Sally Hansen Salon Crushed Velvet

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Sally Hansen Salon Crushed Velvet was a Canadian exclusive from the now-discontinued Salon line a while back, and I was fortunate to have someone in Canada offer to pick it up for me.  It's is an unusually pretty, glowy purple shimmer.  For the manicure, after applying base coat I used two coats of Crushed Velvet, then one of Poshe.  It wasn't shiny enough with Poshe (the reason I never stick with Poshe), so I added one coat of a Sally Hansen quick-dry that doesn't work too well but is very shiny.

Sally Hansen Salon Crushed Velvet Nail Polish, Two Coats

Crushed Velvet is really a gorgeous polish with excellent application, which definitely makes me wish it hadn't been released as a non-US country exclusive from a line that's discontinued.

That's the update for 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.

Stamping Plate D15

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I'm still playing with the D-Series stamping plates, and today I used D15, which has a bunch of star-themed patterns on it.  I figured I'd go for a night sky kind of thing, so I started out with Sally Hansen Salon Navy Baby, a reliable two coat navy shimmer, and stamped various patterns from D15 over it using China Glaze Millennium, a silver chrome.  Here's what it looked like when I was finished on a cloudy day.

Stamping Plate D15 in Silver over Sally Hansen Salon Navy Baby Nail Polish

The man in the moon was a little smudgy, and I got a smudge with the star surrounded by tiny stars as well, but I find that kind of thing is easier for me to mess up with a chrome polish for stamping rather than the usual Konad polishes I'm accustomed to.  Since there's not a silver Konad polish that shows up this well, I'll just have to live with it.

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

Sally Hansen Honeydew & Konad m60

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I thought I'd do a "real" blog post today in addition to the Zoya Touch Collection pre-sale announcement, so I figured I'd show you the manicure I'm wearing today.  It's Sally Hansen Salon (the now discontinued square bottle) Honeydew with just a little bit of white Konad.

Honeydew is an all-time favorite of mine and it's perfect for Spring.  I've been delving into my train case of most precious polishes lately, and that's where this one belongs.  The polish is a two-coater, and it applies beautifully.  Here it is by itself in the sun.

Sally Hansen Honeydew Nail Polish, Two Coats

I added a little flower pattern from Konad plate m60 in Konad White Pearl Special Polish to my ring finger for an accent nail.

Sally Hansen Honeydew Nail Polish with Konad m60 in White Pearl

It's very Spring-y and happy, so I like it.  That's just about all there is to tell you today, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

OPI Silver Shatter & Navy Baby

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I'm wearing OPI Silver Shatter over Sally Hansen Salon Navy Baby today, and so I have pictures of it for you.  I did something a little different this time, I forgot to leave one nail the usual way so we could see whether it made a difference.  I'll tell you about it when that step fits in.

I started out with base coat, then two coats of Navy Baby followed by quick dry top coat to dry it.  What I liked about the Silver Shatter over Dragon manicure was the bigger cracks in it, but I thought the pieces of silver drifted a little far apart.  The idea I had to try to let the thicker coat of Silver Shatter break up nicely but not have the pieces run away from each other was to use a coat of sticky base coat (I had Nubar Foundation handy and used that) over the quick dry top coat just before applying Silver Shatter.  So once the whole Navy Baby manicure was dry, I added a thin coat of Foundation, gave it about two minutes to dry, then added a thick coat of Silver Shatter and two coats of quick dry top coat to smooth it out.  The plan was to add Foundation to nine nails so we could see a clear With and Without to tell if it made a difference, but I was watching a movie when I did the manicure, and it was a creepy part when I was applying Foundation and I got distracted, so we'll know if it made a difference another time... Here's the manicure.

OPI Silver Shatter over Sally Hansen Salon Navy Baby in Sunlight

I really like this one a lot too, and I think Foundation may have changed the continental drift I didn't care for over the red, so I'll have to do a decent test to find out.  With all the China Glaze Crackles and Black Shatter, the polish is so thick to start that applying a thick coat of it never came up, but Silver Shatter isn't anywhere near as thick, which leaves more room for how you want to apply it.  I'm not trying to make up extra rules for it or to complicate it any further, I really just want to see the ways the final outcome using it can be manipulated and how since it's kind of nice to have a manicure turn out exactly as the idea was pictured.

