Konad,well Fauxnad, and Essie Mirror Metallics

The overwhelming theme from the feedback I've received from you guys was nail art, tutorials, and jelly sandwiches. You have spoken, and I shall deliver! Today, I have a combination of nail art and tutorial to show you, but first, let's take a look at my base manicure. Get ready, because this is going to be picture (and word) heavy!!

All last year I would go to the salon and get gel polish manicures, as would my mom and sisters. It just wasn't cost effective even though it made more sense to get gels than regular polish that would chip in a day. When Christmas came around I decided to put the Gelish system on my list, and my awesome sister got my Gelish stash started. I actually credit getting my gel kit with renewing my interest in nail polish again. Now, I have 20 gel polish colors from Gelish, Red Carpet Manicure, and ProGel. Gelish can be purchased at Sally's, but they only have the minis for $14. I try to find mine on sale or on Amazon. You can find Red Carpet Manicure and ProGel at ULTA.

For my base color, I chose untried ProGel Deep Abyss, which is a rich black cream. I have several polishes that I wanted to try layered over black, so I made things easier on myself by using gel. This way, I won't have to reapply the black base color for every manicure. [Tip: you can paint regular nail polish over gels. Just remember to use non-acetone remover when taking off the regular nail polish.] Deep Abyss applied very well. It wasn't runny, didn't pool at my cuticles, and wasn't too thin or too thick. The only problem I had was it slid a bit from the tips of my nails before curing, despite wrapping my nail. I may try a flash 5-10 second cure of each nail right after I paint them next time to see if it fixes the issue.

Black is the new black.

I was very pleased with the application on my nubbins. Since I didn't have to worry about pooling, it was easier to wrap my nails without getting it all over.

The first thing I decided to do to my freshly gelled fingers was Konad!! Well, fauxnad since this time I used the Salon Effects plates instead of my Konad plates. Konading is basically the process of stamping images made from nail polish onto your nails. Don't worry, I'll demonstrate below. I had just gotten a few of the new Essie Mirror Metallics (so I'm still keeping up with the untrieds!!!), and I really wanted to give them a konad test-drive. They were the perfect consistency for stamping. I used Penny Talk, Blue Rhapsody, and Nothing Else Metals.  I've had Metallica stuck in my head for days now because of you, Essie!

Shiny!

All three polishes apply perfectly in one coat, which is how I knew they'd work for stamping. Penny Talk is a rose gold, which is totally unique in my collection. I'm more of a silver-tone gal, so I don't usually buy many golds. The hint of pink is what's keeping this little guy in my stash. Blue Rhapsody is, you guessed it, blue. Nothing Else Metals is a frosty lavender. When stamped, though, it looked a little too silvery, which is a bit of a bummer. I'm looking forward to trying it out on other colors than black to see if it still looks silver. I stamped these bad boys on using Salon Effects plates SE18 and SE19. They turned out so much better than I thought they would! I got so many compliments on this mani it was crazy!

It almost looks like a Hawaiian shirt.

Let's learn how to stamp!  First, you'll need to gather some supplies:

1) Acetone to wipe down your stamp, plate, and scraper.
2) Konad special polish or regular polish that applies thick (full coverage in one coat)
3) Paper towels to wipe down you stamper, plate, and scraper
4) Stamper (mine is from the Salon Express kit)
5) Scraper (I actually use an old credit card, but you can use a membership perks card too.  The metal scraper that came with my set isn't very good, and I don't want it to scratch up my plates.)
6) Stamping plates (I'm using two plates from the Salon Express kit that I picked up from Sally's. The kit can also be found at any store that sells as seen on tv junk.  There are several brands of stamping plate, and you can find most of them on Amazon, such as Konad, Bundle Monster, Mash, Cheeky, etc.)
7) Paper plate to keep polish off of finished surfaces

Ok, now on to the deets.

After you have completed your base color mani, go ahead and apply your favorite fast-dry top coat.  This will ensure that you don't make a mess of all your hard work.  Also, this will protect the base mani from polish remover in case you need to redo your stamp.

First, put your stamping plate on your paper plate.  Get your scraper, stamper, and acetone ready.  You need to do these steps quickly before the polish dries on the plate or stamp, so it's good to have everything readily available.  Next, drop a bit of polish onto the image you'd like to use.  Here, I'm using a dragonfly.  You don't need a huge blob, like mine, just enough to cover the entire image.

