Butter London New Years Eve Nail Art

The amount of polishes I used in this manicure is almost embarrassing. Overkill much? Whatever, it's New Years Eve! It also went much better than I had any right to expect it to be. This is the first time I've used my Butter London stock and I they mostly worked really well. Very easy to use, especially in the capacity I did. Except for one. There's always one, isn't there?

I started out with the vague idea that I was again going to keep it simple. I just wanted to try maybe fireworks, maybe paint the years on them and it started going so well that I just spiraled out of control and did all of it. :)

Update: A-England King Arthur Matte

Beautiful polish. A few chips here and there but nothing horrid.

No excess problems with it being a matte, either. Perhaps I'll revisit that Essie MAY and see if it was something I did and not the polish.

Hey! About that smelly China Glaze Matte Magic!

A-England King Arthur Matte

I went...wow, completely in the no bright colors, non artsy, anti-Christmas direction this time. That was fast. I may have also performed a bit of blasphemy with this one. A-England's polishes are universally beautiful, I can almost guarantee I'll own all of them someday.

King Arthur is a silvery frosty grey color. This is actually my first use of any of the brand. Application was decent, it goes on sort of thin, but it was smooth and easy to get that three stroke finish. The first coat left a few gaps but the second was enough to close them so I left it there.

And then it got interesting.

Update: AtC A Munkle for Your Uncle

This is going to be just the worst update I've done so far for the simple fact that I totally forgot to take a picture before I removed the polish. I wore it three days and I assure you that there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. There was hardly a difference between what I took off and the pics in the original post. None of the glitter shells came off, no chipping, hardly any tip wear. And one of my cats just loves chewing on my nails, so those thick shells held up very well. I mostly just fell out of the Christmas glitter spirit and wanted it off. It even removed well, with foils, it came off very smoothly.

A Munkle for Your Uncle gets a self high five from me, do go buy it it if you can still get hold of it.

Jess

To you and yours...

Welcome to the Family!

It's Christmas Eve, and I got a new addition to my little family!

My husband got me an adorable little girl kitten for Christmas. I haven't settled on her name yet, as I want to get to know her a little better, but early runners in the name competition are Sunshine, Butterscotch, and Noel. Jess suggested I go with all three, which is actually rather likely...as soon as I figure out if they all fit her, and which order to put them in :)

...hey, the header says we discuss cats around here, right? Right!

Merry Christmas, y'all.

Above the Curve A Munkle for Your Uncle

I was not feeling more nail art this week. I had some vague concept of a Christmas colors French but even that was more effort than I was willing to put forth. This polish is the first on my stash list and is specifically for Christmas, so I went with a Glitter Bomb Shell.

This polish is not meant to be used that way. It's not just a crap ton of glitter packed in a bottle with just enough base to make it polish-like. It's really meant to be used as a top coat over another color and when used as such, looks really gorgeous. Perfect Christmas colors, it reminds me of a multicolor string of Christmas lights. That was why I bought it. I discovered as I was putting it on that it would not work well as a GBS.

Santa Nail Art featuring Butter LONDON Knees Up

Time for a fun Christmas mani! Are you ready, kids? Here we go!

My original idea didn't work out very well, which you will see if you read through to the end of this post. So I googled "simple Christmas mani" to get ideas on something I might actually have enough artistic talent to pull off. I sent a text to Jess, asking "Christmas lights, Santa, or snowman?" She said she wanted to see all three, so I eliminated Christmas lights and texted her again. "Santa or snowman?" She said Santa, so that's what I went with.

Update: Christmas Tree Nail Art

Once again, nothing to see here. No surprises, everything held up well. Heart China Glaze.

I'm not even going to use a jump break. Nothing else to say lol

Jess

With Apologies

Hey guys! Just wanted to drop a quick post and apologize for my lack of attention to you and the blog this week. I got felled by a combination sinus infection/flu/bronchitis thing. I haven't even painted my nails this week!! I did start a pretty Christmas mani, but I only finished one hand and by the time I felt like doing the other, the first one was already falling part so I gave up and removed it all. I have a few pictures which I will share in my next post. Thanks for your patience--I'll be back soon!

Christmas Tree Nail Art

This time around I wanted to try some Christmas trees. Going from the decorations to the actual tree itself, yes. I appear to be zooming out. I got the idea from art a fan posted on OPI's facebook page a few weeks ago, but I did mine with tools instead of freehand. It seems to work better for me that way lol.

Update: Christmas Tree Decoration Nail Art

Nothing to see here, folks. It's China Glaze, so I'd expect no problems. And didn't get any chip-wise.

Including a nice MSPaint smiley face because I did a number on my cuticle. Sometimes I just can't help but rip those darn hangnails right out, I tell ya.

Christmas Tree Decoration Nail Art

Or what I call nail art. I'm not really sure I've reached the level of "art" yet. In fact, lol I'm pretty positive. But I'm trying!

From here.

These were my inspiration. Fairly easy to do, not much detail, still trying to keep with the simple stuff until I get better at it. My other inspiration was the new Color Club Winter Affair collection which is the single most confusing polish collection I've ever tried to buy. Twelve zillion different colors all named the same three things. And they smell. They're not merely scented, no. They smell.

