Water Marble

Here's a sweet little water marble that I just couldn't get out of my head. I pulled this together after getting out of bed last night at midnight. Obsessive compulsive....yes I think so. 

I used two coats of Covergirl White Night as my base and Jordana Boy oh Boy, Fresh Paint Hydrangea and Nicole Count On Me for the water marble on my thumb and ring finger. The other nails have two coats of Hydrangea. 

Nicole Count On Me , Fresh Paint Hydrangea , Jordana Boy oh Boy

Hydrangea and Boy oh Boy are two beautiful creme polishes that I think compliment one another quite well while Count On Me added that light sparkle that was needed to help this pop. I don't marble too often so I'm not very good with creating fancy designs but I do like the swirls and a more abstract look so these are came out perfect for me.

Ring Finger Close Up

 More pics after the jump

~Linda

I Don't Drink Cheap Wine

The color of the day is I Don't Drink Cheap Wine by Spoiled. While I may enjoy a relatively cheap bottle of Moscato, a lovely sweet white wine, this polish is anything but! It's a rich maroon red color with a super fine shimmer. 

Artificial Light

Artificial Light

I've worn this polish for the last day or so as you can tell by the slight tip wear, but even after tons of shopping, cooking and cleaning the polish stays on quite well. I don't think I've ever had an issue with chipping with this polish although that might be due to my top coat, Seche Vite, A.K.A The Miracle Worker. Spoiled is a Wet n Wild product which I found in my local CVS drugstore. This line of polish has a wide, flat brush that is ideal for wide nail beds (which I have) and easily allows me to cover my nail in 3 strokes. When buying this polish I noticed that the brush was a bit wonky but since it was the last one I bought it anyway. I will have to trim the bristles since they are a little messed up but that's okay. Overall the formula is nice and was completely opaque in two coats. 

Sunlight

Sunlight

In my opinion this polish is named perfectly! The rich beautiful color says hell no I don't drink cheap wine! This is one of my favorite reds which is saying a lot since I do not wear them very often at all.

Happy Painting!

~Linda

China Glaze Stone Cold

Today I have on China Glaze Stone Cold from The Hunger Games Capitol Colours Collection. This is  matte silver/gray color that is to die for! There are large particles of shimmer in the polish that absolutely pops when you add a layer of top coat. As with all matte polishes, it dries rather quickly and can show any ridges you may have in your nails so you might want to use a base coat or ridge filler. I started with a thin layer of base coat and two coats of Stone Cold. 

 

Once the polish was dry I cut out a few thin slices of scotch tape and added them to my nails in mismatched striped patterns. I usually blot the tape on my hand first to reduce the stickiness otherwise it might pull up some of the polish. After a top coat is added you get the matte and shiny which gives you the best of both worlds!

You can see the light picking up on the shimmer particles within the polish in this close up. While you don't actually see different colors in the polish while looking at your hand, you do see it sparkling quite nicely in the sunlight. 

Overall I like this polish a lot. I like silver and gray nailpolish and I don't have any others that are close to this color. This is also one of my few matte polishes but I thought that the formula was pretty good.  

Do you have a favorite polish from the Capitol Colours Collection? 

~Linda

Holographic Mermaids?

What a gorgeous day! It's been so gloomy lately that I almost forgot what the sunshine felt like. I wanted my nails to reflect the sunshine vibe so I decided to use a gorgeous new holographic nail polish that I picked up at my local Ulta.

I started with a base coat of Essie Mint Candy Apple whose formula I was not happy with at all. It had a lot of dragging and it was one of the fastest drying polishes I've ever used. I have other Essie polishes and have not had this issue before. I knew this polish was not a one coater so I was trying to do two thin coats. If I needed to double dip my brush for the side of a nail I was having issues with the polish pulling as it was already starting to dry. Crazy! If I wasn't applying such thin coats maybe I wouldn't have had such an issue but it was annoying to say the least. I do LOVE the color though! 

After two coats I added two thin coats of Layla Hologram Effect in Mermaid Spell. I was my first time using this brand and it might have been human error, but the polish was loosening the base coat and causing a strange glopping effect. After my first two nails I decided to use a thin coat of Sally Hansen Fast Dry top coat before Mermaid Spell and didn't have the problem after that. I think this is one of the best Holographic nail polishes I have seen, which makes it worth the price as it was on the high side. I paid $15.50 and feel it was worth every penny.

The holographic effect takes over the color of the base coat but it still has hints of Mint Candy Apple peaking through and the light teal color that shows when indoors still has a strong holographic effect. Obviously it catches every color in the spectrum when outside, but I was very impressed at how pretty it is indoors. Overall I am very happy with this Layla polish and will probably be searching the web for other polishes that they make. 

