Swatch Friday: Holiday Nails, Part 1

I haven’t been doing my nails as frequently as I used to, which is probably good since that means I’m not bathing them in acetone every day, but it also means I have fewer pictures to show off.  But anyway!  This is our first Yule/Christmas/Solstice/Whatever nails of the year!

This is Adorn Sail on Surfer Girl with red and green Sharpie Xs.  I had originally wanted the Xs to be smoother, maybe more like a French mani, but my clumsy hand got away from me and they turned a bit more abstract.  But I still like it.  And hey, I’m getting better at Sharpie manis, it only smeared a little on the ring finger.

This is Butter London Marbs and China Glaze Ruby Pumps.  I think I would’ve liked it more if I’d picked a smaller dotting tool.

This is…well.  It sounded cooler in my head?  The base is just the Sally  Hansen nail protector I’ve been wearing.  The dots are Orly Poisoned Apple, and the glitter is OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Aire.

Hope everyone is getting their holiday shopping done early so they can spend time with family, friends, and loved ones!

Swatch Sunday: Nail Art Spam

Hi everyone!  I think I’ve finally got my camera issue working, so I have some new stuff today!

This is Orly Liquid Vinyl with wedges of Orly Devil May Care.  I really like how it turned out, but it was a big PITA while drying.

Zoya Sansa with stripes of KISS white and silver stripers.  I think this is pretty fun.  Maybe I’ll do it again with blue as the main nail color, for a wintery look?

I’m actually shocked I never did this combo before.  It’s so easy!  It’s China Glaze Ruby Pumps with Orly Goth saran’ed over it.  I love how it turned out!

My favorite of all of these, and done on total impulse.  I was originally going to attempt a gradient, but decided I didn’t want to cover up a bunch of the red here.  It’s a base of Black Cat Lacquer Aries with crosses done with KISS stripers in silver, black, and white.  I really love how it turned out!

So my nails are finally getting stronger after that debacle with I don’t even know what.  Hooray!  I should have some fun stuff up in the next few weeks, and Christmas nails will start soon too!

Happy weekend!

Swatch Sunday: OPI Black Label Grape Wall of China

So since I’m having massive camera troubles I thought I’d revisit a series I started a few months ago and promptly ignored.  (When has THAT ever happened before???)  Today I have OPI’s Grape Wall of China for you.  This polish comes from the 2001 World Collection, so it’s one of the older ones I have.

This is three coats.  It’s a nice, sort of dusty lavender purple color.  I would’ve thought it’d be a darker purple, considering the name, but I quite like this.

After the first time I put it on, I thought it looked similar to other polishes, so did a comparison.  It’s not all that similar, surprisingly.  The pinky is OPI Planks a Lot, ring is GWOC, and middle is…I honestly can’t remember.  Maybe OPI Sparrow Me The Drama?  Yeah, that’s likely it, since that Pirates collection was full of dusty pastels.

Bottle Shot.

Bottom of the bottle shot.

Overall, this is a nice color, but I likely wouldn’t have bought it if it hadn’t been for my obsession with black labels.

I might have a double post today – I went to see Crimson Peak last week and it really deserves a review!

Swatch Saturday: Halloween Nails Extravaganza

Wow, how long has it been since I’ve actually done a Swatch Saturday on Saturday?  Probably since the beginning of the month!  Anyway, as promised, I have several Halloween designs today!

Halloween is my favorite holiday, I probably mentioned that last year as well.  This year I ended up doing essentially NO decorating, which is crazy for me, but life sometimes gets in the way.  Ugh.  Here’s hoping for a brighter (pagan) new year!

Anyway.  On with the nails!  Apologies as this post is sorta pic-heavy and I don’t know how to cut pages yet.

This is Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Ghouls Rush In with stripes done with the KISS black striper pen.  Simple but good.

This one I really love.  It’s Zoya Amy on the pinky, China Glaze White on White with a KISS tattoo on ring, Black Cat Salem on middle, China Glaze White on White and Fantasy Makers Darkest Hour and Ghouls Rush in on index, and Sinful Colors Black Magic on thumb.  Halloween hodgepodge!

