Sally Hansen Salon Effects Numbskull

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I'm racing the calendar to get in Halloween manicures, so today I have another set of Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips to show you today, this one named Numbskull.  They're the cartoon-y black skull and crossbones pattern in black over white from this year's Halloween Salon Effects.

I didn't use anything under them, and they were way easier to apply.  I have two repairs, on the first two applied, because I was a little too aggressive in stretching them over my tips.  I slowed down a bit and the rest turned out just fine.  The hardest part of applying this set was due to the pattern being slightly on the diagonal, which made visually lining them up straight a little tough.  I've typically centered them at the cuticle to apply the nail polish strips, but after a few of these I found it easier to get one side edge of a nail lined up the whole length and then press them down across.  Then all that was left was filing the overhanging edge off of each as I went, and when they were all applied I sealed them with Sally Hansen Salon Speed Shine.  Here is my Numbskull manicure.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips in Numbskull

You can see the repair on my index finger's nail here, but it's such a tiny bit I tacked on that it doesn't really show on my hands.  I pretty much love this manicure!  I'm wearing it out to lunch today, and depending on what the weekend holds, I might add a coat of Wet n Wild glow in the dark top coat to it.  Seeing a band is an option, and if I go with that, I believe making this glow will be mandatory.

For the record, there was no trouble with the Ghoulie Girl strips that made me remove them, it's the race to fit in Halloween manis that prompted the change.

That is my Numbskull Salon Effects manicure, 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.

D-Series Halloween Nails

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

A good while back I'd mentioned the D-Series plates that I got from Chez Delaney, the ones that were sold only as a complete set due to some of them not working 100%.  Truthfully, I have yet to run into a stamp that doesn't work, and the same was true today when I broke out the two Halloween-themed plates from the series.

I took pictures of the plates so you can see all of the patterns.  They're nice and big - some are too big for my nails even now, which is pretty uncommon amongst available patterns.  Of course, I didn't have the good sense to take pictures of the plates before I used them, so they have a little cloudy acetone residue from post-stamping cleaning, which is done when I'm sick of messing with stuff and just want to be finished.  This is plate D03 and D04.

Halloween Nail Stamping Plate D03

Halloween Nail Stamping Plate D04

I wanted to use the spooky-font "Trick or Treat," but there's no angle at which I can fit anywhere near the whole thing on any nail.  There are plenty of others to choose from though, so I'll show you what I did.  This isn't intended to be the most fabulous manicure ever, it's more to sample the patterns and show you the size and quality of engraving.

The base color I used was two coats of Barielle Coalest Day of the Year, a good basic charcoal shimmer.  It's a two-coater with a respectable drying time, so it seemed like a good choice.  I wanted to stamp the patterns in White Konad Princess Polish just because it's reliable and one with which I'm familiar to knock out a variable in terms of how well the stamps worked, and Coalest Day of the Year seemed to offer good contrast without being as stark as a black creme.  I gave that a few minutes to dry with Tout de Suite then just went at it with the multistamper and sealed the stamps with Sally Hansen Salon Speed Shine.  Here's my amusing Halloween manicure.

Halloween-Themed Nail Art Manicure

The sunlight obscures some of the pattern on my pinky - it's the funny witch at about nine o'clock on plate D03.  Every one of the patterns worked well, even the spider web ones (which are always tough) and the scary skull (the ones with a great deal of solid engraved space are also tough).  I like it - it's silly and fun without being too immediately attention grabbing, with attention grabbing on a stamp-sampling manicure being the very reason I didn't use and orange base and stamp in black.

That's my Halloween-themed manicure and 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 from a real nail polish blog.

Deborah Lippmann Stairway to Heaven

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I decided to try Deborah Lippmann Stairway to Heaven when I ordered another Lippmann, and it got here in record time so I thought I'd give you a peek.  I looked at some pictures to decide on it, and it looked sheer-ish white with light colored moderately sized glitter.

I was surprised at how sheer Stairway to Heaven looked in the bottle and I simply don't have the patience for a million coats of color these days, so after applying base coat I applied one thin coat of Misa Heaven White.  I picked Heaven White not for the handy name tie-in but because it's not as stark a white as my other layering standby, FingerPaints Papier Mache.  On the very first nail, I was glad I'd put something under Stairway because I found it to be both sheer and incredibly thick, so thick that it was kind of hard to get it on the brush well.  In getting it on my nails, it was so thick that I had to got over some spots to flatten out the little square glitter bits I'll show you in a minute - the base was letting them stay standing on end.  I missed a spot in the flattening process of the first coat on one nail, and it's still lumpy after it dried (but it's on my right hand and not in the picture).  I did a total of two coats of Stairway to Heaven and  finished it off with Addicted to Speed, and the polish on my nails is pretty thick, so more coats of Stairway wouldn't have worked well for me.  I let it dry and went in the sun for some pictures, so here's Stairway to Heaven.