After you've dropped your polish on, grab your scraper and run it at a 45* angle to the plate over the image.  If you do it at 90* you'll scrape off all the paint, so make sure it's angled.  I tend to swipe my scraper over the image two or three times because the polish pooled on the end of the scraper fills in the image giving you a more robust picture.  Place your scraper on a piece of paper towel or on your plate.  

Next, take your stamper and gently roll it across the image.  Do not press straight down onto the plate, or you won't be able to pick up the image on your stamp.  Rolling is key!  

Check to make sure your image is on the end of your stamper.  

If it isn't then either you took too long after scraping and before rolling, OR your stamper may need roughening up.  On a clean stamper, try taking a nail file (any will do except the crystal ones) and rub it gently across the face of the stamper.  Then, take a bit of acetone on a paper towel and clean off any debris.  That should help you get the image onto your stamp.  You'll definitely want to roughen your stamper when you first get it.

After you get your image onto the stamper, quickly line the image up to where you want it on the nail and roll it across.  Again, do not stamp straight down or you will get the image on your nail in pieces or not at all.  

If you mess up the placement, take your acetoned paper towel and quickly swipe across the image to remove it.  Only press as much as necessary to remove the image.  Sometimes, you can even scratch the image off with a fingernail.  Don't worry if it dulls the shine of your top coat.  You will be applying another coat after you finish your stamping, and you won't notice any dullness.

After each stamp, go ahead and wipe off your scraper, plate, and stamper.  This way none of your tools will build up polish residue that can rub off on your next nail.  This is also especially important if you're going to layer stamps with different colored polishes like I have above.  You don't really need to worry about letting the image dry, per se, because the thinness of the polish you use makes it dry to the touch.  Also, if you notice some bits sticking up, just use your finger and push them firmly onto your nail.  

When you're done, apply a thick top coat that won't smear your image.  I use Seche Vite because it tends to float onto my nail without the brush really dragging any paint.  You may need to do some cuticle cleanup, as well, since the stamps can sometimes overlap onto your fingers.

Now you can sit back and admire your gorgeous nails.  Be prepared for a barrage of questions because people get so intrigued by nail art, especially precise, clean-looking art like stamping.  I hope this helps some of you feel less intimidated by stamping.  It used to be really hard, but with practice, you'll be able to finish stamping your entire mani in 15 minutes!

Do you use gels or stamps?  What's your favorite type of nail art?

Holy Wow!!!! You guys are AH-mazing!!

Man, you guys came at me full force!  Thank you so much for the following love!  I truly appreciate it!  The overwhelming majority of you guys are most interested in nail art, so I will do my best to deliver.  I'm not a very artistic person, but I do love stamping!  You guys are also interested in jelly sandwiches, so I will make sure to try one at least once a week!  Now that I have a better idea of what you guys are looking for, I can try to make a weekly schedule to fit it all into!  I'm so excited, and I truly appreciate all of your feedback.  I had planned to do a giveaway at 50 followers, but you guys got me there before my current giveaway has even ended!  Therefore, I have decided to push my next giveaway back to 100 followers.  It's a pretty awesome giveaway, so I can't wait to share it with you guys!!

I finally received my Elevation order today, and I'm soooo stoked!  Although, I do see two potential sellers/swapers in the group.  Unfortunately, I'm afraid that Sarychev is going to be way too orange for me.  As I've mentioned before, I'm not really into oranges.  Plus, Nararsuk looks pretty close to Pretty & Polished Rat-a-tat, so I plan to do a comparison post of those two next week.  I just don't think I will be able to justify keeping both of them.  I also got some trades that I was waiting on.  Thanks for the Butter London and Sinful, Tomboy Nails!!  Plus three amazing Lynnderellas from a friend in one of my Facebook groups.

This is made of win.

Well, last Friday I promised a positive post.  You know, one where I'm not tossing the polish into the sell/swap stack.  I think I can finally deliver - at least partially!  I had to wade into my stack of untrieds that I'll most likely keep instead of the stack of untrieds that I'll most likely get rid of, which is where I have been working up to now. Although these two are both keepers, I'm actually a bit disappointed in this mani.  We'll get to that in a minute, though.

