Neverending Pile Challenge: Texture

*nothing to disclose*

I had been looking for a pastel yellow sand- or sugar-finish (am I calling it the right thing?) polish, but hadn’t found any that were available in the U.S. I stopped at Walgreen’s for cotton balls and happened to notice a display of Rimmel London Sweetie Crush polishes. It included a pale yellow, called Sherbet Sweetheart.

This color reminds me of lemonade and is perfect for summer. The polish was reasonably opaque in two coats, although there is VNL from certain angles. The brush is short and wide, and worked well for me, though I did have to load it up more than I usually would.

Check out some more textured nails at the link below.

Neverending Pile Challenge: Holo

*nothing to disclose*

This mani had a false start! I was hoping to use Dance Legend Top Holo over Dance Legend Gel Effect 886 (a pink creme). But it turned out bubbly because the pink polish was too thick. Thanks to Jenna from Inky Whiskers for helping me figure out what do to with that goopy polish!

So I tried again, this time with one coat of Top Holo over two coats of Essie Fashion Playground. Here is the result:

I love the way it turned out. Using a holo top coat is great, because 1) you can determine how strong a holo you want (more coats = more holo), and 2) you can use it over any polish, or even over nail art! So no searching to find a holo in your favorite color, just use a polish you already own and make it a holo.

I also tried out a new base coat and top coat on this one: Rainbow Honey All Your Base (love the name) and Glisten & Glow HK Girl. Very happy with both.

Check out some more holo manis at the link below.

Neverending Pile Challenge: Vampy

*nothing to disclose*

For this mani, I used the most vampy unused polish I have, Julep Elle. I went for a matte/shiny French look. But, I fell asleep too soon and smudged the tips! So the only halfway-decent photo I have is this one:

For the matte top coat, I used one from Nicole by OPI, which worked great.

Check out the other vampy manis by clicking the link below.

Neverending Pile Challenge: Most Expensive

These nails include my current most expensive untried: Butter London Cotton Buds. I already had a white (Essie Blanc), but found that to be streaky on my nails, even though some people love it. So, I decided to fork out $15 to see how Cotton Buds held up. I do prefer Cotton Buds, but found that it still took two coats. Also, I’m not crazy about the very round Butter London brush.

So: base coat, two coats of Cotton Buds, a coat of Seche Vite to make it dry faster, and then a whole bunch of striping tape. This was my first time using striping tape. It worked very well. I could have spaced it a bit further apart for more even stripes, though.

I let the polish dry for 30 seconds or so and then removed the tape. A little bit of pink residue from the tape remained on one nail (not pictured). Next time I’ll be quicker to scrape that off.

The other untried polish I used was Julep Cassie. It’s somewhat sheer. The white made the coral color pop.

I could have done a better job with cleanup, but I still like how this turned out over all. The white and coral combination makes me look not as pale as usual. 🙂

Thanks for reading, and be sure to click the Inlinkz button below to see the other “most expensive” manicures.

Neverending Pile Challenge: Had to Have It, Still Haven’t Worn It

As soon as I saw that KBShimmer was coming out with a spring 2014 collection, I knew that I would be ordering something. One of the most tempting polishes was Make My Gray, a pale gray crelly with pink, teal, and silver glitters. Not sure what took me so long to wear it, but I’m glad that this challenge prompted me to do so!

I paired Make My Gray with Julep Libby, a shiny teal cream that only needed one coat. I was happy with the look, but my Seche Vite topcoat shrunk Libby at the tips, exposing the other polish underneath. As you can probably see if you look closely, I had to go back the next day and fix up the tips with a detail brush.

I got the design idea from this Pin.

Thanks for stopping by. Don’t forget to check out the other challenge posts by clicking the Inlinkz button below.

Neverending Pile Challenge: Drugstore

Today’s challenge was to use untried polish purchased from a drugstore. I used the following, which had all been purchased from a drugstore that happens to be on my way home from work:

• Revlon Colorstay Gel-Smooth base coat
• Essie Blanc – Three coats for full opacity. Not crazy about this white.
• Nicole by OPI I Sea You and Raise You (this is the not-previously-used polish) – Two coats for full opacity.
• Seche Vite top coat

I Sea You and Raise You is a CVS exclusive, so it can only be purchased at that drugstore chain! Do I get extra points? 😉

I used this great tutorial from Polished Elegance to create the mani. Not super original on my part, but I loved the look, especially in her original version.