Ludurana Supernova

I'm a sucker for a good duochrome or multichrome polish. Same goes with holographic polishes. And when I found out that Ludurana had come out with a multichrome holo, I knew I had to have it. Enter Llarowe, stage left already! I placed my order and less than a week later, I got that little orange slip in my mailbox that means my mail man is a lazy jerk who refuses to walk up three stairs and knock on my door I had a package waiting for me at the post office. Friday morning, I picked up my package and drove immediately home. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. And this is what I got:

Update: butter LONDON Abso-bloody-lutely

I've read a lot of lacquer blogs in my time. I've seen other peoples' opinions on various polishes, and I do my best to put those out of my mind when I'm using a polish I've never tried before.That being said, I've seen a handful of people saying that butter LONDON polishes chip too easily. That it only takes a day or two and it's back to the drawing board.

Update but more about Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love

Because I don't think an update is really necessary on this. Dana has already covered that for us and the only difference between the two was we used different brand blacks as the base color. I should also mention that when I decided to try this again I did not have high hopes that it would work so I totally didn't use any kind of base coat whatsoever. I was fully expecting to have to remove it and choose something else.

With that said...

Butter London Hampstead Heath vs Wallis

I've seen a few posts around here and there about the new butterLONDON goop colors and how Hampstead Heath looked very similar to Wallis. I thought so at first glance, too, based on the few pictures we had to go on. I got my lol Trifecta as well so I thought I'd do a comparison swatch of the two and post it in case anyone else was interested.

But guess what? I'm totally not going to bother ruining my very first water marble for it.

First Look! butter LONDON for goop Trifecta of Bespoke Lacquers limited edition Winter 2012

A couple of weeks ago, Jess linked me to a page on Goop, to show me a triad of limited edition butter LONDON colors, specifically the butter LONDON for goop Trifecta of Bespoke Lacquers. Two of the three colors grabbed me right away, so I decided to pull the trigger. I received my lacquers yesterday, and as my previous piCture pOlish/Ozotic mani was on the verge of derailing, I removed it and jumped on the butter LONDON train this afternoon.

I can haz water marble?

So back before Halloween, I mentioned something about me trying to do a water marble. I wanted to do a neat little multi-color glow-in-the-dark one with those Blue Cross pumpkin polishes. It was a spectacular failure. As it was my very first attempt at one ever, I had no idea why. There could have been any number of reasons. And just in case it was the polishes that caused the flop (those pumpkin polishes are cheap, okay) I tried a few Essies and still couldn't really get it working. I had one nail that was sorta done but it was terrible. Dana tried to help as much as she could but as she said herself, it's hard to troubleshoot from five states away. I gave up on it and decided to try another day.

Update: Thanksgiving Turkeys

There's really no update here. They were all good polishes, I would have been shocked if they didn't last. It's also only been four days, but I'm kinda bored with 'em and I gotta get myself back on a regular painting schedule. I've been on vacation, see, hence my laziness. :)

Picture Polish Warning + Ozotic Sugar 903

I took a few days off from the polish. I'd broken a couple of nails and had some issues with peeling so I needed to give myself a little break. In the meantime, Jess and I placed an order with the girls at piCture pOlish and in what must be some kind of around-the-world shipping miracle, I received our order in three days.

A quick note of "Holy cow that's AMAZING!"

Hey y'all! I will have an actual post tomorrow for my mani of the week, but I wanted to say a quick THANK YOU! to the amazing ladies at piCture pOlish. Jess and I decided we each wanted a few polishes so we combined an order to save a little on shipping. I placed the order on Sunday night and received it Wednesday morning. FROM AUSTRALIA. That is incredibly quick response and I couldn't be happier with their response time and the incredible polishes I received. I still have the ones for Jess, packed up and waiting for me to make it to the post office, but I know she's going to love it just as much as I do!

Thanksgiving Turkeys!

First, Happy Thanksgiving to all of our American readers. We hope you had a lovely time with your family, watching football, doing whatever it is you do on Thanksgiving. Even work, we hope if you had to work it was at least a nice quiet shift.

I actually wasn't going to do anything special with the nails for the holiday as I'm being particularly lazy this week. I took that Rimmel off and yanno...lol did nothing. Slathered some cuticle treatments on regularly but didn't paint. Then I saw something on OPI's facebook page that kept eating at me to try.

Update: Rimmel London Lava Red

This one hit it straight out of the park, friends. Great polish, no touch ups needed all week. I did get a tiny bit bored and so added OPI's Gold Shatter, but still. Awesome ending.

Does anyone want to be my nail polish pen pal?

I keep falling in love with nail polishes from other countries!! Tonight it's some of the Ozotics, from Australia, which I have been admiring on the Picture Polish website. They have some beautiful colors and my heart demands that they be mine. Oh yeah...did I mention Picture Polish is located in Australia?

Essie Bikini So Teeny & Sally Hansen CSM Purple Pulse

So...I'm a little slow around here these days! Here it is Friday and I'm only just now getting to my mani of the week. Which was actually only the mani of about 3 days, because I got the bright idea to Franken some polish and I always end up with it all over my fingers. I'm not sure how it happens, but I end up looking like a 5 year old in the finger paints!