Deborah Lippmann Stairway to Heaven Nail Polish, Two Coats over White

Here's a look at the glitter, which looks like itty bitty squares of colored transparent plastic.

Deborah Lippmann Stairway to Heaven Nail Polish's Glitter

I liked it more when I started writing this than I do now because I've snagged a piece of wayward glitter on the edge of a nail about seventeen billion times so far.  I did wrap my tips with top coat, but extra clear wasn't an option when the polish was so thick to start with (I understand that's to suspend glitter, but there are limits to what's useful and I could always mix it before applying it if glitter settled...).  This isn't something I'd wear on its own, and it seems like a Springtime glitter to me.  I also have to point out the lack of gold - not many songs have specific color references, but what what do we know from the very first line of Stairway to Heaven?  There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold.  I would have put some gold in, because looking at this polish, this lady is sure all that glitters is pastel.

That's Lippmann Stairway to Heaven - not a huge failure, not a huge hit, but kind of a disappointment for me.  That's the update for today, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Edited to add a little note on removal: What a nightmare!  Imagine the worst Nfu Oh flaky removal you've ever had and square it.



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

Half-Moon Nudey

This is another look from New York Fashion Week, this time from the Odilon show. 

The design comes from Minx Nails who, in case you don't know, make a special kind of nail sticker that really bonds to your nail and is normally applied by professionals. However, lots of the designs are easy enough to recreate at home with polish and nail art brushes. 

You may have seen Beyonce, Rihanna and other stars sporting the famous Minx chrome manicures. Hopefully, one day, the powers that be will create a polish that gives you the same effect as the amazing chrome Minxes.

I couldn't find this design on Minx's website but you can click here to see the models sporting the look.

I used Collection 2000 White as a base and Cult Nails Cruisin' Nude for the half moons which I applied using a small nail art brush.

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Sally Hansen Salon Effects Cut It Out

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I applied a set of Sally Hansen Salon Effects today, using Cut It Out, the black and white floral pattern.  Real life is overloaded busy these days, so as the week wears on, I get more and more tired and do dumb things, and this application was riddled with dumb mistakes.  For a reference point, my first try using them was with Laced Up, and they came out close to perfect.  Today, I was able to let go of the hope of perfection very early in in the process.

I've had the gold glitter nail polish strips on as a pedi since I made the first Salon Effecst Strips post, so ten days of wear.  For a few days, one of them has shown a crack when waterlogged, but once it's dry the crack doesn't show.  I was waiting for it to chip and finally decided if it hadn't by now, it wasn't going to and I removed it.  The nice thing about the glitter strips is that they're smooth on the surface, not gravelly like glitter polish, and they removed as easily as the Laced Up strips did.

To start the application, I laid out all the strips from one of the two packets in the box and picked out the five for a manicure.  My hope was to get a full mani and full pedi out of one packet after some of the Laced Up comment indicated that it was indeed possible on longer nails.  When sizing them on my nails, it was clear that the length from the cuticle to the tip of my nails, down the center, was longer than one-half of one strip, so using only the five for a full mani wasn't an option for me.  I trust that it's entirely possible for those who suggested it, so I'll have to give it another shot the next time I have a bad break.  I applied a coat of nail strengthener to give the strips something to stick to, which may well be where my difficulties started.

Here's where the really dumb mistakes came in... I kept placing them really off center or too far from the cuticle so they looked grown out, and my left hand has only one nail without some sort of fix, my index finger.  After the first error I removed the strip for a do-over, but it soon became clear that I'd run out of strips long before I had a finished mani if I kept doing that, so I started just fixing them and moving along.  At the end I sealed them with top cat.  I'll show you the picture first do you can look for the repairs while I tell you about them.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips in Cut It Out

