OPI's Spotted Has A DUPE!!!

So the boyfriend and I were walking around Walmart and as I was perusing the nail polish section and OMG LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!!

A SPOTTED TOP COAT!!! 

I'm sorry about the fuzzy quality of this pic, but I was reeeeally excited...

It's still going for quite a bit on Ebay, with a few going for $40, though there's a couple that are only in the teens.

This bottle was only $2.50 thereabouts. Compared to the usual $9 a bottle w/ OPI? WIN!!!

Also, shoutout to my boyfriend because he is awesome and was the one who bought it.

Only 11 days left to vote on the poll, please vote!!!

Comments section: What are you gonna do with your bottle?

Pumpkins!

Ahhh I love fall! The colors (which is funny, I'm a cool-color person), the weather (the temperature! the rain! the lack of humidity!), the food (squash soup!), the clothes (finally can wear jeans without dying. also, sweaters.), the holidays (Halloween! Thanksgiving!) and my electric bill (seriously!)! I love EVERYTHING ABOUT FALL. Okay, the whole pumpkin spice obsession is a bit out of hand, but EVERYTHING ELSE I LOVE.

This list should also include pumpkins. I really, really like pumpkins, and finding the perfect pumpkin always stresses me out because when I find my "perfect" pumpkin, I psyche myself out because someone else could probably not destroy it like I am preparing my kitchen with newspaper to do.

So, I made my own pumpkins!

Cleanup was really hard for me with this orange because it's so sheer, I had a hard time seeing it (there are a few other reasons, like I have a hard time differentiating certain shades of oranges and pinks (which actually did not help while I was building up the orange... couldn't tell where I'd put the first layers...), and I was watching True Blood in really low lighting. Sorry!), so please excuse the mess.

I still love how these turned out! These just scream "Fall is HEERE!" to me.

Please meet Flower. Apparently it's a brand you can buy at Walmart now? I'd never heard of it before. The orange, Eye of the Tiger Lilly, really caught my eye, perfect for pumpkins, right?? ...Not so much. This polish is very sheer, and I'd actually like to call it a Jelly. I layered it with Sinful Colors Cloud 9  to get some opaque-ness and it gave it a very, very subtle glitter. 

Application is pretty good, not very streaky. It is a little thin, but not too bad! Even with two topcoats, there's shrinkage and wear happening after only two days :( 

You can see my cuticle butter in my cuticles... oops. Lush's Lemony Flutter, if anyone's asking.
You can also see where I couldn't figure out where the orange and the pink were lol

I really like these, despite all of my flaws (I'm still learning freehand...), and the issues I had with the polish.

Top Coats and Bottom Coats.

Recently, I've had quite a few people ask about chipping and peeling prevention. My first question is always: "What kind of base coat are you using?" The usual sheepish reply is that they aren't. Well there's your first problem.
My second question is: "What kind of top coat are you using?" The answer is the same: They aren't.

These are very, very important if you want your mani to last.
Lemme reiterate that:
Always use a top coat and a bottom coat!!!!

The bottom coat is very important because it gets into all the nooks and crannies of the nail and creates a smooth, even surface for the rest of the nail polish to coat. This prevents peeling. It also protects your nail from discoloring (most of the time.)

The top coat is very important because it seals in the mani, preventing chipping. It helps flatten the mani, making it look like all one picture, instead of a bunch of dots and lines and layers. The right top coat will also give you the finish you want, whether it's satin, shiny, or matte.

You CAN find 2-in-1 top coats and bottom coats, but I tend to dislike them. They aren't as smooth. Sally Hansen's has one for a decent price.

My usual go-to bottom coat is Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails Nail Hardener in clear. It is MUCH cheaper if you go to Walmart.

However.

Right now, I'm running a comparison between the Sally Hansen's and Jordana's Nails Be Strong (Go to KMart for the best prices). On my right hand is the Sally's and on the left is the Jordana's. With this mani, the biggest peel I have is with the Sally Hansen's. I have some chipping on both of my thumbs. With my previous mani, my left hand had three fingers that needed a repair from ripping, one that needed it twice.

So far, I prefer Jordana's application. The brush is softer and the formula is thinner and not as goopy. It goes on the nail better. They dry about evenly.

For the top coats, I've used several different types:
Wet'N'Wild has a really good one that I like. My biggest complaint is that it's in a smaller bottle and gets used up really fast.
I've tried N.Y.C.'s clear topcoat, and while it's a really beautiful shine, it gets scratched and chipped really fast.
I like using N.Y.C.'s Matte Me Crazy. It lasts a while and dries really fast. I can't use it for EVERY mani, though.
Right now I'm using a top coat from Rue 21. It's got the shine of N.Y.C's clear, and so far it seems about as durable as Wet'N'Wild.
Only time will tell.

