy Nails!

I wanted to give galaxy nails a try after seeing so many wonderful examples.  Mine, unfortunately, look uh, much better at a distance.  They're not awful but I hope to do better next time.

"Natural" Light

I used a previous mani to build on, click HERE to go back and see it.  That explains what I built on, since it was also a layered manicure.  It can be seen below.

"Natural" Light

Upon that manicure I used a couple different things to create the effect.
-Hits Zeus (sponged over)
-Hits Demeter (sponged over)
-WnW Black Creme (sponged over)
-Finger Paints Asylum (sponger over)
-Acrylic paints in various colors (used to make the "galaxy" design)

I used paint brushes with the acrylic paint and a make up sponge for the nail polish.  I knew I wanted it to contain orange for contrast reasons.  The dots were done using  a dotting tool with paint, not polish, to make them irregular.

"Natural" Light

Flash

Have you done galaxy nails? I'd love to see your examples!

SH Salon Effects Plus CVS Mega Haul!

Since CVS is having crazy sales this week I thought I'd give the Sally Hansen Salon Effects another whirl.  My previous attempt and experience with them left a lot to be desired.  I swore to myself I wouldn't pay full price for these again and I didn't! I got Skinny Jeans for $2.62!  Even if they were always that price, I still wouldn't buy them regularly. Maybe.

Cutesy!

I was more patient this time, and warmed up my nails before applying the strips by rubbing my nails and then I held it on and pushed it down for a while.  I followed the instructions exactly and about 6 hours later (which is now) I have a chip or two and some tipwear. WTF. How do people wear these for 10 days?!  My former roommate got WEEKS out of hers, but I put them on her!  So I'm doing it right. My nails hate me.

So I don't know what my problem is.  They stick on just fine, but the tips wear so easily, and as I said before, chip as well.  I only used 6 strips for both of my hands, maybe 7. but it comes with 16, so I'll do yet another experiment with the product that refuses to love me.  Gosh my nails and SH Salon Effects hate me too.

But at least I was able to ruin someone else' day, or so it seemed.  The cashier at CVS asked me how my day was, and I said good how was yours? And he replies: It was pretty good, but now I feel short.  Prepare for a capslock rant: LOOK KID, I GET IT, I'M TALL, I'M TALLER THAN MOST WOMEN BUT I'M THAT THE TALLEST WOMAN IN THE HISTORY OF EVER. So anyways I laughed it off and he asked me if I liked being tall and I said yes, there just isn't that many tall men to date.  I also said the air is better up where I am, too. So I am happy to have a hand in having his day going from "pretty good" to "feeling short". What a durp.

So yea I was at CVS and bought some stuff! YAY! STUFF.

From left to right:

- Thinking of Blue
- Fairy Teal
- Diamonds
- Luminous Tulips (..what?)
- Cherry Red
- Whirlwind White

From left to right:

- I Pinky Promise
- Showtime
- Creamcicle (spelled that way)
- Twilight Nights
- Catch a Falling Star

Skinny Jeans - Teal With It

Some make up for cheap! :D

 I spent about 30$ for ALL of this!

Beyonce Countdown Inspired Manicure

Sooooo Beyonce is probably one of my favorite singers ever.  I've been wearing her new album out and when I found out Countdown was going to be a single I got really excited at the prospects of what the video could be. It's such a fun song and the video really lives up to that.  I love the colors and patterns in the video so it inspired me to design a manicure.

And this is what I came up with :D

 I took some still screenshots of the video so you can see where I pulled the inspiration from. I used a ton of different polishes for this manicure so I'm going to list them accordingly.

Thumb

China Glaze Four Leaf Clover

China Glaze For Audrey

China Glaze Lemon Fizz

Sinful Colors Verbena

WnW Black Creme

Index Finger

Funky Fingers Platinum Record

Funky Fingers Stage Dive

Middle Finger

Ulta Sweetheart Pink

Orly Green Apple

Ring Finger

China Glaze Snow

WnW Black Creme

Pinky

 Sinful Colors Cloud 9

Phew! That was a lot! I used CND Stickey as a basecoat and OTD for a topcoat.

Scrapbook Punch Out Thingy Tape Manicure

Hey gurlfran! I've been so sick this week.  I thought I'd kind of "walk it off" but I really didn't.  I waited too long to go to the doctor which prolonged my misery.  I went on Friday, finally, got some medication and I'm getting much better now, yay!  I literally did NOTHING this week. Seven straight days of pure crap.  Anyways, when I wasn't curled up sleeping, I had some energy to play with my nail polish. I revisited an old idea.

Sometime early this year, I used a scrapbooking punchout thingy with scotch tape, tutorial seen here.  This time I used different colors;

I started out with two coats of Ulta Tutu Cute.  Perfect formula and application, really.  I couldn't have asked for a better application.

