Black Friday Deals at Sally Beauty - Starting Today!

Hello again!  Like I said in the last post, I've been looking out for some gel polish deals for this holiday season... well, a email from Sally Beauty Supply today presented me with some awesome deals!

Sally Beauty posted their Black Friday deals online already--and as a bonus, you can also take advantage of the deals if you shop on line, too!

Of major interest to gel polish lovers like myself, ASP Gel Polish is $6.99 a bottle and Gelish gel polishes are $8.99 a bottle.   This deal lasts from now until 11/30/2014, although if you want to catch the deals in store, they won't start until black Friday, 11/28/2014.  And since this is a regular sale, it should combine with any discounts you have--such as a birthday reward, a 15% off coupon, etc!  

Check out the Black Friday deals page!

And if you want to shop online, here's the links for some things that might be relevant to your interests:

ASP Gel Polish

Gelish Gel Polish

Gelish Complete Mini Starter Kit

As an aside, FingerPaints gel polishes are also on sale for $8.99 this month, although that isn't a sale at all if you're already getting the benefits of a Sally's Club Card.  But if you buy two, you get a free wristlet as a gift with purchase.  Now if only FingerPaints came out with some holiday collections - I haven't seen anything new from them since this summer!

September Deals at Sally Beauty!

Hi again!  Apparently I missed out on a Gelish deal at Sally Beauty last month, and I'm determined not to let anything like that happen this month, because they have a couple more pretty cool deals.

First of all, FingerPaints gel polishes are 2 for $18 for the month of September.  I wonder if they're going to come out with some fall/winter limited edition shades soon; what do you think? And I know, that isn't a huge deal, but there is more.... (UPDATE: Actually, if you already have the Sally Beauty Member card, that's not even a deal at all, considering the everyday price for members is $8.99...what's up with that?!)

Anyway, a better deal is this:  15% off your entire purchase!! Yes, I feel like Sally Beauty doesn't offer these coupons all of the time--but they do for this month!  You can view the 15% off coupon on page 12 of their online flyer.  

Another thing to look out for is a bunch of FingerPaints and Gelish clearance items--including some Gelish gel polishes from the "Trends" line, which I've never seen on clearance before. They do have two shades on clearance online, Gelish "Sweet 16" and Gelish "Candy Shop", but to take full advantage of this deal and find the best selections, you'll probably want to go in-store.

Summer Gel Polish Picks!

Hello! I  know summer technically started last month, but I wasn't happy the first time I recorded this video, so I'm a little late to the game.   I mostly wanted to share with you, though, the fact that some of this season's coolest colors are already in gel polish form--and many of them aren't even from brand new collections of gel polish!

The bright summer time colors this year have a lot of creamy white bases--some are almost pastel--not to mention neons and bright, summery jewel tones aren't so hard to find anymore, either. Well, hopefully you'll watch and see what I mean. :)


I had some issues with this video again--although I recorded it twice--I've got to remember to stabilize myself a bit more to keep everything in focus!  I tend to move back and forth within the field of vision, and my camera doesn't quite like that. 

Oh yeah, my nails in this video are Red Carpet Manicure "Mimosas by the Pool".  It's pretty awesome, and I'll be reviewing that next!

Speaking of Deals...

I'm not sure if I should be sorry to bring you another "deals" post so soon, but this is an awesome deal!

Yup, at Sally Beauty all regular and gel polishes are buy-one-get-one-free from today, 7/15, until Thursday, 7/17. 

I've been eying up some more Gelaze colors, so I might have to make a trip down myself!

Adventures in Gel "Water Marbling"!

Hello again!  In my last post, you may have seen that I attempted a faux water marbling technique (or "dry water marbling" on some of my nails.  Well, I took some up-close shots--and I wanted to explain how I did it, what went wrong, etc.

Sorry for the difference in color saturation--I had a hard time actually getting clear shots of these single nails, and I wanted to do the least editing possible!  The bottom right is actually closest to color accurate.

The three gel polishes that I used on my nails are from NaiLuv, which I reviewed just previously, and Gelish, which I reviewed last year. 

And I didn't come up with this idea myself; in fact, I saw it most recently on The Sparkle Queen's blog, and she mentioned seeing it on a video from Robin Moses Nail Art (who has numerous videos on this technique, as well as more tutorials!) 

As you can see, my nails look nothing as good as theirs do!  Nonetheless, I kind of like it as abstract marbling design, and it was definitely a good chance to learn.  However, if I would have known it would be as "complicated" as it turned out to be, I would have used some swatch sticks first!

Here's the basic idea:

1. Lay down a coat or two of gel, curing between each layer, to build up to semi-opacity--in my case I started with NaiLuv "Peach Blossom".
2. For the final layer, apply a very thin coat of gel, and DON'T CURE IT!
3. Add two or three dots each of some other colors of gel (I used Gelish "Make a Difference" and NaiLuv "Risque Business") on top of the uncured gel--specifically overload your brush for this and let the gel "drop" down onto the nail to avoid cross-contaminating your colors.
4. Swirl all three colors together with a pin, a fine detailing brush, an old pen that doesn't work...etc.  See what works for you!
5. Cure it all.
6. Add a top coat, wash off, and you're done!

