January 28, 2012

Foiled!

I want to get this up before midnight, but I don't think that's going to happen. I really wanted to walk through the foil method for glitter polish removal, because honestly it's changed my lifelong opinion on glitter nail polish.

Here's what you'll need:


  • Aluminum foil (maybe about 9" from the roll) cut into 10 pieces
  • 10 small cotton balls
  • Nail polish remover
So the basic idea of the foil method is to keep the acetone from evaporating before you have a chance to remove all the glitter. It also seems to soften up the glitter by soaking it in the nail polish remover. And I know 10 cotton balls might seem like a lot, but seriously if you consider how many you would go through normally trying to rub the glitter off (it took 8 when I removed Revlon Facets of Fuschia), 10 is a reasonable number. You probably don't even have to use that many, if you sort of pull the cotton balls in half - as long as it's enough to cover your nail.

So first, you soak the cotton ball in nail polish remover as you would normally, and place it on one of your nails. Then you take a piece of foil and wrap it tightly around your finger. I find it's easiest if you wrap it around lengthwise first, and then fold it over the edge of  your finger, making sure the foil is crimped tightly around your finger.

And then you just keep going for the rest of your fingers. I usually only do one hand at a time, since it's pretty much impossible to do the other hand while one hand is wrapped up in foil like this:



You can always reuse the foil, too, if you're concerned about waste. After you're all wrapped up, you just wait for 5-7 minutes or so, and then pull the foil pieces off one at a time while applying pressure and a slight twisting back and forth motion.

This is what it generally looked like after I pulled one off:


There's still a little bit left, but I chalked it up to my poor pressure application once I got to the end of the nail. But, NEVER FEAR, that last bit of glitter came off a lot easier than expected. I just re-used the cotton ball from inside the foil piece.

With equal pressure to all parts of the nail, you can get something that looks more like this:


Literally blows my mind every time. Here's a satisfying cotton ball picture:


Ugh...SO SATISFYING!

And so, by this point, after the most satisfying glitter removal ever, clean-up is as easy as crumpling all the foil into a little ball and tossing it into the garbage!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I really wanted to see what the glitter jelly sandwich manicure would look like with a pink jelly polish. I totally planned to swatch it out tonight with Revlon Grapefruit Fizz, but I got home way too late from church, thanks to the ultra slippery roads. It "slushed" all day today, only to be followed by bone-chilling winds and a cover of snow. It was kind of ridiculous...I felt like I was driving on an ice rink. I actually missed the turn onto my street because I couldn't brake fast enough to make the turn safely, and I was only going 20km per hour!

Anyway, hopefully this is useful to somebody (anybody!) who reads this. :)

January 24, 2012

Supernova

So I saw this thing on a bunch of other blogs, and I thought I would try it out since it was so cute and it looked like candy. My excuse for changing my nails last night was that my previous manicure was not "professional" enough to wear to school today, but...


Obviously this was not any more professional than the last. But I really wanted to try it out. I put 1 coat of American Apparel - Supernova under 2 coats of Rimmel - French Rose from their French Manicure Pro collection. Supernova is a bunch of larger multicoloured (blue, orange, red, green, silver, and gold) hex glitter mixed in with smaller round silver, gold, magenta, and orange pieces, with even smaller green glitter in a clear base. I think it's close enough to Happy Birthday to fill that hole in my collection without me having to drop the $20+ on the actual Happy Birthday, and it was made especially better by the fact that I got this puppy for $3.

I like how the sheer pink polish mellows out the multi-coloured glitter and made it somewhat less inappropriate, haha. Initially I didn't like how the silver glitter turned white, but it's growing on me. The only think that hasn't sold me on this look is the fact that the sheer pink French Rose actually looks a little gray, which isn't the cute candy look I was going for -- if I ever do it again, I'll definitely try a pinker polish.

Here's a close-up of the index finger on my right hand:


I put a thinner layer of pink on this hand than I did on my left (pictured above) and I think I like having more of the glitter show through. I'm definitely digging how the gold glitter turns a pale yellow. I don't know why, but the little green pieces floating in the cloudy off-white top coat kind of reminded me of sour cream-n-onion chips...it was probably my hunger talking.

