31 Day Challenge (v.2!) Day 19: Galaxy Nails!

Good Morning Ladies! Welcome to Day 19 of the 31 Day Challenge!

Today's challenge is.....dun dun dun! Galaxy Nails! I was kind of ambivalent about this challenge since I've done Galaxy Nails several times now (not just for the blog!) and I end up using the same colors and pattern every time. This time I decided to use more blue and pink to brighten things up, and throw in a little something extra.

I started with a base of Ulta Rhinestone Rocker, a sparkly black that I picked up at Ulta a good year ago.  Then I sponged on some swirls and random patterns with Sally Hansen White On. I added some highlights with Sally Hansen Brisk Blue and Twisted Pink, added a coat of Pure Ice Heartbreaker, then stamped using Mash-34 and Essie Nothing Else Metals. I finished off with some random white dots and a good coat of SV. I like the end result better than my usual dark galaxies.

At first I wasn't sure if I like this mani, but it grew on me fast. I wasn't pleased with the smearing of my sponging when I top coated, but I think that may have something to do wit my SV needing a good dose of restore. I do like the brighter colors as opposed to my usual dark blues and purples for galaxies, and the happy little planet makes me giggle!

What do you think of galaxy nails? Still love them or just about over them?

Be sure to check out all the Galaxy Nails from the Varnished Vixens!
Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles 




On a random note, I'm going to warn you guys that the shape of my nails may get odd in the coming weeks. I've decided I want more length now, which means alot less shaping. My nails grow pretty much diagonally, which means some less than straight edges for a bit. Sorry! :)

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

30 Days of Blue: Gradient and Stamping

As you guys know from my previous post, I am very sick at the moment, so I'm keeping this short and sweet.

Awhile back I came across Oooh, Shinies! and just fell in love with this woman's stamping. Seriously, if you haven't seen her manis, you are missing out! Anyway, I came across an awesome stamped gradient that she did, and I just had to try it out. I used different polishes, but the end result is what I was looking for. Now if only I wasn't attempting this mani while struggling to breathe and so loaded up on medications that I shake like a Parkinson's patient. No, really. The high doses of Albuterol have my hands so shaky that was literally the best images I could manage while stamping. It's sad, but at least IRL the smears and inability to line up my stamps very well isn't noticeable. In fact, this mani received a ton of comments while in gradient form during my 6 hours in the ER yesterday, and even with it's funky stamping job it's been noticed today. I can't wait to be back to normal and be able to stamp normally. Seeing all those awesome stamping manis really makes me want to whip out my plates and play!

So here is the gradient: I used 2 coats of Wet N Wild Megalast I Need A Refresh-Mint, then sponged on Heaven Nail Lacquer in Honolulu Orchid, and added some Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away! on the very tips. I apologize for how unforgiving my macro setting is. Makes the gradient appear all lumpy! I promise I top coated it to smooth it out!

 And here it is with the ultra shaky stamping: After 2 days of wearing just the gradient I finally grabbed my Konad Special Polish in Black and stamped with the Zebra image from Bundle Monster plate BM 223. I'm so bummed that these meds make me so shaky since I just love how this looks! Sometimes I get caught up in sharing my latest and greatest polishes and forget how much I love to play with my polish and create awesome, bright, fun manis. I really need to get back in touch with that. The entire reason that I started really getting into polish again was due to manis like this! How soon we forget, right? You guys don't mind if I do fun manis, do ya?  Anyway, feel free to point and laugh at my wonky lines and inability to keep from smearing my darn stamps! Yikes! Oh! Also enjoy how unforgiving my macro setting is. Dig the drops of cuticle oil that you can actually see hanging out on my nails! *head desk* See how sloppy I am when I'm sick? I'm playing. Trust me, I know just how sick I am and these are great shots of one hell of an amazing mani considering how close to hospitalization my happy ass is. :)

Hope you are all having a better week than I am, and thanks for dropping by!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Spoiled by Wet N Wild: Hit The Brakes

Hi guys!

Hope you're all having a decent Monday! Today I have another Spoiled to share with you before I take a break from them and move on to some China Glaze and Julep Polishes for a bit (Hey, everyone has to mix it up a bit sometimes, right? I have 34 Spoiled polishes, I need some variety!).

