Bright Red Polish Doesn't Always Equal Jaundice Skin

Unless you've never worn nail polish before, stick to the same color all the time, or even live under a rock, then you know that certain colors make your skin look diseased. And if you're like me who has pale pink ivory colored skin with very subtle undertones of yellow, certain colors can make it look like you have liver disease. Yes I'm talking about polish shades that make you look jaundice. For me, this shade is mostly red.

Red, in my opinion, is one of those colors that is definitely guaranteed to be noticed since it's such a bright and noticeable shade. And I'm talking bright reds here people like fire engine red or corals. Problem with most of these shades of red and corals is that most of them have a lot of yellow pigments in them besides the red which brings right out the yellow undertones in my skin. So now while my nails are an awesome shade of red, I now look like I'm jaundice and people who see the yellow-tinted skin of my hands start to feel bad for me. They think that I've now got some sort of liver disease and that they should be nicer to me since they don't know how much longer I've got. It's because of looking jaundice that I pretty much now avoid wearing bright red colors because I had yet to find a bright red that didn't have soo much yellow pigments in it. That was until yesterday.

Say hello to Pure Ice Siren. Ain't she pretty?

I love this red color. This photo doesn't do this shade justice. The polish itself went on smooth and didn't streak. This is 3 coats only because I had VNL really bad, but other than that it was a very pigmented color. This red reminds me of fake blood. You know how fake blood is such a bright red because its supposed to imitating oxidized blood? This is pretty much what this red looks like if you can't get a good mental picture of it. And the best part? I don't look jaundice. Instead, my skin remained it's pinky self while my nails looked fierce in it's new bright red shade.

I even turned my bright red nails into a funky French by adding black tips. It looks so cool in a sexy vamp way. I would so wear this manicure on a date because its just so sexy looking (once again the photo doesn't do it justice). Eat your heart out boys, eat your heart out.

-Amanda

NOTD: Turquoise and Caicos (My first Essie!)

Hello!

Today I have my first ever Essie nail polish!

I have been lemming this color since I saw it on some blogs ages ago. Its one of my favorite colors (as you will see) and I needed something bright for today since the weather is so crappy here (welcome to New England...) Snow, sleet, ice, wonderful... Here's a pic from the dorm window from a few hours ago:

My wrist is feeling a little bit better. It hurts to write, so school has been difficult so far, but not to type so blogging is fine. Thankfully I can still remove polish and paint well enough but maybe not well enough for any art... we'll see. Not being able to use my right hand is more frustrating than anything. Anything I do with my left I feel like my right is like "Let me do it, let me do it, I can do it better!"

Well, I am excited since I got some money! My parents shared some of their income tax return $ with me! Its so awesome of them to do that. Since I have so much extra cash now, I decided to splurge on the $7.75 Essie at Walmart when Amanda and I went yesterday. They had others but this is the only one that interested me and it was the last bottle too! SCORE!! She also got Hard Candy Beetle (!!!) which I will be swatching later. I can't wait to hit the Rite Aid and the nail salon this week... major haul coming up!! :P

Enough babble... on to the swatches!!

Here is my new pretty at 4!! coats. I was very disappointed with the formula on this. I've heard such great things about Essie but I should have done my homework and read some reviews of this color. Right before I put it on, Amanda was reading Polish Hoarder Disorder's blog where she said the formula sucked. She was right. This was thin and runny and it took a while to dry so of course I didn't let it dry in between coats (a bad habit of mine...) because I didn't have the patience and it just wasn't drying fast enough!!! Thus, I had a ton of bald spots during application that wouldn't go away... it was quite frustrating.
Buuttt... I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS COLOR! I think it actually works with my skin tone and I love how it looks on me! I also love how glossy this dried (when it finally dried.)

All of these pictures are of it wet (of course) at 4 thin coats with no base/top coat.

Haha, glitter on my hand! There's glitter every where in the dorm room... its a long story. Oh and excuse the mess please! I didn't trust myself to maneuver the acetone dipped paintbrush with my hand... plus I'm running low on acetone and apparently Walmart doesn't carry it!

This is with no flash in what little sunlight we were able to get through the snow...

No flash, artificial light... see how glossy!!

This color matches my Converse almost perfectly!

Its also pretty close to my blanket... see what I meant about loving this color now?

Hope you have a great day and thanks for looking!

Fiona

The Flaky Polish Obsessed Part of my Brain Won't Shut Up.

