Week 31: Crackle mani

I know I skipped posting about Week 30's water marble (which I did! There's just no photo evidence), however I wanted to catch up to everyone else and post the crackle mani in a timely fashion.

This is Revlon Timeless topped with black crackle (can't tell which brand) and China Glaze Oxidized Aqua. This came out better than my other crackle mash up. A tip if you are going to try to layer crackles but don't want them cracking in the same spots, but a thin layer of topcoat over you previous crackle. Wait for it to dry, and then you can put your next layer on.

Unfortunately this mani didn't really dry for some crazy reason. It stayed gooey and dentable, and I ended up taking it off.

So maybe another water marble will happen soon!
-Lynnette

Week 29: Rockstar mani

Late again! Seems to be my normal thing >.<

Anyway, I should have worn this to the Like a Storm/Saving Abel/Three Days Grace show I went to on the 14th. However that was such a busy weekend, there was no time for nails. However I did notice several of the lead singers had on black nail polish themselves! I must say, I think I like men rocking manly colors (like black, dark blue, gray, etc)......I brings the whole image together.

Anyway this is what I would wear as a rockstar.....well for shows. I don't think that I could wear anything 24/7/365!

This is one careful coat of Wet n'Wild black creme followed by Fergie Make Them Boys Go Loco. My left hand then got a coat of Revlon Scandalous, and another coat of Loco. My right hand got another coat of Loco, without the Scandalous. Stickers on the ring fingers and thumbs
While I liked the look of Scandalous and Loco together, I REALLY love 2 coats of Loco by itself.

You may have noticed that my nails aren't as neat or "photo ready" as they used to be. In an effort to help my nails grow and keep them out of chemicals, I am not doing the cleanup that most nail bloggers do. Keeping them out of the acetone has helped, and I'm trying Nailtek II as a base coat. I might experiment with soak off gel base and top coats, but that depends on how hard my new job is on my nails (ie: how many chemicals I'm exposed to).

Ok, now to do a water marble.
-Lynnette

Week 16: Dottiure and new house!

I really had fun with this one! I had a tough time picking between two really different color palates and I think that I'll do my other color wave when this comes off.

I started with a coat of Wet n Wild French White creme topped with 2 coats of Revlon Runway Pearl. Then I used my dotting tool (which is really quite small, but it's better than a toothpick) and dotted with Ulta Maine Attraction, Julep Megan, Marisa, and finally Susie. Topped it all off with one more coat of Runway Pearl and quick dry topcoat.

On one of my thumbs I decided to try out the flakies I finally picked up. This is Studio M, Covered in Diamonds and was only $2.99......I figured for that price if I truly hated it, I wouldn't feel so bad. Well, I'm not in love with it, but I don't hate it. I'll have to try it over other colors and see if I can find a combo I really like.

And finally a few new house pictures!
Kitchen:

 Bathroom:

 Bedroom (the bottom of this picture is the CLOSET!):

That's all for now....time to get more of the house unpacked/organized/cleaned!

-Lynnette

Week 13: Ruffian mani (Updated)

So....I've been a bad blogger! I totally wore Kinetic Candy before I did this manicure, but didn't take any picture of it. Nope not even one. I will say that it's a great color, and the formula is like Sweet Hook from the same collection. However, I know that Kinetic Candy is one I will be wearing again, so I'll nab a picture then.

Another bummer.....I'm back to nail nubs :( After I took off Agro I noticed a hairline crack in one nail. Then as I was getting ready to put on Kinetic Candy, the nail fully broke. My slight OCD kicked in, and then all the nails had to go (this is a habit I've had since before I was a polish addict). This is another reason why there are no pictures of Kinetic Candy; I couldn't stand to take pictures of nubs :(

Anyway, on to the challenge mani! This week is a Ruffian style. I had to google this, and originally I was going to copy-cat a red and black look. Then over the weekend, I found some new Sinful Colors displays and changed my mind. I picked up Sinful's Cinderella and Glass Pink and used those as "undies" for Revlon's Whimsical and Starry Pink (I've also seen this called Popular). The Sinful "undies" have a TON of shimmer, that even shows through the Revlon!

 Left hand

Right Hand

This turned out ok, but I'm not in love with it. My "ruffian lines" are uneven, but masked by the milky glitters on top. Then there is just so many layers......2 coats of the bottom color, 1 coat of quick dry topcoat, 2 coats of the top color, then the glitter coat, and another coat of quick dry topcoat (I'm currently using Sally Hansen Insta-dry). Oh, and then on top of that, I woke up this morning to bubbles. Also trying to cleanly paint nubs is a joke; even clean up sucked (as you can see...my nails look horrible in the pictures). I would have skipped the pictures until I could try to make them look better, but I have a feeling that this isn't going to be staying on long. 

Ugh....At least I finally found "undies" for Starry Pink. I have been looking for a while, but hadn't found anything I liked.

Next time, I think I might show some of the polish strips I've been making.

-Lynnette

EDIT: This mani never. fully. dried! Even after I posted about it, this was still gummy and dentable. Yuck! Needless to say, this has come off to be replaced with Starry Pink over Glass Pink. Pictures to follow.

Week 11: St. Patty's Day!

So here's my green mani. I raided my stash for all my greens, and added Argo from China Glaze Colors from the Capitol collection, as well as Stone Cold (I'll talk more about that in my next haul post). I wanted to do a cool needle marble I saw on youtube, but it wasn't working out. So i whipped out a makeup sponge and sponged all the colors on.