I don't normally wear true reds, since my skin tone just hates them. I mean, really hates them - I look pink and blotchy and ashy when I wear them. Unfortunately, I love red, so occasionally I bite the bullet and hope noone notices. Thankfully real life doesn't involve macro shots, so I think I'm pulling it off.  It probably doesn't help that my hands are very chapped from dish-washing (I bought gloves today!) and are looking pretty pink anyway. I apologize in advance for how bad they look - I also invested in some awesome sloughing lotion and warming hand scrub to help out.

Today's polish is Spoiled by Wet N Wild's Hit The Brakes, a gorgeous true red jelly. It almost looks like it would be blue based, but in all honesty the way it plays with my skin tone says yellow base. Either way it's a stunning classic red, and I love love love it! Here she is on her own:

Ugh, see how horrid my skin looks? I'm babying it, but it's so very angry. Let that be a lesson to us all; wear gloves when doing dishes! Water is the enemy!

Anyway, isn't Hit The Brakes just a gorgeous, classy red? So very chic. I was also pleasantly surprised that it's a jelly. I was expecting another creme from this line, but a red jelly? I foresee an awesome Jelly Sandwich Mani in my future!

Formula on this baby was smooth as silk. I'm happy to report that I used a different brush (from an old base coat) and what a HUGE difference! The polish flowed onto the nail like silk, with no bubbling or balding. Dry time was very fast, and like most of my Spoiled polishes,  wear is pretty impressive. I wore this polish for almost 3 days with barely any tip wear. If you can tolerate using a different brush, do not hesitate to pick up a few from this line. They're certainly worth the $2.99 price tag.

As beautiful as this color is on its own, I just had to play with it. I added Essie Shine Of The Times with a little sponging, and then topped it all off with NYC Matte Me Crazy Mattifying Top Coat (review after the pics):

I love how fiery this mani is! Shine of The Times looks like little flames licking at the nail! LOVE!

I wasn't aware that NYC even made a Matte top coat when I stumbled upon it at Wal Mart the other day. With a $1.29 price tag, I figured it was certainly worth a shot! It goes on very smooth, and mattes up quickly, but seems to cloud up the color a bit. For the money, it's a great little matte top coat, but if you want your color to remain 100% as vibrant, I would stick with a higher end matte top coat. I usually use Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love or China Glaze Matte Magic. Matte-ly In Love is a bit thicker than Matte Magic, but still doesn't cloud the base color. Other than being a bit cloudy, Matte Me Crazy wears incredibly well - 2 days and no chips- and stays Matte. I was able to slather my nails and cuticles with oils and lotions and within a few minutes the matte effect was back in full effect.  I will definitely be using this little baby again and again. I like to play with Matte effects, and spending so little on a matte top coat means I won't feel guilty if I end up not liking it and using SV over it.

This week I am taking a break from Spoiled polishes so that I can wear my Hunger Games polish as well as my some of my other new polishes from Layla, Julep, and L'oreal. As much as I want to share all of my Spoiled stash with you guys, I need a little variety, and I'm sure you do too!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Petite's Daze and Mermaid Tails

Hi guys! I seem to be recovering from the evil stomach bug! Yay! I swear, if this year continues on the path it's been headed down, I'll be in the looney bin by March. Ugh!  But enough whining, onto the polish!

Today I have a really awesome little drugstore polish to share with you, Petites Daze. Daze is a bright yellow based green glitter/foil that caught my eye on a trip to Wal Mart awhile back. There were a ton of newer petites colors (newer to me at least, wal mart usually only has a handful of petites colors out here), so I picked up as many as I could. At $1.29 a pop, I figured even if I hated them, they were worth it. Daze is certainly the standout among the Petites colors I picked up, being the only bright color and one of the 2 that isn't a creme. I still couldn't tell you if it's a glitter or a foil, since it has glittery particles suspended in a sheer green base, but is very foil-like. I'll call it a Gloil. Close enough, right? Anyway, check out this dazzling little beauty!

Taken in lightbox - sorry for weird lighting! I think it's time for a new daylight bulb!