In other news, I came home to find that my mom tried to organize the miscellaneous polishes I had lying in a basket on top of my filing cabinet. I  never realized how many I actually had until I saw today that the miscellaneous polishes (not counting the ones in my rolling storage tower and the ones hiding in my desk drawer) filled 2 shoeboxes, neatly lined up! I quickly promised myself that I would not buy any more, but we all know that this is the emptiest of all promises, especially since the OPI Holland collection is coming out and I want I Have a Herring Problem and Wooden Shoe Like to Know in addition to Zoya Skylar so bad it's a bit ridiculous.

And so, that ends the hour of lazing around for me. Hopefully in 2 weeks I can come up with something a little more lab-appropriate. :P

January 19, 2012

Finger Paints Flecked

Yay! More flakies!

Finally got a chance to use one of my prized Finger Paints Flakies, in Flecked!



So pretty! More pictures:

Blue!


I really have nothing else to say, except that I can't stop looking at my nails and watching the colour shift between bright green, teal, and blue. I layered it over Joe Fresh Hunter, which looks like a dark teal in the bottle, but it dries a lot darker on the nail, I find, so it looks almost black. I tried really hard to capture it in the last picture above. The formula was pretty good, going on in 2 coats (you could try a third if you really wanted, but...). The only thing I would say is that the dinky little white cap it comes with is pretty awkward to use. I kept scraping the nails on the hand I was brushing with against my desk.  I would post the picture of it on its own, but it just looks like black...

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with myself for putting together this combo for under $10 when just 2 months ago it took all I had in me to resist The Wyndham at $23. :D

Back to work!

January 15, 2012

Essie - As Gold As It Gets

I've been meaning to get to this, since our secret santa exchange on Tuesday, when I got 2 lovely Essie Luxeffects polishes, yay! :)

I've been on a real flakies streak lately...still kind of bummed about my impulse purchase of Barielle Elle's Spell, but flakies.

Lamp light, no flash
Flash


This is the mani I did while watching the beginning of SNL tonight, and, let me tell you, it is hard to paint your nails while you're laughing your ass off -- particularly good episode tonight. The base is Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle "Sweet Sunrise" and I used one coat of Essie "As Gold As It Gets" on top. It sort of gives it this antiqued sort of look, I think.


The pictures I have of the finished product sort of wash out the colour, so I have a picture of Sweet Sunrise on it's own. I really like this colour, and that's saying a lot, because I don't normally wear pink. It has just the right amount of warmth to it (good call on naming it sweet sunrise) and there's this really subtle silver shimmer that's just...ugh (in the "so amazing" and not in the "so disgusting" way).

Off to work tomorrow, so I really should be going. Once again, thanks for the awesome gift Stef, if you're reading this (though you probably are not. :P)

- K

January 14, 2012

Sally Hansen Gray by Gray + DOTS!

I've been feeling somewhat pleased about my productivity within the last 2 hours, so I am rewarding myself with a quick post and then maybe a new mani when I break to watch SNL tonight.

This has been on my nails since Tuesday:


Please excuse the messiness -- I would have cleaned it up before I took the picture except that I noticed a little white scratch on my ring finger and I wanted to take a pic before any more scratches had the chance to appear. I used Sally Hansen Gray by Gray for the base and American Apparel Mount Royal for the dots. I didn't like this when I first put it on, but I have to admit that it's grown on me.

In other news, I totally fell off the wagon again, since seeing Barielle Elle Spell at Winners. I'm feeling a bit of buyer's remorse, though, since it came in a set with 4 others, two of which are dupes of things I already own...

Oh well.

January 07, 2012

Ombre Nails

At the end of yet another unproductive day, I'm here to show you my very first ombre manicure! I've been wanting to try it out forever, and today seemed like a good opportunity to try it out.




Excuse the ugly cuticles...

This is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Grey Area, which is a dark gray which leans purple and has a kind of brown-ish tone to it. white polish added to it. I ended up using a plastic plate to mix together four drops of Grey Area with Sally Hansen White On. Grey Area is in its pure form on the pinky, and each subsequent finger has one additional drop of white added. I used the brush from an inexpensive clear polish to mix up the polishes and apply them (and THEN I "washed" the brush with acetone and put it back). My bottle of White On is getting really chunky now, so it was really hard to apply once I got to the index finger since the mixture of polishes would dry even before I got it to the nail, which was super annoying. The thumb is a pretty gloopy mess, but nothing that my topcoat couldn't fix. Otherwise, I was pretty pleased with the final result.