The first two went unrepaired - my thumb strip is too far from my cuticle and the index has a wrinkle near the tip, but neither is visible enough to risk messing them up doing anything further to them.  My middle nail was the one that showed me this wasn't going to be easy, and not because of the product.  I laid a strip down maybe halfway up my nail, not even in the general neighborhood of my cuticle, and it's the one where I did a do-over.  After the new coat of strengthener dried, I used the closest sized strip to the one I wrecked, which was a little big, and laid it down a few millimeters down the finger from my cuticle, but the overlap was only on the side on the left and along the left side of that nail since I laid it down completely off center again.  At this point I was out of strips that would fit, so I used the little orange stick from the package to fix it.  With the pointy end I made a dotted line between the excess and what was on my nail, and with the flat edge I scraped off the excess, and what remains along the edge there will come off in the shower in a bit.  It's not perfect, but that worked quite well.  My ring finger was another centering issue, so I cut off a rounded edge from the extra length of the strip used on that nail to fill in the side on the left in the picture.  The pattern has a break in it at the overlap, but it's hard to see.  My pinky, I laid it down way too far up the nail again, so didn't press the strip down but gently lifted it back up.  Some of the strip stayed stuck on, so I smoothed that onto the nail, then turned the same strip around to use the other cuticle-shaped edge and just put it over the other, and it worked fine.

For the second hand, I was even more tired but also annoyed with myself so I wasn't thinking, and those look fine.  One right-hand nail has a double layer resulting from falling short of the cuticle, but that was the only problem.  Overthinking when I'm way too tired generally results in mistakes, and that's what happened here.  I'm sure you get too tired to function well too, which is why I wanted to show you how nicely the strips took to tidying up errors.

I'd gone back and forth on doing the pedi through this, and finally guilted myself into doing it when I considered that the opened leftover strips would dry out and be useless, so if I ever wanted a Cut It Out pedi, I'd better get on with it.  However, all that remained after my arduously complicated mani application were the two gargantuan strips and one super-skinny strip, and when I assessed that they'd be enough to cover all ten remaining nails only if I successfully cut out and applied a lot of little pieces, I threw in the towel and threw out the last three strips.  A honest consideration of the outcome of it, in light of today's application skills, made it seem like I just skipped the steps where I cut out and fail at applying the pieces of strips and went directly to throwing them out.

That's my long story of applying the Cut It Out strips.  It was a hassle, but looking at the outcome I'm very happy, and I cringe at the thought of what a Konad attempt would have resulted in today!  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.

Givenchy Vernis Miroir Multiple 771

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I have a little something different to show you today, and interesting glitter top coat.  It is, as you might have guessed from the title, Givenchy Miroir Multiple Nail Lacquer and Top Coat 771.  It's an older one that's a clear base, but not perfectly clear, the slightly yellowish kind, with lots of really bright, very fine holographic glitter.

I tested it on a nail with the last manicure still on, and the glitter reflects really bright red, green, all the rainbow colors, so I was trying to decide what to put it over for today.  Black and navy blue seemed obvious enough to take the wind out of the Givenchy's sails, I considered a bright red and concluded that I too often use that as the backdrop for glitter top coats, then finally settled on white.  Since the Givenchy does have a tint to it (I doubt it's really tinted that way, some polish bases are not completely clear), I picked the whitest white I have, which is Orly White Out.  Every time I use White Out, there are a ton of comments asking if I mean the typing correction fluid, so I'll be really clear on this one.  White Out is an Orly white creme nail polish, Wite Out is a brand of liquid paper. They're two different things and it's the nail polish on my nails.

I did a base coat, three of White Out to make it non-streaky, then two of the Givenchy, which did add a bit of  a cast to the white, making it more of a pale ivory.  That's fine with me since it diminished the starkness of the white.  I left several minutes between each coat since I'd planned to layer, and I found that the Givenchy dried to a really exceptional high shine, far more so than most top coats.  Still, that's a heck of a lot of layers of polish, so I topped it off with China Glaze Fast Forward.  Fast Forward was just right - the fact that it's not terribly shiny wasn't an issue since it went over something very shiny, and it did a really nice job of drying all those layers.  I accidentally tested it a few times, with the first being fifteen minutes after applying Fast Forward. I knocked a nail into the side of my wire-framed glasses, which is noramlly a sure fire way to make a tear in the surface and take the polish all the way off, but it didn't even dent, which was really impressive.  About an hour after that, I used a nail as a tool for something and got a deep dent, which I figured I had coming, but it popped back out while I slept and I woke up with smooth shiny nails.  Here's the manicure in sunlight - the focus isn't the best ever, but that's intentional to show the glitter a bit.  All of it sparkles like the few pieces that show.

Givenchy Miroir Multiple Nail Lacquer and Top Coat 771

It would definitely be more vibrant over a dark color, but I was up for some variety.  Know what's really funny about that packaging here?  The stem on the Givenchy bottle  is super long, and the round bottle part is as tall as the Orly White Out 0.60 oz bottle, but the Givenchy holds only  0.27 oz.  I'd previously thought the 0.30 oz Estee Lauder bottle, that giant block of glass that would make an effective paperweight in a wind tunnel, was the most masterful job of deceptive packaging, but Givenchy topped them with this one.

