Lovely giveaway from the Ice Queen!

Okay - so one ofmy very favorite nail blogs is hosting a lovely giveaway that ends TODAY! So get on over, follow her and enter!

It's Ice Queen's Nail Parlour and while you're there check out all of her lovely posts! :)

S

Quick one

Just a quickie post. Overall these pics aren't great fir the color, but I love how you can see the holo!! This is a Sally Girl mini.

Have a great rest of the weekend!!

Rainy Wednesday

So it's a rainy Wednesday here in SC. Ive been putzing around online and have been totally inspired today by Elsiecake and the A Beautiful Mess blog. I have donned a scarf in the hair and have been having fun playing around all day.

On to the mani. Earlier this week I had a job interview so I had a lovely (yet boring) nude color on. It stared to seriously chip today and left me itching for something a little more fun!

Like this...

It's Fingerpaints "artist's sapphire" with a Pure Ice glitter. Here's what the Fingerpaints looks like on its own. I'll be wearing it this way soon I guarantee.

Yeah I know. I hadn't cleaned it up yet. I still have trouble with cleaning up dark colors, but I did my best!

Here's what it looks like outside but still no direct sun. (after the Pure Ice glitter)

So there you have it!! Pretty blue and fun to counteract the lovely but boring nude. :-)

Here's a quick pic of the hair just for fun!!

Pink Wednesday

I'm unsure I people are still doing this, but it worked out that way for me this week. There you have it!

Here's another reason why. My yogurt this morning had the pink lid for Susan G. Komen. Being that we lost my mom due to breast cancer, I'm all for it!

So here we have my current favorite flavor (cherry orchard) with an oldie. Covergirl Nailslicks 'Winelighting'. It's. Just. So. Shiny!

This one is a bit blurry but shows the shiny so well!

And this one hits the color pretty well. Pretty pink and shiny. I'm not the biggest pink fan - purple is sort of my color, but this one just makes me smile. Happy Wednesday to all!!

Older Mani pics...

I'm actually still sporting the taupe as it hasn't chipped off yet - wheee!

So I thought I'd post some pics of one that I did a few weeks ago. It was inspired by this vid by torrinpaige. I love her channel anyway, but I thought this one was especially fun since my daughter is suddenly into Jem thanks to the Hub. *sigh*.

So here's what I came up with.

Sorry for the sideways pics. Blogger is being rude and doesn't want to let me turn them the right way round.

Yep - I know. The cuticles are dreadful. And, yes, I'd already chopped them off trying to get rid of the peeling (if that tells you anything about how long they've been peeling - seriously months).

So - this started with China Glaze 'Temptation Carnation'. The next bit was China Glaze 'Summer Rain' with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails 'Rock 'n' Roll'. Then I did one coat of a Sally's pink holo mini bottle. Covered the whole thing in Seche Vite and voila!

It's not as bright as Torrin's, but I love it anyway!

Hoping everyone has a lovely Labor Day - and maybe one that's not quite as rainy as mine. :)

Quick NYC color

So in picking up one bad NYC color yesterday I also picked up a good one. :) It's 'Park Avenue'.

I was looking for a good taupe. This is close. It's a little more grey than I'd prefer. Not bad at all for a $1.54 purchase!

Here's what we started with. I think the final product is very close to bottle color.

This is inside.

Outside in direct sun.

Outside in shade.

Yeah, I know. I got a bubble. It's actually in the Instant Artificials coat. That's really the one drawback I've found to it. If I'm not careful it can be bubble city.

You can also see here how short I had to take my nails to eliminate the peelies. :-(

Hopefully we'll see some progress in the coming weeks. I've already moisturized 4 times today!!

Just some pics...

Since my nails are in recovery mode my current mani is blah. So instead - a few other pics!

As promised yesterday, here's the 'stash'.

My apologies that it's on the dining room table with my kid-friendly-I-don't-care-if-you-spill-spaghetti-sauce-on-it tablecloth.  :)

What you're looking at here is some really old stuff and some really new stuff and oddly not a lot in between. One of my favorite colors of all time - Oil of Olay 'Spicy Red'. Yeah if that gives you any idea.

On the table you see 80 items - 7 basecoats, hardeners or top coats. 73 colors. Then I realized that I'd missed 2 hardeners and one color. So up my total to 83.

And I really didn't think I had much!

Here's my TERRIBLE storage method. Do not try this at home. It's something I need to work out soon. However, I have two rooms that have to be rearranged first.

