Sally Hansen Magnetic polish in red-y response and giveaway at All Glitzed Up!

Before I start this post I have to say... It's my birthday today!!


Guys please check out  Our giveaway on All glitzed up! There are two prizes, and is going on now.  Thanks a bunch!

I am so glad I have finally got to experience the magic that is magnetic Polish. Ive always wanted to buy one, but i found the price to be a little to steep for me. Well the other day, in Walgreen's, I spotted the new magnetics from Sally Hansen! 7.99$ Not cheap but not 15-20$ price range they have been. I of course got the red, and the second I got home whipped it out (out of the gutter dirty minds you!) I don't have my beloved Canon g11, so I had to use my cell, but thankfully the sun was on my side today and I got a nice picture of it.

It did take a little bit to get used to as I kept getting to close to the nail with the magnet, and had to start over, but once I got it, I knew I had to go back and get more colors!

Please mind the cuticles, I need to have them snipped..

Pros- Very easy once you get the hang of it, only needs 2 coats.

Cons- Dry time is slow, even with Seche vite.
Wish they had more colors.
Removal I have heard is quite the nightmare!

Overall I love this polish and will be getting more from the collection! I love the blue and steel colored ones.

I think I did it! Dupe alert!

I have been jonesing for Chanel Peridot nail polish (credit goes to Vampy Varnish for link pic) ever since it came out, but I couldn't justify the high price of it. I saw this post on Nouveau Cheap where they took Sally Hansen's Bronze ablaze and Sinful Colors All about you and you would get a good dupe of Butter London Wallis.

As much as I love the look of Wallis, I wondered if I could dupe Peridot. I took bronze ablaze and topped it off with Wet "n" Wild's "The Gold and the Beautiful"

Bronze Ablaze

The Gold and the Beautiful

And here is the result:

I think I have a good dupe here! I know it's not 100% on the dot, but its good enough for me! And cost about $6 all together. One day I will have my Chanel, one day;) But for now, who ever wants the looks of Peridot for a fraction of the cost, buy these two nail polishes, you will not regret it!
Tata for now!

Sonia Kashuk Reach For The Stars Holiday Trio 2010 Champagne Bronze Foil

I originally had a cool mani in mind for this polish, but it took me so long (try 5 days!) to get good sunlight and a good pic, that by the time I got one that was semi-decent (still not completely happy with this one, but for now it'll do) my nail polish started to chip badly, mostly on the other hand.

Sonia Kashuk Reach For The Stars Holiday Trio 2010 Champagne Bronze Foil, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

This was available only at Target in Sonia Kashuk's 2010 Reach For The Stars holiday nail polish trio. Erika gave me this polish as part of my birthday present over the summer. Beautiful color, but I wish this set came with names! Great champagne bronze foil, opaque in only one coat! Only problem for me was the drying time.. messed up my nails after 2 hours because they just weren't dry (but that cold also be due to the two coats of Sally Hansen nail growth treatment underneath, though other polishes didn't give me that problem over it)..so I threw on another coat and some Seche Vite (my new lifesaver!) and it was just fine.

Ah well, I'll save that mani for the next time I wear it!

Konad: NYC Royal Foil over Sally Hansen Secrets Frost

Here's the manicure I mentioned the other day, my first Konad success! Only because it wasn't a Konad stamper.. it was the As Seen On TV Salon Express stamper from their kit sold at Rite Aid. And ok it isn't actually my first success, it's my second..but it's the first complete manicure with this kit, my first try that came out well was just some test nails. Since the Konad stamper just doesn't seem to work for me, I'm willing to trade it and the nail scraper to a new home, since some people have much more luck with it than others (like Erika and I.) I really like how it came out, I love the chrome purple/silver glitter combo. I used it in a past manicure as well. The leopard design is from Konad plate m57. As the title states, I used the NYC Foil Nail Enamel in Royal Foil that Erika gave me over Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff Secrets Frost, and I topped it off with Coffret D'or gel look topcoat. I was so proud of myself, nail stamping is actually lots of fun when it actually works!

Konad: NYC Royal Foil over Sally Hansen Secrets Frost, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.
Royal Foil looks awfully like Sally Hansen Sapphire Chrome (which is actually purple, so I have no idea why they named it that.) This could be a dupe for it, but I'm not sure if they came out at the same time.. this is a vintage NYC polish so it's very possible. I should whip them out and compare them :)

Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff Secrets Frost

Vintage polish time! Who doesn't like a good vintage polish? I know I do. Remember that score I posted about a month ago? Well I refilled my good ole silver capped Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff bottle and restored it to it's original glory. I have to say, this has been my favorite holo glitter for years, wayyy before the holo craze. It's been one of my favorite polishes of all time, it's just so pretty to look at, and this picture doesn't even give it any justice. There really are rainbows in every bottle. It looks best in the dark, that's when it sparkles like a disco ball. The formula is really great too, it lasts a LONG time without chipping. Ahh good old carcinogen filled vintage formulas..

