polish purchases: august edition

yes, i somehow still managed to buy a bunch of polish this month, even though i had a baby. i'm both proud and ashamed of myself at the same time. to be fair, i bought all but one item before the baby was born, so there's that.

orly preamp, sally hansen xtreme wear pink-grape fruit, pure ice never satisfied, pure ice over you

beautiful scratchers plate h20

pure ice never satisfied and over you ($2.00 each)- i'm not sure if these are from a limited-edition pure ice collection or not (it's so hard to tell with pure ice), but they were sparkly and $2, so i had to have it! enough said.

sally hansen xtreme wear pink-grape fruit ($2.49)- uhhh, not sure why there's a hyphen in pink-grape fruit. actually, the whole name just confuses me. why not just pink grapefruit? oh well, it's still a pretty polish. this is the only one i bought post-baby. i ran to target to pick up nursing bras and diapers (glamorous, i know), and as a consolation prize for the loss of my youth and freedom, i snatched up this polish near the check-out. it helped. a little.

orly preamp ($6.95)- i've been eying this polish for a while, but never bit the bullet until this month. just like pink-grape fruit, it contains gorgeous pink shimmer, which is the only reason i bought it. i'm really not a pink person by any stretch of the imagination, but this shimmer lured me in. we'll see how i feel about it when i actually wear it.

beautiful scratchers plate h20 ($7)- you know how i've been obsessing over the gold seashell nail jewelry from nail swag? well, i haven't been able to find them anywhere, so i had the genius idea to use a shell stamp instead. smart, right? instead of expensive nail jewelry that will probably fall off and be lost forever, why not use a reusable stamp that can be done in a million different colors? i scoured the internet and finally found what i wanted at a site called beautiful scratchers. they have a lot of fauxnad and other knock-off plates, as well as plates i've never seen before (like plate h20). plus, they have free shipping!

GRAND TOTAL FOR AUGUST: $20.44

amazing that i managed to spend this much and have my first child in the same month, huh? i must be nuts.

coral glam

wow wow wow. i just found a new top 10 favorite nail polish.

layering order:

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla coral glam

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla coral glam

1 coat sally hansen insta-dri clearly quick





agghhh. . . . it's too beautiful that my eyes are burning. and trust me when i say, my pictures do not do it justice. in real life, there are retina-searing rainbows dancing off my nails at all times. well, almost all times. but what i love most about coral glam is that even in dim lighting, this nude shade is just beautiful, and flattering for my pasty white skin. even without the holo rainbows, it looks like an icy beige shade, which i just love.



so really, this polish is less coral and more glam, if you ask me. in the bottle, it looked like it would be pretty dark on me, which is why i waited so long to test it out. but i was pleasantly surprised at the gorgeous nudeness of this shade. so now it has earned the #2 spot on my top 10 list :). love~!.



POLISH DAYS: the number 5

the number 5. . . . so open-ended. so many choices. i finally decided on a stamping plate with the number 5 (since i'm officially obsessed with stamping).

 base color: 2 coats orly miss conduct

navy stamping: maybelline metallics narcissistic navy

image plate: mash plate 45


why did i choose to pair navy with magenta? really, i'm not sure. it seemed like a good idea at the time. not something i would normally do, but hey, why not?



i was really loving the swirly pattern on my nails and thinking how unique it looked. . . . until it hit me that maybe they weren't so unique after all. the more i stared at them, the more the swirls looked like this emblem lol. i do love me some chick-fil-a, though, so no worries there. if you've never eaten there before, you're missing out! anyways, i hope you enjoyed my stamping manicure inspired by chicken :P.





miss conduct

holy wow, i love this polish. it's a gorgeous magenta color that's super shiny, easy to apply, and has glittery scattered holo particles (which are my favorite!).

