H: Hello Kitty Manicure

Hey ladies!

It's time for "H" of the ABC challenge. How do you wear Hello Kitty when you are over the age of 35 and not look like a total fool? Discretely. Tastefully. Somehow in a luxe material. I think?

Well, I got a bunch of gold Hello Kitty nail decorations free with a dotting tool kit from Amazon. I really love gold and grey together so I did a simple mani with Color Club's Muse-ing, a dark grey cream polish. I picked a dark grey for high contrast and the gold warms up the grey nicely. Don't ya think?

There's only one picture today, because my camera's battery is almost dead and I don't have time to wait for it to charge.

So who does construction labor with a full on manicure? Crazy moi, that's who.

Progression of the bedroom....

After we tore up the carpet we had a little set back. We found some water damage in the back of the room and on the side. We suspect there must have been a waterbed in this room back in the 80's that leaked.  If you look to the left of the top picture, you can see we repaired the damage. The water had made the floor sink and bow about an inch downwards. The nails were not going to be able to grab on to the plywood underneath so we used liquid floor leveler to make the floor flat again. Kind of like a base coat ridge filler here in the nail world. We stopped construction because we had to wait a full 24 hours for the leveler to dry. The red tank is a compressor used to power the hammer.

Above is a sneak peak at what the new floors will look like. The black stuff is tar paper, for protection against moisture.

So that's it for today. Don't forget to check out the other ladies in this challenge.

F: Fish Braid Manicure

It's Wednesday again.  Time for "F" of the ABC challenge; F: for Fish braid mani.  Today's post is picture heavy so I'm going to stick to just this topic.  This was my first attempt at fish braiding. It wasn't too hard to do and turned out well.  I'll be doing this again in the future, with better colors.

Left Hand.

Right Hand.

I only did three nails because I ran out of nail polish strips.  Just as well, because I started to get tired...

So, how did I do this?

First I painted two coats of nail polish onto a plastic page protector and waited three hours for them to dry.
I used Color Club Style Icon (red), Revlon's Jaded Night (green), and Sinful Colors, Black on Black.

Then scraped up the rectangles of dried paint.  See?  They are like vinyl sheets.

Cut them into strips.

Applied one coat of base coat, then start placing the strips onto the nail in a braiding pattern, alternating the different colors.

Trim off the excess with a cuticle trimmer.
Clean up the cuticles with a brush and acetone.
Slap on a thick coat of top coat.
Viola! See below.

I used American Classics, Gelous base coat, and INM Out the Door top coat for this.

I'm so glad I finally got a chance to do this!  It was fun and the lines are nice and crisp.  I am pretty bad at nail art, so this technique is much easier for me to do.  I found out about this technique, I think from Sammasaurus at Nailasaurus....a long time ago... I'm too lazy to search for the link.

I love how this challenge is only once a week!  I've been enjoying just painting my nails and not taking photos every other day, for now. I'm going to go and see what the rest of the ladies in the challenge are up to!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

E: Edie, Color Club

Happy Wednesday!  Time for E: of the ABC challenge and I have Edie, from the Pop-tastic collection, last summer?  Poor Edie sat in my untried pile for months and it shouldn't have because it is really bright and pretty, almost neon green.  The formula is nice and creamy too.  Color Club really makes some nice polishes.

This is two easy coats, topped with Jelly Pop top coat.  Which I heard by the way, is now discontinued...  I am really disappointed to hear this.  I love this top coat and now I can't find it anywhere. Did anyone else hear about this?

Below is Edie under incandescent lighting.. mostly indoors it can look like a teal.

My bedroom is slowly coming along, I don't have pictures... I'll post them next time.  It has been so dark and cloudy here I don't have good pictures of the new color.

Until next time!

NO H8 - Funky Fingers - Sugar Plum Fairy

Wow, I did, three posts in the span of 36 hours!  I don't want to miss out on supporting No H8. Luckily I have the day off from work to join in!  Here is a nice lavender with gold shimmer from Funky Fingers, the same company as Color Club.  There should be a Color Club dupe to Sugar Plum Fairy.  Two coats.

