Cult Nails Get It On & Wicked Fast!

I was lucky enough to be one of the few people chosen to test drive the new base and top coat from Cult Nails!  Are you ready to see what Maria's come up with this time?

I've never done this before, but... here are my bare nails (eep)!!  

I had some funky staining awhile back so I lightly buffed my nails.  As you can see, there's now a clear line straight through the middle between buffed and unbuffed nail.  I've been using a ridgefiller base coat while the buffed part grows out to make the surface even again.

Here are my nails with one coat of Cult Nails Get It On Perfecting Base Coat.

Where's the uneven line between buffed/unbuffed?  Where are my minimal ridges? Perfected! One coat and everything was smoothed over.

Get Even has a shiny finish, but not in a slick way. The dried texture is slightly rubbery so it's ready to grab on to the polish.  It also dries quickly - I can't stand base coats that take forever to set. Get Even is one of those base coats where Finger 1 is dry by the time you're done putting it on Finger 10.

It was Friday, so I was ready for fun weekend nails.  I decided to try out Get Even and Wicked Fast with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away.  This shade was released in Spring/Summer 2009, but I didn't buy it until it recently made it back on to drugstore displays as a featured shade of the season.  It's very pigmented, so some people can get away with just one coat.

I wore it here with two coats and one coat of Wicked Fast.

Here are my tips with Blue Me Away after four full days of wear.

I can't emphasize enough the importance of wrapping the tip of the fingernail with polish and top coat to my friends who want to make their manicures last longer. It really works! Don't leave the edge of the nail bare - seal that color on!

Normally, tip wear is minimized but the combo of Get Even and Wicked Fast cemented Blue Me Away on. Even after days of cleaning, typing, dish washing without gloves, there's still polish on the nail edge.

Here are my bare nails right after I took Blue Me Away off.

Four days of wearing a bright blue shade over only one coat of base coat and there was no significant staining on my nails themselves.  I even got crazy smurf fingers when I was taking Blue Me Away off - there's still a touch of blue staining on the right side of my cuticles visible - but my nails were fine!

I think one of the best tests of base/top coats is how they act with cremes because it's a very unforgiving finish.  Jellies would have to be the next hardest finish because of its tendency to bubble and pull away from the tips.  Next up was my manicure to celebrate "the end of summer" over the long Labor Day weekend.

Here are my nails with two coats of New York Summer Hot Orange, one coat of Cult Nails Captivated, and one coat of Get Even and Wicked Fast each.

Here are my nails after five full days of wear.

My nails grew out but the polish didn't go anywhere!  I wore Get Even and Wicked Fast for a day or two with other polish brands and finishes.  The results were consistently the same - once the polish dried, it stayed put nice, shiny and smooth.

I loved Get Even Perfecting Base Coat from the second it dried on my first nail.  I had to get to know the Wicked Fast! Quick Drying Top Coat before I grew to love it.  Why?  Because it's not a thick quick drying top coat, so it shouldn't be treated like one!  That seems like a logical no-brainer, but I've been using thick top coats like Seche Vite and Poshe for a few years and old habits die hard.

Wicked Fast is a thin top coat. You don't need a large bead to be slathered and oozed on the nail for it to work.  The more you put on, the slower it'll dry and the more likely it'll bubble. You don't need a thick layer or multiple coats of Wicked Fast.  One thin coat.  That's it.  Really.  That's all you'll need to make this work!  Put it on thinly and it'll dry quickly to a hard glass-like finish.

After trying Get Even and Wicked Fast for the last few weeks, I know that I'm in love. So far, they get along with all of my polishes, they make them last forever, and they're so easy to work with.  I love the Cult Nails bottle and brush and I love their formulas. Once again, Maria has blown my mind with her creations.

Get Even and Wicked Fast are expected to go on sale at the end of the month, so keep your eye on the Cult Nails shop and definitely plan on getting your own!

LA Colors Shock

Happy May Day! I love spring and I'm trying to enjoy it to its fullest. Summer is my favorite season but it lasts a long time here in Arizona. Since summer will be here from June to September, I'm making a concentrated effort to wear my spring polishes until we're hitting triple digits consistently (hey, but it's a dry heat!).

