Okay, I Can Die Happy Now. (Except Not Really.)

Someone *coughcough* got her bottle of (♪♫ daa-da-da-da-da-da-daaaaaa! ♫♪) CLARINS 230 today!!!

Mmmmmsorainbowy. ^___________^

Unfortunately, no pics in this post. I know, I know, super boring. It's been really shitty and overcast lately, and indoor lighting just doesn't do my precious justice, so on the next sunny day, I'll snap some pics.

 But I'm so excited, you have no idea.

A special thanks goes out to my friend, Lindsey, who actually placed the order for me, and with whom I'll be going in on a 48 piece Kleancolor haul tomorrow. Yeah, that's right. Twenty four brand new colors each. Ohmygodicantwait.

And that's in addition to the three polishes I ordered on Amazon the other day.

So I guess I really am gonna have to stop slacking, 'cause I've got a butt-ton of swatching to do soon. And I should probably stop spending money on nail polish for a while, too, before I go completely broke.

Anywho, I'm just all stoked about my new shinyshiny and wanted to share my deep and everlasting joy with the rest of you.

That is all.

Some Ladies Purple Their Fingernails.

...So much for not slacking. *dies*

Well, I've painted my nails a few times since my last post, and I only snapped pictures of a few of the polishes (shame on me!). And then I totally lazed out and didn't bother editing the pictures, and then I was all "Ughhhh, whyyy?" about having to put any effort into writing a post, so, uh, I didn't.

But I am now. So at least there's that, right?

Anyway, today I bring you pictures of Kleancolor Holo Chrome. I bought the whole six piece Holo set on Amazon (it's labeled as the Starry Spring collection). Five of the six Holos are jelly based (Holo Yellow has a more metallic finish than the others) and all of them fairly packed with holographic microglitter (read: RAINBOW SPARKLIES!!!!!).

Now, there's a bit of a pattern to this collection. Holo Pink is a pastel pink jelly with holo microglitter. Holo Blue is a pastel blue with holo microglitter. Holo Orange and Holo Green follow suit. And even though Holo Yellow has a slightly different base, the actual color of the polish is... you guessed it: yellow.

So it stands to reason that Holo Chrome would be a some type of chrome polish with holo microglitter, right? WRONG! It's purple. But it's called Holo Chrome. Because just calling it Holo Purple would've been stupid.

Anywho, Holo Chrome is one of the two polishes in the collection that have a second, more subtle glitter added to the mix (the other polish is Holo Orange).  Holo Chrome not only has the standard holo microglitter, but there's also some tiny iridescent blue/violet glitter in there. You can't really tell unless you really look for it, but when combined with the purple jelly base of this polish, that subtle iridescent glitter really helps this polish to pop.

Artificial light. You can kinda make out the iridescent blue glitters in this picture. Like I said, super subtle, especially paired with all the holo glitter. But it's definitely in there.

Artificial light. A little blurry to help show the glitter.

Artificial light. And angles! Because it's always good to have some perspective.

 Application was fine. Because of the jelly base, these polishes take a few coats to build up to opaque. I think I used four coats* for this one. The polish dries pretty quickly, though, so that kind of makes up for the need for so many coats. The finish is a bit gritty, and it took two coats of topcoat to even out the surface (and, as you can see in the pictures, it still wasn't quite glass-smooth).

Flash. Holo Chrome is the least pastel of the collection. All the other polishes are quite a bit less bold.

Flash. Oh, holo glitter, I love you so. I seriously just sit and stare at my hands all the time when I use the polishes from this collection.

Some people have complained that Kleancolor polishes have a horrible smell to them. I haven't noticed this with any of mine. They may smell a bit different than some of my other polishes, but it's been my experience that different brands and different formulations have slightly different chemically smells on a fairly regular basis. The smell of Kleancolors doesn't strike me as particularly strong or offensive.

Natural light, shade.

Natural light, shade. Again. And now I'm getting distracted and just want to finish this post, so I'm not going to think of a good caption for this one.

