I Believe The Medical Term Is 'Burnout'.

Okay. So. Things are still pretty crazy around here. I really thought I'd be able to settle in faster, but this is taking forever. I feel like I can't even catch my breath, I'm just so busy with work and taking care of Jericho (he had to stay at the animal ER for 36 hours this week, poor guy) and trying to get this house clean little by little and people are coming and going and I'm just like O_O.

(Sigh.)

I did finally get a chance to paint my nails, though. It's already been several days, so they're all chipped and haggard looking at the time of posting. And I haven't found the time to paint my toenails in, like, a week and a half.

(Siiiigh.)

I don't know how regular people function. How the hell to people get up, get ready, work for eight (or more!) hours a day, then come home, take care of their house/family/errands, and still find time to, like, shower or put on pants or feed themselves? Because I'm trying so hard and I am SUCKING at it. : (

One good thing did happen recently, though. I got my very first raise ever yesterday. So that's pretty rad. I can definitely use the extra money.

Anyway, the color I'm wearing right now is Wet n' Wild Fast Dry Greys Anatomy; a lilac to pale mossy green duochrome. My eight (nine?) year old brother, Efin, picked it out for me on his own for Christmas. He did an awesome job. (Thanks, Ef!)

The duochrome action with this polish is pretty subtle in real life, and my camera had a bit of trouble picking it up. Also: Can you tell I've been doing a lot of scrubbing lately? My hands have been screaming for lotion lately.

This polish does go on pretty sheer, and I needed four coats to get to pretty opaque. It probably could've used another coat, but it was taking a while to dry, despite being a quick-dry formula, and I had other things to do.

Mmmmmmcolorshifty.

I can't remember what day I put this on--the past two weeks are pretty much a blur in my head--but I know i got pretty good wear out of this because, as I mentioned, I've had it on for several days now, and it only just chipped last night.

Then, because I can't resist accent nails, I added two coats of  Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Ice Queen, a clear base with holo glitter and pale pink and cyan large hex glitters, that my sister's boyfriend, the amazing Phil (the guy's a goddamn puppeteer and writes poems about my sister--how awesome is that!?) bought me for my birthday.

When you look at this from the purple angle, the pink hex glitters look kind of blah, but from the green angle, they really pop.

I feel like I haven't rocked a duochrome in ages, so this was fun.

And, just because I only have one picture of this manicure, here's my shot of Sally Hansen Insta Dri Snappy Sorbet, a fuity, peachy-orange that shows shimmer in the bottle that's almost invisble on the nails (which I don't necessarily mind).

This makes me want dreamcicles soooooo bad.

I'm usually not a huge fan of oranges. I own a few, 'cause I feel like I have to, to round out my collection a bit, but I'd contemplated buying this polish for weeks before I actually did it, 'cause I was pretty sure that, unlike some oranges, this one would flatter my skin tone. And I'm glad I bought it, because it did flatter my skin tone. And it makes me happy to know that I have an orange that I like to wear.

Oh, and I suppose I should mention that I used Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat and Quick Dry Top Coat for both of these manis.

So yeah. That's it. Sorry I've been so slow lately. I don't know when work's going to slow down, and it really does feel like it's taking forever to get this house to where I want it. But I do think about you guys and miss reading your posts--I haven't even had time to sit down and catch up on all the blogs I follow. WHAT ON EARTH HAVE I BEEN MISSING!?

Plus the very sweet Stacy of Wickless & Polished helped me add the new, fancy buttons to my sidebar, and was so friendly and patient with my slow replies (I think I never even responded to her last email--Eek! Sorry, Stacy!). I really appreciate it!

But, uh, yeah. It's getting close to midnight, so I should go eat something and get ready for bed. I'm trying to get myself on a better sleep schedule, and it hasn't been easy. Ah well, if at first you don't succeed, bitch about it on your blog, then eat something weird while standing at your kitchen counter in your pajamas. That's what I always say.

Night, kiddos.

I Guess "WTF Is A Pinkie Pie!?" Was The Wrong Answer.

The other day, I posted on my Facebook that I didn't know what color to paint my nails next. And within seconds, my friend, Vince, posted, "PINKIE PIE NAILS!".
 
I'm not really up on trends, so I had no idea what he was talking about. But I rocked my Google-fu, and figured out that Pinkie Pie is apparently one of the characters on the My Little Pony TV show.

