Lunar Eclipse by Orly

I bought this when I was with Renee at Ulta a few days after Christmas(okay who else misses Christmas?..I do..) when she was here visiting. I don't actually own a lot of Orlys, shocking.  I think this is my second. What can I say my heart belongs to Zoya! But when I saw this blue, I was wowed! It's so vibrant, and gorgeous!

 I have a few blues, but nothing that bold!

Taken by the lamp (in the dark)

Artificial light

Taken with sunlight

 I took pictures in different lights, to show how different the polish is. I have to say this is not an easy polish to photograph! I added some micro glitter lamé polish that I bought in Japan a few summers ago. It's a great polish to use when you want to do a gradient on your nails. I love to look at the bottle and see the holographic beauty that it is... ahhh( yeah that isn't sad at all..) but I must get back to my nanny duties and say good bye for now!

Orly Rock The World

Orly Rock The World, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

This is from their Mineral FX collection, a gorgeous burgundy polish with gold shimmer. I found it when I was in Ulta with Erika about a week and a half ago. At first I picked up Galaxy Girl, a BEAUTIFUL multi-chrome, but I put it down and picked this one instead because it reminded me of Hard Candy's Beetle, which I have, and I didn't want to have too many of the same polishes (plus this one is SO pretty!) but now I'm having regrets and I feel I should have just got both.. so if anyone has Galaxy Girl, I can trade you a good Japanese polish for it!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Good morning, and happy St. Patty's Day everyone!

It's been a little crazy where I am, but to escape the stress for a little I was able to do a special manicure for today :)

Sorry the picture is a little big.. I tried to shrink it and failed.. miserably.. but yeah, that is the least of my problems at the moment. Maybe one of my lovely co-bloggers could help me out this time around xoxo (Fixed Renee, xoxo back)

To achieve this look, of course I started with a good base coat. Always use one ladies, as some nail polishes stain nails, and it helps the polish to stay put. As the main color, I used Orly Salon Nails #196, Femme Fatale. It is a pretty, light, pearly green. For the dark green, I used China Glaze #886 Jolly Holly that Julie gave me for Christmas, and the light green is Sally Hansen Color Fast #10 Lucky Creme. I coated the tips with a green glitter, Wet 'n' Wild #455A.

Sorry for being so short of words this time around, but I am under a lot of stress, and the creative juices just aren't flowing today.

Later everyone :)

My Mistake: Orly's Nail Rescue Kit

You're probably (or probably not!) wondering why I haven't posted any manicures lately - well let's start by saying that one little mistake lead me to total nail FAIL.

Orly's Nail Rescue Kit , while it is a novel idea, is a complete disaster! I had a split nail (a low split) on my middle finger a few weeks ago, which happens to me SO often  I can't even tell you. I was tired of always having to cut down my nails when I get a split -  so I went to the store in search of something that could temporarily repair my nail. And there I found the rescue kit by Orly.

Got home and gave it a shot, and loved how well it fixed the split, like it was never there! But in two days, the acrylic layer on the nail cracked... so I applied another layer. Then another nail split, applied it on there, until ALL my fingers had this rescue kit on them. Eventually, from adding on layers of this acrylic powder, the tips started to chip in layers, and were uneven with the rest of the acrylic layers, and I made the decision to buff them down. It didn't work so well. Some of my nails are free of the acrylic, but most have little patches of acrylic on them, and I'm afraid to buff any further because my nail beds are very tender now. And I've also managed to dry up and fray my cuticles from using acetone to remove the acrylic, and a buffer to smooth it.

My nails are SO WEAK and damaged from the buffing, I had to cut off all of my nails so short, and now I have to start building them all over again. I'm so bummed because I have received about 10 new polishes in the mail, and have more to come, and I can't paint them until they're grown out and strong(ish) again.

Would I recommend it personally? No. Not at all. I honestly don't see the point of it! If your nail breaks, just suck it up, and cut it down even. This kit is only a very temporary fix (a few days best) and once the acrylic cracks, you're back at square one with the broke nail, AND a layer of acrylic that is glued onto your nail and is impossible to remove, even with acetone. It's not worth the hassle IMO. It didn't rescue anything. It did the exact opposite.

This is what that kit did to my fingers-

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things ( Julie )

I was arranging my polishes out of boredom, and started to get creative and take photos of some really beautiful swatches. I grouped them according to type/color/glitter/flakes/etc and made it a bit artsy fartsy....check it out.

Which do you like best? Are there any here that you didn't know about? Any you might want to get your hands on?

(please click on the images to view them in all their glory!)

First grouping are my purples/indigos/eggplants/magentas/etc:

Zoya - Zara, Zoya - Deidra, OPI - Merry Midnight, Barry M - Dusky Mauve, Barry M - Indigo, Sinful Colors - Frenzy, Nubar - Violet Sparkles, Nicole for OPI - Step 2 The Beat of My Heart, Nfu Oh - 51

Next are my HEXAGON Glitters:

Deborah Lippmann - Today Was A Fairytale, Wet & Wild FastDry - Party of 5 Glitters, NYC - Starry Silver Glitter, China Glaze - Solar Flare, Hard Candy - Break Up, Hard Candy - Hot Pants, Deborah Lippmann - Ruby Red Slippers, Deborah Lippmann - Bad Romance, Nfu Oh - GS 05

And now for some Silver/Grey Swatches:

China Glaze: Fairy Dust, Zoya - Luna, China Glaze - Recycle, Deborah Lippmann - Today Was A Fairytale, Nubar - Antiquity Silver, China Glaze - Platinum Silver, Piggy Polish - Grey-T, Laura Mercier - Sterling, Nfu Oh - GS 05, Color Club - High Society

Care for some Powdery Pinks/Neutrals?