Candy corn!  I don’t understand people who don’t like candy corn.  I mean, I don’t eat it by the bucketful or anything, but it’s a pretty essential Halloween treat in my eyes.  This is China Glaze White on White, OPI Can’t aFjord Not To, and China Glaze Lemon Fizz.

Wow this picture came out awful, I didn’t realize.  It’s a saran of Fantasy Makers Roach Busters (worst name ever, but very cool green color) and…I think Nicole by OPI Back in My Gloria Days?

This one didn’t turn out like I had hoped.  Remember those blood splatter manis that were so popular a few years ago?  I can’t do the splatter method, but I thought if I did saran it might come out similar.  And this would’ve looked pretty cool if the red was dark enough.  This is China Glaze White on White and Urban Decay Mrs. Mia Wallace.  I thought the Urban Decay would be dark enough but clearly it wasn’t.  Maybe it would work better with something like OPI Black Cherry Chutney or OPI Over & Over aGwen.  I meant to try it with one of those but didn’t.

This is OPI Don’t Touch My Tutu! with some Salon Perfect matte glitter I found at Wal-Mart, and a KISS sticker.  These cheaper glitters really look…well, cheap, don’t they?  Anyway I have a dislike for this glitter because it was the one I was wearing when I went for that professional mani a couple of weeks ago and got my nails dremmeled, which is why they’re so absolutely fucked right now.  So that’s probably not very fair of me.  But still – eh.

This one is great.  It’s OPI Do You Have This Color in Stock-holm? with a KISS sticker and Avon Urban Splatter.

My favorite of all the Halloween nails I did this year.  It’s Fantasy Makers Ghouls Rush In with leopard dots in OPI Do You Have This Color in Stock-holm? and KISS black striper.  It’s modeled after a pair of socks I got at the dollar store.  I guess I really like sock manis, ha!

These are KISS stickers.  They lasted about on hour.  Disappointing!

Orly Goth with KISS stickers.  I rediscovered Orly Goth this season and I can’t believe I haven’t worn it more often.

Last but certainly not least, my angled French.  The pink is actually that nail strengthener I’ve been using, the white is KISS white striper, and the dots are Fantasy Makers Darkest Hour and Ghouls Rush In.  The tattoo is another KISS tattoo.

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween!!

Swatch Saturday: Halloween Nails, Pt. 1

Happy Saturday!  I’m back with some Halloween nail art!!

No, I’m not finished with The Maze Runner yet.  Ugh.

So glad this past week is almost over!!  It really sucked, finances-wise.  I had to get four new tires and a new freaking phone all in the same day.  Why is it that everything fails at the same time?!

Anyway, onward!

This one is awesomely simple.  I can’t believe I didn’t do this last year!  It’s Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers orange (I can’t remember what it’s called and I’m not at home so I can’t check) and Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Darkest Hour.  I painted on the orange and then did the saran method with the black.

This is China Glaze White on White with my black KISS striper for the French.  The spiderweb was done with a black Sharpie.  Not too bad if I do say so myself!

Well, they can’t all be winners.  This is the Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers orange with dots in Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Darkest Hour, Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Queen of the Damned, and Orly Wild Wisteria.  Would have been better with more vibrant dot colors I think.

Saved the best for last!  I did something similar last year I think, but these are even better.  It’s a base of OPI No Bees Please, and the pumpkins are done in OPI Can’t Afjord Not To.  The stems are Orly Enchanted Forest, and the black lines are a black Sharpie.  In retrospect it would’ve been better to use a green Sharpie for the stems though.

Swatch Friday: Random Nail Art WTFuckery

Remember last week when I said we were done with summer neons?  Yeah, that was a lie.  I found these random pictures in my to be posted folder (seriously, it’s the gift that keeps on giving lately) and wanted to use them before we started the real fun next week: Halloween!

