Glitter Crazed Accident

Today, I took a journey into the heart of what it means to take a manicure a step too far. Or several steps too far.

I started off wearing Rescue Beauty Lounge "Catherine". I love, love, love the Real Housewives of The Tudor Dynasty collection, but I don't wear the colors often because, well, I just don't like the formula. They dry slowly and never really harden up enough to avoid marks. So, I woke up this morning with lots of little cuts in the surface and tip wear. I wanted to get at least a full day of wear out of it. So I decided I should put a layer of something over it.

I decided that E.L.F. "Golden Goddess" would work well over it. I'm sure I broke some kind of nail polish etiquette, layering a .99 grocery store polish over RBL, but I didn't intend to blog about it at the time. I let it dry, then decided that I needed tips. And I hadn't worn Orly "Galaxy Girl" for a long time. I taped off my nails and added tips. Then, I really loved the way the tips looked. So I did the whole nail:

For those keeping score at home, this is three thin coats of RBL "Catherine", and a coat each of "Golden Goddess" and "Galaxy Girl", plus a base coat, and a coat of Out The Door for each polish color. Since things were already thick, I thought, "Surely there must be some way to add more to this abomination." I just could decide what:

Studio M "Fast Play" on the thumb, Sinful Colors "Hottie" on the index, then Sinful Colors "UFO" and Sinful Colors "Pinky Glitter". The pinky is Sinful Colors "Nail Junkie". I think I could have planned the naming scheme better. They actually did all look different in person. I'll definitely be trying "Nail Junkie" over black sometime soon.

After all this, I decided to use Finger Paints "Sparkle Top Coat" over it, and then I decided I was probably forgetting to take my anti-depressant and took it all off.

And that, my friends, is a story that had no point, a manicure that went nowhere.

Random Manicure

Inspired by Chloe at Chloe's Nails I decided to do another patchwork manicure a few weeks ago. I wanted to mix up finishes, so I went glossy glitter and matte black. Take a look, and I'll tell you how I did it:

Again, please excuse my cuticles, the winters here are brutal to my skin. Also, I just got that nubby ring finger to grow out to a normal human length, and wouldn't you know, the middle broke!

Anyway, I started with Color Club's "Bewitching" which is a vinyl matte black. I didn't care for the finish as much as I thought I would, so I topped that with a coat of Hard Candy's "Matte-ly In Love" top coat, and waited for it to thoroughly dry. With my nails dry and matte to my liking, I carefully taped off alternating sections (I didn't want every nail to be identical) and applied Finger Paints "Easel-y Entertained", a stunning blurple glitter in blurple jelly. Yes, blurple. I said it.

After my patches of "Easel-y Entertained" were dry, I taped off yet another section and applied Studio M's "Fast Play". "Fast Play" doesn't seem to have a Color Club equivalent, at least, not a current one. It's a translucent purple jelly with irridescent gold glitter. That's what's responsible for the green sparkle in the indoor-lighting picture.

After that, I carefully applied Out The Door to just the glitter polished parts, and voila!

R.E.I.T. approves of this manicure, saying, "Is sfarkally!" That's her new favorite kind of polish. The sfrakally kind."

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.

Awesome Deals and a Swatch!

This weekend, I got some awesome deals! First up, my local Ulta had almost their entire collection of Borghese on clearance for four dollars! I hope this doesn't mean they plan on discontinuing the brand in their store, because I would love to see another super deep discount like that in the future. I snapped up "Mezzanotte Blue", which is a deep navy. It reminds me quite a lot of Hard Candy "Mr. Right", minus the shimmer.

Over at Sally Beauty Supply was the really exciting find, though. For some reason I always miss the good stuff on their clearance tables. I get there when it's really picked over and all that's left is scented cuticle oil and unbranded base coats. This time, though, I found two colors from Finger Paints's fall collection, marked down to $1.99. Not bad. And then I got to the register and found out that all their clearance merchandise was 50% off! So, I got two Finger Paints polishes for one dollar each! I absolutely loved their fall collection, so I was excited to get two more colors, "Harvest Hues", which is a shimmery dark green, and "Autumn Moonlight", a gray-blue with silver shimmer.

Now, exciting deals aside, the big find of the day was Borghese "Vigneto Berry". I had seen this polish swatched on a ton of blogs and read rave reviews, but none of the Meijers in my area seemed to have the limited edition display out! I thought for sure I'd find it at Ulta, so imagine my disappointment when they didn't have it, either. I had three OPI polishes in my hand, due to their buy two, get one sale ("Who The Shrek Are You?", "Rumple's Wiggin", and "Suzy Says Feng Shui"), along with "Mezzanotte Blue" and went to stand in the longest line ever. Luckily, the line wound right past the Borghese display with their fall colors! Excitement!