2 coats orly miss conduct

pardon the cat hair. . . . whoops



is this not amazing?? i'm so glad i bought this one. i might even want to put it on my top 10 list. . . . hmmm, maybe. orly, i may have underestimated you.



this was seriously the easiest formula to work with. sooo smooth and thin. if you don't own miss conduct, then you need to fix that right now!!



POLISH DAYS: 7 deadly sins

there are lots of the 7 deadly sins that i struggle with- sloth, greed, and most recently gluttony lol. being pregnant makes me hungry all the time. and extra lazy too :P. but the major one in my life is definitely envy. i'm jealous of beautiful people, talented people, people who look like they have their lives together, etc. good thing i have a polish named green with envy for this particular polish days :P.

 base color: orly green with envy

silver stamping: sinful supernova

image plate: mash 44

isn't it funny that i used a sinful polish to stamp with? get it- 7 deadly sins?? ha, i amuse myself. in the bottle, supernova looks like a rose-gold/champagne foil, but over teal, it pulled silver, which was what i was hoping for. 

to see why i used this chain image, keep reading after the jump.

green with envy

if i remember right, this is one of my oldest polishes in my entire stash. i believe i bought it in 2009 (wow. . . . 4 years ago??) when chanel jade was ridiculously popular. i became obsessed with any and all green polishes, and when i found this at sally's beauty, it practically walked itself up to the register. i didn't know until i got home that it was a jelly, though. . . .

2 (thick) coats orly green with envy

most color-accurate

as you can see in the last picture, green with envy runs more green than it does blue. the first 2 pictures aren't as accurate as the last. by the way, this is without top coat! that's one good thing about jelly finishes. since i don't like being able to see visible nail line, i did 2 super thick coats for this manicure. that did the trick and made it opaque.

i've since collected many, many more green polishes, especially teals. but i'll hang onto this one because it's my first green, and my first non-drugstore polish! pretty monumental for me :P.

polish purchases: december edition

wow, so it's almost the end of january and i'm just now posting my polish purchases from december. . . . that's super lame. to be honest, my interest in nail polish has been waning a lot recently. i don't know if it's being pregnant, or just extra busy, or what, but it's true. i was really worried that i was over my obsession with nail polish :S. it was very disconcerting. just like my mom, i go through phases where i'm all about something, then it runs its course, and i get tired of it and move on to something else. does anyone else do this?? so i was scared this is what was happening. . . . but then tonight i looked through my entire stash, trying to pick out what to wear next, and was relieved to discover that my passion for polish has been rekindled. maybe i just needed a break? who knows. but now, i'm actually excited again about wearing new polish combos.

phew, ok anyway, back to my purchases from last month (which were not many):

salon perfect champagne toast ($3.98)- i spotted this at walmart last month, and was instantly reminded of china glaze ultamate holiday, which is a gold holo glitter. i'd been wanting that one for forever, so i just had to buy this one. turns out, it's very sheer and has tiny, tiny holo particles (kind of like china glaze fairy dust, only gold), so i'll have to fiddle around and find a good base polish before i can wear it. still pretty though!

maybelline color show sequins rose bling ($3.99)- true story: i was having a very, very crappy day last month, and called my husband at work to complain/vent. do you know what he said? "i'm sorry, honey. go buy yourself a nail polish." yes! what a guy :). so of course, i did. and the first polish that drew my eye at rite aid was this gorgeous, rose glitter with magenta and holo hexes. sooo glad i picked this one up!

orly miss conduct ($6.49)- so, this is a little out of my normal price range (i like to stay under $4 if i can), but everyone online has been raving about miss conduct, and apparently i'm on a huge raspberry kick right now, so it became mine when i saw it at sally's. i think it was the only one left, so score!

GRAND TOTAL FOR DECEMBER: $14.46

i can't believe i only bought 3 polishes all month. . . . that's pretty much never happened before. i told you i was worried about my apathy towards nails!! oh well, it's good to save a little money. god knows i'm gonna need it with baby coming.

