kissy kissy valentine's day mani

Everybody's favorite day is coming up soon!  Well, Hallmark's favorite day, at least.  I'll take any excuse to wear pink cutesy manicures though.

Ah, I love it! Screams Valentine's Day to me!

Started with a base of four coats of Orly "Basket case".  It's official by the way, this is my favorite pink polish, ever.  I can't imagine anything more perfect for me; bright, pink & creme.  It's also my favorite shade of pink in general, so it's all around perfect.

It's already half way empty.  Very few of my polishes get that much use.  The formula kinda bites the big one though.  I'm not sure if it's because it's old or not, but even with thinner it was streaky and runny AND goopy.  I don't know how all three of those occurred at once.

As mentioned before, base of "Basket case", then I used Art Club nail art polish for the stamping and the white dots.

  I used a silver nail art pen from Kiss which I surprisingly like!  I got two of them for around 6$.  It came with a hot pink which I haven't used yet.  There was also a set of black and white which I am considering, too.  I used BM02 for the lips (=

ugly mani; cute kitty

U-g-l-y you don’t got no alibi, you ugly YEA YEA, you ugly! Atleast, this manicure is.  First off, in the lighting of my room, the basecoat is pink.  I went outside today and its freaking fluorescent orange.  Two things I don’t like; fluorescent and orange.  I wanted to rip the polish off my nails so bad haha.  Anyways, figured I would post it since I did it, ha.

Base coat is two coats of L.A. Colors Color Craze and I don’t remember the name as I threw out the packaging already.  I assumed the color name would be on the bottle somewhere but it isn't!  The color name was not relevant to the color itself; it was some kind of high wire or electrical current type of name.  Not “Fluorescent orange”, either way it had me fooled.

On top of the basecoat I used a Q-tip (Learn from my mistakes, DO NOT USE Q-TIPS FOR DOTTING) with ORLY “Liquid vinyl” to create the flower shape.  I used a paperclip to make the little dots, which works really well.  

For the inside of the flowers I used ORLY “Green apple”, Funky Fingers “Cheshire” and “South Hampton sea foam”.  They covered nicely and quite opaquely over the black so that was nice to see.  I used Sally Hansen “Confetti” and Insta-dry top coat to seal and cover the designs.  

Since this mani sucked so much I decided I needed to brighten the mood (=  My brother lives in California on his own but had acquired two kitties when he lived in Las Vegas.  Anyways,  he was having trouble finding places that accepted pets so he sent his kitties on an airplane a few months ago to the sweet land of New Jersey to live with us. 

The little bugger in this picture is Frank, aptly named after Frank Zappa.  We are convinced he is part ragdoll because he’s so floppy.  I guess you would have to know him to know what I mean but this cat is ridiculous. He literally looks around to see what kind of trouble he can get into.  Anyways! He has his ADORABLE moments, like today, when I heard some noise on my bed behind me.  I turned around and see Frankie burrowing under my comforter as usual.  Ten minutes later I turn around and he has literally tucked himself into bed and went to sleep!  Most cats I have seen HATE blankets, but no, not Frank- he prefers!

1.. 2.. 3.. AWWW. look at his dirty nose xD his sister has spots around her nose too.

Hope you enjoy & all images are clickable!

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!)

french mani; notd

love love love the look of a french manicure. my toenails are 90% of the time done in french manicure style, since its so much easier for me to paint a straight line on my toes compared to my right hand. i have konad plates that are tips and of the french style but i havent been able to get them down.

anyways i was jonesing for one and decided to try taping off my nail to get a straight line. it worked mostly. i had to re-do a couple of them but i dont consider that too bad since this was my first time trying it. i used regular scotch tape. but i think that blue painters tape i used to use to tape off my canvas would work even better. here are the little soldiers i used:



left to right; (and conveniently in the order i used them)
sally hansen insta-grip basecoat
orly french manicure "pink nude" (sounds dirty)
L.A. girl nail lacquer "french white"
art club fine silver glitter
orly french manicure "bare rose"
sally hansen insta-dri topcoat

if i could redo this, i would have put "bare rose" BEFORE "french white" because it actually tinted the french tip part of a my nail a little which i hadnt thought of until i was almost finished. my bad.