I love this green! It does cast a bit of a yellow glow on my cuticles, but it's such a fun color that I'm willing to overlook a little cuticle jaundice.  Formula on this was much better than I had expected. It did need 3 coats to look somewhat even, and as with any glitter it left it's fair share of glittery residue on my fingertips (I maintain it's festive), but it went on smoothly and stayed where I told it to. Wear wasn't too shabby either. I wore this alone for a day without any tip wear or chipping. Of course, since it's such a bright and shimmer color, I had to play with it a bit. I decided to  add a sponged gradient using Essence Choose Me, then double stamped using both Essence Choose Me and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. I topped that off with a quick coat of Pure Ice Heartbreaker and some SV and voila! Mermaid Mani!

I don't think it came out half bad! Some of the stamping smudged a bit, but I also stamped directly onto the sponged polish - limited time frame and impatience on my part. :(

First, my Left Hand:

And my rarely seen Right Hand! Funny, lately when I stamp my right hand comes out better than my left!

I had a blast working on this mani. What do you guys think?

Hope you're all having a fabulous Friday!

Happy Polishing
-Kimber

31 Day Challenge, Day 19: Galaxy Nails!

I apologize for another late post. I have been crazy busy this week, and this this challenge has taken it's toll on my nails, so between working, appointments, and trying to baby my nails for a day, posting has been a touch erratic. I did manage to take some time to baby my nails today. Since I've been doing this challenge, the nail on my ring finger on my left hand has been doing weird things. It has been curling inward on the right side of the nail, for no apparent reason. No sooner do I get it to where it seems normal again, than I wake up and it is curled inward again. At one point I gave up and just decided I had to suck it up and live with it, but since it hasnt always been that way I just couldn't let it be.  So instead of posting this morning, I took off my mani and set about babying my nails. Once my polish was off, I looked very closely at said wonky nail, and noticed a vertical ridge that was straight on the nail bed, but curved to the right on the free edge. I buffed that sucker like crazy and (at least for now) it is back to an almost normal shape! The free edge still looks off, since in order to get it straight I had to file it the way it was, and now that it isn't all curled under the corners are filed on a slant (boo!), but I'll take that over that weird curling anyday! After that, I buffed the rest of my nails, whitened them a bit, oiled them, massaged them, left them product free and made sure to keep them moisturized all day. They seem happier now. Save for the peelies. I have NEVER had peelies. Ever. Over the last week I have developed a couple peelies on my right hand. This does not make me happy. So, instead of the growth treatment I was using, I am going back to my HG base coat (Instant Artificials) and we'll see if that makes a difference. Bah! Okay! Enough of my babbling! Onto the mani!

This is my 2nd time trying Galaxy Nails, and I think they came out better this time. I changed up the colors a bit, and that seemed to help make the galaxies pop instead of just blending into the background.  My camera had a hard time focusing on them though, maybe because there is a lot going on here!

For this mani I used a base of Ulta Rhinestone Rocker, sponged with FingerPaints Paper Mache, Sally Hansen DVD and Laser, OPI DS Reflection, Hard Candy Beetle, and Nfu Oh 51, painted on the shooting stars in Essence Can't Cheat on Me and more Paper Mache, dabbed on some Finger Paints Sparkle Top Coat and Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Glass Slipper, and topped it all with Seche Vite. Phew! That's a lot of polish, eh?


What a fun mani! Only downside here was my camera not being able to focus on them, and my tendonitis flaring like mad! It's really painful to work on a mani with tendonitis flaring up. Not to mention trying to take pics! Yeeooouucch!! Side effect of 10-keying for years, and all in all it's better than CT, so I can't bitch too much. Anyway, I can't wait to see what Katherine over at Manicure Addict does in a few days when her turn is up for Galaxies! If you haven't already, go check out her manis! She is awesome!!

Now it's time to work on some water marbling. If these turn out half as cool as I hope they do, I will be thrilled!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

31 Day Challenge Day 13: Animal Print! & why the heck are my nails suddenly shaped weird?

Hi guys! Very quick post today, since it's been a long day in my world, and I'm not feeling all that great. My daughter just got over a stomach bug and I'm feeling like I may be its next victim. So, right to today's mani!