Sounds simple, right?  Well, yes and no...  Here's where the trickiness of gel comes in:

• Keep in mind not all gels are created equal: some (especially heavy metallics and glitters) are thicker and some are more fluid, with variance within a brand as well as between brands! For me, NaiLuv "Risque Business" was the thickest gel, which actually worked out well for this technique--it laid down and stayed where I moved it with my detailing brush.
• Thinner gels may handle differently: my thinnest gel was Gelish "Make a Difference", and when I dropped it onto the nail bed, it immediately tried to self-level and combine with NaiLuv "Peach Blossom" that I used as a base.  The colors quickly combined to create more of an ombre look because of this fluidity, which didn't change much when I ran my detailing brush through the mixture to try and make the water marbled look.
• What happened then?  The polish flooded over into my cuticles!  That's easy to clean up with some 91% isopropyl alcohol, but in my experience, if you use just a tad too much alcohol to clean up a mess, you will ruin the integrity of your gel polish.  It's best to keep your brush mostly dry.
• You may be thinking that this may end up being a LOT of gel on the nail even if it doesn't flood into your cuticles, and that may be true.  You have to find a good medium, and that comes with practicing!  Keep in mind, too, that if the gel layer is too thick, light may not penetrate enough to cure through the entire way, leading to decreased wear time. 

All in all, my thumb nails fared the worst in this experience; they were the first nails I tried out this technique with, and because of the thick gel layer and the amount of alcohol I used to clean up the nail bed, my gel lasted only four days before having some major lifting issues at the base of the nail.   The ring fingers did much better; and although the outcome wasn't ideal, I want to try this again in the future!

Coral and Gold with NaiLuv

I'm still in the mood for bright summery colors (the summer solstice is today, after all!)  So this week I decided to try out some of my new NaiLuv colors --"Risque Business" and "Peach Blossom".

(My photos look a little different this week due to the changing daylight hours, so for reference: the first two photos were taken in varying degrees of sunlight, the third is with flash, and the fourth is purely indoor lighting.) 

NaiLuv "Peach Blossom" is a peachy coral creme shade--but it leans much more peach, with just a hint of red to be seen in some lights (especially the second photo, with the sun behind the clouds).   Initially, I thought it reminded me of a China Glaze Gelaze color called "Flip Flop Fantasy", but it's actually very very close to Gelaze "Peachy Keen" instead; it's just a shade or two more dull/less neon.  This color did shrink from the free edge of the nail a little bit, but it wasn't super noticeable, and it didn't affect the wear time.  I needed three coats for opacity with this shade.

For one of my accent nails I used NaiLuv "Risque Business".  This was a pretty big disappointment for a quite a few reasons,  but the color isn't one of them.  The color itself is a tarnished brassy gold metallic shade--it looks pretty bright and metallic in the sunlight, but in most lights it appears more muted--like old brass might appear--as seen in the second and last photos.  While I really wasn't looking for another gold shade, this is a pretty unique color; it's not too yellow, and the metallic reflects are very fine size-wise.  It's also opaque in two coats, although I did use three to keep it consistent with my other nails.  Since it is a metallic shade, it does have a tendency to show brush strokes,  as you may be able to tell!

My problem with this shade probably begins with the fact that this was my first iffy experience with Hautelook--this single gel polish took twice as long to arrive to my door than the three other gels I ordered at the same time.  It also looks nothing like its supposed swatch online at Hautelook or NaiLuv's site; I thought I was going to get a nude neutral with some shimmer,  but instead I got a metallic gold shade.  Finally,  look at the brush!  It is the only NaiLuv gel I've had that has a  permanently splayed and bent brush.  This made application a little annoying,  even though I only used it on two nails.

Finally, on the other accent nails I tried out a faux "water marbling" technique using these two shades plus Gelish "Make a Difference", which I reviewed last year around this same time.  I know I haven't perfected this method at all, so I'll comment more on what happened (cue cinematic music) another post.

June Sally Beauty Deals - Gelish & FingerPaints

Hello again!  Sorry it's been a while, life has been really busy.  But I found another deal this month at Sally Beauty Supply, and couldn't pass up posting about it:

Yup, that's Buy One Get One FREE on your Gelish or FingerPaints gel polish purchase--for the entire month of June.

Gelish isn't on BOGO sale too often--that makes each bottle $6.48-$7.48 each, which is pretty much clearance prices!  Just be careful you don't mix and match gel polishes at different price points, like the regular Gelish ($12.95) and the Gelish Trends ($14.98). 

And of course, FingerPaints gels will be $5.49 a bottle!

I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to pass up a deal like that--both brands have some new collections out for the spring and summer, after all.

100th post! 10 or More (Gel) Polishes Tag

Hello again world! This is my 100th post on my blog! I'm pretty excited about that, but wasn't sure what to do to "celebrate" the occasion.  I'm not sure I have enough repeat readers/commenters to do a giveaway.  Most of you come here for swatches, brand reviews, and the like--and that's just fine with me, since I'm mostly a silent lurker, reader, and oogler of others' swatches and reviews, too.