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

Sally Hansen Salon Heartsapphire

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

Today's nails of the day is a limited edition drug store polish I from late 2008, Sally Hansen Salon Heartsapphire.  This one came out with Emerald Ring and another that had "tourmaline" in the name (Take a Tourmaline?  Something like that...), and I never did get to see a display of them.  Around the time they were released, I managed to get Emerald Ring and the Tourmaline one, and I was finally able to get hold of Heartsapphire - it's on ebay for less than retail now.

Heartsapphire is a dark blue with subtle pink and blue shimmer.  My bottle of it is a little watery, probably because it's a couple of years old, so I did need a third coat to make it completely even.  For an LE DS polish I've wanted for years, I'm willing to do a third coat.  Here it is finished with top coat under artificial light.

Sally Hansen Salon Heartsapphire Nail Polish, Three Coats

Even though the polish was a little thin, it was easy to control.  Applying Heartsapphire reminded me of how much I liked the old Sally Hansen Salon nail polishes.  They were my favorite drug store brand, and I prefer them to the Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure line (although that could be just because I was annoyed when SH took away my old Salons!).

The good news about the discontinuation of the old Salon line is that there are a ton of them available for less than retail on ebay now, including a whole lot of the Tracy Reese and other limited edition shades that were highly coveted and impossible to find when they were initially released.  So even though more won't be produced, at least we can catch up on the hard to find ones we missed before.

That's the update for today, Dear Reader.  Untl next time, love and nail polish to you!  

Konadicures for Fun

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Last night I did a fun Konadicure while playing with one of my new drugstore nail polishes, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Purple Pulse. It's a great shade of purple, and took three coats. When applying it, I reminded myself to warn you about the brush - it looks just awful and unmanageable, but actually works quite well. It's not my favorite, but there are many worse to use (thought few less appealing to look at). This is Purple Pulse alone.

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Purple Pulse Nail Polish, Three Coats

The deep purple reminded me of the color of the amethysts in my favorite earrings. The earrings also have tsavorite garnets, so I thuoght I'd green this up a bit with the houndstooth pattern from Konad plate M63, using Green Konad Special Polish for the stamping. Bright green and deep purple are not an especially traditional pairing, but one I like.

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Purple Pulse Nail Polish, Three Coats, and Konad M63

That's what I thought would be my Nails of the Day today. Then I was surprised with a 3:00 a.m. call. Usually a call at that hour can only mean bad things, but this was something good - because of my name, the caller thought I was in the UK, which would have made it a reasonable hour to call. So I have good news in the works, and as soon as it's carved-in-stone final, I tell you about it.

So that means at 3:15 a.m. I was all revved up, so I did a mani for a reader which will be my NOTD. The all-time favorite of a reader who's been with me from the start was the cow mani. I was thinking my nails are a good length to reproduce it, but I made it the New & Improved Cow Mani - it glows in the dark.

I used one from the train case, OPI's Ghostess with the Mostess, for the glow in the dark white, but it's pretty sheer. Being revved up, I was going for speed with lots of layers, so I used the fastest drying everything: Nubar Foundation, two coats of OPI Alpine Snow Matte, waited about one minute, then two coats of OPI Ghostess with the Mostess, and a coat of Diamont to dry it. Since both the OPI matte and Ghostess dry really fast, I was able to stamp in about 10 minutes. I stamped the cow pattern from Konad plate M61 using Black Pearl Konad Special Polish (the shimmer is marginal and it doesn't smudge). Although my nails are still short enough for the full nail patterns, I think the black French tips really complete the cow mani, so I stamped them using plate M19. Here's the New & Improved Cow Mani in good light.

OPI Ghostess with the Mostess, Two Coats, with Konad M61 & M19

Just for fun, I took a picture of it in the dark. You really have to click on the picture for the full sized version to see it.

OPI Ghostess with the Mostess, Two Coats, with Konad M61 & M19 in the Dark

It's not the best picture of it in the dark - it took a zillion tries to get a reasonably clear one (try not moving either hand with your shutter speed at 100!), and the polish lost its "charge" a bit in that process. Still, you get the idea.

I think both Konadicures are a blast, but I especially love the cow one. I find it ridiculously entertaining.

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

Sally Hansen Salon Complete Manicure Black Diamond

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I decided to have a little fun with some Swarovski crystals I recently got.

I started with a base of Sally Hansen Salon Complete Manicure Black Diamond. It took three coats, and still wasn't quite as opaque as I would like. This picture is under a halogen light, as the sun's just really coming out now. It has a pretty cool shimmer.

