I'm Not the Villain Here!

As all you makeup addicts out there know, MAC Cosmetics is releasing a new collection on Sept 30, and if you have Pro Store access, you can even get it NOW. Obviously, I'm talking about the MAC Venomous Villains collection, which is separated into four color stories representing and emblazoned with the images of 4 Disney Villains...The Evil Queen from 'Snow White', Maleficent from 'Sleeping Beauty', Doctor Facilier from 'The Princess and the Frog', and Cruella de Vil from '101 Dalmatians'. I was going to go to the Pro Store today to check it out, so I did today's manicure in honor of it, but got sidetracked, and it's too late to go because I have to be somewhere else- so I'll go tomorrow! I want to buy stuff, but seeing as I JUST started my job, I'm still broke (and will be for a while), so just window shopping for me! :-P

I'm not in love with how these turned out, Cruella looked better when I did her for the 101 Dalmatians manicure a while back, but my hand was super shaky, so I did what I could. I also think that I need to get a new paintbrush! The only one I'm pleased with is the Evil Queen on my ring finger, I think she turned out pretty ok. :-P

I used:

Thumb: MAC logo

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for the logo.

Index: Maleficent

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with Orly Gumdrop for her face, Barielle Grape Escape for her eye shadow, A Beautiful Life Poison for her lips, American Apparel Hassid to outline everything, and Essence Pointbreak to outline her horns. I also used Barielle Grape Escape for her collar.

Middle: Cruella

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with a mix of American Apparel Summer Peach, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud, and Eyeko Punk Polish for Neon Nails for her skin, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for her white hair, Essence Pointbreak to outline her black hair. American Apparel Butter for her fur coat, China Glaze Flyin' High for her earring, A Beautiful Life Poison for her lips, Pure Ice Wild Thing, and American Apparel Hassid to outline everything.

Ring: Evil Queen

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with American Apparel Summer Peach for her face, Barielle Grape Escape for her eye shadow, Barielle Aura Angora for her crown, A Beautiful Life Poison for her lips, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for her collar, and American Apparel Hassid to outline everything.

Pinky: Doctor Facilier

American Apparel Hassid as a base, with Color Club Best Dressed List for his face, then mixed with Barielle Unraveled Rust for his lips, Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud for his eyes and teeth, Orly Snowcone for his pupils, MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious to outline, American Apparel Hassid for his hat, A Beautiful Life Poison for the sash on the hat.

Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

What are you going to buy from this collection? I'm excited to see it, but I'm praying for lots of dupes to stuff I already have. :-P

ORLY Cosmic FX - Space Cadet: Sci-Fi on your Nails

Normally I would save the best for last, but I'm so infatuated with this polish I just had to show it first. Space Cadet belongs to ORLY's latest 6 piece collection for fall: Cosmic FX.

According to ORLY

ORLY introduces its latest addition to its portfolio of textured finishes with Cosmic FX. The new, limited-edition collection delivers multi-dimensional flashes of intense shimmering shine that is so electrifying your nails will explode with color! This lighting phenomenon is achieved by ORLY’s exclusive MINERAL FX technology.
The innovation infuses natural rock minerals, crystals, and glass to give nails a special optical effect with extreme luster, rich pearlescence, and a smooth, sparkling spectrum of concentrated color.

Space Cadet

Wow, is all I can say. Since I started blogging I've seen so many different colors and finishes, oversaturation is inevitable. It takes a lot to leave me stunned like this.
Space Cadet is a very sparkly foily multichrome. It flashes an incredible array of colors, there is purple, orange, golden green and mauve all chucked together in a teal-ish base. In times like these I'd wish I had a video camera to capture the beauty of this polish. I think it's safe to say Space Cadet already made it to my favorites of all time. Damn baby.

scary macro shot

Application

Application was fine, 3 thin coats, which surprised me, somehow I expected I wouldn't be able to wear this polish on its own. The drying time was another surprise, it dried in a ZzZap! The wear was pretty good as well, stayed on for about five days with minor tipwear.