Barry M - Pink Iridescent, Zoya - Brenna, China Glaze - Innocence, Orly - Tie The Knot, OPI - Heart Throb, Essie- Pink Glove Service

And Last- this is for you, Erika- AVATAR swatches-

China Glaze - Dorothy, Who?, Piggy Polish - Navy I'm Right, China Glaze - Frost Bite, Chi - Midnight Rendezvous, Barry M - Indigo

Sunday Manicures With The Ladies (Julie)

I brought my big old Caboodles full of polish (& then some) over to mom's today so we could do nails. Myself, my sister-in-law Tammy, and mom.

Tammy is a big Nfu-oh fan, mainly the flakies - so she used 2 coats of 056 on top of a pretty sparkly green by Confetti.

Mom likes pink, always has! So we did Razzle by OPI - and blinged out her ringfingers with Nfu-oh GS 04

And last, I am really on a red kick - so used my favorite Ulta red, and used OPI Shatter on my ringfinger, and a little jewel to top it off.

Thrift shop nail polish HAUL!! 12 bottles for $8 weeee

OPI, Orly, China Glaze, even a Barielle!! I love New York, and I love thrifting. We get all the designer clothing rejects from the rich Manhattanites, and apparently the nail polish discards, too. :) These are all either unused or what appear to have been tested. I think perhaps they were extras or past seasons from a nail salon? Some of the bottles even look to be worn, but those were not used. Maybe they were in storage. There were quite a few bags, but the other colors weren't really my style.

What's strange is I was thinking today "what a treat it'd be if I found some nice NP at the thrift shop sometime" and BAM. There they were, beaming at me - just glistening through the plastic bags screaming "buy us, Julie! Buy us! You can afford us!"

the colors:
Orly- Tie the Knot
Orly - Moon Shadow
Orly - Spellbound (very similar to moon shadow)
Orly - Sweet Temptation
OPI - Heart Throb
OPI - Elephantastic Pink
China Glaze - Thataway
China Glaze - Heaven
China Glaze - Drastic
China Glaze - Heart Of Africa
Barielle - Restorative Nail Serum
Orlane - #26

Collection Pics (Julie)

So I had to follow suit since Erika has such an amazing collection! Mine isn't nearly as large or beautiful, but I'm working on it. Actually, this past summer, I sold just about all of my NP at my yard sale because I had no room for anything! Everything you see here is pretty much brand new, as of late summer '10. So rest in peace former collection! I am impressed with how far I've come since then though! My heart belongs to sparkles, the chunkier the better. I have many different brands, and plenty more coming in the mail this next week. So I will update this post as they show up. Here's what i have so far:

I have a horrible make-up bag that is soon going to be replaced with some kind of kaboodle. Take a peek inside...kind of a beautiful mess!

We'll start with Finger Paints. A nice inexpensive brand with really pretty swatches. I am not really too into their NP because I notice that even with a decent base and top coat, they like to peel off in one big strip. So I've limited my FP collection to strictly colors I MUST have. And these are really beautiful!

My Nubars *Swoon* Nothing much needs to be said about this brand. It's a growing obsession and I expect many more soon.

My Ulta swatches - the aqua color is fabulous!!! The pink is gritty and I'm not a fan, but the sparkles in this color attracted me to it. It's very beautiful.

My love, my life...China Glaze! I have more CG than any other color. I'll start with my very favorite 2 colors. This is Pixie Dust and Golden Enchantment. I don't remember the name of the gold one. But they're top coats and complete just about any color you can imagine, and reflect about every color of the rainbow. These should serve as staples to any nail polish collection, because they really do complement just about every swatch.

I have the blues....My China Glaze Blues...

Metallics:

Some random beauties (my favorite of the 4 being the black with red sparkles.

Prior to my yard sale NP clean out, I had just about every color made by Sinful Colors. Now I only have two. Mainly because I'm not a huge fan of their formula. But these colors are irresistible.

My Color Clubs - do you see that orange/pink/luminescent swatch to the right? Wow, i know!! I need to get a few bottles of this because I run through this color really fast. I probably wear it more than any other color.

Here is my first nail art swatch. It's a really pretty black with colorful sparkles.

My very lonely and bland Essie collection. I do like them, but I haven't explored essie all that much yet.

My 3 Orlys. Another brand I don't care for the formula all that much. But they do come out with some really great colors once in a while that I can't leave behind.

Hello, sparkles! My one and only O.P.I (more are coming!), NYC in the most amazing swatch I've seen from them, and a Forever 21 color that I adore.

Just LOOK at this color! I know! Gorgeous!

You're not so bad yourself OPI. (this is from the burlesque collection)

2 extra brands - Sally girl I won't be buying again, the application is awful. Nail Savvy I found new at the thrift shop and have no idea where to find this brand.

It's a nice concept, I love the pink and blue sparkles though! Anybody else make a better formula with a similar color?

My beloved Deborah Lippmann in Bad Romance.

And you see? I wrote this too soon, because just as I posted this blog, my brand new Hard Candy showed up! Do you SEE this swatch? No I mean do you really see this swatch? Holy moly, it's freaking fabulous! It's called Hot Pants. It's infused with large and small sparkles and a translucent pink jelly base. Woohoo! This just made my day brighter!