Half Moon Mani with Cult Nails

Working my way through my untrieds, I decided to wear Mind Control from Cult Nails Super Powers collection.  I bought the entire collection to take advantage of the pre-sale pricing and I've given much love to Time Traveler and Clairvoyant, but I'd put off wearing Mind Control until it really felt like a wintry day to wear this vampy shade.

Cult describes Mind Control as "a deep, slate greyed-purple with brain washing bursts of pink/purple glitter that shifts slightly to provide a golden glimmer."  I think the jelly base is more of a dark gray than a greyed-purple, and it's definitely packed with pink/purple glitter. The gold shift is slightly visible around the edges of my nails - especially on my pointer and pinky.  I think the real star of Mind Control is the glitter. There's tons of it so, even though this is a dark color, it keeps sparkling even in low lighting.  Even with a jelly base, Mind Control was good to go in two coats.

I was happy with this mani, but then I received my New Year's Sale package.  I'd been paying attention to my Twitter and noticed Cult was having a flash sale, so I finally got Coveted, Flushed, and Untamed because I wanted to get my hands on the discounted limited edition shades, especially before their 2013 price increase.  I couldn't wait to try Flushed, so I decided to layer!

Since I just found my reinforcement labels, it seemed like a good time to practice a half moon mani. Using my rediscovered stickers, I added two coats of Flushed and got this purple shimmery goodness!

Sunlight - what is that shimmer?! Awesomeness!!

Shade

I loved the way this came out!!!  I love the look of half moon manicures, but I also feel very self-conscious when I'm wearing them.  This mani was so smooth and shiny, it had shimmer and glitter, the moons came out decently crisp, but the overall look was still subtle.  I'm looking forward to wearing Flushed on its own, but I'm going to wear it like this for a few more days first!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Locavore

I've been trying to make a peel-off glue base coat work for me, so that means glitter, glitter, glitter!

It was supposed to be really easy - take some glue like Elmer's, swish it around with a little water in an empty polish bottle, use as base coat, peel off mani when done. Easier said than done because my first few tries didn't work at all! First, I used too much water and the base coat wouldn't dry. Then, I tried again without thinning the glue but I polished my nails before waiting a full 10 minutes for the base coat to dry.  My polish stuck to my nails like cement! Normally, that's good, but not when you want your polish to peel off in one piece. My third try was a charm and my polish peeled off like it was supposed to! What I've learned - glue as a base coat is great if you have 10-15 minutes to let it fully dry, so it looks like I'm going back to regular base coat and Zoya Remove+ for my glitter manis.

For New Year's and my peel-off success, I wore Rescue Beauty Lounge Locavore. This is my bottle from the original Spring/Summer 2009 collection. This shade's been re-released through Ji's Bring It Back voting. I'm not sure if the new version is identical to this one, but I still recommend getting your own bottle while it's still around!

RBL's site says that Locavore is a "melange of gold, silver, green and blue glitter," but it's obvious in my bottle and on the nail that this version also has pink glitter.  The base of Locavore is thin and clear so I'm wearing three coats for opacity and it only takes one coat of Seche Vite to make this mani smooth.

After wearing so many glitter polishes with different shapes and sizes in their mix, Locavore is a nice glitter palate cleanser. All the glitter is tiny and round, the color combination is perfectly celebratory, it's opaque enough to be worn without layering over a base color, it's smooth on the nail, and sparkles for days. I love hex and square glitter and colored jelly bases, but I had forgotten how nice it is to wear a straightforward glitter polish like this.

Happy New Year to everyone!! I hope we all have a great 2013!!!

World Diabetes Day - Cult Nails Let Me Fly

Today I'm wearing blue nails in honor of World Diabetes Day.  An American Indian is 2.2 times more likely to have diabetes compared to a non-Hispanic white and 95% of American Indians with diabetes have Type 2.  This is the highest rate of diabetes among all U.S. racial and ethnic groups.

As a member of the Pascua Yaqui tribe, I've seen many of my relatives afflicted with Type 2 diabetes in their later years.  My closest family members have all had brushes with pre-diabetes diagnoses.  With greater knowledge and improved education about diabetes, prevention through healthy lifestyle changes is now a priority and daily goal for my family.

This day isn't just about my family or this country - it's about how diabetes affects us all on a global scale.  Not all forms of diabetes are preventable, but lifestyle changes may help prevent cases of Type 2 diabetes.  I recommend checking out the International Diabetes Federation site and the American Diabetes Association sites for more information. 

Here's Let Me Fly is from the Cult Nails Spring/Summer 2011 Day At The Races collection.