Ever since I've seen polish swatches on the Manicured Manatee's blog, a part of my brain has become obsessed with getting my hands on a bottle of polish with flakies in it. This part of my brain keeps screaming out for it to be heard, and even takes control of my whole body long enough for it to open up Google, go to a site that sells polishes, and then demand that I order a bottle of flaky polish by then opening up a paypal account to buy said flaky polish. It's at this point that the rest of my brain takes control once again, and reminds that flakies obsessed part that if I DID open up a paypal account that I'd be broke within two weeks and that I will eventually find a bottle of flakies in a store. The flakies obsessed part still refuses to remain silent and keeps trying to demand the rest of my brain to just give in and buy a bottle online. The rest of my brain has been forced to lock up the flaky polish obsessed part in the deep recesses of my brain in a dark, dank, little cell where it runs a metal cup across the iron bars of the cell demanding to be released and it's orders followed. When I finally get a bottle of flakies, it will be released from its prison where it will do it's little victory touchdown dance in celebration of FINALLY getting flakies and being freed from its cell. But for now, it remains clanking that metal cup across the bars yelling at the rest of my brain to listen to it.

But now here's some pictures of my third attempt at water marbling that I did yesterday after Fiona and I got back from our adventure to health services and the hospital. I didn't take photos of the second one though because I got sick of it and chipped it off in a fit of rage over the crappy morning I had on Thursday and hadn't bothered to photograph it before that. But this one is a lot better than the second attempt. For this one I used Sinful Colors Why Not and Feeling Great and Sally Hansen Green With Envy.

(L to R) Why Not, Green With Envy, Feeling Great

The Left Hand

The Right Hand

I love how this came out. I had used Why Not as the base color for my water marbling (which went on with only ONE coat because its very pigmented!) so when I used Feeling great in the marbling, it turned the areas the pink was on a violet/periwinkle color. In other areas the pink stood out when it was mixed in the green, but I love how the color combo looked! This is just a bunch of epic awesomeness with a side of HA BISKY! I will probably be trying this again in the future just because I like it THAT much.

-Amanda

Injury and past NOTDs (Massive post!)

Hello!

Yup, I'm injured.

 Wearing OPI Catch Me in Your Net and Amanda in the background :)

 My (right, OF COURSE I'm right-handed) wrist is severely sprained. I was on my way to Friday morning Algebra class at 8 AM. I was making the decision whether to go straight to class or to go and get a coffee since I had a few minutes. It was snowing pretty steadily and there was a about a cm of wet, heavy snow on the ground. I KNEW there was a patch of ice in that area but it was early, I hadn't had any coffee so I decided to get some and turned in that direction and slipped. It was one of those devastatingly slow, un-graceful, terrible falls where you know you're gonna fall, you're falling and then you're on your ass on the ice cold, snowy hard ice. I landed on my right side and caught my fall with my right hand, bending my wrist back waayyy too far. I had previously sprained my right wrist a few years ago when I fell when my younger brother and I were sliding on some ice one morning waiting for the bus. I'd had to have X-rays then and though it wasn't broken had to wear an Ace wrap for months and still have clicking in that wrist.
Anyway, I was on my ass on the hard ice and tried to get back up in a panic, it was more embarrassing than it hurt, and put all my weight on the wrist again to get back up which probably made it worse. Trying not to cry, I looked around to make sure no one had saw (no one had thankfully) and went back to the dorm room where I burst into tears and called my mom and left a message. I sat on my bed crying waiting for Amanda to come back from class to take me to the infirmary since I was too scared to go back out there alone. It hurt so bad at that point that I felt nauseous. I got a hold of my mom who told me what to do and calmed me down some. Amanda returned and we walked in the now increasing heavy snow to the infirmary which isn't too far but it felt very far. Of course, OF COURSE, I didn't wear boots (I had on sweatpants and sneakers), forgot my phone and my insurance info.
At the infirmary, they asked me many of the same questions over and over until finally someone got me an ice pack and sent me to have X-rays since something I said or did indicated I needed them.
Now here's the craziest part. Amanda and I walked to the hospital. Yes, we are insane, apparently. I suppose its not too far, but in the snow, it felt like a mile. In reality its maybe half to 3/4 of a mile. But still. We trudged, me injured, clutching my gloves which for some reason weren't on and the X-ray form, in my sneakers and sweatpants through the now 5 inches of snow.
Checking in was a mess, and I cried like newborn baby in the waiting room at radiology. You see, I am actually a big baby- I depend on my parents a lot. I was in considerable pain and was pretty scared since I'd never broken anything before and all I wanted was my parents.
I am blabbing on and on here so I'll skip to the important parts. My wrist is not broken, thankfully but badly sprained. After my X-rays, they sent me back to the campus infirmary to get a splint. They sent me back to the infirmary for a splint!! My mother is pissed about this, by the way, not to mention our lack of a way to get back to campus since there was no way in hell we were walking back. We ended up getting a ride back to campus, thankfully where I got a splint.
So that, was our Friday. And if you read this far, then THANK YOU! Oh, and not one person commented on my pretty mani, which I'll get to. You would think with all that grabbing my hand and examining it SOMEONE would have but noooo... 