Now here's the How-To.
Clean your nails. Scrub them and underneath them. Get all the oils off of them by wiping down with nail polish remover.
To apply a base coat, cover the entire nail. Do the edge of the nail first, then under the nail, and then over the nail, especially if it's a strengthener. Wait until completely dry, then you can choose to apply a second coat to the edge and the top.
Wait until completely dry.
Do your mani.
Wait until completely dry.
Apply a top coat, again by covering the edge and then the top.
You can choose a second coat of topcoat.
Yes, it's time-consuming, and yes, it costs more money than if you just did the mani. But in my opinion, if you can wear one mani for a week, it saves you money in the long run.

Check your polishes' labels. If the topcoat is not 3Free and your mani is, bubbles, imprints, and smudges can happen. The topcoat will harden before the mani doesn't, and seal in the evaporating chemicals. If you've ever woken up with an imprint of your sheets on your nails, this is why.


Please note that I have not tried everything, including the more expensive top/bottom coats. I have not tried gels, UV or otherwise. If you have any tips or tricks or favorites you'd like to share, please feel free to do so in the comments!

Pure Ice Releases New Line

So even though payday isn't until tomorrow,  I HAD to pick up four of the new Pure Ice line at Walmart. I LOVE sooo many of these colors!

Pure Ice recently released 55 new shades. Did you see that? 55!!!!! That's HUGE! Revlon has been busy! (Which we are ALL very happy for!)

Today I have a swatch for Last Chance (with a layer of Look My Way on my accent nail). For topcoats, I'm using one I picked up at Rue 21 and NYC's Matte Me Crazy on my accent.

I'm just... Augh! Can these BE any more perfect for each other??

I can't wait to experience more of this new line!!!!!

Loot

So this month I decided that I was going to throw caution (and money) into the wind. I bought a BUNCH of new stamping plates (96, to be exact), and I bought $27 worth of stuff at the Dollar Nail Art store (it hasn't shipped yet).

I got the first shipment of stamping plates on the 15th-two days before the first day of estimated arrival.
They were from RedAngel (link here). I was so excited I took The Book to work with me to put them in! (What's that? I haven't told you about The Book? We'll get to it, all in due time.)

Fast-forward to this morning.

I get woken up by my mailman, knocking at my door. He's holding TWO packages for me! One is from amazon, and the other is a little envelope. It has a few things inside (including a belated Christmas present for my mom), but the thing I was waiting for?

This little oddity

What is that, you ask? This makes my mani's like 90% easier on my carpets. NOT that I'm constantly spilling, but I am knocking over my bottles like 85% of the time...

Maybe I shouldn't have used such a transparent color...

This little doodad keeps my polish in place. It's fairly stable, pretty hard to knock down. And it's made of silicone, so it adjusts to the shape of my bottle. It's got a fairly good grip, too. I love it! I got it from SammyDress. The shipping speed isn't great (I bought it around the 11th of December), but it's worth the wait. Mom loved her Christmas present.

In the Amazon box, were three packs of stamps. Gals Fairy set, Gals Princess set, and Mash's 26-50 set. I put them in The Book asap.

Okay there's that thing again, I guess I'd better tell you (even though you might have figured it out already. You're pretty sharp, aren't you?)
I got a binder to organize my plates!

Giant glowy tome. Can you hear the angels singing?

I looked into getting this, but it's just a little out of my price range. This binder was $6 at Walmart. It's one of those old-school scrapbooking binders with the sticky pages to keep the pictures in place, and it does a decent job of its job!

Empty pages

Full pages. 

The biggest downside is that the seal doesn't always hold, and the ones at the bottom tend to fall out. But that's okay. It just means I need to keep a close eye on things.

So I'm really stoked about all these plates. Biggest downside is that now I have so many things I want to do and not enough nails to do them on!

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***Disclaimer: NO companies discussed in this blog have been contacted or have contacted me for review.***

The Dark Knight Rises Nails

This is an older mani I have saved for when I need to post something but have been too busy to do anything with my nails.

When my boyfriend told me when we were going to see Batman together (he'd already seen it with his brother (WITHOUT ME) the jerkface!) I HAD to do Batman-themed nails. This was when I was kinda first starting out, and not terribly good at freehanding. Even for a beginner, I think I did pretty well! For most of the villains, you can tell who they are. I tried to use the most recognizable characters...