As if a stroke of lightning came forth to light everything up and solve all my problems while I was thinking of ideas to mark the occasion, I saw  "Secretary's Nail Art"  start a new tag called "10 or More Nail Polish Tag".  This is a pretty awesome idea, as I think it reflects well on a brand if you can say you gladly put your hard earned money down to purchase 10 or more of their products.

And yes, I have bought all of my gel polishes with my own money--so that's a definite investment and a definite show of trust in some brands!

Obviously, though, I'm a gel polish lover; that means brands are a little more limited to begin with, and it can be easy to stockpile a few brands in particular.  This is pretty much the case with me, but I found that for each brand that I have for this tag, I have a unique reason why I have so much.  So I'll explain why I like each brand a little bit.

The pictures aren't the best, but this is just to give you an overview, so I hope it's ok. :)  The extra annoying watermarks aren't to generate any views for my blog, but to save you guys in case they're stolen by scammers online.

 

First is NaiLuv.  This is the smallest brand on the list, and I'm bringing this up first because it's the first brand I tried; I even use their LED light for all of my gel manicures with no problem.  Although I do NOT recommend their "dual base/top coat" (that's another story for another time...), I've had nothing but good experiences with all of their color shades.  I like this brand because of the consistency I've tried so far, the size of the product (a full 15mL for the price), and the fact that I can frequently get it on sale at Hautelook.  The only downside is that I've noticed their prices on Hautelook going up over the past two years!  To their credit, they are frequently expanding their color line a few shades at a time to entice me more.  Check out my NaiLuv swatches.

Second is OPI Gelcolor.  This is the most expensive--and the only "salon-exclusive"--brand on the list, although you can easily find it on Ebay if you're a careful buyer.  In fact, I bought most of these colors second hand as a "lot" from someone selling off her collection, so I got a great deal!  I like this brand mainly because of the coordinating (and iconic) regular polish colors.  That sounds kind of stupid at first, but sometimes it's kind of nice to identify with the regular polish wearing masses by wearing a brand new, unique shade with a name that everyone can remember.  Of course, not all colors are that unique, but if you don't have any similar colors in your own collection, OPI Gelcolor is a pretty good way to fill it out.  While not all of my experiences in the past have been awesome (see "Tomorrow Never Dies"), I've since learned that a lot of my problems are due to my own nail prep and application errors--now I can say that I've had great application and wear, even with such problem Gelcolor shades as "Lincoln Park After Dark".  Want to see all of my OPI Gelcolor swatches?

Third is Gelish.  This is partly "salon-exclusive", partly consumer based--depending on what bottles you want to buy.  The full sized 15mL bottles are salon-exclusive, but they can also be bought on Ebay from reputable sellers, while the smaller 9mL sized bottles are found at Sally Beauty Supply.  What I like most about this brand is the "trendy" variety and the ease of buying.  Gelish has TONS of colors and is bringing more out constantly.  They usually bring out on-trend colors for the seasons, and they are also doing complex glitter polishes similar to the kinds that are popular with a lot of regular nail polish enthusiasts.  I'm lucky enough to live near a Sally Beauty Supply, so I can go see the gel in person--but if I don't like Sally's steep price point (about the same price or MORE as a full 15mL size online), I can go home and purchase online.  Although, while Sally Beauty Supply is a little more expensive, they do have sales from time to time, and you can also purchase bottles on clearance for under $8 or even under $3.  What I DON'T like about Gelish is that the application isn't consistent from shade to shade, with some colors being extra finicky--and one shade with very lackluster glitter.  Here's some more Gelish swatches if you're interested.

Last and definitely not least is Red Carpet Manicure.  What do I like best about this brand?  It's kind of a trifecta of positive points: variety, availability, and sale price.  Many speculate that Red Carpet Manicure (or "RCM") is produced by the same company as Gelish, with RCM re-releasing a lot of Gelish shades to a more casual consumer-based store (in the US, that's Ulta).  So there's a large variety of colors to begin with--but RCM also releases a lot of limited edition collections of their own.  The only downside to it being kind of an off-shoot of Gelish is that RCM suffers from the same application inconsistencies from shade to shade--although most gels apply well, or I wouldn't have this many of either!  It's also easy to see and buy the gel in person, since Ulta is a convenient beauty store for many.  The BEST PART OF ALL, though, is the price point!  I have a ton of colors, but I estimate that I paid less than $5 for over half of them, and I don't think I paid the full $9.99 price point for more than five shades.  They can be found in the clearance bins of Ulta pretty often, and the store also sends out coupons about every other week.  With deals like that, I'm more than ok with buying a smaller 9mL size bottle.  Click on through if you want to see my RCM swatches. 


Ok, I guess that got pretty wordy--but I wanted to give you a good overview of the brands!

