Sally Hansen Firefly

Good evening Ninjas,

How was your week? Mine was a little hectic but fun so that was good. Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day, are there any places around you participating?

Tonight's manicure is two coats of Sally Hansen Firefly. This polish was actually much more multichromatic in person and these pictures don't do it any justice. While wearing it, I was able to see gold, orange,  pink, green, and the occasional blue flash on my nails.

Orange, some pink flash on the pinky.

Gold with slight green tinting around edges.

Micropost

Sally Hansen Snow Blast over China Glaze First Mate

Lawless Lacquer Guest Post!

Hello Ninjas!

Quickie post tonight since I've been going non-stop since 9am this morning and I need a little break. I did a Guest Post over at Lawless Lacquer on Thursday, you should go check it out!

Snakey Nails!

Hello Ninjas!

Fair warning, this post contains pictures of a live snake; if you don't like snakes or have a phobia, turn back now!


OK so I went to a Reptile Convention this past weekend and picked up a new baby, an albino ball python. I named her Oswynn (from Doctor Who) and did a little photoshoot with her! My nails are done with the Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Strips in Brattlesnake. These were very east to apply and stuck to the nail without any trouble. You'll notice a litter bit of an edge pulling up on some nails which was caused by the topcoat I used shrinking down slightly. I thought these were perfect for Repticon!

Layering and Stamping!

Hello Lovely Ninjas!

Today is a glorious day :) I got to sleep in and it's the first day in two weeks that I've been off from work. Not that I don't love my job but I need a little recuperative me time at least once a week. Right now I'm listening to some fantastic music, surfing the web and sharing this neat manicure with you!

This is a continuation of the last manicure I posted. On top of the two coats of Chic Reloaded by Essence, I added a super pretty iridescent polish by Pure Ice called Oh Baby! This polish is a really awesome purple/pink/blue glass fleck multichrome. THEN on top of that, I stamped a full coverage flower design from MASH plate m61 with Sally Hansen Delphinium. This was not the easiest manicure to photograph and I actually had better stamping on my right hand but here are the pictures!

Monochrome Manicure

Good evening Ninjas!

Tonight has been a night of zombies for me. There was a huge dojo party to celebrate a Second Degree black belt graduation as well as a number of awesome peoples' birthdays. The party had a zombie theme and I went all out with the makeup for me and a friend. I think I'll save the pictures until closer to Halloween though, they're pretty scary!

Tonight's manicure was one I wore for quite a while because it lasted well and I just loved how it looked on the nail. This is two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement with an awesome coat of Pretty & Polished Valentino. I got a mini bottle of Valentino in a great swap I did a while back and I could not be more happy with this polish!

This is a little wooden "Armless Doll" mirror from Japan and a student gifted me with.

Confetti Manicure!

Hello lovely Ninjas!

Today is my 23rd Birthday and I spent it working. It's ok though, work is cool and the people are great and very nice. Lots of birthday wishes to go around. Since I didn't do anything particularly festive for the day of, I decided to show you lovely readers what I did a while back.

This is a simple layering manicure that I did a while back. The base is two surprisingly easy coats of Sally Hansen Crinoline and one coat of Light with Caution from the Wet n Wild Sparks & Stripes collection. Crinoline is a very pale pinkish cream polish that applied incredibly well for such a light pastel. The glitter of LwC applied evenly which was a plus, I only needed to do thin coats to get good glitter distribution instead of globbing the polish on to get the hexes to stick.

Sally Hansen Big Money

Hi Ninjas!

Today I've got a glitterbomb to show you! This is the only other glitter from the Glitz Gal collection that I was actually interested in getting, Big Money. I hadn't planned to shell out $6 for a glitterbomb though since I don't wear them very often. Lo and behold, my semi-psychic Mother in Law sent it in my Easter Basket this year! I was very impressed at her choice of polish for me :) She also sent Illamasqua Phallic which was on my wishlist and I am waiting for a very good reason to swatch.

