Nail Catch-up #1

Wow I have never fallen this far behind on posting nail photos! Sorry for the quick post. I got a lot of great new nailpolishes over the holiday season. I got some for my birthday, bought some for myself, and even got a whole new box for Christmas. But before I dig into them I really want to get caught up on all the photos I have saved on my computer and my phone. So here they are! Enjoy!

 

 

Pink Purple Gradient

I put on this design a week ago today, and they're still looking really good. Must be the high-quality nail polishes. :) I've gotten a lot of compliments on these over the last week. Feels pretty good!

Ingredients:
Seche Vite Base Coat
Sephora by OPI "Lost Without my GPS"
Finger Paints "It's an Original!"
Nicole by OPI "Razzle Dazzler" (black tips)
Konad Black
Konad Plate m79
Sally Girl 812031
Seche Vite Top Coat

Super quick update - Pink and Green

Super quicky update on my nail blog. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of my Fourth of July nails, but I don't consider that a huge loss because I didn't really like them (I did them in a super hurry the night before).

But here are some others for you to feast on until the next update! Enjoy!

Haul it in! I love free stuff - Third Haul of 2011

I successfully reached a $25 Amazon.com gift card reward through my Amazon Visa and decided to use it up on some nail stuff I've been wanting for a while now.

I got these from the Amazon seller named "KJ Beauty Store." I have nothing but nice thoughts about them due to this order. Everything went very smoothly. Technically each item that I bought from them had a shipping fee of $2.99 to $3.99 but when I paid for it all together my shipping was only $5.99 total, so that's awesome. Highly recommend KJ Beauty Store on Amazon.com for your Konad needs. 

From left: Konad Black Nail polish and Yellow Nail polish, Konad OneTouch Remover bottle, and Double-sided Konad Stamp set

1. Polishes: I have been wanting to print a vivid black print onto my nails ever since I started working with Konad but none of my black nail polishes ever quite did the trick. Konad's expensive though, so I couldn't just go and use $8 to buy a simple black nail polish. Good thing I got these for free! The yellow one was one that I bought on the fly, because I knew I wanted another color but wasn't really sure which one. I can see myself doing some yellow stamping on a dark base color. That'd be cool. Bumble bee nails, anyone? I'm excited.
2. Bottle: I was really happy to find that Konad makes these because for the past few weeks I've been wanting a bottle with a push top like this one. I considered getting one from Sephora. My sister is a regular reviewer on there so she reads reviews on a lot of products and she actually told me that their bottles are kinda iffy -- like I'd have to buy one and make sure it works and then keep exchanging it until I get a good one. Not really worth my trouble, plus $11 bucks for a plastic bottle? I even looked through Target and Walmart because I vaguely remember using a toner (that didn't work well on me- was it Almay?) that had that kind of dispenser on the bottle. I figured the drugstore product would coast me about $5ish and I could just dump out what's inside and keep the bottle. But no luck. Really glad I found this on eBay and then got it for free on Amazon. It works wonderfully and will surely come in handy.
3. Double Stamper set: I've been wanting this for a long time too! Mostly because I thought it would be smaller, actually. :| But it turns out that having a bigger stamp is pretty convenient for me because I have large hands for a girl, and this one is more comfortable to hold than the one that came with the set that my sister bought me. I think it will really come in handy to have two scrapers too, because I noticed that sometimes I get polish buildup while I'm doing my nails and I have to stop and clean it off -- which kinda puts me at risk for getting cotton lint on my newly painted nails. Or maybe I'm just making up excuses for using my gift card on something like this. Either way... I'm happy I have it. :)

Till next time. Comin' up: Half-moon manicure /slash/ reverse-French manicure!

July 4th and Root beer - Quick Update

I haven't been keeping my blog updated lately but I have been doing my nails, so here's a quicky update.

July 4th Nails

Tissa's cameo! Sephora by OPI 212-SEPHORA, SE 016

Nail Patch Walk-through

I'm kind of in a pinch for time lately, with all my school work and such. So I thought I'd take the easy way out and do a repeat nail job, and what quicker repeat can there be than the nail patches from Sephora that I raved about, huh?

And as a treat: a little walk through, because I felt like it. :)

BEFORE:

My french tips from last week have seen better days.

Removed nail polish with Onyx Acetone and a cotton ball.

Plain nails are ready for shaping!

Decided to go without corners this week. I've been doing square tips for a few weeks now and my nails could use a break from getting caught on everything. This is a nail file from my sister , who bought it from Body Shop a little while back. I really like nail files. :)

I treat my cuticles with Sephora by OPI cuticle oil. I don't really know how to do my nails the professional way, and the last time I tried to push my cuticles back I ended up damaging them. You can still see a little dimple on my right thumbnail tip from way back then... it's on its way to being grown out and filed off.

Reviewing the (very easy to follow) directions on the nail patches, so I don't mess up.

Open up the air-tight package.

The package comes with two sheets of 8 nail patches. Chances are you'll find the right size somewhere in there.

Found my sizes! Tore them off and put away the extras so I don't get confused later.

Carefully remove the white plastic on top.

Peel off the nail patch.

Applying the nail patch to my thumb. They're adhesive, but strong enough so that if you mess up, you can reposition the sticker and it won't rip or tear.

Tucking in the excess nail patch. The extra stuff tears off nicely.

