Konad m85 & m84

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Last night I realized I simply wasn't up for scrape-y edges of my failed Sweet Tart-an manicure poking me, so I changed it and called that one an expensive waste.

This week is a big one because it's the last week of the semester before finals.  Yes, semester and finals - after the professional ethics debacle last spring, I decided I needed to get some letters after my name to prevent that in the future and started grad school full time in August.  I have a nightmarish project to muscle through this week to keep my A in the only class where there's a question mark about an A, and a fun mani seemed like a much better choice than an annoying one that's constantly poking me for that.

My ultimate "I'm in no mood..." color is Essie Punchy Pink, and I applied three coats last night.  I was horrified to discover that the remaining polish in the bottle is right at the bottom "e," so maybe two manicures left.  Still, I recalled driving on the highway to face my ex's ridiculous lawsuit against me two years ago, with him being a lawyer represented by a lawyer and me showing up alone hoping for the best, having a truck driver playing aggression games on the highway at about 6:00 a.m., halfway through the drive, and just how truly satisfying it was to flip him off with an Punchy Pink and black Konad mani.  That sealed the deal no matter how precious the remaining drops are, and I stamped it in Konad Black Pearl this morning.

On my tips, I used the interconnected rings pattern from Konad plate m85, which is a full nail pattern, but being open it lends itself to use as a tip pattern.  That went on all nails, and on my my left ring finger I added the lips pattern from Konad plate m85, sort of a nice little póg mo thóin touch.  The result is a bright fun manicure that makes me giggle, so it fits the bill perfectly.  Protect your retinas, because here's Punchy Pink.

Konad m85 with m84 over Essie Punchy Pink Nail Polish

In person, it's brighter - Punchy Pink is the single most retina-searing neon pink I've ever used, and that's one of the reasons I love it.

I'm off to dig into my last nightmarish project for the semester, 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.

The Neon Creeper Heel Manicure

Good morning, Dear Reader!

After a few days of no polish change, I was up for a more involved mani this morning, so I did a nail art interpretation of a T.U.K. high-heeled neon creeper.  Why yes, that is incredibly random and out of the blue, but when you see the shoe, you'll see why it inspired a manicure.

The backstory, to mitigate some of the randomness, is that I need a new pair of all-purpose, running out the door shoes.  I've mentioned my taste in clothing is pretty plain, but my taste in shoes is far from it, with the current worn-out pair being red/purple/pink mosaic flats.  I've always loved heels, and being kind of short I wore them just about all the time for years (I'm still a normal height for a woman wearing them, and if there's no good reason not to...).  That era ended when I completely tore an ankle ligament (I was pledging a sorority and fell on the first step of the house's spiral staircase, smashing my ankle on every step on the way down,  while everybody was waiting for me at the bottom - my grandest entrance ever), until I just recently discovered shoes with a platform.  They look impossible to walk in, but they're totally comfortable and nothing at all to walk in, so heels are back on the table for me, and they've been included in the hunt.

That brings us to the inspiration picture,which I mentioned was a pair of T.U.K. neon creeper heels.

My Manicure Inspiration

To make the manicure, I started with three coats of China Glaze Kiwi Cool-ada, stamping plate H9 for the leopard print, which is a larger pattern and let me cover each nail with only one stamp.  I used that XL stamper I tried once before and hated because I've read reviews from a few bloggers with whom I normally have a similar experience who loved it.  That made me think I needed practice, and that proved to be the case.  There is a trick to using it, which is absolutely no pressure picking up or placing the stamp, and then it does a really beautiful job.  Having stamped, I filled in the dots on the leopard print with Misa Dreamy Purple, painted the tip one nail with Dreamy Purple to make it like the top of the shoe, then sealed with top coat.  Here's how it turned out.

My Neon Creeper Heel Manicure

There's not fabulous light today, so Dreamy Purple looks darker in the picture than in real life, although I think I should have hunted down Nubar Pasadena Purple for this one - it would have been more clearly purple.  I'm still really happy with the manicure because it's ridiculously fun.

That's my new weekend manicure and just about all I have to yap about this morning 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.

