Mommy Manicure Monday

Our camera is broken! Actually, we just can't find the charger. So, in lieu of a NOTD, I thought I would share with you some really out there nail art I came up with earlier this year. This manicure was inspired by Prince Poppycock, who is an amazingly fun character who competed on America's Got Talent over the summer. This is my version of what a proper fop should be wearing on his nails:

This was Sinful Colors "Pinky Glitter", a nail art pen, and a lot of nailglue to get the beads to stick. Obviously, I didn't actually wear this manicure. I wouldn't have been able to do anything with hands. Since a fop would never stoop to manual labor, this would be the perfect manicure!

Thanksgiving Manicure!

This holiday season, I'm rocking a themed manicure!

I started with OPI "Rising Star":

Which is so pretty on its own, but I wanted to really get some festive fall coloring in there, so I added Finger Paints "Holly Good Time", which is a gold and red glitter:

I swear, that's not glitter on my cuticles. It's just the shine off the quick dry drops.

I'm going to rock this tomorrow, and it will probably entertain me more than the parade!

I suggested a similar look to R.E.I.T., but she was happier with Studio M "Frenzy" again. She's very in love with that color.

China Glaze Holiday Dupes

I've had quite a few holiday lemmings this year, and among those was China Glaze's "Party Hearty". Unfortunately, the only way I could find it was in a three-pack with "Phat Santa" and "Jolly Holly". I'm not complaining about having the other two polishes, but it's just, well, I already had them. Or at least dupes of them. Since my Mommy Manicure Monday manicure is a boring old french, this Monday is dedicated to comparisons:Ignore the upside down picture and concentrate on the bottles, if you would. This is China Glaze "Phat Santa" and Ulta "Steppin' Out". As you can see, in the bottle they're identical.


From l to r, "Phat Santa", "Steppin' Out", "Phat Santa", "Steppin' Out". There is absolutely no difference between these two colors. They could have been from the same bottle. This is two coats of each.

Next up was Jolly Holly, which I knew right away looked familiar. It strongly resembled another polish from a fall collection that I really, really wanted back then, "Harvest Hues" by Finger Paints:

In the bottle, "Jolly Holly" looks slightly darker.
This isn't the best picture, I apologize. My camera battery was dying on me, so I tried to snap the picture quick. From l to r, "Jolly Holly", "Harvest Hues", "Jolly Holly", "Harvest Hues". These would be another exact dupe, but "Harvest Hues" has a gold shimmer to it that is only visible in the light. They're still close enough that I would have passed on "Jolly Holly" if it hadn't been in a three pack with "Party Hearty".

So, there's the scoop. The two colors that everyone said looked too familiar really are familiar. If you have either "Harvest Hues" or "Steppin' Out", you don't need these two holiday colors from China Glaze.

When layering attacks!

This year there were sooooo many lemmings for me in the holiday collections everyone rolled out. My number one? "Mistletoe Kisses" by China Glaze. Usually, I get super bored of the red and green Christmas polishes, but "Mistletoe Kisses" rose ahead of the pack. It's a minty green glitter in a sheer green base, and it looks exactly like green Christmas lights on your nails:
I was so in love with this last night that I kept staring at my nails. But this morning, one of the other lemmings in the pack was calling to me... OPI "Simmer & Shimmer". The mad scientist part of my brain wondered what would happen if I layered the two glitters... would there be some shine-related explosion? Would the sheer amout of sparkle blind someone?

The end result as nothing short of fab!
One coat of "Simmer & Shimmer" and Seche Vite (though I should have used two) and no clean up. I know the second photo is blurry, but it was the best way to show how much it cools down the already cool shade of "Mistletoe Kisses" and adds color and sparkle.

I loved it on my left hand so much, I decided I just had to try layering OPI "Sparkle-icious" over "Mistletoe Kisses" on the right!Again, one coat "Sparkle-icious" and one coat Seche Vite over "Mistletoe Kisses" with no clean up (because I'm not really intending to walk around with two different manicures today).

