Tonight's post is going to be a little bit different as I'm not going to do a review. Instead, I thought I'd show you guys my transformation as a swatcher, photographer, polisher, and blogger. These photos are technically part of the Oldie but Goodie series I used to do, but I'm running low on pictures to dedicate a whole post to each polish. Therefore, I've decided I would just put them all in one post! Get ready for some heavy picture spam! Here's a little bit of history to go with these old pictures. I was always a polish fiend, but I strayed away when I went to law school. I didn't have time to do them myself, and I certainly didn't have the money to spend on getting manicures. When I was little, I would go over to my Grannie's house all the time, and every time, we would do our nails. She had this amazing selection of all different colors mostly from Wet 'n Wild, but including Nina, Sinful, Revlon Street Wear, and some Sally Hansen. We would always have festive manis (and pedis for me) during each holiday. Those are times I sincerely cherish since my grandmother has since passed away. She's who got me started on my road to polish ridiculousness when I was just a young girl. Even through school, I always had a pretty decently sized stash for a teenager - especially for a teenager during the non-polish mania years. My nails were horrible, though, and still are to a certain degree, because of all of all of my health issues (Hashimotos thyroid disease, hypoglycemia, and intolerance to several different foods that I didn't know about until recently). I peeled them. Not bit them, but peeled them off. They flaked, they wouldn't grow, and I had ridges. But I'll be damned if I didn't have paint on them all the time! Now, I try to have polish on my nails every day. I typically do a mani every or every other night unless I'm doing a wear test, simply because I went crazy buying last year and am still trying to catch up on wearing them all. Still nowhere close, though. Hah! These photos are from around this time last year when I first started getting back into polish. Some are before I started the blog and was posting photos on Facebook and another polish forum. Some are from after I started the blog last summer but before I was very good about moisturizing or using my camera. At the end, I'll add a photo from a few weeks ago so you can see how I've transformed through this process! Let's get started!!
Zoya Minka - hated this polish! It went on horribly and just wouldn't dry.
Gelish French marble with Tiki Tiki Laranga, Shake it til You Samba, Stand Out, and Light Elegant. This photo is taken with the vivid color mode on my camera, but it's pretty close to accurate for the color on my tips.
Playing with my new stamps using regular polishes including NOPI, OPI, and WnW.
More stamping practice pre-cleanup. I actually attempted a two-tone stamp that came out pretty decently!
Gelish Jet Set. One of my all time favorite Gelish colors. Also, one of the few polishes my hubby bought for me.
More stamping. I'm unsure what the base is (maybe CC Puccilicious?) topped with NOPI Pink Flower Power. I really like this combo.
Nails by Laura (now Joyful Noise Cosmetics) Bedazzleberry White. The glitters in this one sank, but they were fine in the regular Beddazleberry.
OPI If you Moust you Moust topped with Dandy Nails Wonderwall. Not a fantastic combo, but I wanted to give it a shot. Wonderwall is a bit hard to apply, as you can tell, and the glitters didn't spread very well. I'll bet it would look awesome over a pale blue like Elevation Alphubel.
Dollish Gym Tan Laundry. I wasn't sure if I'd like this one when I bought it, but I really really love it. Good impulse buy!
Rainbow Honey Celestia topped with Sonnetarium Snowfall. I <3 Sonnetarium. 'Nuff said.
My first water marble. Not exactly a rousing success, lol.
My second water marble attemp; OPI DS Sapphire topped with Dollish It's a me Mario, and Girly Bits Star Spangled. There are so many things wrong with this picture...
Rainbow Hone Celestia. I'm looking forward to trying this again once I've thinned it...
Dollish Sweet Dreams are Made of Glitter. Mint greens aren't my fave.
Rainbow Honey Pinkie Promise. Pretty color. Wore this at Disney World.
Candeo Glacier. Such a pretty color and the glitters haven't sunk or turned to sludge. Yay!
Nails by Laura (now Joyful Noise Cosmetics) Alice Who? Pretty close dupe to Absolutely Alice.
Pretty and Polished Cancer Moon. Discontinued, but not really my kind of polish.
Wet 'n Wild Diamond in the Rough. Very gritty, even with two coats of topcoat.
Pretty & Polished Peace Camp. Applied easily without clumping or pooling.
OPI Thanks a Windmillion topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust and stamped with Nfu Oh 61. One of my all time favorite manis despite the ridiculous SV shrinkage.
Now, let's take a look at a more recent shot: Zoya Pixie Dust Nyx. I'll have a wear test of this beauty sometime in the near future!
So there you have it! I think I've come a long way, and if I can do it, so can you! Just keep moisturizing, figure out the best way for you to handle your cuticles (I love my SH Cuticle Remover Gel), and keep your nails at a manageable length, and you'll be good to go! How did you get into nail polish? What's your story?
Wearing the same polish for longer than a day is so BORING. Am I alone in this? Ugh! Luckily, I'll be changing my polish tomorrow for Comparison Thursday, which will be light purple cremes (i.e. Rumples Wiggin, Done out in Deco, and the like). Until then, I've been in the same polish for two days. It's very dull. I do have a few recent swatch photos that need editing, but I'm saving those for later. I'll soon be nekkid nails for a week or so as I'll be getting a new treatment to try out later this week (thanks to a swap from a lovely lady!). I'll definitely make sure to show you guys how they look before and after to see if this stuff really works. Tons of people I know swear by it, and you can see its handy work over at the Polish Monster whose nails are looking long and luxurious these days! Anyway, that's for next week. For now, let's take a look at a few old holos!