Laying all these colors out was kind of eye-opening, too.   Should keep these photos of my horde from my boyfriend?  Is this photographic evidence of valuable assets I should be claiming on insurance?!  Most importantly: I clearly have a lot more colors to swatch--what should I wear next?

Speckled Egg Nails

So I'll admit, I'm kind of tired of the colors I've been wearing lately.  All the cool tones, all the sparkles...and I'm even kind of tired of the pastels already--even though spring's only just begun.

But despite all of that I couldn't help but think of this combo I had in my head, and I figured the Easter time would be the only time of year that this would work out.  What is it?  Pretty much the easiest "Easter" nail theme EVAR! 

I know, I know: if you guys are into regular polish this may seem boring to you--after all, Illamasqua started/made this trend popular last year with their "I'mperfection" polishes (that was another of my inspirations for this manicure, actually).  But in the gel polish world we're only just starting to get things like matte glitters in gel polishes, and those are only "toppers" and not complex polishes with color and glitter in one. 

So what did I do to create my own take on this very popular style?  I just layered a matte glitter coat UNDER my final layer of a semi-sheer or "streaky" pastel color. Basically, you'll make a sandwich of two or three coats of a creme gel polish, one coat of a glitter, and a final layer of your creme gel polish on top.  Since pastels in gel polish form tend to be a little thinner or streakier (and therefore require more layers), this was super easy to do--and as a bonus the glitter detracts from any streakiness!

I love this so much more than I imagined I would.  Even though a day after I painted them, I realized my nails also look a bit like scrambled eggs with salt and pepper.  I think I'm the only one that's thought that so far, but either way I think it's kind of hilarious and only makes me love my nails more! 

Ok, review time:

Gellaka "Banana Beach" is the pale yellow pastel creme shade I used for the color in this manicure. I think I used four coats altogether--since it is a pastel, it is a little streaky until you layer it up.  I mentioned in my last review on this brand that Gellaka polish is a little bit on the thinner side, so I paired it with a layer of a Gelish glitter this time (which has the added bonus of being a thicker gel formula on top of just being an extra fifth layer of strength).  Thanks to this extra strength, I've had improved wear so far!  Much less bending and no chipping.

Gelish "A Pinch of Pepper", which I layered under the fourth and final coat of "Banana Beach", is one of the matte glitter topper coats from their "Trends" collection.  When I say "matte", I don't mean it in the traditional "no shine" sense, but in the sense that the glitters are not metallic at all--they're just colored plastic pieces.  In this case, there are three sizes of black and three sizes of white matte hexagonal glitter in a clear base.  However, thanks to some of the irregularly cut hexes and the random way the glitters will apply to your nails, you get the impression that the glitters are much more complex than that! I used only one coat here, and it made a neat sparse glitter--but in no way subtle.  Since the glitter in this is sparse, too, I find the gel isn't too thick (it's just thick-er in comparison to the other color I paired it with).  So if you focus too much on glitter placement, you may find yourself having to deal with flooding on your cuticles!


My nails don't exactly match the eggs I had the urge to buy and consume after doing these nails, but that just brings to mind more ideas.  The Gelish Trends line has three other "matte" glitter gels--a green & blue shade called "Candy Shop", a pink & blue glitter called "Let Me Top You Off" (eugh, what were they thinking with that name), and a multicolored glitter called "Lots of Dots".   How awesome would ANY of those glitters look layered with that streaky pastel shade you've been avoiding for a while because it was just too hard to work with? 

Gelaze Initial Review and DUPES?!

A few weeks ago,  I purchased some of China Glaze's new line of gel polishes, "Gelaze".  Even though it wasn't quite spring yet, I was being optimistic and picked up two spring-worthy pastel shades, "Refresh-mint" and "For Audrey".  Knowing how iconic some of China Glaze's regular polish colors are, I decided to try to see if I had any similar colors in my collection...and what do you know, I found a few!

I had to re-record this video on a different camera, so initially, I planned on it being a bit shorter.  But since I had my nails painted with "For Audrey" for 8 days by the time I recorded this video again, I decided to add on a short review in the last two minutes.

I will most definitely have pictures and a better review up soon, though! 

In short, here's the dupe list:

Gelaze "For Audrey" is almost identical to "Sea Cloud Cruise" from Red Carpet Manicure (which is just a teeensy bit lighter), and "Cool Blue Harmony" from FingerPaints Gel Polish.  It's possibly also close to Gelish's "My One Blue Love", which I haven't been able to find in order to compare!

Gelaze "Refresh-Mint" doesn't have an exact dupe that I've found, but it's close to the classic Gelish "Seafoam" (which is just a bit darker and bluer), so if green isn't your thing, you probably don't need to pick it up.  It's possibly also close to FingerPaints "Paint Me Oh-So-Modern!", based on comparisons between that shade and Gelish "Seafoam" that I've found online, but once again I have not been able to compare the two in person.

A Mylar Flake Gel Polish Battle!

Hello! This post might be kind of dense, since I've got quite a few polishes to cover here... Hopefully you won't mind!