I will write about every single polish in this collection eventually, I could have made one post about all six of them, but I have more fun when I'm writing about them separately - if that makes any sense.

ORLY polishes from the Cosmix FX collection cost 10 USD each. You can get Space Cadet from eBay, TransDesign, Head2ToeBeauty etc.

Review: Essence Studio Nails - Nail Fashion Stickers

Essence Nail Stickers

Hi guys! With the change of seasons Essence likes to update their collection with tons of new colors and cool products. This September they added Essence Nail Fashion Stickers to their selection and I was really curious about them. I've tried the Incoco appliques before, and those really knew how to impress me. However, these Essence stickers are much less spenny! There are 14 different designs available and I picked up 3 of them: So hot!, Drama Queen! and Hollywood! (they sure shout a lot over at Essence).

Application

Before applying these you need to clean your nails first. I removed my polish and thoroughly cleaned them with alcohol. After that you select the correct size for each nail and place them on your nails. Some rubbing should remove or reduce wrinkles. Gentle file off the excess of the sticker and you're good to go! As you can see these are nothing like the appliques by Incoco, as they are made from actual polish. Essence Nail Fashion stickers should last up to 5 days. If you'd like you can seal them with a top coat.

Let's not sugarcoat this, these aren't exactly right for my nails. The sizes were pretty okay, but they were still a little bit too small and I don't have the broadest nails in the world to start with. I tried applying these as neat as I could but my nails are just too curvy, so I ended up with wrinkles everywhere.

Wear

So, these should last five days? Nuh uh. I applied top coat on one hand to see if it would make a difference but after an ordinary shower, the stickers decided to curl up around the edges, on both hands! It looked like a big mess so they didn't even make it through the day.

Overall

Considering the price (1.99 eur) these are not that bad. They're not fantastic either. I do love the designs, I think they're fun and the finish does remind me a bit of Minx Nails. I bet someone with flat, small nails would rock the hell out of these. It would have been great if there were more sizes to choose from! The wear isn't like they promised at all, but these would make a nice manicure for a party.

I'm not sure where these stickers are being sold, but you can buy Essence products at Kruidvat (NL), Rossman, Muller, DM Drogist (DL), Ulta (USA) and Shoppers (Canada). For more info check www.essence.eu

Circle, Circle, Dot, Dot

I got my cootie shot.

:-D

I survived day two at the new job- and let me tell ya, I'm outta job-shape, I can't remember ever being this exhausted after a day of work. So far, the job is great though, and the people are really super nice! :) (I hope they think the same about me too!) I'm debating what I can whip up in my oven to fully win them over though. :-9 Today's nails are just a random design. I liked the colors, and wanted to use them together, and this is what I came up with!

I used butter LONDON Artful Dodger as a base, with circles and dots painted over it with MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious, Essie Alligator Purse, and the yet unnamed franken that I showed you yesterday. Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Great, now I have that damn Jamie Kennedy song in my head. Whatever happened to Stu Stone?

A 'Bone to Pick

Herringbone that is. Today's nail art is my interpretation of a herringbone pattern. I actually even frankened the base polish myself- it matches the wall pant of someone I know perfectly! I loved the color so much on the wall (I picked it out, natch) that I had to create a nail polish for my very own. :) I used a mixture of equal parts American Apparel Manila, American Apparel California, and a few drops of L.A. Girl Army Green.

It matched my shirt (unintentionally):

I used my franked polish, which I'm still undecided on calling, with MAC In the Buff to paint the lines to make the pattern. Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

About the job:

I am now working for a real estate marketing company as a graphic designer! :) First day went great, other than freezing. Everyone seems really nice so far, too! :)

OMG!! Check out all these colors!!!

This seriously might be my fave mani to date! It's SH Prisms, Turquoise Opal

Oh and ignore the nick on my pinky :( Too lazy to fix.

Thanks for looking, hope everyone has a great day/night :P



Review: Fast Forward with China Glaze

China Glaze's Quick Drying Top coat - Fast Forward

The perfect quick drying top coat. I haven't found it yet. I've tried some, but I didn't really like the finish of OPI RapiDry, the cracking "David" caused, the shrinkage I got with Seche Vite and Nubar Diamont is clearly having an identity crisis because it isn't behaving as it should be. So, I decided it was time for some fresh meat!