This was my first time freehanding anything with a detail brush. Next time, I’ll probably cut some of the bristles off of the brush to make it a little finer. Also, my dominant hand (not pictured) has some odd-looking flowers for sure!

Check out the other challenge participants’ posts by clicking the Inlinkz button below.

DiorSnow and HydraLife Review

I don’t wear much makeup at all (maybe some moisturizer, undereye cream, lip gloss), because I feel like it tends to make me break out. Also, I feel a little weird about putting chemicals on my skin. But I’m in my mid-30s now and let’s just say my complexion isn’t quite as dewy as it used to be. So this is by no means an expert review, but sort of an exploratory effort.

When I went to buy the Dior Safari Beige polish that I used in this post, the saleswoman (who was super nice) gave me the samples pictured below: HydraLife and DiorSnow. As far as I can tell, HydraLife is some kind of moisturizing primer and DiorSnow is a BB cream. When I was growing up, I think this stuff was called “foundation” but that term seems to have fallen out of favor. Or maybe BB cream is different than foundation somehow? If you can answer this riddle for me, please let me know in the comments.

Anyway, the HydraLife went on really smoothly. My skin felt refreshed and moisturized, but not oily at all.

Then I applied the DiorSnow. I’m not sure why it’s called Snow – is it because I’m so pale? If so, not quite snowy enough because it was a bit too yellow. Or maybe that was intentional redness correction. It did cover any redness and blotchiness, and evened out oily/dry areas so everything was smooth and powdery looking. But. It made my skin itch. So, that’s pretty much a deal breaker for me.

Do you have any recommendations for maybe a lighter-weight BB cream? Extra points if it’s vegan/natural? Let me know in the comments!

Neverending Pile Challenge: Frost

So I’m late again with my challenge post. But the Inlinkz is still open, so I’m going for it!

Revlon Parfumerie Lavender Soap is a scented frost polish. It’s a very pale lavender that looks almost silvery. When dry, it smells like lavender soap, which sounds like a good thing, but the scent had too much of a chemical overtone to really smell fresh.

I added a half-moon accent nail using Julep Flora. For some reason in my head, I thought these colors were closer in saturation than they really are. Flora is a really nice jelly polish. If you don’t topcoat it, it looks a lot like grape jelly to me. It needs a topcoat if you want a shiny finish.

Thanks for reading! Check out the other frost posts by clicking the Inlinkz button below.

Neverending Pile Challenge: Pastel

Here’s my late contribution to The Neverending Pile Challenge, Pastel:

The pastel blue is CoverGirl Outlast Stay Brilliant Skylight. I had somewhat low expectations for this polish, but it was great! Full coverage in two coats, creamy texture, no chipping after three days.

The black and white topcoat is Julep Max. Full glitter payoff in one coat. I felt that it was a bit too thick though, causing me to have a little more glitter than I wanted. Easy way to get a “paint spatter” effect without the mess.

I used a Kiss French Artist Pen to freehand the white line on my ring finger. Really did not like it! The line looks streaky, not smooth. Next time I will use a nail art brush and white polish.

Over all though, I’m happy with how everything turned out! Thanks for reading!

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Neverending Pile Challenge: Glitter

Working in an office, sometimes you don’t care what your coworkers think … but sometimes you do. If you have an important meeting or just don’t feel like having people look at you funny, beige and glitter can be a good way to go.

I used Revlon Colorstay Gel-Smooth base coat, two coats of Dior Safari Beige, and OPI Gaining Mole-Mentum to put this together. Then I topped it off with Seche Vite.

I’m not usually a luxury beauty kind of person, but wanted to try a high-end brand like Dior to see whether it was really that much better than drugstore brands. It was better, but at $24 not that much better than $9 OPI. So it was a fun experiment and I’ll probably use this color a lot, but am not rushing back to fork over that amount of money anytime soon.

As you may know, Gaining Mole-Mentum is from OPI’s latest Muppets collection. After seeing some great-looking swatches online, I hunted it down at ULTA. However when I saw everything up close, this is the only one I took home. I absolutely love it and keep staring at my nails to see the great, multi-toned glitter.

This was my first time using Seche Vite and I didn’t wrap my tips, so had some shrinkage and other minor issues. Next time I’ll wait a little longer after polish application to apply the top coat, and make sure to wrap the tips. But I do enjoy the thick glossiness of this topcoat.

Thanks for reading my first post! Hopefully there is much more to come.

Edit: This post fits in with the GLITTAH Pirates’ Neverending Pile Challenge, so I’m jumping on board!