This will be my Fat Tuesday NOTD, because the colors are so suited to Mardi Gras! Where "Simmer & Shimmer" cooled things down, the gold and purple in "Sparkle-icious" really warmed things up.

So there you have it! Tons of sparkle to be had this holiday season!

What's Wednesday Wearing?

Didn't get a good picture of R.E.I.T.'s recent NOTD. She was too busy wanting to file her nails. Here, she's wearing Ulta "Tutu Cute". It's a very appropriate name for my little girl, who really is Tutu Cute.

e.l.f. Holiday Set

While at Target the other day, R.E.I.T. wisely said, "I want yook," and pointed to the health and beauty aisles. I couldn't say no. We found the e.l.f. (eyes. lips. face.) holiday promo end cap and this:
The e.l.f. holiday nail trio. We'd never used e.l.f. before, but for three dollars, the price was right to try it out. Here's what you get:

From left to right we have "Cranberry", a holiday red with some subtle red glitter, "Golden Goddess", a translucent gold with varying size and shape gold glitter, and "Twinkle", a clear with opalescent round glitter.

My cuticles are so stained from "Mezzanotte Blue"! But here's "Cranberry". I'm not wearing a topcoat here so that you can see the finish of the actual polish. In a word, it's bumpy. However, it's also a really pretty red, perfect for the Christmas season.Next up is "Golden Goddess". Since "Golden Goddess" is so sheer and the glitter so sparse, it really wouldn't work on its own, in my opinion. What you're seeing here is two coats over "Cranberry". We might do some layering experiments with this one soon, since it's a nice dazzler for New Years Eve.

And finally, "Twinkle". Which is a very strange polish. It's another one suitable for layering, but probably not that spectacular on its own. Here's one coat over a generic black polish from our Halloween clearance haul. It dries matte, which I was completely not expecting. Unfortunately, drying matte leaves the sparkle pretty dull. I'm wearing a coat of Seche Vite on the right finger, so you can see how cute it is.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this offering. The fact that it was three dollars helps that along greatly. If I had paid more than a couple of dollars for these, I probably wouldn't be so positive, but that's the nice thing about cheap nail polish. You don't have to judge your choices as much!

Layering is magic.

I have to admit, R.E.I.T. has always been more adventurous when it comes to layering unlikely nail polishes. I've worn Sinful Colors "Hottie" alone (pain in the butt to take off) and over light blues like Studio M "Whose That Girl". But I'd never though of layering a light glitter over a dark color, until Chloe over at Chloe's Nails tried it. She wore "Hottie" over black, and it looked fantastic! I resolved to try it.

Tuesday night, I was on the fence about what to do with my nails. I know that on Saturday I absolutely have to wear a patchwork manicure of the Barielle argyle collection, at the request of a friend who wants to see the colors in person. I didn't want to wear neutrals all week. I looked through our collection and realized that I had never worn Borghese "Mezzanotte Blue". It had been sitting in my collection, unloved. So, I decided to wear it. I've seen this blue described as a creme in some places, but I'm not sure if I agree. There is a strange, translucent quality to it that is almost jelly-like. It's one of those "almost blacks", a color that you can only really tell what it is by looking at it slightly sideways. My nails looked glossy and dark, so I was happy.

Then, Wednesday morning, when I was painting R.E.I.T.'s nails, it hit me: I could layer "Hottie" over "Mezzanotte Blue!" Here are the results:



I took about a hundred pictures, trying to capture how gorgeous this turned out, and none of them did it any justice. "Hottie" is a light blue jelly with opalescent glitter in various sizes. On it's own, it's a baby blue sparkler. Layered over "Mezzanotte Blue", it's orange and green and gold with hints of purple. I feel like I'm wearing pirate treasure. Or a mermaid tail. I can't stop looking at my fingers (dry cuticles and all). It's like having a little galaxy on my nails!

Next time, I think I'll try it over Orly "Galaxy Girl" and see what the results are!