That's Givenchy Miroir Multiple 771 and jst about 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.

Summer Señorita

Vogue Espana

Penelope Cruz, Vogue US, June 2011. Dolce & Gabbana lace-and-cotton body suit; and lace corset dress

Meet EOTD and NOTD. They're twins!

I've been trying to create a video tutorial for a Smokey Eye look all week after someone requested it on Facebook but it seems like the world is against me on this one.

The first time I tried, I just didn't get good enough footage because I'm still a rookie. On my second attempt, I got the footage but it refuses to play on my computer. It just crashes any software that I try to open it with, including the editing program! Très frustrating! 

So anyway, here are my takes on the ever classic smokey eye and it's companion, the smokey nail!

I used:

E.L.F. Eyelid Primer

Bourjois Eyeshadow - Blanc

17 Solo Eyeshadow - Thunderbolt

MUA Eyeshadow - Shade 20

E.L.F. Cream Eyeliner - Black

Jerome Alexander Mascara

I think I'll try one more time to make a tutorial for this look but if the universe can find yet another way to tell me that it's just not meant to be, I'll have to concede!

I created a (sort of) gradient using one sponge and three colours. I utilised a combination of dabbing and dragging the sponge

Collection 2000 - White

La Femme - Grey Cream

Rimmel - Black Satin

Top coat of NYC

I'm going camping this week so I won't be blogging. I have one holiday inspired nail art post scheduled for Wednesday and I should be back to blogging by the weekend.

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Tribal White, my current raison d'être

I love this headdress! *Wear to party with LWD (Little White Dress)... casual no?

There's that faux fur Mongolian jacket again!

OPI Simply Smash-ing & White Shatter

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I'm up bright and early so I can run off to a horrifying appointment with the dentist in just a bit.  In light of that start to the day, continuing with the sparkly shatter manicures seemed in order to counter it.

For today's mani, I figured I'd just look at stuff that's come out in the last few months and go with whatever refreshed my memory with an inspiration first.  That ended up being my first thought while wading through my disdain at Black Shatter over Simply Smash-ing, the first OPI Serena set, which I recall specifically noting upon my first proof read that my review contained the phrase "it's hideous" three times, so I spent a long time rewriting that one.  That thought was that Simply Smash-ing was like a sparkly tennis ball green, a favorite color with a favorite finish, and that with white shatter it might look cool.  I put that on the back burner until White Shatter was released, and lo and behold, that's my manicure for today.

I needed three coats of Simply Smash-ing, which would have been negotiable as a base color were it not for my one clear fake tip, then did a top coat to dry it, White Shatter, and more top coat to seal it.  This is how Simply Smash-ing with White Shatter looks.

OPI Simply Smash-ing with OPI White Shatter

You can get the whole tennis ball theme from that, right?  I don't think that one's too far a stretch.  Whether it's that or I've just warmed up to crackle polishes so much since the first time I used Black Shatter, I really love this one.

I'm having a blast with crackles lately - they're such an easy way to make a cool mani an over-the-top one.  That's what I know for now, Dear Reader, so until next time, love and nail polish to you!

Strawberries & Cream with Sprinkles on top!

Sounds yummy doesn't it!Well it's my manicure and it's actually Strawberry(A franken from Kae), ManGlaze Mayo,and Angel Flakies in Christine. (from Sarah)What I usedThis is with Orly Polisheild on topThe flakies have a pinkish base so it gave a slight pink hint to MayoLove it!Without Top coat (Angel Flakies dry matte)I could stare at this all dayI just love how the flakies are warmer, more orange

SpaRitual Ice Ice Baby & Konad H4

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I have a manicure with SpaRitual Ice Ice Baby (dun, dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun...) and the tip pattern from nail art stamping plate H4, which I bought from Chez Delaney but have seen elsewhere since.  Aside from having a name that makes me think silly thoughts, Ice Ice Baby is an opaque shimmery white which required three coats, and I did the stamping in rainbow colors (or a selection of five of them) using various Konad Special and Princess polishes.