In this photo, the gold shimmer is more apparent.

Now it is obvious why bullying should not be tolerated, and the person that started this mess should understand why people start blogs and why people read them.  Part of it is getting away from picture perfect magazines and to see how real women, in real life, wear and interpret fashion and what not.  Everyone has a special talent that they bring to the table, and if the "clean up or die" group can look past messy cuticles then maybe they might be able to see where someone's strengths are.  AND hey if you can't stand to look at messy cuticles then just click off.

The main reason why I support No H8 is because we should move towards a kinder world and it starts with being kind to each other, tolerating differences, and embracing diversity.  When we keep moving forward and evolving, culture changes for the better.  Bullying used to be though of as a rite of passage, wearing eyeglasses was not attractive, and smoking indoors was the norm... Not anymore.  It is amazing where we can go when we have an open mind and do the right thing.  Even when the right thing is not popular.  Luckily anti-bullying is popular.

Speaking of cruelty, Color Club and Funky Fingers is one of the few nail polish companies endorsed by leapingbunny.org - an organization that endorses cruelty free cosmetics.  Some people will say we "need" to test on animals, or we will end up testing on humans.  Well we do/did test on humans and we were barbaric with that too, just look at the Tuskegee trials in Alabama back in the 60's and 70's, and that is not an isolated incident.   If we (us nail polish consumers.. consumers in general) don't start to demand that cruel practices stop, it will continue.  The manufactures will not find other methods of testing if we don't demand that they stop the cruelty. The market will meet the demands of customers or go out of business.  Cruelty free for a kinder world for humans, animals and the eco-system.  No more bullying, human to human kindness will hopefully translate to human to animal kindness and human to eco-system kindness.  That's the message we need to send.

I first heard about No H8 here.

Color Club - Milky White Base Coat

Got yellow nails because your a polish maniac like me?

My naked nails, stained...

Sometimes I like to wear sheers but my yellow tips show through and they look, gross. Well, I tried Color Club's Milky White base coat and its not too bad. If your nails are white it will make them really white. Mine are yellow at the tips and white at the tops, so at the tips the effect is lessened, but overall its an improvement. Also, the whitening effect is way more apparent in sunlight than it is indoors.





Below is a demo of how Milky White looks against a bare nail and under Deborah Lippmann's Baby Love, a sheer pink.

Same as above, but a different view.

Here is Milky White alone, alternating fingers.

The package also says it will also help smooth out the nail and that using their Vivid top coat will whithen and brighten the overall look even more.  I'm not totally blown away with this base coat, but my nails are whiter. (I did not try the Vivid top coat). What do you think?

I bought my Milky White base coat on eBay for around $4, $2 for domestic shipping.

Color Club Sweet Pea

Hey guys!  Post number 100, amazing.  Today I have another work mani/swatch to show you.  Color Club's Sweet Pea from this Spring's Blossoming Collection.  This was the only color I got from the collection, because I don't really have another color like it.  I would describe it as a slightly dusty pastel purple-pink. 

I wore this for three days, and over that time I decided, I really don't like it.  I felt like an old lady wearing it and its kinda boring.  Pretty in the bottle, boring on my nails, go figure.  I got a few compliments at work though.  I guess it depends on your personal taste.

Formula on this is like other pastels, a bit chalky, and settles in every crevice.  I don't have noticeable ridges but this polish shows that I do.  I used two coats of base coat, three coats of polish and a thick coat of Seche Vite for a smooth and even finish. 

Orly - Sashay My Way

Happy Friday!  I've got a great glitter from Orly's Flash Glam Fx collection to show you; Sashay My Way, a holographic, gold, hex, and bar glitter in a clear base.  This is one coat over three coats of Color Club's Factory Girl.

If your looking for a nice baby blue pastel, Factory Girl has a really nice formula as far as pastels go, a little thin, but easy to apply and not tacky like most pastels.  I got this for $2 from a nail supply store, and Sashy My Way is $8.99 at Sally's but with my club card it was $5.99. 

