Some layered NOTDs using Wet n Wild, FingerPaints, Kanebo and China Glaze

These were two of my favorite manis back in May.

Wet n Wild Blueberry Fizz layered with FingerPaints Sapphire Shimmer

This NOTD just mesmerized me for as long as I wore it, which was about three or four days. I got barely any tipwear with it (using Nail Life Gripper and Diamont). My nails looked and felt extremely strong, almost fake (in a good way). And it sparkled. My goodness did it sparkle! I loved it so much that I didn't take it off until I had done the same combination on my toes; it's been my pedi for the last month. Wet n Wild Blueberry Fizz is well worth the dollar: it's a little thick but it's nicely pigmented. As for FingerPaints Sapphire Shimmer, a mixed holo glitter in dark blue jelly... I had wanted to be opaque but even sheer, it's a fun polish. Thanks so much to Adrienne for picking one up for me!

Video of the sparkly!

Kanebo The Red layered with China Glaze Dynasty

Yes, the Kanebo is actually called "The Red". It's basic dark red creme and is perfect in three coats (you can probably get away with two). After having that as my mani for a couple of days, I decided I needed to jazz it up with a little glitter. I broke out China Dynasty and wondered what took me so long to use it! It's a mixed holo glitter in a brick red jelly and I think you can probably build it to opacity with enough patience. Though on top of Kanebo The Red it is a dark, rich red, Dynasty is actually an almost-orangey faded red. A lot of people don't seem to like it precisely because it isn't a saturated red but I like it because it is a slightly unusual jelly color. I'll probably try it out alone someday this summer. I LOVE holo glitters in the summer.

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Some miserable but beautiful yellows: Ciate Lemon Sherbert, Milani Totally 80s and Sally Hansen Expresso Yellow

I love yellows. I love buying them. I love forever being on the lookout for a great yellow. NONE of these yellows I am showing you today qualify as "great". Actually, they were all pretty miserable, application-wise. But they are so lovely!

Ciate Lemon Sherbert

Five coat misery. I was ready to throw this out the window at the fourth coat but persevered and it REALLY paid off. It's a lovely soft yellow and netted me a ton of compliments that day. Granted, I went outlet shopping that day and the saleswomen were all trying to sell me stuff but they could've complimented other things!

Milani Totally 80s over FingerPaints Papier Mache

There was no way this was going to get opaque in less than four coats so I went ahead and put a two layers of FingerPaints Papier Mache (a stark white) under it. Then I put three coats of the Milani on top of it. Still, I had yellow streaks on top of white streaks. So not sexy. The color was obviously brighter in person, as neons tend to dull when photographed. :(

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Expresso Yellow

I don't understand the name at all, besides that it rhymes. What really tweaks me is that Insta-Dri polishes are supposed to be one-or-two coaters and this one took six to become opaque AND non-streaky. Plus a LOT of topcoat to even it out. I'm actually cool with the Insta-Dri brush and generally am okay with the formula, but this was terrible. Looks fantastic and my nails are, like, hard as bone with it on... because there's like an inch of nail product on my nails right now.

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NOTD: FingerPaints Sketch N Etch (with fauxnad!)

A midday post because you guys asked for a swatch of Sketch N Etch yesterday and I had a few free minutes. :)

FingerPaints Sketch N Etch

Look at the lovely glowing greenness! Forest green with lighter green shimmer. Three thin coats; could possibly pass at two thick coats. Said to be a close dupe to Essie Dominica Green but I don't have DG... and I'm ashamed to say it but when I saw comparison photos of those two polishes on NB, I couldn't really tell the difference. (I know! I die of shame.) I never lemmed DG -- and I'm not in I-must-have-you-now love with this polish -- but that's because I'm not a dark green shimmer type. (Love all sorts of green cremes. It's harder for me to find green shimmers I love.)

And because I got my BundleMonster fauxnad plates (all 21 of them) in the mail yesterday, I had to fauxnad over the mani.