Now, I definitely haven't have the time or patience to do anything requiring much skill this week--work's been absolutely ridonkulous--so I knew this manicure needed to be pretty simple. But I didn't even have the right colors to do a Pinkie Pie manicure, so I had to specifically go out to find a suitable pink. And I don't even like pinks that much. But now I own two more (one of which I didn't even need for this manicure), because I have zero will power.

Anyway, Vince, if you're reading this, I'm sorry if this isn't Pinkie Pie-ish enough for you, but it's all you're getting...

For this mani, I used OPI Ate Berries In The Canaries, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Bubblegum Pink, OPI Just Groovy, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow. Plus the Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat and Top Coat, which I'm hating more and more, but I'm not even going to get into that right now.

Ate Berries In The Canaries is pretty much my favorite pink polish. Like I've already mentioned, I'm not terribly into pinks, but ABITC isn't a pinky-pink. It's a juicy, magenta creme. Except... more berry-y. Yeah. I don't know. But it flatters my skin, and it's not too girly, and I can't help but love it. So that's the main color I used for this manicure.

On my accent nail ('cause I loves me a good accent nail), I used the Bubblegum Pink, which is a light pink with shimmer that's more subtle on the nail than in the bottle, and then I added Pinkie Pie's yellow and blue balloons with the Mellow Yellow and Just Groovy:

I don't know if you guys can see it, but my fingers look so grubby to me in these pics, 'cause it was right after I had a miserable time removing brown nail polish.
Artificial light, no flash.

Lol, my balloons are blobby, but I don't mind.
Artificial light, flash.

 I don't know why my polishes refuse to dry properly lately. It's gotta be the Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat. These nails had hours and hours to dry before I went to bed. There's no reason they should've gotten all sheet-marked like this.
Direct natural light.

True My Little Pony-related story: When I was little, I used to have Hoppy the kangaroo, and I loved her. And then, one day, my step-cousin told me that if I didn't give her my Hoppy to keep, she was going to tell her mom that I wasn't sharing. And I was terrified of her mom. So I gave her my Hoppy. And I never saw Hoppy again... *sniffle*

Anyway, I don't know. I really just wanted to get this post up and be done with it, so I'd have one less thing to stress about (like I said, work's been insane--I was actually in tears today). And I feel bad, because my posts are more and more rambly and less and less about the nail polish. But I guess that's kind of how I am, so...

Ummmm. Yeah. Pinkie Pie nails. Kind of.

Also: Feel free to check out my brand spankin' new Real Cute Nails Facebook page.

Annnd I'm done.

Sometimes I'm Willing To Settle.

Oh, weekends, why do you go by so fast? Oh, yeah, because I have to work seven days a week to keep up with all the customer support emails that have been coming in lately. Greaaat. (Sigh.)

Anywho, back when I first started getting more serious about nail polish, I came across a bunch of reviews and posts about Essie Starry Starry Night, and instantly fell in love.

This was also right around the time I learned about matte polishes and matte topcoats, and I desperately wanted to do a mattified manicure with Starry Starry Night, so I scampered off to buy Essie Matte About You (plus a backup bottle), since I figured it was way more cost effective to buy a topcoat that I could use to mattify all my polishes, instead of investing in just a few matte polishes.

Sadly, I was not able to procure a bottle of Starry Starry Night, since it costs about a zillion dollars on Ebay, and I draw the line at right around $60 (hellooooo, Clarins 230).

So, when China Glaze came out with its Metro collection, I spotted Skyscraper, and immediately thought, "Close enough!".

Now, I know there are some people out there who are kind of sticklers about dupes, and I'm definitely not claiming that Essie Starry Starry Night and China Glaze Skyscraper are dupes by any means. But they do both have silver glitter in a darkish blue jelly base, and are similar enough that Skyscraper has sated my lemming for Starry Starry Night.

I mean, if I can ever get my greedy little mits on a bottle of SSN for a reasonable price, I'd for sure snatch it up, but as long as I've got Skyscraper, I won't be totally heartbroken if that never happens.

