Hard Candy Polish Shopping Tip

If you didn't already know, Hard Candy is back in the nail polish business! I cant wait to get my hands on them, especially this baby:
However, I haven't seen them at my local Wal-Mart! I don't know if you've had success at your local store, but there is a solution! You can order them online at Wal-Mart's website and the good news is that they are just 97 cents to ship!

Hope this helps anyone where these are hard to find. Happy Shopping!

Nailene Deluxe Salon Acrylic Kit Review: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I did it folks. I tried acrylic nails. The pictures that I am going to show you are of my second attempt. The first time I tried the kit was this past Saturday and let me tell you, that was not pretty. I figured out what I didn't like about the kit and what I could improve the next go around. Now this second attempt is still not perfect, but I promise you its better than the first time. You don't want to see that, trust me. *shudders* On with the review!

First, let me show you the kit.

This is how it looks all nice and new in the packaging. You can find it any almost any drugstore, Wal-Mart, Target or online places like Amazon.
Here is my kit, opened and the additional tools I bought. I will explain later why I bought the extra stuff.

Contents: Clear acrylic powder, acrylic liquid, ultra quick nail glue, primer, buffing block, nail file (not pictured), dappen dish, manicure stick.

The back of the kit where you can store nails:
It came with 20 clear tips and 20 white tips.

The additional tools I bought:

L to R: Oversize nail cutter for acrylic nails, flat acrylic brush, extra white nails tips.
I thought it was really hard to clip those long acrylic nail tips with regular fingernail clippers,so I had to get the oversized ones like you see in the salon. It made the process so much easier the second time around because it eliminated trying to cut the nail in a straight line and excessive filing. You still have to file your nails with the oversize clippers but not as much. When I used the regular sized fingernail clippers on the nails, my nails looked like a crooked picket fence, no lie! I also bought another nail brush because I thought that the brush that was included was small, so the new one was bigger, flatter and wider. I thought that helped with application of the acrylic. Not pictured was nail glue I used because the glue in the kit was horrible. When the nails weren't busy sticking to my skin, they were coming off my natural nails.

Okay on to the nails. Here's the finished product. Again, not perfect! Left hand:

Right hand:
Can you tell that this hand's nails are a little shorter?

Side view:
Blurry pic of both hands:

My overall experience with this kit was good. Once I figured out what I needed to change, the application went smoother. Once thing I do highly recommend is those oversize nail clippers, they shaved 30 minutes off of the total application time, it went from a two hour ordeal to a hour and a half. I must say though, expect to to spend some time buffing your nails once you finish applying the acrylic. Some of my nails I applied a bit too much acrylic and it takes some time to buff out the uneven lumps, although I didn't get them smooth as I would have liked it. The truth was I was little tired so I just decided they would do. Also, I found that Seche Vite doesn't work as well on these nails as my natural nails, it didn't give me the shine that I wanted so I used Zoya Armour. There were some really good, detailed instructions included in the kit that I think would help anyone who is a beginner (like me) that wouldn't know what to do.

Bottom line,I would recommend this kit. It gets a thumbs up from me! Anyone else ever try to do their own acrylics? Or do you want to try your hand at acrylics but haven't? Let me know!

My attempt at a gradient manicure

Notice, the key word in the title of this post, attempt. This was much better in my head, but not so great in translation. I like the new color I made though. Here are the colors I used:

Zoya Malia as the base, China Glaze Grape Juice as the second coat, Sinful Colors Purple Diamond as the third coat.

The manicure:

I think I'll try gradient manicures again, but with other colors. Pink and blue come to mind...

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** A NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS LEFT ON MY BLOG*

I've been really busy with school and projects lately so I may be slow to responding. However, I DO appreciate all the comments you've left! Thanks for stopping by!

Santee Sky Blue

Sunlight

Indoors

Another day, another Santee polish. Now I normally don't go for pearl/metallic finishes on my polishes because I don't like the streaky appearance they give. However, this blue was just so pretty to me I had to get it. I keep wanting to call it Ice Blue instead of Sky Blue and I don't know why. This is four coats + Seche Vite! Why four coats? Well I could have stopped at two, but it was still too pale for me, so I did three. However, I hit my nail on the table and made a dent in my polish. So there goes the fourth coat. In the end, I like the depth that four coats gives this polish color. It dried pretty quickly. I still don't think I care for this type of polish though.

Santee Black Hole

Here's a polish I picked up a beauty supply store. It was a buck and I figured it was worth it! I thought it was a good chance to try out a color I wouldn't normally pick, being that it is brown. How did it work out? Well let's see...

It's a nice medium brown with golden shimmer. That being said, I have no idea why the name of this polish is black hole. Black? Not hardly. In fact, in these pictures it looks a little red to me. Go figure. This was three coats. This is my first time using Santee polishes and I think they are good quality for a dollar. This one required three coats to get to the opacity that I like but that's not a big deal. It also dried fairly quickly. I have two more Santee polishes to show you, so stay tuned to check them out!

Essie Pink Parka

Here is the other polish I received from my Twitter friend, RebeccaKaz! How did she know that I loved pink? Hot, neon, retina burning pink? Hmm, is it that obvious? I honestly squealed when I got this out of my mailbox!

This is three coats of Essie Pink Parka from their Fall 09 collection + Seche Vite. It dried quickly and matte because its a neon. I used three coats because it was kind of thin, but those three coats were absolutely worth it! I love that they released this for a fall collection, because I promise you I will be wearing this even in the dead of winter. Finally, someone gets it! I knew I loved Essie for a reason.

CND Colour Effects

While browsing around CND's website to check out their new release, Colour Effects, I found out that you can request/win a sample. Just visit their website by clicking this link to request yours. The offer is open to residents only in the United States and there will be 1,500 lucky winners who will receive a bottle of Colour! You will have to fill out a short questionnaire to enter.

While you're on the website be sure to play with their demo of the color effects! Also check out Mary's post at Body and Soul Beauty about the effects she made.What do you guys think about this new concept? At first, I didn't get what the deal was, but after seeing the possibilities I'm sold!

*Picture taken from http://fashionindie.com/get-yourself-800-new-shades-from-cnd/