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

Vintage Vixen inspired

Hi!


Today's mani was inspired by China Glaze's Vintage Vixen collection. I had done it for Glamorous Geek Chic's giveaway (about a month ago), in order to get a few more entries. I was very proud of myself to come up with the design on my own. I had mentioned this in my Welcome Post, but hadn't elaborate much.


This is the inspiration picture:

Here's what I used:

- Sally Hansen 4-in-1 treatment
- Rimmel 60 Seconds #819 Green With Envy
- 4 Nail Star Two-Way Nail Art Pen & Brush (brown, mahogany, golden glitter, pearly white), bought on eBay
- Nicole by OPI Top Coat Plus






Here's the final result:

I chose green for the background, as the "Vixen" is wearing a green beret. The brown/mahogany prickly circle in the middle is the brooch on the necklace. And the white dots, of course, are the pearls for the necklace.










There you go! Hope you guys like it. ;)

Revlon swatches

Hiya!
Here's the first swatches from my mini haul. I'm starting with the Revlon Top Speed Jaded and Lily.

I do realized the quality sucks. The battery had died, and I had to use the one on my cellphone. And I just realized that I haven't cleaned up the cuticles, so please forgive me!

 More swatches to come, so stay tuned!

EDITED on 09/27 (12:48am (AST)), to add:
Susie's comment made me realized that I didn't really talked about anything, lol! Thanks for these questions, otherwise, I never would've realized! ;D


Application wise, it takes at least 2 coats to get an even finish. Jaded was 3 coats, but Lily has 2. It dries pretty quickly, so by the time I was done the last nail in my hand, the first one was already dry to touch. The brushes glided fairly well, didn't have any problem with the application in general. The formula was a bit thin, to be honest, but it was still manageable.

Mini-Haul!!

Excitement ahoy, I went on a small shopping spree! I had a crappy morning, and had to run some errands, and just couldn't resist buying these:

From left to right:
- Tone Body Wash, Mango Splash
- Revlon Top Speed, #320 Jaded
- Revlon Top Speed, #610 Lily
- Sally Hansen HD, Hue 
- Joe, Matte Top Coat
- Joe, Wine
- Joe, Fig


I threw in the body wash too, 'cause I bought it on an impulse. It smells divine, and can't wait to try it out!


I was happy to find the Joes polishes, because I had never seen them before. I was looking for them through the nail polish display, but they were on a separate rotating shelve. I'm a little surprise at the size of the bottles, as I never realized 6ml was so little. But for the price ($4 or 3/$10) it's not so bad. I've never tried a matte finish before, so I'll try that on my next mani!


Swatches to come over the next few days! Stay tuned! ;)