I actually have a manicure to post with this polish, my first Konad success (because like Erika mentioned, I didn't use the Konad stamp, I used the Salon Express one, which works WONDERS!) but that will be later :) I'll try to snap a pic in low light to show off the sparkle, but my low light pics never seem to come out that great.. anyways, enjoy!

Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff Secrets Frost, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

First 3D manicure- Xmas Snowflakes

First 3D manicure- Xmas Snowflakes, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

Merry Christmas everyone! Here is my first 3D manicure that I've been waiting to post.

The base color is China Glaze Phat Santa, the stripes are Sally Hansen ColorFast Lucky Creme, a vintage Wet N Wild in White Gold, Crayon holographic gold liner, 3D acrylic snowflakes that I made, and topped off with Coffret D'or gel topcoat. Ignore the cracks in the topcoat on one nail. ^^;;

It was really easy to make the snowflakes, much easier than I thought! I just dipped the brush in acrylic liquid, then the acrylic powder, then brushed it in the mold, popped it out after about a minute, and done!

What do you think?
Happy Holidays everyone!

SCORE! Finally!

Not a mani today, but a score I just had to share. For those of you who don't know, I have been after a replacement for this polish forever.

Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff Secrets Frost #62, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.
Left: UK/Euro Version, Secrets
Right: US version Secrets Frost

They are exactly the same color (we were right Erika! Yay!) I bought the one on the right several years back, (I don't remember when these came out..but I know it was a long while ago!) and this is by far the best holographic glitter I've ever had. Rainbows upon rainbows in a bottle. It's very hard to find.

Mine looks full but actually it is less than half full, the polish dried inside the top of the bottle. I got the second as a refill (totally keeping my original bottle, I LOVE the matching caps-ahh don't you love those Big 3 old formula days?) which I totally did after taking this pic, (and a little before actually, the second bottle was completely full when I bought it) and now the UK bottle has less than 1/3 left, I really killed my original bottle!

No idea why it was called Secrets Frost in the US since it clearly is a glitter and not a frost (there is another old Sally Hansen in the Colorfast line with the same name, -which incidentally, always came up on eBay when I was searching for this one- which is actually a frost) but oh well, I LOVE it! I can't tell you how long I was searching, and how happy I was to finally find it.

Teal-y fast and teal-y beautiful!

Okay, that was corny! But I had too go there! I picked up one of the new Sally Hansen Insta-dry a few weeks ago, and I love it. The color is a mix between teal and indigo. Just a striking color. It's really hard to peg it as just a teal color, so that's where the indigo comes in. I love these polishes because they really do dry insanely fast! These are great for little girls who love to have their nails painted, but don't want to wait more than ten seconds to go play.

But you know me, can't leave well enough alone and had to coat them with China Glaze fairy dust. Thank you (once again) Julie for telling me about this color, it just makes any polish look a billion times more beautiful.

Found my camera card! And the sunlight was streaming in!

and then the sun was gone..

But that's it for now, time to hit the hay!


Erika

More red! (like that's a bad thing...)

If I haven't said it before, I'll say it again, red is my favorite color. I have this color from Sally Hansen called Brick Wall, its this gorgeous creamy blood red. I must have worn it at least 20 times already. And as seeing as it's fall( yeah yeah I know it's technically not fall yet) I grabbed it.But I've been spoiled with my super glitters and holo's because when I was finished it just didn't feel quite right yet. I went through my drawer of polishes and put on this super glittery holo topcoat that Julie gifted to me a few months ago. You have to be super patient with it because you will need about 4-5 coats of it before you see the effect. And even when you do get the effect it's really hard to photograph.I took a whole crap load of photographs, inside and outside. And still had a hard time capturing it. I need to get a light box already!

Inside

Outside

Here is a link to the holographic topcoat:

But I'm off for now, tata!

Super light gradient nails

Super light gradient nails, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

This is actually the second person's nails I've done, the first I couldn't really get a good picture (I have one, but it is super dark.)

Yoshi's co-worker wanted her nails done, but since the companies are really strict here she was really limited on what she could choose. Believe it or not, I used 3 polish colors here and one fine glitter!