Next finger!

Make sure you rub it on really well.

No problem and super easy. :)

See! Easy!

Ta-DAH! All done. :)

Yay Nail Patches!

NOOOO The nail patches are awesome!!?

It's true. Well, it still needs to be verified beyond 30 minutes of awesomeness, but I love them.

My sister surprised me a few weeks ago with these nail patches by Sephora, that you can view by clicking here. She had bought them on sale just for fun, because she knows about my latest obsession with nails. She and I had previously browsed through the nail section and upon spotting these, I immediately said, "That's stupid. That would never work." I was convinced that you had to cut the edges off, which in my case would be a horrible scenario because I have horrible aim and using scissors (no matter what the size or precision) to cut off excess plastic layer would not work. I assumed that it was retarded that anyone would pay more than what a nail polish bottle costs to buy some one-time-only nail patches that will never turn out okay.

She gave these to me later on, saying that even though I wasn't interested, they could still possibly be awesome.

They would either be awesome and the most wonderful thing in the world, or just as retarded as I initially suspected.

Well, thirty five minutes after the fact, I'm leaning toward the awesome side of the spectrum. They're easy to apply, and they ended up looking better than the paint jobs that I normally do every week (which sorta kills me, to tell you the truth.) And now I'm starting to suspect that my sister secretly looked at some amazing reviews and saw that I'd be wrong so she super spy purchased them for me, knowing how awesome they are. Cause my sister is super sneaky psychic sometimes like that, sometimes.

Anyway, yea, I like them. You peel off clear plastic from both sides of the colored patch, then apply it to your nail and wrap the end over the end of your nail. It's thick enough to take off and re-position if you mess up (suprisingly I didn't! isn't that weird!) but thin enough so that the excess that is hanging off after you fold them under rips off quite easily. And then you have perfect-looking nails that take less time than I usually take to apply a coat of perfect non-dinged nail-polish that gets removed with nailpolish remover just like the stuff from a bottle. UGH!

Geez. Okay, I hope they last the "yea but how long will they last" skepticism that's ringing in my head right now. I'll be sure to write about that later on this week and post a status pic of how they're doing. But beyond that, I like the nail patches.

What I used:

• Nail Patch in "502 black strass" by Sephora.  

 Ugh that just KILLS me that I only have one bullet point this week! And on a product that I immediately bad-mouthed at first sight. *shame* 

My latest purchases: Avon Top Coat, Drip Dry by OPI

Avon Nail Experts: UV Gloss Guard Top Coat

I really love this stuff. It's a lot thinner than my previous topcoat by Nailene and it never leaves little bubbles on my nails. That, and I love how it makes my nails look like they don't have a top coat on. I prefer that to having a clear layer floating on top of the colored nail polish.

I bought it from Avon through Amazon: Here's the link if you're curious. $3.99 + 5.99 shipping, but I pretty much got it for free since I opened up an Amazon Credit Card and will be getting a $30 credit back on my bill. Yay freebies!

Drip Dry by OPI: Lacquer Drying Drops

Previously I've used Sephora by OPI Nail Colour Drying Drops but that was $14 (plus shipping if I didn't have access to a store... which I don't, during the school year). Instead I found the next best thing on eBay, from the seller jenbyk for $6.99 + $1.95 shipping, which ended up being super fast.

So far, no complaints. It works the same as the non-sephora affiliated drying drops, and I'm guessing it's the same product but with a different label. I like it.

Glittery Blue tips and flowers

My sister said these are her favorites of all the nails I've done before. She said that she always wishes I would buy the ones in the store but that I always end up going for the ghetto ones instead. *shrug* ... 's true.

This week's glitter and blue tips are inspired by a set of fake nails that I keep seeing in stores. Of course, I love looking at the nail section in Target and Walmart and now that I've copied an idea that I've seen before, I can't find a picture of them online. But yea, I did copy the idea from somewhere.

  

What I used:

• Remover: Equate Regular Nail Polish Remover to remove last week's nails -- four cotton pads did the trick (soaked and used all four sides).
• Base: Avon Nail Experts Smooth Beginnings -- 2 coats
• Glitter: Sally Hansen Hard Nails Xtreme Wear Nail Cor in 4860-09 Disco Ball -- 1 coat over half the nail and some touch-up dabs after the first coat dried
• Blue Tips: Nicole by OPI in "It's Up To You" -- 2 coats, then some more glitter on top of the tips again
• Stickers: Combination of the flowers found in
• Cina 3D Nail Decals Item #CI-18013 and
• Kiss Nail Accents #NS13
• Top Coat: Nailene Acrylic Strong Topcoat -- 2 coats
• Drying Aid: Sephora by OPI Nail Colour Drying Drops -- 2 drops per nail
  

OTHER NEWS!

Coming up in October!!

I'm really excited because I just won an auction on eBay for 5 sheets of Christmas nail stickers. Now I'm on the prowl for a good deal on halloween stickers. I love halloween and plan on doing Halloween Themes for the entire month, so be on the lookout for that. :)

Also -- I found this awesome site that's an online nail community / message board system. CoolNailsArt.com Lots of nails and lots more nails. Most of them are way longer than I can handle, but I love all the designs. I've never gotten my nails doen professionally so it's pretty exciting for me to see what people are capable of doing with nail polish...