Today's challenge was Animal Print. I had originally planned to Konad for this one, but no matter which animal print stamp I used, nothing really felt right. I ended up freehanding some tiger stripes instead. I used Essie Bangle Jangle for my base, sponged on some Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Pronto Purple, striped with China Glaze VIII and dabbed on a bit of Sinful Colors Frenzy. Here is the finished mani:

Indoors, natural light:

Sunlight:

And Worst Macro Ever!

I'm pretty pleased with my tiger stripes! This is the first time that I have attempted freehand animal print of any kind, and it was much easier than I had expected!  It also gave me a great excuse to try out the striping brushes that I picked up earlier this week. :)

I'm going to throw this out here in case you guys have any ideas: The nails on my middle and ring finger are literally changing shape overnight these days. They are starting to curve inward at the corners, and some days my ring finger has an indentation right where the nail meets the fingertip on the side. When I say literally overnight, I mean it is one shape when I go to bed, and a completely different shape when I wake up. Some days they're both totally normal. I'm stumped. Any ideas, ladies?? You can see it in the pics of today's mani, the ring finger being especially obvious. Any advice here is much appreciated. I'm not willing to get rid of my length over it, though. So that solution is out! ;)

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

31 Day Challenge, Day 10: Gradient Nails!

I just finished messing around with my stupid heater. A few hours ago I noticed that my house was really cold despite having cranked the heater. Low and behold! My heater wasn't freaking igniting! What fun! It took dismantling the damn thing and cleaning the ever loving hell out of the filter to fix it. Then, my daughter exorcist vomited all across my living room. My husband is a saint and is currently cleaning that one up, since I will hurl up *my* guts if I encounter that much vomit. Yikes. What a night. But, lets get to the nails!

I had originally planned a bright, sunshiny gradient for today, but I was itching to play with Zoya Tao, so I chose a more fall appropriate (not that I follow trends - I tend to use whatever polish strikes my fancy) combination, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

For this mani, I used Zoya Tao as my base, and Petites Hazel (a little known gem in my opinion!) for the sponging.

First, indoors with natural lighting:

 

And in sunlight:

Both hands at once, which proves I'm not cheating and just doing one hand!

And a crappy macro shot (I need a new camera!)

What do you think? Did I pull it off? I was really pleased with the formula of Tao. My local Ulta only has a handful of Zoya polishes, and this little baby was the very first I picked up. I don't know why it has sat in my untrieds for so long. I really love this shade of gray, and Tao has some lovely subtle shimmer to it. It's actually a pretty understated color, which is unlike me, but I dig it nonetheless.  Hazel is a Petites polish, which I picked up on one of my much hated trips to Wal Mart. I detest Wal Mart and every time I go there I have to refrain from punching the living hell out of some rude asshat that either won't move out of the damned way or is just rude as all hell, and their polish selection (at least at my wally world) sucks. Its rare they get anything new, and I have most of the Pure Ice colors that I want to layer with, the SH's and the Nicoles. Anyway, Hazel was a $1.29 bargain, and it looked a little duochromey in the bottle, so I brought her home. It's a lovely coppery shimmer, with glowy red tones and it reminds me a little of autumn leaves. Another color that isn't very me, but I'm trying to branch out of my comfort zone (blues, purples and vampies).

Speaking of Wally World, I did manage to pick up Pure Ice Heartbreaker today (it's been out of stock there for a good while. Bastards! Keeping me from an awesome layering polish!), as well as a couple of the new SH Diamond strength (they re-vamped the bottle and added a few colors) and a Kardashian. I managed to be there on a day that they re-stocked their polishes, and since it's nearing Xmas, they actually have some new stock. One of the diamond strength polishes actually has flakies! Silver flakies! I'm actually planning on swatching a bit this week just to show you guys some of my recent haul buys. I don't normally swatch, but I can't wait to share some of these babies!

Tonight I'll be working on some Polka Dots to show you guys. I just received my new dotting tools, and I'm excited to use them! Polka Dots are something I'm new to, and I'm just hoping I can make this one look decent. :) Wish me luck!

Happy Polishing!
-Kimber