03/21/13 - Rainbow Weave Nails

I get to go home for spring break today, and to celebrate, I wanted something rainbow and awesome. When I saw PackAPunch's tutorial, I knew I had to try it.

OHMYGOD IT TOOK SO LONG. When she says that this design is time consuming, she was NOT joking. I probably started around 11:30 pm and finished around.. 6:30 am? I mean, I was watching TV while doing this, and had to take a couple short breaks just to not drive myself crazy, but seriously. Took so long.

I like it, though. I'm never ever doing it again, but I'm glad I did it the once.

I used Julie G - Cherry on Top, Sally Hansen - Orange Impulse, Brash - Gone Bananas, Kleancolor - Green Grass, CQ - Tropics, and Santee - Purple.

I did a couple things different than the tutorial, like doing more columns on my thumb and less on my pinkie. I also didn't start with a white base. But other than that, I pretty much did what she did.

I don't think I'll be blogging much while I'm gone, so see you all in a week and a half! :)

Swatch: LynBDesigns - Anomalous Bloke

This'll be a pic-heavy post. Because I like this polish. And it deserves a lot of pictures.
Also, as an Indie polish (my first one!), a search for swatch pictures revealed basically nothing. So I'll help end that problem. :)

We're starting with two pictures of two coats, no top coat, flash.

Again, this is LynBDesigns - Anomalous Bloke, from one of her Doctor Who collections. I'll be honest, I didn't immediately connect the name to a particular scene by memory, but a quick search reveals this exchange:

Jenny: So, you don't have a name either? Are you an anomaly too?
The Doctor: No.
Donna Noble: Oh come off it, you're the most anomalous bloke I've ever met.

A-ha! (now direct light)

This polish is perfect for the Doctor, then.

It's mostly a green base, then with a bunch of blue shimmer, and then some holographic sparkles of varying colours. Ever-changing, just like the Doctor!

LnyB describes it as so: "I started with a darkened blue green color and added a ton of color shifting power. It shifts from green to blue to purple. I also added orange, red, and gold holographic micro glitter. Overall this color is amazing and never looks the same when you look at it." I agree!

I'll finish with a couple nails, with top coat, natural light on a cloudy day.

 Those show the holographic sparkles pretty well.

This one shows the blue shimmer pretty well.

And there you have it! I really like this polish, and I'm glad I largely left it alone in my Bloke Meets Leprechaun nails. Between the colour shift, the shimmer, and the glitter, this is truly a fun polish I'm glad to have. You can pick it up yourself here!

03/15/13 - Bloke Meets Leprechaun Nails

Well, I wasn't originally planning to paint my nails for St. Patrick's Day. Partially because I thought it was later in the week. Partially because I had planned to repaint my nails last weekend, as per usual. But my LynB polishes finally came, and I realized St. Patrick's Day is this weekend (today!) and I decided to do a quick design for the holiday. :)

I used LynBDesigns - Anomalous Bloke as the base, and then layered on (in this order) China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss, Dabble - Sand, and China Glaze - Fairy Dust for the four leaf clover.

I'll be posting a pic-heavy swatch post of Anomalous Bloke soon, so I won't talk too much of it here. But I will say that I really like it! And I think it works great for a St. Patrick's day mani.

You know, it's amazing how much quicker it is to paint your nails if you keep the design really simple! Now I get how people who just do plain colours can stand to repaint every couple days. I usually spend so many hours on my nail art, I do my best to make it last at least a week.
But I kept this design very simple, and very not-time consuming - but still pretty. Yay!

I hope you all have a good St. Patrick's Day. :) And for those of you in university about to go into finals week like me, good luck! :)

03/16/13: Stash Update - LynB Polishes

A little while ago a friend informed me of a 50% off sale that LynBDesigns was doing. (Actually, it seems she's doing a sale today, too! Through tomorrow.) I've been wanting to try Indie polishes, but hadn't yet. So I decided, 50% off! Good enough reason for me! So I excitedly purchased 4 polishes from her.
Since these are my first Indie polishes, I'm going to write a bit more of thorough post on them.