Best Nail Treatment - Review and swatches

I was contacted a while back by Lynn, the lovely owner of  BNTabout trying her line of nail products and after my drooling and wavering due to the beautiful selection of nail colors I finally picked a couple and I have been testing these in a serious way!You can check out the shades hereLeft to right: Air Cure system Base coat, Grape Crush, French Twist and Air Cure System fast dry Top CoatNow I

Nina Ultra Pro Grin and Berry It

Good morning, Dear Reader!

This morning's manicure is Nina Ultra Pro Grin and Berry It, a really great neon purple shimmer.  Again today, I had all the stuff out and ready to Konad this one, but I like it so much alone that I'm just wearing it plain.

My recollection of Grin and Berry It was that there were drying troubles the last time I used it, so this time I left a couple of minutes between each of the three coats of color I used, and it dried just fine with a coat of Diamont top coat.  Here it is after drying in low sunlight.

Nina Ultra Pro Grin and Berry It Nail Polish, Three Coats

The tiny bits of blue shimmer are what really set this polish apart for me.  It's just fun to look at.

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

What does EvilAngel do when she breaks a nail?

She says several very bad words! (not because of the broken nail but cuz it hurt)My car door handle attacked me yesterday...When I break a nail....I do it right! lolAnd of coarse I do it before I get pictures of the pretty new franken!So what now? I file like a mad woman!So now I will be sporting my new nubbins...aren't they teeny and cute!I made another in my neon flakie franken series...GREEN!I

Nicole's Heart Franken

As promised I made a fun Neon orange jelly with flakies frankenAnd named it after my dear friend Nicole (from nightly Nails blog) because it reminds me of her...warm, beautiful, happy and far more interesting and complex than some plain old orange!(I love you Nicole & you better email me your addy so I can send you one of these)This girl is so hot I wore it for 4 daysYes I took 6 billion pictures

Stamping Plate D08

Good morning, Dear Reader!

On Friday I showed you some celebrity picture patterns from one of the D-Series plates, D09, and today I have a celebrity mani using plate D08.  D08 also has lots of choices, but there was one so perfectly absurd it designed this mani for me - Woody Allen.  Any time nail art comes up conversationally for the rest of my life, I'd like to be able to volunteer, "I own and have used a Woody Allen nail art stamp."  Now I can.

I figured this one should have more of a pop art feel, so I used a patterned French tip and Woody Allen in white over Color Club Gimme A Grape Big Kiss, the purple neon from Wicked Sweet.  Here it is.

Woody Allen Manicure using Stamping Plate D08

I have no idea why I love this so much or why I'm so thrilled with the mere notion of a Woody Allen manicure, but I'm happy for both.

That's it for today, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Flaked out Neon franken

I got a sudden urge the other day for a Neon pink jelly with flakies so....This is in lightbox lighting which killed the neon a bitMmmmmm.....flakiesPardon my horribly dry paws....someone has been busy and forgets to lotion the parched puppiesI think I love this color...might make some different colored neon flakies....hmmmThe flakies show even more in real life and they look like they are

Making Lem-on aid!

OK the titles lame but the polish is hot!Color Club Get your Lem-on from the Wicked Sweet collection (Lemon scented nom)This is 3 coats of neon perfection!The subtle green shift from the green shimmer makes this color fantabulous!I added some cute little Skully kitty Angels and Devils to me this up a bitAnd one lone buggerfly because my pinkie nail is way too narrow for most nail decalsThis

Neon, skulls and crackle

I needed a fun manicure after all the stress so...Color Club The Lime Starts here to the rescueThen I used my SmArt nails skull & crossbones stencils with China Glaze Broken Hearted CrackleThe skulls did not quite work as well as I'd hoped with the crackle but I still like itThis is 3 coats of The Lime Starts here and it smells so yumThe scent isn't overpowering but enough that when you scratch

Color Club The Lime Starts Here & Konad m60

Good morning, Dear Reader!

This is the last picture I had saved up, and it's a manicure for several days this week, Color Club The Lime Starts Here with the plaid pattern from Konad plate m60 in white.