SpaRitual Ice Ice Baby Nail Polish and Nail Art Stamping Plate H4

I'm extra happy with how this one turned out, and were it not for the fact that my pinky's fake tip is looking worse for the wear, I think this manicure would go on my list of absolute all-time favorites.  The tip has actually held up quite well this week with daily polish changes including an OPI Burlesque glitter, but I noticed an edge of it lifting, and before I even had time to register a conscious thought about that, I pulled the lifted part off and made a big ledge in it.  That was really the result of being tired - I'd gotten all adjusted to sleeping really well, then in the last week something that's no big deal keeps waking me up super early, which is also why I'm posting this hour.  At 3:30 a.m., there's amazingly little to do - I'm not particularly interested in any Ronco products, and anyone I'd call at this hour would likely either be really drunk or really PO'd at being awakened to shoot the breeze, and I don't feel like talking to either.  Proof reading this paragraph, I'm simultaneously impressed and horrified that I wandered from an analysis of a fake tip to Ronco in so few sentences, so I think I'll leave it that way.

Lest I ramble on about every tired thought that drifts between my ears, I'll just wrap it up here.  Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

OPI Serena Glam Slam France

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I swatched the two new OPI Serena Glam Slam Duos coming out for the French Open for you, so that's what's on tap today.  I only tried out the Shatters over the color each was packaged with, which really aren't what I'd put them with on my own, so there will be more to come with those.

Spark de Triomphe is tons of glitter, sort of white gold overall with specks of black, in a clear base.  The glitter is very dense but still pretty smooth, and this one is good in two coats.  It looks a little bit like I got some poppy seeds on my nails, but I really like Spark de Triomphe just the same.

OPI Spark de Triomphe Nail Polish, Two Coats

Spark de Triomphe is packaged with White Shatter, which is as thick as and about the same to apply as Black Shatter.  It's opaque white when dry.  Since I know some prefer no top coat over Shatters, I took pictures without it as well as with top coat.  I think it has a definite sidewalk chalk look to it without.

OPI White Shatter over Spark de Triomphe, No Top Coat

OPI White Shatter over Spark de Triomphe with Top Coat

That's it for the white one.  Red Shatter came with Rally Pretty Pink, which is indeed rally pretty.  It's that pigment from last year again, and it was difficult to get a good picture of it in artificial light.  Depending on the angle, the color shifts around a good bit, and my camera kept picking up more purple than really shows, but this gives you an idea of it.  It's not so much the pinky-pink I've seen in some promo pictures.  It could have used at least a third coat - this is two.

OPI Rally Pretty Pink Nail Polish, Two Coats

I added Red Shatter, which is more of a jelly than a creme.  It's also much thinner than White Shatter and easier to apply.

OPI Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink, No Top Coat

OPI Red Shatter over Rally Pretty Pink with Top Coat

On the package for the pink and red set, I noticed something I see as good - Serena's sporting some serious nails.



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

Anna Sui Nail Color 001

Good morning, Dear Reader!

To start off a new work week, I changed my polish to one that's far less attention-grabbing than a neon yellow.  I looked through some untried colors and found Anna Sui 001, which is a kind of sheer off-white base loaded up with lots of fine flaky glitter, and of course, being made by Anna Sui, is lightly rose scented.  Since I wanted the manicure to be opaque, I used a base shade that was close to the Anna Sui in an opaque cream, American Apparel Cotton.  Cotton took two coats and was a still bit blotchy after the second, but I figured the Anna Sui would even that out, and it did when I added two coats of it.  Finishing with one coat of top coat smoothed everything out nicely.  Here it is in the best sunlight I saw yesterday.

Anna Sui Nail Color 001 over American Apparel Cotton, Two Coats Each

This turned out much better than I'd expected at the start.  Since I used a white background for the picture, the color looks distinctly off-white, but without real white nearby for comparison, the polish gives the impression of being white without being stark.  I think the addition of the glittery Anna Sui makes it far more interesting and appealing to me than American Apparel Cotton would be on its own.  I'm quite pleased with the result, and I hope it holds up for a few days do I can add Konad  to it, as I'd hoped to but didn't get around to adding to the last few.

I found a few good things in that little box of untrieds I stumbled upon, so I set aside a few of them to show you soon.  I also found some odd items, such as a refill bottle of Seche Clear base coat, which I don't currently use and don't recall ever using regularly.  All I remember about the stuff is that my nails stained easily when I used it, so I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing with a big refill bottle of it.  I wish I'd tape a note explaining why I've chosen to own something before placing it in a box!

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

Team Edward!!

Hallo ladies,

I know I have not posted a new mani in a long time SORRY!!

Today I wanted to show you one of the new Essence nail art twin polishes, I used Edward over Jordana white this combo just screams summer :) Edward is a beautiful polish with big square green, small circle blue, and abit of multi glitter in a clear base.

I used 2 coats of Jordana White and 2 coats of Essence twin Edward.







So what do you think about this combo? Do you have any of the new Essence twins yet and if so which ones?

Thanks for looking.
Kesha