Halloween Nails - Candy Corn!

Happy Halloween everyone!

I present to you the third and final installment for this year's Halloween themed manicure - candy corns!

For this manicure I "free handed" the design. I applied each tier of nail polish in the same way that I would apply nail polish near my nail bed - only about half a centimeter from the previous color. The application is far from perfect, which is why I chose to apply opalescent flaky polish to help blur the lines of polish.

I started with white polish - Orly's White Out. I really could use a new bottle of white polish. This bottle is quite old and took three coats to get the streaks near the nail bed out. Next I applied my orange - Orly's Sol Cabana. This is a nice happy shade of orange, and while I don't wear orange polish regularly, when I do wear it, I should reach for this color more. My nail polish collection began in Sally Beauty Supply and so my polish collection includes Orly. Once I realized I didn't have to buy all my polishes from Sally, I pretty much stopped buying Orly as I found their polishes to be thick, goopey and streaky all at the same time. A good polish should be opaque in one coat, and maybe only need a second coat to achieve a completely even coverage. Orly's performance is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Now I only buy Orly when I will simply die without their unique colors. When Orly came out with their Cosmic FX Fall 2010 collection, I needed it. I knew I would probably have application issues, but that nail polish finish was so unique (at the time) that I happily plunked down my $40+ on the Sally checkout counter for the collection. Other than those rare occasions, I steer clear from Orly.

My final color was Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Sunflower. You know, this manicure made me realize that there are some serious gaps in my nail polish collection. I didn't realized that I had only ONE white and not a single, vibrant creme yellow polish. Zoya's Pippa has been on my need to get list for a while, but I'm not sure if I can stop at only that one. Though Sunflower was the closest shade of yellow I own, it has an opalescent finish to it which is why I opted to put a top coat of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Hidden Treasure to add the opalescence to the other colors on my nail.

Let's tally up the coats of polish, shall we? Three white, two orange, two yellow, two Hidden Treasure = 9 coats. I topped this all with a final thick coat of Seche Vite. It got my nails dry to the touch, that was certain. However, I fell asleep before my nails really hardened and some of the polish "moved." My middle finger was dented and nicked so badly that I just scraped the polish off the tip. Instead of trying to build up a new corner of yellow onto my nail, I took a black striper and turned the missing tip color into a bite mark. I know, candy corn are bite size and you really wouldn't bite into one, but you know what? Shut up. It was late last night, I realized my screwed up finger nail early this morning and didn't have time to fix it. This polish will be coming off tonight and I will be giving my UV free gel nail kit a go! I'm more excited for that than this candy corn mani, so sue me!

Just kidding! Love ya and thanks for reading!

A Blog FAR Better Than Mine To Follow

Hey guys. I've been snapping up pictures of things I have been doing to keep me busy. I have been blessed with steady work (for now) and find projects to work on in my down time. I have joined a gym :-) and now that I have a more regular schedule, I should have time to really concentrate on losing a lot of my college weight.

But I have still neglected to post regular updates about my life and hobbies. I will return shortly with news of my doings. Promise!

In the mean time, I would like to tell you about a blog that I enjoy reading as much as she enjoys writing. Anita at A Splash of Serendipity writes a nail blog. And she does it with admirable regularity (unlike someone we all know (coughAshleycough.)

Anita somehow manages to keep up with all the latest collection (a hobby I attempted that just about broke me :-/) , trends and treatment, and posts pictures for all to see. Now, I suppose you could go an any nail blog and see swatch pictures, or even directly to the company's website to see swatches. What makes a nail blog special is the care, attention, and personality the write puts into each and every entry. Come for the swatches, stay for the content!

Aside from simply plugging this amazing blogger, I speak of her for another reason. Owing it to her own merit, Anita has earned over 100 followers on her blog and is hosting a giveaway: the entire Katy Perry Collection, by OPI including the lemming Black Shatter Polish. PLEASE check out this giveaway here.