FingerPaints Sketch N Etch with Orly Shine fauxnad (#BM19)

Shine makes for a cool stamping polish. Not the most well-defined patterns but they really pop because of the foil-y-ness. A word about the BM plates: they are SO cute but the full nail designs are smaller than other fauxnads/konads. Usually when I do full nail stamps, I have a TON of cleanup to do because the stamp gets all over my fingers (which is fine, it actually gives me more flexibility in application). These, I had to line them up just right so that my entire nail would be covered. And I have small nails. Small like "the OPI Pro-Wide brush and the Sally Hansen wide brush would be slathering nail polish all over my cuticles if I didn't paint in a perfectly straight line down the nail". These designs made my nails feel huge and long because I had to be so careful to cover the entire nail. That being said, I love the designs and it was totally worth $18 for the 21 plates from Amazon (with free shipping). There are maybe one or two repeat designs in the whole lot of them. And they're not like the GCOCL plates which seem to recycle similar looking designs across a lot of different plates. (I'm planning to do some stash photos of my stamping plates in June. After the BundleMonster acquisition, I find myself the surprised owner of 66 stamping plates! Mostly fauxnad. Insane, huh?)

I hope to get a good chunk of writing done today. I NEED to get a good chunk of writing done today.

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FingerPaints swatches

Recently stopped into Sallys Beauty to check out the new FingerPaints colors. They have two displays in the store, one with a few blues, and another display of spring/summer colors. They also added numerous new colors to their core line. I didn't buy any of the spring/summer colors, but did pick up two from the blues collection and one from the core line. Would've gotten all of the new ones from the core line if I wasn't on a low buy... actually the only reason i bought any at all was because they were buy two get one free and I *think* some of the blues were limited edition. FingerPaints is definitely one of my favorite brands, why? The round bottle, the nice handle -- not too long, good brush, formula is consistent, and they aren't afraid to go outside the box in their colors! Only downside is that they are exclusive to Sallys Beauty, which isn't everyone's favorite place. But I would definitely stop in just for the FingerPaints! Here are the three I bought:

Blissfully Blue, shown here two coats. This is a really really pretty pastel blue, I don't have any pastel blues so I was blown away by this one with its ease of application. I just messed it up with the top coat.... used some random OPI top coat, just to get rid of it.

Easel-y Entertained, shown here with four coats. OK I really really loved this in the bottle, but as soon as I applied it and realized it wasn't a dense glitter, I was totally turned off by it. It's a blurple and silver glitter with a clear base. Perhaps a matching blurple base would make it GORGEOUS

And one more to show its blingy-ness. I mean, it is pretty.. but I hate that it's not a dense glitter, and is probably meant to be layered over something -- will have to try on another day. I really like the name too! My friend had picked this one out and said I HAD to get it for the name alone.

Sapphire Shimmer, shown here as four coats. Sapphire Shimmer is an aqua blue base which has small and smaller round holographic glitter in it.

Another shot blurred to show its holographic glitter. This is also another one that I absolutely loved in the bottle but then as soon as I applied it, my admiration for it disappeared. Why? It's really sheer and I couldn't get it to be the same blue as the bottle. But that is probably because my nails are stained neon orange. This would probably be really pretty if my nails weren't so horribly stained.

I will definitely give these glitters another chance as they are so pretty, I just need to find a way for them to work for me! All in all, these are really pretty and FingerPaints is doing a really good job at rolling out new and interesting colors. There are a bunch of other new shades that I didn't get a chance to pick up, but if you did -- let us know which ones and how you like them!

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Holiday NOTD and Graduate School FAIL

So. I just got my first graduate school grade back. B+. A B+. B+??? After all that hard work?? I am so disappointed and upset. After all, a B+ = a D/F in graduate school. Plus, I'm only in a Masters program, so I still plan to apply to doctoral programs in the future. There goes my hopes for a great doctoral program, there goes my confidence, and there goes my chance for a 4.0 GPA. I feel like such a complete failure. I'm terrified to see my other grades (haven't been posted yet) and now I'm scared out of my mind to write my 4th paper. To make matters worse, I thought that the paper I turned in for this class was really good. Guess not.

