30 Days of Untrieds - Day 16

Today's color is from my absolute favorite drugstore line. Sally Hansen Insta Dri!

Emerald Express. 2 coats. Shimmery emerald. It has almost a metallic feel to it and I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of metallic element used to make it. Anyways, I've said this over and over again but I love the Insta-Dri line. It dries fast and it doesn't take a bunch of coats to look good... a few of them only need one coat. I very much like this color!

Thanks for reading, until next time!

30 Days of Untrieds - Day 15

Today's untried is another blue from Sally Hansen.

Blu. No that's not a typo, its spelled Blu, like Blu-Ray. 4 coats. Shimmery blue. All I have to say about this is the formula is horrendous. This was 4 coats and I think it still looks terrible. Maybe it will look better if I layer it over a blue but I really hate this on its own. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Thanks for reading, until next time!

Currently on my nails: Mermaid effect

My current manicure kind of reminds me of a mermaid, hence the title. Check it out:

Sally Hansen Jade Jump 2 coats, with one coat of Essie Shine of the Times on top. Shine of the Times is a flakie multichrome... dupe to Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure and Nubar 2010. I love this combination. In certain lights, shine looks orange and green simultaneously, and it really reminds me of all the colors a mermaid's fin flashes. Love this!

Thanks for reading, until next time!

30 Days of Untrieds - Day 14

Happy Sunday Evening everyone! Sorry I didn't post yesterday, I worked at 6:45 am and after work I went to Disneyland to check out the Christmas stuff :)

Today's color is another Sally Hansen Xtreme wear that I've had for almost a year and haven't gotten around to wearing it yet.

Bubblegum Pink. 3 coats. Bubblegum pink creme with a pearly micro shimmer/finish. Its hard to explain but there is definitely a slight shimmer to this color that is absolutely gorgeous! I'm not much for wearing pink on my fingers like I've said over and over on this blog and I really don't like this on my fingers. Maybe on my toes it will be better. The formula was a bit streaky even at 3 coats but its alright. Its pretty enough that I can get over it.

And just to get everyone in the Christmas spirit here's a couple of pictures I took at Disneyland last night:

Thanks for reading, until next time!

30 Days of Untrieds - Day 13

Good morning and happy Black Friday! I refuse to go Black Friday shopping, I just don't do well with crowds... I'll just be hitting a drugstore or two a little later looking for the new Essie Luxeffects. Other than that, I work later tonight and I'm not looking forward to it. Hopefully by 5:30 no one will want to be shopping *fingers crossed* Anyways on to today's Untried from OPI:

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Bling Dynasty. 3 coats. Yellow (almost mustardy) gold. I like this color as a color but I hate this on my skin tone. I don't know, I could be wrong but it just looks odd on me. I really wanted to like this on my nail because I really like it in the bottle, but alas I guess it wasn't meant to be!

Thanks for reading, until next time!

30 Days of Untrieds - Day 12

Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving!! Hope everyone has a great day filled with friends, family and food! My family is going the non-traditional route this year and we're not having turkey (thank goodness, I hate turkey). Instead, we're having an Argentinian barbecue and empanadas (meat pies, so good!). I'm really excited for dinner tonight!

Anyways, on to today's untried color which is from the Milani 3D Holographic line:

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HD. 3 coats. Grainy holographic silver. I love this. This is one of two holographic silvers I own. The other is Color Club Worth the Risque. This is much grainier than WTR but I actually like this because it feels glitterier (yes, that's a word). My pictures only capture the holographic glitter but in certain lights, it does become a grainy linear holographic effect. The formula was pretty good. Overall, these Milani 3D Holographic colors are a little sheer but build up very nicely. I no own the entire collection and I love them all!!!

Thanks for reading, until next time!

30 Days of Untrieds - Day 11

Today's untried is my favorite color from the Color Club Back to Boho Collection that I recently got at Ross:

Nouveau Vintage. 2 coats. Brown/Bronze color with green duochrome. This color is so pretty! At first it reminded me of Warm and Fozzie but its much darker and Warm and Fozzie doesn't have the green duochrome. I really love how this color looks on me!! Yay for another happy untried blog post!

Thanks for reading, until next time!

30 Days of Untrieds - Day 10

Another color from Wet n' Wild's Ice Baby Holiday 2011 collection exclusive to Walgreens... can I just say I really love the 3 colors I got from this collection! Makes me want to go buy more.

Back Alley Deals. 3 coats. Small purple glitter with medium magenta glitter. Holy hell! I love this!! I love this way more than I thought I would. First coat was sheer but it dried very fast and built up so effortlessly. Love that!!! I definitely want to get more of these... I might just break my no-buy for it... we'll see!

Thanks for reading, until next time!

Currently on my nails: Mad As A Hatter layering!

So my last blog post was a very excited rambling about how I recieved Mad As A Hatter in the mail. Well now I did a manicure with it! :) Check it out:

Mad As A Hatter, 2 coats over 1 coat of Wet n' Wild Black Creme. Mad As A Hatter is amazing. A-Mazing! I don't even really know what else to say about it. I love it so much! Sooo happy I finally have it!

I'll be wearing this mani at least for a couple of days. I'm planning on wearing Warm and Fozzie for Thanksgiving since that was the first thing I thought of when I saw the color.

Thanks once again for reading my exciting ramblings, until next time!

Best Nail Mail EVER! MAAH!

