I have a job!

I started a new job this week as a retail assistant in HMV. For my first day, I painted my nails to match the uniform and I thought I'd do a quick post to show you! 

From a conversation I had on Twitter, I gather that HMV definitely exists in Singapore, Canada and obviously here in the UK, but there are no stores in the USA so apologies if you don't recognise the imagery!

I used A-England Lancelot* as a base. For the lettering and logo, I used white acrylic paint and Nails Inc Shoreditch. The lettering was all done with a dotting tool. My pinky is a stamp from Bundle Monster plate BM225 using Sally Hansen Chrome Anemone.

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Color Club Kiss Me Mistletoe

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

Last night I had to do a quickie gel and color change, and the polish I used was Color Club Kiss Me Mistletoe from their Scent-suous Holiday Collection.  It's a light green foil, very well pigmented (two coats was plenty), and it smells like a mistletoe scented candle.  I've had it on for close to twenty-four hours, and it's worth noting that the fragrance is pretty much gone while the others I've tried from this collection have stayed pleasantly scented for a couple of days.

I was dreading changing the soak-off gel base I've had for a little over a week because I initially applied it to repair two cracks, and I really hate doing repairs.  I took a short nap yesterday and in that weird half-asleep state waking up, saw a teeny edge of gel lifted from a nail, decided I'd change it when I got home late, and peeled off a big piece.  I have no idea why it would make sense to do the last part, but evidently it did.  On this gel application, I violated all manufacturers' suggestions and didn't do any of the prep (buffing, primer, bonder) to see if it would hold and make the removal easier.  It turned out to be a good but inconvenient decision - when I was washing my hair to go out last night, I kept feeling that peeled edge snag, so once I was done with my hair I peeled it again, and the soak off gel and polish peeled off just like a regular manicure will in the pool after you've been swimming for a couple of hours.

When the that one came off completely, I started trying to get the others to do the same while still under the super hot shower, and it worked surprisingly easily - I scraped a corner of each nail with the opposite thumbnail to get an edge to come up, and once the edge lifted I could peel it right off with ease.  So that made for one of the easiest removals of anything I've ever had, but had to be somewhere shortly and suddenly had bare nails.  With the cold, they'd break right away while bare, so I went with drip-dry hair and no makeup in order to at least get some gel on them.  I felt like I was in one of those Lee nail repair kit commercials from the 80's.

Re-doing the glue on the cracks then applying and curing the Gelicure base and sealer took only twenty minutes, so I figured I'd get the polish on and be done with it.  I used two coats of Kiss Me Mistletoe and one of Essie Good to Go, and it dried fast and smelled really good.  I'm a little sad that the smell is gone, because I kept finding myself sniffing it!  I took a picture just a bit ago in the last afternoon sunlight.

Color Club Kiss Me Mistletoe Nail Polish, Two Coats

Even without the fragrance, Kiss Me Mistletoe is a pretty polish - I'd wear this one even if it were not scented.

That's what I have for you today, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

ADORme - Metallic Green

I've been so busy lately that I haven't done any swatching, and I've only been changing my mani every two - three days. One of those manis was an amazing dark blue glitter franken that I made, but stupid me only photographed it in VGA mode (which is what I set the camera to when taking photos of the colour morphing powder/spectraflair envelopes before I post them).  So the photos I took of that mani are just terrible and I refuse to post them here.  I will have to redo them.

After this post I officially have no spare swatch photos to post! 

This polish is one my mum picked up at the local dollar shop.  The brand is ADORme and they stink to high heaven.  But the polish is great.  It wore well and covered in two coats easily.  In fact it would probably be ok to stamp with as well.

I love foil finishes, and I didn't have one this colour in my collection, so it was a great score.  It was also under $2.

I love finding these random brands from China, the problem is that next time you visit the store it's unlikely that you will see the same brand or colours again.  So if you see something you like, grab it then.

