Secret Santa Week 1

We're doing a Secret Santa where I work. For three weeks in December, you get a gift for your SS, the first two presents worth about $3-$5, the second $15-$20. This week, I got three bottles of nail polish, a mani kit, a pedi kit, and a cute little sock purse that I use to keep the new tools in my desk :)

I got two bottles of a jelly nail polish by Color Show, in the Polka Dots line.  Blue Marks the Spot and Pretty in Polka.

My reviews: 

Pretty in Pink: This one has a great formula. In two coats, I lost my free edge, and got a very even coverage of the glitter. It's a very pretty bubblegum pink with small, medium, and large-ish black and white matte glitter. The glitter is very easy to manipulate.

Blue Marks the Spot: This has a very, very sheer formula. What you see on my nails is four coats. The glitter is the same, and it's just as easy to manipulate. The only issue I came across was the sheerness.

Hehehe this is what it looks like taking it off.

I really enjoyed wearing these, even though they felt very busy for the first few hours. Once I got used to it I really liked them :)

My Secret Santa went waaaay over budget for the first week, but lemme tell ya, I'm VERY pleased!!! Thank you (if you read this!)

Sweet Summer Lemonade, Topcoat Comparison

So I recently made my first purchase at the Born Pretty Store, and if you read the previous post, you saw that I got a round of fruit fimo decals.

At first, I was gonna do watermelon nails, but I decided to use the lemons and make lemonade nails first. I usually HATE yellow, but I really like LAC's Hysteria.

These were really fun to make!

1. Prep clean as usual, basecoat.
2. Paint with a white base (I used Sinful Colors' Snow Me White), and then add two coats of your yellow over it. I used LAC's Hysteria, which is a neon jelly, I think. It layers REALLY well. You can find it at Dollar General or online.

For the accents:

1. While the paint is still wet, sprinkle your glitter over the tip of your accent nails. (I got the glitter I used from the Dollar Tree, but honestly, I saw some that looked the same at Walmart today in the craft aisle.) Run a dry brush over it gently to knock off excess glitter. 
2. Using a quick dry topcoat, secure the slices of fimo to the nail. Press and hold into place until mostly dry.
3. Topcoat

For the "regular nails:

1. Take your white nail polish and create rings of white using a coffee stirring straw. Allow to dry
2. Apply a thin coat of Hysteria, allow to dry
3. Create larger rings of white, using a regular straw. Allow to dry.
4. Apply another thin coat of Hyteria, allow to dry
5. Using a dotting tool, pen, pin, toothpick, etc, throw on some random dots.
6. Topcoat

The night before I did these, I received an order from Sally's Beauty Supply, which had a bottle of Seche Vite in it. It's currently on sale! Plus, I have a Sally's membership, AND I had coupons. I got the bottle for about $4.50.

SO I put it up to the test. On my left hand, I used my [new] favorite, NYC's Turbo Dry Top Coat, and on my right, I used the Seche Vite.

Here's my observations:

• You can't tell the difference, once they're dried. And they dry at about the same rate. They're both very shiny, very hard, very smooth.
• Seche Vite smells like one of the cheap polishes I won't buy at the dollar store (yes, there are some that I won't buy!). I REALLY found it off-putting, and I did not like it AT ALL.
• NYC is a little thinner, but it's kinda hard to tell unless you're looking for things to compare
• So far, neither of them have chipped. In fact, most of those pictures I took about 10 minutes ago.
• There's a bit more bubbling on the hand with the NYC, but I don't know if it's because of the topcoat or because I was being hasty with letting my lower layers dry. 
• (Probably me being hasty.)

Honestly, I think LAC's Turbo Dry Topcoat is the winner. For the price I paid (50 cents), it has a much better value. Seche Vite isn't 3-Free either, second ingredient is Toulene.