Nail Polish Stash Part 2- China Glaze

China Glaze dominates my stash...so it gets its own post. As far as I can tell, the only one that's missing is Rodeo Fanatic...which is kind of ironic since I had ended up with 2 (I bought one, and was then given one. My sister got one...my mom borrowed the other and never gave it back...it's basically lost to the world now) The desk...isn't mine...it's my sister's..she gets better lighting in her room..and since she's not home...










stragglers...lol...by this point I didn't want to retake pictures to satisfy my OCD
Dorothy Who? got knocked behind my bed by the mischievous one...so it was a straggler.
additions from Sally's sale
Old ass China Glaze...

That is all for now. If you want swatches/comparisons of anything, let me know. I'll be happy to shove it on my list to do.

Nail Polish Stash Part 1- Top Coats, Base Coats, Treatments, Nail Art Goodies, and Stash Storage

Today kicks off the day where I start spamming you with pictures (wait...don't I do that already?) of my stash. Today's post is about my many base, coats, top coats, treatments, nail art stuff, and how I store it all. It's the most boring post (mostly since I'm doing a lot of typing in it), so it comes first.


NailTek Foundation II was my first base coat. Previous to this, I had been using some Sally Hansen Top/Base Coat, which had eventually turned yellow on me and was sent off to Zoya last year for the polish exchange. I like it, but I can't use it continuously for long periods of time or my nails get to dry and start splitting/peeling.

Seche was next, since I'd heard great things about the top coat, and Sally's was doing one of those promotions that gave you a free Base coat with Top coat purchase. It's pretty crappy though. It's thin, and doesn't prevent staining at all..if you have a lot of ridges to your nails, this won't smooth them out. Used in combination with Seche Vite, you'll eventually be able to peel off your polish in chunks.
My next endeavor was Beauty Secrets Base Coat, which I like, and therefore bought a large bottle after my smaller one ran low.

I never tried Nubar Foundation

Orly Smudge Fixer-works to an extent, but will usually end up dragging off your polish for larger smudges and dents before it smooths them out.
Sally Hansen Nail Quencher I picked up when it was BOGO50% off and on clearance for $1.79. I like it, which is why I have 3, I hate the bottle though...since if you get any around the edges and try to clean it off, polish remover takes off the blue coating on the bottle.

I bought the 2 pack duo of Nailtek II at Ross for $4.99. At the time I had gone back to using Foundation II and was thinking I liked it...The splitting nails started again a couple weeks after...so I ended up with a backup..still deciding what to do with it.

Nail Envy I haven't tried...just snagged it on clearance at Ulta, packaged with my beloved Avoplex...it's also pending consideration as I haven't had any real use for treatments.

Essie Fill the Gap came in a set I got at Ross with 2 other polishes for $7.99. I haven't given it a good go yet

Barielle Nail Brightener- Opalescent white..kind of useless if you have any significant staining/yellowing. I can see it maybe working if your nails weren't stained, but it defeats the purpose of needing a brightener IMO

Barielle Natural Nail camoflage-I love this stuff. Reduces the appearance of staining on nails. I think this will be very necessary for when I start working again and have to resort to boring nudes.

Barielle Hydrating Ridge Filler-A really nice base coat, fills in ridges, leaves a smooth finish..polish doesn't drag at all when you apply it over this base coat.

Barielle Manicure Extender-not to be used alone...or your polish will never fully dry. haven't given it a good whirl yet.
Can you tell I love Camo or what?
Top Coats--the only reason why I allow myself to change my mani so often...if they weren't quick drying, I'd polish a lot less :]

OPI Rapidry was my first topcoat after the aforementioned Sally Hansen. It does leave your polish shiny, but the dry time is atrocious. Suzi must have a lot of time on her hands if this is quick drying for her.

Orly Sec n Dry was after that...at the time I thought it dried quickly...it was certainly a large improvement over anything I'd tried before...it's one of the crappier topcoats I've tried overall though.

I bought Seche Vite after hearing raves for it on the boards. It's alright..it definitely dries fast...and it's my favorite top coat for pedicures. I'm less fond of it on my fingers because it has an annoying habit of shrinking back if you don't wrap your tips. This phenomenon increases as you work your way through the bottle. It's also worth mentioning that you have to use it on wet polish..the drier it is, the more shrinking you'll get as well.

Out the Door is my favorite polish for regular use and Konads. It works better over drier polish, but will work on wet polish as well (you may end up with polish on the brush though if it's too wet...) It evens out some difficult to work with cremes too.

I got Orly In a Snap in a kit and haven't tried it yet

Nubar Diamont is my favorite top coat-it does dry fast, but isn't very good over wet polish. I like to wait 3 minutes before applying it, and it's dry in another 2. Doesn't scuff as easily as Seche or Poshe.
Poshe is a fast drying top coat I like to use over glitters. It dries faster than Seche, but scuffs more easily.

I forgot I already took a pic of in a snap, so here it is again... I haven't tried the WnW or Color Club

Essie Matte About You is an excellent matte top coat..I have a backup of this as well.