I really like this color. I'm like a four year old. Anything that sparkles--especially rainbow sparkles--is going to score huge points in my book. And ever since I read the book 'Hailstones And Halibut Bones' by Mary O'Neill when I was, like, seven years old, purple polish has had a special place in my heart. So yeah, this polish is chock full of win.

RCN Ratings:

• Price: 5/5 (I paid $12.95 for the six piece set)
• Packaging: 5/5
• Performance: 5/5

 And, just 'cause it still makes the little kid in me happy:

What Is Purple?

by Mary O'Neill

Time is purple just before night

when most people turn on the light--
but if you don't it's a beautiful sight.

Asters are purple, there's purple ink.

Purple's more popular than you think...

it's sort of a great Grandmother to pink.

There are purple shadows and purple veils,

some ladies purple their fingernails.

There's purple jam and purple jell

and a purple bruise next day will tell

where you landed when you fell.

The purple feeling is rather put-out

the purple look is a definite pout.

But the purple sound is the loveliest thing

It's a violet opening in the spring.

*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.

Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na-Na, BATMAN-ICURE!

Nail Nerd posted a very cute homage to Wonder Woman recently, so I suggested she do a Batman manicure too, since I lovelovelovelovelove Batman (I even have the Batman logo tattooed on my lower back!).

And, because she is awesome, the Nerd complied with my request. Does that manicure not blow your mind with joy!? 

I absolutely love reading Nerd's blog because she's constantly coming up with such creative ideas (I mean, c'mon, marijuana pistils? Who else would DO that!?), and because she executes them so well. Plus she posts new manicures all. the. time., which is great for someone like me, who can't get enough of oogling beautiful polishes.

And THAT is why she's my nail girlfriend. *nods* ^___^

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.

Slackers... In... SPAAAAAAACE!

Wow, I'm off to a slow start with this whole nail blogging thing. And I know giving excuses is super lame, but I'm not going to deny the fact that I've been feeling like a bag of smashed ass lately, and it's kind of been sapping my motivation to do... well... anything. I'll try to be better about posting, but, uh, I'm not making any promises right now. : P

ANNNYway, since I already had these pictures edited and sitting in my "Ready For Blog" folder, here's a layered manicure I did about a week ago that was a little bit girly and (to me, anyway) a little bit spacy. I don't have a name for it, although I usually try to come up with cute names for my designs. Maybe this one can be "PK Barbie". (Twenty five nerd points and a bonus twenty five cool points to anyone that gets that reference without looking it up.). Like I said, I'm feeling pretty "weh", so I'm not gonna get all frilly with my description.

Here:

First*, I laid down two coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Night Flight (my favorite black polish EVAR), and let that dry. Which didn't take long. You know. Insta-Dri. ; )

Then I slapped on a coat of Sally Hansen HD Byte, which is pretty sheer, but added a pretty magenta/blue duochrome glass fleck effect. I wish my camera could capture the colors better.

Next up was a coat of Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor, which added subtle blue-green iridescent glitter.

Then I decided to add a coat of Essie Matte About You to bring out the glittery shimmery effect. In this shot, I have Matte About You on my middle and pinkie fingers so you can see the difference it makes in the overall look.

The final effect. Again, I wish my camera was better at capturing duochromes and glitters. Ah, well.

I had actually come up with the idea for this manicure about a month ago, when I was playing around with my nail wheels, and I really thought I was going to love it, but... I kinda didn't. I dunno. It just didn't do it for me once it was on my hands. I ended up taking it off after two or three days.

Eh, ya win some, ya lose some. 

What do you think? Any good advice or experiences anyone wants to share regarding layering?

*I always use NailTek Foundation II Ridge Filling Base Coat to provide an even surface and prevent staining.

It Ain't Easy Bein' Green... And Yellow.

A few weeks back, my friend, Amanda, asked me my opinion on color-changing "mood" polishes. I told her that I had bought two Mood Struck polishes (a blue-to-neon-blue and teal-to-turquoise) at my local drug store for about four dollars each, and that I thought they were pretty neat.