The good.. and the bad?

I realize I'm a bit overly critical and picky when it comes to a top coat, that's probably why I haven't found my perfect match yet (Gee, this reminds me of why I'm still single). Anyway..! I want my top coat to be quick drying, manageable, glossy, smooth as glass and chip resistant. Fast Forward actually scores quite good in these departments. It dries fairly quick (not as fast as Seche but still FAST). It does an awesome job at leveling, I'd really recommend using this over gritty glitters and stuff like that. The finish is the thing I love the most, it's glassy, stays that way too and it just feels very smooth. I haven't experienced unusual cases of chipping, cracking etc. But, is it all that and a bag of crips?

Application

Application is super easy. It isn't thick or thin, it's easy to handle and almost applies itself. I'm not even halfway the bottle though so I don't know if Fast Forward tends to thicken up after a while. Also, it doesn't get streaky or bubbly, sounds good right?
There is one thing though and that's the smell. I don't mind strong smells but if you do, this is not your guy! The very strong smell of Fast Forward reminds me of peppermint candy with acetone icing. While Fast Forward is b3f, it still smells like a chemical explosion.
Unfortunately I have experienced some shrinkage too. Yup, it's there. Not always, it depends on the polish you're painting over, but yes, it can happen.

Overall

I'm really happy with this top coat and if it wouldn't cause shrinkage, I'd be in love. It's glassy, sexy smooth and stays put rather well. I'm pretty sure the smell will be a problem for some, but if you can handle it and you're still looking for a decent top coat you might want to give Fast Forward a shot!

You can get this top coat at eBay, TransDesign, Head2toebeauty and other etailers. Prices may vary - starting $3.

Lunchtime Mani. Funky French

So I switched things up a bit, and didn't do a black tip!!! Woo hoo, lol.The tips color is SH Inst-Dri, Grape Going. I love this color uber much!

My first Frankening Attempt....

So last night I attempted to franken for my very first time!!! I had alot of fun doing it, and even my hubby loved the results.

This is actually the 2nd franken I made, and my fave!
Here is what I used. Well the 2 on the left didn't get added till later, but you will see...



Before the teal & gold glitters.

With the glitters added

Here is my 1st franken. I fogot to take a pic of what I used, this is a mixture of a blue & pink medium sized glitters from Funky Fingers, with WnW Black & some of the bad batch of ChG BFF. In this pic you can kind of see the holo from BFF

Here you can see more of the actual glitter

I can't wait to try this last one in the sun, and maybe I will like it better. This was a lot of fun though, and I can't wait to do more.

How to : My French, Funky French and Other Nail Designs

Many times while on MUA, I will post pictures of nail designs & TONS of funky frenches. I often get asked just how I do it. So here is my step by step for you guys.

Here is the mani, I will be showing you how I did.
The colors I used are Finger Paints - Tough Art to Follow & Savvy Green with Envy.



First you paint your base color, this can be ANY color you want. You need to make sure it dries though.



Then, I take scotch tape, and stick it to my palm. You will see later why I prefer scotch to painters tape. I stick it to my palm, so it takes away some stickiness, and doesn't pull up the base color.


Then I tape it onto my nail, in the desired design, here it is my diagonal design.
If you notice since the tape is clear, I can tell whether or not it is completely taped down correctly. So I don’t get any leaking underneath the tape. This is what it will look like –


Once you have it right, you paint your nail the other polish color –
Remember to do 1 nail at a time, otherwise the 2nd polish can dry to the tape, and pull up.



Once you're done, painting the nail, just slowly pull the tape off. Then do this to the rest and Ta-Da, you’re done.

I hope this helps, and is easy to understand. I'm not the best at explaining the process. If you look back at some of my past manis, you will see I use this technique a lot. I love my funky frenches, and for them, you just tape the nail off, leaving the tip open and free to paint the color of your choice.