China Glaze Skyscraper is chockablock full of tiny silver glitters in a dark blue jelly base. I'd almost call the color a dark denim blue. Application wasn't great. The first coat went on streaky as all get-out, and even the second coat didn't go on as smoothly or easily as I'd hoped, but three coats was enough to even it out and build it up to opaque.*

You can just barely make out my nail lines in this picture, so I guess three coats wasn't 100% opaque in extremely bright light, but for all intents and purposes, three coats works.
Artificial light, flash.

To my eyes, this is the most color-accurate picture. This polish seems to photograph slighter lighter than it is in brighter lights.
Artificial light, no flash.

Kinda blurry, sorry.
Indirect natural light.

I had the same ol' problem with this polish shrinking after I applied my topcoat. I'm thinking it might be time to just bite the bullet and buy myself a new bottle. I don't think I've ever actually finished a bottle of topcoat. They always get too stringy and globby about 2/3 of the way through. What's up with that, topcoat!??

Anyway, about twenty four hours after I did this mani, I decided to slap on my Essie Matte About You, and finally rock that matte "starry" manicure I've been craving for ages.

That's some serious shrinkage, right there.
Artificial light, flash.

Artificial light, no flash.

Indirect natural light.

I can never really decide if I like matte manicures. When I'm planning them, I always think, "This is going to look so awesome and tuff!", and then, when I actually have it on my hands, I'm like, "This is falling way flat.". Of all the polishes I've mattified, though (all, like, three of them), this is my favorite so far.

Now that I've got these pictures up, and I'm looking at them in all their gigantic macro-shot glory, I'm kind of grossed out by how much of my tips are showing, so I think I'm going to go take this polish of right now.

What are your thoughts on matte polishes and matte topcoats? What's your favorite matte polish, or your favorite mattified manicure?




*I'm still using Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat for now.  Still gotta order a new NailTek II.

Don't Worry About It, That'll Buff Right Out.

I'm sick today. I had plans to go visit my sister, but woke up feeling like a bag of smashed ass, so I had to cancel. I'm freezing cold, but sweating; my joints hurt; I'm sniffly; and I just generally feel like crap.

Plus my doctor's office called me today with the results of the CT scan I had last week. They confirmed that I had a big, ol' stone in my bladder (when I told the doctor I had passed it on my own on Monday, he actually said, "Dang!"), and that I have another stone--much smaller at about 1mm--still chillin' out in my right kidney.

Plus I got a bonus health update: Apparently, I have multiple cysts on both of my ovaries. Multiple cysts. On both ovaries. Because when I do something, I fucking go all out. S'how I roll.

So, in an effort to take my mind off of my health issues--which obviously isn't working, since I'm sitting here posting about them--I decided to do another blog update.

So, in a way, my shitty health is actually benefiting you guys. Way to take advantage of my pain. I thought we were friends... *glares*

...

...

... *still glaring*


...

Anyway.

After this post, I'll be all caught up with the pictures I've taken, so unless I start slacking off and give myself time to build up another store of pics, you'll be getting posts as I update my manicures from now on. In fact, I'm actually still wearing the mani in the pics I'm posting today. It's been about four days, though, so I think I'm going to take it off tonight.

First up, a nudie pic:

*wolf-whistles*
Artificial light, no flash

Normally, I wouldn't post a picture of my bare nails, but they've been in really good shape lately, so I'm feeling proud. Plus I needed a new nail buffer the other day, so my boyfriend went to the store and picked me up a Revlon Crazy Shine Nail Buffer, which boasts that it will make your nails 400% shinier.

At first, I was like, "Pffff, yeah, right. A two sided buffer is totally gonna work that well. *rolls eyes*".

Then I tried it. And holy friggin' shiny, Batman! A couple of swipes with the rough side and a few back and forths with the smooth side, and I'll be gosh darned if my nails weren't exactly 400% shiner.

Okay, so I have no idea how they actually measure just how much shinier nails get after buffing, so I can't say for sure that my nails were 400% shinier. But they were CRAZY shiny, as you can see. Like, shiner than any nail buffer has gotten them before. And it was super easy and fast. Plus I'd buffed away all the staining (even with base coat, my nails still end up all yellow and funky looking), so my nails looked all clean and nice. So clean and nice, in fact, that I was compelled to take--and share--a nakey nail picture!

So yeah, if you're in the market for a good nail buffer, I'd totally recommend giving the Revlon Crazy Shine Nail Buffer a shot.