For untried mani #11, I used Elevation El Cap for the base color and Rainbow Honey Mare of the Moon for the top.  Elevation Polish can be bought at Lulu's Big Cartel store here or at her Etsy store here.  She restocks the 7th of every month at 10pm est (on BC) and 10:10pm est (on Etsy).  You can also read her blog and get updates here.  If you're interested in ordering from Rainbow Honey or checking out their blog, you can do so here.  Luckily, they keep their polishes in stock fairly regularly, so it should be easy to get your hands on them.

So pretty!!!!

El Cap is a blurple shimmer that looks blue in one light, but purple in a different light.  In the bottle, it looked like it would be a great match for Mare of the Moon.  This is two coats.  Unfortunately, it isn't as pigmented as El Cap, so I did need to use more than one coat.  However, this doesn't detract from the awesomeness of this polish.  It is so complex!  It goes from blue, to purple, to periwinkle just by changing the angle with which you look at it.  It applied smoothly without pooling or staining.  Even though it has a bit of a frosted finish, you couldn't see any brush marks, which is something that tends to pop up on frosts when they dry.  The only real bummer to this polish is the dry time.  It took a pretty long time to dry.

Blurples are the best.

I topped El Cap off with Mare of the Moon.  It's a very complex indigo blue that shimmers purple in some lights.  This polish is chock-full of silver crescent moons and silver hexes of varying sizes.  I store this polish upside down because I know that larger or shaped glitters are usually a pain to get out.  Mare of the Moon wasn't an exception.  It took a lot of rolling and digging just to get even a few glitters out.  As you can see from my pics, I didn't really succeed in this endeavor.  I would've liked for the hexes to be a bit easier to fish out, but they were almost more elusive than the moons.  I'm not sure what I can do the next time I use it to make it easier, but I'll keep trying.  The application on this guy was very thick, and I had to pluck out the moons and slap them on with globules of polish, which didn't help with the thickness on my nails.  Rainbow Honey includes a disclaimer in her packaging that her polishes may be thicker than many prefer, so I knew that it may be too thick going into this mani.  [Side note: I actually prefer a thicker polish over one that's too thin.  At least if it's too thick, it is much easier to fix it to my standards than ones that are too thin.]  After doing my thumb, I went ahead and added a few drops of thinner to see if that would make it more manageable, but it didn't really help.  I'll definitely need to add more thinner next time.  

So pretty!!!

I wish there were more hexes!!!

Because of the thickness of this polish, the dry time was a DISASTER.  This is even with Seche Vite on top!  Plus, it doesn't really play well with Seche (see the shrinkage at the tips).  Next time I wear this guy, I think I'll just have to use a regular top coat, and just wait out the dry time.  It's hard to hate on this mani, though, because it was just so pretty.  At certain angles, all you could see was the indigo from Mare of the Moon, but at other angles you could see El Cap's periwinkle peeking out to say hello.  I kept staring at it all day.

The dry time on this mani was a huge problem for me.  I did it quickly before heading out the door to work on Saturday.  Even with Seche Vite, I got major denting and managed to smudge the tips of 3 fingers.  It was frustrating to say the least.  Plus, the Seche had MAJOR shrinkage even though I had used a bit of Gelous before my top coat.  It's hard to see in the picture below, and it actually got worse the second day.  Needless to say, I removed this mani the next day.  While it was a gorgeous color combo, I just couldn't get over the dry time and the mess I made of my hands.  Luckily, removal was very easy since there were little to no glitters on my nails.  Neither polish stained, either, so that's a huge bonus in my book.

Unlike George Costanza, my nails were not in the pool.

The verdict for these two polishes: they are both keepers.  I will work on thinning out Mare of the Moon before I give up on it.  The colors are just so gorgeous.  Blue is my favorite color, so I can't help but be partial to these two.  Plus, there aren't many polishes with cool shapes in them like those crescent moons.  It's a very unique polish.

What do you think about polish-makers that include a thickness/curling/bleeding disclaimer in their listing or packaging?


