Guess Who's Back...

...back again...Dee is back!...Tell a friend....guess who's back guess who's back...LOL

For those of you who haven't fallen away and moved on to bigger and better things, let me apologize for neglecting my blog.  2011 was crazy.  So much to do so little time.  Priorities took over and unfortunately my blog became a victim to my hectic schedule.  Anywho, it wasn't just my blog that I was neglecting, but my nails were being neglected too....at least from a polish perspective.  While I cannot promise regular daily postings, or even weekly postings, I will say that I will try to post more often this year (at least when inspiration strikes).  Though I haven't posted in practically a year, I have been following my fellow polish bloggers.  One blogger in particular that I'm a fan of is Colette and her blog My Simple Little Pleasures, and her specialty is water-marble manis.  Watching her tutorials inspired me to try it for myself.  So last night, I threw caution to the wind and tried it for myself.

Here are my results:

Not to shabby for my first attempt, huh?? (BTW please excuse my mummy cuticles.  I got lazy.  LOL)  If there's anyone who doesn't know about the water-marbling technique, my description is that it's a throwback to kindergarten art class with the tub of water, sprinkling paint in the water, taking a stick to swirl the colors and then taking some paper and dipping it in the tub...but instead of paint and paper, you use your nails and polish.  Check out Colette's blog and tutorials here for a better idea.  I used 4 polishes (1) OPI "Alpine Snow" (base color & in water marbling) (2) OPI "Rumples Wiggin'' (3) Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear "Pacific Blue" (4) Wet n Wild "On a Trip".

Overall I love the result, although I didn't love the process at the beginning.  You have to use room-temp filtered water, and I STRESS temperature of the water is key.  Too cold and the polish will freeze up and  not spread along the top of the water.  You'll have little droplets of polish at the bottom of the cup.  I forget the reason for using filtered water, but since that's what Colette says, her word is good enough for me.  It's a lot of trial and error - what polishes work on their own, do they play well with other polishes in the water, making the pattern and working fast enough so that the polish doesn't set up before you finish working on the pattern.  Once that happens, the polish becomes like the skin that develops when you make pudding.  It's RUINED!  I was frustrated at certain points.  It's a messy process and when I wasn't succeeding, I felt like I was wasting polish.  

BUT..I figure with more practice I'll get the hang of it, waste less polish, and also experiment with cheaper polish.  Note also, water-marbling doesn't seem to work with polishes that set really fast i.e. (Sally Hansen Fast Dry polish)....I could be wrong though....I'm off to practice some more!!  J/K I'm going to bed now.  Night night.  Sorry for the long rant/post :)

Forget Snap & Pop because it's all about the CRACKLE

I have to be honest. When I first saw that crackle polish was making a comeback, my initial reaction was, "Eh".  I saw the Black Shatter that was released with the Serena Williams and Katy Perry collections and thought it was cool, but may not be for me....that is until I saw Black Shatter over Katy Perry's "The One that Got Away".  I caved and got the OPI Black Shatter.  THEN I saw that China Glaze released a colored Crackle collection!!! "Must have!!" Unfortunately, I was way behind this release and it was already sold out in all my usual spots, so I figured I'd wait until the demand died down for them.

"The Polish Powers-that-Be" must have wanted me to add some crackle in my life because I unexpectedly got a hold of the majority of the collection.  It's a funny story actually.  I stopped at a local (not my regular) Sally Beauty to pick up a styling drape/cape for when I cut my son's hair.  I figured I'd check out the nail polishes in case any of the crackles were there, but if not, why not check out if there are any interesting colors I could add to my collection.  I didn't see any display for the Crackle polishes, but got a few regular polishes and the cape.  When I go to the cashier, and she starts ringing me up, she looks up and says to me, "You want some crackle?" In turn I ask, "YOU HAVE SOME??!" She then says, "Yeah, we have a whole bunch behind here. The only one we don't have is the purple one."  She brings out a bottle of each, and I tell her I'll take all of them except the black since I already have a black one.  She mentions, "I ask all the girls that come in if they want them, and I saw your basket and knew you'd probably want some.  Everyone came in looking for them when we were sold out, and now nobody asks since they think we don't have them anymore."  She totally made my day.  I told my hubby, when I got back in the car, and he laughed and said, "Almost sounds like she asked, 'You want some crack?'"  My husband the comedian.