My first choice for an ombre manicure would have been either a blue gradient or a teal gradient, but I wanted to stay with a more work-appropriate colour since I have a work tomorrow, and a practical on Tuesday. This look is so unique, and I think, extremely chic. LOVE LOVE LOVE!

- K

January 05, 2012

An Exercise in Self Control...

Christmas break is officially over, and although I really should be getting some more work done before the work piles up and literally crushes me underneath its weight in printed out textbook notes, I am...here.

My dotting tools and brushes came in the mail today!



I got them on eBay for like, $2 each set. I bought a brush/dotting tool at Sally's a couple of months ago for $7, so you can imagine that I kicked myself when I found them online for a significantly lower price. To be completely honest, I bought the brush set mostly for the striping brushes. I thought buying the brush set would be a money-saving manoeuvre - buying a striping brush to use with all my different nail polishes would be a lot cheaper than buying a whole lot of special striping polishes. We'll definitely see as time goes on if my genius plan was indeed...genius.

Also today was the long-awaited trip to American Apparel to finally use my 5 polishes for $15 team buy!


(Left to Right) Supernova, Angeline and Mount Royal

I shared the 5 polishes deal with a friend, because, again  I  would like to appear like I have some self control. I've never tried American Apparel polishes, but I've heard good things and can't wait to try them out. We've been pretty excited about getting our hands on Supernova, what looks to be a dupe of Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday, so we each grabbed a bottle. I also picked up Mount Royal and Angeline, after a lengthy self-debate over whether I wanted a pink one or another blue polish. Of course, I wasn't fooling anybody with my self control bit because on my way home...



This is a Joe Fresh polish in Hunter. It was the dark teal possible dupe (?) for Nails Inc. Kensington that I was looking for to complete my "set" of the Wyndham. Bonus, it was only $2 as they were on sale! If I only knew that they were half off I might have picked up the much-coveted Twilight, which was sitting right there. Again, I couldn't decide if I wanted it bad enough, so I left it on the shelf.

In other news, my new pair of boots totally gave me killer blisters today after our walk around the mall. In retrospect, I shouldn't have even been wearing them at all, since it is still snow-less in Toronto. Time for a foot soak, and...newer, more comfortable boots?

- K

January 03, 2012

Finger Paints Flakies

I relished in my last day of Christmas break by sleeping in today until 10, which is something that I NEVER do. Furthermore, I really did not feel like studying just yet, so I decided to come on here and rattle on a little bit about random happenings and, of course, the new Finger Paints collection!

But first I must express how terribly annoyed I am that I seem to have caught a cold yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen, your mothers were right -- don't go outside in the winter with your hair wet! I called my local Sally's yesterday in hopes that they had the new Finger Paints in and went out on a whim after taking a shower to go and check them out. Of course I regret being so hasty because now I have a stuffy nose, which has recently changed to a runny nose, and I definitely won't gross you out with the details, but by the looks of it, it's not too serious, though bothersome as HELL. Did I mention I am a champ at writing run-on sentences?

Funny story: the lady who works (and I assume is the manager, as she seems to always be there) at Sally's asked me if I was the girl who called last week begging her to release the Finger Paints collection early. I wasn't, but this means that there is another junkie who probably lives nearby...BFFs! Anyway, because I obviously have my priorities straight, I picked up 2 flakies from Sally's yesterday instead of stocking up on some Advil Cold & Sinus to prepare for the inevitable:


 
Twisted (L) over Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme and Flecked (R) over Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue - Sunlight

 
Flecked is a green flakie in a cloudy colourless base that flashes blue in the bottle and thankfully that translates onto the swatch. I think it's a dupe for Nails Inc. The Wyndham, which I almost bought last month at Sephora in the Old Vic set for $23, but luckily Finger Paints came in and saved the day with this $6 look-alike. Twisted is the same base with multicoloured flakies that flash orange, green, blue, purple, and I believe red - a flakie party! I stood in the aisle of Sally's for about 20 minutes trying to decide if I wanted this or its twin, Asylum, but I ultimately decided on Twisted because it looked more densely packed.

