NOTD: Going Green

with flash

Hey,

I have been very bad with posting, I started a new job and have been working 50 hour weeks and therefore I haven't had much time to write up a post and then post it. But I am going to work on that starting now! This week I went with China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint and Four Leaf Clover. Both gorgeous shades of green and great polishes. I used Four Leaf Clover as my accent nail and then the mint on the rest of my nails.  Both these polishes last long on the nails and they really compliment each other. I used no top coat or base coat. Four Leaf Clover is very staining on the nails, in my experience using a base coat makes no difference with preventing stains from this polish.

without flash

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Mani Monday: Tart-y for the Party

Hey,

This blog is up a little late today but at least I got one up this week, I started a new job and have been working a lot so I haven't had time to get a Mani Monday post up, but I'm going to start getting these back up. This week I used China Glaze Tart-y for the Party, the name is perfect for this post! It is part of the Avant Garden collection which I don't believe is still out but I could be wrong. On my ring finger I used Avon Nailwear Pro in Urban Gray and over that two random cheap glitters that didn't have labels anymore, sorry. They are both silver glitters, ones very small fine glitter and the other it a more chunky big glitter. I have found that when doing a silver glitter nail using a gray nail polish underneath looks really nice.

Sorry the glitter didn't come out well, glitter doesn't photograph well.

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Mani Monday: Sunny Days with an Orange Fix

With flash

Hey,
This week I decided to do something bright for summer on my nails, these nails are really cute and fun for summer.. The colors I used were Rimmel 60 Second polish in Sunny Days and Maybelline Color Show polish in Orange Fix. I did four coats of the yellow, this one isn't as opaque as I would like but with a white base underneath two coats should work great. For the accent nail the orange only took two coats and the orange polka dots went on in one coat, but I did go over a few making a few darker. I used no base coat, and the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.


With natural lighting

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So far both polishes are holding up well, but the yellow didn't dry to nice and got a little messed up since I used so many coats.
 

Mani Monday: Caramel Cupcake



What it looks like in sunlight

Hey,

This week I went with Rimmel 60 Second polish in Caramel Cupcake, its a pretty nude. Unfortunately this color is not flattering with my skin tone, so if you have a medium skin tone you may want to pass on this polish, although it looks gorgeous in the sun; it makes your hands look like mannequin hands. It would probably look nice on some one with either a dark skin tone or a light skin tone. The polish itself is great, has nice lasting power, goes on opaque in two coats which for a nude this cheap is amazing, it also applies so easily. These polishes truly are great and I would recommend them, but this shade just isn't a good color for me.

What it looks like in natural lighting

I think from now on I'm going to include picture of what the polish looks like in natural light and in the sun. I'm also going to try to get back into blogging by doing at least three post a week.

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Ways to Change Up Your Manicure

No one likes chipped nails and the same
manicure can get boring.

Hey,
 
Do you have chipped nails, getting bored with your manicure mid-way through the week, or tired of the same old one color manicure week after week but not so great at nail art? Well if any of those apply to you then this post is perfect for you! I want to share with you a few easy ways to change up any manicure and a few that hide those chipped tips. I personally only like to paint my nails once a week so this is what I often do to cover up the chipping, I may add on to these and do a part two. The green is Rimmel 60 Second polish in Sage All the Rage and the brown is Sally Hansen Complete Manicure in Commander in Chic. Both featured in a haul recently you can see that here and the green was just in my past Mani Monday, which you can see here. Also when doing these try to pick an opaque polish to make these much easier.

The middle one isn't actually pointy it's the
light reflecting.

 
So the first thing I like to do is like a half moon manicure but with a triangle, this has been pretty trendy lately and is a fun twist on the half moon manicure, I used a post it, pretty strange but it worked pretty good. I cut one of the corners on the sticky side and stuck that on the base of my nail and then painted the tip, I did have to touch up the green because it was a little messy so painting on the triangle would probably be easy if you aren't trying to cover up any chipping. To do that I would use two pieces of tape and just tape them onto the nail forming a triangle at the base.
 
Next is one of my personal favorites, I actually do polka dots on my nails fairly often. I think they are super cute and good for any color combo, and they look great as an accent or on all of your nails. I use the ball of a sewing pin but a dotting tool is the more conventional way, I just don't own one. I have also used lollipop sticks for bigger dots and that worked really great.
 
The half moon manicure is a pretty popular easy nail art trick. The most common way and the method I used was using binder reinforcement labels, these can be found at store like Target, Walmart and any other drugstore for around a dollar. You just stick these on the base of the nail as low or as high as you'd like and then paint the tip, wait 30 seconds then remove the binder reinforcement label.
 
This next one is pretty easy and really cute, all you do is paint thin vertical strips and then paint the top third. This adds a little bit more then a French tip but also covers your chipping.

