Revlon Selects and Christmas

Revlon Selects sent me some of their Revlon by Marchesa 3D Jewel Appliques, and I saved them for my company Christmas party.

I used Gilded Mosaic - a very pretty gold and silver mosaic pattern.

Last time I tried the appliques, they only lasted a day before peeling up, and I kinda got frustrated with them. I had used a basecoat, which I think was part of the problem. 

This time I followed a how-to blog post from someone else (I forgot to save the link, and now I can't find it), and didn't use a basecoat.

The how-to said to use a "feather touch" when filing off the excess sticker, and ... yeah, these are so thick that you need a little pressure. I was still being gentle though. Some of the ends were still ragged - though I think that's a product of the design on these ones and my nail length - some of the jewels popped off at the ends of my nails.

I touched up the ends and wrapped the tips with some gold polish, and because the ragged edges were still bugging me, I went over it with a topcoat (it had to last a couple of days, because I was working the day of the party).

On my ring finger, I used Avon Matte Concrete, Essence Black is Back and Bundle Monster stamping plate 323 to create a nail that matched my party dress.

Now, the nail sitckers actually lasted several days this time before the design started to wear off, revealing the white base. 

I followed the directions, and peeled them up from the cuticle edge. Every finger except my thumbs (both hands), went well.

Here is what happened on my thumbs:

It peeled off a layer of my nail in some places - this was the better of the two. My other thumb had much larger sections peel off.

So, next time - basecoat for SURE.

---

After letting my nails rest for a few days, I decided that I needed to do something Christmas-y

I used Color Club Red De Rio, then applied Claire's Cranberry scented polish from last year's scented holiday collection (it didn't really smell ... I think it's faded now). It's a fine red glitter with slightly larger gold glitter strewn throughout.

On my ring finger, I used a tutorial from Nailside to make a Christmas tree. I used China Glaze Winter Holly for the tree, and applied a gem to the top.

Winter Holly is a fun colour - packed with fine dark green glitter, and I think I spotted some gold and silver in there too.

My only complaint is the base of the glitter somehow caused the red to soak through my basecoat and stain my nail.

Revlon Selects 3D Jewel Appliques

Ok,
It's been a while since I did a review of a product sent to me by Revlon. I had bare nails and I didn't want to wait for nail polish to dry, so I reached for my pack of 3D Jewel Appliques. I received the Floral Fatale pattern.

This is a very cute and busy pink/white/black/silver pattern. Flowers and silver geometric shapes. It even has a bit of an iridescent shine to it.

The Review:

First up, I read the instructions - pick the right size, apply, fold over nail edge, file off excess. Just like all the other nail strips out there. Easy as pie!
Then I looked at removal. These are not real nail polish, so for removal, you simply peel them off starting at the cuticle.
My heart sank a bit at that, because I have weak nails, and peeling things off of your nails can really damage them.

I elected to apply a basecoat to help prevent damage.

Application was super easy - peel and stick, smooth down.
The only minus here were the small range of sizes. My index, middle and ring fingers are all pretty much the same size - it was tough getting ones to fit. I ended up using a couple of slightly too-small ones. Also, my thumb was in-between the largest and second largest size, so I had to trim that one down - which is pretty normal.

The excess strip filed away pretty easily, but I encountered a slight hitch ... I had stretched one of them to make it fit, but once I filed the end off, it un-stretched and I had a bare patch at the tip of my nail. It was small and the busy pattern on the applique hid it well, so I figured it was ok.

I wore it, went to bed, woke up and had my shower.
This is when it all started to fall apart. They caught in my hair, shifted and lifted. I'm not sure if this is because I used a basecoat, so your mileage may vary.

I peeled them off afterward and they came off really nicely - it looks like the adhesive is gentle enough that it shouldn't damage your nails. It only lifted the basecoat off of one nail. I'm just wondering if they elected to go for a gentle adhesive rather than staying power.

Verdict: they're cute if you want a cute complex pattern without all the work. Probably only good for a couple of days. I personally wouldn't buy them, but I think they'd be great for a lot of people - especially if they wanted a really fancy manicure for an event.

Christmas Haul

So, of course I asked for nail polish for Christmas ... here's what I got:

My sister-in law bought me:
It's So Easy Stripe Rite polishes in turquoise, blue, black and hot pink
Nail Bliss spiderweb nail stickers
Cina nail art pen in white

I did this manicure while we were opening presents:

My mom bought me a ton of polish - I asked her for the whole Essence collection (since it's pretty inexpensive). She wasn't able to find many of the new ones - I guess her Shopper's got all the old stock - but she bought me all of the old ones she could find, plus more!

