It's back!

Hello, people!


Just a quick note to tell you that Viva La Nail is doing the sample promo again, where they send you a sample of their products for free (you only have to pay the shipping), in exchange for a review! I just did, and I'm really excited! I'm in Canada, and the shipping charges turns out to be $4.70, which isn't that bad for almost $20 worth of stuff! 


You can order yours too by going here: Click!


On other news, I'm almost done moving and settling to my new place, so I will be able to get back to posting nail arts and reviews. I may even have some time this afternoon to watermark pics and post. ;) 


Thanks for coming back, and hope to see you soon!

 GabZ ♥

Multicolor Lines

Hi!


Here's an old manicure that I've done like a month and a half ago. Time flies so fast! I like French manicures, but I like them better when there's a design on the lower part of the nail. Here's what I came up with:

And here's what I used:

In the picture we have:
- Rimmel Base Coat Top Coat Pro
- 4 Nail Star Two-Way Nail Art Pen & Brush (green, glitter green, purple, glitter purple, blue, glitter blue)
- Maybeline Salon Expert #700 Black Is Black


I have a few others that I'd like to show, so I'm up to date with all of my stuff. I'm in the middle of moving to another home, and my posts may be delayed for the next week or so, with the packing and the unpacking and what not. 


See ya soon! :D

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear swatches

Hey, y'all! Here are the swatches for my new Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polishes. 2 pictures (under a different light), taken with a base coat, the colors, no top coat.

Fireberry Red - Such a rich and beautiful red, with a little blue hue. Takes forever to dry, though.. In the picture, there are 3 coats, and I had time to get a 3rd coat on Shooting Star and get that one half dry before I could apply my 3rd coat of Fireberry... It applies unevenly too.. Disappointing, to say the least. But I still very much like the color, so I'm sporting it as a full mani tonight to go see Saw 3D!


Purple Gala - Ouh la la! Shiny, grapy purple that just makes me smile. 2 coats only in the picture, as it applied very well. Takes a little time to dry as well, like 6-7 minutes each coats, and even then, still smudgeable... I will definitely wear this again sometime soon.


Shooting Star - Too sheer for my taste, but still very beautiful. I wonder what it'd look like over another color, like white, or even black. 4 coats in the picture. This one dried faster, I'd say around 4 minutes for each coats. I think I'll try my first gradient experiment with this one. :D I honestly thought it'd be a nightmare to remove, but with a few swipes over the nail, and the skin around, and voilà! Very impressed with this one.


So there you have it, people! See you next time! ;)

Halloween nails

Hi!


I tried to think of something really clever and original for a Halloween manicure, and though I had a few ideas,  I've chose an easy one:

For this, I used:
- Sally Hansen 4-in-1 treatment
- Sally Hansen New Lengths Ceramics - #02 White Tips
- Wet n Wild Wild Shine #460D Kaleidoscope
- Joe Matte Top Coat
- 4 Nail Star Two-Way Nail Art Pen & Brush (I named it Bloody Red)
- Nicole by OPI Top Coat Plus

The picture doesn't really show it, but I thought it'd make the "blood" pop more if the white was matte, and it did! Also, adding Nicole's shiny top coat made the "blood" shinier. Really cool! 


As you can see, I'm down again to little nubbins. I don't know where my head was at, when I thought putting on tips would be a good idea! It didn't damage my nails that much, and it allowed them to grow a bit, but dang! They're hard to remove! I'm gonna try to get my nails to grow the old fashion way. 


I expect this Halloween mani to start chipping any time now (4 star polishes tend to chip very easily), so I'm gonna do those swatches I promised at the beginning of the week, plus a swatch of my new baby: Sally Hansen Xtreme Shooting Star. *drool*


See ya next time!


P.S: Welcome to the new followers! I enjoy coming in to check out my blog and see the number of followers going up! :D You gals make my day! *hug*

Swatches (picture heavy)

Yay! New post! It contains a few pictures, so I apologize in advance if this causes any inconveniences. ;)


First off, here's Sally Hansen HD Hue. Application wise, it was good, but the polish is a little transparent. In this picture, I have 2 coats on my pinky and middle fingers, and 3 coats on my ring and index fingers.