Even my mani isn't helping me. I just got in my order of RBLs and even THAT isn't helping. I have a work holiday party tonight that I've been looking forward to and now I don't even want to go. And what do I say when people ask how I did? B+? How embarrassing. I haven't got a B+ since like my freshman year of college, and I knew I deserved that B+.

On to the pics. Sorry for whining.

This is 2 coats of FingerPaints Evergreen Dream under 1 coat of China Glaze Snow Globe. I meant for my nails to resemble X-mas trees with sparkly lights. It needs another coat of topcoat because it's a little bumpy. Also, my index finger looks weird because the corner of it recently broke off and I refused to file my nails down.

Indoors:


With flash:


Outdoors shade:


Outdoors sun:




You can purchase China Glaze Snow Globe from most of the e-tailers and some Sally Beauty Supply stores. FingerPaints Evergreen Dream was a Sally Beauty Supply exclusive a few months ago but you may still be able to find it in stores.

Thanks for reading.

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BB Couture Tropical Sunset

So here's the game I play regularly with my swatch photos:

Phase 1: take photos.

Phase 2: decide to not upload them until I get a whole bunch.

Phase 3: upload them, select the ones I want to use, crop them.

Phase 4 (usually two weeks after uploading them): regret not LABELING the photos with the names of the polishes.

Phase 5: spend hours trying to match polish pic with polish name... which is especially a challenge with 500+ polishes... and the fact that I do swap/sell somewhat regularly so by the time I get around to labeling the photos, I may not even have the polish anymore.

Phase 6: give up on ID'ing those photos and just take photos of other polishes and immediately upload and label those. Swear to myself I'll always be that vigilant.

Phase 7: Go back to old habits. Rinse, repeat.

As a result, I have about 40 unlabeled photos (in about 1000) of polishes taken awhile back but that I can't post them because I've been a slacker. Also, some were taken half a year ago when I was barely above nubbin (the last few weeks of my first year of grad school included a lot of nail biting) so they barely look like my nails. Witness:

Okay, they're a tiny bit more than nubbin. But not by much. Pretty sure I gave this polish away. FingerPaints website is a pain and a half for accurate representations of their colors. Am I ever going to figure out what this somewhat ordinary pink with gold shimmer is? Is it worth my time? And then I always get paranoid about being wrong: I don't want to say this is one polish when it might be another.

This is typical flinty-esque slacker behavior. The slacking off that happens early on inevitably extends the process of doing things later. I do this with my research too. I run analyses and fail to label my output and graphs and then have to work backwards weeks later to figure out WTF I did. Me and my sucky habits. I'd have so much more time if I just do things when I'm supposed to do them.

Anyway, the reason I went on this whole long thing is because I just went through the process of backtracking to figure out what this polish was: man, I'm inefficient! I did this swatch a month ago. Looking at the time-stamp has convinced me that this was the mystery hot pink polish (actually, hot coral pink) that I was under my Amour Rain Glitter swatch: these current photos were taken on Thursday, October 15th at 2:32pm and the Rain Glitter photos were taken on the same day at 2:37pm.

BB Couture Tropical Sunset

Like I said, hot coral pink creme. Practically neon and a little more corally than it appears in this photo. As with most BB Coutures, application was easy-breezy and the above was two coats (how dumb is it that I remember how many coats I used but I don't remember the names of the polishes?). I'd rather it as a pedi shade personally since I'm not much for neon-ish pinks on my tips (let's face it, I'm not much for neon-ish pinks anywhere) but for those who like this color family, it's a great polish.

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FingerPaints Art District Delight

I'm not a fan of light pastel pink cremes: even if they look good on me (a rare occurrence), the formula's usually too sheer or chalky. But every light pastel pink creme from FingerPaints that I've tried try works so well on me. I love the more creative colors from FingerPaints (which I believe is now owned by OPI) but I think what they do best are the basics or basics with a twist.