*Edited to add a pic of the full mani with Mare of the Moon on top...  I can't believe I forgot to add that.  I guess I was a bit sleepy last night, rofl!*

25 Followers Giveaway!!!!!

Hooooooray!!!!!  You guys rock!  Thanks for following my little ole blog.  I know that everyone in the world has decided to start a blog, so the fact that you guys choose to follow mine means a lot to me.  In honor of your awesomeness, I am hosting a giveaway!!!

One lucky reader will win this Color Club Starry Temptress collection pack.  The polishes included are Covered in Diamonds (not from the Starry Temptress collection); Space Case; Ultra Astral; Wink, Wink, Twinkle; You Got Soul-ar; Otherworldly; and a top coat.

This giveaway is live now and will go until my birthday, Monday August 27th!  You can enter here or on my facebook page.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Good luck!!!!  And thank you again for following me on this crazy nail polish journey!  

Rude.

As I was in the break room washing my cherries, without a word, a dude just sneaks up behind me to wash his pear - despite the fact that I was still working on cleaning my cherries.  Like, his arm just came up out of nowhere around me to use the sink.  It was the most bizarre thing ever.  Then, the dude proceeds to walk to the trashcan in the corner to eat his pear.  I had to scoot around him to get a plate, fork, and knife for my cherries (I don't like to crunch into the pits - I'd rather just cut them out beforehand), and he just says "I have to eat this pear over the trashcan.  It's so messy!"

(Source)

If your pear is so messy that you have to eat it over a trashcan, it's probably rotten.  I mean, seriously.  Rude.  And weird.


Anyway, enough about my encounters with the strange, let's get down to business!  Today is untried mani #10, which also happens to be a major fail.

I have a love hate relationship with oranges and corals.  Sometimes, if the color is just right, I can pull them off.  However, more often than not, I simply just can't do coral, salmon, or orange.  I guess I'm kind of glad I went to a college with red and black as their primary colors!  Anyway, back on to nail polish.  Today, I tried out OPI Equadorable Coral, Girly Bits Jelly Shoes, and Pretty and Polished Beach Bunny.

Do you see the gorgeous gold/yellow flashes in Equadorable Coral?  What about the pretty blue in Jelly Shoes?

Equadorable Coral is an older OPI from the Spring 2002 South American collection.  It has a black label, which means it was made before OPI certified that their polishes were big three free.  It's also considered very hard to find since it's no longer in production.  I happened upon this gorgeous little guy on a recent dusty hunt, and I snapped him right up.  Like many of the black label OPIs, Equadorable Coral applied like a dream.  It was opaque in almost 1 coat, but I applied 2 to be safe.  Jelly Shoes by Girly Bits is part of her summer Slapdash collection and can be purchased from her store on Big Cartel.  It's a jelly that required 3 coats to be opaque.  It looks so squishy and delicious, doesn't it?!  Like all of Pam's Girly Bits, Jelly Shoes applied very easily.  The flashes of blue seriously make this polish.  She currently has Jelly Shoes in stock, and I would highly recommend you purchasing the entire collection.  

See the coral doesn't look terrible, but it doesn't look great.  Not like Jelly Shoes, which will get its own post soon.  Omg, Jelly Shoes is HOT!

Then, here comes the real and massive fail, I added Pretty and Polished Beach Bunny on top.  I'm not sure why, but I just couldn't get into this polish at all.  The hubby said it looked gross and that I needed to get rid of it.  Charming, isn't he?  

Hot mess.

I'm not really sure what it is that rubs me the wrong way.  I guess the larger pink and fuchsia hexes just seemed really out of place.  Especially the darker pink on my thumb.  Plus, the matte white hexes just seemed to go on very thick and clumpy.  I'm sure some thinner would've evened them out a little bit, but I don't really want to take the time out to add any and try again.  From the little time I wore this polish, I just couldn't get into it at all.  Even the pretty pink flashes from Jelly Shoes couldn't save this manicure.

The hot pink tries to pull this mani out of disaster, but falls short.

Needless to say, I plan to sell both Beach Bunny and Equadorable Coral, and they should be listed on my sale page by Sunday.  Well, we've kind of had a ton of flops on the blog lately!  Sorry about that!  The next post will be positive.  Promise!  Although, we are at 21 followers!!!!! 4 more and I can open up the Color Club giveaway!!!