I've noticed that a few gel polish brands have recently released some gel polish glitter coats with mylar flakes in them--otherwise known as "flaky" or "flakie" polishes, or even simply "flakies".  I thought that day might never come, and then all of a sudden Red Carpet Manicure, Gelish, and FingerPaints started releasing them within a few months of each other!  For now,  I tried out two such glitters--the well-known Gelish "Rough Around the Edges", and a Red Carpet Manicure one I stumbled upon by accident, "Stealing the Spotlight".

First of all, let me give you a quick rundown on the base colors I used:

The white color on my accent nails is Red Carpet Manicure "White Hot"--which, up until now, I had only used for nail art accents.  To paint my whole nail, I needed 4 coats for it to look mostly opaque.  I definitely wasn't impressed with that!  The color itself seemed a pretty true white creme shade to me, but it did tend to take on a slightly yellowed-paper type of tone in indoor lighting.

The main color on the rest of my nails is OPI Gelcolor "A Grape Fit".  (As an aside, this color is the EXACT same as Sephora by OPI Gelshine in "Iris I Was Thinner", which costs $17.50 for a bottle 2/3 the size of a Gelcolor bottle...you can figure out which you shouldn't spend your money on.)  The color itself is a neat blue-toned purple creme  halfway between pastel and bright.  The "Pantone color of the year" is "Radiant Orchid", and this shade isn't too far off from that--just a tad more blue-toned.  It can look a little more pastel or bright and bold depending on the lighting, making this a great color for those wishing for warm spring/summer months.  I only needed two coats for opacity with this gel, and I noticed no fading at all, even though light purples can be kind of tricky in gel polish form!

Ok, now for the glitters:

First off is Gelish "Rough Around the Edges".  I used one coat for this on all my nails, just so you could get a good idea of the amount of glitter present in these gels.   The clear iridescent mylar flakes are nice and uniformly warm-toned--shining mostly red and orange and yellow, with maybe a hint of spring green here or there.  The second photo, with flash, is a little deceiving for this glitter--since it's clear, it mostly takes on a cool purple-ish tone like the gel polish underneath it, but it is a good reference for the amount of glitter and the size of the flakes in this polish.  Speaking of which: the flakes themselves are rather small and sparse within the gel polish--as you can see, some of my nails seem to have more sparkle than others because of this.  Worst part of all was the fact that these flakes seem to have been shredded or torn, rather than precisely cut, leading to what sometimes looks like flat light grey plastic looking pieces stuck in my gel, rather than nicely cut, iridescent glitter.  You can see that here:

I thought maybe I had gotten a bad batch, so I looked over at Gelish Geekery's swatches and then Chickettes, and noticed what looked like the same thing in all their swatches. 

Of course, due to the irregular glitters in this gel, there were a few spots that didn't level out very well on the nail.  You could take your time to push down the annoying bits with a brush before curing or apply two coats of top coat, but personally, I found the flakes were so small in this polish that it wasn't too much of a problem.

Now for the next one!

These last three photos are Red Carpet Manicure "Stealing the Spotlight", which I stumbled upon by accident; I didn't really know what I was getting when I picked up the box from the "Dazzling Gems" collection that had a pearly white nail on the outside.  Go figure!  In actuality this gel polish is amazing--once again I'm going to remind you that I only used 1 coat for these.  And look how jam-packed the glitter is!  This gel has rather large, irregular clear mylar flakes with a mix of cool and warm toned iridescence--although it's mostly cool toned (think spring green, light blue, and purple), it has just enough glints of red and orange in the mix to give it some added interest.  And! And! And!  It also has tiny clear iridescent shimmers that sparkle light blue and purple, with maybe a hint of green depending on the lighting, to further ensure that your nails will never look flat or boring.  It was so sparkly, I had a really hard job trying to capture a macro photo on this one--the best I could do was the last photo, that kind of shows off the iridescent shimmers a bit.

The only downside here is that since the flakes in this gel polish are larger, it is a little more prone to unevenness on the nail--once again you could fix that by carefully pushing pieces down with your brush before curing, or applying extra top coat.  But the glitter is so mesmerizing, I think I'm willing to put up with that.

Whew... after all of that... I still have one more thing.  Since iridescent flaky polishes like this can be hard to capture in photos, I recorded a video to show them off a bit, too.  Keep in mind, though,  I didn't have direct sunlight here, so they will look even more sparkly under direct light!  I rehash a lot of the same information in the video, so you can put it on mute and watch for a few seconds, or just watch if this post was a little TL;DR again for you.

Sally Beauty Supply...Deals!

I've never really posted about Sally Beauty Supply a lot, mostly because they're guaranteed to have a sale every other month or so on some gel polish.  Sometimes you need to pay for their club card in order to receive these deals, too.  Buuuuut, this month they have a few interesting deals going on!

First, and most exciting, China Glaze is coming out with their gel line called "Gelaze".  And lucky for all gel polish addicts, this whole month (3/1 through 3/31) all China Glaze nail polishes and gel polishes are buy one get one FREE!  Unfortunately, this gel line is so new, it's not even in all stores yet.  I should know: I just tried to check out one of my local stores today and was out of luck.  But you can peruse the shades online (although it doesn't look like the sale is online) or try to contact a local store near you to see if they're in stock. Even if they're not on sale, it looks like Gelaze has a pretty cheap price point--$11.99 for a bottle, or $10.99 if you sign up for their club card.