Lastly is the French tip, classic and so looks great with any color combination. I just free hand this, but I have always heard that if you move your finger instead of the brush it makes the perfect strip. You can also try the binder reinforcement labels and tape to achieve that perfect tip.

What are your favorite ways to spice up your manicure or hide chipping? Remember none of these have to look perfect, mine sure don't but I still always get compliments on them so don't worry about them not looking perfect, they are just easy ways that anyone can do.

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Mani Monday: Sage All The Rage

Hey,
 

This week I decided to paint my nails with the sage green I hauled Sunday, you can see that post here. In that post I mentioned that I have been loving neutrals lately and this color is gorgeous. It is the perfect sage color, better for fall then summer but still gorgeous now. I did two coats and then used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri topcoat, I love the way this polish applies, it went on so easily since the brush is huge and I didn't get it on my skin at all, I will definitely be picking up more of these polishes and suggest them to you too!

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The picture is pretty accurate in what the color look like in person.

Mani Monday: Mighty Mango

Hey,

This manicure got me so many compliments and the combination looked so amazing together. A lot of people also asked if they were meant to be lady bugs, but really this was just me using a topcoat I don't get many opportunities to use. For this manicure I used Sally Hansen Mighty Mango and put China Glaze Whirled Away, I love the way the two pair together. I used the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri topcoat. I do believe this lasted me half of the week before chipping. The china Glaze polish was a limited edition and I do not believe it is still available. The color is a bit more orange in person.

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Also I have a post coming soon on my favorite summer polishes.

NOTD: First Mate, plus mini haul

Hey,

It's been a bad few weeks, especially these past two weeks, which is why I haven't been blogging and for it being such a crumby week I decided I needed to treat myself to a few new bottles of nail polish. I picked up, all by China Glaze, Ingrid and then the two for today's NOTD Whirled Away(limited edition, part of the Cirque Du Soleil Worlds Away collection) and First Mate. Ingrid is a mid tone taupe brown with a subtle gold shimmer, Whirled Away is a clear based, not glitter so I guess confetti polish with mainly black but some white chunks too, all in different sizes. First Mate is a beautiful dark almost navy blue. I love the combination of First Mate and Whirled Away, I will say that I was a bit disappointed by Whirled Away but I am glad to have it because it looks really nice after a few coats but on its on or just one coat is a bit disappointing. I only used Whirled Away on my ring finger as an accent nail. I didn't use a top coat or a base coat. All polishes purchased at Sally Beauty Supply.

Sorry for the glare!

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Links:
China Glaze
Cirque Du Soleil Worlds Away collection
Sally Beauty Supply

ImPress Press On Manicure

Hey,

I can honestly say I was not impressed with these nails. The concept is neat and they do have some cute designs but that's about all they have. I have been hearing a lot about these nails lately. I had gotten these about four months back, maybe a little longer through an Influenster VoxBox, so they were free.

The first flaw I found with these were the size, for me personally they were shorter then my own nails; which are pretty short naturally. Just to wear these I had to cut my nails as short as I possibly could. So they aren't really designed for adults, I feel as though they don't exceed the quality and size that the ones we all used as children have. This of course may not be a problem for you if you have small nails naturally. They look longer on other peoples nails, so maybe this was just a problem for me.

After I had sacrificed my nail length; I ran into another problem, they just didn't want to stick onto my nails. These lasted me maybe ten minutes before any started falling off and they were all off in thirty minutes. The product claims to last up to a week, I couldn't even get an hour out of these. I am rough on my nails but the only thing I was doing at the time of use with these was texting. Now you could always glue these on, but that defeats the purpose of using these so you don't ruin your nails with acrylics. I also don't like that they come in only one size, which are really short, when I get my nails done I get them done so I can have long nails, not shorter then my nails naturally are.

Don't get me wrong I think the concept of these is wonderful, but the product just didn't meet my expectations. I would have loved for these to work out, who wouldn't love acrylic without the damage to your nails and for less. Personally I would say pass on these, your better off getting tips at a nail salon or just sticking to polishing your nails. I am glad that I got these through Influenster though, it saved me from wasting money on these, and I hope this saves you from wasting yours.

If you still want to try them, they are available at any drugstore and are around 6usd, you can get them in Boots in the UK, but I would imagine they are in all drugstores there too, sorry I don't know the price but I do believe they start at five pounds.

Did you try these, how did they work for you? Maybe I did something wrong and just need to give them another chance, but for now they didn't work.

I also want to state that when using these my nails were polish free and had no oils or lotion on them.

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Influenster: I guess you need an invite now, if you would like an invite just leave a comment saying so with your email, I can only invite five people though, and I'm not positive if Influenster is worldwide.