Nails & Needles

Of knitting and nail polish

Archive for the category “Nails”

28 Dec 2012

Isadora Jewels of the Orient (Fall 2012)

When Isadora first annouced its fall collection for 2012, I had a feeling I’d be all over it. I was right!

Initially, I thought I’d end up getting them all, but once I saw them in person, there were some I didn’t particularly fancy, so I skipped those. I got six of them: Beetle Green, Black Amethyst, Ancient Ruby, Oasis, Silk Road and Peacock.

I’m late showing them off, I know, I know. That’s what happens when there’s no internet connection to be had. These have been photographed and ready to go up since early November, but I haven’t had the time or inclination to post until now. Oh well.

Speaking of time and inclination: I was kind of lazy when I swatched these as well. For most of the colours, I only did one nail, so I could get four in one go. Bad, nail blogger, bad.

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Beetle Green (index finger) first made its appearance for fall 2011, but since I wasn’t into nail polish back then the way I am now, I missed it at that point. After drooling over pictures of it online, I was over the moon to see it back in this year’s fall collection. It’s a gorgeous blackened green metallic, quite reminiscent of a beetle (so good name choice, Isadora!). Two coats gives full cover.

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Black Amethyst (middle finger) is a deep blackened purple with a very fine silver shimmer suspended in the base. Again, two coats are enough for complete cover. If you’re careful (which I’m not, usually), you might even get away with just one coat of this.

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Ancient Ruby (ring finger) is a deep, deep blackened and shimmery red. Quite by coincidence, I discovered that it’s, if not a perfect dupe, then at least very similar OPI’s Every Month is Oktoberfest. Killed that lemming for me! One coat could be enough for this polish, but I like a second coat to really deepen the colour and make it look like my nails are glowing from within.

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Oasis (pinkie) reminds me a lot of H&M’s 0516 Black. Both are dark grey jellies with gold and blue microglitter. The biggest difference is that the blue glitters in Oasis seem to be duochrome and look purple from certain angles. The base colour also appears to be slightly darker at three coats, which is what you need for full cover. (And if you let it dry properly before trying to do things with your hands, you don’t get unsightly marks ruining your polish. ::cough::)

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My favourite in this collection is Silk Road, which is a blue/purple duochromatic glitterbomb. So gorgeous! I really wish photos did this one justice, because oh my! In the bottle, it doesn’t look all that special at first, but then when you get it on your nails — oh dear! First time I wore it, I went around showing it to anyone who’d look for just a second.

As the base is a jelly, this does require three thin coats to fully cover any VNL, and you have to wait a little while between coats unless you want cuticle drag. Those minor inconveniences aside, this is such a stellar polish! I think it could possibly be a dupe for OPI’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, or at least it’s very similar.

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26 Nov 2012

Blue Monday: Color Club Take Me to Your Chateau

 Another Monday, another blue polish for Mrs Data.

Last week, I had a few nail accidents and not even my tea bags could save them, so I ended up filing them all down. Major sadface at that, for real.

I probably shouldn’t show my nails here until they’ve grown out a bit more, but, well, I have too many polishes to resist anyway. Okay, so my nails are ubershort. I can still paint them, and I still will. If it’s not your cuppa tea, that’s cool, I understand. We can’t all like the same things!

All that aside, this week I decided to go for another nail art-y manicure. I bought a new nail marker recently and I wanted to see if it was worth it. It worked super well for the first, oh, three minutes, but then it started being a pain in the arse. Poop. I didn’t give up, though, so my nails are sporting quite a lot of polka dots today. As much as I love polka dots, my favourite thing about this mani is actually the angry little reptilian dude on my left thumb nail. How cute is he?

As for the blue this Blue Monday, it’s called Take Me to Your Chateau (long unwieldy name, hello!) and a Color Club polish. Baby blue creme that covers in two coats (on most nails. Some needed three). For such a pastelly colour, the coverage is actually pretty fantastic. Usually, this kind of blue is so not My Thing, but for this one I’m willing to make an exception. I love it! And I actually don’t think it looks half bad on my little stubbies.

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19 Nov 2012

Blue Monday: Color Club Blue-topia

It’s Monday and you all know what that means: Blue Monday!

Today I’m sporting a ridiculously rushed half-moon nail art thing. Seriously. I was in a hurry to go to work and my nails were completely bare, but I was going to do something, or else. And then I remembered it was Monday, so I couldn’t reach for the closest polish (which was a kind of snot green colour. Sounds yucky, but I love it! You’ll see that too soon enough), which meant even less time to finish it. Oh dear.

Anyway. I applied three coats of Color Club’s Blue-topia (a lovely deep blue jelly) to about two-thirds of my nails, then one layer Seche Vite, then Broadway Nails’ white nail art polish for the accents (and the wibbly wobbly heart!), then another coat Seche Vite. Done! I’ll probably recreate it some other time when I’m not so stressed, but meh. For today, it’ll do.

Blue-topia is lovely! It does end up a little uneven even after three coats, but so much that I’m really bothered by it, and the colour is gorgeous. The formula is quite thin and the polish likes to pool in the brush handle, so I ended up with stained hands, but the colour makes it worth it. Time and time again!

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17 Nov 2012

Nail and Hand Care: Nails

Every nail enthusiast has their own tips and tricks for keeping their nails and hands in tip top condition. In this series of posts, I thought I’d show you what works for me. Some of these I’ve discovered through other people’s blogs, some I’ve found on my own.

There’s been a bit of trial and error before I got far enough to say with certainty that this thing or that thing is beneficial to my nails and/or my skin. Some of the items below are actually still in that testing stage, but things are looking good for them, so they’re included anyway.

  1. Mandelolja APL (almond oil). Small-moleculed oils are perfect for your nails (and not bad for your skin either!). The small molecules means that the nail can absorb them properly, which means they become more supple and springy and won’t break so easily. (Think dry wood vs fresh branches that still contain moisture. You can thank Viola for that comparison!) The bottle is a little clumsy, so I used an empty nail polish bottle and poured some oil over into it. Bonus points for the brush in the lid thus making it easier to apply! Especially when I’m wearing nail polish, I like being able to get under the nail edge, so the brush helps.
  2. Hair Volume. I’ve only been using these for about two weeks thus far, so can’t really tell if they make a difference or not. It’s a dietary supplement and “is based on vitamins, minerals and innovative hair growth factors from apples.” B Vitamins, silica and zinc are supposed to be good for both hair and nails, so can’t hurt, right? It’s one tablet a day and each pack lasts 30 days. Quite pricey, though (even with my employee discount at work), so I’m not sure if I’m going to keep using it all the time, or just do a 30-day treatment every now and then.
  3. Scratch Nail Food. This one lives in my mini nail kit. It’s the first nail oil I started using, and my favourite. It contains mainly sesame seed oil, which is another small-moleculed one, but also myrrh and lavender. Unfortunately, this is really expensive, so I’m not sure if I can justify buying a new bottle when this runs out. The only real difference to my almond oil is the scent, which is quite nice, so I’m thinking I’ll fill up the bottle with almond oil once there’s just a little bit left. That way, I should still get some of the scent with the new “batch.” I try to use this or the almond oil at least twice a day, sometimes even three times, to make sure my nails don’t get brittle and break.
  4. OPI Original Nail Envy. I’ve been using this nail strengthener for about six months now. It was the first product I bought to try and strengthen my nails. At first it worked nicely, though my nails would still split, so then I switched to nail oils for a while instead. However, using only those, I still wasn’t able to grow my nails out like I wanted to. In the end, about six weeks ago, I started using both the nail oils and the Nail Envy at the same time. Finally, I saw results I really liked. Long, strong, non-splitty nails. Brilliance! What I do is, I start by massaging in some nail oil and waiting a little while to let it really absord. Then, I apply two coats of Nail Envy and let that dry before starting with my base coat &c.

