Recent Manicures

I just wanted to show you what I've been doing with my nails lately. As a college student, I dont have the money to buy every new collection that comes out so I have to come up with inventive ways to be happy with the polish I currently own. Lately, I've been doing my manicures weekly. (gasp!) because I've been so busy with school this semester and I just haven't had time to do my usual 2-3 polish changes a week. One thing I've found that helps me keep a chip-free manicure all week is fake nails. I've been using Nailene nails, here's a picture I twittered of them:

My polish never chips on fake nails and I can play around with the length. With the ones pictured above I actually don't clip them because they come to a perfect manageable length, but when I want longer nails, I usually use some Kiss nails.

So,to do something different to my manicures, I've been painting one nail a different color from the rest of the nails. Like an accent wall, ha! See...

Claire's Black and Sally Hansen Celeb City

Also with Sally Hansen Deep Purple and SH Celeb City:
A note about that polish I'm holding in the last picture, Nailene Acrylic Strong Protecting Topcoat. I underestimated that topcoat. To my surprise it dried very quickly and glossy. You can never have too many quick drying topcoats in my opinion.

So what do you think about painting one nail a different color? Would you try it?

Upcoming posts on this blog:

• I'm going to try and post my review of the Zoya Hot Lips glosses I ordered when they were doing their Twitter promo.
• A review of coconut oil I'm going to use on my hair.
• My experience with my first MAC foundation
  

Now I know these are not nail related posts, but I fully embrace all things beauty so I want to try and branch out for a little. Keep reading and we'll see how that goes!

LA Girl Rockstar | Punk

I'm on the fence about this one. I think its just because I thought it was purple in the dimly lit store I bought it in. There's a dusty old grocery store in my town that still has price stickers on everything but is a hidden gem filled with OPI, Orly, China Glaze, LA Girl polishes and all kinds of nail treatments. So I put up with the less than ideal lighting conditions. Now Punk is a gorgeous color for what its worth, I just expected a purple. So here it is...

With flash indoors:

It looks different here:

Punk is a blue polish packed with blue and purple glitter. It took three coats to achieve the color in the bottle. I want to try other colors from this line, a lot of them are really unique looking. You can check out the rest of the colors at Cherry Culture where they are on sale for $2.80!

Nailene Goodies! Review...

So I was sent some products to review from Nailene and look what a pretty bag they came in:
The contents inside the bag:

So I'm pretty excited about these products, but especially the Couture nails (style 71165). They have black zebra tips and they are really cute. However, the first set of nails I tried was French finish, the third box from the left (style 77484).

Here they are individually:
Lets start with what I love about these nails.

• There's 36 nails in 18 sizes, that means you, yes you should be able to find nails that fit!
• On the back of the box, it says they are designed "flex to fit" either flat nails or high arched nails.
  
• The pinkish tint to the nails didn't even look weird against my skin tone

With that said, on to the pictures!


Above: The nails on my pink DayMinder. Yes I plan my life in pink. Or I like to think so.



I think these nails look great! The whole process took me less than 30 minutes and I've noticed that I can get a week's wear from Nailene nails. Overall, I think they are one the best at home nail kits you can buy. They get an A from me. You can find out more about Nailene at their website. Do you wear fake nails? Ever tried Nailene nails? Let me know!

I'll be posting the other nail kits pictured above later so check back later if you'd like to see them!

Contact and PR Info

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Dont hesitate to contact me!

Email: nailiciousblog@gmail.com
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Hard Candy Polish Shopping Tip

If you didn't already know, Hard Candy is back in the nail polish business! I cant wait to get my hands on them, especially this baby:
However, I haven't seen them at my local Wal-Mart! I don't know if you've had success at your local store, but there is a solution! You can order them online at Wal-Mart's website and the good news is that they are just 97 cents to ship!

Hope this helps anyone where these are hard to find. Happy Shopping!

