Nicole by OPI: Denim to Earth

Afternoon! Happy Thanksgiving to those of you [and me] located in the United States! Hope you are having a good day! I got off of work early so I decided to do a post for you all. This is sort of a part two to the last post. As I mentioned, I think, the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Me + Blue was part of a two pack of polish I picked up from TJ Maxx. Unfortunately, while the other polish looked pretty in the bottle it was the complete opposite to Me + Blue... extremely disappointing.

In the bottle this looks like a deep plum-purple with pretty little purple/pink shimmer in it. The shimmer is nearly invisible on the nail. I'm not fond of polishes that LOOK black unless you  know they are a different color. This is one of those. My pictures are usually taken indoors under different types of lighting, but most always artificial light of some sort. This is what I when I looked at my fingers:

Look at the "e" in Nicole. See the shimmer there? I wanted that!

Well. That was disappointing. So I thought Hmmm, maybe if I go outside the sparkle will come out!! I went outside on my porch. I started in the shade, but had some sun so I hoped for some sparkle like what what in the bottle buuuuuut....... blah. Just blah dark-purpley blackness. 

Finally, I got some direct sunlight. Oh look! Look!!! It only  shimmers where the sunlight hits. That's it. It doesn't even move around the nail while you rotate your hand. :( I wasn't really impressed. You can make the image larger if you want.

This was really the only way to *sort of* see the shimmer: outside, up-close camera crop.

Can't see it? Enlarge and see the speckles. That's all they look like.

At least the other half of this duo had enough WOW in it to make up for this sadness. I'm actually still wearing a full mani of Me + Blue. I didn't take it off for Thanksgiving. Although, with all the food, at least the drooling didn't look so weird...... shhhh. Haha!

Thanks for checking in!

-Amy


*****Disclaimer: the polish in this post was purchased by me*****

Nicole by OPI: Me + Blue

I'm going to start this post out by letting any blue lovers know that you might want to grab a kleenex or paper towel or something since this polish I have for today is guaranteed to make you drool! I don't usually like blue, but this polish has ME drooling! You've been warned!

I was at TJ Maxx the other day and grabbed one of their two packs of Nicole by OPI polish. I thought this looked pretty in the bottle, but I actually got it for the other color... which I will be posting soon and turned out to be a total let down. :(  Anyway, this is Me + Blue. It is a fine glitter polish in a blue base. It's not a shimmer, but it's not a pure glitter either. It's somewhere in the middle of a standard shimmer polish and say...  polishes like China Glaze's Glistening Snow from their Holiday Collection. Then, among all the already gorgeous glitter are holographic bits of glitter that give this polish a pop when ANY light hits it. I mean ANY. On the drive home from work tonight I could see the holo sparkle as I passes under streetlights. *drooooool*  

All of my pictures are with 3 coats that would have been easy if the brush hadn't been so terrible. I hate the wide brushes because my nails are narrow so the polish gets EVERYWHERE. Blerg! Anyway, 3 coats. There are a lot of pictures in this post and a included a few pre-topcoat to show the matte-glitter finish, so the pics are all under the cut so your poor browser doesn't spaz! I've noted if there is or is not topcoat being used For the topcoat pictures I used a coat of Gelous and a coat of NYC In a New York Minute.  Now.... blue/glitter/holo lovers, get your drool-wiping cloths ready before you click "read more."

Sensationail Wear Test Results!

Good afternoon! I'm back with the end of my wear test for the Sensationail brand of gel nail polish! Here is the original post for reference. I realized after about a day that keeping the same color on my nails, whether I had time to do them or not, was difficult! (Addict, anyone??? Haha!) But I really wanted to see how long this polish would last so I stuck it out until my first chip.

I painted my nails 11/6 and didn't have a single chip until today 11/11. While 5 days may seem to fall short of the advertised two weeks on the box, for someone as hard on their nails as I am, that is INCREDIBLE! The polish lasted through showers, play sessions with the kitten, room cleaning, work... I'm impressed. Before taking them off, all I had was that small chip on my left-hand middle finger and a medium sized chip on my right-hand ring finger.

This was originally just the bit on the right... but it got caught on my hair right before the picture and that ripped off the part on the left. Oops!

As you can see, there is almost not tip wear either! Awesome! I'll probably do this again when I have to go a few days without doing my nails!