IT'S SO PRETTY RIGHT? I love purple (=

I used China Glaze Four Leaf Clover for the green and blue painter's tape.  It's much easier to work with than scotch tape as it doesn't peel and shred as easily when removing it from the punchout thing.

Sealed with a coat of Out the Door TC and done! Groovy, baby!

China Glaze Frosty & Halloween Stamping

I am most definitely a little late on the Frosty boat, considering it's from last winter's collection and uh, I just got it for my birthday.  I didn't like it at first, but my tastes have changed and now I love it. I jazzed it up with some stamping, too.

Frosty is almost eerily white, so it was screaming for some decoration.  It really almost glows!

This is 3 coats of Frosty.  You could probably get away with 2 if you don't mind some VNL.  I just wanted to see what it looked like all opaque and such.  I really love it.

I used multiple plates from multiple collections for the Halloweeny feel.  I used WnW Black Creme for the stamps and Essence Sundancer for the little moon.  I also dotted some China Glaze Ghoulish Glow around the designs but you can barely see it. Hmph.  My Ghoulish Glow does not glow very much either.

WnW "Behind Closed Doors" + accent nail

HALLO LADIES.

I wore this mani this weekend and looooved it.  I shy away from vampy dark colors because they do nothing for my hands but I couldn't resist after swatching them for you.  I used WnW "Behind Closed Doors" from the On the Prowl Halloween collection.  I also work at a daycare and we're not supposed to wear black nail polish (or lipstick...LOL) so I tend to obey that rule since I always get yelled at for wearing flip flops.  Just choosing my battles haha.

4 Coats of WnW "Behind Closed Doors"
1 Coat of WnW "Red Red" on the accent nail.

For the stamping I used my new BM plate 224 and used WnW Black Creme.  It was monsooning all weekend here so outside pictures was not an option.  We've gotten like 6 inches of rain in the past few days which is a lot for us, even our basement got some water -_-

Oh my rhinestones!

I've always always wanted a wheel of these but couldn't bring myself to pay the Amazon or craft store prices.  I got these from the bornprettystore for a sweet price.  They have a flat back which is perfect for nails and I secured these with a tiny drop of clear TC by using my dotting tool.

The tiny glitters were SO HARD to clean up I finally said screw it and just left them.  I mean really, how many times are you supposed to attempt clean up before giving up?  All the acetone was doing was turning the red glitter into silver glitter.

"For Audrey" Lattice Nail Art + Tutorial

I have so many pictures ready to go but I couldn't decide which to post first, but I did, obviously.  I've been accumulating photos all week but finally sat down to resize and pick and there was a bunch!  Hopefully I'll be able to update regularly this week and get them all out!  Anyways, for now here is a manicure I did with one of my favorites.
 

Lattice Manicure

Two coats of China Glaze "For Audrey" and
actually, the ring finger is just one coat!

Then I added Cover Girl Boundless Color "Pink Twinkle"

"Pink Twinkle" looks amazing in the bottle but its super difficult to photograph on the nail.  It has been cloudy lately too, by the time I get home.  It's a pretty flaky.

Then I used a black striper to make diagonal stripes.

And then I went the other direction.

Then I used a dotting tool to dot the intersections with white.

I really thought this was cute.  I didn't wear it though because I already had FA on for a day or two and was getting bored, plus there were some chips from work.  I've decided to try to and add some kind of nail art or something to my plain manicures before taking them off to spice up my blogposts.  Truthfully, I like undecorated nails on me.  They make my fingers look longer which is something I want.  The decorations and heavy art tend to stubbify my fingers and I'd like to avoid that.  Cute accents on one nail or something is really fun and I wear that out and about but something like this, I'm not too sure about yet.  When my nails grow back a bit longer, I'll see.

As far as "For Audrey" goes - incredible application, amazing formula.  I can't believe I actually achieved a one coat nail.  IT CAN BE DONE.  This reminds me of why I love China Glaze so much (=  Speaking of China Glaze... HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW COLLECTIONS FOR THE HOLIDAY SEASON? I can't wait!

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.

flowery french & some recommendations

Every once in a while I do a mani that I really really like, this ladies, is one of those times, haha.  I loooooove the look of a french manicure and then add a cutesy little flower and a rhinestone.. oh it can't get better for me, really!

For this manicure I used two coats of Orly Nail Armor as a basecoat (I really love it by the way!  It has these little fibers in it that for a sort of mask over your nails)  I used L.A. Colors "Energy Source" for the tips, its just a relatively opaque white creme.  Then I put another coat of Nail Armor ON TOP of the tip.  For the flower I used my favorite color ever, Orly "Basket Case".  Sealed with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri topcoat.