Nailene Deluxe Salon Acrylic Kit Review: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I did it folks. I tried acrylic nails. The pictures that I am going to show you are of my second attempt. The first time I tried the kit was this past Saturday and let me tell you, that was not pretty. I figured out what I didn't like about the kit and what I could improve the next go around. Now this second attempt is still not perfect, but I promise you its better than the first time. You don't want to see that, trust me. *shudders* On with the review!

First, let me show you the kit.

This is how it looks all nice and new in the packaging. You can find it any almost any drugstore, Wal-Mart, Target or online places like Amazon.
Here is my kit, opened and the additional tools I bought. I will explain later why I bought the extra stuff.

Contents: Clear acrylic powder, acrylic liquid, ultra quick nail glue, primer, buffing block, nail file (not pictured), dappen dish, manicure stick.

The back of the kit where you can store nails:
It came with 20 clear tips and 20 white tips.

The additional tools I bought:

L to R: Oversize nail cutter for acrylic nails, flat acrylic brush, extra white nails tips.
I thought it was really hard to clip those long acrylic nail tips with regular fingernail clippers,so I had to get the oversized ones like you see in the salon. It made the process so much easier the second time around because it eliminated trying to cut the nail in a straight line and excessive filing. You still have to file your nails with the oversize clippers but not as much. When I used the regular sized fingernail clippers on the nails, my nails looked like a crooked picket fence, no lie! I also bought another nail brush because I thought that the brush that was included was small, so the new one was bigger, flatter and wider. I thought that helped with application of the acrylic. Not pictured was nail glue I used because the glue in the kit was horrible. When the nails weren't busy sticking to my skin, they were coming off my natural nails.

Okay on to the nails. Here's the finished product. Again, not perfect! Left hand:

Right hand:
Can you tell that this hand's nails are a little shorter?

Side view:
Blurry pic of both hands:

My overall experience with this kit was good. Once I figured out what I needed to change, the application went smoother. Once thing I do highly recommend is those oversize nail clippers, they shaved 30 minutes off of the total application time, it went from a two hour ordeal to a hour and a half. I must say though, expect to to spend some time buffing your nails once you finish applying the acrylic. Some of my nails I applied a bit too much acrylic and it takes some time to buff out the uneven lumps, although I didn't get them smooth as I would have liked it. The truth was I was little tired so I just decided they would do. Also, I found that Seche Vite doesn't work as well on these nails as my natural nails, it didn't give me the shine that I wanted so I used Zoya Armour. There were some really good, detailed instructions included in the kit that I think would help anyone who is a beginner (like me) that wouldn't know what to do.

Bottom line,I would recommend this kit. It gets a thumbs up from me! Anyone else ever try to do their own acrylics? Or do you want to try your hand at acrylics but haven't? Let me know!

My attempt at a gradient manicure

Notice, the key word in the title of this post, attempt. This was much better in my head, but not so great in translation. I like the new color I made though. Here are the colors I used:

Zoya Malia as the base, China Glaze Grape Juice as the second coat, Sinful Colors Purple Diamond as the third coat.

The manicure:

I think I'll try gradient manicures again, but with other colors. Pink and blue come to mind...

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** A NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS LEFT ON MY BLOG*

I've been really busy with school and projects lately so I may be slow to responding. However, I DO appreciate all the comments you've left! Thanks for stopping by!

Santee Sky Blue

Sunlight

Indoors

Another day, another Santee polish. Now I normally don't go for pearl/metallic finishes on my polishes because I don't like the streaky appearance they give. However, this blue was just so pretty to me I had to get it. I keep wanting to call it Ice Blue instead of Sky Blue and I don't know why. This is four coats + Seche Vite! Why four coats? Well I could have stopped at two, but it was still too pale for me, so I did three. However, I hit my nail on the table and made a dent in my polish. So there goes the fourth coat. In the end, I like the depth that four coats gives this polish color. It dried pretty quickly. I still don't think I care for this type of polish though.