Lush Lacquer's Flippin Out and some Crazy Awesome Nail Mail!

I was finally able to swatch my Lush Lacquer Flippin' Out.  Since I haven't received a replacement label from the recent name change, I'm just showing the bottle side not the label.  The name of this polish was recently changed and Lush Lacquer asks that we not use the old name--legal reasons, I suspect!  Anyway, this is Flippin' Out over Julep's Emilie.  Great combo, right?!

Yet another label problem with one of my nail mails-- I ordered Princess Celestia from Darling Diva Polish and the bottle was mislabeled.  The store owner is sending me a replacement label but I couldn't wait to show it to you.   Love it in the bottle and will soon have it on my fingers and toes!

 This next polish is Strawberry Limeade from Two Birds One Store.  It reminds me of a different take on Floam or Sand Art.  Soo pretty and says "summer" to me.

I get a lot of polish advice from following The Trace Face Philes blog and facebook page.  She said the Windestine store was open and so I ran over to score these two beauties.

 Someone else on Facebook posted that HSN was having a sweet deal on Deborah Lippman polishes.  Don't Tell Mama and Dream a Little Dream of Me are full size and were under $10 for the pair.  Brings my humble total of DL polishes to 5!

I must confess that I recently dropped my Julep subscription.  There was a little problem with my gift certificate order never arriving and I was given the run around by customer service. After not receiving their 2nd attempt of shipping I gave up.  Still, I love America and O Canada so I happened upon a deal where if I ordered two Julep polishes, I'd receive America for free.  I bought O Canada and the pre-order of Chelsea. So at $24 I got my polishes for $8 a piece.  I'll take that and no, Im not renewing my subscription!

 Last, I ran out of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, one of my nail art staples, and went to Walgreens to replace it.  I found the Suit Up with Haute display and bought these four lovelies too.   I now have 70 Sinfuls...omg!

So I am quickly approaching 500 separate, unrepeated bottles of polish.  That doesn't include the stuff I've bought for giveways.  What an expensive, rewarding,  and cluttering hobby this nail art thing has turned out to be!

Neon Gradient Zebra and Leopard Nails: Week 26 of the year of Polish Challenge

This week's assignment for A Year of Polish Challenge was a Neon Manicure.   Neon gradients are so striking so I did my nails up and they decided they needed something.  I decided to practice my freehand zebra and animal prints and I think it works well!   Another Lisa Frank inspired mani!

Gradients are on the challenge list in a couple of weeks so I am getting in some practice ahead of time!

Got in a few more polishes and two swatches

I finally got my full size Lush Lacquer order in and I can't say enough about how beautiful Dippin Dots and Lite Brite are!

I did two coats of Lite Brite over two coats of Wednesday.

Ross was a mess the other day but I did find this unnamed Cosmetic Arts polish.  Its a smoky pink glitter that is very unique looking!

Last, I finally got around to using Pahlish's Toxic and Timeless.  I painted on two coats of OPI's Just Spotted the Lizard.  Then put on two coats of Toxic and Timeless on all but my ring fingernail.  Last I put on two coats of Orly's Spazmatic.

Zoya nail mail, Sally and Target run, and a Copious score with some swatches!

I finally got my full size Zoyas in from the buy 3 for $15 sale.  I love everything about these polishes.  They are girly and gorgeous and so pigmented. Check out Wednesday and Rory swatches below!

I went to Sally's the other night and found these two lovelies.  All the swatches I've seen look amazing and I was pretty put out not to find Sashay My Way but trust me, I'm keeping a look out for it.  Meanwhile, I do have these gorgeous glitters to work with so oh happy day!

I found this bottle of OPI's Just Spotted the Lizard on Copius and I handily had a $10 credit so I only paid about 22cents for this polish!  Its actually getting hard to find so I am thrilled to find a full size!

Last, I had a late night trip to Target to buy a bike tube, tire pump, and bike bell and stumbled across this beauty sitting with some chips on a shelf.  It had a clearance sticker for about $2 and purple is one of my weaknesses so it came home to live with me!

So getting the Zoyas in made me want to try them immediately.  I painted one hand with Zoya's Rory and all of my toes.  I still felt it needed something so I topped Rory with The Polish Bar's Satellite.
Kinda reminds me fondly of Candy Shop!

The last two photos show how insanely hot Wednesday is.  I cannot get enough of tealish green blue polishes and this one is so perfect.  What nail art does it inspire you to do?  I'm thinking fields of daisies or something equally ethereal!

Droid Love Nails

I saw a cross stitched project on Pinterest that had R2D2 and said "B****es love Droids."  While I am not a fan of the first word, I did get a little nugget of inspiration to do some Droid Love nails.  Yes the inspiration monster hits me at the weirdest times and due to the strangest things.

First I must apologize for my woefully short nails.  I had to change a bike tire yesterday that tore up my nails and I had to cut three of them down to nothing so I cut all of them down :(  Ah well...luckily they grow ok! 

Every thing was free-handed for these.  I did galaxy nails on my thumb and pinkie nails, C3P0 and R2D2 on my ring and index finger nails, and Droid Love on my middle nail.  I do love my nerdy pursuits and there is nothing like a Star Wars marathon to get the weekend going. 

These nails won't last long because I am going to a wedding on Saturday.  Might need to tone it down a bit for that.  Which reminds me, congrats to my dear friend, Jaime, the beautiful bride that will marry her love this weekend! 

Don't you love the stream of consciousness post I have going.  Wow.  Must Be Bedtime!

Pinterest Zoyas arrived AND Dandelion Nails

Found these in the mail today:)  Now I'm just waiting for my three full size bottles of Zoyas to arrive from their buy three for $15 deal. 