Once my nails were buffed smooth, I threw on a coat of my new base--Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat (my NailTek II has gotten all gooey and chunky and weird, and I haven't had a chance to order a new bottle yet, so I'm currently working with what was available at my local drug store)--and then slapped on two coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Night Flight.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: This is my favorite black polish EVER. Love that it's teal-based.
Artificial light, flash.

Then, because I can't seem to stop layering with glitters lately, I added a coat of Kleancolor Shooting Star, which is silver glitter with larger orangy-red, warm yellow, and aqua blue hex glitters in an orange-tinted clear base, on nine nails.

Over black, you can't see the orange tint of the base, but you can see it in the bottle.
Artificial light, flash.

The colors in Shooting Star make me think of circus clowns. Except that clowns scare me, and this polish does not.
Natural light, full sun.

On my accent nail, I did a coat of Kleancolor City Never Sleeps, which is the same makeup as Shooting Star, except in different colors--aqua blue glitter with larger pale orange, pale lime green, and magenta hex glitters in a very pale purple-tinted clear base.

For some reason, the base of this polish looks and photographs as a weird, mucky brown in the bottle. I promise you it's, like, a lilac-tinted clear base, though.
Artificial light, flash.

It was so cold outside when I snapped these pictures. I literally just stuck both arms out the front door and took pictures blindly, since I didn't want to stick my head out to see what I was actually shooting. Luckily, I'm pretty good at aiming!
Natural light, full sun.

Natural light, combo full sun/shade.

My boyfriend said that he likes the Shooting Star better than the City Never Sleeps. I'd have to disagree with him. While the colors in Shooting Star are pretty fun, I think the colors in City Never Sleeps are even funner. And funner is always better.

While fun, this isn't my favorite combination. I mean, it's cute, and if I ever go to the circus, I'd totally wear this mani again, but I crave manicures that leave me gazing at my fingers in awe and wonderment, and unfortunately, this mani fell just a wee bit short of that.

I've also noticed that some of my polishes tend to shrink after I apply my topcoat, which sucks. I currently use Sally Hansen Dries Instantly 30 Second Top Coat, which I've thinned it with a bit of Seche Restore because it got kind of thick and gloopy. It doesn't shrink all of my polishes, but it does shrink most of them, at least a little. For some reason, it seems to shrink my Sally Hansen Instra-Dris worse than any of my other polishes, which means this mani ended up looking like it had a week's worth of tip wear after less than twenty four hours, and it's been bugging the crap out of me.

Does anyone else have this problem? I'm thinking it might be the combination of fast dry top coat + Seche Restore. Maybe if I get a regular top coat, shrinking won't be as much of an issue. But (siiiigh) that means waiting for what seems like forever for my nails to dry, and I'm sooooo impatient.

Grrrrrr. My life is so hard. *fails and flops*

Anyway, I should wrap this up. My poor betta, Aldo, is staring at me right now, like, "Pleeeeaaaaase clean my tank, woman!", and I have to do that before I can take off my nail polish. I don't wanna get polish remover residue in my little buddy's tank!

So I'm off for now. I wonder what color my next post will be about. : )


1/20/2012 ETA: I was just uploading some new pictures (!!!), and I found a couple of pictures I'd taken a day or two after the pictures I posted here. You can see the shrinky tip wear, but it's such a good, clear shot of the glitters that I just had to tack it onto this post:

Indoors, natural light.

Okay, that's all.

Why Didn't Anyone Ever Tell Me That Funfetti Is Just Vanilla Cake Mix With Jimmies In It? I Could've Been Making Ghetto Confetti Cakes This whole Time, You Jerks!

Okay, so. This has nothing to do with nails, but it does have to do with one of the main reasons I feel shitty all the time, which is why I never feel like posting. And it's kind of gross, but hey, this is my blog, and I'll share what I want.

Anyway, yesterday, I finally passed the kidney stone that's been putting me through hell for the past several months. Seven goddamn millimeters long, and four millimeters in diameter. And sharp and jagged as all get-out. So yeah, while it's been super fun having that little bugger tearing through my insides, I'm sososososo glad that it's finally out.

