Week 10: Polka Dot Manicure

Hey ya'll, I'm here to do my catch up mani for Week 10 of the 52 Week Challenge. I was super busy around that time, and I just couldn't fit it in, and then I've just been trying to keep up!

So here we have it! I know it's a little anti-climactic, but it's something! I based it off a shirt pattern I saw on someone while at work. I wanted to take a picture to show you the pattern, but I thought that would be weird.

I used LASplash Mermaid Pink as a base and white and black acrylic paint for the dots.

I hope you like it! Please visit the other challengees who are also participating in the 52 Week Challenge listed here.

LASplash Nail Polish & Nail Art Glitter: Swatches and Review

I have some goodies to share with ya'll today from LASplash Cosmetics. I have three nail polishes from the Summer Day Dream Collection and a nail art glitter. Wee!

The brush they have is a standard small brush, which I'm kinda meh about. It's not awesome, but it's OK and applied the polish nicely.

Mermaid Pink. This one is a medium shimmery bubblegum pink. It applied nicely and required very little clean up. It's a nice bright, flattering pink. I received a lot of compliments on it. AND it had great wear time. Below is after four days of wear and it had NO tip wear! I was seriously impressed. Below is two coats with topcoat.

Retro. This is an awesome turquoise leaning green creme. This one was a little troublemaker. It went on streaky and goopy, if it's possible to be both, and when I cleaned up the edges, it turned a strange chalky color. I should have been neater with my application, but it was a bit touch and go. It did even out at the third coat. I can't comment on wear time because I layered this fairly quickly, but it's a gorgeous color. Very saturated and bright. Perfect summer color.

Sheer Radiance. This polish was a bit of a surprise. It's a sheer orange tinted polish with orange and turquoise shimmer (more orange than turquoise). This one I don't like on its own, it's too sheer and can't be layered to opacity. BUT it was a surprise for me to like it so much. I have a picture on its own, just so you can see it, but it made my nails look really yellow (I promise they're not that badly stained!) but looking at the bottle, that's a given. I really tried to get a picture that showed the turquoise shimmer, but it all kept coming out orange. I promise it's in there!

 

What I really like about Sheer Radiance is that you can layer it over warm or cool colors for a great shimmer - it's a surprisingly versatile polish.

Conjure. This is an interesting nail art glitter with burnt orange fine glitter and small and medium sheer hexagonal iridescent glitters.

I'll admit this was my first time using nail art glitter, but I liked the effect. Totally fun. And ya'll know me and glitter! =)

Weee a dirty picture!

Polishes are 0.1floz and retail at $3.99. Nail Art Glitter contained 3g product and retail at $3.98. You can purchase them at www.lasplashcosmetics.com or Ulta. 

I will say that I've heard good things about their cosmetics and I'm seriously wanting to try their Eyeshadow Primer, because I hear it's awesome for glittery eyeshadows (even keeps the glitter fallout of UD eyeshadows to a minimum!). xSparkage has a great review here comparing glitter bases and LASplash was the winner!

Check out their webpage, Like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and their Community Makeup Blog.

Have ya'll tried LASplash products before? Any comments or recommendations?

Products provided for review.

Julep Appliques in Rivets

The night before I left for my vacation, I tried out some Julep Nail Appliques in Rivets. I've heard good things about this type of product, and I've been wanting to test them out, but I haven't been in a good position to do so with work. So when I had a week of vacation coming up, I figured it would be the best time!

I applied them the night before I left, and the entire process took about 15 minutes. They're essentially stiff stickers (mine were actually studded so they had a bit of a texture to them and increased the stiffness) and you match them to your nail, stick them down, apply pressure, and then file off the end.

The sizes were awesome and fit my nails perfectly. Finding the right size was pretty straight forward, and sticking them on was a bit of work at first trying to find the right technique, but once you get the hang of it, it goes super quick. I liked to set the sticker down on its edge near my cuticle, push back a little, and then push down toward the tip. I then used the included orange stick and applied pressure over the whole sticker, and then used the pointed tip of the orange stick to run in between my cuticle and the sticker to make sure I didn't catch my cuticle under it since I was applying it so far back on my nail.

Once you have them all on your nails and you're looking pretty scary ...

Sorry for the camera phone picture, it was all I had with me that night.

Then you take a nail file (there is one included, and I used that one) you place the file perpendicular to the end of your nail and file down to "cut" the rest of the applique off. It took a few swipes but it eventually "cut" and then I kinda peeled it off. I needed to be careful not to press too hard because I changed the shape of a few nails. Oops.

