It's not just nails!

Warning: the following content is not nail related.

I own a grand total of two lipsticks. I love both but one was bought on accident and the other was bought back in 2004 and I love it so I refuse to get rid of it till I can replace it with a new one. I don't really like lipstick. It's very rare that I find a shade that looks good on me, hence the nine year old tube sitting in my bedside table.

What I really prefer, I'm addicted to, is lip gloss. I own probably twenty lip glosses. Tubes and pallets. For me, I never have a problem finding a lip gloss that is a good shade on me. It sparkles, and it makes me feel all girley. There is also one advantage that lip gloss has over lip stick. Plumping. See I have what most of my family loving refers to as chicken lips. In other words, I have thin lips. Oh how I have longed for fuller lips ski can sport some red lip stick. But no, that dream will never happen, mostly because I'm too scared of needles. That is where lip gloss comes in. It's sparkly shinny lush gloss alone can make lips appear fuller. Add to that, the plumping glosses and at least my lips don't look like I drew a line on my face where my mouth goes.

Plumping gloss works because it normally has some sort of menthol product in it which causes your lips to swell just a tiny bit making them appear fuller. I'll be honest here, although I love the fact that some of these plumping glosses actually work, I really love them for the tingle they give to my lips. If it works or not, if it tingles I love it.

But are there any out there that really do work? Sure there are. I love buxom lip gloss because my lips look full and pouty, it tingles, and its not sticky. I used my entire tube in like two weeks. Another great one is physicians formula. I've only found it at cvs even though other places sell the brand, the plumping is hard to find. It's glossy, shiny, tingles, and does give me a good pout. However, it smells funky and at my cvs they only have clear and two colors. I've tried others. Hard candy has one but while I love the color it doesn't really plump or tingle.

If you prefer your lips to not tingle but want a pout try using a lighter gloss over your lip stick or another gloss. Just use the lighter one in the middle of your lips. Gives the illusion of a pout with out the tingle or price tag of plumping gloss. Basically just do what works for you. Play with colors, try something new, and finally gloss on my fellow lip gloss lovers, gloss on.

The pic below is of my physicians formula right after I put it on and then about twenty minutes later. It may smell bad but it is still my to to gloss till I get my hands on some more buxom.

Work, mom, organize!

Sorry it has been so long since I have wrote. I got a promotion at work, to manager, and life has been pretty crazy ever since. So as a quick post, here is something I found yesterday on Instagram and want to share with y'all. It's called nail polish book. It's an app on the iPhone (not sure if android users can get it) and its only purpose is to help you organize your polish collection.
I love this app for several reasons. It has many ways for you to search through your collection. You can search by name, shade, brand, or even collection. You can take a pic of the polish and see it when you search. It's super easy to add polishes. It also has a notes section for each polish so you can put where it's stores making it easy to find the polish you want. Plus, when your out and about you could use it to show a sales associate the color you want or show off your collection to your friends, neighbors, that cute guy you had a crush on on, that snobby girl who pretends to like you but secretly hates you because she thinks she is better than you. I love talking about my polish collection and nails with anyone who will listen to me but now I can show them my collection.

In the end it's really all about what works to help you be organized and get stuff done quick. For me, this app helps.

Holo Techno Oh No

This is my first official blog post from my computer! I'm really excited because it is so much easier to blog on a computer than on my phone. Except for the part where my phone will correct my poor spelling. That part was awesome. The hardest part has been trying to figure out how to connect my iPhone 4s to my Windows run computer. Did I mention I am not a techno minded person? Cause I'm not. Anyway, this post is all about the wonderful art of franken polish. What is franken polish you ask? A franken polish is a nail polish that is home/ hand made. You can take some of your existing brand name nail polishes and mix them to create a new color. Take a clear polish and add powder eye shadow to create a polish that matches your favorite eye shadow. Or, my personal favorite, buy a bottle of base from a craft company, I use tkb trading. Then buy some glitters, pigments, dyes, powders, to add to your base. TKB trading sells two types of base polish, one for pigments and one for glitters. I prefer the one made for glitters just because I started out using glitters and it works great for pigments and powders too.

