The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword!

Giveaway Day Number TWO!!

Today's prize is another Sally Hansen treasure- and I debuted them on my blog on DAY 8!! That's right-

Prize #2 is a set of the Sally Hansen Nail Art pens!!

To be eligible, here's what you gotta do:

NUMBER 1- Be a follower of the Daily Nail - and I'm curious - tell me how long! :)

NUMBER 2- Tell me what you would draw with the nail art pens if you could draw anything on your nails! 

That's it! Just leave it in the comments, and I'll select the winner randomly!! :)


Entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, Oct 16.

I'll start:

"I have been following The Daily Nail blog for 367 days, both through Google Friend Connect and Twitter!  I would draw the band members of KISS with my Sally Hansen nail art pens...oh wait.. I did. ;)"

Products up for giveaway were provided by the manufacturer, and can be purchase at CVS, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, ULTA, K-Mart, Target, and a million other locations, both brick-and-mortar and online!

Get Acquainted with Accessorize Nail Polish!

Accessorize

Accessorize, a store that sells mostly accessories, also took a spring into cosmetics. Normally, when I see stores like this taking a plunge into nail polish, it's not that big of a deal, shimmers and cremes, that's about all I see, with the occasional weak holo. Imagine my surprise when I saw what Accessorize busted out!

Not your traditional red creme

Ok, it's pretty obvious: the finish and colors of some of these babies strongly remind me of the Orly Cosmic FX collection, and judging from the pics, I think it's safe to say there are some dupish polishes in their range. I don't really mind though, the Cosmic FX collection was my favorite of the entire year (so far), I just can't get enough of these. And...do I see a possible MAC Bad Fairy dupe there?! I'm not really dazzled by their bottle design, but oh well! Accessorize is also selling your traditional red creme, but I made a selection from their current, more surprising, offerings:

These polishes cost £4.00 (4.50 EUR or 6.45 USD) each for a bottle of 10ml. Not cheap, but not steep either. I'm not sure where you can find Accessorize stores, but I do know there are over 240 stores in the UK and 600 internationally (located in cities such as Paris, Madrid, Milano, Roma, Lissabon, Moscow and Amsterdam). You can check out there store locator over here or shop online.

What do you think of these? Too dupe-y or glad to meet them?

Ciaté - Silhouette

From the vault

Hi guys! How are you all doing? Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been really busy. Thankfully I found some older pictures of a gorgeous polish on my hard drive, so let me introduce you to one of Ciaté's prettiest vampy shades: Silhouette.

Ciaté always hits my soft spot, the bottle is too cute, the little ribbon, the font, I love it all. British sophistication for sure! The color is quite dark, a very rich and warm dark brownish red. It looks quite brown in the bottle, but it's leaning towards red once on the nail. The color acts a bit like a chameleon, because it shifts between red, brown and even a bit purple, depending on the lighting. I can't get over how glowy it is, so pretty.

Application

Application was pretty easy, two quick smooth coats without any trouble. I did experience some bubbling, but only on my thumbs, how weird is that? This polish has decent staying power too, I remember wearing it for at least 4 days without chipping, I did add a layer of David top coat, and then I took it off.

Ciaté polishes cost £9.00 for a bottle containing 13.5ml. You can order them from www.ciate.co.uk

China Glaze BFF Holo funky french & a BFF mixup

I started off by using an imitation verison of China Glazes BFF. This may be old news to some, but as of now there are 2 different versions. A bright pink and a muddy reddish/tanish/pinkish. Some have even thought they were just a batch of mislabeled TMI's , but as you can see, they are just duds. I even contacted China Glaze about this, and they are declining any knowledge of a formula change.

Here are the 2 versions - The one on the right is the REAL one. 

Now here they are, with TMI in the middle

On to the fun. Here is one of my favorite types of manis!

I used the same technique as I always do, which can be found here

Thoughts, Prayers, Positive Vibes Needed.

Hey all, I need a favor.

The daughter of one of my readers (and all-around great people I've had the pleasure of knowing...and mother-in-law to someone close to me) is in Intensive Care right now. I'm sure that any warm fuzzies, prayers, thoughts, positive vibes, and whatever else awesome you can karmically send her way would mean a lot. It's a super scary time right now!

Thanks!