This dusty teal is filled with silver fleck shimmer.  At some angles, it looks like there's pink and blue shimmer, too.  This polish is opaque and goes on smoothly in two thin coats.  There's something very calming about this muted blue.  Fortunately, Let Me Fly isn't one of the limited edition Cult Nails shades so everyone still has an opportunity to get their own bottle.

L'Oreal Enchanted Queen

What in the world are these nail stickers??!?!

I love the look of a half-moon manicure.  I love the convenience of nail polish strips - they last about a week on me and there's no dry time.  I love Project Runway. 

So I used my Ulta coupon on the Enchanted Queen Nail Stickers from the limited edition L'Oreal Project Runway Electric Fantasie collection expecting it to be exactly what I would do on my nails if I had any nail art skills. 

These were a package of 18 stickers (9 sizes to fit each hand) in black, white, and red.  The non-striped stickers had white half moons with the different card suit shapes.  I really like the design of these stickers.  Unfortunately, that's all I liked about them.  My mistake was expecting the same results from polish *stickers* that I get from nail polish strips.

I'm not the best at the Claw Hand Pose, but I had to show off my cool striped thumb.

The package says they'll last up to 10 days and this is what they looked like by Day 2.  They don't have the formula nor flexibility to wrap and adhere to the nail edge.  I used a coarse, fine, and glass nail file trying to remove the excess sticker.  Nothing produced a smooth edge.  Instead, all my nails ended up with ragged, scratchy tip wear.  The edges kept catching on everything, so I had lint-like fuzzies hanging from at least one nail at all times.

I really liked the look of the design and didn't want the money spent on these to go to waste, so I tried to seal the edges with a clear top coat.  The stickers rejected the top coat!  I tried a thick, fast drying and a thinner, non-fast drying top coat - both dried with bubbles and peeled right off. 

These nail stickers retail for around $8.99, which is way too much for nails that look frayed within a day.  Looks like I'm going to have to work on my nail art skills and see if I can do a mani like this with real polish.  Drat!

Did anyone have better luck with these stickers - this design or any of the others from the collection?

L'Oreal Silver Sparkle

Oh, so... shiny!

Now, I know not everyone likes wild colors, but I'm pretty sure every polish princess (definitely the ones that I know) loves GLITTER! A hot new trend this spring has been the prismatic effect. Wet n Wild and China Glaze hopped on this trend; however, these colors went fast. I was fortunate enough to snag the reasonably priced/elusive Wet n Wild versions for Andi and myself and skipped over buying the pricier (although VERY pretty) China Glaze versions. I would highly recommend both.

I went to Walgreens and saw they were having a promotion on L'Oreal nail colors, buy one get one 50% off. This would allow you to get TWO of the new L'Oreal polishes for under $8. Nothing really tickled my fancy, until I saw this silver/pearl prism in the back... all on its lonesome. This is L'Oreal Silver Sparkle and it is truly cute and sparkly!

As we silly chicks would say, "Totally adorbs!"

The first thing I noticed about this polish was that it's not really "silver". It has rainbow-reflecting, holgraphic mini-hex chunks, micro silver and micro iridescent glitter floating around in a pearl-ish base. Although it will reflect some glitter in outdoor lighting, it reminds me very much of Mother of Pearl chips. Under indoor lighting, it seems more opaque and this "pearl" look is more noticeable. In outdoor or bright lighting, the base seems more clear and the glitter chunks are more prevalent.

The formula was fairly nice on the consistency scale. The glitter didn't give it a chunky feeling at all and I didn't have to play around with the brush to get the glitter to evenly distribute. Both pictures reflect two coats on top of Nail Tek Foundation II, then I layered two coats of top coat to give it a smooth finish.

I would highly recommend this polish... if you can find a lonely or hiding bottle at your local drug store. It would look FABULOUS layered on top of a fun blue, black or coral... anything really! It's sheer when you apply only one coat, but will leave you with well dispersed amount of glitter. It looks very cute worn alone and for my pals out there that LOVE the glitter/prism look, but don't necessarily like "unicorny" or "adventurous" colors... buy L'Oreal Silver Sparkle and accessorize ANY outfit with a simple, but striking mani!

Silver Sparkle is from the L'Oreal Summer 2012 It's Gold or Nothing At All collection.  This is a limited edition seasonal collection, so go look for that display!

SinfulColors - Morning Star, Soul Mate, Greek Isles

I picked up some SinfulColors polishes during last week's 99 cent sale at Walgreens.  They've had so many limited edition seasonal collections recently that I went to town buying all the new shades I could find.  Here are the three I've worn so far this week...

Morning Star - a new shade from their Girls in Pearls Sheer Shimmers collection

This is a light blue shade with silver shimmer flecks.  It's a soft sky blue that doesn't lean purple on me - I've seen it get more periwinkle with lavender tones on people with other skin tones. Nice and delicate and very spring-like.