Rimmel London Lava Red

Since the Prom Queen was a party pooper, I chose this as the replacement. A nice, dark, rich, creamy red. Oooooh. This color is part of Rimmel's Lasting Finish Pro series and the only Rimmel I own. It caught my eye as I was walking past and reeled me right back in. Shades like this are where my heart lies. As it's my first use of any of their products, I'm anxious to see how it goes. It's one of the less expensive brands and if it's any good, I'll buy like 18 million more.

I also BROKE A FRAKKIN' NAIL almost completely to the nail line which means I went ahead and ripped the rest of them off. It looked stupid with that one short nail, I hate that. So, back to the stubby barely there nails again.

Flash

Update: Etude House Dear My Party Prom Queen

Two days. Yep. Technically it was less than one, I had two very small chips within the first twenty-four hours. But I patched them, and hoped. Nope. You know that seriously unbelievably ridiculously cheap nail polish they market for very little girls? "Now you can paint your nails to match your favorite doll's nails?"

As it's very thin going on, I realized the day after I painted that with three coats I still had visible nail line. You do hafta get up on it to see it, the glitter does a nice job on the camouflage, but it's there. Point is it chips like a thin polish:  it literally breaks right off the nail. Crumbles like a bad plaster job. I could flick my nail and watch pieces of it fall right off. Very brittle.

How my Vegas party mani became my wedding mani

Last spring, my fiancee and I talked about taking a  vacation. It started off as a family trip, my sister and brother in law and their three kids, me and my guy...drive the campers out to Colorado, explore the mountains, maybe do some fishing and some shopping and some panning for gold--you know, like you do when you're being a tourist in Colorado.

Then my brother in law's job sort of dried up along with everything else during the drought. When you own a lawn care company and it's 110 degrees and everything's dead, it's hard to justify mowing the customers' lawns no matter how much it sucks that you're not getting paid. So they decided to be responsible and not go on our family vacation. The nerve! (I kid. My sis and her family are the best.) So my guy brought home an atlas and we tried to figure out what to do with eleven glorious planned days off and nothing to do. Mt Rushmore? Minnesota? Too hot to go south, really, but *maybe* we'd survive Dallas? Ugh, can you imagine how hot it would be in the desert right now? So of course that's what we did. Vegas or bust, baby! in the middle of summer. Why not...can't be any hotter than it is at home!

Etude House Dear My Party Prom Queen

Etude House is from Korea, and they don't just sell nail polish. It's a whole beauty line. I found this one and Pajama Party when doing a search for how to do a robin's egg manicure. I saw an image for one on...I think on Essie's facebook page and thought that would be cute to try, then I figured I'd make it much easier on myself by just buying these.

I ordered from eBay, of course, and I actually chose three from the Dear My Party line but the seller mildly screwed me. The third one I wanted was one called Halloween Day, which is a purple glitter (no idea how that relates to Halloween), but the seller decided I didn't need that one and sent me a purple from another collection that I can't remember. They have the best names for polishes and I'm being serious--that's totally not an Engrish joke. Look At My Cotton Candy Nails!! That's the name of the collection the wrong polish is from! Tell me that's not a great name. Anyhow, the seller never even bothered to send the correct polish, I got my money refunded, so I got a free bottle of nail polish. Even though it's not the one I wanted.

Pimpin' the China Glaze!

Just so you can't say no one told you, ULTA is having a Buy 2 Get One Free on China Glaze til November 17. (Psst! So is Orly!)

...and go!!

Update: Wet N Wild Blue Moon

I really liked my Wet N Wild Blue Moon mani. The color was really nice and was easy to use. Went on easily, not too thick, not too thin, and color I wanted to stare at whenever I could. I had devised an experiment in which I painted every other fingernail with Orly Bonder, then painted my nails with what I expected to be a cheap polish.

DLC Polish 2G1I Comparisons

So the whole week I wore the 2G1I, I was thinking of all of the other polishes I bought to try and fill the SSN void. I thought I'd dig them out and swatch them beside the 2G1I just as a base of comparison. The only down side was that LOL I did it at night so the light isn't great.

But before I get started with that, I want to talk about another aspect of this polish that I briefly touched upon in the original post. When it dries, it's not that shiny. It's almost trying to be a matte finish. And that's not really a bad thing at all.

Update: DLC Polish Two Girls, One Imitation

Never did get around to that full sunlight picture. Uncooperative weather. But here's another end of the week natural light shot, just because I like you.

That was as the sun was going down, so a starry night was about to occur. Fitting.

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Azure

I'm posting a little out of order by skipping my Wet N Wild Blue Moon update and Orly experiment, for the moment. But I got excited about this polish so I'm jumping the gun a bit :) The Sally Hansen Lustre Shine collection has been out for a month or so, but every display I've seen of it has 6 colors in a display built for 8 colors. Before they came out, I saw there was going to be a blue (Azure) and also what I think was a purple in the collection. Those were the two I was most looking forward to, so of course they're nowhere to be found.

Wet N Wild Blue Moon

I chose Wet N Wild Wild Shine in Blue Moon as my mani of the week for a few reasons.

One, the color is gorgeous. Night sky blue shimmer with occasional flashes of a deep dark teal green that doesn't show 99% of the time. I was surprised the first time I saw it happen.

Two, I wasn't done with dark blue. You read my SSN dupe update, right?