Okay, enough with the jabber...here's Crushed Candy over two coats of Orly's La Vida Loca.  (I first attempted to put CC over KP's Teenage Dream, but I didn't like the result.  Not enough "pop" in my crackle")

Total 80's retro look and I LOVE IT!!!!

Love the CG Crackles as much as I do? What have you done with them lately?

Ombre Manicure

Let me preface this post by apologizing for my absence and noting that this post is WAA----AY overdue.  LOL.  My life had gotten a bit hectic and I had some unexpected personal issues that needed to be handled, so manis/pedis were the last thing on my mind.  Anywho, now that things have calmed down, I can FINALLY do another post.  I finally decided to do an ombre manicure with my fave teal/turquoise polishes.  Though the picture below seems to wash out the colors and bring out the blue more than the green(clear case in point is Peacock which looks straight up blue in this pic instead of a rich jewel teal).  I tried to color correct, but wasn't able to do so. *sigh* You'll just have to take my word that this mani looks better in real life. :) 



This will be a first of many ombres I will try, and I hope I can get better representations posted later on down the road. 

Seche Vite Gripe

I'm starting to have a love/hate relationship with Seche Vite, leaning more towards the hate side.  I love the glossiness and the flash-dry capability, but I HATE this shrinkage.  I didn't have any shrinkage through the first half of my bottle, but it seems that once I got to the half-way mark, this thing decided to pull an attitude and decided to say, "Eh, I'm not going to work so great for you anymore."  So I decided to buy a bottle of Seche Restore, which honestly hasn't restored anything.  I'm about to throw this bottle out.  Is it too much to ask for a quick-drying top coat that leaves a glossy finish, but doesn't cause shrinkage and ruin a beautiful mani?? (rhetorical question...well somewhat).  Ladies help me here please.  Am I missing some important step, trick, to be able to have a good working relationship with this stupid bottle of Seche?  Or is there a good alternative?  My Super Shiney + Quick-drying drops combo is not cutting it for me.  Super Shiney is neither "super" nor "shiney", and the quick-drying drops aren't really quick (if 5-7 mins is "quick") nor fully drying. *Ugh* Any help/tips/suggestions are much appreciated. :)

My first Epic FAIL

Ulta was having a buy 3 get 1 free deal, so I decided to purchase most of the polishes from Orly's 2010 Sweet Collection.  I decided against getting Cotton Candy and opted for getting Velvet Rope instead.  Purple plus glitter??!! No brainer.  Two weeks ago, I finally decided to wear it, and low and behold, I now have buyer's remorse.   Take a look:

Granted this photo was taken without a top coat, but not even a coat of Seche Vite could save this one in my opinion.  While I LOVE the color, the glitter KILLS it.  There's no sparkle, just chunks.  The polish isn't jelly so instead of the glitter coming through, the more the polish is layered, the glitter ends up getting covered.  It's like the glitter was thrown in as an afterthought, when it would have been better just to leave it out all together.  I love Orly, and this is my first real disappointment.  Ugh :(

deborah lippmann's Across the Universe

I know every other blogger has posted this, or it's "so last year's news", but I LOVE IT! So :-p  LOL j/k.  As previously mentioned, I purchased Across The Universe along with Bad Romance as part of my retail therapy.  I'm so glad I bought it because it is GORGEOUS! Check it!

Indoor Shot

Direct Sunlight

I applied 3 coats, plus base/top coat.  Like Bad Romance, the hex glitter made it a bit difficult to wrap the tips (which explains the huge dry patch on my index finger; not a chip but a piece of glitter that fell off).  This polish reminds me of the DVD/Soundtrack cover of Julie Taymor's film Across the Universe with Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess.  If you're a Beatles fan, then I think you'll enjoy the movie.  I leave you with my fave lyric from the song Across the Universe:

Limitless undying love

which shines around me like a million suns

It calls me on and on across the universe

Essie - Sew Pysched

Here's one of my lastest Essie additions.  I saw swatches of Sew Pysched on various blogs, and it seemed interesting enough to add to my continually growing collection.  Application was great.  Only took 2 coats for complete opaque coverage.  The only drawback that I have with Sew Psyched is that in the bottle it seems to have some shimmer (can sort of see it in the bottle in pics 1 & 3), yet when applied to the nail, whatever shimmer was in the bottle disappears.  If there was a little shimmer or duochrome or something, would give this unique color a little more sumin' sumin'. :)