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 (=

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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!

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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.

a bit of insight..

i know a lot of popular blogs have swatches with natural, indoor, outdoor and light-box lights.. i dont the patience for that type of dedication. i take multiples shots of my nails in florescent and my poorly lit bedroom and try to find the most true-to-life capture. if i absolutely cannot get close to the real life shade, ill try color correcting it on photoshop. figured that info was slightly useful at least! (=

theyre grrrrrreat?

sometime in december, i went to five below and found a two pack of sally hansen diamond strength no chip nail color for $2. it came with a clear polish and an orange-y, yellow shimmer polish.

i decided to do a mani in the "sunrise, sunset" color and i dont think im too crazy about how it looks next to my skin. i think this would suit somebody with a more natural tan or an olive skintone. anyways, here is how it turned out;



its bad enough that im naturally fair skinned, but in the dead of winter im damn near translucent! it really is a pretty color, its just a shame its not for me. i really love the formula though. three thin coats and it was mostly opaque; not entirely, but almost. its more watery than most polishes but i have a strong preference for runny over thick. it dried pretty quickly though. and i got to use my seche vite topcoat that i just bought. (i plan on doing a comparison between insta-dri and seche vite sometime in the near future)

i wanted to mask the hideousness that is "sunrise, sunset" and what better way to do that than konad :p i used plate m57, the zebra pattern with konad's special polish in black.



it definitely toned down the orange but i still dont think im too crazy about this mani all together. like i said, its not ugly, its just not for me. i suppose if youre in highschool and your mascot is the tiger, this would be purrfect for you.

speaking of kitties, my beautiful maine coon mutt of a cat was being super cute at the time of this manicure & i couldnt help snap a picture of her. although she wasnt looking at the camera for me, my friend kristi managed to get such a precious picture!



in true crazy cat lady fasion, her name is in fact athena, but we call her neener. and im pretty sure she loves it just the same (=

burt's bees lemon cuticle cream

i picked this up at harmon's discount beauty supply yesterday for about $6. i didnt know anything about it except from what the label told me. i figured id just say its amazing.



it has such a light but pretty scent and it makes my cuticles so soft! im not sure how often youre supposed to apply it but ive used it a couple times today already. mmm i love delicious buys (=

stomach solution

i either struck gold or completely missed with this pink hybrid. it seems nearly identical to pepto-bismol. and therefore it will be aptly titled, "stomach solution".


i used almost half of the "white on" bottle, about a 1/4 of the topcoat and 1/4 of hotpink. the strange thing about the hotpink i used is that when on the nail, its not really pink at all. its an deep orange-y red jelly (hey, i used the term jelly!) extreme sunset color. its almost too bright to even look at, and i was never too crazy about it.



its a bit lighter than a typical barbie pink, but i really do like the way it came out. i think its fun but could use some assistance.



assistance came in the form of;
-sally hansen "nail prisms ruby diamond"
-konad plate m57 [the cheetah print]
-sally hansen "diamond strength no chip nail color" [although i use it as a topcoat for swatches]
-china glaze "matte magic flat finish top coat"

i ended up liking how it looked without the matte finish better, but i think that might be a bit biased since for some reason the matte magic smudged the holo design. i thought i allowed enough time for it to dry but maybe not. well my heart was in the right place atleast!