You are all done. You can seal it with a topcoat to help increase the wear length time, and I did a coat of Seche Vite just because I was going to bed and I didn't want to get sheet marks in the top coat.

Aren't they awesome? Very edgy.

They lasted about 3 days with minimal wear or lifting before I had significant problems with them and on the 4th day I peeled them off because they were lifting enough near my cuticle that my hair was getting caught. The glue residue stayed on my nails, but that was easily scraped off without any nail damage. This is what they looked like before I peeled them off.

I apologize again for the phone picture, and all that craziness around my cuticles was topcoat, but you can see the shrinkage (from the appliques or Seche Vite, I'm not sure) and minor tip wear.

I got many compliments on them, and it was nice to have "done" nails for a period of time that was quicker than doing nail art or even layering colors. I plan on getting more or trying some brands at the drug store. I was very pleased with the wear time. The package says 3-7 days, and I think they'd last longer for people who don't have their hands in water so much. I take long hot showers daily (TMI, I know) and wash my hair daily, and soaking them in warm water is how you get them off, so the fact that they lasted three days despite what could be considered me trying to remove them daily, says a lot!

And don't forget, you can become a Julep Maven by clicking here and you can get your first box for one penny using code SHAREONMARCH.

Tip: Flakies Fix Everything!

I'm finally on Pinterest! I'm so behind on what's cool, but yay, so follow me or leave me your name in the comments below and I'll follow you! You can find me at http://pinterest.com/kakigo.

I don't know if many of you have noticed, but I've been commenting more (yay!) and that's due to Jenn from I'm Still Thinking... who reminded me of the "next" button with google reader. It's been my lifesaver. It takes just as much time to read them on google reader and then load the page separately to comment than to just use the next button. Ahhhh, I'm in love. Thanks again Jenn!

Now on to the actual post ..

Do you remember a post awhile ago where I mentioned that flakies fixed sheet marks?

I tried it again because, well, I'm a klutz. I shouldn't be allowed out in public. Or with wet nails. I was painting Zoya Savita when I was studying for my exam (trying to multitask, I should know better) and the next thing I knew, I had bumped my index finger and knocked off a chunk of polish!

So I put on another layer of polish and then put Finger Paints Motley over it (two coats) and you really can't tell I knocked a chunk out of the polish. You can still see the divot in the polish, but from an arm's length away, you can't tell at all!

This is on my right hand, so please forgive the painting, I'm still kinda shaky! =)

Maybe it's the fact that the surface is broken up with the flakies so it tricks the eye into not seeing the mess up? I'm not sure, but it works for me!

Has anyone else noticed this or tried it? If not, next time you accidently smush your wet polish or get sheet marks, don't take it off, try a flakie on top and see if it fixes it! <3 it!!

And a funny picture I took while out to dinner with a friend. When we were leaving this is what we saw next door ...

How much for a three course meal? Holy cow, glad we didn't eat there! =P

Nails: Exam Mani

I forgot to share with you guys what I wore for my exam! I tweeted a picture, but here it is in all its glory!

I went with Zoya Savita, an awesome dark, matte blue-purple, and Finger Paints Motley.

That last picture is the closest to what it actually looked like. The other pictures are a bit washed out.

I'm really bad about choosing what polishes to layer - I always want to stay within the same color family - blue glitter over blue polish, green flakie over green polish, etc - so this was a bit of a stretch for me to layer a blue/green flakie over a purple polish, even though I stayed within the "cool" family.

I like how it came out. Very retro. I hope it brought me luck. I don't feel very strong about that last exam, but hopefully it was enough!

Here is a fun pic I leave you with! My husband's tomatoes! They're getting plump! Can't wait to eat them!!

Zoya Savita

Zoya Savita is an awesome, dark purple (leaning blue) matte polish. I'm contemplating getting the other three that I don't own (a pink, yellow, and dark gray/black) just because I like them so much!

I actually used this as a base coat for my Exam Mani, which I'll share with you tomorrow, so I can't comment on wear time, but I imagine it's on par with the other mattes in the collection, which is short. I bet using a matte top coat would help it out, but that ruins the purpose of buying a matte polish, doesn't it? Or does it help lengthen the wear? 

What do you think? Buy a matte polish and deal with the short wear time or buy a matte top coat to change any color you want into matte-y goodness?

P.S. If anyone else having issues with their scheduled posts not publishing? Mine hasn't been working for the past week. I get on my computer to notice that my post for that day hasn't gone up yet, and it's hours after when it was supposed to post...