I just wanted to make a few suggestions and recommendations and share some things I've tried over the past year or so that often times are overlooked because they're so commonly used!

Top Coat: I've tried a bunch of topcoats, from dollar store finds to Seche Vite.  The only one I am really 100% satisfied with (OK, maybe 99%) is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Topcoat.  The one in the red bottle.  The biggest thing for me is that while it does get goopy, it restores really easily with a few drops of thinner.  I have 1/2 of a bottle of SV that I can't bring back to life, and after spending nearly 8$ on a bottle of topcoat, it kills me to think of spending another 8$ on a bottle of thinner to fix it!  What are we paying for if it has such major flaws?  I know A LOT of people love SV, and it works great for them, but I haven't always had the same experience!  It has caused tip-pull shrinkage that caused me to have to re-do a mani within a few hours.  I see girls asking all the time on the Nail Board over at MUA what other alternatives are, and this is definitely my #1 suggestion.  It's half the price of SV (and other expensive topcoats) and worth a shot. That all being said, SV is not the worst thing in the world and I certainly don't want to offend its fans.  But it falls short for me and my biggest issue is really the price.

Strengthener: NailTekII without a doubt!  It's simply a miracle worker.  My nails aren't TOO bad when naked, but this turns them into fortresses, I swear.  I really only have positive things to say about this one.  Even though the bottle is nearly empty, it is still liquid-y and no sign of gooping up- which is something that really concerned me at first.  I bought this for almost 10$ and had very high expectations for the price and it has met and surpassed them all.  It also makes an excellent base coat, and dries super quickly so there's no treacherous waiting.

I am not sure what Orly Nail Armor is, maybe it is a strengthener, too.  It has ridge fillers which is something I need from time to time in between buffering sessions, etc.  I've only used it a few times but I am happy with its performance so far.  I think this normally runs about 7$-8$ but I got it on sale for 4$.  As far as ridge fillers go, I tried China Glaze Ridge Filling Base Coat.  There are no reviews for it on MUA, and I've searched.. if anyone finds anything please let me know.  It a total PITA.  It never dried - even over night.  It stayed tacky.  I tried to do a mani over it to see what would happen, and that also stayed tacky for a day.  I can't figure out if it was a bad batch or the product is legitimately garbage, maybe it just doesn't work with my body chemistry.  I have no idea!

Ok, that's it for now, I've rambled enough!  Happy polishing (=

funky fingers POP ARTIST

Hello ladies!!  It's Sunday, as you know, but its rainy and actually kind of warm out.  Not the worst combination of weather I've faced this year so I'll take it.  I have a nice, bright summertime polish for you today but it is most certainly a neon, and cannot be photographed true-to-color.  I tried to color correct to the best of my ability with photoshop.  It's also a jelly, for that added fun haha-you-can't-photograph-me touch!

Funky Fingers "Pop Artist"

The name alone inspired me to add some fun decoration.  I CANNOT get enough of the polka dots lately.  I'm sorry they've been on every many I've posted lately, but addiction is addiction so please don't judge.

I tried outside, but its cloudy. Fail.

Color corrected.  Yea, its *this* bright. My dad couldn't look
directly at it, lol!

Dots:

Art Deco "Baby Pink"
L.A. Colors "Energy Source"
OPI DS "Elegance"

The fact that I can't capture neons, yet alone neon jellies, discourages me from wanting to swatch 'n show!

This is probably my last reminder before my giveaway ends tomorrow night at 11:59PM EST. Click HERE for details and submission form (=

pretty little funky french!

I had no idea what I was going to do when I started out with this mani, but it eventually turned into something.

3 coats of China Glaze "Good Witch?"

Then I used my nail guides for french tips but angled them accordingly.  I used 1 coat of L.A. Girl in "French White" for the tips and lined the edge with L.A. Colors Art Deco in White to keep a cleaner line.

L.A. Colors Art Deco in "Baby Pink" for the dots.
I also used my Kiss nail art pen in silver for more dots!

Don't forget to enter my 50 Follower Giveaway!

im convinced its springtime

This mani reminds me of some kind of really trippy retro wallpaper.  Therefore, I love it.

BM 12

This polish, Essence "What Do You Think?" is one of those mind%#$ colors that doesn't look anything like it photographs.  Its a salmon-y PINK in the bottle, and on the nails.  Yet comes out PUMPKIN FRICKIN' ORANGE.  I don't like orange.

3 coats, a pink but unfortunately orange creme.

Cleaned up my edges last night so nails don't look so rough!

Color Club Art Club in White for the stamping.

My mani is the third bottle in from the left.  You know, the PINK one.  I swear on all that is good and glittery that it is the same color on my nails.  Wanted pink, got orange. Sadface but it looks cute with the flowers at least (=