Starting out making polishes that are clear with glitter is the best place to start. You can mix different glitters to make your own unique polish. Take inspiration from some of your favorite things. My latest collection was inspired by the book I'm currently reading. It is important to note that you have to use a certain type of glitter. When looking for glitter, you will want solvent resistant glitter. It won't melt in the base, won't curl when you apply it, and the color won't melt off in the base. I've had this last happen and although I loved the end result, I hardly ever use the polish because some of the glitter curls after it all dries. I get my glitter from girly bits.

Once you are comfortable and have a good idea of the polish making process, you can now graduate to the many powders, effects, and colors. Trust me when I say that there is an endless array of possibilities. So many different effects are possible. Not to mention the colors. Jellies, pearls, mattes, shimmery, holographic, mirror, cream. It's endless! I placed an order about a month ago for about twenty different powders with many different effects, jellies in the three primary colors, three bottles of different effects (mirror, holo, and diamond), polish base, twenty empty nail polish bottles, and twenty tiny funnels. Too bad I had to go to work. But when I got home the next morning, I wasted no time in creating five new polishes, all different colors, and all with different effects. So far my favorite is a dusty rosey pink holographic polish I call Into The Ever After. Right now I'm wearing it over OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons.

If you are a polish addict like me, then this is a great next step in expanding your collection. You will have polishes that no one else has. Plus, when someone compliments you on your polish, you can beam with pride and tell them you made it your self. And if your brave enough or business minded, you can sell your polishes. I'm actually thinking about doing a local arts and crafts show next chance I get.


Below, is pictured: Boy Girl Party over a black cream base, a blue shimmery color shifting polish called True Blue, swatches of my latest babies jokingly called the lucky 13,Manage Me over a blue OPI, and my current fave Into The Ever After.

Free time mani

It's the middle of the night here and everyone is asleep. Am I up cleaning? Preping tomorrow's meals? Digging through Pinterest for my next project? Nope. I'm up doing swatches of jelly sandwiches. I wanted to share these because while doing them I learned that not all jelly sandwiches are created equal. Plus I found a new way to do them and wanted to share.

First I painted five nails with wet and wild black creme and five with Essie Bordeaux. For fun I used four of my own creations plus a nopi I've only used once. From left to right: nopi Selena Gomez unknown name but its irredescent flakies, New Years resolution, your speaking Ancient Greek, boy girl party, and wicked queen. The last four are mine. You can see how each glitter looks on the base, each on black and the red. Once dried, I applied the Essie on top of all of them. I repeated this once more, glitter then Essie. Five layers of polish all together. Seems kind of thick, I know, but I like the depth it gives to the sandwich.

The nopi sandwich turned out horribly. It's really lumpy and the cool look of the flakies is totally lost. Your speaking Ancient Greek was second worst. You can't really see the glitter and that defeats the whole purpose. As for the other three, they all look pretty good. Of the three my favorite is the two done with wicked queen, which is a clear base with red tiny hex glitter and holo square tiny glitter. It was inspired by my daughters love of pretending to be the wicked queen from Snow White.

After taking forever to do these I wanted to try to create a near perfect jelly sandwich. These two are the black and red base with orly too fab then the red then orly then red. IMO this looks best with the black base. (Last pic is of orly sandwich)

In the end, you should try different combos for your jellies. It's really a fun simple form of nail art with endless possibilities thanks to the endless combos you can make.

Valentines day (the not so traditional way)

Seven years I've been with my sweety. Seven years and we are to the point of non traditional romance. Romance for us is being able to sleep in the same bed with out our dd in between us. It's watching tv together or just riding around for no reason listening to music. The traditional romance is long gone for us but what we have now works. That's why for Valentin's day I'm rocking some non traditional love nails. What do most girls love? Diamonds! This is also a perfect time to do a review of my newest baby.

What you see below is nothing short of sex on my fingers. The base coat is wet and wild black creme. The little blue heart is my favorite color china glaze for audry. On top of the black and under the heart is my new baby. Azature black diamond polish. Azature is known for making the worlds most expensive nail polish, $250000 for a bottle! But us mere mortals can buy a bottle that has one real black diamond crushed up in it for $25. Not such a bad price. I splurged on one I found on amazon. When it came in the mail I immediately removed my boring old polish and proceeded to apply the beauty you see on my nails. When I said this was sex on my nails, I ment it. Seriously. It applied like a dream. It's clearish even with two coats which is why I put it over a black, except for under the heart. I literally felt like a rock star wearing this. I wore red lip stick for the first time while wearing this mani. It just had that effect on me.