Essence new collection:
110 Modern Romance (shimmery peach)
128 Let's Get Lost (bright blue)

Essence old collection:
04 Space Queen (iridescent glitter)
05 Sweet as Candy (sheer pink)
26 Break Through (purple with a slight hint of gold shimmer)
34 Walk of Fame (purple-brown-grey)
38 Choose Me! (teal glitter)
39 Lime Up (x2)
43 Where is the Party? (purple/green duochrome)
46 Wake Up! (traffic cone orange)
59 Black is Back (x2)
68 High Spirits (olive green / gold)
70 Nude It (brownish nude)
75 Gleam in Blue (shimmery light blue)
83 Luxury Secret (pewter?)
95 Wanna Be Your Sunshine (shimmery yellow)

Sally Hansen HD polishes (just the shimmery ones, not the duochromes):
Digital (hot pink)
Blu (um ... blue)
Pixel Pretty (turquoise)
Three D (orange)
Lite (yellow)

Sinful Colors neon mini polish collection, which comes with Dream On (fuchsia) Pink (derp), Irish Green, Neon Melon (surprisingly, yellow) and Fusion Neon (a bubblegum pink)


My husband bought me the Bundle Monster stamping plates 2012 Collection.
I didn't take a photo, but he even tagged the package "To: B2" haha!
I'm just trying to figure out which image to use for my nails right now.

Guest Manicure - Stormy!

This is a super busy week - I'm going to fall behind on my weekly challenge (I have two now - check out the links in the sidebar)

Anyways, to help me out, one of my friends, Manpreet, did a very pretty stormy manicure for my blog!

Without further ado ...

The base is a Sally Hansen black polish, the clouds were done using a Konad stamp (the stamp is actually cranberries), the lightning bolt was free-hand using a yellow OPI polish and the rain was done using an iridescent Wet n Wild glitter polish.

Love it Manpreet!

---

In other news ... Here is how the nail strips turned out after a week - not bad! Just nail growth and some tip wear. I could have worn them longer, but I wanted to take them off because the edge that was at my cuticle kept catching on my hair.

I don't know if it was just these particular ones, but oy, what a pain in the butt to remove.
There is a yellow layer, and then a black layer. I held the cotton ball over top of the nail for a minute or two to soften the polish, then I pulled it off. The yellow polish came off, so then I had black squares - after scrubbing for a bit, it finally came off, but I had little black flakes around my fingers, and occasionally a little ball of adhesive.

At the price these things are, I don't know that I'd get them again - they are REALLY cute, but for the price of a bottle or two of polish you get one manicure. For people who are into nail art, but can't / don't want to do their own, they're a great option and I would highly recommend them ... for me? I don't really think so.
(bonus: if you have really short nails, cut the strips in half, and only use one pack - save the second pack for a second manicure later!)

Sally Hansen Nail Strips - Sound Check

This week was supposed to be a "dry marble" manicure.

Now, I've done a water marble and a needle marble ... so I had to figure out what the heck a dry marble was.
Well, it seems pretty vague - here are the examples I found when I googled it:

• the same thing as a needle marble (most common)
• a needle marble done on plastic, that you then peel and stick to your nails
• painting polish onto a flat surface, then using a nail stamp to apply it to your nails
• dipping scrunched up saran wrap into nail polish and dabbing it on to your nails
• doing a water marble that you lift flat using plastic ... then you peel and stick to your nails (so you don't have to use so much polish I guess?)

After seeing that, I decided to just change the theme. 

I figured why not give the Sally Hansen Nail Strips a try, since I've never used them before. (and it's similar to the peel and stick ones above ... right?)

I found some on sale, I think from the Avril Lavigne line - it's called "Sound Check" and it's a black and yellow checkerboard pattern. Fun!

For some reason, it looks like there is a smudge on my pinkie, but I can't see it in person. I did get a little nick in the index finger near the cuticle and a teeny fold at the tip of my middle finger.
They were easy to apply - just follow the included instructions and you're good to go!
They're supposed to last 10 days, I will probably remove them before that, but I'll try to remember to take a photo right before I remove them to show you how they've worn.