-M

You COMPLETE Me.

Before I get into the actual giveaway part of this post, I want to explain how I chose what products to give away. I wanted to give away products from companies that I've used during most (if not all) of my blog project. In the coming days, you'll see ZOYA (because after all, ZOYA was the catalyst to this blog's beginning!), Sally Hansen, China Glaze, Seche, Color Club, Lush, and even a handmade nail polish necklace from the amazing GingerKitty Designs! (WHICH IS GORGEOUS!!!)

Today's Prize is:

10 (yes, TEN!)

randomly selected Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polishes!

To be eligible, here's what you gotta do:

NUMBER 1- Be a follower of the Daily Nail - and I'm curious - tell me how long! :)

NUMBER 2- Tell me your FAVORITE Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polish, and why you like it so much!

That's it! Just leave it in the comments, and I'll select the winner randomly!! :)


Entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, Oct 15.

I'll start:

"I follow The Daily Nail on both twitter AND on blogspot! I've been following for 366 days! My favorite Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure is a four-way tie between Hidden Treasure (obviously), Fedora, Sequin Scandal, and of course, a mainstay in my nail art- Lavender Cloud! I love them all because they are unique, pigmented, and the brush shape provides FLAWLESS application!"

Products up for giveaway were provided by the manufacturer, and can be purchase at CVS, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, ULTA, K-Mart, Target, and a million other locations, both brick-and-mortar and online!

Nicole Di-Vine is Divine

I know, I know, many out there have refused to even buy the Nicole polishes due to the bottle shape reminding them of either a saggy boob, or a pregnant belly. I agree, the bottles aren't the best, but my love for polish, never discriminates. If I like the color, it's coming home with me. So I have a few Nicoles in my stash. This is a great fall color. It's a deep berry/purple with some hidden shimmer in it.

There's No 'I' in Blog.

Thank you all so much for being a part of my life this past year, all your emails, comments, etc. mean the world to me. (even if I suck at returning them- I'm working on it, I promise!!)

I am looking forward to starting year 2 with you!!!

Keep an eye out later today for the first giveaway post!!

OPI Burlesque Collection: Simmer & Shimmer!

Today I'm showing you my breast-cancer awareness manicure. I read on Delta Cephei's blog about a promotion Etos (a Dutch drugstore) is doing to raise awareness for Pink Ribbon. (www.pinkribbon.com) They ask women to paint their nails with one accent nail: a pink pinky. When you get questions about why your pinky is a different colour you can explain about Pink Ribbon and what people can do to support them. So, please take a moment to check out the links above for more information on Pink Ribbon.

I loved this idea so I decided to use Simmer & Shimmer to do a mani myself. I used Viva la Diva #71 on my pinky.

Compared to Absolutely Alice, Simmer & Shimmer is a bit more silver and it has multi-colored glitters instead of just blue and gold. There is fuschsia, orange, yellow, green and gold which make it feel like a party in a bottle. Contrairy to what you might expect after that statement it is not an "in-your-face" glitter. Somehow OPI manages to make glitter polishes seem subdued and demure. Apart from it being glitter of course. lol



This is the sort of glitter polish I'm pretty sure wouldn't have caused my late grandmother to throw a hissyfit and kick me out of the house while yelling at me I was the whore of Babylon and believe me, my grandmother wasn't easily satisfied. Just kidding! (No I'm not.)

Giant thumb!

Anyway, back to the polish! I did four coats of Simmer & Shimmer but honestly, that fourth coat was my paranoia kicking in. Macro setting and all.... I could see some of my bare nail through it if I looked closely but from a reasonable distance the glitter took care of that. On the pinky I used two coats of Simmer & Shimmer and two coats of Viva la Diva #71 because I wanted some of the blue glitter to shine through and pull the look together.

Drying time was short as can be expected from glitters. The surface was a little bumpy after the first coat of topcoat so I added a second one to make it smooth. 

Removal was normal for glitters. A pain if you try to do it the old fashioned way but with the foil method it was a breeze! I did find some stray glitters on my hands (and on my face, my hair, my couche, the floor, and on boyfriend etc. lol) but that is just the price we have to pay for wearing awesome glitters.

Thanks for looking!

The Ends.