I had one heart-breaker yesterday - went to Target for a little cheapie polish pick-me-up. And I grabbed what I thought was going to be a very nice NYC color. Unfortunately I didn't really pay attention to what was IN the bottle :(  This is what it looked like when I got home. I will certainly be checking more than the color from now on!

Hope everyone has a happy weekend and Labor day!

Peeling, buffing, Instant Artificials and wetness!

Well hi there. 

So - I've not updated in over a month (and a half?). I have a good excuse though, if anyone is actually reading this (hello... ello... ello... judging by the echo in here maybe not!)

Anywho - I've had the worst case of peeling nails - EVER. It has been flat-out awful. 

So after battling it for many moons with no success, I started googling on it again today and I found a new nail blog to drool over! http://loodieloodieloodie.blogspot.com/  

The best part is that she's got TONS of great nail care info here - and she gives you the why, not just the how. (I'm guessing being a scientist - which is mega cool - figures in there somehow.)  

Sooooo.

I took off polish today. I moisturized. Then I buffed out these peelies. Then I moisturized again. Then I swabbed the nails with acetone so I could polish again. Then I used some of this stuff. 

Instant Artificials

Which is totally awesome by the way. I've had success with it both with thick coats and thin. 

So - hopefully with more regular moisturizing and slightly more care I can be back on my way to long and healthy nails. I can't believe that it's been so long since I've dealt with peeling that I'd forgotten how!

Which brings me to another point. Does anyone actually realize how many times their hands are wet in a day? I started paying attention today (after I'd moisturized of course). 

• I change diapers - a lot. Wipes are wet. (The KIDS people, I'm not in diapers yet!)
• I wash my hands after changing diapers, that's wet. 
• Dishes must be slightly rinsed before the decrepit dishwasher steps in, that's water, which is wet.
•  I have to rinse the kiddos cups out several times a day - more water!
•  I wash my hands rather frequently while cooking, that's more wetness. 
• Then there's the shower. That's really wet. 

All in all, that's a lot of wetness! It's funny how careful how become when you make yourself aware of how often you're getting those hands wet!

Anyhoo - that's about it for today. I have some stash pictures to post as well as some other manis. Wheeee! Til then - happy polishing!

Mani 2 - pink shimmer sheer

Okeedokee - it's a crazy day here, but a day that calls for a relatively tame mani. Did my daughter's too :-). That's always a fun time for us.

So here is Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Rock n Roll. It's decidedly pink. I added a couple of Kiss nail art stickers to the pinkies for a little fun.

This is three coats since I was looking for a little more coverage and this is VERY sheer. Seche Vite on top as always!

Inside natural light.




Outside in the sun!





- now off to watch the shuttle launch wearing my space camp t-shirt. That's right. I'm just another person who had dreams of being an astronaut as a kid. Hats off to NASA and the astronauts going up today.


Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

And some hair

I chopped from almost BSL (bra strap length for the non- LHCers) to chinish in December. Here's the before and after.

Before:






After: and yes one side was noticeably longer than the other.





I need a new length shot for now. I'm just past shoulder or SL.

Lately I've been experimenting with rooibos tea sprayed directly on my roots for speeding growth. I'll try to post my results here as well as LHC!

Grow hair!!!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Starting afresh... Mani 1

So - I used to blog (sometimes) about my knitting and sewing. Which I do. Occasionally. The kiddos make it difficult.

However, I've been pretty diligent about my nails, and (thanks to the lovely gals at LHC) am becoming more and more polish obsessed.

Hence the birth of the polish blog. We'll see how this goes. :)

I'll start with today's mani.

I've just started using Salon Sciences Instant Artificials. So far, this stuff is amazing. I sometimes have super-peely nails. The most recent batch of it started about 2 months ago, and I've been unsuccessful so far in getting it to stop!

Enter Instant Artificials. I got at least 2 days off my last mani - that hasn't happened since the peeling started. Everything gets so weak at the peeling point that it bends/cracks/peels within hours. :(

I have a noticeable build of the Instant Artificials product on my nails, which is just what they need right now. I'm a happy girl!

The color is a cheapie 'Petites' from the big box store. The color is Tahitian Green. I'm pretty happy with it. 2 coats instant artificials, 2 coats color and 1 coat Seche Vite (how did I ever live without this stuff?)

Inside/Dark

And outside in the sunshine.

I like the color. I did later find a couple of places where it's a bit streaky. I could have likely used three coats, but overall it's a fun summer green that goes on easily. No complaints here!