The Lime Starts Here is the neon green from th Wicked Sweet Collection, and this is your fair warning that the picture will make your retinas sting.  It needed several coats to be opaque, I either four or five, but that seems typical of good neon greens to me.  I'm sure that using white under it would reduce that.  The fragrance of it is very pleasant, more like a good margarita mix than straight lime - it's identifiable as lime and has a nice citrus scent to it, but it's not sharp or that overly artificial lime Jell-O smell.

Color Club The Lime Starts Here Nail Polish, 4-5 Coats

I gave The Lime Starts Here a bit of time to dry, then stamped it with Konad White Special Polish and the pattern from m60.

Color Club The Lime Starts Here with Konad m60

Although I really liked this one, the real reason I wore it for several days was that I ripped off my pinky nail, the whole free edge and lots of layers about halfway down the nail bed.  The good news is that the manicure didn't chip, and I decided that another chop just wasn't in me and I made a sculpted soak-off gel tip on it last evening.  This is the first time I had the luxury of sculpting a tip using my right hand, so it was about a thousand times easier than before.  I thought I had it as good as it would get, but the down side to clear builder gel is that it's really hard to see tiny detail.  I can just thin it out a little with a bit more shaping, but I'll have to reseal it once it's good, so the pictures I have for tomorrow will include my big fake tip pre-refinement.

That's what I know this morning, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!

China Glaze Pool Party & Plate XL A

Good morning, Dear Reader!

For today I took another stab at a neon eye-crosser of a manicure, this time using China Glaze Pool Party and plate XL A, and it worked out pretty well.

Pool Party, a darker pink neon creme, took three coats but dried quickly, and I stamped it with a wavy lines pattern from plate XL A.  I wanted the lines to go across, so I used the pattern sideways with Konad Black Special Polish.  To avoid smudging, I topped off the stamps with Konad Top Coat, but the pictures showed me that I had teeny tiny bubbles in it.  Since they don't show without a close up picture even when I know they're there, I've kept this one on for two days.

China Glaze Pool Party Nail Polish with Plate XL A Stamp

I really like it.  It's incredibly loud, but  so over the top loud that I think it's clear that I was going for that.

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

Plate XL B

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I had a great big fail stamping a pattern from XL B for today, which completely proved wrong my recent statement that I find the quality of engraving is equivalent between Chez Delaney and Konad plates.  Konad never fails me!

I took pictures, but promptly did a do-over on the manicure because it was really bad.  For the second I also went with a pattern from XL B, but the second one I chose was composed of thicker lines, from which I generally have a much easier time getting a clean stamp.  The messy one had thin lines, and the few stamps with didn't have extra polish all over have bald spots, and since the stamping was in black over China Glaze Shocking  Pink, it looked pretty shabby.

Plate XL B over China Glaze Shocking Pink Nail Polish

My ring and pinky nails have bald spots in the middle of the filled in sections, and the others, which I didn't scrape as hard to avoid that, have the extra Konad polish.  It looked gross enough to annoy me, so off it came.

The next attempt was Color Club Wicked Sweet with white Konad polish, and I love how it turned out.  A cashier at a place I often go asked about it this morning and admired the manicure, but there was a huge line behind me and she's usually really slow without a distraction (perfectly nice lady, she just doesn't mind having twenty people glaring at her while she makes small talk), and she asked about it using an "or" where neither option was correct (is that A or B?).  That meant my answer would require an explanation, and since I didn't want to lie I just muttered unintelligibly to get out of explaining Konad with the line of people hating me.  That often works surprisingly well, by the way, and it did this morning.  Here's the manicure that's nice enough to make a line of people wait for small talk.

Plate XL B over Color Club Wicked Sweet Nail Polish

Much better!  I love the polish, the stamp, and it's all the better since it smells really nice.