Third, I'm conducting a little experiment on the holding power of Orly's Bonder, a rubberized base coat. The first time I used it, my polish went for 7 days with no chips or damage of any kind. So I wanted to use a cheap polish (and this one was cheap--a mere $1.98) to encourage chipping. I know, how unlike me to want a ruined mani!

DLC Polish Two Girls, One Imitation

Every polish maven's dream is to have a bottle of Essie Starry Starry Night. Even if you're not going to use it, it's such a high demand polish that you want to find it just to sell it to some fool like me who'll pay out the nose for it. What is it about that polish? For me personally, it's three things.

One, I'm a dark colors kind of girl, especially on the nails. I wear the lighter shades but they're not what I gravitate towards. OPI's Ink was the first color with which I can remember falling deeply in love. Dark red, dark blue, dark green, straight up black, those were always my heart's desire.

Two, I love anything about space. I would have been an astronomer but the math killed me. I really enjoy the beautiful visuals that come from the telescopes we have aimed out there; I can remember cheering when Hubble was finally fixed and when the photos started coming in, specifically the Pillars of Creation, I was awestruck. Not just that, but all of the neat things we've found out there! Other planets! Black holes! I cheered and cried when Curiosity landed, I was totally one of those.

Three, and I'm not going to lie to you, it's the prestige of owning such a hard to find polish. I would never shell out $300 for a bottle (or even $150 for the half bottle that was my first spotting of it on eBay), but I never give up hope of stumbling across it somewhere while shopping around.

Update: Two Girls, One Imitation on a Starry Starry Night

Just so you guys know, it was SO HARD removing this manicure. Not physically, though-emotionally. It's my first Franken baby, after all. I had some tip wear and growth at the base, but otherwise? Still perfect. Nary a chip to be seen. And I'm not bored with the color yet. I KNOW. Who am I, and what have I done with Dana, she of the short attention span and new nail color two or three times a week??

Ah, the things we do for love, and the blog.

Update: Cat's Eyes

This was one of the most traumatic manicures I've ever had, I tell you. It was all kinds of love and all kinds of hate rolled into one.

First of all, for as much as I was worried that it looked very childishly drawn, tons of people commented on it. Maybe they were just being nice to me. Who knows. I'll have to practice my line work, though, I think I can do better.

Second, it lasted FOREVER. Truly. I didn't get a single chip until four days after I painted it. You read that right. Four days! It is a China Glaze mani except for those white spots, so I expect it to last, but I did not expect it to go on this long.

A Whole Stinkin' Month!

Hey! Guess what! Go on, guess! Nope, guess again. Okay, I'm pretty sure the title of the post should give it away, yanno. Sheesh.

It's our one month anniversary!

Go on, us! Self high fives all around! You know what you could do to help us celebrate? It would be totally awesome of you!

How You Know You MAY Be Obsessed

I started to update my polish list a little while ago. I realized it's been a couple of weeks since my last update, so I set about gathering up the new bottles. And then those other new bottles. And aren't there a couple in that bag over there..yep, got it. Wait, what about those others that I showed off at work the other day?

Update: Stunning Blurple

Howdy! Sorry this update's a little out of order. I was so excited about my Starry Starry Night dupe, I skipped completely over talking about how the Stunning Blurple lasted. The answer to that is...actually very well. Until the day I needed it to fall apart so that I wouldn't feel guilty destroying a perfectly gorgeous manicure so I'd have an excuse for a new one. That is, the day my franken supplies arrived!

Cat's Eyes Like A Three-Year-Old

I thought I'd try to get all creative for Halloween and do some cat's eyes. I have...lol no experience with nail art and the outcome proves it but I'm still going to wear it.

My inspiration was seeing this manicure on Chalkboardnails.com and then seeing China Glaze's Cat's Eye nail polish. It really is the gold color of a cat's eye, most notably a black cat (of which I have four) so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Figuring I'd do the middle and ring fingers as the eyes, I blacked out the other three nails and used the ChG Cat's Eye on those two.

Update: Nubar Reclaim

Color = stunning. Quality = meh. I made it through the first day unscathed but the second was taxing and on the third I gave up. This is the fourth day.

Not great, no. Good for a mid-week replacement but definitely wouldn't go the distance.

Two Girls, One Imitation on a Starry Starry Night

I got my franken polish supplies on Friday.

A curious kitty wants to know if it's a present for him!

I couldn't wait and ripped right into them. My goal? A common one, for a lot of us polish fanatics who showed up a little late to the game...to create my own version of Essie Starry Starry Night. I pulled up a few swatch pictures on my tablet, propped it up next to me for inspiration and jumped right in.

Shipping Woes the Third

Seriously, WTF is going on with the post office? I've had two bum deliveries in two days. And I didn't even get the courtesy of a "damaged in transit" envelope!

"Contents" at the top, torn envelope bottom right. Yeesh.

I opened my mailbox today and that's what I saw. I'd ordered a couple of things off eBay and that's how it showed up. The invoice was missing, so I had to check eBay to be sure nothing had been taken. The envelope was ripped at the bottom and the polish was just shoved toward the back of the mailbox. I guess I should be glad it even showed up, but c'mon, USPS! This is getting a little ridiculous.

Random Chat

Dana: hello

Dana: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/28/artificial-leaf

Dana: Ok, that is COOL AS HELL. I want one. Or five.