Also, I'm looking for some recommendations for a cuticle remover.  The ones that you paint around your nails and they dissolve the dead skin off the edge of your nail near the cuticle.  If anyone has a good recommendation I'd be very grateful.

Cocktail, with a touch of gold

Hi everyone~ On Saturday, I attended my church's annual end of year dinner. The dress code was 'cocktail, with a touch of gold'. I decided that bit of gold to be my nails...surprised? :P

I started off with two coats of Hello Kitty Golden girl. This is a beautiful soft gold foil - I can't believe I didn't try this sooner! I tend to shy away from golds as I feel they clash with my yellow based skin tone  ^^;; Not this one though! It dried extremely fast too, I was applying the first coat onto my third nail and accidentally touched my pinky...well, it was dry already so there was no need to redo that nail! :D

On my thumb and fourth finger, I layered on one coat of Nicole by OPI Disco dolls. I used Ulta3 black satin and lily white for the flowers before going back over the petals with Golden girl. The centre of the flower was filled with Disco dolls.

The Hello Kitty nail polish is available in Priceline stores now and retail for $9.95 each. I personally haven't seen any of the Hello Kitty cosmetics in the stores I've walked into so it may be a good idea to call into the stores to check if they have it.

I love this mani loads and received quite a few compliments on the night ^^ What do you think of this mani?

Thanks for dropping by!
~Sharon

A product was provided for consideration. For more information, please view my disclosure policy.

Short getaway

Dear valued customers,

I will be away for a short holiday from 5th to 17th dec 2011. Hopefully, come by some interesting nail stuffs in Japan and bring them back (hand carry in) fresh from Japan.

Meantime, I understand that it's festive season, many of you many be considering of purchasing some colors as a gift to you gfs etc or Salons who need colors to pull through christmas please do drop me an email to confirm your orders ASAP.

Colors will be sold on first come first serve basis (mean those who paid first will get there colors first of course). As it's festive season, colors do run out easily and US is practically on holiday mood already, it is pretty impossible to get more orders delivered to as on time as I would love to. Hence I further emphasis, first come first serve basis on satisfying orders.

Once you dropped me an email, check for replies on payment instructions, only when you have paid (in full or in partial) is ur orders confirmed.

One more update I have FULL China glaze collection now!!!!!! Orders on colors other than glitters can be placed anytime 

Thats all for now 

So stay tune for more updates.

With 
Evelyn
Thenailindustry

Lip Care For Chapped Lips

Chapped lips are a common problem affecting many women, especially during the cold season. But now a days, many lip balms are available on the market, lip balms made with lip-creams cure chemically, can affect the softness and natural lip color.

Protect your lips - lips cracked CARE

Pure butter cow's milk is the best natural medicine chapped lips. When you feel your lips are cracked to apply for this victory. Pure butter can be applied multiple times during the day to protect your lips.

The protection of lips:

Until the end of time to apply balm natural lip to protect your lips.

Massaging lips with ghee and leaves a thin layer of it on your lips all night appears as a natural

TIPS FOR PROTECTION LIPS - cracked lips CARE

* Apply moisturizer herbal constantly on the lips.

* Apply a thin coat of natural balm on the lips before lipstick.

* Dip small cotton gauze in warm clarified butter (ghee) and place it on the lips for 20 minutes.

* Before going to bed do not forget to remove the lipstick and the use of herbal cleansers and apply a thin layer of ghee on the lips.

* Do not lick lips repeatedly.

* Honey is another natural remedy for better lips. Honey can be applied to small cuts on the lips, because it is pure and clean.

* If you have sun damaged lips, so then just use an aloe vera gel on your lips. You can rub the soft tissues of Aloe Vera on the lips to moisturize and exfoliate them.

* Shea Butter is a very useful extremely sensitive to the lips.

Cavalry Baseball nails #3

I said I was going to do Canberra Cavalry baseball nails for every home game, so here are the nails I wore for this weekends home series.

The team finally got white uniforms for home games this season, so because they were wearing their whites, I decided to as well (with an accent nail).  I don't do accent nails very often, but I really love them.  I think I will do them more!  