  1. ACO Sense & Care Nail Polish Remover. My favourite nail polish remover ever! And I can buy it at work! See, I’ve tried a few other removers, but all of them leave this yucky, oily film that I absolutely cannot stand. This one doesn’t! Plus, it’s the best of the ones I’ve tried at the actual removal of nail polish too. Double win!
  2. Medical compresses (non-sterile). Another thing I buy from work. They come in different sizes and I use them for both nail polish removal and when cleaning off my make up. They’re super soft and don’t leave fuzz behind.
  3. NailTek Foundation II. Another thing I first heard about on nail blogs. I buy it off eBay. It’s my favourite base coat so far and the first one that actually makes my nail polish stay on. My current bottle is almost all out, though, so I need to buy a new one. I’m going to wait until I’ve properly tried out #4 in this picture, though.
  4. Seche Base. Another base coat. Reminds me a bit of NailTek, but it dries shiny with a bit of shimmer (as opposed to matte like the NailTek). When it dries, that is. With some polishes, it seems like this never properly dries, so I’m not quite friends with it yet. When I have managed to get it to work, though, I’ve been very impressed, so I’m going to give it some more chances to prove itself.
  5. Seche Vite. This is pretty much everyone’s favourite quick-drying top coat, and for good reason! It dries super fast and gives massive shine. For a while, I didn’t quite get along with this, but then I learnt the trick of “tucking” your nail polish under your nail and then doing the same with this. Once you know to do that, this top coat is hard to beat! The biggest beef I have with it now is that it does tend to chip, especially in conjunction with some polishes.
  6. Essie No Chip Ahead. This is my most recent acquisition and I bought it to see if it would help with the chipping issue I sometimes have with Seche Vite. I’ve had mixed results so far, but then one of those times, it was with a Butter London polish, and those don’t get along with Seche stuff to begin with. But yes, still a trial run with this one.

And this is what my naked nails look like now! Slightly discoloured, I know, but a lot better than they used to!

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16 Nov 2012

Cactus’ Nail Polish Magnesium

My first indie! And it’s probably so indie you’ve never even heard of it. =P

Cactus’ Nail Polish is a blog I follow and a while back she made her first nail polish collection. The day they went on sale, I was away from home so I was convinced I’d miss out completely. As luck would have it, though, my favourite shade was, for some reason, the least popular one.

Magnesium is a green linear holo and I adore it. The formula is quite thick, but since the polish is very richly pigmented, one coat is enough for full cover and the thickness is not a big deal at all. It dries kind of matte on its own, so yes, I did use top coat on it. Oops?

Just as luck was on my side when I got my hands on this, it was when I went to swatch it too. The sun came out! For the first time in aaaaages — I’d almost forgotten what the sun looked like!

Cactus’ Nail Polish is apparently working on a new collection now, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what it brings!

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14 Nov 2012

Isadora Forest

Forest is from Isadora’s Fall 2011 collection. It, for some reason, stuck around in the permanent selection for quite a while, but now seems to have disappeared again (I was super stoked to find two bottles in a store the other day, as I’d not seen it for months and I have promised to get it for two friends, so was getting a little worried there).

This is a gorgeous forest green colour full of bronze shimmer. It kind of reminds me of Make Up Store’s Merit, in the way that they both make my nails seem like they’re glowing from within, but Forest is definitely green. Forest is really such a fitting name for it!

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12 Nov 2012

Isadora Polar Nights

I missed last week, but now I’m back on form for Blue Monday!

For Isadora’s Holiday 2012 collection, they have released three new nail polishes. One is a gold glitter, one is a silver glitter and one is a deep blue jelly loaded with silver and blue microglitter and larger hexes. I’m betting you can guess which one I decided to pick up?

Polar Nights is the aforementioned deep blue jelly. As a jelly, it does require three coats to cover completely (though three coats is not bad as jellies go!), but because of the glitters, this adds depth to the hexes, especially. It’s like a jelly sandwich without all the work.

Like most of Isadora’s polishes, this dries super shiny even without a top coat (though in the photos I am wearing a coat of Seche Vite on top).

I have to say, this is one of my favourite blue polishes and I’m so glad I got my hands on it (this was the last bottle left in the store!).

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11 Nov 2012

Nail and Hand Care: Cuticles and Hands

Every nail enthusiast has their own tips and tricks for keeping their nails and hands in tip top condition. In this series of posts, I thought I’d show you what works for me. Some of these I’ve discovered through other people’s blogs, some I’ve found on my own.

There’s been a bit of trial and error before I got far enough to say with certainty that this thing or that thing is beneficial to my nails and/or my skin. Some of the items below are actually still in that testing stage, but things are looking good for them, so they’re included anyway.

  1. Plastic orange stick. For pushing back my cuticles after using cuticle cream or for use during nail-mending.
  2. Oliva Eco Cuticle Oil. For keeping my cuticles soft. I try to use this at least once a day, but sometimes I forget. I like this particular one because it has a brush applicator, but I sometimes also use ACO Sense & Care Cuticle Cream.
  3. Glass nail file. I need to get a new one as I broke this one just the other day. It still works great, it’s just a bit fiddly. On the plus side, this is now small enough for me to keep a piece in mymini nail kit. ;) Glass files are brilliant because you don’t have to worry about which direction you file your nails and, also, unless you break them (like I do! I’m clumsy as all that), they last forever and a day.
  4. Foldable nail file/buffer/polisher. I don’t like this one as much as my glass file, but it works well enough in a pinch. The buffer and polish sections of this work a lot better than the file bits, so I tend to use those most. Sometimes I use the buffer right after I’ve applied nail oil (which I will talk about in the next post in this series).
  5. Nail brush. I use this after my cuticle eraser has worked its magic. It helps to get rid of those pesky dead skin cells and stuff that likes to sit around your cuticles. This came in the little mesh bag I keep my mini nail kit in.
  6. CND Cuticle Eraser. Great for getting rid of those dead skin cells I mentioned above. I got this off eBay after reading about it on a couple of blogs, but I wasn’t sold at first. Eventually I realised that it was because I didn’t let it sit on my cuticles long enough before rubbing it off. Now what I do is: apply it on each of my cuticles, let it sit for about 15 minutes before rubbing it in (much like you would a cuticle cream or oil), then take my nail brush and brush it over my cuticles to make sure all the stuff the eraser has softened up actually rubs off. Then I wash my hands to get rid of the last traces.
  7. Cowshed Cow Pat. I received this in September’s Glossy Box and I’ve used it ever since. It contains grapefruit and coriander oil, which means it smells really special. I love coriander, so I love the smell, and this makes my hands feel really soft and smooth. I’m almost out of my tube and first chance I get, I’m buying a full-size one. Can’t be without it now!
  8. LUSH Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter. Name one nail blogger who hasn’t mentioned this at some point? I bought it after recommendations from a lot of people and while I’m not the biggest fan, I do like to use it sometimes when I feel my cuticles need a little extra moisture action (like when I’ve been neglecting them). My favourite use, however, is for when I’m swatching a lot in one go: I rub this on my nails, then apply a coat of Seche Vite to them. After that, I apply my nail polish and finally another coat of Seche Vite. When everything has dried properly, it’s super easy to just peel off in one go. Best trick ever! I learnt it from Cactus’ Nail Polish.