Week 17: Earth Appreciation

Hey ya'll! I'm back with Week 17 of the 52 Week Challenge. I'm a little late with this one, but here it is! I tried to go global with this one, and I'm not sure what I think, but here it is ...

I used a holo background and acrylic paint for the land masses. It was almost like a topographical map when I used the acrylic because I kept going over it with color and it was building up so it was almost 3D! The topcoat smoothed everything out and helped the colors meld into each other.

Thoughts? Hit or miss with this one? =)

200th post! & Randomness & Winner

Yay, my 200th post! =) Just thought I'd share that little milestone with ya!

I've been thinking about doing a weekly post with the most random things my husband says. He is from Trinidad originally, so he has a unique way of putting phrases together, which I find adorable and hilarious at the same time. I've teased him that I'm going to start sharing them with you guys.

For example - "nut crumbs." Yes, he actually said this. And if you're like me, you're probably thinking, WTH? haha

Here's how it was actually used ...

We were watching TV one afternoon and we decided to have a bowl of ice cream. So when I asked what he wanted on it (we have a few toppings in the fridge) he said he wanted pineapple. And nut crumbs. Referring to the can of candied chopped walnuts we have in the pantry. I couldn't stop laughing. Nut crumbs? Seriously? That is how you chose to describe the chopped walnuts?

I think it would be funny to hear what you guys thought when you read the phrase or what you thought it was referring to when he used it ... =)

ANNNDDDD we have a winner!

Congratulations to Elisa! Please email me or comment on this post within 72 hours to claim your prize! If your name is Elisa and you're not sure if it's you, email me and I'll let you know if you're the one!! =)

Stamping: Seeing Stars

I added a few stars to my previous Zoya Jules mani. I had a little trouble with the stamp transferring and then on my thumb I had to double stamp, but overall it was kinda fun.

I used Wet N Wild Black Creme to stamp over Zoya Jules. On my thumb, I did a little coloring with Milani Purple Outline, 'cause I'm cool like that.

Zoya Jules

Whew! Got home later than expected. That crazy storm system that went from Texas to Ohio was intense - and it totally screwed with my traveling plans. But I am thankful I made it home safe. A day later than intended. Oh well. 

I have another Zoya to share today. I do love me some Zoya. I've been wearing a lot of their colors lately. I'm not sure why. I bought a few during a promo a few months ago and played with them a little, but never got around to sharing them, but these few I got with their last promo offer, I've worn Zoya back to back.

Zoya Jules is from the Intimate Collection. Zoya describes it as "A sparkling neutral light taupe with gold, silver and champagne metallic shimmer." Yeah, I'd have to say thats about right. I'd be a little more vague and basic and call it a golden shimmery taupe, but I'm lazy like that.

Zoya Jules

Zoya Jules

Zoya Jules

I really like this color. Ya'll know I love my work appropriate neutrals, and I love that this one has that bit of golden shimmer to spice it up a bit. Makes it fun and keeps it from looking flat.

Details:
Brand: Zoya
Name: Jules
Amount: 0.5 fl oz
Price: $8.00
Where To Buy: www.zoya.com

Experience:
Wear Time: 2-3 days before chipping (with Seche Vite top coat)
Application: Usual
Removal: Easy
Overall: Recommend!

What do you think of my little system? I appreciate some blogs that have a quick bullet point or checklist to skim over the details. Do you like? Or should I leave it to the professionals and stick with my semi-witty commentary? =)

Get To Know Me!

I saw this on Peace, Love, & Polish and thought it looked fun! It's 26 facts about me ...

A is for Age: 30. Don't judge me.

B is for Breakfast today: This morning, egg taquitos with salsa. I love flour tortillas.

C is for current Craving: I have no idea. I want something, but can't put a finger on it. Frustrating!

D is for Dinner tonight: Pizza. A true weakness of mine.

E is for favorite type of Exercise: Swimming! I try to get into running every few months but it just doesn't click for me. People seem to enjoy it, but I don't get it. But I could be in the water all day ....

F is for irrational Fear: Bees. I've never been stung but Lord help me if I hear one buzzing, I freak out!

G is for Goals you have for yourself: Making a living doing what I love.

H is for Hometown: Ummm, Corpus Christi, Texas is where I grew up, but I was born in Great Falls, Montana.

Corpus Christ, TX

I is for something Important: Support from my family.

J is for current favorite Jam: Tamacun by Rodrigo y Gabriela. It's an awesome spanish acoustic guitar duo.

K is for Kids: I've got three furbabies that live with my parents.