That's what I know today, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Color Club Wicked Sweet - Temptress

I did a bright fun manicure with Raspberry Rush (Wicked Sweet collection)and Ultra - Astral (Temptress collection)This is 3 coats of Raspberry Rush and 2 coats of Ultra- Astral on my ring finger with one coat of Starry Temptress.Raspberry Rush is a gorgeous almost jelly neon fuchsia Ultra Astral is Neon fuchsia with holo glitter that unfortunately disappears into the polish on the nail, which is

Lem-on Crushed Candy

Good morning, Dear Reader, and Happy Easter!

For today I doctored up my Color Club Get Your Lem-on manicure, but I used China Glaze Crushed Candy Crackle Glaze rather than Konad.  I was thinking of what color to use for Konad, and I kept nixing choices because I know that the color shows up strangely on neon yellow, when it occurred to me to try out Crushed Candy for a potentially Easter-y version of Get Your Lem-on.

I added a coat of Crushed Candy, then two coats of some Nutra Nail strengthener that's clear and a coat of quick dry top coat to smooth it out.  I'd been using one coat of Gelous rather than the Nutra Nail, which worked just fine, but I don't have enough Gelous left for one manicure and most likely won't repurchase it.  The sun came out for a bit yesterday, so I was able to take a picture in sunlight.

China Glaze Crushed Candy Crackle Glaze over Color Club Get Your Lem-on

This worked out well for me since it tones down the yellow so much and I'm wearing this manicure to church today.  It's like an Easter egg is getting cracked open and the yolk shows (although that imagery doesn't withstand close scrutiny - I really don't want an egg with a neon yolk).  I can also still catch the lemon fragrance under all those additional coats, which is pretty impressive.

That's my manicure for Easter, and so far, Easter is shaping up into a pretty dang good day.  Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

Color Club Get Your Lem-on

Good morning, Dear Reader!

There's nothing quite like ten solid hours of sleep, is there?  You get to benefit from my fabulous sleep in that it's more likely I'll keep my thoughts generally focused!

Last night I changed my manicure to Color Club Get Your Lem-on, the yellow from Wicked Sweet.  It's a very nice highlighter yellow shimmer and the polish was easy to control, but it did take five coats to be opaque.  I'm sure a white base could reduce that number, but when I'm trying it out the first time and want to tell you how many coats it takes to be opaque, I just use the color.  There's still no sunlight, or hope for it, so I used artificial light for the picture.

Color Club Get Your Lem-on Nail Polish, Five Coats

Although I love this polish. I think it's just okay on me - it's not horrible, but not flattering either.  Neon yellow is such a fun color that I wear it anyhow.  I like it best on very dark brown skin though - to my eye neon yellow just pops off of dark hands, and it makes the skin tone look really cool.  For me, since I want a little more than "not bad," I'll probably add Konad to it today.

Get Your Lem-on has a great fragrance.  It smells like someone's making a pitcher of Country Time Lemonade from the can of powder (I'm assuming those still exist) while another person is zesting a lemon nearby.  I've been sniffing this one a lot!  Again, the scent is not too strong, and I do have to have my hands near my face to smell it.

That's just about it for this morning, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Color Club Space Case

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Well, I'll tell ya... Starting up a new tech-y type department in a company carries with it loads of frustration stress (when you're the kind who wants everything done perfectly for all time yesterday), and last night I could think of only one thing to counter it that's totally harmless, and that's fairy princess nails.  That meant no Konad got added to my scented orange neon, and I switched to Color Club Space Case and Starry Temptress from the Starry Temptress Collection, although as I mentioned, I prefer to believe that it makes me a fairy princess rather than a starry temptress.

I showed you this combination already when I posted the whole collection, and it's what I wore after swatching because it's fabulous and I love it.  Space Case is the slightly shimmer neon pink with lots of holo glitter, and is very well pigmented and perfect in two thin coats.  I added one coat of Starry Temptress, the glitter top coat, to it just because a true fairy princess really can't sparkle enough.  I'd wear a tiara in public on difficult days if I could.  The opportunity to wear a tiara in public was actually central in planning my first wedding - the only things I put real effort into were the vows, the tiara, and the honeymoon trip (which was to Great America to ride roller coasters).  In this moment, I'm just astounded that I managed to drift from details of swatching a collection to telling you about riding roller coasters on my honeymoon, so I'd better pick up the pace and show you  a picture before I start rambling about the tensile strength of silk or something...