What colors do you like to wear gold with?

Color Club - Ultra Violet 865

Color Club's Ultra Violet is a vibrant fuchsia polish with aqua blue shimmer, which my camera would not pick up at all.  I took a ton of pictures but I give up.  You can see there is some kind of effect, its not a creme.  Anyhow, the formula is sheer and uber smooth.  Even though its sheer, I achieved full coverage with two coats.

Direct sunlight, tried to catch the blue shimmer, but it still very minimal when compared to the naked eye.

Color club is actually hard for me to find. I got this bottle for $2, at Sunlight nail supply.  I did a review on this supplier, click here for more.

Anyone working on a 4th of July mani? 

Sourcing for Nail Polish and Other Manicure Supplies

This certainly isn't a new idea, but have you ever tried going to a nail salon supplier to find nail polish?  There are two suppliers in my area that I'm willing to drive to that will sell to individuals without a nail tech license.  The benefit of going to these places are wholesale pricing and a large inventory of "salon, professional" quality supplies.  I'll review one store, that I try to get to, on a monthly basis. 

Skyline nail supply is located in Falls Church, VA in a dumpy, run-down, ethnic strip mall.  This place is always busy, at least when I go there.  There are trucks dropping off and picking up merchandise by the pallet continously.  The front of the store is littered with cardboard boxes and inside is somewhat a disorganized mess.  The shelves are rougly organized by nail polish brand and the individual colors are all mixed up on messy shelves.  Essie and Station nails dominate the store.  There are rows upon rows of dust covered old Station nail polish its gross!  China Glaze and OPI share a section, Zoya and Orly share another.  Color Club is shoved in the back and for the longest time they only had neon Color Club to choose from.  CND is there too but covered in so much dust I don't want to touch it.  Other than nail polish, you can by nail files by the case, tubs of lotions, cleansers, scrubs, and giant message chairs.  Cuticle remover and cuticle oil too come in massive amounts!  Oh they also have an endless array of fake nails and acrylic and gel nail supplies. 

I'm sorry I don't have pictures of the inside but the owners are Vietnamese, which I am not, and I didn't want to start snapping pictures and get kicked out!  Can you imagine getting cursed at in Vietnamese over nail polish?  OMG! OMG!

Here's a recent haul from early April.

Left to right: CG: Foie Gras, Dance Baby, Electric Beat, Seduce Me, Hook and Line, Orly Rose Colored Glasses, CC Gingerbread, Candycane, Zoya America, Dita. 

All China Glazes are $3 each.
Orly $4
Color club $2
Zoyas $4  (They have a bad selection of Zoyas all mainly reds and pinks.)

OPI are $3 each, but If you haven't noticed I don't buy OPI because they are owned by Coty a parent company that tests on animals and same with Essie, owned by Loreal.  This may change in 2013, as I wonder if these companies will have to comply with European regulations to stay competitive. 

I have bought some old nail polishes from here that were no longer good and I got burned (both Zoyas).  There are no refunds or exchanges allowed.  So I only try to buy new collections here because I know that they are fresh.  When the Hunger Games collection came out March 23, Sally's was ransacked and there was nothing left.  At Skyline they had the whole collection in cases, so there was plenty to go around and they were $3 each, not $5.99 at Sally's or a whopping $7.99 like they are at Ulta.  They also still have a bunch of China Glaze and Orly Christmas sets still left over.  There kits are cheap too, for example if you wanted the whole China Glaze electropop collection, there are two sets of six, so each set is $18, still $3 per bottle.   And they come in the plastic box that you see on Amazon or Transdesign.  They also let you take apart the sets too.  The guy in the store said to me if I only wanted to buy two I could take apart the set and leave the other four behind.  I said "Really?  Won't that ruin your set?"  He said, "No worry, I will sell the four later."   COOL!  I thought.

So put up with the dust and be super nice, (because the prices are not marked) and have fun shopping for hard to find salon polishes on the cheap. 

Do you ever go to wholesale nail suppliers?

If you missed this morning's half moon mani post click HERE.  It is awesome, so don't pass it up!