Big Money is comprised mostly of medium sized light gold hex glitter and some smaller gold square microglitter. The really neat thing is the addition of the medium lilac hexes as a pretty accent. I think I did three coats for complete opacity but my nails were on the longer side for this manicure and I didn't want any visible nail line! Behold the amazing Big Money:

Sally Hansen Delphinium

Good afternoon Ninjas!

Today I've got a really pretty pastel for you from Sally Hansen, Delphinium. I knew when I picked this up on clearance at Ulta that I already loved it. Unlike Essie's Nice is Nice which looks horrible on my skin tone, Delphinium is a grey based pastel purple. This was incredibly flattering on my hands and I almost didn't want to take it off. It was very complimentary to my skin so I'm thinking that I might want to look for nudes in the future that lean a little grey/purple for a good match. First off, here's a picture of what Delphinium flowers look like:

And here is what my lovely, two coat manicure looked like:

I can definitely see the inspiration the color mixers at Sally took from the pretty purple Delphinium flowers when making this polish. I'm a huge fan of the color purple but in the polish world, I wear more greens. If I could find more purples that went so well with my skin tone, I might wear more of them! And yes, that is my RIGHT hand! The polish just came out smoother on that hand so I decided to make my life easier (aka, not have to edit my photos besides cropping) and take a picture of my right hand instead of my left. Can you see how long my nails were getting? I took a good bit off of them a couple of days ago because they were stating to affect my ability to type.

Opal Nails

Hello darling ninjas,

Today I've got the outcome at my attempt to make my nails look like fire opals. I started with a base of 4 coats of Sally Hansen Brilliant blush which I wore by itself for two days. It's a pretty translucent pearl with amazing multichrome flashes of red, pink, and orange. On top of that I added a coat of Essie Shine of the Times to be the silica inclusions that make opal so pretty. It wasn't exactly what I wanted but it was still very pretty!

Sally Hansen Red Carpet

Hello darling ninjas!

I don't know what it is lately but I've been in love with dark reds that have glitter in them. Today I've got Sally Hansen's Red Carpet from their Xtreme wear line. This is two coats but three probably would have taken care of the VNL that I saw in strong light. This was a great strawberry red that went well with the holiday season. The application was surprisingly easy and manageable considering I got the polish for only $.54 with a coupon!

Sally Hansen Glitz Gal

Hello lovely ninjas!
Today I've got another glitter bomb polish for you, Sally Hansen Glitz Gal from their Gem Crush collection. This is a really neat polish with loads of fine pewter colored glitter and larger holographic hex glitters interspersed throughout.  This is another top coat eater though, as most glitter bombs are. I thought the rough texture of the polish looked really neat in this case. Almost like I had pieces of diamond ore as my nails. Very neat! This is two heavy coats with SH Insta Dri top coat.

New Year Haul!

Hello darling ninjas!

Today I've got my first haul of the year for your viewing pleasure. This was the first batch of polish I've bought since the official end of my no-buy. I blasted into the new year in style with 10 new polishes! The Zoya polishes and the Sally Hansen polishes all came from Ulta on clearance and the Essie polishes I picked up off a new display at Target. I'm super excited about these! I love the bright Zoya colors, my only regret is not being able to find the last Mod Matte on clearance. Alas, it was a great haul overall!

L to R: Gemma, Mitzi, Pippa, Paz, and Dita

L to R: SH Delphinium , SH Crinoline, Essie Go Overboard, Armed and Ready, and As Gold as it Gets

And at the end of my no-buy, my husband has suggested new rules for my polish spending. He said that I should limit my polish purchases to $125/month. For reference, that is exactly how much I make one week at my second job dog-sitting. This price includes shipping charges too so it will be interesting to see how this effects my collection! I'm already down to $16.26 left for the month. Between Ulta, Target, Zoya, and Pre-Ordering from AEngland I've gone through a big chunk of my polish budget. I'm using GoogleDocs to keep track of my spending on a spreadsheet which is a little eye-opening but good for my wallet. Now I have to decide between Zoya or Finger Paints for the rest of my budget. I was thinking of doing the FingerPaints (the whole three I can afford lol) since they're LE and in store exclusive. I can probably pick up the Zoya Tru collection next month without too much issue.