Here's a clip from Sally Beauty's monthly flyer online:

On top of that, FingerPaints Gel polishes are also on sale for $9.99, or $7.99 if you have their club card.  Luckily, FingerPaints has just released some new gel polish collections, too--including three"flaky" sparkle shades!


...Oh yeah, and one more thing: Don't forget to check out the clearance sales at Sally Beauty, too.  This time, I found a sparkle shade from the winter 2013 Gelish "Snow Escape" collection for $5.95, and lots of other Gelish polishes ranging from $8.95 to $10.95.  

Deals? A Giveaway at Chickettes Blog!

I'm always kind of out of the loop when blogs and sites host giveaways, but this is one I found out about before it ended!

"The Chickettes" are giving away a Gelish light, a Gelish Mini starter set, and three Gelish gel polishes from their recent fall "Under Her Spell" collection. 

 If you haven't yet gotten into soak off gel polishes but have been thinking about it..  or if your light is hitting the end of its days, you should definitely sign up. :)


PS: Red Carpet Manicure colors from the summer collection have been making their rounds through Ulta's clearance, too.  It's not posted on their website, but I've seen about 5 colors in clearance bins at the local Ulta for half price, so $4.99.  And you can always use an email or mailer coupon if you spend over $10 to make it an even better deal!

PPS: I just noticed that Walgreens has both the Kiss gel polishes I just reviewed on sale for $8.99, and SensatioNail gel polishes on sale for $7.99! I think their sales last until the 12th of October. 

Gel "Skittles" Manicure

I wanted to do one more fun, bright manicure before fall arrived--I wasn't quite ready to let go of the summer weather, you see.  But I've been in the mood for Halloween candy already, too... so I came up with this really bright "Skittles" gel manicure!

 
My orientation of colors kind of makes it look like a rainbow manicure, as well!

Here's everything I used:

For the thumb and pointer finger, I used two notoriously sheer neons, so I used as a base Red Carpet Manicure "White Hot".  I should have known the neon colors would be sheer, but I didn't think--so I didn't shake and prepare my white color well.  As a result I had to use 2 coats for a base of creamy white that was just a tiny bit streaky.  This base color helped to ensure that the neons I put on top of it would not be sheer at all. 

On the thumb, I used Red Carpet Manicure "Show Me the Money" (which is pretty much the same as Gelish's "Amazon Flirt") over "White Hot".  As with regular nail polishes, neon colors in gels can be kind of tricky--applying semi-sheer to the nail and having a different finish due to the pigments used (luckily this isn't a problem in gel, as you'll need to top it off anyway).  Over a base of white, "Show Me the Money" was a semi-sheer highlighter-green creme color even after three coats, and looked rather splotchy when viewed up close in some lighting.  You can kind of see this in my indoors picture where I was holding my cheap-o headphones, although I couldn't get a head-on view picture of my thumb.  However, from arm's length and in sunlight, this color doesn't look so uneven, probably because it's so NEON I'm distracted by the glow!

On the pointer finger I used Gelish "Copacabana Banana".  Again it's a bright highlighter-yellow neon creme that is semi-sheer, so I put it over the "White Hot".  Luckily this one was much nicer--I think I only needed two coats to achieve a great, even color over the white with no streaks or unevenness like the green!

The middle finger has the only shimmery shade, Gelish "Orange Cream Dream".  It's a great bright orange filled with gold shimmer.  The shimmer is fine enough that it doesn't look too different from the cremes from far away, but the gold still pops out nicely in sunlight--you can see this best in the second photo.  I used three coats, and there seemed to be a teensy bit of visible nail line up close, but nothing so noticeable I could even capture in a photograph!

On my ring finger, I have the only new brand of gel to me--that's IBD JustGel "Molly".  It's an awesome almost neon fuchsia creme shade.  I need to do all my nails in this color sometime!  Three thin coats applied smoothly and evenly.  Once again, with these bright shades, I felt like I saw a bit of visible nail line, but there was nothing so drastic I could even capture it in a photo. 

My pinkie finger has the darkest shade, which is Gelish "Sugar Daddy".   Only two coats needed on this one, because the polish was pretty thick on its own!  It applied nicely even so, and it came out a bright blue creme color--like a cobalt with just a teensy bit of grey to tone it down.  A color like this will work for any season, really. 

The only major disappointment here was RCM "Show Me the Money", which I expected to be sheer, but not streaky! Luckily this past summer (2013, that is) Gelish reformulated some of their neons and released another neon collection, and with it is another green shade called "Sometimes a Girl's Gotta Glow".  Hopefully that one applies better than this one--and maybe that will trickle down to the RCM line of gels. 

Fall Gel Polish Picks!

Hello again!  I've not really been into video-making lately, but I decided to do one for my gel polish pics for the fall season, as I've done with all the other seasons this year. 