Sally Hansen Salon Complete Manicure Black Diamond Nail Polish, Three Coats

I topped it with Diamont, waited a few minutes, then started adding the crystals. I've never used crystals before, so I had to figure it out as I went. What ended up being the quickest way to get them on there was to pour a little puddle of nail glue on a notepad, pick each crystal up with a tweezers and dip the back of it in the puddle of glue, and place it on the nail. It took me about ten minutes to get all of these on. Then I added another coat of Diamont so the stones don't snag on things. By then, the sun was out a bit, so this picture is in indirect sunlight.

Sally Hansen Salon Complete Manicure Black Diamond Nail Polish, Three Coats, with Red and Clear Swarovski Crystals

The little crystals are actually red, but the light of the second picture washed everything out and they look a little orange to me there (probably because everything outside is white!).

It's no great work of art, but I'd call it a successful first shot at using the little stones. I'll find out how big a hassle they are to remove - I'm guessing not too terribly bad if I use pure acetone on that nail.

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

Sally Hansen Salon Forsythia & Konad M8

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I was thinking it could hardly be a drug store week without a Sally Hansen Salon Tracy Reese color, so I have Forsythia for you today, from the Spring 2009 Collection. This collection is a mythical unicorn to some, but I've seen it three times now. Sally Hansen wins the award for All Time Worst Distribution with these!

The colors go on great - I love SH Salons. The last Tracy Reese batch consisted of all two coaters for me, which is unusual. Forsythia is a great Grey Poupon shade with just a tiny shimmer, and it never looks complete to me without Olive Green Konad Princess Nail Polish over it. I guess the nostalgia of bringing back the early 1970's kitchen of my childhood is too great a temptation!

Here's two coats of M8 with Olive Green Princess used to stamp a pattern from plate M8. I ask that you ignore the Olive Green on my thumb - I didn't notice it until the pictures, but wasn't bothered enough to go take new ones.

The word is that this collection is still being rolled out, showing up as "new" at random places all over the country. If you haven't seen it yet, you still might.

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

Konad Princess Nail Polish

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I got a package this morning. Guess what was in it! The Konad Princess polishes from WowSoCool I showed you the other day. I've been having some Konad fun playing with a few of them today to show them to you. Since my aim was to show you the polishes, I didn't keep track of the plate numbers. I was lucky I could keep track of what I was doing at all! One down side to all Konad nail polishes is that they're not labelled with a name or number, so you just have to remember what it is. I was able to do that today, but a week from now, I'm not so sure!

Two of these are a far cry from my best work, one due to the polish and one due to me getting sloppy at the end. I'm showing them to you anyhow just to show you the colors.

We'll start with what my left hand looks like right now (I only did my left hand on all of these, since you can't see me right!). It's H&M You Rock My World as a base (silver holo) with Violet Pearl Princess Polish over it. This is the one where I got sloppy - sorry about that.

The next one is off because of the polish, which was Jungle Green Konad Princess Nail Polish over a base of Barielle Swizzle Stix. For some reason, this one just really stuck to the stamper and it took two passes and ridiculous pressure to get the stamp. Bummer, because it is really cool in the bottle. The good news is that it's the only one of he batch that gave me trouble. The picture's not blurry, the lines are. Sorry if I hurt your eyes!

Okay, now we have the crappy ones out of the way and you've seen Violet Pearl and Jungle Green. On to more successful swatches!

The next one is what my right hand is (it's the mani I did this morning). It's a hot look, the mismatched hands. Anyhow, it's inspired by a 1974 kitchen - a base of Sally Hansen Salon Forsythia (Spring 2009 Tracy Reese) with Olive Green Konad Princess Nail Polish stamped on it. I really like this one. Harvest gold and avocado all the way!!!

The last one is a base of Revlon Pink Again with Coral Blue Konad Princess Nail Polish over it. I like this pattern a lot - if you look closely and know what you're looking for, you can see that it's knit stitches. I knit (or did, my supplies are packed away), and the individual stitches on patterns are exactly like this Konad stamp.

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

Sally Hansen Salon Tracy Reese & Nubar Opulent Pearl

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I just thought I'd show you today's nails - we're all messed up on pictures now that I have a backlog of them!