I also layered a Spectraflair top coat over the white.  It looks amazing.  Holo topcoat over white certainly curbs my lemming for Glitter Gal Light as a Feather.

The orange polish is Picture Polish Citrus.  It's the perfect bright orange creme.  A lovely summer colour.

Here is a close up of my accent nail.  This is a water decal that I had made up from a site on eBay.  The only tricky bit is that the decals are on transparent paper, so I have to create a white dot on my nail.  I did this by punching a hole in a piece of paper and then sticking that to our glass table.  I then used that paper as a konad template and put my polish in the hole, wiped it off, picked up the polish circle and stamped it on.  It worked amazingly well.  And the hole punch I had was the perfect size for the shaded baseball on the decal.

Here is a close up of the holo topcoat on the white.  Sooooooo purdy!!!

And now a quick story about the local wildlife.  

Yesterday Mr Three was playing out in the backyard and came sprinting inside.  He told me he saw a really big dinosaur outside.  I grabbed my camera and followed him out.  I asked him where it was and he walked me up to under the apple tree.  "Don't get too close mummy, you don't want it to bite you". Of course there was nothing to be seen anywhere, but we have now figured out that he saw some sort of lizard!  We've had blue tongue lizards in the backyard before, but I'm not sure what this one was.

While out there I heard another strange sound which I investigated.  Sitting on the side fence was this very cute and fluffy baby kookaburra.  The kookaburra's have been laughing their heads off here recently with all the stormy and wet weather.  It's mother and father were flying around in the gum trees too.  I snapped a picture of one of them with a MASSIVE spider in it's mouth, but forgot that the camera setting was only on VGA and not 10MP. D'oh!  But then again, I'm sure not too many of you would want to see that spider in the birds mouth.  We grow them big down here!

The other week when I was playing golf, there was a huge troop of kangaroos (and apparently 'troop' is the correct terminology for a group of them!)  I really wished I had taken my camera to show my international readers just how close the roos roam near us down here!  I want to share more pics of the local wildlife, I hope you all don't mind.

Models Own Beetle Juice Purple Blue

Good evening, Dear Reader!

I changed polish tonight to Models Own Beetle Juice Purple Blue from their latest collection, which are duochromes.  Purple Blue isn't particularly impressive in the bottle, but it's a lot cooler applied.  Rather than the usual color shifting duochrome pigment, Purple Blue has a bunch of purple and blue shimmery pigment throughout, so both colors are pretty consistently reflected.  I think it works out well.

For the manicure, I used three coats of color and finished it off with Essie Good to Go.  The soak-of gel base I've had for seven days is starting to have a bit of lifting on one nail (still impressive after five color changes with acetone-based remover used), and Essie Super Bossa Nova wore very well on it  for three days with no chips or tip wear at all.  I liked the gel, so when I remove the worn application, I'll put on a new one.  Anyhow, back to Beetle Juice Purple Blue, after it dried I took pictures under artificial light.

Models Own Beetle Juice Purple Blue Nail Polish, Three Coats

Here are a couple of closer looks at the shimmer, where you can get a better look and the purple and blue shimmery bits.

Models Own Beetle Juice Purple Blue Nail Polish, Closer Look at Shimmer

Models Own Beetle Juice Purple Blue Nail Polish, Even Closer Look at Shimmer

It's not quite what I'd expected, but the name is accurate and it definitely shows two distinct colors at the same time.

That's the next Models Own Beetle Juice and all I have for you today, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

Guess the holo pretty revealed & a gorgeous layering :)

Hi ladies~ I have a lovely layering combination to show you all today! I started off with two coats of China Glaze Emerald sparkle before layering one coat of China Glaze Atlantis over it. Emerald sparkle by itself is simply divine - add on the holo glitter though and you've got nothing short of amazing <3

Oh, and here is the bottle shot of the sneak peek I showed in my previous post :) Yeah, this was in natural light, indoors and no sun. And still so much holo goodness! :D

Thanks for reading!
~Sharon

Pac-Man Nail Art!