That’s it for today! Now you know my favourite products for keeping my hands looking nice and feeling soft, as well as for shaping my nails. What are yours?

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10 Nov 2012

Make Up Store Charmaine (Shimmer 101)

First of all, can I just say how much I love the brushes on Make Up Store polishes! I think these may actually be my favourite brushes ever! They are very easy to work with and make the polish very controllable. Me likey.

Charmaine is a beautiful teal polish, shockful of holographic particles. It’s not a linear holo, but the holo effect is definitely there, which is quite odd. I mean, MUS have polishes that are clearly marked as holos, and this is not one of them.

Either way, this is so pretty, and it’s a one-coater! Gotta love a good one-coater! And this one is good. Very good. Very, very good.

If you’re going to buy only one or two MUS polishes, I’d say to go for this and/or Merit. No doubt about it.

Not going to stop scratching my head over the supposed non-holoness of this, mind.

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08 Nov 2012
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Make Up Store Merit (Sparkling 001)

Merit was the first Make Up Store polish I ever bought and well worth every penny I spent on it. It’s been one of my favourites all autumn and probably will be even after winter comes.

The base colour is a rich warm chocolate with copper shimmer and microglitter. Two coats (one thin, followed by a more generous one) are enough to give full opaqueness and make your nails look like they’re glowing from within.

Every time I’ve worn this to work, I’ve had customers asking me where I bought it and exclaiming that they have to get it. Can’t say I don’t understand them! I would crave this too if I didn’t already own it.

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07 Nov 2012
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Bare Necessities: My Mini Nail Kit

I don’t know if anyone’s actually curious to know this, but today I’m going to show you the little kit I always keep in my bag so I can properly take care of my nails even on the road.

  1. The small mesh bag I keep it all in. Bought at H&M for a tiny penny (I think the equivalent of £3/$5) and it came with a nail file/buffer/polisher, a nail brush and a plastic orange stick.
  2. Plastic orange stick. For pushing back my cuticles and also for mending torn nails*. Came with the mesh bag when I bought it.
  3. Foldable nail file with shape, smooth, buffer and polish surfaces. I might have to replace this one soon, as I sort of broke it a while back. Still works, mind!
  4. Oliva Eco Cuticle Oil. I really like the brush on this tube, makes it so much easier to get the oil where I want it!
  5. Scratch Nail Food. Nail oil based on sesame oil, with added lavender and myrrh for scent. I try to massage some nail oil into my nails at least two or three times a day, so it’s a good thing to have in my kit, since I can do it even if I’m not at home.
  6. Nail glue. In case of torn nails*.
  7. An emptied out, unused tea bag. Again, for mending torn nails*.
  8. A small tube of hand cream, because my hands get ridiculously dry, especially in winter, so it’s a good thing to carry around. Right now, it’s No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Day Hand Cream, but it varies depending on what sample size tubes I have on hand.

So that’s that. Do you have a nail kit you always bring with you? If so, what’s in yours?

*See this post for how I use them.

Posted in Nail Care
06 Nov 2012

Make Up Store Tanja (Shimmer 101)

I wasn’t very interested in this shade when I first picked it up to look at it in the store, but then the light hit the bottle at just the right angle and holy wow!

This is a dark greyish green base with, mainly, green microglitter suspended in it. I think there is an element of duochrome in some of the glitter particles too, however, because sometimes you can catch a glimpse of a little red in it as well.

The shimmer effect in this is very, very subtle, almost completely muted by the base colour. But then, like at the store, the light hits it from just the right direction and suddenly the sparkles appear! Honestly, that’s half the charm of this polish. Unfortunately, this also makes it quite tricky to catch the effect in photos. Pictures just don’t seem to do this polish justice at all! (That’s why sucky flash photo is included.)

I needed two coats this time, but with careful and methodical application, one generous coat might well be enough to do the trick.

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04 Nov 2012

Illamasqua Christmas 2011 Quad

I know, I know, we’re coming up on Christmas 2012, so yes, I am a year late. But, never you mind that: this is still a great little set! It’s also my introduction to Illamasqua’s polishes. Normally, these babies run at £13.50 a pop, but I snagged them up at Illamasqua’s summer sale a few months back. Who wants Christmas polishes in July? For £15 for the four of them, I sure as hell do! ;)

Prism: There was one polish in the set I was certain I would never use, because I hate sheer polishes, but hey, three for £15 is still a pretty good deal!, so I didn’t really care that one would be unusable. Of course, once I had it in my hands, I had to at least try it once, y’know? So I did, and I was sold! Prism is gorgeous! It’s a sheer, milky duochrome that is obviously never going to be opaque on its own, but  I don’t care! I’m wearing two coats here just to show what it looks like by itself. I can’t really wear it this way since my nails are crazy discoloured, but it also works perfectly as a layering polish over something else.

Elope: Lovely grassy green colour, really annoying formula. It took four coats to begin looking this even and non-streaky. Thing is, this is a wonderful colour and I want to wear it a lot, but boy, do I not have the patience for four-coater nightmare polishes! Next time, I’m wearing underwear with this. Will certainly save a looooot of time.

Throb: A gorgeous vibrant red creme and a nice surprise after Elope. I dreaded another four-coater, but this ended up only taking one coat to cover completely. One. What is this? Not that I’m really complaining — yay for one-coater reds! Great for when you’re in a hurry and so on, but consistency, anyone? A bit of that would be quite nice now and then. Just sayin’.

Harsh: What’s a Christmas collection without a glitter polish? Nothing, that’s what, so of course one was included here. Harsh feels very aptly named. It’s got to be the harshest silver glitter I own (and OPI’s Pirhouette My Whistle is the softest). Here it is as one coat over Throb. Much like Prism, Harsh is best layered over something else, though obviously you can wear it on its own, if that’s what floats your boat.

All in all, the brush on these demanded a certain amount of concentration on my part, but I think that’s just because this is a new brand for me. I always need a little time to get acquainted with a new brush.

My favourite of the four is Throb, the biggest let-down is Elope and the biggest surprise Prism. All of them quite worth the £15 I spent.

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02 Nov 2012

H&M Five Polish Pack

I’ve already shown you one of these five little goodies on a Blue Monday, but here’s the whole lot!

0514 Red: I’m having a hard time figuring out if this is a creme or a jelly. It both looks and behaves like a bit of both, so I guess it’s kind of a cross? Needs three coats if you want rid of VNL, though it’s not as obvious at two coats as the photo would have you believe. The colour is also a bit darker/deeper in  reality than what the picture shows, but my camera (like so many others) absolutely hates red shades.

0515 Pink: I’m not at all a fan of pinks with shimmer, but I actually don’t mind this one as much as I thought I would. Maybe because it’s more like gold microglitter, rather than shimmer. Well, that, or I’ve just myself put myself in the way of enough shimmery pinks that I am now starting to get immune to their wiles. ;) Anyway, two generous coats and Bob’s your uncle!