First and foremost, let me take a moment to discuss my skin in these photos. It's awful. Unfortunately, I have pretty bad eczema that flares worst during allergy season. Almost nothing helps with the cracking and flaking when it's in full on flare mode. It's not enjoyable in the slightest, but I'm glad that it only flares twice a year. I really liked this polish combination, so I took pictures despite the horrible skin. If you have skin that looks like this, and you weren't sure what was wrong, you're not dying (or rotting as I like to call it). It may just be eczema, which can be prevented with a steroid cream at the first signs of flare-up or by lathering yourself in lotion CONSTANTLY.
Go to a dermatologist to have it checked out as there may be a simple solution to fix it! ANYWAY, back on topic. Try to ignore the terrible skin up in here, if you will, and take a gander at these gorgeous polishes! Nfu Oh is a brand that I had never heard of before this year as it isn't sold in stores near me. In fact, I'm not really sure if they sell them at brick and mortar stores in the US, as I purchased mine at Fabuloustreet. I found out about this brand when I was searching for a comparable duplicate to the hugely sought-after China Glaze OMG. They had also been sold out for a long time, so when I saw they were on sale, I pounced! Nfu Oh 61 is a silver linear holographic polish and 62 is a nude-ish pink linear holo. Unfortunately, you pretty much have to use their Aqua base or they will clump, wrinkle, and drag. The application is terrible on both. You really need to move quickly to have any hope of a decent end product. I decided to top off my accent nail with a tape mani technique of China Glaze Liquid Leather and the gorgeous holo glitter topper China Glaze Fairy Dust. The lobster had photos are shot with my super vivid setting to show the rainbow best. The others are shot with normal photo settings. Just look at that rainbow! The terrible application is worth the end result, so be patient if you decide to purchase these guys.
Check out the intentional blur here for the gorgeous holoness of Fairy Dust!
What do you think? Do you like the tape mani art? I was pretty pleased with this mani, but the wear time wasn't that awesome on my non-accent nails. I topped the rest off with the lightening bolt later in the week once the tip wear got on my nerves. Like I mentioned before, I purchased the Nfu Ohs at Fabuloustreet. You can purchase both China Glazes at Sally's, Ulta, or where other China Glaze polishes are sold. Neither are discontinued.
Well, despite our seriously lackluster performance on Saturday, I still love my Dawgs. I'm shocked that we're still in the top 25, much less ranked number 11. That, ladies and sirs, is insane. Anyway, I'm so far behind on my game-day nails that I have 2 of them for you today. I didn't take pics of my nails from the South Carolina game since I kinda smudged them all up, which is a total shame because I had on OPI La Boheme. I hate being in a rush when I paint my nails. Ugh! UGA v. Vanderbilt I wore a franken that I made for the Vandy game. I'm not a huge fan of it. It's a ruby based polish with large black hexes, fine black hexes, red hexes, and holographic silver hexes. I added way too many fine black hexes for my liking. If anyone likes this polish and wants it, it's yours for the taking. Just shoot me an email, lol.
Hunker Down Hairy Dawg!
Macro shot of the bottle - it has promise...
See, too many fine black glitters. Just too busy.
I love the holo silver hexes, but I definitely would take out 3/4 of the small black hexes.
UGA v. Florida Atlantic This mani was one of my favorites! I'm not very great at nail art, but I thought I would try the braided/fishtail trend that's been gaining popularity lately. I used this tutorial:
The three polishes I chose to use were China Glaze TMI, Nfu Oh 61, and OPI My Private Jet.
Holy holographic!!! I couldn't stop staring at my nails the entire day. I even had guy friends compliment them! Seriously one of my favorite game-day manis to date. I think I could do a better job the next time I try a fishtail mani, as it takes a little bit of practice to get it down right.
Check out a closeup in the sunshine. I seriously love holo polishes!
Don't forget about my Halloween giveaway! Check it out here! Also, I'm looking forward to announcing another massive giveaway that I'm going to take part in with another blogger. Stay tuned for that announcement, too! I just love Halloween!! Have you ever done a fishtail mani? I'd love to see your pics on my Facebook page!
For today's Comparison Thursday, let's take a look at some flakies! Specifically, Essie Shine of the Times and Nfu Oh 60.
Looking at the bottles, it's hard to see why I chose to compare the two. However, I knew that Shine of the Times would look very similar to 60 when layered over black. Check out the bottle shots.
Shine of the Times - Very subtle in the bottle.
60 - Holy lord, look at that rainbow! I so wish it would look like that on the nail. :(
Shine of the times is a clear based polish with giant color shifting flakies. They shift from green, to yellow, to orange, to red, to blue. The effect is stunning and extremely bright. I was actually quite surprised at how bright Shine of the Times was over my black gel mani. Take a look.
Look how different it is over black! Stunning!
Nfu Oh 60 is a black jelly based polish also filled with giant color shifting flakies. I'm not sure if it's because of the colored base, but the Nfu Oh just isn't as bright at Shine of the Times on the nail. The colors in the bottle are absolutely stunning, but it just didn't translate well onto the nail.
Where did that rainbow from the bottle go?!
Both were very easy to apply. They spread well without clumping or pooling, but Shine of the Times is not only more versatile due to its clear base but also way brighter. There's not really any competition between the two. On the nail, Shine of the Times just blows 60 out of the water.
That being said, I am keeping Shine of the Times but am currently selling Nfu Oh 60 on my sales page. If you're interested in purchasing it, please shoot me an email! Do you have another flakie that you would compare against Shine of the Times or 60?