Unfortunately my nails for this video are not very fall-like, but I wanted to do a "Skittles" gel manicure before the summer ended--and as a bonus, Skittles also remind me of Halloween candy, haha.  But I'll have a post on that later!

The colors mentioned in this video are:

OPI Gelcolor - Skyfall
OPI Gelcolor - Casino Royale
OPI Gelcolor - Eurso Euro
OPI Gelcolor - Lincoln Park After Dark
OPI Gelcolor - Every Month is Oktoberfest
OPI Gelcolor - Deutsch You Want Me Baby
OPI Gelcolor - Nein! Nein! Nein! Ok Fine!
OPI Gelcolor - A Good Man-darin is Hard to Find
Red Carpet Manicure - It's Not a Taupe
Red Carpet Manicure -  Toast of the Town
Supernail Progel - Baltic
NaiLuv - Rum Cola
NaiLuv - Hollywood
NaiLuv - Hardcore ROck
NaiLuv - Love Power
Orly SmartGels - Naughty
Sally Hansen Salon Gel Polish - Troublemaker
Gelish - A Runway for the Money

The colors I don't have, but am really looking forward to getting for the fall (because they're pretty unique!):

OPI Gelcolor - Peace & Love & OPI
Orly GelFX - Yellow-Gold Chrome, Magenta-Violet Chrome, Rose-Bronze Chrome, and Pink-Blue Chrome
OPI Gelcolor - Here Today... Aragon Tomorrow (I'm hoping this is less yellow-grey and has a better formula than the mentioned Gelish color)

Gelish "Naughty List"

Long time, no see, internet!

Sorry about the absence; I haven't been doing anything exciting, although I've been really busy.  But I finally have another picture post!

 

Gelish's "Naughty List" is a great black shade jam packed with flecks of gold glitter.  Actually, there may be some silver glitter, too, as in the right sunlight it will reflect both colors (and I DID think it was silver the first night I painted my nails!), but overall the glitter comes across a nice champagne gold color.  Usually, I see black paired with silver, so this is somewhat unique--and there's so much glitter that you definitely will not mistake this shade for plain old black gel polish.

If the glitter doesn't look very gold to you in those photos--my lighting varies, after all--may I present you with a blurry outtake photo for evidence:

That's a lot of bling!

The formula was fine and went on with two coats, although if I wasn't careful, there was some patchiness.  You might pick up on that my pinky...oops!

The other thing you might pick up on is that this color had considerable tip wear.  You can see it in the pictures, and this manicure is only a week old.  Once again, I'm going to blame my spur-of-the-moment color decisions--I felt like this color required lots of mixing to get all the glitter and dark pigments dispersed well.  If I hadn't decided on this color at the last minute, I could have shaken it up a few hours (or the night before) to get those pigments and glitters mixed in without the fear of there being too many bubbles.  

This color is from Gelish's 2012 holiday collection, which contained a bunch of gel polishes packed with glitters.  I know, I know, it's July--but don't you just want to do something different sometimes?  "Christmas in July" movie marathons were on TV this past weekend, anyway!

Hopefully next time I'll be back sooner rather than later. :)

Random... Summer Gel Polish Picks!

Hi again! I did a video showing some nice spring-themed gel polish shades a few months ago, and since summer is nearly officially here, I thought it was high time that I make another video with some summer-themed selections.

I did it rather quickly and after quite a few hours awake, so I'm sorry for any babbling going on--but hopefully this will give some idea of what awesome gel polish colors are available that are still on-trend for the summer time. 


There are two caveats I have overall with the selection of gel colors for the summer, which I mentioned only briefly at the very end of the video:

1. GREENS. I love green polishes, don't ask me why.  I wish there were more shades of vibrant greens available. Bright jade green, grass green, etc.

2. Neons--which always seem to be popular but finicky even in regular nail polish--are no exception when it comes to gels.  They can be thinner or more transparent than other shades of polish even by the same brand, or they may not be truly "BAM in your face" neon, if you know what I mean.  I think I have seen some gel brands come out with multiple "collections" of neon shades, so hopefully this is something that is being worked on and improved upon.  So that's yet another thing I would gladly buy, if it existed!

My next update will have photos of the manicure I'm sporting in this video, which is Nailuv's "Boracay Beach" and Red Carpet Manicure's "Shimmering Gown".  I don't have enough time at the moment, sorry!

Lastly, it appears on a quick search that some of the Red Carpet colors I selected are not available at Ulta right now--at least on their website--so I may have to do some digging to find the Gelish equivalents soon. 

Gelish "Make A Difference"

With the warmer weather, I've been more into brighter colors.  Normally bright bubble-gum-like pink is not my thing, but I bought this color on clearance a while ago at Sally Beauty Supply, and it called out to me this week.

 Gelish "Make a Difference" is a great medium-toned pink: it's a very saturated pink, but it's not too bright or too pastel, and not too warm or too cool.  In fact, I feel like my pictures almost make it look like two different colors, because in natural lighting it plays off the blue tones of the sky, but in yellow lighting it appears more warm.   