I’m posting this on Friday because my annual “out of town all of October” is beginning a little early this year, and I don’t want to forget.  Most of these I’m not totally sure what the colors are, and to be honest they’re all pretty WTF was I thinking when I came up with the ideas.  So join me in laughing at my utter nail art ineptitude.

Jesus, this is fucking awful.  I know the bottom color is OPI Down To The Core-al, and I likely sponged/saraned the top color on.  But what the fuck is that color?  A green?  Gray?  What on EARTH made me think that color combination would look good together?  It looks like rotting zombie nails.

This one isn’t so bad, or at least it’s not as bad as the first.  These are several neons that I think I was trying to do watercolor style?  Okay, the colors are probably OPI Push and Pur-pull, OPI Life Gave Me Lemons, OPI Hotter Than You Pink, China Glaze Sun Worshiper, and China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise.  The glitter is China Glaze Fairy Dust.

An easy one.  These are KISS nail stickers.  I wore them one week when I knew I wouldn’t be able to change my nail polish.  They didn’t last very long at all, but they are very pretty and were easy to remove.  Just peeled them right off, no damage to the nail whatsoever.

I don’t have the faintest fucking clue what these colors are.  The blue isn’t bright enough to be Orly Gumdrop, and the purple isn’t dark enough to be Orly Wild Wisteria.  It’s a mystery for the ages I guess.  Maybe the blue is OPI My Dogsled is a Hybrid?  The glitter is OPI Which is Witch? but I only know that because it’s the only OPI glitter I own with both circles and bars.

What the actual fuck is happening here, is what I want to know.  Sponging?  Saran wrap?  I think the colors will be China Glaze A Rose Among Thorns, China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise, OPI Push and Pur-pull, and OPI Life Gave Me Lemons.

Christ on a cracker.  This is fucking madness.  Colors are probably OPI Down To The Core-al, China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise, and China Glaze Lemon Fizz.  I think I plopped on blobs of color and moved them around with a nail art brush, ending with this failure of a Jackson Pollock travesty.  Good gods, me, what were you thinking?

And thus ends the nail fail blog of the day.  Next week will be better, though!  We’re starting Halloween nail art and of course I’ve already got several designs ready!!  And some of them are actually pretty good!!

What’s the worst nail art failure you’ve ever had?

Swatch Saturday: Nail Art and Living Proof 5-in-1 Styling Treatment

I’m pretty sure today is Saturday, right?  Anyway, I have been MIA too long I know.  Good news, though, I might finally have the first part of the Measure for Measure review done.

So today I have some random nail art.  Honestly, some of it is so old that I’m not 100% sure which colors I used, so I’ll do my best to remember them.

Before I get to that, though, I thought I’d share my thoughts on Living Proof’s Perfect Hair Day 5-in-1 Styling Treatment.  I got a sample of it from Sephora several months ago and never bothered to use it.  I don’t typically put product in my hair, and especially not hairspray.  The last time I had hairspray in my hair was for my father’s wedding back in January.  But yesterday I decided to try it out.  I’ve seen a TON of Living Proof stuff at TJ Maxx recently, and I’m always curious, even though I’ve been mocking the brand for months because of Jennifer Aniston’s incessant shilling.  Essentially I’m constantly on the lookout for a product that can give me real volume.  I usually use Not Your Mother’s Texturizing Sea Salt Spray because it’s inexpensive and smells nice, and works pretty okay.

I should’ve taken a picture of the sample I guess, but I didn’t realize I’d review it when I used it yesterday.

So, the deets: if you know hair typing, mine is 1c/F/ii/iii.  It’s oily and usually very flat on top, but also very dry because I color it.  It’s butt-length.  I usually let it grow till I can sit on it, and then cut back to waist.  I use natural shampoo that I get off Etsy (the store is called toadstool soaps, and it is MARVELOUS, and the owner is just the best as well) and I wear it up a lot.  I’m very, very weird and particular about my hair, and even with the coloring it’s still in pretty good shape.  I oil it before every wash and also typically before I color my roots as well.