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I tried Zuza on right away and started to paint on daisies but they just didn't look quite like I wanted them to so I turned them into dandelions.  This is not my first set of dandelion nails but I do think they are the best so far.

I started with one coat of Zuza over base coated nails.  I then used Tokyo Pearl and drew intersecting lines to form fuzz balls on my thumb and ring fingernails.  I then used White On to draw the stems. accent the dandelions and draw dandelion tufts floating in across the other nails.  I used Recycle to shadow the centers of the dandelions and the ends of the dandelion tufts.  I colored over the dandelion stems with Irish Green and used Tokyo Pearl to draw in wind swirls.  For a finishing touch, I applied Nails, Inc. Electric Lane Holographic top coat to the edges of the dandelion and the dandelion parts floating in the wind.  Last, I covered each nail with Pro FX Complete 3 topcoat. 

These nails turned out very ethereal looking, especially after applying the holographic and regular topcoat.  I'm happy!  What do you think?

Greek Nails

My man and I are going to the Denver Greek Festival tomorrow so I did some quick Greek-themed nails.

I did the Greek flag, a typical Greek design on a couple of nails, threw in an "OPA!" and then took a stab at the Acropolis.  I painted my nails with a coat of Sally Hansen's White On and then followed with one thin coat of Sinful Colors' Tokyo Pearl.  Next I drew out my blue designs with Avon's Blue Escape and added some Pure Ice Strapless glitter for sparkle.  The Acropolis was done first in China Glaze's Recycle then added shadows with Ebony Hates Chris and highlights with White On.  I just freehanded everything until it looks right.  I then used a fast drying topcoat to seal it all in.  On my other hand I alternated Blue Escape with White On and went over each blue nail with Strapless.  On all the nails I used Nails Inc Electric Lane Holographic Topcoat for some extra sparkle.

I am looking forward to some Greek food, music, and dancing.  Go Greece!

Party Rockin' Swatch

Out of all the polishes I received in the last batch of nail mail, Lush Lacquer's Party Rockin' was the one that called out to me to use first. 

I put two coats of Party Rockin' over one coat of Zoya's Alegra.

Party Rockin is filled to the brim with glitters of various sizes and colors.   Even so, I found it pretty manageable and easy to distribute evenly on each nail. You know me, I love glitter overkill! 

How would YOU wear Party Rockin'?

More Indie Polishes plus a few others!

I received some more indie polishes that I had to share.

Satellite and Ultraviolet from the Polish Bar!! 

I also received three beautiful mini polishes from Lush Lacquer.  I think I will probably eventually buy these all in full size.  They are THAT exceptional!

Also, I used a 20% off one product at a local Bed, Bath, and Beyond that has a beauty section (not all of them do!) and saved a little bit of $$ on Essie's wildly popular "Bikini So Teeny."  I can't wait to get this color on my toes!

I also grabbed Petite's Daze and Pure Ice's Strapless on a Walmart shopping trip.   Daze reminds me of my friend, NJ who adores anything lime green so when I wear it I'll think of her and laugh:)  I think Strapless would be awesome for a sparkling, glitter bombed patriotic mani or pedi for the 4th.  Look out for some of those soon! 

So my polish total is now over 450 bottles and counting.   Next week should bring an order of a couple of full size glitters from Lush Lacquer and a full size polish from Darling Diva Polish as well as my Pinterest minis and buy 2 get 1 free full size polishes from Zoya.  Hopefully, Ill be done for a little while after that because I ran out room 200 polishes ago.

imPRESS Press-On Manicure Review

My opinions of fake nails are well known but I thought I would try out a temporary product.  I've heard it through the nail grapevine that the imPRESS nails have helped press on nails come a long way since the 90s.   One of my main reasons behind not getting semi permanent fake nails is that many duties of my job are nail killers.  Add typing to that as well as the weak state nails are left in after having fake nails removed and the cost and maintenance fake nails require and they just don't work for me.  But!  A product that touts a long lasting manicure but easy removal sounds up my alley! 

I bought the imPress nails in the style of Hottie.  The price tag for imPress products were about $7 at Walmart.  One thing I did like about them at the start was that they have 12 different nail sizes.  If you've tried using the nail stickers you know that it can be hard to get the right size and shape for your particular nails.  I didn't have much of a problem matching sizes or applying these to my nails.

The pictures below are right after application. 

I wore these for two days.  The box says they can last from four to seven days but I lost a nail on my right hand within two.   I should disclose that the nail lost was on my middle finger of my right hand which was misshapen from a freak accident I had as an infant so I think they probably realistically could last at least the four days the product promises. 

Things I like about this product:
--took seconds to apply to each nail/good for quick fixes
--lots of sizes for easy sizing
--quick easy mani without the drying time
--couple of styles that are really hot right now in the nail world
--relatively cheap
--relatively flexible and bend with nail
--nails are not identical in style set, subtle differences in design and color
--no residue left on nails after quick acetone soak and removal

Things I don't like about this product:
--not incredibly realistic looking/obviously fake
--plastic tabs can be hard to remove from sticky backing
--nail edge in cuticle area is flimsy and can be damaged by removing plastic backing
--edges are too rounded for my taste, I like a more squoval appearance
--you should probably avoid any extended contact with water with these, they were looser after a few hand washes
--I'd like to see more classic designs such as french tips, neutral solid colors, more mature designs

When I removed these, I soaked them for a very short time in some pure acetone and peeled them off.  No glue residue seemed to be left on my nails which is a plus. 

Ultimately, if you want some quick, longer nails for an event, trip, or night out without the expense and maintenance of nail salon fake nails, these might be worth trying out. 

As with almost all the products reviewed on Nails, Actually, I paid for this product with my own money and my opinions are always my own. 

Happy nails, ya'll!