There is also a special removal kit you can purchase and a removal tool, but I passed on both of those. The kit is just a glorified version of the foil method! And I used an orange stick to gently scrape off the polish after it soaked. It took me a little longer than normal because I didn't have any foil handy so I just held an acetone-saturated cotton ball over my fingers. I had to do them one by one, so yeah.... took awhile. But if I had to estimate, this could probably be done in 10-20 minutes with foil. (If you aren't familiar with the foil method for removing glitter, here is a quick tutorial: the foil method.) Just soak, then scrape the polish right off. If any is stubborn just soak a bit more.

I would recommend this product. It's on the expensive side, but once you get the lamp, really it's just the polish and there isn't a huge selection... that's if you even want to use the gel polish. You could always use normal polish with the base and top coat to extend its wear! ^_^

That's all for now! I'm trying to get a picture inventory going so I can post more regularly! Hope you all enjoy your weekend! As a bonus, my baby is growing so fast! She's a little rascal. Likes looking out the window though!

Juneau - 5 months

-Amy



****Disclaimer: all products in this post were purchased by me****

Sensationail Gel Nails: Purple Orchid

Good morning! (At least for me, anyway!) I hope everyone had a great Halloween! I did, even though I didn't really dress up. ^_^

Between my new kitten, work, and a few other things I've had going on, I feel like I haven't had enough time to spend on my nails. I'm trying to organize and catalog my polish collection... and organization is NOT something I was gifted with! Anyway, my nails are too stained to leave naked and I really just can't spend the time painting them every day. (It probably doesn't help that I'm insanely hard on my nails and they aren't naturally strong... so polish always chips very quickly for me.) Based on that, and the fact that I wanted a UV lamp to see if a Gel topcoat would help lengthen my polish wear, I ended up purchasing the Sensationail (cute pun, right? haha!) Starter Kit from my local Walgreens.

Sensationail is a gel nail system that DOES need to be cured under a UV lamp. The starter kit came with the UV Lamp, Gel Primer, Gel Base & Top Coat, a polish color (I didn't use the one it came with because I bought a different color), and gel cleanser. It also includes some lint-free wipes, an orange stick to push back cuticles, and a nail file. When I originally tried this brand I used the old lamp I purchased because it was on sale with Seche's UV Topcoat. So I just got one of the nail colors (Purple Orchid) and tried that lamp. MAJOR fail. The light didn't seem to get around my entire nail so the sides didn't cure right, things smeared, it was a disaster! So I went for the lamp that came with the kit. It does need an outlet, so if you want to try this, just be aware of that.

The process to apply is pretty simple. The instructions say to start by lightly buffing the natural shine of your nail with their provided file. I didn't use their file for that, mostly because my nail are just too fragile, so I used a buffing block. I couldn't tell a difference. Then you can use the provided wipes and gel cleanser to clean off any other natural oils and left over dust from filing. After that you apply the Gel Primer. I watched the video from the web site and there are two different ways you can apply the primer, to your entire nail or for easier removal, just around the edges. The primer is a liquid, sticky substance that you put on with a super short, stiff brush. You don't cure that step at all.

After the primer has had a few seconds to dry--it's still tacky. I learned hair and lint WILL stick to it if you aren't careful--you apply the gel base and topcoat. Cure for 30 seconds. Then the color comes next. The color gel polish you cure for 60 seconds. Application on this was pretty difficult. The polish flows differently than normal nail polish and if you get it on your skins/cuticles, acetone does not remove it so clean up is nearly impossible. (Although, if anyone has tips there, I'd love to hear them!) One benefit seemed to be that since the polish doesn't dry like normal polish either, you could take more time patching up missed spots or going over the same area to make sure it's covered well. The directions say to do 2 coats, but I did 3 to make sure everything was evened out. Each coat is cured for another 60 seconds. After that you apply another coat of the base and topcoat, cure for a final 30 seconds and viola!! You should have a manicure that will last up to 2 weeks.

Oh boy, long winded post! Pictures now! Purple Orchid is a deep, cool-toned purple with blue glass fleck (I think?) shimmers. The shimmer give the polish dimension in low light sparkles in the sun. The pictures are surprisingly color accurate!

Click to enlarge any of them! I'm indoors but tried to capture the shimmers by the window!

On a side note, using this as a base/topcoat to sandwich regular polish seemed to lengthen the wear time. I used a holograph polish (Layla Ultra Violet) since they are notorious for not wearing very long unless you use the special base coats for them. (I don't have any soooooo, yeah. Chip city.) I went 3 days without a chip which was impressive. So I do have high hopes for this brand's wear time!

Thanks for checking in! I'll include overall opinions and a general review of this experiment in my follow-up post. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

-Amy

****Disclaimer: All products in this post were purchased by me****