Now azature has come out with even more polishes. Pink, red, blue, green, and a few others, all inspired by rare diamonds. You can't get these on amazon yet but you can order them from ronrobinson.com for only $25. I'm planning on getting a few in pink and red and maybe champagne. If you really wanna splurge on a polish I suggest this. You will not regret it. And as azature loves saying, shine bright my diamonds, shine bright.

Mommy is roughing it

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been fighting a horrible tooth ache and bad reaction to the antibiotics ( mostly due to the fact I was taking them wrong. Oops.) Anyway, here is a quick post on some new polish I picked up just yesterday at the salon after I got my hair cut. This is the Mariah Carey opi liquid sand set. On my manicure you can see for the base I used stay the night, a black base with red glitter. For the tip of my index finger I used can't let go, a purple base with loads of tiny purple glitter and some larger hex glitter. Ring has the impossible, a fuchsia base with loads of small fuchsia glitter and some larger fuchsia hex glitter. On the pinky is get your number, a blue base with loads of tiny blue glitter and some larger blue hex glitter.

How to describe this polish. It applies like any other polish, but when it's dry it feels like very fine sand on my nails. It's a matte finish but the glitter stays shiny. I really wasn't sure if I would like this or not. I'm a smooth nail kinda gal. However, it's different and kinda cool looking and really has potential for some amazing manis. Shown on my nails is two coats of each color. On the nail wheel is one coat. Should you decide to try out the mini set some things to note. My brushes kept going all wonky and didn't want to go into the bottle right. Also this polish does take a little longer to dry than normal but that may be because I'm so use to using a quick dry top coat.

No two brands are created equal

This post is late and my nails are naked, both for a good reason. It's been a sad week for my close and extended family. But you don't come here for that. You come for nails, and nails you shall get. On today's blog I will be talking about several brands of polish and the pros and cons of them. This will include both high end and cheepies. Let me start by saying this. It is true that not all brands are created equal. You may find that while your friend just has to have only Chanel polish because anything less is junk, for you Chanel just will not wear for more that a day while pure ice will last a week. Why is this? Body chemistry. Your chemistry is different from others and it does affect how your polish wears. That is why I swatched my polishes on nail wheels for a base line idea of how each polish applies, dries, and looks in one coat.

Pure ice is a cheepie I find at Walmart. This brand has a ton of colors and tends to stay up with the current trends in polish and only cost around three dollars. Why I love this brand: cheep, goes on smooth, most colors look good in just one coat. Why I don't like this brand: my only complaint is drying time. You really gotta wait a while for it to dry or you risk dinging them.

Color show is by maybelline and cost about the same as the pure ice. I get mine at Walmart but I've also seen them at cvs. Why I love this brand: cheep, cute colors, fairly good application, fairly quick drying time. Why I don't like this brand: not a large selection of colors.

Finger paints is a brand I found on accident one day while shopping. I get mine at Sally's beauty and costs about five dollars. Why I love this brand: sort of cheep, great selection of colors, goes on smooth, drys quick, looks good in one coat. Why I don't like this brand: I can only find this at one store where I live, can look weird if it settles. I don't know why that puts me off but it does. I got two of these on clearance and the bottom was a strange color while the majority of the bottle looks fine.

Sinful colors is another cheep brand, I think around four dollars and I get it at Walmart. Why I love this brand: cheep, dries quick. Why I don't like this brand: finding it in Walmart (which is the only place I've found it) is like finding the gold at the end of a rainbow, one coat is really thin so you will need more than one.

Revlon is a well known brand and can be found in most drug stores and places like Walmart and costs about six to eight dollars. Why I love this brand: it's super easy to find, goes on smooth, dries fairly quick, loads of colors to pick from. Why I don't like this brand: colors that are it and high demand tend to be hard to find a week or two after they come out and the price can be a little high if your looking to spend only a few dollars.

Essie is a brand that use to be only sold at drug stores or beauty stores but is now sold at Walmart. The price is usually between six and eight dollars, though, I've found them for less on amazon. Why I love this brand: goes on smooth, wears great, beautiful colors, dries fairly quick, wonderful jellies for those jelly sandwiches. Why I don't like this brand: more than one coat on some, more popular colors can be really hard to find.

Sparitual is a brand I just discovered via Instagram. I had to order my mini four pack set from amazon and it cost about ten dollars. Why I love this brand: it's vegan, three free, beautiful colors, good dry time, good application. Why I don't like this brand: have to order it, expensive, more than one coat.