Jess: Won't load

Dana: ner.

Dana: it's a story about an artificial leaf made of silicon and other electronic bits. you float it in a gallon of water and it produces enough energy to basically run a small house.

Jess: Huh

Dana: so how you doing, pal

Jess: I'm k

Jess: tard

Dana: yeah. me too.

Dana: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mccuepiG011rt9zy5o1_500.jpg

Jess: LOL

Jess: are you seriously not available or is this going through twenty times

Dana: i'm available. And I only got it once so far

Jess: stupid thing.

Dana: LOL

Previous message was not received by Jess because of error: User Jess is not available.

Dana: LOL

Dana: Ok, now you're the one not available

Jess: LOL we love aim

Shipping Woes, Yep

It must have been the day USPS decided to mess up everyone's nail polish orders. I wonder how they coordinate something like that on a massive scale?

My issue was with my first ever Llarowe order. It's totally not their fault and I don't hold it against them. They just redid the site's layout (and a fantastic job it is) so I can't immediately find this but on the old site in big red print was a warning about how they offer free signature release on every delivery but they won't add it on unless you tell them to and that things have been getting stolen during shipping lately. I don't generally think about thievery during shipping as I do most of my purchasing with PayPal, who covers the loss, but I figured why not take the signature release? It's free!

It's a darn good thing I did!

Shipping Woes

Last month on Facebook, there was a little thing where if 100,000 people "liked" Model's Own brand nail polish by a certain date, they would put up a coupon code for 50% off as a thank you for all the likes. I'd been coveting their Beetlejuice polishes but with the exchange rate between dollars and pounds, I was too cheap to do anything about it.

But they got their 100,000 likes, and I jumped. The shipment FINALLY arrived at my house, but it required a signature and I apparently wasn't home (or my mailman didn't bother to knock, either way). I trucked myself off to the post office today to pick up my package, hurried back home, and ripped into the box. 

Nubar Reclaim

Because I couldn't take the stickers anymore. Thank goodness for fast dry top coats.

A beautiful green linear holographic. And that's a stupid blurry pic of it. That's obviously indoors under the light. But oh lovelies...

Update: OPI Nail Apps Skulls

Okay, so I was wrong. It was two days before the tips started rolling up and annoying the heck out of me. Visually they were not bad at all. If I had any kind of tolerance I could have left them on for probably two more days without too much of an issue. I just couldn't take it any more.

I did say I put them on rather fast. Probably too fast. I had some built in buckling from the get go because of it. Also the tips were sort of rough and lol rather a bit sticky. That's what I get for being mad and blowing it off.

Stunning Blurple

And now for the real Mani of the Week, since my namesake polish failed me after just two days! I'd been looking for the China Glaze Wicked lacquer colors, their Halloween collection, and they just weren't showing up in my local stores. About a week ago, I found a place online that was selling the 6-bottle collection for a very good price, so I jumped on it. Naturally I went into Sally Beauty the next day and there they all were, but I saved a lot of cash by getting them online. Enough to buy the Ghoulish Glow separately and still feel like I got a bargain, even. Get on with my frugal self!

When it came time to choose my color, of course I was drawn to Bizarre Blurple. Purple is my favorite color, and I tend to favor purple or blue nail polish. Bizarre Blurple was perfect. But I wanted to jazz it up. I do love the sparkle, yo.

OPI Nail Apps Skulls

My goal this week was to try to do my first water marble. I failed miserably at it and I don't know why or what I did wrong. After about six attempts I got frustrated and gave up. So there.

I've had these nail apps sitting around for about six months now and I thought hey, they're skulls, Halloween is next week, I'm a quitter. Perfect time to give them a shot!

These are not the Pure Lacquer nail strips. Nor are they like Sally Hansen Salon Effects. It is not nail polish at all.

We're not internationally known...

..or ARE WE? :)

I just want to take a minute to say Welcome! to everyone who has stopped by. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when I see the blog stats--the number of hits, the country you're in, all that good stuff. We've had visitors from the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Maylasia, Canada and Russia, among others.

But there's something I have to say:

We're just curious, so whoever is showing up from Russia...welcome, and what's up? You've made a ton of hits on the site and we'd like you to say hello!! Leave us a comment, won't you?

Wet N Wild Fergie: Dana

Yes, this post is written by me, but the title is because my mani of the week is a polish named Dana. It's one of the collection from Wet N Wild featuring Fergie.

The color is a really bright fuchsia purple. And let's be honest, I bought it 99% because of the name. Because I have a lot of similar colors, but when you come across a nail polish that has YOUR name attached to it, I bet you buy it too. Even if you don't like the color. I'm lucky that I do.

Chinese Finger Soakers (Part 3) vs. The Foil Method

I'm thinking this will be my last post relating to this. I can't see why I'd do another. LOL I'm sure we're all grateful for it, too.

China Glaze Fortune Teller was the experiment this week. I chose to do the manicure twice, not only because of the issues I had with it, but also to conduct this little versus experiment just to see which worked better and hopefully come to a final decision as to which method I felt was the better choice.

First off, the CFSs work much better on a polish that isn't all glitter. I feel certain that if I had done the Cirque French Roast removal with pure acetone that it would have gone this way as well. And next time I wear a chunky all glitter polish I'll try out the foil method but I'll throw it in the update for that polish and link back here.