In my search for colors that are light and happy without being the brighter saturated shades of summer, I tried out a polish my husband picked out for me at Dollar Tree. Shock is a bright, yet light, orange from the LA Colors Color Craze line. I thought it looked like Sunny Delight in the bottle.

This polish looked fine at two coats, but I added a third coat for extra depth in the color. Then I got in a fight with our dryer door and slightly dinged my ring finger, but that wasn't the polish's fault. It was drying quickly, but it had no chance against a large appliance door.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Shock dried with a squishy, jelly-like finish.

Shade - Squishy!!

Unfortunately, I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that Shock took on a bit too much of a yellow-orange hue when it dried on my nails. Why couldn't it have stayed more orange-y? It's not a bad shade. Really! But I can never wear this polish again. Ever!!

Why?... Shock, when dry, is almost a dead ringer for ASU Sun Devil Gold. I'm a proud Wildcat and I just can't wear my rival school's color!!! My sister will be graduating this month with her undergrad degree from ASU, so I will be gladly and happily gifting this polish to her for a graduation pedicure. Early Congrats to Mi Hermana!

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Purple Gala

What to wear for Mardi Gras?  Something purple, something gold, something festive & sparkly... time for Purple Gala!!

This is a limited edition polish from the Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear line. The display didn't specify a season and it started popping up in July and August, so I'll say it's from their Fall 2010 collection.

Purple Gala is a sparkly foil with purple, silver, and gold glitter in a smoky purple base overlaid with lots of larger gold glitter pieces. You'll see more purple versus more gold depending on the lighting. This polish was opaque in 2 coats, but I put on a third coat for a little more depth.

This was a challenging polish to find even after it was recently released. Since that was almost a year ago and this is a limited edition shade, it might be near impossible to get Purple Gala now.  But never fear! If you like the look of Purple Gala, I recommend picking up Hard Candy's Mr. Wrong, which is close enough in color and finish to be a dupe to the casual observer.

LA Colors Color Craze!

These are Dollar Tree finds and I need to pick up some more because these three are awesome!  Just a note, their names are not printed on the bottles themselves - just the packaging.  And these names are cute, but have nothing to do with the actual color.

My first was Static Electricity.  I was not prepared for the opacity and vibrancy of this shade. I was hoping for a cheap dupe of Suzi Says Feng Shui, but there wasn't a bit of dustiness to Static Electricity on the nail. This is a bright sky blue - like the sky I would see in AZ on a clear day.  Here's one coat with a few touch ups and that was all for such a pretty, smooth, and shiny shade!

 Shade Shot - This shows how smooth this polish looks on the nail. 
And I like how the sun still hit the bottle so you can see how intense the light blue base is.  Ooooh...

Next up was Atomic, a teal-leaning green jelly-leaning creme.

This is two coats and the jellyish nature was more visible in person.

I love China Glaze and I wish I had the funds for the entire Up & Away Collection, but since I didn't, I'm very happy that I have some of their "cousins."  Really - Atomic & Static Electricity have the pigmentation and ease of application to be close relations to Up & Away.

Last, but definitely not least, is Wired. This was my favorite and I'm wearing it as a full mani this week!! I wasn't at all ready for the intensity of this blue shade - it's electric! This color blew my poor lil camera away, too, so I had issues getting it to focus and take a nice accurate shot. This is two coats of a royal blue infused with blue and turquoise metallic shimmer.  

Shade Shot - I think this is more accurate. I love the metallic intensity without the metallic brushstroke isses.
Check out the bottle - the turquoise shimmer in the middle is visible on the nail, but the purple or dark navy color at the top is nowhere to be seen.

All of these colors dried slightly lighter and a lot brighter than the bottle colors, so each one was a pleasant surprise as it was being applied.  Also, this brush was much nicer than I expected - these swatches were all done without cleanup.  I know the lack of cleanup is visible on my slightly blue-tinged cuticles, but really, there wasn't a stray hair on any of these brushes and they flared out so nicely. 

I can't believe how many times I passed this brand over in the dollar store.  My Lesson Learned: Don't judge a polish by its price tag!