31DC2012 DAY 9: rainbow nails

this was the easiest way i could think of to achieve rainbow nails. easy in the sense that it's just one polish, but also incredibly tedious. i'll tell you why in just a sec. BUT FIRST, pictures~!

3 coats* layla mercury twilight

direct sunlight (and my cute polkadot skirt!)

with flash

dim lighting

*3 coats with a caveat, because i had to use a sandwich technique to prolong the wear time. here's what i did-

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla mercury twilight

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla mercury twilight

1 coat orly bonder

1 coat layla mercury twilight 

1 coat sally hansen insta-dri clearly quick 

phew, that was a lot of work. but worth it. at the time i'm writing this, i've been wearing it for 48 hours with no tip wear! pretty good, huh? all 3 coats were absolutely necessary, though, because mercury twilight is very sheer. makes me wonder if it would be a good holo top coat. . . . hmmmm.

 

not much to look at in the bottle, but it's amazing on the nail :). 

weakness wednesday: iridescent gold glitter. . . .

. . . . in a clear-ish base. apparently i didn't know how many i had. i have got to stop buying the same polishes over and over again.

sunlight

with flash (to show the glitter~!)

sinful pinky glitter is the first of this particular genre (iridescent gold glitter) that i got my hands on. i bought this a couple of years ago, and really love it. it looks like it would go on pink, but the base is really really sheer. perfect for layering. however, the newer version of pinky glitter is a much darker hot pink. not my thing. but if you're desperate for something of similar ilk, confetti confetti pink ($2 at cvs stores) looks almost identical to this older version, at least in the bottle.

orly shining star contains the smallest glitter particles of the group. i believe all of the glitter is the same. click here to see what it looks like layered.

i just picked up this new nina ultra pro in holographic topcoat last week at sally's. the whole line has been updated, and this one immediately caught my eye. it was in my cart and paid for before i could do anything to stop it lol. now the name is quite misleading because it's not really holographic. i do see tiny, tiny gold holographic specks, but mostly it contains the round iridescent glitter that i love so much.

next up is a beautiful unnamed polish from the japanese 100 yen store. sigh. i love japanese polishes so much. actually i love japanese everything so much. . . . anyway, the cap on this bottle says ac-ned-37. i think the brand is ac, the line is called nail enamel d (ned), and this is shade number 37. let's just call it ned 37, shall we? as much as i love ned 37, it looks nearly identical on the nail as pinky glitter and holographic topcoat. the green base just should be ignored.

mattese elite je t'aime is definitely my favorite. it has the chunkiest iridescent glitter, with some added larger holographic silver hexes. click here to see it in action. now i have some bad news about this polish: apparently, mattese elite is revamping their entire line of polishes, so je t'aime is being discontinued. however, they are still available here on the ricky's website for at the clearance price of $2.99. if you want it, you need to jump on that quick! i'm considering buying a back-up bottle, since i've never seen else anything quite like it. . . .

vintage sparkle

let me start this post out by saying that i'm not sure i liked this mani. i didn't hate it either, just. . . .  meh.

i started out with this:

can you see the tiny gold shimmer?

i wanted a soft, off-white look, so i started with 1 coat of cq vintage (an off-white amazing creme that's in my top 10) to make it mostly opaque, then added a coat of wet 'n wild megalast hush hush (a white jelly), and a coat of revlon colorstay calla lily (a white sheer with beautiful tiny gold shimmer). i didn't want to see any VNL, but i also wanted it to look soft. 

but THEN i had to add yet another layer (orly shining star):

i guess it's pretty, but i don't know. . . . all of the layers ended up too thick for my liking. oh well. i wore it to a friend's wedding, so i guess this is appropriate for events like that. not too crazy.

here all all of the polishes i used:

cq vintage, wet 'n wild megalast hush hush, revlon colorstay calla lily, orly shining star

at least shining star is really pretty. am i the only one who has that earth, wind, & fire song in my head now?