A few days ago, a twitter friend suggested I do Pac-Man nails and I instantly jumped on the idea! Pac-Man was on my short-list for the Week of Geek but didn't end up making the cut and I guess I just forgot about the idea until Araneae mentioned it.

I used yellow (George Buttercup shine) as a base for my ring finger and black (Rimmel Black satin) for all the others. I used a nail art brush to freehand the outline of Pac-Man with black acrylic paint then black polish to fill out the remaining bits of nail.

For the ghosts, I used white acrylic paint to make out the shapes and then coloured them in using Miss Sporty Orange, Barry M Raspberry and L'Oreal Bebe. The blue of the maze is Barry M Cyan Blue which I painted on with a striping brush and I used a dotting tool with La Femme Grey Cream for the pac-dots.

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Models Own - Purple Blue

So we all know that the Models Own Beetlejuice collection is awesome, right?  And we all agree that the names are crap, right?  And we've all see lots of swatches on every one's blogs, right?  And now you wish we would all just move right along onto the next big thing?  I'm starting to feel just a little bit over this collection right now, but I must finish with my last post about Purple Blue.

Here it is in all it's glory.  The blue in this is a very interesting steel blue, with a very metallic look in brighter light.

Next up is the comparison shot.  It's almost identical to Orly Cosmic FX Galaxy Girl, except Models own Purple Blue is more purple looking.  Blue Purple is on the left, Galaxy Girl on the right.  My index finger looks like it has a strange bend in it, but it's just the shadow created by the sliding door.

That's it, I'm done with the Beetlejuice collection.  I'm really glad I got it, and I thinks it's awesome that it is a regular line.  Especially as there are so many polishes that are dupy of the amazing Orly Cosmic FX collection.

I'm starting to feel a bit ho hum about just plain polish on my nails at the moment. I think I need to spice things up with some nail art, stamping, decals etc. 

Essie Super Bossa Nova

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

Today brings a bright polish, Essie Super Bossa Nova.  I think this one is from Summer 2011, but I'm not positive of that.  It's relatively recent, in any case.

Super Bossa Nova is a bright, kind of fuchsia pink shimmer, not anything terribly unique but it has a really pretty shimmer that I like.  I used two coats and finished it with Essie Good to Go, and although the application of the color was just fine, it's not too shiny once dry.  It's not matte or anything, it just lacks the really glossy finish of quite a few recent manicures, and I prefer shinier.

After giving the manicure a few minutes to dry, I took a picture in sunlight.

Essie Super Bossa Nova Nail Polish, Two Coats

A good vivid pink was overdue, so even though it's not the shiniest ever, I like it.

That's all I have for you today, so until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

All Rights Reserved, Siobhan@The Nailphile. If you're reading this elsewhere, it's stolen from a real nail polish blog.

25% off at Viva La Nails!

I've heard legends of Black Friday but being in the UK, I've never had the chance to experience a Black Friday sale! Viva La Nails are running their own Black Friday sale this weekend and you can get 25% off everything, and that means EVERYTHING using the code BLACK. 

I've lined up a few of my picks from their shop below. Viva La Nails is where I got the gold bullion used to create my now notorious studded manicure so if you've been thinking of recreating the look or have your own ideas for using those little bouncy balls, I'd snap up a pot or two today.

VivaLaNails.co.uk

Code: BLACK

code valid Friday 25th November - Sunday 27th November 2011

 

 

 

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Models Own - Pinky Brown

Models Own Beetlejuice Pinky Brown.  Yep you know the deal, it's pink, it's brown, it's beautiful.

Again, the back lit acute angle really brings out the colour shift.

And the comparison this time is:

• Models Own Pinky Brown on the index finger, 
• Orly Cosmic FX Space Cadet on the middle finger and 
• Rona Volcanic Sparks top coat over black on the ring finger.

All are different and oh so gorgeous.  Sorry for the boring post.