China Glaze Wagon Trail (with a little something...)

The good news is that I was able to fulfil another one of my Scrangie's archive-inspired, long-time lemmings when I purchased this bottle of China Glaze Wagon Trail (from the Rodeo Diva collection).

The bad news is that unless your hands are in full direct sunlight, this is just another one of those black-in-most-lights polishes...and truth be told, I really don't like them much. I was so off-put by the color that I really couldn't wait to take a picture of it before painting over it with something else.

Here's my pic of the above-mentioned offending polish, disguised a bit with a layer of Sinful Colors All About You. At least with the glitter I managed to wear it for a day...

Poolside Safari

For Mother's Day, my boyfriend purchased for me, five of the six of the CG Poolside collection!! Here, my friend and I, (using Sally Hansen "white on" as a base coat) are wearing "Pool Party" (pink), "Sun Worshipper" (orange), "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" (yellow), "Kiwi Cool-ada" (green), and "Towel Boy Toy" (blue). Over which we have applied the leopard and the zebra patterns from the konad M57 plate in black, and SV topcoat x2.

I love the neon colors!! Very 80's like!! :) Although, the blue is a bit off... it shows lighter in the picture than it is in person, but close.

St. Patty's Day Fauxnad, Part II

Even though I haven't done a lot of green manicures lately, I've got to admit that I'm a little tired of the color already. I've seen so many swatches of greens, so many reviews of different greens that I feel as though I've been wearing them.

St. Patty's Day is the day before my birthday, and for as long as I can remember I've associated all things St. Patrick's Day as sort of my pre-birthday celebration, so I can't let this holiday pass without a little painting O' the green. Today's mani is two coats of Pure Ice Wild Thing (I'd call it chartreuse creme), with a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Ivy League on the diagonal of the nail. I used a fauxnad plate with Konad special polish in dark green for the design.





I have to admit that I really like Ivy League over Wild Thing. Ivy League is pretty sheer, and it would take several coats to build it to any sort of opacity, but it has such a pretty gold shimmer that's hard to resist.

Just in case I don't get in another mani before the holiday, Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

Some St. Patty's Day Fauxnading....

Piff over at the Polish or Perish recently blogged about RBL comparisons, and in the course of that blog post, reminded me of my love for Orly nail polish. I'm a big fan of their polish -- the brushes, the brush handles, the formula, and the overall quality of their polish is extremely good.

So, with that being said, I decided to break out Orly's Enchanted Forest and use that as a base for today's fauxnad. The rich, deep green creme is great to work with, but it did seem to have a bit of a smoothing out issue over my Barielle Growth Activator base coat. That stuff has made several manicures difficult...maybe it creates too much drag on the brush? I don't know, but I don't like it and this bottle of Growth Activator will definitely be my LAST bottle of the stuff.

So here's two coats of Enchanted Forest, with a four-leaf clover fauxnad done with China Glaze Cherish. I topped off the ring finger with a small rhinestone.





I heart you, Orly...and so does Piff!

Ulta Limelight and a bonus Konad

I redeemed my reward certificate from Ulta today and snagged a few polishes; one of which is a newly released shade of green called Limelight. This polish was surprisingly thick (unlike other Ulta polishes I've purchased), almost a little gloopy. Usually, I take a moment to check the tightness on a cap before I purchase a polish, just to make sure someone before me didn't test the sucker and not screw the cap on back tightly thus causing the polish to get thick. I suspect that's exactly what happened, because there is a bit of polish buildup around the bottle's neck, so I'm going to take a little thinner to it the next time I use it.

Anyway, this color is a yellow-leaning mossy green; very streaky and nasty first coat, evens itself out with the second coat, and becomes opaque with a third coat. This photo was taken in natural indirect light...no direct sunlight could be found!



Breaking out the Konad, I decided not to reach for my two favorite Konading polishes (China Glaze Millenium and 2030), and instead chose to try two others. First up is Limelight with Essie Mint Candy Apple and a design from plate M65 for an art deco kind of look.



For a more subtle, tone-on-tone kind of look, I used Pure Ice Wild Thing over Limelight (note: Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Ivy League stamped identically on this color, so if you plan to try this, you can use this to replace Wild Thing).


I'm not sure if I could keep either of these on my fingers for longer than a day...

Sinful Colors Swatches and Review

My friend Amy (Hi Amy!) was at Walgreens yesterday when the giant, shiny Sinful Colors display got her attention. (I know it grabs my attention every time I go in...even when I'm not looking for polish.) She called me to ask me what I knew about the brand. Being slightly opportunistic, I decided to turn this question into a blog post. Here is a picture of the four Sinful Colors polishes that I currently own. From left to right are: UFO, Show Me The Way, Call You Later, and Frenzy. (UFO is a little washed out in this photo; the second photo represents its color much more accurately.)



The following picture goes like this, and none have topcoat:
Thumb: 2 coats of Call You Later
Index: 4 coats of Frenzy (to save all from seeing my stained nails)
Middle: 1 coat of Call You Later over 2 coats of Show Me The Way
Ring: 2 coats of Show Me The Way
Pinkie: 2 coats of UFO





Application is easy and drying time is pretty fast, and IMO they compete quite well with polishes of much higher price brackets. I've never worn them for long periods of time, (it's unusual for me to wear the same polish for three days) so I can't talk much about longevity, though. With a wide range of colors and finishes, it's an inexpensive indulgence that you won't feel bad about later...enjoy!