This morning I used my Sally Hansen Salon Honeydew for the second time, from the precious Tracy Reese Spring 2009 Collection. I showed you that one last week, but here's the picture from when I swatched it to refresh your memory.

It's a pretty one, but I just wore it last week that way and decided to since it up a little. I added two coats of Nubar Opulent Pearl to it.

I noticed when adding text to this picture that I seriously needed to even out my nails - it been on the list of things to do since January or February when I had two small breaks, but I didn't want to part with any more length. However, the time had come, and after a few hours' work I even them out and redid them. This time, I decided to go with Sally Hansen Salon Night Hydrangea, also from the Tracy Reese Spring 2009 Collection. Here's a picture of that from last week.

I like it on its own, but was really enjoying the Opulent Pearl effect, so I added some to Night Hydrangea. The bright light in the picture washes out the flakies a bit - my nails look like little mosaics now! And they're a little more even - not perfect, but as good as they're getting today.

That's my little update for now. Back to work for me!

Until tomorrow, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

Mom's Recipe Box & More

Good morning again, Dear Reader!

I've just finished today's Konadicure of the Day, which was prompted by a comment tarotbydiana recently left.  It's one I've done before, but not for some time, and is inspired by the little box my mom used to keep index cards with recipes on them.

For reference, my mom left the convent in 1968, and after wearing only black and white for 18 years, she went a little over the top with colors and patterns once she was on her own.  She still made her own clothes as she did in the convent, but with the loud, wacky patterns of the time.  She married my dad in 1969, had my sister in '70 and me in '71 - quite a lot of change in five years, from a nun teaching high school to the stay at home mom of two!  She made our clothes too, and you should see how loud some of them were!  We won't even get into her wallpaper selections in the early seventies...

The only remnant we had of that phase was her recipe box, which was bright yellow with red-orange sixties floral stickers all over it.  Unfortunately, my father was a bit zealous in his efforts to clear things out of the house after she died, and it was thrown away.  However, I learned to cook with her as a kid using that little metal box of index cards, so it is burned into my memory, and I don't need to have it in front of me to do a Konadicure that is clearly inspired by it.  That's what I did this morning.

I started with a base of Jessica's Going to Disneyland.  I had high hopes that this would finally be the yellow that would be opaque and even in two coats, but alas, it took three.  Here's the yellow on its own.

 

 

From there, I selected the floral pattern form Konad plate M64, and chose the pink shimmer Konad polish for stamping.  I know from experience that stamping pink over an opaque bright yellow would have a tinge of orange to it, and it did.  The end result is just as I wanted it to be, and looks just like that recipe box!

 

 

While I was up watermarking and cropping these photos, I thought I'd edit some others I've taken recently.  As you may have noticed, my insomnia has been rampant this week, and there's little to do other than play with Konad or Nfu-Ohs in the middle of the night here, so that's what I've done.

Here's a the Nfu-Oh I haven't shown you yet, #41 over Precision Wait a Melon for Me.  I showed you the base color on its own earlier this week, and here it is layered with Nfu-Oh #41.

 

 

It's subtle, but I like it quite a bit.

I also have two Konadicures you haven't seen yet, so I'll show those to you this morning as well.  Both of them took advantage of patterns that I really like, but have not been able to use in recent months until now.

The first has a base of Sally Hansen Salon Hearts on Fire.  This is three coats, as it's slightly jelly in its finish and took a third coat to be completely opaque.

 

 

To this one I added the diagonal pattern from plate M65 using white Konad polish.

 

The last one I have for you is the one I recently wore to my uncle's funeral.  I wore a charcoal grey Aran sweater, and this went with it very nicely.  I started with a base of two coats of SpaRitual Surreal, which I've shown to you at least once before, so I didn't take pictures of it on its own.  To it I added the houndstooth pattern from Konad plate M63 using a purple/grey Konad shimmer polish.  I like the Konad polish quite a bit, but unfortunately I don't recall what color it is, and it's not marked on the bottle.  Here's the result.

 

That, Dear Reader, catches you up on all of my shorty pictures.  I still have a few in the vault with long nails, but we'll save those for another day.

On a side note, I did hear from the winner of the Black Tie Optional for which I drew a name on Friday, so it will be going to live with her.  The winner was Sunny from the USA.  Congrats to Sunny!  Even better news for those of you who did not win is that I have another hard-to-find color to give away this week, and I'll be creating the entry form for that soon.

That's all for today, Dear Reader.  Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!