Update: China Glaze Fortune Teller

I did this manicure twice this week. The first one has been previously posted. Because of the extra effort I put into that one, it did not last. At all. I used Essie's Matte About You over it and I'm not saying it's a crappy matte-er but it sure did me no favors.

This is the first and second day combined. I have a bad habit of forgetting to take photos before I do touch ups. That inset right in the middle is my left pointer finger. That chip and the thumbnail that the arrow is pointing to on the same hand (zoom in, you'll see where it is) happened on the very first day. The larger picture is the end of the second day. It gets so much worse.

Update: Essie Play Date

I managed to keep my Essie Play Date mani looking good for 4 days. Woohoo!

Unfortunately, Day 5 was not my friend. I don't know what I did--nothing struck me as being particularly traumatic--but I knocked a big chunk out of the end of my right thumbnail. I was still loving the color, so I decided I would go against my nature and try to repair it. I got my bottle of Play Date and dabbed delicately at the bare spot in the midst of layers of polish. After that dried, I dabbed on another layer, then I took my Nutra-Nail Instant Smudge Repair and painted it on, melting the surface of the top coat so that new and old polish could bond together

I hate minis.

I can never get a nice even coat with 'em, I always smutch it up. And it just doesn't seem like enough polish. Greedy, I am. Possibly Yoda, too.

Like any other perfectly normal beast who likes nail polish to this degree, I decided to try my hand at making my own version of Starry Starry Night. I bought some stuff, mixed it up, and while it wasn't too bad and (I think) mostly matches, it still didn't seem quite on to me. I bought me some frankening products, yo. That's right, two franken posts in a row! So there!

I purchased from Mymix Cosmetics aka TKB Trading and really only got a few basics to make that one polish. That was my main goal. My secondary was to try and find a cure for my mini-hate. See how I brought that back around?

Franken Polish

It's on, kids...I ordered a small mountain of supplies and as soon as that box gets to me, I'm going to try my hand at custom polishes. I can't wait...I'M GONNA DO SCIENCE!

Stay tuned!

China Glaze Fortune Teller

I really want China Glaze Black Magic. I mean, really. A lot. Of course, it's not for sale anywhere so I went looking for alternatives. Good alternatives. China Glaze has its own in Fortune Teller. Black jelly base, small orange glitter. Black Magic's glitter is actually even smaller, but I'll take what I can get. Which wasn't Fortune Teller either because that one is an exclusive as well and I couldn't find it for sale. I've seen other versions but none of them really captured my attention the way these two did. Especially when you add a matte top coat. Le gasp! It was love. It looks like a banked fire just waiting to be brought back to life. I love love love.

I also love ebay. Say what you will about people charging exorbitant prices but if some fool (read: me) is willing to pay well then it's worth the sale. It was bound to happen that someone would list one of them and sure enough Fortune Teller showed up. Now, if you've seen this on my list you'll know there may be an issue with it.

Essie Play Date

This is my first Essie purchase. I know! How have I been a nail polish junkie for so long, and never bought an Essie?

Well, I'll tell you. It's been pretty easy. I'm drawn to super-bright, sparkly, shimmery, metallic, or dark colors. In short, everything a lot of Essie's colors are not. When I look at the Essie display at my local Walgreen's, I feel like I've stepped into The Gap. Fourteen shades of beige, you know? I always miss the brights, which are lower in the display, and end up distracted by a neighboring glitter. Ooh, shiny!

Update: Ludurana Water Marble

I LOVED this water marble manicure. I got so many compliments on it--from the ladies I work with, the check out girl at the grocery store. It was completely worth the time and effort. And it held up remarkably well. As you'll soon see, I can be incredibly rough on a manicure, and I'm not much for touch ups and fixing. Once it starts to look bad, it's gone. But this one, I held onto for an extra day. And to be honest, it didn't look bad until the last day, when polish lifted on two nails, I got tired of catching it on stuff, and I peeled the loose part off.  Here it is on Day 5...

 

The thumb and first finger are the two where the polish lifted. I was having some issues getting my pictures taken, as you will soon see.  (also, the blue glass in the sink? Belongs to my cat, Gizmo. He drinks so much water he gets his own separate drinking container in the sink. It's weird but it makes my life SO much easier.)

Here's the other hand. It worked out fairly well, no major chipping or lifting issues. I did have some tip wear, but I type for 10 hours a day at work, so if that's my biggest problem, I count myself lucky.

 ...And as I was taking my pictures, Gizmo hopped up to get a drink and decided to help. Just as I touched the "take the picture now!" button, he head butted the phone, resulting in a lovely photo of my feet and blue leopard print PJ bottoms. Thanks, Giz!

Bottom line...I highly recommend you try this water marble. The Ludurana held up beautifully. I think the lifting polish I experienced has more to do with me than anything to do with the polish. Or it was caused by my NFL Saints black polish base coat. Either way, I'd do this one again in a minute if I didn't have so many other colors waiting for me to show them some love!

--Dana

Update: Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Moonstone

Average all the way around for me. Just get it out there right now. I don't know what it is about me and Sally. I had this problem with the Lustre Shine Lava when I wore it, too. No pics or review on that one, either, it was pre-blog. Perhaps Dana will hook us up, I certainly won't wear it again any time soon.