What's Wednesday Wearing?

We've been MIA for a week, mostly because we couldn't find our camera! But we'll make up for it, we promise!Today, R.E.I.T. is wearing Studio M "Infusion", Studio M "Frenzy", and an unnamed pumpkin polish in green. After a few minutes she decided that one hand needed to be layered with Sinful Colors "Pinky Glitter" over it.

Mommy: "What do you want to say about your nail polish today?"
R.E.I.T. "Is it pretty?"
Mommy: "It's very pretty."
R.E.I.T. "Uh-huh!"

So, there you have it. It's very pretty.

Mommy Manicure Tuesday

Bumped this forward one day, and I feel wretched, because I'm not actually wearing it right now! Last week, the patchwork manicure was featured on Nouveau Cheap, and we were like, "Rock on, I have to try that!" Then, someone in the comments to the Nouveau Cheap post attributed the awesome look to Chloe at Chloe's Nails, who has a tutorial up there. We may actually do a tutorial with our tips and tricks, because we actually modified our process a little bit after we did mommy's nails. But for now, Mommy's patchwork manicure.

Essie "Playa del Platinum", Rimmel "Steel Grey", unnamed green pumpkin polish

Today is a very special day...

TODAY IS HALLOWEEN CLEARANCE DAY!

Oh, and yes, it is R.E.I.T.'s birthday! Happy second birthday, big girl!

Now, I'm not kidding about it being Halloween clearance day. If you love nail polish, and if you have a Meijer by you, you owe it to yourself to stop there today. Here's our haul:

These are five minis from Phantom Frights, which I must assume is a Halloween cosmetics company, because I can't think of any other day someone might buy a cosmetic meant to make them frightening. The pink, magenta, and orange are really not at all frightening. I quite like the magenta! The orange is the exact same color as Studio M "Orange Hot". The black and white are standard, I would say, and one of those blacks is a more sheer black with silver glitter, which is suitable for layering. The original price was $4.99, but I got it for $1.24!

When I saw the remaining pumpkins, I couldn't resist. They're so cute. One is a sheer, green-tinted glow-in-the-dark glitter, and the other is a clear base with green micro-glitter and large silver hexagonal glitter. Both were $2.49 originally, but came home with me for $0.62. The coffin-shaped polish came home for the same reason... it's so cute. As it turns out, it's a pretty nice berry red, so I wasn't just buying the bottle. The company is Fright Night and the color is "Bloodshed". It was originally $2.99, but I got it for $0.74!

Now, even though that last one up there isn't necessarily a Halloween polish, it was in the Halloween clearance, so it counts. It's one of Blue Cross Beauty Products' color-change Mood Struck polishes. I've seen people play with these on their blogs, and since it was marked down to $0.99 from $3.99, I figured it wasn't too big of an expenditure for curiosity's sake. It's supposed to change from that coralish pink to a creme, but I haven't tried it out yet. I'll have to report back with results.

This is my crowning achievement of this Halloween season. Color Club "Cast a Spell" set. This one is "Bewitching". Four polishes and a set of Halloween decals. From left to right, "Hocus Pocus", which looks to be a holo glitter, "Spellbound" (Hey, that looks just like Studio M "Orange Hot"!), "Charmed I'm Sure" which is such a beatiful purple it was worth buying the whole set just for it, and "Bewitching", the absolute coolest, plastic-finish black. It's like coating your nails with black vinyl! I know you can see it in the picture, but I want to say it anyway: This set was marked down from $7.99 to $1.99.

So, that's $6.20 for thirteen polishes (some minis) and some nail art decals. Not too bad a haul, even if you subtract the two oranges that look exactly like Studio M "Orange Hot", a color I already owned (Studio M is made by Color Club, as I am guessing these minis were, as well), that's still 11 polishes for $6.20, which is about $.056 a piece. And I would have gladly paid $6.20 each for "Bewitching" and "Charmed I'm Sure".

Did anyone else go out and get spectacular deals today? Let us know in the comments!