Now I can tell you that if you are a polish hoarder, like myself, you should enter this giveaway if only to win Black Shatter. I stalked my local Sally Beauty Supply for the Ching Glaze Crackle polishes for WEEKS, only to spontaneously show up in the store one day to find they had just been delivered, still in the shipping box. Was the salesperson happy I made her open the newly delivered? No. Did I care she was put out? No - because after weeks of stalking I really felt I deserved them. Did I feel bad for the other people awaiting the arrival of the polish because I had them purchase exactly one half of their entire shipment of this polish? Only a little bit...I really did feel entitled to these. I had missed so many collections delivered to Sally's in the past, I just knew I deserved this one, LOL!

But after knowing how tough it was to get a hold of special crackle polish, I am telling you reader that if you love polish, you would be a fool to not at least leave a comment on the giveaway post. Who could regret having a free bottle of Black Shattered polish delivered to your door?

That is all for now dear reader, but I also leave you with this. Another nail blogger I followed just came out - she is a knitter.

I Think I've Found My Mojo

After bugging the snot out of the ladies as Sally Beauty Supply, I finally got them before they even hit the shelf:


China Glaze Crackle Collection
From left to right: Fault Line, Crushed Candy, Black Mesh, Broken Hearted, Lighting Bolt, Cracked Concrete


I haven't posted any nail related content for a cool minute on this blog but when I got these I couldn't resist and immediate rockin' mani:


China Glaze Crackle Cracked Concrete over Nubar's Lavender

I am so excited about these polishes. I had a crackle polish when I was in the 7th grade. I thought it was spectacular then as I think these are spectacular now. It has been a long while since these type of polishes have been around. And now it seems like when one polish company releases a new collection, every other polish company must duplicate the flavor of the week. Whereas OPI released a single shattered polish, CG released 6 of them. And for $4.99 with my Sally's Card, I had no problem skipping out on OPI's retail $8.99 price tag.

Expect more NOTD posts with these polishes. I'm getting my groove back!

Oh my gaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.....

One of these colors will be going on my nails tonight.



...and I got all day to chose which one.

I was able to snag these at Sally Beauty Supply. My local SBS either has snipers who are on some kind of calling list and come down the moment the new collections are put on display, or I just have bad luck. But as you can probably tell, there is one gem missing from the line-up shot, and that lil baby is Space Cadet.

I was a little torn whether or not to buy this collection. On the one hand, it's completely awesome. On the other hand, this "type" of nail polish is duplicated in almost every brand this season. Back on the first hand, Orly raised their prices for this collection (though I was able to get them for $7.99 a pop rather than the MSRP of $10), but that raised price is still cheaper than MAC's $13 for 0.34oz compared to Orly's generous 0.6oz.

And even though I kind of hate Orly's formula (it's always given me problems...without fail...I don't know if it's something that happens during shipping, at my SBS, if I apply with too much circulating air around me or what...all I know is that other people don't seem to have my problem with Orly. I probably need to start experimenting with thinners to solve this problem) getting almost double the product for a cheaper price is worth it to me. And because the big-time bloggers are generous enough to post cross-brand collection comparison pics, I know I am getting what I want.

On the nail growth front, I am almost completely done with my "grow out phase." I am sick of having short nails. I have nothing against short nails, but my process have been long. I get so jealous looking at my idol nail bloggers and their beautiful swatch pics with their long nails. Every week, I grab for my file, and shave off the weeks worth of growth, down to poor little nubbins. I think I am just at the point where I can let the growth come out and start working on getting the shape back to them.

And with all the new stresses of starting the student teaching I have fallen back into the bad habit of biting my cuticles. It's a habit that I fall into whenever I am stressed, and having short nails makes it easier for me to do it. Now that I will be able to have long nails again, and that I am getting adjusted to student teaching, I should be able to break the habit again.

Alright, that's enough of the blah blah blah. I'll try to post a new pic of my Orly
Cosmic FX maincure tonight.

Seche FAIL

So remember how I obtained a bottle of Seche Recondition from Sally Beauty Supply as a gift with purchase and I said I would give this a shot and see what it could do for my nails?



Sorry if I just made you lose your lunch. I'll give fair warning next time.

I'll post something lovely a little later to make up for this.