They arrived all cutely individually bubble wrapped:

I'm gleefully popping the little bubbles spanned out over time as stress relief. xD

I got two from Doctor Who, and two from Princess Bride. Which makes these even better, because I love both of those!

I'll finish off with some close-up bottle shots. These polishes are all so pretty, I'm really excited to have them. :)

I've already got plans for three of these, so keep checking back to see them on my nails! :D

Swatch: Covergirl - Lav-Endure

Somehow I forgot to make this post earlier. Whoops! Well, here it is now. :)
Please pardon the dings on my pointer and middle fingers. I knew they'd get covered up with the nail art, so I didn't try to hard to fix them for the swatch pictures.
Here I have two coats of Covergirl - Lav-Endure. It was almost good to go in 1 coat, but it definitely evened out nicely with the second.

Like I mentioned before, I was looking for a cool-toned pastel purple. Lav-Endure perfectly fits the bill.

Don't know if it was a coincidence or not, but the whole manicure I did with this as a base had great last power, nearly chipless a week later. Maybe Covergirl is on to something?

They really hid the name on the label! It's tiny.

I'm really glad I picked up this polish. It's exactly the colour I was looking for and seems to have a great formula. It seemed to work great for my Metallic Geometry nails. This was my first Covergirl polish, and now I'm pretty sure it won't be my last.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

03/03/13 - Metallic Geometry Nails

I really need a lesson on how to come up with good titles.
But I really do love the nail art here. Unfortunately, I think this is one of those times when it really looks a lot better in person than in the pictures.

 This was my first try with striping tape, and I'm pleased. I decided to stick with something very simple, but I think it looks majestic some how. Maybe it's the metallics in the triangular shapes looking kinda like jewels. I don't know, but I like it.

The base is Covergirl - Lav-Endure, and the metallics are JLB - Deep Sea, JLB - Jade, and JLB - Purple Rain. I debated a long time over which colours to use over Lav-Endure, and I'm really glad I settled on these three. The whole look goes together so well.

It's all cool toned and classy looking to me. Simple and sophisticated. :)
In a lot of these pictures Purple Rain looks a lot like Deep Sea, and I assure that in person, it's clear one is blue and one is purple. Oh well.

But regardless of the pictures, I'm really enjoying seeing this one my nails. It's so simple but I think it looks really good. :)

03/02/13 - Flakie Toes

Okay, the title sounds really gross. Somebody give me a better name. ^^;;
Regarldess, it's named such because I put Essie - Shine of the Times, a lovely flakie, on my toe nails. I used Maybelline - Sapphire Siren as a base, and I decided to mattify the whole look with Essie - Matte About You.

Here's a picture before matting:

Unfortunately, the weather's been pretty miserable so I just have cloudy indoor pictures for the rest of the look.

I love the matted look of Shine of the Times. It's so pretty. :)

Cross your fingers I get to update this post with a lovely sunshine picture. :)

Review: Essence Express Dry Drops

So as I mentioned in my last post, I picked up some Essence - Express Dry Drops last time I was in Fred Meyer's. The bottle is only a couple of dollars, much cheaper than other quick drying drops, so I thought it was worth a try. The reviews I found said pretty good things about it, but I had to test it myself. :)
First, here's the bottle:

You can see that it's about the same size as a nail polish bottle. It claims that 1-2 drops can dry your nails in seconds.

To test this, I applied a quick coat of China Glaze - Concrete Catwalk on two of my nails. Immediately after applying it on my middle nail, I dripped a drop or two of the dry drops on it. I then waited exactly two minutes, and then pressed my fingers of the other hand as hard as I could against the nail polish. This is the result:

As you can see, on the nail with no dry drops, there is a strong finger mark, and some of the nail polish even came off. One the nail with dry drops, there is a very slight finger mark.

Good enough evidence for me, I'm sold! I hope this makes it easier to polish my young niece's nails so she can get back to playing sooner, and I hope it aids me in tape manicures, so I don't have to wait as long before getting to the next step.

If you're looking for quick dry drops, I'd give Essence a try before spending a lot more money on expensive drops. :)