I guess you didn’t need to know all that, but there you are.  Maybe I’ll start a series of posts on my hair care routine.

Anyway.  So I used the product yesterday morning.  Because my hair is so long, I used the entire sample.  I smoothed it into my damp-ish hair and then just let it be.  The package said to blow dry, but I don’t do that, so I didn’t.  The package also said that it’s supposed to make you hair smooth, shiny, and give a lot of volume.  That’s precisely what I’m looking for.

The good: it does what it says on the box.  My hair has CRAZY volume and there aren’t a lot of flyaways.  I used the product yesterday, and my hair’s still looking really good.

The bad: this stuff stinks.  Like, a lot.  It’s distracting.  I can’t imagine why anyone would want their hair to smell like this.  I also think it’s a bit drying, but that’s usually the norm for texturizing products I think.  It made my hair feel really stiff, but that might also be because I didn’t blow dry.  And it’s not cheap: $26 for 4 oz at sephora.com.

I can’t wait to wash my hair later on today and get the smell out.  Overall, I would recommend it, but I’d really recommend you smell it before you buy it.  I won’t personally use it again.

Anyway, on to the nail art!

Animal print with neons.  I didn’t turn out as well as I was hoping.  It’s OPI You Are So Outta Lime! and OPI Hotter Than You Pink, with a KISS black striper.

More OPI neons, the last of the summer I think.  OPI Juice Bar Hopping with OPI Over & Over A-Gwen (probably) tissued over it.  Pretty, but very subtle.

This was some very quick nail art I did with some Butters I got for super cheap at TJ Maxx.  It’s Butter Torch, Poole, with dots of Marbs.

This is my very first Sharpie mani!  It came out okay I think.  I wanted to do notebook paper for the first day of school, even though I’m not actually in school.  It’s China Glaze White on White with the lines drawn with blue and red Sharpies.  It smudged a little.  I used hairspray to set the Sharpie but I think I used too much, or maybe didn’t wait long enough for the topcoat.

This was another marble nail, but with saran wrap rather than tissue.  I actually like it more, honestly.  It was a base of Orly Lift the Veil, with OPI Roadhouse Blues and OPI Hotter Than You Pink (I think? There was one other color) saran’ed on.

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend!  It’s finally cooled down a bit here in Florida, woohoo!

Swatch Labor Day: Hard Candy Swatches

Happy Labor Day to my American peeps!  I’ve had these Hard Candy swatches rolling around in my unposted folder for about three months now.

Hard Candy was super popular when I was in middle school/junior high years.  I lived in a really small town that only had a Walmart-type store (I don’t even remember if it was really Walmart), and since I didn’t live near anyplace where I could buy Urban Decay like a proper ’90s kid, Hard Candy had to do.  Remember how awesome Sky was?  Up till then I assumed you “could” only wear reds and pinks on your nails.  It was like, hey, you can do OTHER COLORS?  Sign me right up!

Sadly this new incarnation of Hard Candy doesn’t have the same iconic packaging for the nail polishes: the bottles are small and tube-shaped.  They hold about half the product of an OPI bottle and I think they’re about $4 at Walmart.  I don’t think I’ve seen them anywhere else, I don’t know if it’s an exclusivity thing.  Anyway, I picked up a few colors:

This is Sweet Retreat, 4 coats.  The formula is pretty tricky and thick, and I was originally convinced it would never dry properly.  I was wrong.  And I love this pale blue!  It’s not Sky, but it’s pretty darn close I think.

Crush on Lava, 3 coats.  It’s not quite a duochrome but you can see flashes of both pink and red/orange.  Very pretty, and the formula on this one is great.

Cosmic Love Affair, 3 coats.  I bought this one because we’ve discussed my crazy obsession with night sky type polishes, right?  I don’t think I need to go further than that.  I love it.  It has pretty fine microglitter and the formula was really nice.