Now I'll get to the point of this blog which is NAILS....

This was my mani on Thursday I was too lazy to post. I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Flyin' High which is a dusty teal creme with a green tone to it but it looks different in all kinds of light. This was VERY HARD to capture on camera. The color is NOT accurate at all. Its swatches like mine that made me want this polish in the first place since I thought it was a bright blue. Its not. So I was disappointed when I first tried it but I like it now. The application is perfect and so is the removal. It dries very glossy as well.

This is in artificial lighting at 2 coats, no base/top coat. Sorry for the mess. :(

Brighter artificial light.

Color corrected: ignore the weird skin!! This is slightly truer to color, color in the bottle is pretty accurate in this picture.

Its so creamy, dreamy and glossy! Yum!

Now for the mani. Here is the same polish with Claire's Flashy painted on as stripes with my Kiss striper brush. I think this color is a dupe for Sinful's Dream On which I also have but its old and dried out a little. It dried very matte and dark so put on 2 coats but it didn't do much to brighten it but I like the result anyway.

Here it is in artificial light with no flash and with my regular top coat. This is actually after 24 hours of wear. This hand isn't chipped so badly but my right hand was CHIP CITY!

With flash

Again

These are the pretty nails I had on Friday when I fell. This is 3 coats, 3 coats, of Sinful's Snow Me White (streaky mess!!) with 1 coat of Sinful's Nail Junkie over the whole nail, another coat half way down and a third on the tips to create a gradient. I LOVE THIS!! I LOVE Nail Junkie so much especially since I had so much success with the foil method. These are, unfortunately crappy pictures of it because my camera apparently can't capture the glittery awesome-sauce. :( I took like 50 pics of this and none were very good.

Artificial light with flash (blech, this SUCKS!)

Flash off

Another try

These are my nails today that you saw in the first picture. This is 2 coats of Sinful's Rise and Shine with 4 coats of OPI Catch Me in Your Net on top. It was 2 coats originally which looked great but it got scratched and chipped (this is after more than 24 hours, a new record of having mani on) with top coat. I wasn't going to post this since Amanda already swatched it but mine looks very different with the Sinful underneath. I put the Sinful underneath because I was trying out a technique for sheer, glitter and flakie polishes that The Manicured Manatee posted about (I love her blog so much!!) where you pick a "partner polish" that matches the base and layer it underneath. Amanda says this looks like Zoya Ivanka (which we both want) and I agree. Its so foily, glowy and shiny and awesome!! The iridescence in CMIYN is AMAZING!

There are lot's of pics of this... all are in artificial light with flash.

My damn pinkie!!

 Hope you have a great day and thanks for looking (and reading my epic post...)

Fiona

Mermaid's Tail

So yeah, I know I haven't posted in a few days, but I've just been so unmotivated to post. I do have a manicure that I like to show all of you that I did Monday.

I had taken off my last manicure and since it was about 10 at night, I wanted to do something that would dry quickly. I ended up grabbing my Nicole by OPI Respect the World-Matte and applied two coats of the polish. This color is a matte light teal color that dries as soon as you apply it to your nails. The only problem for me was that it just looked too plain for my liking. So going back into my nail polish drawer that's in my desk I pulled out my bottle of Sinful Colors You Just Wait and applied 2 thin coats on top of it. For a five minute manicure it came out looking pretty cool. The combo of the two polishes made it look like teal colored opals with the pink/green/gold chrome shine that the You Just Wait contains. Sad part was that out of all of the manicures I've done recently, all of the girls in my Biological Science II Lab loved my nails (sigh). But it looked cool enough for me to give it a name: mermaid's tail.

It might not look all that impressive, but my camera REFUSES to capture the true nature of the polishes I wear. I swear that it really does look like teal opals!

-Amanda

NOTD: Funky Lilac Dots

Hello!

Today is shaping up to be an awful day. I overslept and missed my first class and almost slept through my second class as well. Then, I have a Chemistry exam tonight at 6. :( Why me? So I needed something on my nails that will make me happy! Purple is my favorite color and I love polka dot manis so I decided to do a purple polka dot look for today! I know Amanda already swatched OPI's Funky Dunkey but I hadn't had a chance to try it yet so I used it for my base color. This was my first time using an OPI polish and I must say that if they weren't so expensive OR if I had a job and wasn't a broke ass college kid, I would be hauling OPI like there was no tomorrow! I love, love, love the formula and the brush is amazing! Maybe its just this particular one but it did go on kinda streaky but it leveled itself out perfectly and dried to a glossy shine! It was darker than I had expected at 3 coats (I really want a medium purple creme...) so I decorated it with SH XW's Lacey Lilac (yes, that one again) because I love it so much. I used my homemade dotting tool to make the dots. Then I wanted glitter so I used one coat of Pure Ice Cheatin' which is an amazing purple, pink and blue fine glitter in a clear base. Then I topped it with my usual top coat and I love the results! It makes me smile everytime I look at my nails. :)

Bottle pic:

My mani. 3 coats of Funky Dunkey, LL dots, 1 coat of Cheatin', and top coat, no base coat. Artificial lighting with flash:

Please excuse lobster hands and tip wear (I guess the OPI doesn't wear so well because this mani is only 10 hours old)

Closeup of pinkie:

Hope you have a great day (better than mine anyway) and thanks for looking!