Soul Mate - I think this one's from the core collection

This dusty rose pink was thick. I tried to use two coats with all of these polishes, but Soul Mate could've worked with one coat. This shade is getting some thinner added before I wear it again. It still went on pretty smooth for a $1 creme. This is a conservative color, but it was a nice spring-y pink to wear before we jump into summer neons.

Greek Isles - a new shade from the Spring 2012 Cast Away collection

Indirect Light - my poor hands needed moisture and a little touching up

Under the Ott light after shaping & clean up

This is Tiffany blue cousin that leans green with a touch of gray. I decided that even at half off prices, the Zoya Earth Day sale still exceeded my low buy budget when I factored in S&H. Greek Isles is the shade I bought to console me from missing out on Bevin.

SinfulColors go on sale pretty often, but some of these new shades might be limited edition.  They have decent opacity, a slightly thick but workable formula, and wear great with my Cult Nails Get Even base coat and Poshe Fast Dry top coat.  If you find some of the seasonal shades that jump out at you, don't wait for a sale. Go ahead and spend those $2 so you don't end up with buyer's remorse like I almost had with the Cast Away and Girls in Pearls collections.  I walked away and almost didn't find them again.

Not sure if the shade's new or just a misplaced core polish placed in the display?  Check the bottom of the bottle - if it has a number in the thousands (i.e. 1107, 1116), it's a new shade.

Milani - Pool Party!

With sandal weather fast approaching, I started my regular routine of pedicures at my favorite salon. I usually skip the manicure, because I like to do that myself during "unwind time" at home, but NOTHING beats an hour in a massage chair being pampered! Going about once or twice a month, truly keeps your feet and toenail beds healthy and neat. I highly suggest finding an inexpensive/experienced nail tech in your area and give yourself the gift of "me time." YOU DESERVE IT!

I like to bring my own nail polish to the salon, because... well... I have more colors than the salon! Also, nail salons tend to be a little community, where everyone converses about anything from favorite recipes to beauty tips to local news. Often I'll have another patron borrow my polish for their mani/pedi and for a moment in time I become the nail salon hero! *Takes off nerd glasses and puts on polish cape!*

On this particular day, I had gone to Target to pick up my weekly list items and (of course) trolled the polish/cosmetic aisle to scope out any colors I didn't already have. I spotted the fun and iridescent Milani Pool Party. Having an affinity for blues and at a pocket friendly $4.99, I picked it up and brought it to my pedicure appointment.

The nail tech at this particular salon loves doing cute designs and really keeps up on nail trends... she brought out a board of designs for me to scope out. Now, I'm not normally a "design" girl, but I feel that toes are supposed to be painted cute and fun. Since designs can last two, sometimes three weeks, it seems more "worth it" to me to get them on the toes. As I looked through flowers and glitter... *GASP* HELLO KITTY FRENCH!!!! I had her use my Milani Pool Party as a base and you can see the results at the bottom of this post (there will be some foot in the picture - you've been warned!).

The pedicure inspired this manicure. Like I said, I'm not normally a "nail design person" and I don't normally like colored frenchies on myself, but Milani Pool Party definitely changed my mind! I applied three coats to my tips, using this technique posted by fellow polish enthusiast ValentinaDang. Try it out! It's super easy and I know you'll love your results.

 

Three coats of Milani Pool Party

These are the tools/polishes I used to achieve this particular manicure. I love Nail Tek Foundation II, it's a great nutrient packed ridge filling base coat that tames even the most unruliest nails! Wicked Fast top coat by Cult Nails ALWAYS pays out in the shine department and I find that the shine lasts about four days; that's pretty intense considering how hard I am on my nails most of the time. For the brush to clean up the french manicure, I just used a 99 cent eyeshadow brush from the drug store!

R to L: Cult Nails Wicked Fast top coat, Milani Pool Party, NailTek Foundation II base coat

Three coats of Milani Pool Party achieves full opacity, making it a more brilliant blue that reflects greens, golds and even some pinks. I used two coats as the base color on my toes and you can see how easily this can be used as a versatile summer shade, as a light iridescent sky blue or as a bright aqua beachy blue.

Pool Party was neither gloppy nor watery. Milani really got this formula right! It evened itself out as it dried and even with three coats on the tips it dried fairly quickly, even before the top coat was applied. GREAT buy at $4.99!

Now for the super cute Hello Kitty pedicure!

You can see the lighter (two coat) blue and the AWESOME Hello Kitty! There are lots of Youtube tutorials to try your own Hello Kitty french manicure at home.

If you're not usually a "nail art person" either, I encourage you to give it a try, anything from a pearl mani to an easy/classic frenchie. Play around with it and definitely add a bottle of this cool and versatile blue by Milani to your summer staples!