China Glaze Ghoulish Glow does glow in the dark, but only after you've held it under a light source for a while before turning off the lights.

Out the Door Northern Lights is my favorite holographic top coat because it gives you holographic shimmer in a dry fast top coat. There's no need to apply another top coat over it.

Orly Prisma Gloss is also quite nice. It dries pretty quickly, but I still use a dry fast top coat over it as it doesn't deep dry
My beloved Konad Kit..
Fimo canes..which I haven't touched at all..they were a gift.
Rhinestones..
Stash Storage! My polish stash lives under my twin sized bed...the pink spot on the carpet is where my cat Zero exploded a sample jar of All Girl pigment...
Untrieds
More untrieds, sets, top/base coats, swap, and felt.
Tried polishes..incidentally..my cat used to sleep in this drawer when she was tiny...she'd climb in through the back

Well..that's it for today! There will be very little text in the upcoming stash posts, so look forward to that ;]

New mini set at Icing, Sally's extra 50% off Clearance Sale, and China Glaze Lemon Fizz

There's 3 topics today...the first being the new set of polishes Icing has available for Spring. It's a nice collection of pastel creme-like polishes with peachy pink shimmer. I find them kind of exciting, and will be slowly swatching them soon (the new Maybellines will probably come first..I'm wearing 2 of them right now, though one's on my toes and therefore won't count..lol) Anyways, the minis are 12 ml each, which is a pretty decent size for minis. (a full sized China Glaze is 14 ml, for reference). The set retails for $16, but Icing always has their buy one get one 50% off deal going, so you can always pick up a different, 2nd set of minis for $8, or one of their other polishes. They've also got a lot of nice colors on clearance right now too, so it's worth making a trip if you have an Icing's nearby. I'm a pretty big fan of Icing polishes, the brushes are pretty wide, so I find them easy to use, and I've liked the formula on all the ones I've tried so far.

Secondly, if you didn't already know, Sally's is having a sale right now where you can take an additional 50% off clearance items. It's a pretty sweet deal, I picked up 4 China Glaze polishes (pictured below) as well as a set of travel sized bottles, and Orly Twilight (not pictured), which was only $0.99! Depending on your Sally's stock will vary of course. By the way, all of the China Glazes I picked up were under $2 :]
Here's my NOTD with China Glaze stroll. It's indoor lighting because I didn't get a chance to take a picture during the day and I promised I'd swatch Lemon Fizz...It's a bit darker rl than pictured here, but you can see the cool finish of the polish. (My skintone's also not that color, though there's a difference in color between my two monitors so what you see may differ)
And as promised, here's Lemon Fizz. This is 3 coats, mostly because I wasn't too careful in the application after a certain mishap, (you'll see it later) I actually like this color way more than I expected to, though I still feel like the polish was never fully even. It's not to a really noticeable extent, but unfortunately, working in inspection for a period of time has made me overly observant to tiny defects and it will bug me from time to time.
This polish has a pretty unique quality to it...as in it seems to attract other living creatures..here you see my cat sneaking up on it...
And when I was applying it the first time, this little guy decided to fly into my nails, he got his legs stuck in, managed to pull them free, but still fell over and died on my nail halfway through my 2nd coat on my right thumb (and yes, I definitely make thicker coats on my thumbs, since I have trouble with thin ones on those fingers..haha). How's that for 3D art though? (I removed it of course, and started over, since I messed up a lot of fingers taking a pic of this)
Anyways, tomorrow I'll start posting my polish stash bit by bit. I know when I polled you guys you wanted to see both my polish stash and makeup stash together, but with the way I'm doing the pictures, it's not really feasible (the page would never load)

Some Up and Aways

I bought the entire China Glaze Up and Away collection, but I've been slow to wear them. (I've only worn 4 so far..unfortunately I forgot to take a pic of Four Leaf Clover). It's like 6 am and I can't seem to go back to sleep, so here's the other 3 I've tried.

First up is Angry Go Boom...
Did I say Angry Go Boom? Sorry, I meant Happy go Lucky. It's a bright-ish yellow creme that's an absolute nightmare to apply...it's a streaky mess, even at 3 coats. I smoothed it out with topcoat though, so the end result was fine.
I've already kind of posted pics of Light as Air, but here it is on its own. Despite being very light, I still like it. I believe this is 3 coats, though it's opaque at 2. Formula was easier to work with than Happy go Lucky.

Heli-yum is a decently bright raspberry creme. I kind of like it, despite it being pink. This was 2 coats, and is the easiest to apply ou of the 4 I've tried so far.
Indoors, indirect natural light. I couldn't quite get the color to show the way I wanted it to. It's probably due to the fact that by the time came out it was starting to set.
Bonus pic...because she's cute...