i love how it came out. i was happy with the results.. i think next time ill put the tape a bit lower and paint the silver with the help of the tape instead of free hand.

new haul, new technique, new notd!

i went shopping! i went to the dollar tree and walgreens. i got 5 polishes and 5 nail art polishes from the dollar tree and 3 sparkly topcoats from walgreens on sale for $1.09 each! how exciting! my haul;



the three polishes i got from walgreens were absolutely stunning. theyre from the covergirl "boundless color" collection which i had never heard of, and were the last 3 left on the rack. im sure i wouldve bought one of each color given the opportunity. i really like the bottles and brushes too.



from right to left;
-pink twinkle. there is irregular flecks of foil inside this one.
-city lights. a holo topcoat (the little bits of holographic glitter are sparse compared to a typical holo polish)
-amethyst mist. a purple jelly base with hexagon multicolor glitter & teeny tiny bits of glitter as well.

theyre so beautiful and the application is wonderful. i dont have _that_ many drugstore polishes that i actually use but i will definitely be employing these 3 lovelies (=

-----

in other news, i tried my first marbling last night! i cant say i was too happy with the outcome. in fact, i removed it right after taking the pictures. here is a few things i learned;
-petroleum jelly moves when you insert your finger in the water and often times ended up under polish resulting in a re-do
-aside from a base coat, a base color is needed to bring out the vibrancy of the marbled colors
-scotch tape works relatively well. i used one long piece for the sides and top of my nail, and then secured that piece with another piece of tape around the whole finger and that piece edged off the bottom of the nail.
-for some reason, i could not get 2 different holos to work together, but that just could be me.
-i cannot figure out how to avoid a large gap on my thumb; i retried over 5 times and had a large gap, in the same place, of uncolored nail each time - any advice?



like i said before, i think a white underneath wouldve really made these colors pop. i used orly "liquid vinyl" and funky fingers "punch". the black came out mostly gray.. i wonder if it just isnt marbling compatible or it wouldve been brighter with white underneath. not TOO bad for my first attempt!

-----

my NOTD has got to be one of my new favorites. i used my new colors for this;
-sally hansen insta-grip base coat
-maybelline wet shine "pink splash"
-covergirl boundless color "pink twinkle"
-seche vite topcoat

the golden/pink flecks look so much cuter irl. i had a hard time capturing the color of the flecks and i tried all 20 different camera settings with different flashes.. the best ive found so far is the flower/soft flash option. i had some luck with the food/soft flash too. i think its because these are both meant to capture fine detail. without a doubt the worst setting was one for text, DARK, blurry and spotty. anyways, here it is;

wonderland fun

i bought this at walgreens for a mere $2 and i am in love with this color. its sinful colors "feeling great" i love the formula and it applies so nicely. one coat would suffice if you were in a rush but i always go with two anyways. its such a vibrant color!




i did some damage at five below today and picked up 3 new colors along with tons of polish remover. one of the colors i picked up is funky fingers "wonderland". its a highly mirror-esque glitter. it smooths out VERY nicely with a topcoat of seche vite (and the topcoat doesnt seem to affect its shine at all) but it is a pain to remove. i always said glitter will survive the apocalypse and i still stand by that statement. after removing it traditionally, it was all over my fingers and i had to use more cotton rounds than id like to admit.



regardless, "wonderland" is a very fun, funky "going out for the night" polish. after 3 coats you could still see my nail underneath depending on the lighting. it draws a lot of attention to your nails. my dad saw it on me and told me he neede sunglasses just to look at it. its also a relatively difficult polish to capture on film but i did my best.



i wanted to see how "wonderland" would look as a topcoat on three bold colors so i used sinful colors "feeling great" on my ring finger, orly "liquid vinyl" on my middle, and funky fingers "jester" on my index finger. i wasnt really crazy with the turnout to be quite honest! i had never used "jester" before and i cant wait to swatch it next because its beautiful! it looks ok on black and only so-so on the pink. i did three coats on top of the base color coats as well.