So glad, in fact, that I insisted on baking a cake to commemorate the occasion. My very first Funfetti cake. Which was not only delicious, but fun to look at! If I could, I'd share my cake with you, my dear, loyal readers. I still have sixteen pieces left, and after demolishing not one, not two, but three pieces by myself last night, I'm kinda caked-out, so there's more than enough to go around.

So yeah. Like I said, it has nothing to do with nails, but I'm telling you anyway, because I'm still excited about my little kidney baby (I named it Martin Luther King Jr. Jr. in honor of its birthday) and about cake. Because I love cake. You have no idea. Really.

Okay, okay, okay, I'll stop talking about my kidney stone cake and get on with this post. Sheesh. You guys are picky today...

So. Much like my last post, I'm not thrilled with the quality of today's pictures, but they're all I've got, so we're all just gonna have to suck it up. And since I only took, like, one and a half pictures of each manicure (okay, maybe I took three or four, but some of them really sucked), I'm going to post two manis today--for a staggering total of four pictures. Lame, I know. I'll try to do better next time.

(Well, I mean, not next time, since I already have some new mani shots waiting to be edited, and they may suck, too. But the next time I take pictures, I'll try to do better. More shots, better quality, etc.)

Right. Anyway. So. The first mani I'm posting today utilized five of my Kleancolor Metallics: Metallic Aqua, Metallic Blue, Metallic Purple, Metallic Fushcia (damn you and your wonky spelling, Kleancolor!), and Metallic Pink. Although it's not actually ombre, since the colors aren't all from the same family, I decided to dub this mani "Techno Ombre".

Now, back when I wore Kleancolor Metallic Green, which is one of my favorite polishes ever, I think, I noticed that adding a topcoat seriously transformed the finish of the polish. It went from being a kind of flat looking lime green metallic to some kind of deep and beautiful acid green anodized aluminum finish that I just couldn't get enough of. So when I ordered the rest of the Kleancolor Metallics collection, I figured the rest of them would react similarly to topcoat.

Well, I was mostly right. Sadly, of the eleven metallics, there are three of them (I think) that don't amazingly transform after topcoat is applied. And of of those three, one is Metallic Aqua, which kind of breaks my heart, 'cause if Aqua had a finish like Green does... *drools*

Annnnnyway, the reason I'm telling you all this is because the picture I have of my Techno Ombre mani is a side by side shot.

The left side is the colors with no topcoat (I think each color is two coats--these have great coverage). The right side is with topcoat.
Both taken in artificial light, with flash.

It's not as easy to see in the pictures as in real life--it's most apparent on with Metallic Fushcia and Metallic Purple in the picture--but once you add a topcoat to these colors, the finish kind of melts into... I don't even know. Pure awesomeness, I guess.

Except for Metallic Pink. That one doesn't get to be ranked as "pure awesome" for one huge reason: Although the finish does "melt" and get all deep and pretty looking, it also completely changes color! I don't know if this is just because of the topcoat I use, or if it's a problem with the polish itself, but adding topcoat to Metallic Pink turns it from sort of a cool based pink to a weird yellow-y pink that my camera always wants to pick up as borderline orange.

Wtf, Pink? Seriously!? Left: without topcoat, right: with topcoat.
Artificial light, flash.

 

 

I was actually pretty disappointed about the pink thing, since the way the color changed kind of messed up my color blend in this mani. But I still think it looked pretty cool overall.

A few of these colors (namely Metallic Teal, Metallic Blue, and Metallic Pink) did stain my nails a bit, even with basecoat. And after removal, my cuticles were all different colors for a day or so. But I like the finish on these puppies, so they'll definitely maintain their place in my polish rotation.


The second polish I have for you today is OPI Designer... De Better! from their Muppets collection. My dad and his girlfriend, Tracey, gave me the Muppettes mini collection--containing Designer... De Better!, Warm & Fozzie, Wokka Wokka!, and Excuse Moi!--for Christmas, and of the four colors, I was immediately drawn to Excuse Moi! (mmmmmglitter) and Designer... De Better!

I've seen a lot of other reviews call Designer a silver foil, but to me, it looks much more champagne-based. In some lights, it does look silver, but, to my eyes, in the vast majority of lights, it has a warmer color to it than I'd feel comfortable calling "silver". Not warm enough to be considered pale gold, but somewhere between pale gold and silver.