The base color (yes there actually is one ^^;;) is Hanagoyomi Cape Jasmine (kuchinashi.) I then painted the tips of her nails with two coats of NYC Nail Glossies #213, a gorgeous though super sheer pearly golden pink. Then, to blend the two colors together, I applied Sally Hanson Diamond Strength in Diamonds on the border of the colors and blended before they dried. To add a splash of color and accentuate the gradient, I sprinkled a dark pink fine glitter on the tips, and coated it with Coffret D'or gel topcoat.

Sally Hansen Crackle! And I suck at blogging!

Wow! So sorry for the lack of blogs on my part. But the title says it all:P

But I did manage to do a few manicures. I have to say I haven't been feeling super creative as of late. I also have been swamped with school finals and all that jazz. But besides all that boring stuff! Lets get to the good stuff:)

Here is the first manicure!
I recently spotted the next person to jump on the crackle craze! Miss Hansen herself, Sally. I got the only colors they were offering(The others were sold out,boo hiss.) I bought blue (Distressed Denim) and red(Cherry Smash).

 For this mani, I used one of my beloved Sally Hansen nail designs. This was a gold glitter explosion of awesome! I do have to say these did not apply as easily as the girl flower ones from a few months ago. But they were super glittery so I forgave them. The I wondered what the blue crackle would look like on top. So I just added it to my ring finger (ala Julie) It wasn't amazing as I thought it would be, but I liked it!

Glitz Blitz!

Now last week I was in the big easy visiting my sister and niece for her 1st birthday ( I love you mama!) and I did this design:

This is a super sparkly pink color from finger paints called "Hue left me a message". and of course I had to top it with blue crackle. Oh I wish this had photographed better! It looked amazing in real life. I loved it so much that I didn't want to take it off.

 

Mind the crap cuticles!

Right now, I'm wearing Lubu heels from China Glaze.  It's so gorgeous and perfect for me right now. As I am in mourning. I celebrated a certain milestone in my life and well, lets just say.. it is one that every person (and I mean woman) doesnt exactly look forward too..
I should have taken a pic, but I didnt! And of course now it's too late because 60% of my nails are chipped and gross. Sexxy. But ta ta for now, countdown, 2 more weeks of school and I am free!

Diagonal & reversed edge, holographic and "bullion" mani

For today's manicure I did get a little inspiration from one of my Japanese manicure magazines, the basic design, but to mix it up I changed the colors, reversed the patterns on two nails, and re-arranged the placements of the gold balls.

OPI Tickle My France-y swatch:

I called the gold balls bullion in the title, because well thats what they're called here, and well, I don't know what else to call them.. they aren't beads.

Diagonal & reversed edge, holographic and "bullion" mani, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.
After my base coat I applied the base color, OPI Tickle My France-y. Its a great color, a mauve-y nude, which works so well with other pink and purple polishes. I then freehanded (let me tell you how hard that is.. and I did mess up and fix it a few times) the diagonal hot pink (no name) polish edges, purporsely reversing the sizes,(look at index and middle finger, for example, the bottom corner on the index finger is bigger, while the top corner on the middle finger is bigger) and I reversed the pattern on the thumb and pinkie fingers.

Next, I took a nail art brush and painted stripes, reversing the placement on the nails of course ;) of Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff Nail Color in Secrets Frost. I LOVE this holographic polish.. I need more!! After that, I placed the gold bullion in alternating places on the nail (seeing a pattern here? ^_~.) The spacing/placement on the nails is on purpose, no gold beads are missing/placed incorrectly. Finally I topped it off with Coffret D'or gel topcoat.

I actually found a much better gel topcoat, will blog about that one later!

Purple Chrome Mani with Holographic Tips

Hi everyone!

It's Golden Week here in Japan, that means VACATION for all work/schools. My good friends are visiting me from Tokyo now (I missed them lots :) so I won't be posting a new mani this week, but I do have an oldie but goodie that I haven't posted just yet.

I got some new nail polishes recently, including some from-you'll never guess-an arcade in Osaka. One of the crane games had nail polishes in it, and Yoshi won me some. I didn't have my phone at the time so I couldn't take a pic, but I'll see if he remembers where it was so I can go back and try for some more!

I'll put up some pics of my latest haul next time, but for now I'll post the mani that I mentioned that I had done previously before the pink marbled one.