I had another similar yellow in my collection, and thought I'd try them on top of each other. It made Hue look a little more opact, but you can see the other color underneath because I lack skills at juxtaposition. :P 

Next, we have Joe Fig. Nice color, and good application, but you need 3 coats for the color to look nice. It takes about 2-3 minutes for each coats to dry, but the 3rd one may take a little longer. The little bumps you see in the picture are caused by my sucky top coat at the time, nothing to do with Fig.

Moving on to Joe Wine. It applied nicely, and you can get away with just 2 coats. I did 3, just in case, because in some lights, it looked like some uneven patches were seen. Dries within 3 minutes, at most 4 for the last coat. This is the only "good" picture that came out of like 10. For some reason, my camera hated it.

Then we have Joe Matte Top Coat. I paired it over Joe Wine. It made Wine pop so much more in matte than shiny, and I fell in love with matting everything! :P By the time I was done my 2nd hand, my first hand was completely dry.

And lastly, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Berry Swift. That one, I applied over fake tips, so you may not have the same experience as I did. For starters, the brush is huge. It's the size of 2 brushes, really, and the wand is triangle shaped. The first coat applied like a dream. So easy, it glided and every nails were done within 2 brush glides. It dries pretty quickly, I'd say within a minute. But if you get some on your cuticles, by the time you grab an orange stick, it's already dry. And it's a pain to remove from said cuticles. I applied a 2nd coat the next day, and it didn't apply as well. For starters, the brush itself got a few strands loose, like the brush was too big to enter the orifice of the bottle, and the strands on the side lifted up. The polish itself felt like it was drying instantly, and I was afraid it'd streak. Thankfully, the only nail that streaked was my right thumb, but it doesn't show that much. On to the picture. Sorry for the poor cleanup job; as I said, very hard to remove from cuticles.

I'm gonna try the Xtreme Wear polishes at the end of the week, most likely. I'm gonna wait for my current NOTW to start chipping, and then fill out my gel mani. 


Thanks for reading, and see ya next time! ;D

Mini-Haul #2 and product review

Hiya!


It's been a loooong while since I've posted, and I truly apologize. As I explained in my previous post, my life's been kinda hectic since the end of September, and it's slowly going back on track. I have a few nail art and a few swatches I wanna post over the next week. I know I've said that before, but now that I have more time, I actually will!


Over the past few weeks, my nails have let a lot to desire. The Mavala strengtheners I bought in September aren't doing their job, and it's like my nails have gone weaker for some reason. Tired of desperately gluing back my nails back together, and filing them so the difference in length wouldn't be too apparent, I just decided to chop them all off last week. Here's what they looked like (pardon the horrible cuticles):

So then I went to the store, to try and find a fortifier, and decided to go another way. I remembered how tough my nails were with a gel manicure, but didn't really wanna spend $45 on it. So I've decided to buy a home kit instead! I also bought a few polishes with it, hence a mini-haul.

I bought:
- Broadway Real Life Brush-On Gel Nail Kit
- Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Fireberry Red
- Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Purple Gala
- Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Berry Swift




On to the review, for Broadway Real Life Brush-On Gel Nail Kit.




I put on the tips and the brush-on gel without any problems, really. I was happily surprised, and it doesn't have that heavy feeling some fake nails have. I also have a problem with fake nails, as they never stay on for very long, but these tips seem to stay. I'll test them further over the week, as I have to do the fall cleaning of my Dad's house. I hope they'll stick through that! Here's what it looks like:

I am again promising swatches over the next few days, as well as some overdue manis.


Hugs, and thanks for sticking around!

AWOL

I apologize for missing in action lately, especially since I just started my blog. An event happened last week that shook up my life, but it's slowly getting back on track. I still have a few swatches, and a few other manis that I want to share before I'm all caught up.

Thanks for your understanding,

Gabz