It has a very fine gold shimmer throughout it; not enough to be metallic or show your brush strokes, but it's there.  Despite the warm-toned shimmer, it doesn't warm the overall color and make it look too salmon-like or coral.  Instead it just gives a little extra dimension, and while sometimes you do not see the shimmer at all (IE the second photo), sometimes it shimmers a nice gold (IE the first photo) or even kind of reflects the white in the lighting or the pink in the polish.  Because of the tiny shimmer, it reminds me a bit of OPI's "My Address is Hollywood", only the OPI color has a bit more of a muted/grey undertone to it. 

The formula for this color applied very well, with no migrating or shrinking anywhere, so I can't really say much else! 

I'll leave you with another attempted up-close macro shot I took to try to show off the shimmer in this polish.  I think I'm getting a little bit better?  You can even super-size the image for the full effect!

"Lights of Emerald City" over "Seafoam"

Hello again!  I have a few things lined up, but I still haven't started posting more!

In the mean time, this is my most recent manicure:

I used Gelish "Seafoam" as the base color--it's a neat pastel green creme shade with slight blue and grey undertones.  So basically, it's just like the name, but it can also come across as rather "minty" colored, and pastel greens like this have been really popular over the last two spring seasons.  Formula-wise, I found this just as thin as the Red Carpet Manicure color I used recently--so I had to use three coats, and since it was a thinner gel it flooded my cuticles somewhat easily.  I've had this polish for a little while, so I'm not sure if I needed to shake it to mix it more, or what-have-you, but I was a little disappointed considering the high hopes I had for this color.  By the way, the first picture--the indoor picture with flash--is actually closest to what it looks like in most inside lights, although it does take on the bluer tone in more natural lighting.  

On top of that I have OPI Gelcolor "Lights of Emerald City".  This one is a clear gel with an unusual combination of square glitters--smaller ones that are sheer opalescent, and larger ones that are solid white.  The opalescent ones shine mostly warm tones--from pink to red to yellow--but they sometimes may shine a little green, too.  The funny thing about this gel is that it seems thicker than other OPI Gelcolors I've used so far!  It's so thick, it does not self-level as easily, and it does not flood into your cuticles very easily, either.  It seems to me almost like the Axxium gels I've tried--which are OPI's thicker pot-style gels.  I found this both good and bad.  It's good because it helps you to place the larger square glitters nicely,  because I personally tended to brush them off my nail entirely if I didn't dab them into place--and the same happened with the small glitter to an extent.   It's bad because, well, it can be hard for a newbie like me to make your nail surface look smooth and even with such a thick gel, not to mention the dabbing itself caused miniscule bubbles.  As with all glitters, sometimes I have problems getting the glitter to "stick" to the gel.  I STILL feel like gel + glitter do not mix well, an in fact resist each other.  The glitters in this gel seemed to be firmly encased under the surface once everything was all done, but I still had one large white square lift off.  You might even be able to see where it was on my pointer finger.

Anyway, my other caveat with this glittery gel is that I feel like sheer opalescent glitters (just like the ones in Gelish's "Silver Sands") sometimes don't show up on the nail very well, depending on the lighting.  With this combination, the glitters looked a cool blue when they weren't reflecting light, but that changes depending on what shade you layer these glitters over--and they can seem to disappear altogether if you layer it over black.

Overall these nails kind of reminded me of polka dots, but instead of the usual organized polka dot, more like the random "ditsy dot" fabrics that were popular in--I think--the earlier 1900's.  It's kind of like nail art without all the work!

Gelish, Sally Hansen & Nailuv Deals!

Sooo you're going to have to get off your backside for most of these deals, sorry!

First of all, Sally Beauty Supply has some of their Gelish colors on clearance.  At least the one I visited, select colors that were from the magneto collection and the breast cancer awareness collection were $4.95, selected colors from the holiday glitter collection were $7.95, and some of the colors from the fall runway inspired collection were $10.95.  They're all minis, of course, and the latter price ($10.95) is still a little too high, in my opinion, but I did pick up three colors from the cheaper sets!  There's also a year-long $5 off $25 coupon you can print out to help make your purchase a little cheaper.
(P.S.: Sally's is also selling a new gel polish by Finger Paints, if you're feeling a little adventurous.)

Second, I'm not sure why this deal isn't online, but in-store Ulta still has the new Sally Hansen gel polishes and strips on sale buy-one-get-one half off.  They may also still have some of their Supernail Progel shades on clearance for $6.95.  You can still get Progel online anytime for around the same price, but this way you wouldn't have to wait for them to arrive in your mailbox.   Ulta ALWAYS has two coupon codes going, too, if you sign up for their emails. Here's the $3.50 off $10 coupon that expires 3/30.

Lastly--you can sit back and relax for this one--on Wednesday the 27th, NaiLuv will be back on Hautelook.  This time they're featuring their "Bridal Collection".  Who knows what that means; it's probably not something I'll be interested in unless they throw in some semi-abnormal pastel shades or something!