Anyway, I have tons to do this weekend.  After being sick and home from work all week, I have to try and make up those hours this weekend.  Plus, my parents are in town, so I plan to hang out with my family this weekend.  Lots of things to do!  Hope you all have a fantastic and safe weekend!

What are your plans for the weekend?  Do you have nail polish colors that look bad on you without fail?

FINALLY Comcast Fixed My Shiz!

That only took 7 days.  Literally.  So now I can be an invalid in the comfort of my own home.  I swear, I just can't kick whatever this crud is.  It's the strangest thing.  My throat isn't sore, and I'm not congested.  I feel like I am walking around in a dream.  My head is almost medicine heady, but I haven't taken anything.  The closest I could come to describing it to my husband was it's like when I get overheated.  It's a little harder to breathe, I feel super weak, and I get light-headed when I stand up / walk around.  It's the strangest f'ing thing.  I'm hoping I can go in to work tomorrow, but I'm not really optimistic.  

Anyway, onto today's manicure.  This will be Untried August mani number 9.  Since I'm working hard to thin my stash, I'm going through polishes I think I may not like very much or that may be close enough to another polish that I won't need both.  You may be asking, well, Julie, why in the world did you buy something you don't like or that you already have?  Yeah.  Beats me.

(Source)

Yeah, I don't get it either, Sami...

Today's mani uses 3 polishes that I have dupes / similars of that I already like.  I have for your viewing pleasure Color Club Metamorphosis from this summer's Take Wing collection, Revlon Royal from like all the time, and Candeo Divebomb.

They're pretty, but I've seen better...

Like the other polishes in the Take Wing collection, Metamorphosis was on the thinner side and had dragging and balding galore.  This is three coats.  I love the flash of purple/blue in the bottle of Metamorphosis, but as you can see, it does not translate well onto the nail.  Revlon Royal, however, applied really well and probably could've used just one coat, but I did two just in case.  I went a tad too think, though, so I got some bubbling.  Ugh.  Another awesome thing about Royal - it doesn't stain your nails or cuticles when taking it off.  That's a huuuuge bonus in my book!  It has a gorgeous squishy texture that just begs to be squeezed.  Although, you'd probably be disappointed if you did squeeze it since it's just polish on a nail.  Not really squeezy friendly.

Mani skeleton

I then applied Candeo Divebomb, which is a clear base filled with different sized teal, blue, copper, and larger brown glitters.  It showed up much better on Royal since Divebomb is chock full of teals that were sort of drowned out on Metamorphosis.

Pretty, eh?

How about this closeup?

Excuse the bubbles and errant glitter on my cuticle.

You can really see the holo goodness of the fine teal and blue glitters in this blurry shot.  It's really very pretty.

It's not about the ba-bling ba-bling.  Right???  Oh, it is?!  Ooops...

But, to be honest, I already have a few polishes with similar color schemes that I just like better.  Such as, Rainbow Honey Koi Pond and Crows Toes Absolum, they are both in the same blue/teal darker glitter family as Divebomb, but I'm just not that into browns.  While Royal is a nice and squishy royal blue, I have Elevation Pic de Sotllo that I like so much better.  It's easier to apply, has an amazing texture, and is so pigmented that it is just breathtaking.  As for Metamorphosis, I have Zoya Zuza that is a very similar teal, but it applies so much better - just 1 coat versus the 3 for Metamorphosis.  That being said, I have decided to add all three to my sale page.  If you're interested in purchasing any of these three polishes, head on over!

Oh, and can I just say, every time I hear or use the term "such as" all I can think about is that poor child from South Carolina in her Miss Teen pageant answer...

Seriously, genius!

(Source)

And because I love you guys...  I am planning to do a giveaway once we hit 25 GFC / email followers!!!!  :D  I'm still holding on to the Dollish / OPI / Essie giveaway for 50 followers, but I thought I would reward those of you who have been with me since day one.  :)  So, without further ado...

I present to you the Color Club Starry Temptress collection from Ross!

From left: Covered in Diamonds (not the right collection, lolRoss); Space Case; Ultra Astral; Wink, Wink, Twinkle; You Got Soul-ar; Otherworldly; and what I can assume is a top coat.