We started talking about all the different colors available, and I mentioned that they had a green-to-yellow at the store that I had eyeballed, since I love greens, but since I'm not big on yellow nails (they make me think of pee and fungus), I didn't bother getting it.

Well, after our discussion, my curiosity got the better of me, and I went back to the store and bought not only the green-to-yellow, but the berry-pink-to-hot-pink, and two other nail polishes, too!

Even though I wasn't sure I was going to like it, I decided to try the green-to-yellow right away*. 

The polish applies a kind of murky green that my camera can't quite seem to capture (with flash, it looks like a bright green, and in most pictures without flash, it looks grey--like my camera just completely desaturated it), and then turns yellow as your body heat warms it. I don't know if it's just my crappy circulation or what, but the "yellow" never went brighter than, like, a neon lime green on me, which I was totally fine with, and actually preferred. If you'd got long nails, the tips stay green while the rest goes yellow, creating a pretty neat french manicure-y look.

It must be much warmer in my bedroom than it is where I have my laptop set up in the dining room, because while my nails would go all lime green with dark tips in my room, down here, they were always just straight up green.

All with flash.
I took these shortly after going up to my room, after using the computer for a while. As my hands warmed up, the polish changed colors.

Natural light on a cloudy day--this is the closest picture I was able to get to the actual color of this polish.

Every time I looked at my hands, I started thinking about Kermit the Frog. ♥

I used hot and cold water to to get it the greenest and yellowest I could :

Left: After being dipped in cold water
Middle: My normal temperature
Right: After being dipped in hot water

As much as I loved the end result, I will say that application was a bit of a pain. The consistency of this polish was much thinner than my blue-to-neon-blue and teal-to-turquoise polishes, and it took SIX coats to build up to opaque, and even with all those coats, I could still clearly see my nail line when the polish was all yellow. Luckily, since the tips (at the very least) were usually green, that wasn't a problem. 

The color lasted about a week on me before I started to notice where it was starting to peel a bit at the sides of my nails. And I gotta say, I couldn't stop looking at my hands that whole week. I thought I was gonna hate it, but I actually really liked this polish.

RCN Ratings:

• Price: 5/5
• Packaging: 4/5 (The product label has big air bubbles under it and is peeling at the corners, which makes it feel a bit cheap. The caps on these are super chunky too--as wide as the bottles--which can be awkward sometimes.)
• Performance: 4/5 (It loses a point for being so thin and needing so many coats)
  

So, what do you guys think? Would you wear this?

Also, does anyone else think that Mood Stuck's color names are super boring? I mean, come on. "Green-to-Yellow"? The whole time I had this on, I kept thinking that if I had been in charge of naming it, I'd have called it Toxic/Acid. But that's just me...

*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.

I Think I Need To Put In My Sublime CD...

...because I have a new nail-girlfriend, and her recent post totally bowled me over, even though there's a stigma attached to ganja..

For some cute, creative, unique nail art ideas, check out NailNerd.com. : )

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.

Heeere I Come To Save The Daaay!

Don't you hate it when nail polishes get all thick and gloopy? I can't count the number of bottles I've thrown away because they'd gotten old and gone bad. Polishes that I loved, but couldn't use because they were so globby. So into the trash they went, never to been seen again.

So, you can imagine how stupid I felt when I read that nail polishes never go bad*, and that they can be saved by one easy to use miracle product: polish thinner.

Of course, I had to get me some of this wonder of science.

I decided to go with Seche Restore, since I'd heard such good things about Seche Vite top coat (allll the nail polish bloggers rave about it).

Seche Restore is a clear liquid and it has a pretty normal nail polish-y chemical smell (it is, after all, just the solvents that keep polishes flowing smoothly). The product comes in a little bottle, about the same size and shape as a regluar nail polish bottle. The main difference is that Restore doesn't have a brush attached to the cap.

Instead, it comes with a separate eyedropper, which you use to suck up a little of the Restore, and add it--drop by drop--to the nail polish that needs thinning. Then you just roll the bottle (or shake like crazy, if you're not planning on using it for half an hour or so) to incorporate the thinner and the polish. Thinners evaporate pretty quickly, so I try to get in and out with the dropper as fast as I can, so I can get the cap back on the bottle.