Wow. I can't believe it. I finished. This is one of the only major projects in my entire life that I've seen through to fruition, and I'm SO glad that you all were here to be part of it. (THANK YOU!!) This end is a little bittersweet for me, because I really loved the challenge of that 11:59:59 p.m. deadline every day (I often joke that I'm the Cinderella of nail bloggers), but also because I'm going to be able to take a break, or have a weekend away without having to pack a million bottles of nail polish and nail paraphernalia. Don't worry though, I'm not going anywhere!! I found that I really enjoy doing this blog, and the interaction between me and all the wonderful people that read it. (that's you!!!) I plan to keep this project going, and while it might not be every day, my goal is to post every other day or so. (It'll be weird to have a manicure for more than a day! *GASP*)

Since today is the very last day of my 365-day journey, I really wanted to end it with a bang, and with the same humor and nerdiness with which it started, so today's nails...are 'The Ends'. (animal 'ends', that is!!) Yes, this is my weird and twisted sense of humor, but I think that, considering you've been reading the blog to this point, you must like it. I did animal butts because I'm not a sappy gal, and I like to make you giggle- and most of all, I love doing crazy stuff on my nails that other people might think is weird...or gross? :-D That's me, and that's pretty much what my blog is about, weird awesomeness.

On my left hand, I did a baby butt on the thumb, a deer butt (for my Uncle John & Aunt Kim and all the other Michiganders!) on my index finger, a zebra butt on my middle finger, a giraffe butt on my ring finger, and a cat butt on my pinky. (because how could I do this without a cat butt?!)

On my right hand, I have an elephant butt on my thumb, pig butt on my index finger, a horse butt on my middle finger, a sheep butt (hehehe) on my ring finger, and a duck butt on my pinky!

I used:

Left hand:

Thumb: baby butt

MAC Abalone Shell as a base, shaded with Color Club Best Dressed List and Barielle Unravelled Rust, with Zoya Yummy for the background.

Index: Deer butt

Color Club Best Dressed List as a base, with brushed on lightly over it, then MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious lightly brushed over that. For the white, I used Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud.

Middle: Zebra Butt

Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud as a base, shaded with Orly Mirror, Mirror, then American Apparel Hassid for the black stripes, and L.A. Girl Army Green for the green background between the legs.

Ring: Giraffe Butt

American Apparel California Trooper as a base, with OPI Ginger Bells for the tail stripe, butter LONDON Minger for the spots, MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious for the tail. For the green in the background, I used both L.A. Girl Army Green and Zoya Shawn.

Pinky: Cat Butt!!!

butter LONDON Minger as a base, with American Apparel Summer Peach lightly brushed over that in spots (like around the butthole lol), and OPI Ginger Bells for the stripes. Between the legs is Barielle Unravelled Rust.


Right hand:

Thumb: Elephant Butt

Essence Pointbreak as a base, with Orly Mirror, Mirror blotted on with a crumpled paper towel. To shade for the tail, I added American Apparel Hassid to both greys for the wrinkles and shading to create the tail.

Index: Pig Butt

H&M Summer Fresh as a base, shaded with Color Club Best Dressed List and Barielle Unravelled Rust, with a mix of American Apparel California Trooper and American Apparel Manila and Barielle Unravelled Rust for the straw between its legs.

Middle: Horse Butt

OPI Ginger Bells as a base, with Barielle Unravelled Rust over it, then removed partway with a brush soaked in acetone to give a 'sheen' to the coat. For the tail, I used a combination of American Apparel Hassid and MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious.

Ring: Sheep Butt (hehehe)

American Apparel California Trooper as a base, with a mixture of American Apparel California Trooper and MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious patted over it to give the wool texture, I then used MAC Rich, Dark, Delicious for the bottom half of the legs, shaded with American Apparel Hassid. For the grass, I used both L.A. Girl Army Green and Zoya Shawn.

Pinky: Duck Butt

Zoya Yummy as a base, with ULTA Moody Blue brushed on lightly over it to give the water texture. For the duck body, I used Sally Hansen Professional Lavender Cloud as a base, shaded with Orly Mirror, Mirror and Essence Pointbreak, American Apparel Hassid was used for the tail feathers, then butter LONDON Minger for the legs, shaded with OPI Ginger Bells.

Topped it all off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.


Man, I sure feel like an ass.