The giveaway will go live once I hit 25 followers, so please share my blog with your friends and readers!  I also now have a Facebook page that I would love for you guys to follow, plus my twitter.



Do you buy polishes you don't like just because of the hype?  Do you have a type of polish that you tend to buy all the time just to realize after you get home that you have 5 or more already just like it?

Rainbow Sherbet

Still no internet.  Despite asking them to come on Monday, we haven't heard a peep from anyone at Comcast.  I'm convinced that they tried to contact us via our home phone that DOESN'T HAVE A SIGNAL.  I swear!  Sometimes I feel like I'm dealing with Peggy!

(Source)

So, here I am working at the library.  I still feel like poop on a stick, thank you very much whatever is causing this fever, so I didn't go into work yet again.  My mom always told me when she taught that the school wouldn't let them come back to work until at least 24 hours after their 100.5 or more temp had broken.  Well, it's been 3 days, and nothing has broken for me so far...  Needless to say, I do not enjoy not making money.  I especially do not enjoy boring days off without internet or television.  Lastly, I do not enjoy having to go to the public library feeling like death *just* to stalk the Dollish restock (at least it was early for once!).  I may seriously go cray cray.

(Source)

Anyway, on to the polishes, since I know that's all you're really here for.  Hah!

I cheated again and did a skittles manicure, but it looks more like rainbow sherbet than skittles.  I used more Color Club polishes because I have SO MANY that are on my untried list.  Here are the goods:

Mrs. Robinson, Almost Famous, Twiggie, Poptastic, and Wham Pow

I was seriously afraid that the neon colors would look terrible with my skin.  Much like the last time I did a Color Club skittles mani, I was very pleasantly surprised!  They were a little difficult to apply, though, and required two coats to cover the bald spots.  They were also a little goopy, so I'll probably need to add some thinner to even them out.  I topped them off with OPI Rainbow Connection, which is a glitter top coat that was released in the Muppet collection last December.  Unfortunately, this little guy is a little hard to find these days.  Rainbow Connection was also a bit on the goopy side, but I attribute that to the fact that I got it on a dusty hunt.  A little thinner should make that bad boy ready to rock and roll.

The lovers, the dreamers, and me!

See?  Rainbow sherbet - not skittles!

Here's a closeup of the beauty that is Rainbow Connection.

I promise it shimmers much more in the light.

The verdict?  Aside from a little staining from the Color Clubs, I really liked all 6 of these polishes.  The hubs also liked them a lot.  Plus, I received several unsolicited compliments on this manicure for the day or so I had it on.  Even though I'm working away from glitter top coats, I will keep Rainbow Connection because it is so pretty.

Mani 8 complete!

What was your most complimented manicure?  Do you like to do skittles manicures?

I </3 Comcast

So, my cable, TV, and Internet have been out since last Thursday, and Comcast refuses to send anyone out to fix it until Thursday. That means 7 whole days without any line to the outside world, other than our mobiles. I've already killed my battery 3 times today since I've been at home with a fever...

Anyway, I'm going to attempt posting via my phone. Let's see how this works, shall we?!

This weekend, I continued on my untried crusade. The best way I could think to approach them was by choosing to wear the polishes I'd most likely give away first. I've included some of my wicked old OPI and NOPIs in this stack to make sure I still like them since I haven't worn many of them in years. I chose to try out Crows Toes Absolum - Your Potions Master because I have many similar polishes that I'm trying to compare and determine which one(s) I want to keep. I thought a bright royal blue Would look best as undies, so I chose Elevation Pic de Sotllo.

Pic de Sotllo is so pigmented that I only needed one coat. Also, look at that shine! I didn't even use a top coat since this was going on under my Absolum. It has this gorgeous shiny and rubbery finish. I am seriously in love! Plus, it applied easily without dragging or pooling.

I added Absolum on top, and the mani was perfect!

I mean, look at this closeup! Stunning!

And the sparkle!!

The hubby really liked this mani, so I plan on keeping both polishes. I purchased Crows Toes from Llarowe and Elevation from Lulu's store on Big Cartel. [Sorry I can't link to their stores right now.]

So yeah, mobile blogger is kinda weird and crappy... Hopefully I can figure it out if I can't go to work tomorrow.

Have a great night, everyone!!