0516 Black: This is a dark grey jelly base with gold and blue microglitter. The first coat is very sheer, but it actually only needs three to become opaque, which was a nice surprise. If you don’t mind VNL, you might even be content with two, although then you’d have to settle for a medium grey colour. Even at three coats, I wouldn’t quite call it black, but I can see how “Really Dark Grey” makes for a less than stellar colour name.

0518 Blue: Three coats of this gives you a beautiful blue with silver shimmer and no VNL. This may well be my favourite of the five polishes in this pack. In fact, this is the one I mentioned showing you before: I featured it for my second Blue Monday (and how my nails have grown since I took that photo!).

Nail Polish Matte: Is this the best matte top coat I’ve ever tried? No. Is it the worst? No, not that either (I’m looking at you, Depend Matte Top Coat. You suck!). It’s actually quite decent and if I didn’t already have a bunch of others, I’d have appreciated this one a lot more!

Overall, this is a really nice little collection of polishes. The formula on all of them is nice and easy to work with, as are the brushes. The only issue I have (aside from the shimmery pink ::cough::) is the brush handles. They store a lot of polish, so if I don’t pay close attention to what’s going on with them, I risk dripping polish all over the place. I mean, I like nail polish, but I’d rather it go on my nails than on my clothes and furniture, thank you very much.

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01 Nov 2012
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How to Save a Nail

Today I thought I’d tell you about a little trick I learned from the Internet. Obviously, if you’re a fellow nail blogger, you probably already know this trick, but if you’re not, then this might be a new life saver! The first time I read about it was on, I believe, Lacquerized.


What you need: nail glue*, a tea bag**, an orange stick (cuticle pusher) and a nail file.

Oh, and a broken nail. See, this trick can save a broken nail so you don’t have to file it down. Brilliant, right?

Now, it’s not going to fix it fix it, as in re-attach it permanently to the rest of your nail, so you will eventually have to file it down, but this enables you to wait until the nail has grown out enough that you can file it down a bit but still have it be the length you want.

  1. Make sure your nail is clean and dry.
  2. Stick on a bit of nail glue.
  3. Tear off a small piece of the tea bag (you could cut it with scissors, but I prefer just tearing it — keeps what you need to have in your kit to a minimum) and stick it on top of the glue.
  4. Use the orange stick to smooth it out so that there are no bubbles and lies flat on the nail. (Sometimes you need to apply a bit more glue to ensure this.)
  5. Apply another coat of glue.
  6. Stick on another little piece of tea bag.
  7. Repeat step 4.
  8. Once the glue has dried completely, use your nail file to smooth out the surface.

Done! Now you can apply your nail polish as usual and not worry about tearing your nail further. It might look a bit less smooth than usual, but with a properly applied polish on top, it should be barely noticeable that something is up with your nail.

If you use a gentle nail polish remover, you can even change your polish without ruining the tea bag mend. However, you might not be able to get all of the polish off, as evidenced by the teeny tiny leftover purple polish you can see on my nail***. Still, that’s a minor inconvenience, compared to hacking off most of your nail.

*I always have an emptied out tea bag and a tube of nail glue in my bag. It’s a good investment and nail saver! Nail glue is available at most beauty supply stores (sometimes you’ll have to buy a pack of fake nails to get it, but not always. Depends on how big their selection is!) and through eBay. I bought a 10-pack of nail glue for about 3 bucks on eBay a while back when I had my fake nail phase, and I’ve not even made a dent in it yet. So, lasts for ages and if it’s not mid-emergency, it’s dirt cheap!

**There are silk wraps available for nails, so if you can get your hands on those, great! But, I haven’t seen them in any shops yet and in an emergency, you’re likelier to have access to a tea bag, which works just as well. The first time I tried this trick, I use a silkier sort of tea bag and had little success, so I would advice to go with a paper tea bag, which is what I’ve used since.

***As you can also see in the photo, my ring finger is ridiculously dry. It’s due to my allergy to oranges and carrots (which presents itself as a rash on my right ring finger and nowhere else on my body. Seriously, nowhere else!) and is one of many reasons why my left hand is my blog hand.

Posted in Nail Care
29 Oct 2012
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Blue Monday: H&M 0518 Blue

It’s that time of the week again: Blue Monday!

This week, I’m seeing how long I can keep one single mani without changing, so I didn’t have time to paint my nails blue today. However, I did have a blue polish in my photo archive, so I’m showing that instead.

This is a gorgeous blue with silver microglitter that was part of a little combo pack of nail polishes I bought at H&M. It’s called Blue, quite simply, with 0518 added on to differentiate it from every other H&M polish called Blue.

It applied like a dream and needed barely any clean-up. Yay for that!

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22 Oct 2012

Blue Monday: Peacock

Quick one today for Blue Monday, run by Mrs Data målar naglarna (a blog well worth a visit even if you don’t read Swedish!). I promise I’ll try to be back with more as soon as I get a working internet connection in the new flat.

Anyhoo, for my first Blue Monday entry, I decided to try out a new Isadora polish from their fall 2012 collection. Peacock is a very shiny blue metallic. It covers well in two coats, though behaved a bit wonkily with my current base coat combo. That could be due to my own impatience in painting, however, so I’m not willing to count it out just yet.

Go check out the other entries for Blue Monday here!

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20 Sep 2012

H&M Blue Bliss

 Remember how I talked about the many uses of a good black creme polish? Here’s a perfect example of what I mean!

H&M Blue Bliss is a sheer blue jelly polish with small hex glitters in red, green, blue, teal and gold (and I think even some holos). On its own, even three coats leaves it extremely sheer and makes you look like you’re about to freeze to death. A look some may like, but certainly not one I strive for on a daily basis… ;)

If you layer it over black, however, it’s instantly transformed and the glitters really come through. Over black, it’s like a completely different polish: one at least I can’t stop looking at!

It sparkles and glitters and shifts colours as you move your fingers. Absolute brilliance!

Formula-wise, it’s easy to work with and dries quite quickly, unless you apply multiple coats. There’s no reason to do that, though, as the glitters come out of the bottle quite willingly and you don’t need more than one coat over your base to really make it pop.

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16 Sep 2012

H&M Look At Me

Remember Lady Luck from a week or so ago? Here’s another shimmery gem I picked up from a later trip to H&M.

It’s called Look At Me and I can guarantee that that is exactly the statement your nails will make when you wear it. It’s a very vibrant, very shimmery red with an intense glow “from within.” I love it! (I wore it over OPI Lady in Black on my index finger, to see if the black made a big difference, and while it does make the glow deeper, it’s not absolutely necessary to make it look good.)

Like Lady Luck, this does run the risk of having brush strokes dry apparent, but with a little care while applying, it’s not really an issue. The formula is a little thin too, so if you have too much polish on the brush, you end up with fingers looking like mine in the photo here. ::cough::

All in all, lovely little thing, this. I can see myself wearing it for Christmas.

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14 Sep 2012
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OPI Lady in Black

 I think young people these days are less likely to have a “little black dress” than they were a few decades ago. (I swear I’m not as old as that statement makes me sound!) It’s a pity, in my opinion, because the little black dress is such a versatile thing to have in one’s closet.