M is for the most recent way you spent Money: Lunch at the airport.

N is for something you Need: More time! (Do you guys remember Saved by the Bell? The episode where Jessie is abusing caffeine pills and she's having a break down and screaming "There's no time, there's never any time!" That's how I feel half the time.

O is for Occupation: I'm a doctor.

P is for Pet Peeve: People who brake on the highway for NO reason. Gah! What are you doing?!? Trying to cause an accident? There is no one in front of you, no reason to brake, and yet here we are causing a slow down in traffic because you felt like tapping the break. Just take your foot off the gas and coast a little, don't slam the pedal just because! 

Q is for a Quote: "He who angers you, controls you."

R is for a Random fact about you: I can induce horizontal nystagmus in my eyes. I've met a few people who can do it. My eyes are normal, except when I focus really hard on something small, then it happens. Or I can make it happen when I want.

S is for the most random place(s) you have ever Slept: In the bed of my old truck. We were camping and packed the wrong tent, so I slept in the bed of my truck, my brother slept in the cab, and my parents slept in the small tent we had packed. Oops. 

T is for favorite Treat: Dr. Pepper. I usually drink diet so it's a treat. Or cake. Yum!

U is for something that makes you Unique: I have dimples but my right dimple is deeper than the one on the left.

V is for favorite Vegetable: Spinach.

W is for today’s Workout: Nothing ... I'm so lazy. Someone kick my butt into gear!

X is for X-rays you’ve had: Both wrists in 3rd grade (yep, broke BOTH of them at the SAME time!) and my ankle in high school (just sprained)

Y is for Yesterday’s highlight: After ten hours of flying and lay overs, my husband looked at me and said "You're so beautiful." *sigh*

Z is for your time Zone: Central






If you decide to do it yourself, let me know so I can learn some interesting things about you!

Zoya Phoebe

I get back home tomorrow! Hopefully in time to do a challenge manicure and get it posted since I'm already behind one mani (don't tell anyone, shhhh!). This one I used as the background in my Easter mani last Sunday.

Zoya Phoebe is one of the polishes I bought in Zoya's recent Buy 3, Get 3 Free sale. I am really getting into matte polishes. I don't know why I like them so much, especially since I love things shiny and glittery - but this matte kick I'm on is still going strong!

I tried Zoya Phoebe on a nail wheel to check it out and it went on great, but when it went on my nail ....

o_O

What the ....

I did use a different basecoat - I used OPI Nail Envy Matte because, well, it's a matte polish. Maybe these two don't play well together? I want to try it again and compare how it goes on with this basecoat versus a different one - does it change the color? finish? application? I was just disappointed with this go round.

I do know you're not supposed to use base coat with matte polishes, but I didn't trust this not to stain my nails. Maybe that was it. But my other nails weren't so streaky. I dunno.

I did three coats to even things out, but likely could have gotten away with two if things weren't so streaky in the beginning. It does show everything, if you wiggled the brush on the stroke down the nail or ridges, etc. It's not very forgiving.

Zoya Phoebe

Zoya Phoebe

Zoya Phoebe

Wear time was, well, average for a matte. It sucks. I put it on at night and went to sleep, and it chipped by the next morning. I may be a hard sleeper, but really... Anyway, I fixed it. And it chipped again within 8 hours. Whatev. It was pretty while it lasted.

Aside from the streaky mess, three coats did the trick. It did stain a bit, you can see on my thumb where I had to clean up I have little slivers of blue ghosts! And when I took it off, I had some seriously blue fingers. Sigh. Little scrubbing and some whitening toothpaste did the trick. No big.

Has anyone else had a strange application with Zoya Phoebe? Or polishes that don't work well together?

Don't forget to enter my giveaway which ends tomorrow (4/15)!!

Swatch: OPI Pros & Bronze

Another one I meant to publish earlier. Haha. Apparently my vacation posts have a hidden theme.

With my hubby's help, this was the color chosen for the base of my Ruffian manicure, and I think it's an awesome color. Very thin though, this is four coats and it's still a little sheer. It almost seems to be small particles in a clear polish - very runny and hard to build up - but whatev. It's very sparkly!

OPI Pros & Bronze (four coats), Seche Vite (one coat)

OPI Pros & Bronze (four coats), Seche Vite (one coat)

OPI Pros & Bronze (four coats), Seche Vite (one coat)

OPI Pros & Bronze (four coats), Seche Vite (one coat)

I'm not sure what I think about it. It's pretty, but when I look back at the pictures, I'm not quite sold on it. It IS a unique polish though! What do you think?