Now, normally, I think a champagne color would have me all "Meh.", but Designer... De Better! also has pinky-copper bits in there, too, and for me, that's what makes this color stand out. It's still a bit on the conservative side for my tastes, but it's far from blah.

I only have the mini-bottles (for now...), so I could only fit two nails on the bottle for pictures.
Artificial light, no flash.

Oh, OPI. Thank you so much for paying tribute to The Muppets. I LOVE YOU, JIM HENSON!
Artificial Light, flash.

I used three coats of this color for full coverage, and the finish was so nice and smooth. I think maybe I'm just so used to adding glitter on top of everything these days that I'm getting accustomed to kind of bumpy finishes. Removal was a little annoying, since the little particles really wanted to stick to my nails, but a little bit of elbow grease did the trick.

...

Oh my God, I hate when I start getting sleepy or distracted while typing up posts and lose my train of thought, but that's exactly what just happened. I yawned, and everything else I was going to say instantly blinked out of my head.

So, uhhhh, yeah. Two manicures. And kidney stones and cake! And I guess that's about it. I'm totally going to wrap this up right now so I can go back to bed for a few hours.

Oh, the joys of working from home. <3

Have a colorful Tuesday, everyone.

Haul And Oates.

Alrighty, then. First things first (and anyone on my Facebook has probably already seen me mention this): I don't think I like my blog name. I'm just not a "cute" girl. I mean, it seemed like a decent name for a nail blog on the day I decided to create this one, but every time I log in, I can't help but feel like "RealCuteNails" just isn't me.

So, I've been thinking about renaming my blog. I do have four make that five followers now (try not to be jealous of my immense popularity), so I'm hoping that if I do find a new name that I like, they'll be willing to make the switch with me.

My friend, Rhosslyn, suggested something along the lines of "Aren Gets Nail'd", which--with it's silly innuendo--seems more up my alley.

So, any feedback from the peanut gallery on this one? What do you think of getting nail'd? If I make the switch, will you come with me? Please? *puppy dog eyes*

Anyway, I got my second Kleancolor haul on Monday, which was crazy impressive, since it shipped from California and I placed the order at, like, six o'clock in the evening last Thursday. (On a related note, did anyone else hear about the postal service shutting down a bunch of offices and cutting back the delivery time on First Class Mail?)

I ordered from beautécosmétique through Amazon, and they were just awesome. I kept changing my mind about colors and all sorts of stuff, and they were super friendly and very prompt about replying to my emails. In fact, when I asked to change out one color just a bit too late (my fault entirely), they said that if I ever order from them again, they'd be happy to include the color I wanted at no extra cost, which I think is pretty rockin' of them. So yeah, if you're in the market for twenty four Kleancolors (you pick the colors!) for $29.00 plus shipping, I recommend beautécosmétique, all the way.

I'll do reviews on individual colors as I wear them, but for now, as promised, here are some pictures of my Kleancolor collection:

Bwaaahahahaha, twenty four new colors all for meeeeee!

All my Kleancolors. Acquired in a mere four orders. I'm good like that.

Because I'm anal, I had to line them all up by color. I was assisted by Merriweather, who decided to photobomb this pic a little.

This is what I do when I'm bored. Swatch the shit out of nail wheels, trying to come up with interesting ideas. The gradients on the two middle nails here were done using ten of the Kleancolor metallics, plus one of their other colors.

I'm so stoked about all my new polishes. I'm completely out of room in my boxes to store them, so I guess it's time to invest in some sort of storage unit so that I can keep all my stuff together, instead of having multiple shoeboxes of polish stacked next to my dresser, with even more loose polishes stacked on top of them...

Anyway, I figured that since I haven't even swatched half of the colors from my first Kleancolor haul back in October, I had better get crackalackin', so I grabbed a bottle and went to work.

When I was placing my order for this haul, I was a little hesitant about adding pastels, because I haven't really used many pastel polishes, I wasn't sure how they'd look against my skin or if they'd be too cutesy for me.

In the end, I decided to only buy one pastel polish, and went with blue. I seriously considered Pastel Purple and Pastel Teal, but in the end, blue just seemed the most wearable to me. Now that I've seen it on my hands, I'm thinking I'd like to get the teal and purple as well.