I only got two because frankly the other ones did not interest me that much and I like to think that I can exercise some self control. Asylum seemed to be a Twisted wannabe and the other one, whose name escapes me right now, was just your average run-of-the-mill orange-green flakie that's been done to death (Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, Nubar 2010, Essie Shine of the Times). As for Motley, which is a green and blurple flakie, I almost had a change of heart once I returned home. I even went as far as googling Sally's return policy, but luckily, these swatches have re-confirmed my love and decision to purchase Flecked instead. Will I go back and get Motley? Maybe...but not likely. I feel like it might be time for a near-permanent no-buy (which will be made quite difficult in the coming weeks -- goddamn Zoya, coming out with gorge colours for Spring 2012!).

So that ends my rant...I really should get back to studying.

-K

January 02, 2012

2012

Helloooooo!

Due to an extreme need to procrastinate despite my impending doom on Wednesday and Thursday (and the rest of the semester, I guess), I have decided to make a post on my relatively inactive and most likely UNREAD nail blog.

But that's okay. We -- and by we, I mean the voices in my head and I -- have fun anyway.



Yesterday, I welcomed the New Year wth this blinged out combination. Glitter is not usually my cup of tea, since it takes about a billion years to remove it, but this year I decided to give that foil method a try. I figured now was a good a time as any, considering that I had about 6 layers of glitter and polish caked onto my nail -- 2 of Revlon Glitz & Glam, 1 of Nubar 2010, and 2 of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear In the Spotlight + base and top coats -- and I really wasn't about to spend the rest of my night picking it off in order to look somewhat less...TWELVE before school started up again. I really wish I'd taken pictures, but this will have to do:


In all seriousness, though, that foil method worked like you would not believe. All that glitter came off in one swipe. It kind of felt like my fingers were baking, though. I can't decide if that was due to the foil trapping all the heat from my fingers in, or if it was due to the acetone. I'll have to do some further experimentation.

Anyway, onto today's mani...

This was the first mani of 2012 and I kind of wanted to make it special but not too special as to require actual effort on my part. According to Grade 4-me, by the year 2012, we were supposed to have flying cars and computers which required only the power of our thoughts to type instead of tediously clacking away at a keyboard. Of course, Grade 4-me was also the President of the Snow Fort Building Club (I had my own office!) and the Running-and-Jumping-into-a-Brick-Wall-for-Funsies Club (which was rightfully shut down after a friend of mine broke the club record and then subsequently scraped off the entire side of her arm, no big). Grade 4-me was also not allowed to wear nail polish, which kind of explains Grade 7-me, and I guess University-me as well -- you know, like those kids who weren't allowed to eat sugar and then go bat shit crazy all of a sudden when they finally get a taste.

Luckily for us, something that has been invented prior to the year 2012 was magnetic nail polish:


Ta-daaaah! So impressed, I was. This is Nails Inc. Trafalgar Square, a magnetic polish that I bought at Sephora following my defeat of midterm season in November. This is my first magnetic polish, and I have to say that despite my concerns about how user-friendly magnetic polish may or may not be, I was pretty pleased by how easy it was to make my nails look this bad-ass. The outer cap comes off the bottle, leaving the smaller cap attached to the brush on the inside, which is - so I've heard - a huge advantage in terms of ease in magnetic polishes. The ring finger is a bit messed up because I put too thick a coat onto it and the magnet in the lid actually started to lift some of the polish off in droplets. Lesson learned.

Trafalgar Square has also, however, stolen the prestigious title of Most Expensive polish in my stash from Inglot 318, a light green $14 baby that I bought in Grade 8 (with the only $14 I had to my name, being 13 and all...) only to find that it was more yellow than green and totally did NOT go with my skin tone. Trafalgar Square was $18 + tax at Sephora and I really do not plan on topping that price tag anytime soon.

So that was a pretty long post. And there's probably nobody here to read it. But that's really okay, because I had a BLAST writing it.

-K