This is one careful coat of China Glaze Stone Cold, sponged with Revlon Emerald City, Gosh Golden Dragon, China Glaze Agro, and Julep Leah. It needed 2 coats of topcoat to get it smooth because it was a little bumpy from the sponging.
Next time I'll have a haul post for you.
Until then!
-Lynnette

Icing Lemme See Your Peacock and Revlon Scandalous

First, I want to show you the swatches of Icings Lemme See Your Peacock. It's a nice green, cyan and magenta glitter in a clear base.

One coat

Two coats

Three coats

Four Coats

I think this built up fairly nicely. By coats three and four I was sort of placing the glitter where I needed it for coverage. This also looked more opaque in real life, and the nail beneath was harder to see (I'm going with the glitter distracts your eyes). I didn't topcoat the swatch, so I'm not sure how much of that you would need to get it smooth.....

Now, here's what I currently have on my nails; a jelly sandwich of sorts using Revlon Scandalous (the re-release of the dupe for Lippman's Bad Romance I think......I got it because I like it lol) and Icing Peacock. I wanted something darker to tone down Peacock, but the blacks that I have are pretty opaque. So I grabbed Scandalous because it has the same magenta glitter in a watery black base.

Taken in the weak daylight of winter in Michigan :(

I kinda like it.....though I might do one more coat of topcoat (it's still a bit bumpy). However that will come tomorrow so that this has plenty of time to dry.

Until next time!

-Lynnette

Week 9: "Vintage" mani

Well I kinda cheated on this one, but I've got a good story! This week I used a "vintage" color in more than one sense. Not only is this a great old school red, but this is the red that my mom used all. the. time. when I was growing up. If I was a good girl, Mom would paint my nails, usually with this color. Revlon still makes this color under the same name, Cherries in the Snow. I picked up both of us a new bottle not too long ago.

This is a bit hard to capture on camera. In one light it looks tomato red, in other lights it's blue based, then other times it looks so pink it's red. This is the more tomato look here.

I know, I should have done something more, like half moons again or something. However, I really didn't like them when I did it the first time. Besides, me and this color have a history :).
Until next time!
-Lynnette

Week 5: Newspaper fail and win

Hello, sorry this is late. I actually did this Saturday night, but didn't get pictures/time to post it until now.
     So i'm not sure how everyone gets great results doing newspaper manis....mine sucked! I planned to do QR codes (you know those things for smart phones) and barcodes on all my nails. However, the newsprint only transferred on 3 of my nails......fail. So i took little pieces of the paper (it just so happens I was using a flyer with my name printed on it) and stuck them into my still tacky topcoat, then did 2 more coats of topcoat. Now when I say "stuck them into my tacky topcoat", I mean that I literally used my other nails/a pen cap to sink it into the polish as much as possible, focusing on the edges. That way, when i did my subsequent coats of topcoat, it leveled out nicely. The smoothest one is my middle right; my pinkies still have a ridge on one side but it's not enough to bug me.

This is the left hand.

This is the right hand.

This is 2 1/2 days of wear, so please excuse the tip wear! I used my Sally Hansen base coat, 2 coats of Revlon Timeless (I picked this up with my newspaper mani in mind lol), and a coat of Sally Hansen on all nails, plus another coat on the nails with paper stuck on them. Not sure how removal will go, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it eh?

     A quick note about the Sally Hansen Continuous Treatment base and topcoat....This is great as a base coat. Keeps your manis looking great for days. Since I started using it, I've yet to have a mani chip before i was tired of it.....the same could be said for my Orly Bonder. However, the Sally Hansen hasn't destroyed my nails. I have used it as a topcoat, and it works well, but I'll stick to my Out the Door Quick dry. I'm usually doing my nails before bed, and I just don't have the time to wait for the Sally's to completely dry (it takes FOREVER).

Anyway, time to take the baby to the doctor, six month check up today!

-Lynnette

Matte Whimsy

I decided to try Whimsical matte. I think the matte topcoat made it a smidge dusty/lighter, which i actually like better. I think the franken i used under Whimsical was a little dark.

The photo makes my hands look a little weird, but the polish is the most color accurate in this one.

Revlon Whimsical and Fingerpaints Brushstroke Blush

Hello again! The plaid didn't last long lol. The poor polish didn't stand a chance with all the cleaning i did!
The manis i'm going to show you needs a little back story: I have horrible knees. We're talking 2 dislocations of my left knee cap, and tendinitis in both all about 2 years apart; all resulting in physical therapy. I'm pretty in-tune with what's going on with them. So when i recently started having knee pain in my right knee, i had an idea what might make it feel better. It felt like the muscles in there were too tight; bending was like stretching a tight rubber band even tighter. Enter my best friend Hannah. She's a massage/occupational therapist, and agreed to give me a rub down and i did her nail in return! I feel much better; not perfect, but much better.

This is 2 coats of Revlon Whimsical over a light blue franken i made (it's a whole bottle of a Sally's mini white and dark royal blue, plus a shimmery white mineral eye shadow). The franken made Whimsical more blue; i think next time i'll try it over white and see the difference. This time i used Sally Hansen Continuous Treatment Base&Top coat for my base and top coats. This picture was taken before i went to bed and got sheet marks (and i just noticed my bad clean up job! eek!).

For Hannah, I did 3 coats of Fingerpaints Brushstroke Blush; it was good formula wise, but a bit sheer (hence 3 coats). Then we stamped the butterfly from Mash-18 with Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in Flirt. It stamped over the pink quite nicely. Next I placed one of the hearts from Nicole by OPI's Step 2 the Beat of my <3. On Hannah I used my INM Out the Door quick dry topcoat (since it was getting late, and she needed to dash out the door lol). It turned out very sweet and spring-like!

I think i might try my Whimsical mani matte in the near future. If i do, i'll post a pic!
See you later!
-Lynnette