Hard candy. When I was a teenager this was the it brand. So cool because it came with a ring and could only be found in department stores. I wanted just one so bad. Finally, as a grown up, just as I was getting back to nails, they started selling them at Walmart. I bought three on the spot. I've used them one time each and hated them more each time. Application sucks because of the thickness. It dries too slow for me. The feel is textured when it shouldn't be. Takes forever to get off, even worse than glitter polish. And finally, the smell is so harsh it gives me a headache. I, personally, will never buy this brand again.

Deborah Lippmann is a more high end brand and costs between ten and sometimes twenty five dollars, depending on the popularity of the color and where you get it. Why I love this brand: the colors are beautiful, goes on smooth, great sets. Why I don't like this brand: it's is expensive, hard to find for me, does need more than one coat, bottle is a big square so it's hard to hold while painting.

Spoiled is a cheapish brand of polish I get from cvs for about four dollars. Why I love this brand: goes on smooth, dries pretty quick, cost is good, pretty good selection of colors. Why I don't like this brand: only one place in town has it, needs more than one coat.

Julep is fairly new to me. I only own one and that is only because I won it in a give away. I've checked prices and it can go from five dollars plus shipping to twenty dollars. Why I love this brand: it only takes one coat, for a metallic frost sort of color it doesn't streak, dries pretty quick, the bottle is slim and square and easy to hold. Why I don't like this color: too hard to find I can't go to a store near by and buy it and amazon is limited in the colors they have and shipping for them is too much.

Wet and wild quick dry was not intended for me. I got it for my daughter because it is cheap and quick dry. It costs about three dollars. Why I love this brand: fairly good color selection, does dry faster than normal polish, goes on smooth. Why I don't like this brand: needs more than one coat which to me a quick dry polish shouldn't need more than one coat.

Butter London is a wonderful brand I discovered via Instagram and fell in love with after just my first bottle, which I paid about ten dollars for on amazon. Why I love this brand: goes on smooth, only needs one coat, all colors available on amazon, looks beautiful on. Why I don't like this brand: bottle is odd shaped so its hard to hold and polish, costs quite a bit, one color I got said it looks good on every single person no matter what their skin tone and I honestly hate it on me cause I think it makes my fingers look blotchy but maybe that's just me.

Orly is a higher end brand that I thought I would try because the pics I had seen of their black looked amazing. I paid like eight dollars for it at Sally beauty. Look I can't say why I like this brand because I don't. The amazing black was not amazing. It took at least two coats and was such a pain to take off. Plus it costs too much for something I'm just not happy with. You may like it but I don't.

Opi is another higher end brand mostly sold in salons and online. I get all my opi from the salon inside Walmart for about nine dollars but sometimes they have a sale like last week where I got a buy one get two free. Not much to pick from but I found three colors I loved. Why I love this brand: goes on smooth, wears well, loads and loads and loads of colors, collections are fab, sort of easy to find. Why I don't like this color: sort of hard to find for me buy easily found online, cost is kind of high, some colors do need more than one coat.

Sally Hansen fast dry. I own two, bright green and really red. Paid about six dollars for them each. Why I love this brand: goes on smooth, wide brush, dries really fast, good wear. Why I don't like this brand: wide brush that you may not like, cost is almost as high as brands like opi. I should say here that I do love this brand a lot. When it says fast dry they mean it and love that its one coat.

Finally there is china glaze. This is also a higher end brand that I get at Sally beauty for between six and eight dollars. Why I love this brand: goes on smooth, loads of colors, wears well, dries fairly quick, easy for me to find, makers of my fave color. Why I don't like this color: kind of expensive.

So there you have it. Honestly this post has been a hard one for me because when I started it I had two tragedies happen in my family and I've been sick. It's takes me a week to finish but here it is. Right now I'm obsessed with three brands: opi, china glaze who make for Aubrey which is my favorite color, and finger paints. I've also discovered a wonderful kids brand called piggy paints. It's an all natural brand with no smell and is perfectly safe for your little princess. This is no where near a complete list of every brand of polish out there. These are just some of the more popular brands and ones I own.

In the pictures below you can see the bottles in the order they are listed here and on the nail wheel are swatches of each starting from bottom left and going to bottom right with a blank nail in the middle bottom.