Trial 2-Creating a Gradient Mani Using a Sponge and Regular Polish- A KOTD with Orly Gumdrop and Snowcone

A few months back, I posted a tutorial on how to do an easy gradient using a sponge and the Konad special polishes. I speculated that you could probably do the same thing with regular polishes, but I didn't know this for sure. I was feeling like experimenting this weekend so I gave it a try using 2 polishes from Orly's Sweet collection (Snowcone and Gumdrop). I actually had to run 2 trials for this, as the first time I attempted it, I tried to use China Glaze Fairy Dust to give it that extra sparkle. Unfortunately, 2 coats were required to get the amount of sparkle I wanted..add Seche Vite on top of that to try to dry it all down and it was a super thick disaster that I kept smudging. More on the experimentation after the pictures though.
Here's another picture in the sun
Indoors, natural lighting
Thumb
Indoor lighting, Thumb night of mani...cleanup was hard on my cuticles.
Right hand, indoor natural lighting...my hand's unnaturally red here, but it was the only pic I could take that was nonblurry. I like the gradient better on the right hand anyways. The gradient's a bit stronger rl anyways..but my camera's not the best. It's old..still does the job most of the time though.
Anyways, back to the technicalities of the experimentation. I discovered 2 things the first time around ..that a stamped gradient would work with regular polish... and that a makeup sponge would also work as a tool to do so. Basically, anything with small, fairly uniform holes will work, though a sponge that's appearance is too smooth may be difficult. The one I used for that first attempt had a similar texture to that of the Sonia Kashuk blending sponge. I did find that it took way more time/polish than I had remembered it taking with the Konad special polishes and the sponges that came with my kit. The second time around I gave it a try with a sponge from the kit. It was easier and a bit faster. However, the sponges that came with my Konad kit didn't hold up particularly well using regular polish, and still took longer than the Konad polish. I think this is because Konad special polishes are thicker and more pigmented than regular polish. The dry time also differs by a bit, so you can get more polish onto the nail before you have to reswatch it onto the plate and refill the sponge. The faster dry time of regular polish makes the polish on the sponge somewhat tacky (sticky) after a while, so I had a bit of an issue with bits of the sponge coming off onto my nail and having to pick them out carefully with a pair of tweezers. I also changed the way I smoothed out the gradient a bit. I used smudge fixer to smooth it out initially before topcoating it the first time before the Konad. The final mani was topcoated with Out the Door Northern lights; a nice holographic top coat.

I highly prefer using Out the Door for Konads vs any of my other topcoats. Its thinner texture makes it much easier to quickly coat over a Konad without smudging it after allowing a few minutes for the pattern to set. It's also great because it won't shrink up like Seche does with multiple coats.

Also, if you read my tutorial, you might notice that my cleanup on this mani is significantly better than the one there. I totally have to thank MeganChair for her AMAZING cleanup tutorial. A few things to note about the tutorial:
1. It will still work if you don't use Pure Acetone, but it's much harder to do. Pure Acetone is quick and easy. Pure acetone is, however, really drying. For something like this, I recommend cleaning up as much as you can around the cuticles with a qtip and nail polish remover, then cleaning the gap and areas closest to your nails with a brush and pure acetone.
2. Pure Acetone will eat through the ecoTools Eye Shader brush, albeit slowly. It's made with synthetic fiber, which doesn't hold up well with something as caustic as acetone.
3. Be very careful with acetone..it can eat through plastic and finishes on furniture if you spill it. I had a mishap with my bottle and it started eating through my UDPP bottle and my computer mouse before I managed to clean it up.

NARS Purple Rain and Castledew 9260

Recently I've taken to stalking Scrangie's blog...so when NARS Purple Rain popped up I had to have it. I ordered it before I actually read the post though, so I was of course shocked when the bottle was way redder than I had anticipated. Apparently, this polish is quite camera shy, and will not photograph properly at all. The picture below, taken in indoor lighting, was the closest I got. This polish was fully opaque in 2 coats, which is what I stopped at. Purple Rain is a gorgeous blue based purple with a lot of red/pink glowiness. It's a very lit from within type of shimmer, making it fairly unique in my opinion. The result overall of course is warm toned, though not quite as red as the bottle would suggest.Here's a picture in natural lighting...this is on day 2. It hints at the warmth of this polish, but still doesn't quite make it.
Here's a picture in sunlight. The reason why this one's last is because it fails to capture the color accurately at all...but it does show the blueish base of the color.
Next I have for you Castledew 9260. Castledew is a Korean brand..you can find bits and pieces of it in Korean stores sometimes, though it's not particularly common here in the states. Here's one I bought sometime last year...it's a golden champagne color with a foil-like finish..very sparkly and pretty. Pictures don't quite capture the sparkle. I did 3 coats of this for full opacity, but if you wanted you could wear it at 1-2 coats for a sheerer look. The polish applies very smoothly with 0 streakiness, so it's one of those polishes where you can decide when you want to stop adding coats. (If you're one to use thicker coats, it'd prob only take you 2 to opacity). Here it is in natural lighting. There was no sun that day so it doesn't shine as much, but it shows the color pretty well
Here it is in indoor lighting. It sparkles a bit more in this picture, but not nearly as blingy as it is in real life.