What do you think of having a polish budget?

Essie School of Hard Rocks Gradient

Hello darling ninjas!

Today I've got my first attempt at a gradient nail design. This is a bas of two coats of Essie School of Hard Rocks from their Cocktail Bling collection for Winter 2011. I was expecting SoHR to come out much lighter but it ended up drying to a nice muted medium teal instead of the more khaki green I was expecting. This was still a very pretty color and an easy formula to work with. If you have a steady hand, you could probably make this color into a one coat wonder but I just didn't want to risk the bubbling.

After the coats of Essie, I did one layer of Orly Twilight on about 3/4 of my nails. My original intention had been to do the gradient entirely with the Orly color but it was just too subtle to produce the effect I wanted. I ended up adding a layer of Sally Hansen Glass Slipper to the tips of my nails to finish off the gradient. The overall effect looks like I dipped my nails in water and let them freeze. I love the frosty look!

I don't think I did too bad for my first try at a gradient, what do you think? Oh yes, I did chop my nails down after a bad break on my right hand. Sorry for the shortness!

Sally Hansen Pumpkin Spice

Good afternoon readers!

Today I've got a little layering mani for you. This is Sally Hansen Pumpkin spice, a pale brown jely base with orange glitter, over a nice dark orange, OPI Chop-sticking to My Story. I wanted to do this over orange instead of black or brown because I didn't want this to be too dark, I have customers at work who pick on me when my polish looks black! This is one coat of CsMS under three of Pumkin Spice.

Weekend Haul!

So, I can finally do my haul post after a ridiculous UPS mix up >:( Here are the pretties I've picked up between Friday and today. Chronologically listed, of course.

Ulta From Left to Right: Zoya Cynthia, Zoya Neeka, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice, WnW Fantasy Makers Purple Potion, Black Magic (Dud? No glitter), Creepy Pumpkin, and Night Glow

Ulta: Revlon Royal Cloak Essence Where is the Party?, Essence Movie Star, Pixel Polish Public Display of Affection.

Rite Aid: Essie Very Structured, Essie Power Clutch, Jesse's Girl Mermaids Lagoon, Maybelline Cool Couture.

Rite Aid/Target: Revlon Blue Mosaic, WnW Teal of Fortune 2 pack, Revlon Facets of Fuchsia.

Victoria Nail Supply: China Glaze Trendsetter, Brownstone, It's Alive, Ick-a-body, Zombie Zest, and Color Club Love 'Em Leave 'Em.

Lots of pretty colors!

I have to say, Victoria Nail Supply has amazing customer service and helped me find my wayward package today, I would definitely work with them again <3

Sally Hansen: Model Behavior

Hello Readers.

Today I have a pretty blue combination for your viewing pleasure. This is a color I picked up when I was at Rite Aid and saw a buy one get one 50% off deal on most of their polishes. I picked up Borghese Stellare Notte (which Scrangie just swatched so I'll hold off posting about it) and Sally Hansen Model Behavior. I liked Model Behavior because it fits in with the last hurrah of bright colors before the fall darks set in. I'm also trying to build up my blue collection for my next blog header (Think wintery mix...)

Model Behavior is a nice light blue cream polish. It went on great in two coats with no bubbling which was impressive considering how fast I was putting it on. This isn't really a sky blue, more of a cyan/darker cornflower color. I've gotten a lot of compliments on this manicure so I'm pretty sure this color will stick around unlike some of the crazed hues of this summer (I'm looking at you China Glaze). Over top the two coats I added one quick layer of Wet n Wild in Blue Wants to be a Millionaire. This is a great combination that makes me smile when I look at my hands.

Anyone want to guess when I picked up at Ulta yesterday courtesy of my MIL?  I can't wait to wear it!