Joker!

Two-Face!
I couldn't stop playing with his eyeball... It was a pearl I found in the Walmart scrapbooking aisle on clearance, $.50 for a pack. TOTALLY worth it!

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy

Batgirl. I was getting tired at this point, and didn't do a great job :(

My pinkie is supposed to be an explosion... 

Riddler

Batman insignia

Batman insignia

I can't remember what I did on my other pinkie, and I don't have a picture of it :(

For a beginner at freehand, I think I did pretty well :) I wish I'd had finer brushes, and more experience, but I still enjoyed wearing these for a few days. I waited until Two-Face's eye fell off to take them all off.

Love Letter Nails

Look! A watermark!! ...Please ignore the black nail polish on my palm...

Hello, ladies and gents! Today is a GREAT day! For nails, anyways! Today I'm going to show you pic-by-pic how to get the newspaper look on your nails! (It's super easy!)

When I started doing these, I couldn't remember how exactly I was supposed to go about doing them. I thought I'd read somewhere that I was supposed to soak the nail for like 5 minutes in the alcohol and then press the newspaper onto my nail. That dissolved my nail polish. So I thought it's gotta be like doing a temporary tattoo, and attempted it that way. It worked!!!

First, paint your nail white (or light grey, if you want it to look like a real newspaper). Let it dry COMPLETELY.

Cut your newspaper down to just larger than your nail. I used the smallest type I could find in my newspaper.

Soak a cotton ball in alcohol, place the newspaper on your nail in the direction you want it, and place the cotton ball over the newspaper. Let it rest for about half a minute.

Gently peel off, and voila! Newspaper print on your nails!  Let it dry for a minute and then GENTLY add a topcoat. I used a very subtle glitter topcoat by Pure ICE.

To finish, I took some stamps (like, the type you use for stationery) I found at Walmart for $1 and stamped L O V and E. (On my right hand, I messed up and stamped it backwards... I was trying to get it to match my left hand which I'd stamped first >.<). Then on my thumbs I drew a heart and outlined it in black to make it stand out a little, added a matte topcoat, and enjoy!

It's been two days, and I'm STILL wearing this mani. I absolutely love it, and it was so simple to do! I hope you like it as much as I do!

Watermarbling Madness

So out of sheer boredom I started practicing my watermarbling technique. In the name of Science, I tested and labeled all of my different colors into one or two of three categories (This took several sittings...). Green means "I can marble really well!" Yellow means "I'm OKAY at it. Use if desperate," and Red means "I cannot marble. Don't even TRY!" Green and yellow puts it in the middle between okay and good/great. A lot of the brands surprised me, I thought the cheaper ones wouldn't do it as well, but the majority of the LAC's did pretty well :)

Here's the pics from last night's adventure:

Some turned out really well! And others.... Not so much.  :/ I honestly have no clue as to how I got that rainbow splatter one :'(

Now that I live in Iowa, I figure I'll need to know how to do Cyclone and Hawkeye nails. This one turned out pretty well, despite the black not working with me very well.

This was my first attempt at Cyclone and Hawkeye nails. The black REALLY wasn't working with me here (I had it labeled as yellow, but added red to that rating), and I don't think these turned out terribly well. For practice, however, they're just more experience.

This one was my first REALLY successful nails. In fact, I'm quite proud of it.

So that was my evening. These are cheap, blank, fake nails my sister gave me when she moved out of our house. You can find them for about $5-$10 at Walmart. I just use a small dab of thick white nail polish to keep it attached to my stick.


My nails right now are blank. I'm going to do a fall-themed watermarble when I get home (I'm currently at the library... internet is internet, even if it's slower than a tortoise on a tricycle.)

Dotted Gradient

This post is gonna be short, they're old nails and I'm tired lol 

This has been one of my favorite manis to date. I just wish it was better quality. The ONE stamp I have with dots is very thin and doesn't fit over my nail. It's the set you can find in Walmart, it was what I started with.

I didn't clean this one very well. It was done before I started cleaning my nails instead of waiting for it to peel off in the shower.

I decided to do the accent on my thumb 'cause it's so much bigger. I kinda liked it, though I really love doing the accent on my ring finger now.

You can see where the stamp didn't cover the entire nail on my middle finger.

I love how this looks, going from purple to white with the dots. It's a fairly easy mani, especially if you have a stamp. Just do the dots, then sponge the white at the tips :) The flower was done with a toothpick. Let down a drop and drag to form a petal.

Quick Walmart Post

Flirt released new plates!! And they're cute, not cheesy! YAAAAY!