Kleancolor Pastel Blue is, as the name would suggest, a pastel blue (*shock and awe*). When I asked my boyfriend for his opinion, he said it's "very Easterly". Application was fine. The first coat went on a bit streaky, the second coat evened the color out nicely, and I added a third "security coat" just to make sure it was perfectly opaque with nary a streak in sight.

I loved it. Beautiful. Since my skin is so pale anyway (thank you, iron-definciency anemia and PMLE!), the color suited me very well. And, of course, the Aquarian in me just loves water-type colors in general--give me more blues and greens and teals and silvers!--so Pastel Blue was just chock full of win all around.

Almost.

Now, Kleancolors are great polishes. They're super affordable, and they actually have some really unique colors, which is always awesome. But there are two main drawbacks to this brand:

1. They're smelly. As I've mentioned before (and countless others have mentioned before me), Kleancolors have a pretty pungent chemical smell to them, unlike any other polish I've used. I didn't notice it with my Holos, but every other Kleancolor I own is definitely a bit stinky.

2. Some of them take forever to dry. I don't know what it is, man, but I know I'm not the only one who's noticed this. A lot of the chunkier glitters dry reasonably quickly, as most glitters are wont to do, but I've noticed with a few other colors that they just seem to want to stay squishy and dentable for way longer than seems normal.

As was the case with Pastel Blue. Even though I waited about seven or eight minutes between coats, then an extra ten minutes before adding a layer of quick-dry top coat, my nails just didn't seem to want to harden up.

After about an hour, I figured I was safe enough to go about my day, and decided to take a shower. This is were I made my mistake. Turns out, my nails were still not completely dry, so all my scrubbing and hair washing in the shower ended up leaving me with tip wear/chippies only an hour after application. Bummer.

Luckily, it's pretty minor and not really noticeable unless you're me, which I am, so it's annoying the shit out of me. But to the rest of the world, I'm sure my nails look pretty okay.

Artificial light, no flash. I think I also left my camera set for fluorescent lighting, which would explain why my fingers look so orange-y. Damn it.

Artificial light, flash. Totally used my non-dominant hand to snap these two pictures, since the tip wear on my right hand was less apparent than on my left.

So yeah. I dunno. That's all really. I kinda ran out of things to say...

Uhhhh... I like this color. I'm glad I bought it. Yay for my haul...

Ummm. No, seriously. My mind just went completely blank.

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Yeah, if I was gonna say anything else interesting, I've completely forgotten what it was. You can stop reading now.

Hope you all have a fun weekend!

Can You Dig It?

Well, I've been in a bit of a funk lately, so a few days ago, I decided to paint my nails blue to go with my mood.

I'm a pretty big fan of the whole green/blue/purple spectrum in general, and tend to gravitate toward those colors when painting my nails. But there was one blue in my collection that I'd only ever used on two nails, back when I did a crazy rainbow mani/pedi a few months back (which I'm sure I'll post pics of at a later date).

So I decided to give OPI Just Groovy a fair shot on its own*, and I liked what I saw. : )

OPI Just Groovy is a lightish medium blue. Almost a sky blue. Now, I don't know if I'm the only one that always pictures really pale, soft blues when I hear 'sky blue', and is always amazed at how vivid the sky actually is on clear, sunny days, but Just Groovy is definitely a vivid sky blue.

Direct sunlight

I only used two coats, although I probably would've been happier with three, because if I looked hard enough, I could still just barely see some areas that were thinner than others (you can see what I'm talking about on my index and middle fingers in the picture above). But I also obsessively scrutinize my nails, so there's always that.

Natural light, shade.

 Application was a breeze, which I expect from OPI polishes, and the color on my nails was true to what it looks like in the bottle. It also dried shiny as heck before I even added a top coat. This manicure did chip like crazy after about two days, though, which was disappointing.

Overall, I actually ended up liking this color more than I thought I would, and I'll probably use it more often now.

RCN Ratings:

• Price: 4/5 (I received this one as a gift, but OPI's generally retail for around $8 or $9, which is on the high end of my nail polish price scale. In my opinion, they're totally worth it, though.)
• Packaging: 5/5
• Performance: 4/5 

What do you think? Is this color totally groovy, or is it the pits?

*I always use NailTek Foundation II Ridge Filling Base Coat to provide an even surface and prevent staining, and Sally Hansen Dries Instantly 30 Second Top Coat for quick and easy shine.