Do you have a favorite holographic nail polish? 

I'm still brand new to this so any feedback on what you'd like to see will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for checking me out!

~Linda

Tape Mani

Today I have for you a tape mani that was inspired by a couple new polishes. While milling around Walgreens I grabbed a couple SinfulColors that were on sale. They were waving at me with all their brightness and I just had to have them. May I introduce you to Innocent and Boogie Nights (my two newbies).

Innocent is gorgeous creme green while Boogie Nights is a neon orange in the bottle but is toned down a bit on a the nail. Trust me, it's still bright enough :) This picture has Boogie Nights looking pink but the color on my thumb nail is pretty true. I originally planned to do this mani with Innocent and Boogie Nights on each nail however it kind of morphed mid mani to using different colors on each nail.

Ultimately I ended up using NYC French White Tip as the base and Jordana Boy Oh Boy, Funky Fingers Cheshire, elf Fuscha, SinfulColors Innocent and SinfulColors Boogie Nights from pinky to thumb. 

I find that I have to leave lots of time between my base coat and the nail art or the tape just makes a mess of my base coat. That's even with blotting the tape on my hand a few times to reduce the stickiness. These lines ended up pretty straight and without smudges so I was pretty happy with them. 

Have you ever done any scotch tape nail art?

Thanks for giving me a read ~ Linda

OPI Cuticle Oil

So I thought I would start off showing you guys some of my favorite products. I have a major addiction to cuticle oil and although I have not used many brands for comparison, OPI Avoplex Cuticle Oil works miracles! I have seriously bad cuticles due to the fact that I used to cut them for a long time. Mix that with tons of hand washing and it's not a pretty picture. Thankfully, I found out about OPI Avoplex which incorporates antioxidants, phospholipids, vitamins A, B1, B2, D, and E, essential fatty acids, and avocado oil. That's a whole lot of stuff that goes right above my head but honestly all I care about is that this stuff is amazing!

 

I keep the Cuticle Replenshing Oil in my purse at all times and use it multiple times per day while at work. It has a subtle sweet smell so it's not a stink bomb and it makes my fingers feel nice. I'm trying to figure out how to explain the way it feels after using it but my brain has come to a screeching halt. Basically, I get that 'aaaahhhh' feeling on my fingers, like you do after you lotion your REALLY dry hands. 

Anywho, I also have the Exfoliating Cuticle Treatment which eliminates dry, rough cuticles while replenishing essential moisture and lipids. They tell you to massage it into your cuticles a few times per week. Generally I find myself using it whenever I change the paint on my nails, so twice per week sounds about right.

I have the cuticle oil in a .5 Fl oz bottle (the same as a full size OPI nailpolish) and the cuticle treatment is 1 oz. I've had these for about a year now and I have used less than a quarter of the product. Love It! 

Cool fact that I learned while looking up the 'technical info' on these Avoplex products. Those little white spots you sometimes get on your nails...I always heard that they indicate a lack of calcium, however a cosmetic chemistry blog I stumbled across calls these microtraumas. Saying that they are caused when you bump your nails on things. Hmmph...who knew?

~Linda

Virgin Territory

Hello world wide web,

First off I'd like to say that my grammar is terrible and sentence structure went out the window in 6th grade. Consider yourself warned! I'm simply looking for a place to put down any and all random thoughts about my obsession...Nail Polish!

I may not be a professional but that doesn't stop me pretending I am. I find myself gravitating towards the nail polish aisle in any store that might have some. Okay, who am I kidding. It's the first stop in all stores, and if I am in any kind of beauty store you better not expect me anywhere else in the next few hours.

One of the things I love best about the zillion or so nail blogs out there is that I am always being turned onto a new color or brand that I'm drooling over. If anything I'd like to think that in having this blog I might do the same for one of you and even learn a few things along the way. Hopefully you can handle my amateur photos. 

My nail polish collection is approximately 160 bottles at the moment, most of which has been accumulated in a very short period of time (meaning in the last 6 months).  I love me some purple and all shades of teal! I tend to stamp on my nails or try to incorporate some kind of fun twist. I have zero artistic ability when it comes to hand drawn nail art so that is completely out of the question but I'm always looking for new ways to express myself with my nails. I do enjoy marbling but that is one thing that I am really looking forward to improving upon. Hopefully we can grow together *group hug*.

Okay...lets get crackling. Oh yeah... I forgot to mention that I really really really love lame jokes like that. Brace yourself!

Thanks for stopping by ~Linda