Sorry about the weird background. I was, uh, experimenting.

So far, I've thinned about six or seven of my polishes. Some were only slightly thicker than what I consider ideal, so they only took three or four drops. I have one glitter top coat that I think is so pretty, but I couldn't use it because it had thickened to an almost paste-like consistency. Before I added the Restore to it, the bottle was only about a third of the way full of the congealed polish. After thinning it back to a proper consistency, I have almost a full bottle of polish (sweet!). Needless to say, that bottle used more than three or four drops. More like three or four eyedroppers--and the eyedropper holds about twelve drops. So.

I have to say, whether they only needed a little thinning or a whole lot of it, every single polish I thinned out--except one--is now perfect (I wish I had thought to take before/after pics). I accidentally added a little too much thinner to one of my smaller polish bottles, so the polish is really thin now. I've been letting the bottle sit open for fifteen minutes or so whenever I'm up in my room playing with my other polishes, so that the solvents can evaporate a bit and the polish can thicken back up to where I want it.

But other than that (which I can't hold against the Restore, since it was my own fault), it really is an amazing product. I wish, wish, wish I'd known about this stuff years ago. When I think about all the polishes I could still have--some that I just threw out less than a year ago--it makes me want to cry a little.

So yeah. Anyway, I'm totally digging this thinner. When it's used up, I'll probably pick up a bottle of Orly thinner, since Orly's bottle is not only bigger, but it's cheaper too (about $5.00/.5 fl oz of Seche vs. $3.99/2 fl oz. of Orly). I don't see that happening for a while, though, since I've already thinned out all the goopy polishes I had, and I still have half of my Seche left. : )

RCN Ratings:

• Price: 4/5

• Packaging: 4/5 (-1 star because I'm always annoyed by wasteful cardboard packaging--I feel that they could have incorporated the dropper into the cap so that they didn't have to package the two separate items in a box. Plus that way, you'd never have to worry about losing the dropper. Just sayin'.)
• Performance: 5/5

*No, seriously, they don't. Check out this post by Scrangie. This is actually the post that enlightened me as to the existence of thinners. So yeah, a BIG thank you to Scrangie for writing quite possibly one of the most important posts I've ever read. : )

Happy (Day After My) Zero-th Blogoversary To Me!

In honor of my zero-th blog anniversary (I don't think 'zero-th' is an actual word, but I don't know how to make zero like '1st', '2nd', '3rd', etc., so 'zero-th' it is)--which actually happened yesterday, but my friend Caitlin just suggested the idea of a zero-th blog anniversary today--I'm not doing much of anything. : |

Except making this post.

And since this is kind of like the beginning of things, I guess I should post some pictures of where I'm at with my collection at this time. I'm not going to name off all the colors in this post. You'll just have to wait until I do swatches. ; )

If I'm still doing this blog in a year, I'll take some new pics of my collection, and we can see how it's changed. Or something like that.

These pictures will stand as a testament to my neophyte photography skills. Ew. 

This is my "winners box"; the polishes I love--and use--most. Plus my stamping plates.

This is the rest of my collection (minus a couple I've put up for trade, so I don't really consider them "mine" any more).

My swatches. I also have two wheels of sheers, with each color swatched in one coat and then built up to opaque, but since all my sheers are also included on my color wheels, I didn't bother including them in this picture.

I'd really like to get one of those little plastic bin/dresser thingies with, like, three drawers so that I can store my stuff properly. Right now, I have a little too much to store in these two boxes, so when everything's in there (I also store my remover and my stamping tools in my winners box), it's all kind of jumbled and stuff's stacked on top of other stuff, and it's just a mess. But I'm fairly broke, so. I'm sure spending all my spare money on nail polish isn't helping matters...

So yeah. Um. This is the beginning. Woohoo. And happy zero-th anniversary, everyone. ; )

P.S. Ugh, can you feel how tired and bleh I am right now? My anemia's been so bad lately. I really should take iron supplements, but they upset my stomach. But anemia also makes nails weak and peely, so...