Santa & The Unicorn Princess...

(Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.) Keeping up with a nail blog is harder than I thought. Especially when you have other areas of your life that are demanding more of your attention these days.

I'm trying though. I may procrastinate and almost-but-not-quite bother to make posts on a fairly regular basis, but every week or two, I let the guilt of letting down my legions of loyal fans get to me, and I finally upload all my pictures and edit them in Photoshop (oh, God, even just describing this process is exhausting...), and then come here and write some amazingly clever post that leaves you all in googly-eyed awe for the rest of the day, because my posts are just so worth the wait...

So anyway, let's get right down to pictures.

First up, we have a layered mani that I did... uhh... a while ago. But not too long ago. After I got my Clarins 230. Which was right around the same time that I got my first Kleancolor haul. And as soon as I saw Kleancolor Neon Purple next to Clarins 230, I knew it was Unicorn Princess love forever.

 

With flash. This is the most accurate picture of the bunch, color-wise. Can you see why I wanted to pair these colors?

Without flash.

A different angle, to show off some of 230's rainbowy goodness.

Then I was like, "Well, a Unicorn Princess would probably have, like, glitter too, right?", so I added a coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell.

Holyglitteringunicornprincessofdoom!

This picture kind of makes me lose my mind with unicorn-induced euphoria. So many colors.

One thing I noticed that I didn't anticipate is that adding the Chunky Holo Bluebell kind of obscured the Clarins when viewed from an angle. From straight on, I could still see the reddish shimmer, but at an angle, all I saw was the Kleancolor. So that was kind of sad.

Still, it was kind of nice look. I think if I was going to do this manicure again, I'd probably skip the Chunky Holo Bluebell (even though I think it's very pretty--especially in the bottle *drools over that picture again*), and I'd only do one coat of 230 over the Neon Purple instead of two. Two coats was pretty, but it turned the Neon Purple darker and gave it more of a red tone than I had really wanted. Plus I spent sixty dollars on that bottle of polish, and I fully intend to make it last!

And, because it's already five days after Christmas (and eight days after Yule--and I flaked out on BOTH holidays this year!), I figure I should probably post my holiday mani.

I was originally planning on doing all ten fingers with Kleancolor Metallic Red and a coat of OPI Fresh Frog Of Bel Air, but like, two days before Christmas, I painted my nails with Kleancolor Silver Spark and decided that I liked it's simplicity so much that I was only going to do a single holiday accent nail. This mani pretty much summed up my feelings about the holidays this year.

Okay, guys, everybody squeeze in for a group shot! Silver Spark, stop making that face!

Here's me during the holidays this year: Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Oh, it's Christmas today? Blah.

A close up of my accent nail. My dad and his girlfriend kind of loved this nail, I think. It makes me so happy that they get excited about my manicures.

Let me just say this: Kleancolor Silver Spark is a BITCH AND A HALF to remove. Foil method next time, for sure. I didn't think I'd need it, but dang was I wrong.

I dunno. Much like the actual holidays this year, I don't have much to say about this mani. It happened. That's about it.

I've got more manis to post, but, to be totally honest, I hate editing pictures to get them ready for posting, and two mani's worth of pics is all I'm willing to edit in one sitting. But just know that there are more where these came from...

Anywho, I'm running out of steam. It's been a long year, and I'm kinda tired tonight. Hope you all had a happy Yule/Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza/Festivus/whatever, and that you all have a safe and happy New Year's!

For 2011, Aren OUT!

Like A Starlight Mint. Only Not.

Alrighty, I've got two reviews for you today. (That's right. I'm getting over-ambitious after my bout of slackeriness.)

First up is a red. And before I get into the review, let me tell you this: While I adore a cherry red toenail, I am not a fan of red nail polish on fingers. I mean, I guess some people can pull it off (Penn Jillette, I'm looking at you!), but to me it always seemed kind of *cough-whorey-cough*. Aaaaaand proceed with the hate comments.

But no, really. I just never liked the look of red on hands. Least of all my hands. So even though I have a few reds in my collection, I usually just stick to a certain trusty Revlon (which I'm sure I will review eventually) or a couple of my wine/berry-red OPIs when I feel the need to do my tootsies red, but never, never my hands.

Then I started this blog. And that's when I decided I was going to have to get over my thing about certain colors being "hand colors" and certain colors being "feet colors" (to be clear, there are plenty of colors that are both "hand" and "feet" colors. But there are also some that I feel are better used exclusively for one or the other). So I decided to go ahead and go red.

OPI Got The Blues For Red is one of the colors my dad's lovely ladyfriend, Tracey, gave me a while back. I think I'd only ever used it on my toes once, and then for some reason, I kind of relegated it to the back of my nail polish box. But I dug it out and got down to business just so I could post this review for youuuuu. (Feel loved, damnit!)

Got The Blues For Red is a rich blue-based red creme. The consistency is actually a bit sheer--imagine if a creme and a jelly had a baby--but it totally works. The pictures below are two coats*. I probably should've gone with three, since I can still make out my nail line, especially in the natural light shot.

Artificial light.

Natural light.

 Got The Blues For Red surprised me. I actually loved it. It applied like a dream, and it didn't look *cough-whorey-cough* at all, although I did think it looked pretty sexy. But there's a difference.

I don't know if I loved it enough to convert me to a red fingernails kind of girl (maybe in the summer, with a cute retro bikini?), but this polish definitely earned a more coveted spot in my box-o-polishes--which is actually three boxes now, since my collection has outgrown the first two boxes.

RCN Ratings:

• Price: 4/5 (Technically, I got this for free, so that's definitely 5/5, but OPI's typically retail for about $8-9, which is on the higher end of what I usually spend. I'm a drug store kinda girl.)
  
• Packaging: 5/5
  
• Performance: 5/5

Next up is a polish I'd been wanting for a while (and by 'a while', I mean, about a week; patience is not one of my virtues).

After my Vanilla Glitter Milkshake mani, I started wondering if I could find a sheer white polish to use over glitters that wouldn't cast the same yellow/nude-y tint that Sally Hansen Sheer Me Now did, but would still work to create the milky effect. I was pretty sure I had seen a sheer-looking white in the Sally Hansen polish display at my local drug store, so over I went, and triumphantly returned home with a bottle of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Polar White.

I tried swatching it over a few of my glitter polishes on my nail wheel, and was a bit disappointed. Even though the consistency in the bottle looked the same as Sheer Me Now's, the Polar Bare just didn't have the same sort of coverage. So I decided to try it on its own* (I don't remember if I used two or three coats for these pics, sorry!):

Artificial (incandescent) light.

Artificial (CFL) light.

This polish was a pain in the butt to apply well. The nails on my left hand looked decent, but the nails on my right hand were a streaky mess (like, to the point where I had to take the polish off immediately after snapping these pics, 'cause it looked so awful). And, to be honest, the color didn't really blow me away, either. Not great over glitter, not great application, and a not great color. Paint me disappointed. : (

RCN Ratings:

• Price: 4/5
• Packaging: 5/5
• Performance: 3/5

So, which do you prefer? Are there any polish color families that you just can't stand?


*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.