Fiona

Pedicure and Blue Franken

Hello!

I had said on my bubble NOTD post about how much I loved Sinful's Love Nails, metallic turquoise, and how it was my pedicure. Well here are some pedi pictures... this is not really a POTD or a POTW... more like a Pedi of the ... whenever I get sick of it... a month or two maybe? :P I know how some people don't like feet so I will post smaller pics and put a disclaimer.

WARNING: FEET/TOE PICTURES BELOW!

 

My pedi! My left big toe is smaller/skinny because I had an ingrown toenail in it and had to have part of it removed. Lesson learned: DO NOT CUT YOUR TOENAILS ROUNDED! My toes are also just kinda weird in general (thanks mom, I have my mom's feet) so sorry, if I grossed you out. I just wanted to show the pretty pedi color that is Love Nails and how much it shines in sunlight!

With flash in crappy lighting. Metallic-y goodness!! Its so bright it even shines through my socks!! Haha! :P

Its even more apparent IRL!! Oh and bottle pic of Love Nails.

Please ignore my schedule in the background...

Anyway, on my mani! This is a medium blue jelly franken that I am VERY proud of (I think its gorgeous!!) that I'm gonna call "Blueberry Blast!" This reminds me of swatches I've seen of a (or several, not sure) Nfu Oh Blue Jelly (IDK which #) 

I made it using half a bottle of old top coat that I got for Christmas or my birthday a few years ago, a brand from Khol's called "The Color Institute." It was a crappy top coat (it smeared art, took FOREVER and a half to dry, and was still dentable the next day) so I used it to thin out my chunky bottle of Sinful's Cream Pink (since I don't have thinner...) and also to thin my other franken. Thus, I was left with half the bottle. So added liberal amounts of SH XW Pacific Blue and an amazing navy creme I got at the department store Fashion Bug called Dark Denim and a few drops of SH XW Blue Me Away! for brightness. I LOVE the outcome! It's very sheer and the brush is HORRIBLE but its worth it. Here's what I used:

(L to R) Dark Denim, Franken, Pacific Blue, Blue Me Away!

All pics below are 4 coats with no base coat, and my usual top coat.

True color in crappy artificial lighting with flash.

Sunlight! *sighs*

I can seriously see my reflection in my nails!!

Yes, I HAD to add 4 sunlight photos! Haha, I love it that much!

Hope you have/had a great day and thanks for looking!

Fiona

Lilac Leopard

Hello!

As for my current nails, I like them a lot but I am too lazy right now to clean them up to picture-taking standards. They look just fine from a distance. I have on (right now) 2 coats of SH XW Lacey Lilac which I love but it doesn't so great with my zombie pale skin tone, one coat of Pure Ice Beware (a fine, silver glitter which smells awful!) and one coat of Pure Ice Cheatin' (a purple, blue and pink, fine glitter.) Its a glitter BOMB and frankly I'm a little scared to remove it! :) I may have to try out the foil method...

These are some pictures of an old mani I did about 2 weeks ago. I got inspiration from Wah Nails for it. I got a lot of compliments on this as well from random strangers. I was pretty happy with how it came out but I think I still need to work on the roundness of my leopard spots. Painting them with the Kiss striper is surprisingly difficult to do. :)

For this I used (I think) 2 coats of SH XW Lacey Lilac (its kinda streaky on the first coat but the second evens it out well. I think the brush on my bottle is a little messed up too which adds to the streakiness since the brushes on all the other XWs I have are fine.) Then I made the "blobs" with SH XW Blue Me Away! which is a nice vibrant blue but my bottle is old and thick and needs thinner so I never do full manis with it anymore - its for art and frankening! :) Then I outlined the spots with the help from various tutorial videos on youtube (Robin Moses is the best - look her up!) and finished with my SH top coat.

The top coat smudged it a little. Such is my life. :(

This was also when I just broken my ring finger nail and it looks so sad and short next to the others. :(

I just broke my left thumb nail this morning as well so more thumb pics for a while.

Hope you have a great day and thanks for looking! :)

Fiona