Four days later. I had a chip the very first day. I'm also one of those ones who tries to make a manicure last a whole week, so I tend to spackle and putty chips and cracks. Which probably makes it look worse most of the time but I just. Don't. WANNA do it more than once a week. Such a pain. Perhaps I need to let that thinking go. But I digress. A very average polish. I've had worse, I have a whole lot better. If you like it, and have better times with this brand than I do, go for it. If not, wait for a lovely sale.

Jess

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine Moonstone

Not exactly my usual type of color, admittedly. I tend to stick to darker shades and a lot of black. I was goth before it was called goth, okay.

Moonstone is your typical mother of pearl, seashell, whitepinkbluegreen color change polish. If you have something similar, you aren't missing out on much. I also can't catch all the colors because well...okay, I didn't try very hard either. Considering it's like so many other polishes I didn't deem it worth the effort of trying to find angles in sun. Pssh. It's a smooth application and of course very sheer.

one coat

two coats

Dry time is average but I rushed a bit and got a few bubbles on that thumbnail. I think I was trying to build up layers faster because seeing the nail line irritates me for some reason. I dunno. It didn't matter anyhow because even after three coats I can still see it, and that's where I stopped.

It's very pretty for something I don't normally wear. I have really poor luck with Sally Hansens though so I fully expect this to start peeling and chipping almost immediately. I don't know why Ms. Hansen and I can't get along for more than twenty-four hours. I hope I'm wrong. We'll see in the update.


Jess

Additions and Ramblings

Jess texted a photo to me a couple of days ago--a bottle of nail polish with a sale price and the name of the store where she found it. Off I went to my local Walgreen's, where I discovered the Sally Hansen Salon Manicure inventory was being (mostly) cleared out. New colors coming in, I guess? They had a huge selection and I ended up bringing a bag full of new babies home. They've been added to my polish list if you're curious. I also got a couple of Essie colors that I've picked up and put down a dozen times in the last month. They're my first Essie colors. One of them (probably Play Date) will be my next mani when I'm done with the Ludurana water marble.

Chinese Finger Soakers, Part 2

Here I am, back for round two. If you haven't read my first attempt at using these, just know that it was sort of a fail and that I thought it was mostly my fault for using the wrong thing.

My most recent manicure was the Rockstar Nails Chocolate Empire all glitter indie from Etsy. Extremely thick mani, if I had waited another day I'm sure the rest of the polish shells would have come off on their own. But it's for science!

I hustled myself to Sally Beauty and bought a giant bottle of pure acetone for use this time. And like three more bottles of nail polish. Wait, I bought a few Sally Girls. I don't think those should even count, I tell ya! They're so small! Came home, laid out my supplies again and prepared for round two. This time without color in my hair.

I don't think it was my fault the first attempt didn't work.

Rockstar Nails Chocolate Empire

So I'm a great aunt, right? ...no, no. I don't mean I'm terrific as an aunt. I am though. What I mean is that my niece and nephew have children. When my niece had her son, she chose theme colors for his...what? Room? Clothes? Life? I dunno. It's been the same colors for all of the parties since before his birth. I wonder if he even likes them.

I was recently searching for Mardi Gras themed glitter nail polish and found some on Etsy. I swore I would never shop there for reasons I will not get in to, but I couldn't resist this polish. While searching, I found a completely different polish that I had no idea why it was called Mardi Gras, because the colors were wrong. Traditionally, Mardi Gras colors are purple, green and gold. Still, this polish implanted itself in the back of my mind and would not let go. I knew I was going to have to buy it. And neither of these polishes are what this post is about. I like to spiral in toward my point.

Ludurana Water Marble

I was so excited to get my Ludurana Aurora Boreal nail polish! I bought it with the express purpose of trying out this manicure. I love the look of water marbles. If you know how to do them, skip the video. If you're new to water marble, this is a good tutorial:

There are a kabillion tutorials on YouTube. Some of these people are so creative and talented. The designs they're able to make astound me! I was going for an oil-slick look, completely inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest. Jess, miracle worker that she is, found the source of the photo: Esmaltas Da Kelly. Fair warning, the site is in Portuguese, but the photos are so lovely, I think it's worth a look anyway. There's always Google Translate!

Chinese Finger Soakers, Part 1

Glitter nail polish is beautiful, fun, dynamic, creative and a complete pain to remove. I have so many of them and am so hesitant to use them because I absolutely loathe the cleanup. It gets everywhere, I find it days later. On my toes. Even though it was on my fingers.

This is why god invented Google.

A search for "easy way to remove glitter nail polish" (you don't even have to type the whole thing, it suggests it before you get to the L in glitter--common problem, see) turned up this little gem. I was ecstatic. I also haven't tried it yet because linked in that video is this:

 
Even better! Less mess and waste! I ordered them before the video was even finished. It did take a month to get to me but as soon as they did I loaded up the test manicure, Cirque French Roast. I dumped some color in my hair, set out my supplies and got to work.