This is the manicure, which is two coats of Space Case and one of Starry Temptress with two coats of top coat to smooth it out, under artificial light - I'm writing this last night, hence the weary stream of consciousness, and it's storming and will be today as well, so there's no chance for a good sunlight picture.

Color Club Space Case, Two Coats, with One Coat Color Club Starry Temptress

Seriously, could you write a venomous email with that manicure doing the typing?  I can't, that's why I like it.  I might have a little tantrum here or there, but then I get distracted by sparkly hot pink and suddenly the world is a wonderful place to be.  I had the world's best Quaker Parrot for several years (he'd say literally hundreds of phrases, often in context), and we always related well on the level of our appreciation for sparkly things.

Okay, this is totally unrelated to the post, and were I less tired it wouldn't have been brought up, but I have a funny Arthur story for you.  Arthur was my parrot's name (I wanted him to have a dignified name).  I had him from right when he was weaned until he was five, but then he started getting stressed because I was working too much overtime, so I got him this over-the-top bird loving family 200 miles away (they actually got him another Quaker, despite having many other parrots to be his new flock), where he lived for another year and a half before he died of cancer.  He was super cute and smart, but also ridiculously territorial and jealous.  There was an occasion the first few months I had him, when he was still learning not to bite, when he got too excited at seeing some pizza I was bringing him (one of his favorites) and he bit me hard enough to break skin and exclaimed, "Pizza!"  I got mad and said, "You don't get any!"  From that moment on, any time he was mad he'd say, "You don't get any!"  I felt so bad I never spoke those words again.

Part of the territoriality was that while he knew him when we were dating, Arthur hated my first husband.  I really can't emphasize "hated" enough here.  If we were sitting on the couch, Arthur would bite H#1 as hard as he could, sometimes not letting go until I pried his little beak open, then he'd say "Don't bite!" and heartily laugh in my laugh.  Once H#1 and I had a big disagreement, the kind where some time is taken to evaluate whether to continue or break up, and H#1 was coming over to talk about things.  I was stressed and just didn't want to have some grueling awkward talk, but when the doorbell rang, I answered.  Arthur ran as close to the door as he could and pulled out the big guns with an emphatic, "You don't get any!" at H#1.  If only I'd listened to the parrot...

At this point, I'm so tired that I'm just rambling about random things, so I'll just end now.  But if you have a Quaker Parrot and are dating, please heed his warnings.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Color Club Wicked Sweet scented Collection- I always Get My Man-Darine

I love fruity scented things but Orange is my enemy color....unless it is a Color Club neon!Warm colors look horrid on me...but Color Club is the one company that takespity on people like me! They are genius at adding a contrasting shimmer that makes it lesspainful to wear these warm sunny shades!Man-darin is hard to capture in pictures (neon is evil on camera) but it is asweet juicy tangerine/

Color Club Always Get My Man-darin

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I completely changed my nail polish last night - the last one just had too much tip wear after two days of lots of typing.  I so enjoyed wearing one from the Wicked Sweet Collection that I used another, although color selection is getting tough - my options that I haven't shown you were the green (lime), yellow (lemon), or orange.  Obviously, I went with the orange since I'll be at work, and that's called Always Get My Man-darin.  That's a super Suzi name for a Color Club, but Suzi on a good day (not the day Iris I Was Thinner was named...).

Truthfully, the plan for today's manicure had been to do medium green with a yellow, green, and red striped accent nail with that Bundle Monster pot leaf pattern right in the middle of it just I so could make a post entitled "It's 420!", but that had to go by the wayside when I returned to an office.  I acknowledge that would have been completely inappropriate for anyone, particularly a woman my age, but it would have been funny enough to me to do it (clearly, I'd thoroughly planned it out!).