So, I've had a ridiculously long day today. I had to work from 7-11:30 am then I had class from 1:30 - 5 and when I get home I had a package waiting for me and since I already knew what it was, I couldn't wait to break in to it. Behold, my very own bottle of Mad As A Hatter (finally!):

So, if you're suprised that I didn't already have this color, here's a little of the back story: This color was available at Disneyland and every time I went (I have an annual pass and go as often as possible), I always said I would buy it next time because I was broke... well when I finally decided I was going to buy it, I couldn't find it at Disneyland so I tried a bunch of places that carried OPI and everyone was out so alas, a lemming was born... and I kicked myself for not buying it at least the 6 times that I had it in my hand at Disneyland.

I can't wait to play with this bad boy! Thanks to Tera at Nail in Nippon for having a silent auction for this polish! I realize I could have easily bought it on e-bay, but I would rather buy it from a blogger and from a fellow nail junkie! I'm so excited! I've played with this before, a friend of mine owns this color and I've worn it before but now I have my very own bottle!!! ... now all I need is a sunny day in so-cal!!


Thanks for reading my excited ramblings, until next time!

30 Days of Untrieds - Day 9

Today's untried color is from Color Club:

Blue-topia. 2 coats. Dark blue jelly. Really love this color. Its so ridiculously shiny and wonderful. The only downside: It stains like crazy. There was a blue jelly massacre all over my nails and cuticles when I removed this. Definitely be very. very careful when removing this color unless you want to look like a smurf! Other than the icky removal, I love this color!!!

Thanks for reading, until next time!

30 Days of Untrieds - Day 8

Today's untried post is a Wet n' Wild color. This is from Wet n' Wild's 2011 Ice Baby holiday collection. The collection is available exclusively at Walgreens. I picked up 3 of these colors including a dupe for China Glaze Some Like it Haute (see comparison here). I also have one more color that I will be putting up on another untrieds day. Anyways, enough with the rambling on to the pictures:

Cost Is No Issue. 3 coats. Clear base loaded with light blue tiny glitter and cornflower blue medium glitter. In some lights, the light blue looks like its a teal color, which is totally cool with me! I like this a lot more than I though I would, actually. Very pleased! The formula was great. First coat was a little sheer but it dries fast and its very easy to build up. Overall, fantastic polish!

Thanks for reading, until next time!

30 Days of Untrieds - Day 7

Today's color is one that I wanted for a while but never got around to getting until Ulta just had a sale. So glad I got it!

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White Cap. 2 coats (over 2 coats of CG White on White). This is kind of a sheer milky white loaded with intense light yellow gold shimmer. This is a beautiful layering polish from the China Glaze Anchors Away collection. I had a really hard time photographing this but the shimmer is very apparent on the nail. I love this so much! yay!!!

Thanks for reading, until next time!

Salon Express Nail Stamping Kit Experiments!

Yesterday I posted about a nail stamping kit I picked up at Rite Aid called Salon Express. I just wrote up a quick blurb about it because I hadn't had the chance to play with it too much. Well turns out being insomniac is really good for my blogging. I couldn't sleep last night and early this morning so I played around with this kit and did some experiments... This post is about the good, the bad, and the ugly of this kit:

This was the first thing I tried since the little tips insert that came with the kit said to use thick polishes. In my experience, the Insta-Dri are really thick so I used Mint Sprint for the base and Lickety-Split Lime for the stamping. I actually like how it turned out, the only thing is that it smeared when I put on a topcoat. I used a Barielle top coat and it smeared the index and ring fingers. Them I remembered that Seche Vite is best to use to prevent smearing and that's what I did for the rest of the designs:

This was the second thing I tried. I really don't like how this one came out. I found it really hard to get actual circles that weren't faded or oval shaped or something like that. I like the color combination I just need to play around with the dot design some more to get it to look like dots. Colors I used were Dream On from Sinful Colors as the base and Disco Dress from Color Club for the stamping.

After the dot fiasco, I thought of making a multi-color design to see how that would work. So I put down a base of China Glaze White on White and I decided to try to make multicolored butterflies. My index finger is smudged in this... I caught the topcoat bottle as I was taking pictures :(. I really like how this turned out, actually. I used all China Glaze neons: Flip Flop Fantasy, Kiwi Cool-ada, Sun Worshipper, Turned up Turquoise. What I did for this one was I just put a dab of each color on a different section of the butterfly and when I scraped it away, it mixed in a little bit. LOVE how this came out, I just need to work on placing the butterfly better.

And finally, the design I decided to do and keep on my nails. For this I used Sally Hansen Silver Sweep for the base and Wet n' Wild Black Creme for the stamping. This is my favorite of the experiments I did today. I apologize for the messy cuticles, its annoying when I have small fingers and the design is gigantic... I cleaned up my cuticles a little but I really wanted to photograph and post this because I love it so much!

Overall, I love this kit. It took a little bit to actually get it to work. Like I mentioned in the original post about this kit, I tried a few different polishes but none of those worked... thick and very pigmented polish is definitely the way to go! Also, one of my tips: the scraper in this kit is useless to me. It doesn't get rid of the excess well enough causing the design to smear when you stamp it on. I decided to use a razor blade instead and that works so much better! Also an obvious point but one that I didn't think of in my sleep deprived state: make sure your base color is DRY before attempting to stamp.

Very happy with this kit! So glad I decided to get it! I hope this was helpful to some of you!

Thanks for reading, until next time!