Dana's Polish List

China Glaze

• 108 Degrees 
• Avalanche 
• Awakening 
• Bizarre Blurple (Halloween 2012) (seen here)
• Blue Without U 
• Branding Iron 
• Cast A Spell (Halloween 2012)
• Coconut Kiss
• Cowgirl Up 
• Crown Jewels 
• Crystal Ball 
• Deviantly Daring
• Dorothy Who? 
• Dusk 
• Fairy Dust 
• First Class Ticket 
• Flip Flop Fantasy 
• Flying Dragon 
• Fresh Start 
• Grape Crush 

Update: Cirque French Roast

So we're going to have a series of posts that are just updates on a polish or manicure we talked about in previous posts that will give details on how long it lasted, how much chipping and fixing, etc. I had this at the end of the original but Dana suggested we make them completely new posts and I agree. Anyhow.

Considering its rocky beginning the Cirque French Roast held up phenomenally. The issues really were my fault. This photo is four days after the second attempt and as you can see it still looks outstanding. I did have one small chip on that thumb there, there's some tip wear, and the edges are starting to pull up a little. These are not complaints, they're all things I expect after a few days of wear. Compared to other polishes' wear, I'd give this one about a 9 on a 10 max scale of awesome.

Jess

Jess's Polish List

As of November 9, 2012, this post will no longer be updated. You can see my up-to-date list here or by clicking the Jess's Stash page tab above. 



As the title says. New additions to the family shall be underlined. Or maybe in a different color. We'll see when it happens (it won't be long lol). Onward!

I went with underlined AND a different color, k? It was hard to choose. :)

I've also started linking the polish name here to the blog post where I wear and talk about it, so that's what those are.


A England

The Legend
Dragon


Azature

Black Diamond

Blue Cross

Pumpkin Glow-in-the-Dark

Blue

Blue Shimmer

Green

Green Shimmer

Orange

Pink

Pink Shimmer

Purple

Yellow

Yellow Shimmer


Butter London

Tart With A Heart
The Black Knight

The Case of the Disappearing Mani: Cirque French Roast

Immediate tangent. Every time I see the word “mani” I start talking like I'm from The Borderlands. Anyhow, read on, do ya I beg.

I'd been stalking the Cirque polishes website for a few weeks before I finally caved and ran giddily to PayPal. They shipped quickly (yay black tissue paper!) and my first choice was French Roast, a gorgeous multicolors-of-brown glitter that really does look like coffee. It goes on smoothly and the glitter layers up quickly. I could have gotten away with two coats but I went with three.

One coat

Two coats

Losing My Marbles

Yesterday, I picked up the Sally Hansen Lustre Shine colors. Today, I got adventurous with them and tried a water marble. Today's experiment was only my second attempt at water marbling. Things did not work out according to my ultimate design, but I'm learning!

I don't think it was entirely my fault that my end result mani is not very attractive though. The Lava did not want to stick! I started with a base of OPI's matte white polish so the marble would have a clear bright background (I do most of my manicures over a white base, mainly because it allows the true color of my polish to show in fewer coats without having to overcome the natural color of my nails).

Anyway, here's what happened. I used Lava, Copperhead, and Scarab. You can see the Lava forgot to come to the party, but it did seem to spend plenty of time dropping off tiny little pink glitters!

Scarab, Copperhead, Lava

Right Hand

Right Thumb

Left Hand

Left Thumb

I'm enjoying this for the moment, but I'm expecting the Ludurana Aurora Boreal collection (the duochrome part) in the mail any minute now, and this will disappear as soon as the Ludurana arrives. I'm so excited to get those colors, I don't even...

-Dana

Sally Hansen Lustre Shine

Welcome to Two Girls, One Obsession! Today I picked up the six available Sally Hansen Lustre Shine polishes. So far I'm totally in love with the Lava and the Scarab (as you can see in the water marble picture in the previous post). The other colors are all lovely but didn't catch my attention in the same way.

The only problem with the Lava? When I went to clean up the edges of my nail, I noticed pink micro glitter *everywhere*. Love the glitters!

Now I'm waiting for the Azure and the purple (whatever it's name is) to show up. The rest of these guys arrived in some parts of the east coast well over a week ago and finally made it to my part of the midwest today.

Time to go polish!

--Dana

Birthing Pangs

Dana (2:13:03 AM): k, help me figure out where a blog should live...

Dana (2:14:15 AM): blogger.com, wordpress... there's tumblr, bleh, or livejournal...

Jess (2:20:39 AM): Well, where's a place we can have it where both of us will have access to change it?

Jess (2:20:55 AM): I have a google and a livejournal account. I don't think I have a wordpress

Jess (2:21:09 AM): and I don't think I have a tumblr

Dana (2:21:34 AM): i have google. not livejournal. and either way, we need to both have the password to it so we can each be able to update

Jess (2:21:48 AM): Or we can make a whole new account on one of them. Which might be the best idea?

Dana (2:22:11 AM): i think the new account. then if we get mail there, it'll be something we won't have to sort through our regular mail to find, etc

Jess (2:22:49 AM): I don't know how to use any of them, but I can always learn. I haven't used a damn one of them ever before. So if there's one you prefer, I agree. lol

Dana (2:23:01 AM): LOL I’ve never used any of them either

Jess (2:23:28 AM): I'm thinking google. don't you need an email address for the others? With google, it's built in already.

Dana (2:23:42 AM): google is fine. LOL i don't care.