A good black creme is the “little black dress” of the nail polish world. It’s a great start for a lot of different styles of nail art. You can use it as a base under glitter polishes and layer it under other polishes where you want to make the colour deeper. Every polish addict should have one, and I dare say every polish addict does.

Until recently, my go-to black creme was Isadora’s Gothic black, which is awesome: it covers in one coat, dries quickly and is ridiculously shiny, even on its own. The only downside is that the bottle is quite small, and dries up quite quickly. I’ve employed my Seche Restore on it a few times already, but really felt I had to find a good alternative.

Enter OPI Lady in Black*. It’s super shiny. Super shiny! (No top coat used for these pics and look at those reflections on my nails!) It’s opaque in just two coats and you only need one if you want to layer something else over it.

Of course, swatching black polishes is kind of boring and it’s been done to death, but there you are. That’s what happens when a polish is a given staple in the collections of a lot of people with different tastes.

*I’m told this was previously known as OPI Black Onyx.

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12 Sep 2012

ELF Mango Madness

I posted about my first two ELF polishes the other day, and here’s my third! Purchased at the same time as the other two, this one is quite obviously a different shade.

I was swatching a little too late in the day, so the colour isn’t quite right, unfortunately. It has a much pinker tint than what the photos show. (I’ll try re-swatching at some point to get a fairer representation of it.)

That slight problem aside, it is a really gorgeous colour. Very summery, which makes it a bit of a pity that I only just tried in on now, when autumn is just about to start. There’s always next year, though! Or, of course, the prospect of what I like to think of as a vitamin injection for the darker months. =)

This is slightly more true-to-life, but still not pink enough.

Formula wise? It’s a bit thicker than the other two ELFs I tried. I think that’s the “new and improved” formula talking. Personally, I’m a big fan of the older version, so I’m not super pleased. To be fair, though, this isn’t bad, as such, just slightly thicker and harder to work with. I think I’ll survive it, though. ;) The worst is the fact that there’s still a hint of VNL even after three coats. Cool if you don’t mind VNL, but not so much if you do. I think I’ll layer it over a nude or white in the future.

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10 Sep 2012

Depend #260

Green! I love me some green! It’s been my favourite colour ever since I outgrew my all-black phase, which was close to ten years ago (yelp! I’m getting old(er)!). Especially darker greens set my heart a-flutter, so of course I look for those colours in my nail polish choices as well.

Here’s one from Depend, again without a decent name. It is simply known as “260”, which is short and efficient, albeit dead dull. The polish itself is not. Dead dull, I mean. I don’t know how a polish would be short and efficient, so I can’t say if it is or isn’t…

Aaaaanyway, sidetracked! 260 is a gorgeous dark green creme. It looks a lot lighter in the bottle than it does on the nail, and quite a lot greyer/dustier too. There is a grey-ish element to it even when applied and dried, but it’s a much less marked element than what the bottle would have you believe. The formula is quite nice. I can’t remember if I used two or three coats here, but three is probably better to get rid of the last streakiness, unless you apply it with utmost care.

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08 Sep 2012

ELF Desert Haze and ELF Innocent: two peas in a pod?

I recently discovered ELF’s line of polishes and various other sundries. I was smitten at once: here was a budget brand with a huuuuge selection, and it was cruelty-free to boot! Obviously, my shopping fingers couldn’t keep away, and I clicked home a nice little selection for my first order.

Pictured to the right here is ELF Dezert Haze, a lovely nude shade that applies rather like a dream and covers quite well in two coats if you’re careful (three if you aren’t!). The formula is on the extremely thin side, but for some reason (the brush?), I didn’t find it hard to control or work with at all. Apparently, some of the other shades from ELF now feature a “new improved formula” and if the one I tried (more on that later) is anything to judge by, this means the formula is slightly thicker and, in my opinion, a wee bit trickier to work with. Not by a lot, though!

And here’s another photo of Desert Haze, right? Wrong!

This is supposed to be Innocent. On the website, they both belong to the same colour family, but Desert Haze is shown as a darker version of Innocent.

From the ELF website.

For the life of me, I cannot actually see a difference. I’ve tried different lights, I’ve tried squinting, I’ve tried everything, but I can’t see it. Maybe I’ve not yet acquired “the trained eye”, but I honestly think I accidentally got a mismarked bottle of one of these.

Dezert Haze on my thumb, Innocent on the other fingers. Can you see a difference?

I e-mailed ELF about it and this is what they had to say:

Having compared both of the samples here in the office I appreciate your feedback regarding the colour. Although they are similar, I can advise that both have different shades. While the Innocent is more nude and pink, Desert Haze has more brown undertones.

While they may appear very similarly on nails, I assure you that when swatched, side by side on white paper there is a clear colour difference.

I’m just going to have to swatch again and really look for that difference, I suppose.

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06 Sep 2012

Depend #297

 Depend’s polishes nearly never have colour names, just numbers, so here’s the aptly(? How could you tell?!) named #297, a matte pink creme, from the summer 2012 collection.

I pretty much hate shimmery pinks with a passion. Some glitter I can stomach, depending on the sort, but shimmer is never okay in my book. I feel like that makes things too princess-y, too little girl-y and too grandmother-y — all at once!

So, that being said, I’ve been on the hunt for a perfect pink for a while now. It needs to be pink (duh!), but not shimmery, and preferably a creme or a jelly, that covers well in max three coats and lasts for a while before chipping. Not, exactly, an easy task to find the perfect one, then. You’d think it would be, since there is a veritable sea of pinks out there, but apparently that just means there are more imperfections to wade through to find The One.

This is not it, unfortunately (The One, I mean). It’s not bad, though. It’s a pink non-shimmer creme that covers in two coats and dries matte. Awesome, thus far. Too bad it’s not the shade of pink I’m after. =( Also, to be honest, I prefer my matte shades to become matte by use of a top coat, rather than being that way from the beginning. Yay! for versatility and all that.

All in all, though my hunt goes on, this is something I will definitely be wearing from time to time. Application was a breeze and it’s not a bad shade, so thumbs up!

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04 Sep 2012

H&M Lady Luck

Green and glittery? Don’t mind if I do!

I grabbed this from H&M a little while back along with some other goodies. I wasn’t actually planning on this one, but then I saw it and just had to have. Y’know, the way you sometimes just do? Yeah, like that.

It’s a little brush-stroke-y if you’re not careful, but with meticulous application (and it goes on like butter, so it’s easy!), it looks just fab. Glowing, even. I blame the micro glitters for that. I mean blame in a totally good way here, just so we’re clear. I like the micro glitters. I like them a lot. They are green and they are golden and they sparkle like mad.

Anyway, I can really recommend H&M’s Lady Luck if you want a bit of sparkly clover green on your finger tips!

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03 Sep 2012

Isadora Metropolitan

You saw Night Flight yesterday, so here’s the next one from Isadora’s autumn collection: Metropolitan.

Metropolitan is a straight-up creme with no bells or whistles (i.e. shimmer, glitter, whathaveyous). Does that mean it’s boring? NO!

The formula is fantastic and application is a breeze (forgiven my sloppiness evident in the photos — I was kind of in a rush while swatching. Seriously bad combination of things to be/do). It’s opaque in two coats and the colour is a dark taupe, kind of like really dark coffee with just a drop or two of milk. Amaaaaaazing!

Also, it’s really shiny. Isadora polishes usually are, even without top coat, which is one of the reasons I love them so.