As the main color I used Sally Hansen Chrome Nail Makeup in Violet Sapphire. The purple polish is Sally Hansen Chrome Nail Makeup in Violet Sapphire. It really is "nail makeup", nothing like nail polish. It goes on smoothly, without ANY streaks, however many times you swipe it with the brush (you know, how sometimes polish doesn't go on evenly the first time or two, and when you try to touch it up it goops or streaks? NONE of that.) It also dries instantly! I'd almost compare it to the way eye shadow primer applies and dries, smoothly and dries instantly. Here's a swatch:

Now the main event. I purposely took a blurry pic to try to capture the sparkle. I can't rave about these polishes enough.
On the tips, I used Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff Nail Color in Secrets Frost #62. This is the most amazing holographic polish I've owned yet. The photo does it no justice. It is truly amazing.
I am looking for ANOTHER one of this color (none on ebay as of yet) as mine is half empty. If anyone has, please, I will trade you LOTS of Japanese goodies for this!

Purple Chrome Mani with Holographic Tips, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

Striped Mani- my pink for this Wednesday

This wasn't intentional, I know Erika was planning on doing a pink mani this week (I'd figure we'd rotate or something like that, as there are a few of us and it may get tough for all of us to do pink every week) but it coincidentally worked out that way, so why not share it.

A Japanese magazine inspired me to do this manicure. The original was blue and white, but I thought this was cheerier and more bright for spring. Actually, it kind of reminds me of a Victoria's Secret bag, only with darker colors! They are big on nail design over here, and every magazine has a section on manicures. I came across a "border" (it's what they call stripes here) manicure, though done slightly differently (they also used 3-D accents) I decided to give it a try.

I used two no-name polishes in hot pink and red, then topped it off with Sally Hansen Diamond Strength nail color in Diamonds. -I love the rhinestone-embellished bottles this line comes in- I painted the stripes free-hand with the regular bottle's brush (still did not find my fine tipped manicure brush..) so the stripes are a bit wonky, but they'll do.

The manicure came out better on my left hand -I'm right handed-, the same hand I cracked my thumb nail on, so I put a heart over the bandage.

Striped Mani, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

Prepare yourself... and one of the new summer Zoya's

From my last post, I showed my flower manicure using the Sally Hansen designs. Don't get me wrong I love it, but its been a week and I want to change my polish! But I know how HTF the girl flower design is, so I don't want to waste it. And speaking of waste, the kit comes with 16 decals. So if you do the math, 16-10=6. Six wastes decals, because of course on the package it says, Dispose of unused decals. I am not trying to sound cheap, but No! I do not want to dispose of 6 awesomely designed nail decals ( Okay, I sound cheap but I dont care! ha ha)

Well, to kill two birds with one stone( I bet you a man made that one up..) I did this:

This is where the "prepare yourself" comes in..TOES!

Okay, that was one bird- Girl flower on my toes! ( I have to admit, this took guts because I hate my feet) Plus, no wasting of decal. My father who is a very cheap Puerto Rican man, would be so proud;)
And Yes, that is one of the new summer zoya's! It is Zoya Kieko. It is a purple almost jelly like color. Its kind of the half way line between pink and purple. I have to admit, I'm having a love affair with Zoya creams. I love their Duo chromes and glitters, but the creams that they have debuting have been amazing!
Also an update about my adventuring in Konad'n.. I still suck. I mean am I the only one that has a hard time getting the design to transfer to the stamp? I just can not seem to get it right. Boo Hiss!

But that's it for now, it is almost 12am, and I have work tomorrow, and then one of my closest friends is in NY for a few days to hang out:) Talk to you guys..er.. girls later!

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 :)

New Polishes ☠Warning naked nails and crap cuticules!☠

But before I show you the new polishes that I got, avert your eyes if you have to...

 

I decided to give my nails(following Julie's example) a breather. I have to say it did feel nice, but by Thursday I was ready to get to polishing again!

Luckily the very same day, I received a package from ebay(coughevilbay) from a seller in NY. I purchased a few polishes( but had to stop myself!) I also wanted to use my ebay bucks before they expired! I got three colors that really caught my eyes!

I remember seeing these in Ulta a few years ago and for some reason I didn't get them. I think I may have been Christmas shopping and had the "Nothing for you, Erika.."mantra You know that little voice in the back of your head that never shuts up during the Christmas season? But now that I found it on ebay, I had to get it! It is so pretty in real life.

I had never heard of these polishes before.. I googled them, and holy rollers, these are amazing halo's! I got mystical mandarin. I am on the look out of the blue version (which names escapes me at the moment..)Blech those cuticles. I swear.

Ahh another Sally.. I always wanted to try the nail prisms, but I never picked one up. I saw this and thought "Hmm I wonder if it would be a nice kindasortaperhaps dupe for Clarins 230". It almost is..almost. But this has more red in it then blue. It still is an amazing color non the less.

And last but not least,  my attempt at a purty manicure. BEHOLD! I tried to get to do a tweed look. It was fun trying, even if it was not exactly what I was going for.