Unfortunately, the four dollar sale didn't extend to this one tiny little display (boo), but I was so excited that I didn't care. In fact, I was so excited to find this one that I asked them to put back all the OPI that I had picked out. It just didn't look as "must have" next to "Vigneto Berry."

I had to wear it immediately:



Pardon my messy fingers. Borghese makes very wide brushes, and it's a bit hard to get used to. This picture kind of highlights the problems with the polish. I love that it's matte. I love matte finish polishes. But I took this picture literally five minutes after apply the second coat, and it's already cracked. I think this must be due to the crazy shrinking the polish does while drying, so I would recommend waiting until the first coat is absolutely dry before apply the second coat.

However, just look at it. Matte magenta, with glitter. It's ridiculous that anything should look so good.

Another thing I noticed on the blogs was that this is a very versatile polish. It looks completely different when you put on a glossy top coat:



And again with the messy fingers. Chalk it up to my excitement. I couldn't wait to get it on my hands. This is with one coat of Seche Vite. Look how completely different it is! It's like I bought two polishes in the same bottle. I did one hand with top coat, one without, and the results were shocking. The hand without the top coat looked elegant and very "high-fashion". The hand with the top coat looked fun and funky.

R.E.I.T. absolutely loves this polish, too, but she prefers it without the top coat. Or, "bumpy", as she calls it. It's actually the first polish that I think she's worn twice in a row!

Autumn Colors!

Today, R.E.I.T. and I will be talking about autumn colors, at the request of Bronwyn Green. We're not much for "seasonal" colors over here. We like wear what we want, when we want. But we do have some colors in our stash that just scream fall.

For people who are into jewel tones, Sinful Colors "The Way" and Nicole by OPI "Show You Care" will be nice and colorful, but still dark enough for fall.

R.E.I.T thinks: Noooooo. Aha.

Some subtle metallics might also be nice. Mary Kay "Mocha Freeze" and Pure Ice "Jaguar"

R.E.I.T. thinks: I like that paint.

If you're gonna go red in the fall, I recommend a deep berry color. Mary Kay "Feisty" and Essie "Wicked"

R.E.I.T. thinks: Toes. For toes. I like paint for toes.

That's a good suggestion. A dark berry red for a pedicure!
And I like pinks to be along the mauevish spectrum. Sinful Colors "Wicket Mind" and Mary Kay "Sagewood"

R.E.I.T. thinks: I don't want pink.

Finally, what autumn color spectacular would be complete without some browny greiges?

With or without shimmer, cool-toned browns (wait, is that even possible?) look classy for fall. Finger Paints "Autumn Allure" and Rimmel "Steel Grey"

We don't even need to ask R.E.I.T. on this one. She knows what she likes, and she likes bright, bright colors.

Take our color advice with a grain of salt, of course. We're not fashionistas, we just know what we like. And because we never throw anything away, some of these colors are no longer available. These are just to give you an idea!

Shopping Haul and Bloggish News

Good afternoon everyone! R.E.I.T. and I just spent a wonderful afternoon at Sally's Beauty Supply. You see, today is Daddy's and my wedding anniversary (only four years, though we've been together eight), so as a present, Daddy let us go out on a little shopping splurge. What did we get? Soooo glad you asked. Here's what I picked out:


L-R: Finger Paints "Autumn Allure", Orly "Galaxy Girl", Seche Vite

I know what you're thinking. "Seche Vite? Top coats aren't wonderful and interesting, they're just clear." This is wonderful and interesting to me. For years I've used Sally Hansen Hard As Nails as my topcoat, and then when I started getting interested in nail blogs, I notice that just everyone uses Seche Vite and sang its praises. I've finally given in to the hype, and I'll do a comparison post after I do, so we can all find out if Sally has lost her crown.

Here's what R.E.I.T. picked:


L-R: Orly "Old School Orange", China Glaze "Solar Power", Orly "Royal Navy"

At one point, R.E.I.T. also had Orly "Purple Pleather" in her hand, then decided that it was too much like another purple. At least, I think that's what she meant by, "No, it's same. Same. Too same! Back!" before she put it back.

I also pointed out to Daddy that "Royal Navy" and "Solar Power" look a lot like Blue and Maize... the colors of Daddy's hated rival school, University of Michigan (Daddy is a diehard MSU fan). He was less than thrilled, so I promised that she would never be allowed to wear the two together.

I'll definitely be reviewing "Old School Orange" for a later post, as it is the most bizarre texture/color of any nail polish I have ever seen.

Now, onto bloggish news. Over on the right there, you should be able to see little mini-updates from all the nail blogs that R.E.I.T. and I like to read together. I'll be adding more in the next few days. If you know of a really kick-ass nail blog, drop us a link and we'll check it out. We love making new blog friends!