Crappy flash photography that at least kind of shows that little bit of milk.

There’s a third polish in the Paradox collection, a deep red creme, but I haven’t bought it yet and I’m not sure if I will either. I have a lot of reds already, but my stash was lacking in brown and blues, which is why I picked up the other two colours first.

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02 Sep 2012

Night Flight

This is one of three polishes from Isadora’s fall 2012 collection: Paradox.  It’s a gorgeous dark blue metallic that covers in two coats, three if you want perfection, and I really, really like it a lot. It has a slight silver shimmer to it, which is absolutely lovely. Shimmers aren’t usually my thing, but here I think it really works.

I don’t think I’ve ever been really disappointed by an Isadora polish. They usually cover really well in just a few coats and they last an amazingly long time before they start to chip, especially if you use a good base/top coat combo.

I’ve only swatched this so far, but you can be sure I’ll be wearing it a lot this season.

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31 Aug 2012

Desert Sun

 Here’s the second of China Glaze’s On Safari polishes to appear on the blog, though it was actually the first I wore on my nails. I love it.

Last year, I bought a set of four mini polishes at H&M and one of them was a tan colour that I fell in love with, utterly and irrevocably. Of course, a defining trait of mini polishes is that the bottles are quite small, so my beloved tan polish dried up in no time.

Enter On Safari. After seeing swatches, I decided I must get my mitts on Desert Sun, but it wasn’t until I actually wore it for the first time I realised that, hey!, here’s my favourite colour in a big bottle that’s going to last forever. Awesome!

It’s a very easily applied creme formula, though I am not the best of friends with the brush yet. I need to get the CG brush technique down pat still, but once that happens? I will be unstoppable! ;)

Also, re: my last post and how I’m getting better at painting my nails without making a mess? Look at this photo. No clean-up was done after applying the polish, and while my cuticles maybe don’t look perfect, they’re damn well close to being so!

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29 Aug 2012

Perle de Jade

I think I’m almost (almost!) caught up with older manis I still haven’t shown off now. I mean, there are still a bunch I have photos of, but no way am I going to blog them, as they are from the time before I learned the virtue of a good, clean cuticle and how not to get nail polish all over myself. ;) I mean, yes, I don’t always have perfect cuticles now either, but dear god, are they not nearly as bad as they once were. (I promise I’ll try to get better at cleaning up my cuticles! Just, time. Is something I don’t always have a lot of. Also, I’m kind of lazy, so I try to get them decent enough from the start, and skip correcting smaller mistakes.)

Anyway, this mani. It’s from right after I started knowing what I was doing a bit more, but in retrospect, it did really need a bit of a clean up even so.

I used two or three coats of L’oréal Color Riche in Perle de Jade as the base and then, after that had dried a bit, I applied one coat of Kleancolor’s Silver Star (and dug around a bit in the bottle to get a decent amount of stars). I finished off with a coat of Seche Vite and then waited for aeons for it all to dry, because holy cow, Kleancolor polishes just really don’t want to dry. Ever. They’re really pretty, but they take forever to dry and they smell weird, so I don’t know that I’m a very big fan of them in the end.

Silver Star has micro glitters, big star glitters and medium-sized hex glitters, all with a very pretty holo effect, that is, unfortunately, very hard to photograph well.

I was going to say that this many reminded me of the beach, and how I couldn’t figure out why, since last time I checked, sand isn’t usually green! Then I realised that yeah, the reason I thought of beaches is because often-times the ocean is kind of a jade sort of green and the glitters could easily be starfish and various sorts of shells. So the ocean. This reminds me of the ocean! And you don’t have to question my sanity with my green sand theory… ;)

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27 Aug 2012

Stamping success? Well, kind of!

I recently bought some stamping plates and have been practising stamping a bit “in the dark”. By that I quite obviously don’t mean in actual darkness, but rather behind the scenes, to use a different expression. In other words, I didn’t want to post anything here until I was at least semi-successful at it.

This was my first, well, I’m not going to say perfect (look at that ring finger nail!), but at least decent, attempt.

I started off with two coats of (and this is embarrassing: I can’t actually remember which one it was!) either Butter London Slapper or Isadora Go Green. Seriously, I should start writing these things down when doing them, and not a week or two later. Usually I can recall which polishes I used for a particular mani, but not so this time. Urgh! (As soon as I get home to my stash, I’m going to do comparison swatches of both likely culprits to try to figure out which one’s the one used here. Promise!) Yeah, so, ::cough::, it’s Illamasqua’s Elope. Look at my memory being brilliant! =P (More on my recent Illamasqua acquisitions soon.

After that was sufficently dry, I used Isadora’s Tip White to stamp on a design from BM 322, a plate from Bundle Monster’s 2012 collection. Finally, I topped it off with a coat of Poshé to help dry and protect it.

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25 Aug 2012

House colours

I am a huuuuuge fan of the Harry Potter books (and fond enough of the films, especially the later ones), so a while back I decided to do a Harry Potter inspired mani.

I started off with a coat of OPI Nail Envy as a base coat and let that dry thoroughly before taping off a half-moon on each of my nails, except on my ring fingers. Next, I applied two coats of Butter London’s Slapper (what did I say? Still a favourite!) and then removed the tape while the polish was still wet. I then used my Broadway Nails Nail Art Paint (which, by the looks of things, is exactly the same as Kiss Nails’ ditto, only under a different name) in silver to outline the half-moons and draw patterns on the nails. On each of my ring fingers, I drew an S, for Slytherin, which is my favourite house.

This was my first mani to include blank spaces, but I very much doubt it’ll be my last as I really liked the outcome!

 

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23 Aug 2012

New loot!

Don’t you just love store credit? ;)

Went on a small shopping spree yesterday and bought all of this for the princely sum of 38 SEK (which is roughly $6/£4).

Nine polishes (one is a matte top coat) and a nice little bag of various nail files/nail scrubber/orange stick, that I think will probably live in my bag from now on.

Swatchy posts of the polishes coming later!

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21 Aug 2012
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China Glaze Prey Tell

This polish from China Glaze’s autumn 2012 On Safari collection has got to be one of my favourites. I’ve been wearing it, on its own or paired with I Herd That (more on that one later!) nearly non-stop ever since it showed up in my mailbox.

It covers completely in two coats and I’m absolutely smitten with how dark it is. It looks almost black in some lights and really dark brown in others, but there’s always a hint of red in it. It is, quite seriously, the best.

Two coats and a quick-drying top coat means I can be ready to go out the door in ten or fifteen minutes, and that’s quite something, considering most of my other faves need at least three coats to look good.

I have a feeling this is going to be one of my “reach for”s this autumn. I mean, it already is, and it’s still summer!

 

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19 Aug 2012

What was I thinking? (part I of ?)

 Now for some polishes that really didn’t click with me for whatever reason and that I likely won’t ever be wearing a full mani with.

Mavala Vitality: This is a very, very, very light beige cream. I would almost call it white, except it definitely isn’t. My biggest issue with this is the formula. The colour is actually not all that bad, but it’s a nightmare to get it smooth and even without VNL. I think this photo features about five coats of it, and with a Mavala polish that comes in a tiny bottle, that’s just not going to work out for me.

Max Factor Max Effect Deep Mauve: I don’t know what I was even thinking buying this. Urgh. It’s a deep mauve (well, d’uh!) with this bizarre pink shimmer that I can’t stand. The formula dries quickly, but with visibly brush strokes making this a definite no-go.