Since that was off the table, I was content with my Always Get My Man-darin choice.  It's a vivid yellowish orange shimmer, a very unique color.  I used two coats of a tinted base (two coats in my desperate attempt to keep my unstained nails that way), but the Color Club still took about seventy billion coats.  Not really seventy billion, but it was either six or seven, I lost count, so we'll say six.  I think that's why there aren't more neon shimmers, but I happily used this many coats of a few of the Color Club Poptastic [I meant Electro Candy - I'm sorry] shades, so although I wasn't thrilled, I wasn't horrified.

I waited a few minutes between each of the coats of polish and finished it with Diamont (I'm still working on a 16 oz bottle I got before the formula was changed and changed back to the original a la New Coke).  I'm not sure of dry time, as I'm writing this last night about an hour after applying all that polish.  It's dry enough to do things, but I have no intention of scurrying off to wash my hair when I finish writing this.  I'm just hoping for no sheet marks!  Like the others in this release, the polish was very easy to control, so it doesn't look odd (to me) despite all the coats.

Color Club Always Get My Man-darin Nail Polish, Six Coats

I really like the color and I'm smitten with the shimmer in this, which is like the shimmer in the Poptastic colors [edit: throughout this post, I said Poptastic when I meant Electro Candy.  I'm really sorry if I confused you!  Fact is, I was and am confused because I'm exhausted, but an email exchange with a reader made me double check when I got home... Please forgive weary ol' me!].  Since it came out, Poptastic [again, I meant Electro Candy here] has been my favorite neon collection overall, but the addition of nice smells to the Wicked Sweet polishes may just put them in the lead.  They're incredibly fun!

As for the fragrance of this one, it's as subtle as the others, where I have to sniff it to really catch it.  It smells like the kitchen after making fresh orange juice out of really good oranges - kind of sweet, but there's also a nice orange peel smell to it that keeps it from being too sweet.  I was a little apprehensive about this one because I was afraid it would have that overly sweet artificial orange smell (which makes my stomach turn even if it's not too heavy), but this is very pleasant.

We'll see how this holds up.  I'd like to add some Konad to it just because I'm a Konadin' fool, but I think the color stands on its own just fine.  I'm also not willing to either stay up until 3:00 am waiting for this to dry enough to stamp or get up at 5:00 am to do it then in order to have pictures for this post.  I ♥ sleep far more than nails!

So that's just about all I know.  I notice in proof reading that today's post is just loaded with informational links.  I have no idea what's up with that, but what the heck, I'm leaving them... Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

Color Club Gimme A Grape Big Kiss

Good morning, Dear Reader!

On Sunday afternoon, I changed my nail polish to Color Club Gimme A Grape Big Kiss from the Wicked Sweet Collection, the scented neons for Summer 2011.  It's not really a true neon, more of a vivid purple creme.  The polish was easy to control and it applied well, but required three thin coats to be entirely opaque.  That's not terribly out of the ordinary for such a bright shade or for a scented polish, so the extra coat didn't throw me off.  I finished it with top coat, and it's a really striking polish.

Color Club Gimme A Grape Big Kiss Nail Polish, Three Coats

For this particular shade, I would have been willing to do three coats of color at the outset.  When the fact that it smells like grape Bubble Yum bubble gum is tossed into the equation, I'm willing to do three coats and my little heart goes pitter-patter while I do.  As I write this (which was last night, I wrote it ahead of time so I could sleep in a little longer today), it's about an hour after I added a refresher top coat to it, and it still smells of grape Bubble Yum when I sniff it, about as much as it did yesterday. The fragrance is pleasant but not overpowering at all - I really do have to specifically sniff it to catch the scent (and my sniffer is better than ever after a week of not smoking!).  If the often sickly sweet fragrance (odor?) of the Revlon Scents of Summer fruity polishes put you off of scented polishes, the Wicked Sweet Collection might just sway you back and make you love them.  Personally, I generally liked the Revlons, but I do recall that when settling in to sleep with my hands close to my face, that coconut one was somewhat sickening, but I had no such problem last night.

I'm really happy with the color, and a young-ish lady coworker enthusiastically complimented it, so I'm glad that I've worn it plain for a bit.  At the same time, it's screaming at me to Konad it, so I'll likely do that tomorrow evening if it lasts another day without chips.

That's just about all there is to tell you, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!