Sh*t Nail Polish Addicts Say

Wow. Minus the "Navy" part, I'm guilty of saying ALL of these things! :D


Also I like how the uploader mentions in the description section: 
"i'm not wearing polish, cuz as much polish as i own, i'm often without. so that was the irony of it"


How many of you do the same thing? You have maybe literally hundreds of polishes, but you still often go bare? I know I do!

Claire's "Disco" glitter

Hello everyone! I have been having a great week. I am on vacation in Arizona. I absolutely love it! The landscape out here is beautiful and the weather is perfect!
I'm visiting friends and a few nights ago I kinda had a little too much wine, and then right before I was going to bed I thought "oh hey I should do my nails..." (I think we can all see where this is going, LOL)

I picked up some good polishes out here, one of them was Claire's "Disco". I LOVE holo glitter polishes. This is pure silver holo hexagons, all one size. Reminds me of American Apparel's "Light Year" which I wanted, but now I think "Disco" will satisfy me!

"Disco" is a little bit hard to apply, as are most medium/larger glitter polishes. I'm sure the wine didn't help my application skills!

I had a difficult time trying to get all the glitter evenly on my nail. You can see how it clumped in certain spots, particularly on my ring finger in the above photo.

It is a bit overkill, and it took some getting used to. It looks crazy rainbow shiny in direct sunlight of course, so much so that my camera couldn't capture it properly! I like that I can still see some of the flakies in between the glitter.

My dream polish would be a solid silver chrome that shines back a holo rainbow. Like the back of a CD. I think the closest I will get to that is a chunky holo glitter like this, or maybe one of those nail sticker things. I believe MinxLusion comes close, but I have not seen them IRL, so I can not be sure.

I'll probably leave this on until I get home. My gel mani is holding up pretty well, only the middle finger on my left and and my index on my right have chips. It has been almost 2 weeks.

Oh and I have 50 followers now!!! :) Yay!

I heart flakies....

As soon as I heard the FingerPaints was releasing a line of flakie topcoats I KNEW I needed them. I was at Sally's in early December and I found 2 of the colors- Twisted and Flashy. Score! I managed to find then early, before the official release date. They were stuck behind the main FingerPaints display. I love the thrill of a good nail polish hunt/find!
I had to wait until December 31st to find the other ones. I called my local Sallys to reserve them, and they said they were out on display already for the next day. I went and snatched them up!

My New Year's Eve manicure was going to be Essie's Sexy Divide (a dark shimmery purple) topped with Twisted and OPI's Lily I Love You (a gorgeous glitter flake in a sheer pink base). I decided to go get them professionally done. The night before I went, I found this from Nailderellanails. WOW. Aside from being beautiful, it was very similar to the manicure I had planned. The next day when I went to the salon I couldn't find Sexy Divide! So I remembered the "Unicorn Puke Remake" and chose a dark almost black red. I can't remember the name, sorry! The manicure came out beautiful. I didn't take pictures, but you can take a look at that link and see how good it looked!

The only problem was... it chipped so fast! :( So a week later I went back to the salon and got a black gel manicure and topped it with 2 coats FingerPaints Asylum and then 1 coat Motley. So far the black base hasn't chipped! I love it!

 It actually is a tad more purple colored in real life. I'm not sure why "blurple" is so hard to photograph?!

You can see the slight green duochrome shift in the second picture.

The only problem with applying the flakes over the gel is that the flakes kind of melt onto the gel base when using polish remover to take off the flakes. They are hard to remove without physically picking off the flakes.  

China Glaze Magnetix

Happy New Year everyone!

I have come to the conclusion that Brazil (and Australia too, due to Picture Polish and Ozotic) have some great nail polishes. If you are a muti/duochrome-flakie-holo-glitter fiend like me, you might have noticed that there are some gorgeous polishes from these countries. I decided to torture myself and do some research to look around for some polishes that I probably won't be able to get, on blogs I can't even read. (Although how many people READ blogs, I know that I usually go for the pictures and then maybe read what has to be said. Actually, I do read certain bloggers. But usually the pictures. If you are reading this right now without skipping to the picture, well, I admire that!!)

Anyway I came across this on CuteNailsBlog:

From what I gather it will be released March 2012. It looks like there are 6 colors. What makes this special is that there appear to be 3 different magnet patterns, which are sold separately from the polish. I will definitely be on the look out for this when they are released!

Right now I am trying my hardest to not purchase any new nail polish that is even remotely dupe-y. I think I have reached the point in my collection where I have a lot of variations on the same color, and if I see something I don't have, I can franken it. Of course reading all of my favorite nail blogs doesn't help!! But I can be strong!!! LOL

That being said, I did just order a bunch of *special* colors from Llarowe. Lynnderellas, Hits Mari Moons, Picture Polish Flakies, Glitter Gals and Elytras. I also picked up the entire line of Finger Paints Special Effects topcoats from Sallys.

I think 2012 will be a good year for nail polish!!! :)

Liebster Blog Award

Rules 

- Copy and paste the award on your blog.

- Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.

- Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

Thank you to Tyne at Lovebeangirl for nominating me for this award! This award is for up and coming nail bloggers, people who have less than 200 followers. Such a lovely award!
I love Tyne's blog. She is super sweet and thoughtful, she responds to every single one of the comments that her readers leave! If I had received this award from someone else, she would have been one of the first nominated!


Interestingly enough, my current favorite blogs are smaller blogs with less than 200 followers. I chose 6 blogs to share instead of 5 :)


Polish and Pigments- Not your typical swatch/review blog. MK is so detailed and organized with lists of products for frankening and how they performed. A gem for the franken community. 


Karla's Nail Design- Karla shows us that you can find a silver lining in the darkest cloud. Going through some tough times she found solace in nail polish and nail art. It became her passion and now she is studying to be a nail technician. She was so talented before her formal training, so I can only imagine how promising her future career will be! 

Lil Smug Pug- 2 of my favorite things EVER are nail polish (DUH!) and pugs. Well one day I randomly typed "pugs nail polish" in Google and I found this blog. Anyone who swatches nail polish with a PUG in the background is just simply amazing. Every time I go to her blog I smile. Too cute. I want to make friends with her and her pug.

Je T'aime Lacquer- I recently found her blog and I am digging her nail art. How cool is her Halloween "buried alive/clawed out of the grave" manicure? Super cool!!

Men and Nail Polish- Jim is a regular guy who happens to like nail polish. He believes nail polish should be for everyone, and I agree. 

EyeGraffiti- Ok so this isn't a nail blog like the rest, but Phlox and Azure do some wild makeup looks!! In addition to creative colorful eye looks, there are some funky cool lip looks as well. Red-yellow-green gradient lips? Whoa!


3 other blogs that I currently like but wouldn't qualify for this award:


More Nail Polish- An Aussie mom with a passion for frankening. But not just any normal frankening. Spectraflair and color shifting pigments! LOVE. Also, some really good swatches of drool worthy Ozotics. Which I will have to settle for just the pics as they are very expensive to ship to the USA. Oh well! 


LoodieLoodieLoodie- She has the most gorgeous nails! Super curved and a nice shape and length. She is very informative on nail care and has a great sense of humor!


My Nail Graffiti- Amber and her artist husband team up to make some awesome nail art and frankens! If you like what you see you can buy them too. They also are selling XL and XXL nail plates. I definitely have to get some!!

Uh oh. I'm on a rant.

Uh oh. I think someone just pissed off a lot of bloggers. Hannah Lee from Nailsmag. Check out the article here. And the "apology" here.

I have yet to meet a nail technician who is as passionate about nails as I am.

Yes, they do it for a living and have expertise on things that I am not licensed or trained to do. No, they are not always up on the latest nail trends. I once asked for a leopard print design and I got a crazy look. Really?? Leopard print? Any nail art blogger worth their salt could do that with their eyes closed!

The very few times a year I get my nails professionally done, I pretty much always bring my own polish. Why? Because I'm bored with the usual selection of Essie sheers and pinks and a few outdated OPIs. And guess what? Nearly every time I get complimented on the "unique" color I bring. Also I introduced OPI Black Shatter to my local nail salon last winter/spring. I had it on my nails when I came in for a wax and the OWNER loved it. She took down the name and bought it for her salon. But anyone who reads nail blogs knew about OPI Shatter for months before it was available to the public.

Once I discovered nail blogs my interest in nails grew exponentially. I always had a fascination with nail polish but reading blogs really opened my eyes to a whole new world of color, design, products, and style. I now know how to take better care of my nails, not because of a nail tech but because of the blogs I read. I am not a professional blogger, nor am I a consistent blogger, but my friends ask me for color advice and tips and tricks. When someone asks me about something I don't know, I don't pretend to know. I am not a professional... yet? LOL. I am considering getting into the field. And you know what? If I did, I would still read blogs and take inspiration from them. Because if you care enough to spend your free time seeking out products, swatching, taking photographs, reviewing, and writing... you must really love it. When you are passionate about something you want to know as much as you can about the subject.

I understand that the article was written with the intended audience to be nail professionals. But why the harsh words toward nail bloggers? Calling us polish junkies looking for free handouts? Most bloggers buy their own products and review/promote. Nail techs have the license and training, but bloggers do more for companies because we advertise for free for them.  Maybe the nail industry needs to step up their game a little bit. If there was a TRENDY, clean, local salon with a better selection of polish, I would probably get my nails done professionally more often. Perhaps the problem lies within the consumer. Do people accept these tired trends of harsh square shaped french tipped acrylics/polish with a frosty 90's finish because that is all they are offered? Or is it because this is what most people like? I feel like if certain salons promoted new trends, it would bring some excitement and possibly more business.

I want to thank all the nail bloggers out there. Keep doing what you are doing! I am so glad I have discovered a community of people from around the world who share my hobby. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and pictures. You all are awesome! <3

Lynnderella

If you are a fan of frankening and/or beautiful unique glitters check out Lynnderella. If you haven't already heard of this franken master, do yourself a favor and Google image search her and her glorious masterpieces.
You can now buy her creations at the above link. $12 per bottle and minimum of 5 bottles.
My personal favorite is "Connect the Dots"!