Black Tie Optional, 2 coats over Sweet Retreat.  I love a good black/white glitter, and this one is pretty good.

I’ve been pretty happy with these polishes.  I also bought a few other products from the Hard Candy makeup line awhile back.  I was going to include a short review of those in this post, but maybe I should do a separate one.  It’s mostly lip stuff that I bought.

Happy week!  Hope all of you on vacation are enjoying!

Swatch Sunday: Beach Nails and Beach Photos

Hi all!  So I have some beach and ocean themed nails this week and some stormy beach pictures!

I’ve been to the beach this summer probably more than I have been the twenty years I’ve lived here.  And this last week I’ve been obsessed with beach-themed nail art!  The other day I saw the first pumpkin spice sign of the season (not at Starbucks, mind you – I’m pretty sure the PSL doesn’t come out till September 1) so I know it’s technically close to Autumn.  My nieces head back to school in about a week.  It feels like this summer has just flown by, doesn’t it?  I mean, in Florida summery weather will likely last till sometime in October, but the whole “back-to-school” mindset is starting.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the beach with my sister and her family.  The whole weekend was pretty crappy, weather-wise; a lot of rain.  We did get some time on the beach though.  The surf was pretty rough, and I took some pictures:

It looks so desolate, doesn’t it?  But in actuality there were tons of people there with us.  But all those people having fun spoiled my pictures!

And of course I had to do my traditional toes in the sand (or I guess, toes in the murky sandy water):

Okay, so on to the nail art!

This is OPI I Have a Herring Problem, Illamasqua Raindrops, and China Glaze White on White with the much used marbling technique.  I was trying to mimic the look of the ocean in those pictures.  I didn’t quite get it, but I was pleased with how the White on White looked like surf and waves.

This was a base of OPI My Vampire is Buff, and then several colors: Cover Girl Teal on Fire, Adorn Age of Aquarius, Orly Gumdrop, OPI Yodel Me On My Cell, and China Glaze White on White.  I dotted the colors and then used a thin nail brush to swirl them together.  It came out okay; I think next time I will use fewer colors, and colors less close to each other.  It sort of looks like the ocean crashing on sand, right?  If you squint?

This is Hard Candy Island Fever, Hard Candy A Mermaid’s Tale, and some sponged on Sinful Colors Nail Junkie.  I tried a gradient with the Hard Candy polishes.  It sort of came out, but was still not super satisfactory.  Then I sponged on Nail Junkie.  I’ll have to swatch that one at some point.  It looks like it should’ve been named “Ocean Potion” or something like that.  This one was much prettier in person, and sort of had an underwater bubbles in the Caribbean feel.

This is my absolute favorite of my beach-themed nail art!  It was so, so simple to do.  It’s a base of OPI My Vampire Is Buff with Adorn Landlocked Mermaid sponged on.  I was trying, again, to make it look like the ocean washing up on the beach, and I think I was more successful in this than I was with the nail brush swirl art.  Then I added these ocean-themed stickers.  I can’t remember what brand they were; I found the little sheet with the stickers in my nail art drawer in my Melmer.  I probably bought them at Sally Beauty Supply.

Have a great week!  Only a little bit of summer left to go – hope everyone who’s going back to school is getting ready for that!

Throwback Thursday: “Gold Leaf” Manicure

Hi everyone!  I have a #tbt today of a “gold leaf” mani I did for Midsummer a couple of years ago:

This is Orly Haute Red and OPI Goldeneye.  I can’t remember what I was actually trying to do with Goldeneye, but I was sponging it on my nails and I noticed that it started doing this thing like gold leafing as I went.  Another pic:

It was a big surprise, since if you paint on Goldeneye it’s a very shimmery and almost sheer gold.  I used it on the recreated apple mani a few weeks ago, but that took a LOT to get it to go opaque.  Here’s a picture I took of my little workstation, showing what the Goldeneye did after sponging:

Kinda cool.  All pics are clickable, but they’re probably pretty large.  Happy Thursday!