A Beautiful Life Hot Rod: Okay, so, this is an all-natural polish, apparently based on soy. Which is pretty neat, when you think about it. So I love the concept. The formula is quite thin, but dries fairly quickly, so no complaints there. The colour, though… Well, okay, here’s the thing. It’s a classic red with glass flecks for a bit of a shimmer, and when I first tried it, I hated it. But when I put it on this time, for this post, I realised that I actually liked it after all. So, yes, thumbs up for this one in the end!

Essie Pop Art Pink: This is a really pale, milky pink that goes on sheer. Not a bad thing in and of itself, especially if you’re really into classic French manicures. I’m not, though, so for me this is just a nightmare to try to get opaque (you can’t do it, pretty much) so I don’t get VNL and in the process it ends up bubbly and taking forever to dry, even with quick-drying top coats like Poshé or Seche Vite. Meh.

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17 Aug 2012

Color Club Wing Fling

I feel like I’m really, really getting into the polish thing now, what with having nabbed gems from not just one, but three!, different 2012 collections after having read about them online.

This pink, sparkly beauty is Color Club’s Wing Fling, which is from their summer 2012 collection called Take Wing. It’s actually not even the first from this collection I’ve tried, but it’s the only one I’ve taken any pictures of at all so far. Trust me when I say you’ve not seen the last of this collection from me: I love it!

This isn’t even my favourite colour, though it is absolutely lovely. The pink is full of shimmers and glass flecks and oh my, I can’t stop looking at my nails when wearing it!

It does go on a little sheer, though, so here I’m wearing it in two coats over Isadora’s Pink Lemonade to make it more opaque. It dries quite matte, so make sure to be liberal in your application of top coat if you want to get the most out of the sparkles.

(I’ve recently switched to a different base and top coat, but more on that in a later post.)

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15 Aug 2012

Butter London Queen Vic

 This is the fifth, and last, of the Butter London polishes I’ve tried so far. That it took me as long as it did to try this on is probably because of the fact that it is, inarguably, purple. I’m not normally a big fan of purple, so it’s never the first colour I reach for when I’m about to paint my nails.

With that said, though, I LOVE this colour. It’s the prettiest purple I’ve ever seen and I’m sure I’m going to wear it a lot.

The formula of this is quite similar to Saucy Jack, which is one of my all-time faves in terms of application. Cannot recommend it enough!

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13 Aug 2012

Maybelline Forever Strong Pro Ceramic Blue

This is my first ever Maybelline polish. For some reason, the bottles never appealed to me before, so I never ended up buying any.

Lately, though, I’ve obviously become more daring in my nail polish explorations (for a set value of daring, I guess: I’ve yet to go indie or attempt to franken anything), so the other week I figured it was time.

I ended up picking this really light, soft, almost grey, baby blue. Or at least that’s what it looked like in the bottle. It’s gorgeous in the bottle.

On the nail, I kept getting the impression that it was more purple than blue, and it wasn’t quite my cup of tea at all. The formula was so-so as well, I think I ended up having to use four coats to get a decent cover.

I don’t know if it was just this colour that behaved that way, or if it’s a general thing for Maybelline Forever Strong, but I wasn’t at all smitten, so I think I’m going to keep away from Maybelline polishes in the future. There are so many other (better!) brands out there, that it’s not like I’ll have trouble finding things to try anyway…

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11 Aug 2012

Butter London Slapper

(Oh dear god, please excuse the cuticles! They weren’t nearly as bad as the photo makes it seem, I promise!)

I’ve mentioned Slapper before, so I figured it was time for it to get its very own post!

If a polish was ever deserving of its own post, it’s Slapper. I cannot stress enough how much I love this colour. It’s the colour I reach for now when I don’t really have anything particular in mind, but just want a quick mani. If I’m careful, I can get away with two coats of it, though usually I end up using three, just to be sure it’ll look good.

In my line of work, I meet a lot of people, and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten as many compliments on my nails as when I wore this the first time. I loved it, my co-workers loved it and the customers loved it. It’s an all around success story!

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09 Aug 2012

Depend holographic polishes

Depend has a collection of holographic nail polishes out at the moment, which I knew about, but hadn’t actually seen anywhere until I stepped foot in a Matas a few weeks back. I decided to pick up three of the shades right then and there (and later went back for a fourth), even though they come in teeny tiny bottles (even smaller than the Mavala mini polishes!) and so end up quite pricey. I have not regretted it!

Upon application I found that they require at least three, sometimes four, coats to get rid of that pesky VNL, and that they dry quite matte, so a shiny top coat is really of the essence for maximum effect.

Unfortunately, this summer has been a bit lacking in good ol’ sunshine, so I haven’t been able to get a whole lot of pictures of these polishes where you can really, really see all the holographic glory that they are capable of. Because, in the right light, they sparkle. They sparkle a lot in a whole spectrum of colours. And it’s awesome. Boo for bad weather!

This (and, obviously, the first photo of this post) is #2034 Steel Blue*. Here it’s layered over Butter London Slapper (and I swear that polish will get its own post one day!)), which (I suspect) makes it look more teal than it really is. I’ve not worn it on its own yet, so I’m not quite sure how much bluer it is then.

Here’s #2027 Raspberry* with one of my disastrous first attempts at stamping. I think this is quite possibly my favourite of the four colours I picked up. I didn’t get this at first, but regretted it so much I went back a few days later just for it.

#2026 Sand Grey* is a close second to Raspberry. It’s almost nude on me, but with a holographic sparkle. Awesome!

#2029 Charm Pink* was the last one I tried and I just wish the weather had been better so the holo effect could have shown up properly. I guess this is my excuse to try it again soon… ;)

*The bottles are marked with numbers only, not colour names, but the display case in the store had names on it as well.

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07 Aug 2012
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First time for needles!

Though this is supposed to be a combined nail polish and knitting blog, the knitting bit has been rather absent so far. I promise this will change with time — I just haven’t had a lot of time for the knitting bit lately (for example, as a comparison, my latest FO was a pair of socks I started in early May and didn’t finish until late July. Back in February I knit an entire top in just a little over a week).

For now, this is the first post that truly does combine the blog’s both subject matters, and that’s always a start, right?

The socks I mentioned above were knit with this absolutely gorgeous sock yarn I bought from the North Atlantic Yarn Co. (easily my favourite yarn dyer ever. She gets her inspiration from sailing and old naval themes and the yarns are super soft and lovely. If you don’t fall in love with her stuff, I will think you are slightly insane! Anyway…). It’s Stevedore Sock in the colourway Tropic of Capricorn, which I’d already used to knit a pair of socks, but had some leftovers from. I combined it with some white Drops Fabel (not nearly as nice a yarn, but what I had at hand) to make a pair of lovely, fresh and happy striped socks.

While I was nearing the finish line on the second sock in the pair, I thought it might be fun to match my nails to my knitting, so I did!

I started with a couple of coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and some Seche Vite to let that dry, then went absolutely crazy with striping tape and a gradient in the two colours from the yarn (Mavala Blue Curaçao and Mavala Pistachio). This being my first real attempt at using striping tape, you can see where I fuddled it a bit, but I was still very, very pleased with the results. It was like I had the sock on my nails, not just on my needles!