FingerPaints Art District Delight

So basic, so simple, so clean. Two coats, smooth formula (if a little on the thin side) as per most FingerPaints polishes.

I can't wait to get my hands on the new FP holiday collection. They look so sparkly and vibrant. Who knows when the next time I'll have a free moment to haul ass to Sally's though. :(

In other news, I am sick yet again! This time, it's not just dragged-out exhaustion: it's full-on "I can't talk, my throat hurts so much, screw the chicken and noodles, just give me chicken broth... no wait, that makes my stomach feel weird". Ten more papers to grade in the next hour so I can get this to my TA counterpart so the students can have their papers back in a timely manner. After I do that, I will just sleep all day. And drink Emergen-C. And do whatever the hell I can to get this out of my system!

Or maybe I'll take advantage of staying home sick and swatch polishes in the daylight. ...no, I should sleep. Between health and polish -- even though polish sounds like more fun -- I should probably choose health.

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Quick and dirty swatch: FingerPaints Cobalt Cardigan (little too close in name to Orly's Cashmere Cardigan but whatevs)

Took a little trip to Sally Beauty today -- had to spend that $5 coupon I got with my membership -- and picked up a BIGASS bottle of acetone, Orly Nail Rescue, a nail brush/dotter combo thing, Mango Mend and a new polish from the FingerPaints Fall 2009 line. Looked like a dark blue creme. Eh. I like dark blue cremes. But then I opened it and saw that it was more translucent than a typical creme -- possibly even a jelly? -- and decided, what the hey, it's a nice dark blurple in the bottle, I don't often lose with FingerPaints... so bought it. I got home and swatched and loved it immediately.

(I also picked up a Milani Totally Cool at Target on this shopping excursion -- GORGEOUS! I need to take pictures of this in the sun. And then mattefy it... oh yes.)

FP Cobalt Cardigan not quite jelly (it would be at two coats) but not a harshly opaque creme either. It's kind of what I wanted Lippmann Rehab to be (a polish that was just too jelly for me), but what really sold me was a detail that I didn't really notice until I looked close at my photos: it's got a very subtle blue shimmer (which is what makes it look like a dark blurple in the bottle). Really lovely color -- wish the rest of the collex wasn't just mauve, berry creme shades!

FingerPaints Cobalt Cardigan

Close-up of the shimmer:

I'm still working out the kinks in my Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers frankendupe. It needs tweaking and I think I may make an alternative one that plays with several colors of hex glitter (all red or close to red).

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feeling hot hot hot

Wow it's been a blazing few days here!! So incredibly humid and hot! That means lots of sun and lots of BEACH!

I have a few past NOTD. First two are purple! I was feeling in the purple mood, I think my longer nails looks best with purple nail polish on. I could wear purple any day, any occasion, any length honestly. I think its my fav nail polish color! Both of these purples are super pretty with subtle shimmer that makes them glow and really makes them diff from other purples.


NYX Wild Child



Claire's Magic

Yesterday I had my first GMAT prep class so I put on a cheery Finger Paints Ripe Peach. We took a diagnostic exam to see which areas we need help most on. Honestly I need help in all areas. The real test is four hours long. Yesterday's diagnostic exam was only three hours long, we omitted the essay section. I couldn't even sit through the three hours bc i was getting serious ADD and kept staring at my nails and got restless after only 15 questions. I don't know what I'm gonna do when I take the actual test!! :(


Finger Paints Ripe Peach

When I woke up this morning I saw a box outside my door from Sephora and quickly opened it. Behold, DARK ROOM! Looks kinda blue in the bottle, sorta like a super dark teal, but after i painted my nails with it, it's DEF green!! Super dark green, but still very pretty and perfect for fall! Formula was great for me, it was a little more runny than I'm used to, but manageable.


Sephora by OPI Dark Room

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