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04 Aug 2012

Saucy Jack

More Butter London! This time it’s Saucy Jack, but before I talk more about the polish specifically, I have to gush a bit about where I bought it, because it was such a stellar example of excellent customer service!

Right, so, after eBaying myself a bottle of The Black Knight, I decided to go for a beauty shop for my next Butter London polishes. After a quick google search, I landed at E-beautyshop.com, a Swedish online beauty store (there is an option for viewing it in English, though, and they ship to Europe). I looked around a bit before deciding on four polishes (Trout Pout and Slapper, which you’ve seen, Saucy Jack and Queen Vic) and went on my merry way after finishing the order. There was a notice on the front page about the store owner being on vacation and that no orders would ship until the week after, but this didn’t bother me.

Fast forward to about a week later, and there’s an e-mail in my inbox telling me that my items have shipped. Standard procedure and all that. But! Susanne, the owner of the store, also said that since I’d bought four different Butter London polishes, she was throwing in a bottle of bL Handbag Holiday Cuticle Oil AND, as an apology for the wait on shipping, a promo code for 20% off my next order.

This, ladies and gents, is what makes me a returning customer! (Okay, so I haven’t actually returned yet, but I am currently eyeing up a few more bL polishes I wouldn’t mind adding to my collection, and when the day to order comes, it’ll be from this shop!)

Now for a few words on Saucy Jack! I have been extremely fascinated by Jack the Ripper from a very early age (though the first time I remember hearing about him, I was scared to death for the rest of that day and could not fall asleep, because I was convinced he would come to slit my throat in the night! I was full of anxieties about anything as a little one…), so when I saw that one of the reds I was choosing between had taken its name after the old, still unidentified, serial killer, it was a clear winner. And I have to say I don’t regret it in the slightest!

It’s a lovely dark brick red sort of colour that needs three coats for full cover. Since it’s a jelly, I’m pretty sure it would look lovely in a glitter sandwich as well, but for now I’ve just worn it on its own. It’s the third Butter London I’ve tried (fourth if you count Slapper, which I’d only worn with Trout Pout at the time I tried Saucy Jack) and the first one I fell completely and utterly in love with. I didn’t quite “get” the Butter London hype before, but I am definitely sold now!

(Oh, and that purse? Is my new purse and I love it! It’s obviously from River Island, but I bought it from ASOS.com.)

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08 Jul 2012

Trout Pout meets Slapper

My second experience with Butter London polishes involved Trout Pout and Slapper. I was originally just going to try out Trout Pout, but while the colour on its own is absolutely lovely, I do get bored quite easily if there’s no shine or sparkle to keep my interest alive. Trout Pout does apply with shine, especially if coupled with a coat of Seche Vite, but in the end I couldn’t resist freehanding a bit of a design with Slapper.

It took three coats for Trout Pout to look non-streaky, which is not out of the norm, so not too disappointing. It lasted a lot longer without chipping than The Black Knight did, too, but I don’t know if it’s just because this is a “simple” cream, whereas TBK is full of glitter, or if it’s because I’ve learnt a few tricks since then. (You’ll notice, for example, that I no longer suffer from Seche Vite shrinking at the tips. I decided to google it, rather than try to find a different quick-drying coat, and I now know how to apply my polishes for maximum lasting power!)

Look! I was even able to get a second day’s wear out of this mani!

On the second day, I added a coat of BK Super Matte to keep my interest alive until I could get home and paint my nails a new colour. ;) Because now, that I know the tricks for making things last, I find that I start itching to re-do my nails anyway! I still haven’t broken my habit of picking at my polish, but unlike before, when a mani lasted no more than half a day before looking icky due to my picking, I now reach at least a day and a half before reaching that stage. Improvement, in other words!

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30 Jun 2012

Essie Red Noveau

I found an online beauty store in Sweden that carries Essie polishes (actually several do, but this was the first I saw that did and, besides, it’s one of my favourite online stores anyway — I’m a sucker for freebies and they always include a bunch of samples of different things with your orders).

Wise from the Black Knight debacle, I actually looked up all the shades I was interested in before adding any of them to my cart. I ended up with Red Noveau and Pop Art Pink, both from The Art of Spring 2010 collection.

Red Noveau is the first one I tried on. The formula is very nice and you can get away with anything from one to multiple coats, in my opinion, depending on how strong of a colour you want. I went with three or four coats (I can’t quite remember) and then a coat of Seche Vite on top of that.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is quite the red shade for me. I’m not sure what it is, but there’s just something about it that doesn’t seem to work entirely with my skin tone. A pity, because other than that, it really is a lovely polish.

In other news, I think I’m going to try to find OPI’s quick-dry top coat in the shops today, because I am getting increasingly annoyed with the shrinking properties of Seche Vite. I love its shine and the way it dries in a heart beat, but good god, am I tired of the white tips I end up with.

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26 Jun 2012

The Black Knight

 I recently bought Butter London The Black Knight off eBay without looking it up first. In retrospect, I probably should have. It’s not that it’s not a nice nail polish – it really is, but I think I would have been better prepared for using it if I’d read up a bit on it first.

It’s quite obviously a glitter polish and I had some issues getting it to go on smoothly. I applied three coats, and then a fairly thick layer of Seche Vite on top to speed up drying/add extra shine, and it still felt quite gritty to the touch. Not to mention it chipped! I don’t know what I did wrong — I used a base coat and everything.

Normally my biggest issue with getting my manis to last is the fact that I’m constantly poking at them and peeling even the slightest hint of a loose bit off. This time I had actually made a promise to myself not to peel, and I still ended up letting it come off after just a day and a half, because it had chipped to the point of looking quite shameful. I really expected more of it, especially since all I did to damage it was knit (which doesn’t affect the nails at all, to be honest) and sleep…

Here I am trying to hide a chip on my index finger.

Not happy with the state of my thumb nail here!

I’ve not given up on it yet — it is a really sparkly, shiny, glittery colour! — but next time I think I’ll just layer a single coat of The Black Knight over something else. I think it could add a nice touch to many darker shades, but my first try is going to be over Isadora Gothic Black (a shiny black creme).

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24 Jun 2012

Blank canvas

For once, I decided to let my nails rest a little from the colour and patterns (the fact that I only brought one coloured polish to my boyfriend’s has nothing to do with this…).

After a spell of atrocious-looking nails (I need to be more careful when I play with fake nails in the future!), they’re finally starting to go back to looking decent again. I have to say, since I started using OPI’s Nail Envy regularly, I don’t get nearly as many breaks or splits as I used to. I’m seriously sold on that stuff.

So, anyway, what you see here is as near to naked as I go: two coats of OPI Nail Envy and one coat of Seche Vite, for shine and strength.

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23 Jun 2012

Pink and blue

– 4 coats Mavala Miami (a pink creme with a slight blue shimmer)

– dots in L’Oréal French Riviera

– finished off with a coat of Seche Vite.

I’m starting to get the hang of my dotting tools and I have improved my ability to keep the polish on the nails and off the surrounding skin. Sweeeeet.

It lasted about a day. I really wish I’d get over this bad habit I have of picking at my nail polish until it’s gone. I’m sure if I didn’t do that, I could make a manicure last much longer. Bright side to the bad habit, however, is it means I get to do more designs/try more polishes in a shorter amount of time. So not all bad. ;)

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