One Year Blogiversary and Essie In the Cab-ana Kitchen Sink Mani

What? I've only just clued on that it's been a year since my first blog post..time does fly! So 175 posts later and I still a passion for polish and blogging as well as learning so much about polish, indie polishes and nail art techniques. I've met some amazing polish makers, nail artists and just plain out nice people in the nail polish world that I am pretty happy to be a very small part of the community. 

Today I am going to do a comparison post (and cringe at my cuticles!) as I started to paint my nails to stop biting them. So I was pretty bad at biting my nails and cuticles. It's taken ages to get my poor maligned fingers into better condition. My very first pic was taken on my iphone. So will the current mani that I am wearing so we are comparing apples with apples. We all started somewhere!

So a pic from today :)

Essie In the Cab-ana with L-R, Striping and Kleancolor Metallic Sapphire, Striping tape and rhinestone, stamping with Kleancolor Metallic Sapphire and China Glaze Glistening Snow dots, French tip with loose glitter.

Blue Skittles Mani with silver stamping using Bundle Monster plates

Well, that wasn't so bad was it? Okay, if I am being picky with the comparison - my nails are longer, less cuticle flooding, better cuticle condition..I think my stamping was pretty good though back then! Helped that I unknowingly had one of the best stamping silvers with China Glaze Millennium :) 

I've been prattling about a Giveaway, I guess the celebration of blogging for one year should be a good a reason as any. As soon as I can get my butt into gear I will do it.. :)

Kleancolor Gorgeous Suprise

Tonight I have a Kleancolor swatch for you, I love the colors in Kleancolor but hate the drying time and usually manage to dent or ding the polish before it's dry, grr. I am not the most patient person so a quick dry top coat is the only way these colors survive! Onwards to Kleancolor Gorgeous Suprise (225) which is a purple/lilac shimmery color. It won't be for polish color for everyone but I think it's pretty and would look awesome under stamping.

 Kleancolor Gorgeous Suprise without and with flash

Purple silver shimmery

 Gorgeous Suprise with Flash

 Oh so lilac-ey and shimmery :)

Wasn't sure I wuold like this, but I think I do :) It's just so blingy but not too frosty at the same time. If you know what I mean. It reminds me of wrapping paper I once had that was shimmery and wouldn't hold sticky tape, kinda like these!

Hope your monday was great, mine was pretty chilled for a monday..but it's going to be a long week I can already tell! Is Kleancolor Gorgeous Shimmer your thing or not?

Kleancolor Sheer Pastel Grey

 Today I have for you another of my fav sheer and pastel choices for those jelly sandwiches when the craving hits :) The question at hand though is, is Sheer Pastel Grey really Pastel Grey? Not so much. From the bottle pics you can see that it it appears Pastel, so check on that score. To me in the normal light it looks lavender/lilac tinted and under flash, I can see milky white..not really grey.

 Sheer Pastel Grey without and with Flash

Lets see how the swatches look.

 Sheer Pastel Grey, 2 Coats with Ulta3 Base coat and no top coat. Lilac-ey :)

 Sheer Pastel Grey with flash, some grey here maybe?

 Sheer Pastel Grey with flash, milky white!

This particular color is a little bit misleading. It's not grey by any stretch of the imagination. If anything it looks similar to OPI Care to Danse? but with great opacity in 2 coats. It's lilac tinted in the bottle and in some lights on the nails. In other lights it's pink and milky white. Despite the misnomer this polish is still lovely and interesting. It is opaque in 2 coats and applies really well. Apparently OPI Care to Danse? is not opaque with even 4 coats, so for those who do not like the visible nail line, it's a less time consuming choice :)

Do you like this color or is it not your cup of (Grey) tea? On that bad pun, I am working this weekend making polish adventures a little difficult, but I am sure I can fit in some stamping! :)

Kleancolor Melon Green

When is a green, not really a green? When it's Melon Green by Kleancolor, of course! What is up with polishes that are a pain in the behind to photograph true-to-color this week? Anyways, let me just say Melon Green is green despite trying to impersonate yellow quite well. Kleancolor does some amazing colors, you can rank Melon Green up there with them, especially since it's a 1 coater!

 Kleancolor without and with Flash

 Kleancolor without flash, yellow looking indeedy :)

Kleancolor Melon Green with Flash, more greenish on the left.

 Green in the bottle, Neon yellow on the nails here! LOL

Final attempt for the polish to look green..kinda.

Here is a pic(borrowed) of how green Melon Green truely is :)

*Sigh* As you can see, Kleancolor Melon Green is an awesome polish, hard to photograph but looks amazing on. It's vibrant and fun and neon :) Easy to apply, I used a base coat, 1 coat of Kleancolor Melon Green and no top coat. This is so not a work appropriate color, but amazing if you can get away with it! LOL. It's one of those colors that makes you want to look at your nails all the time :)

Hope you like the quick post tonight, to brighten up a cold winters day :)

Have a good one!

Pretty and Polish Bayou Blitz

Hello, hello, hello and welcome to this evenings post. Not sure if this particular combination today is a massive nail fail or just a minor one. I really loved the darkness of Kleancolor Retro Green yesterday (flick back to have a looksee) and thought I'd put Pretty and Polished Bayou Blitz as an added top coat. Bayou Blitz is a vibrant green and yellow matte glitter polish with larger bright hexagons in it. So onto the polish!

 Bayou Blitz

 Back of the bottle

Macro shot

So, I applied one coat of Bayou Blitz over Retro Green, this is no top coat.

You will have to excuse dry cuticles, winter sucks on my nails!

 Bayou Blitz, no flash

 Bayou Blitz, no flash

Bayou Blitz, with flash 

Close up with Flash

You can see in the last close up shot that the green base of Bayou Blitz changes the base color of Retro Green from a nice dark color to a more faded one. A base closer to the green color of Bayou Blitz might have generated a more pleasing result, although I do like the idea of a fluoro glitter over a darker base. The slight green tint appears to be more apparent with the flash though.

So, what do you think..nail fail or semi nail fail or does this color combo work for you?

Kleancolor Sandstone, Ulta3 Early Grey and Ulta3 Gold Rush Fever Gradient

Tonight, I am going to show you a lovely neutral gradient mani that I did after my Flying Dragon Floam mani peeled off after I may have used Ulta3 Non Chip top coat instead of the base, oopsie! I will show the result in just a moment, it's not exactly super pretty, but it's art I tell you..art! LOL. The colors I used are here:

But first, I don't usually do rants because you always upset someone, but I've just read something on another blog of whose name I won't mention because she doesn't deserve it. Seriously. I am that so astonished and incensed at what I read that I am not going to mention her name, but I am sure you can guess who/what it's about with recent polish world goings on. ANY respect I had for this polisher as a person has gone, gondidy, gone, gone. I am not even going to go into what it says but it left me thinking "Oh my giddy aunt and are you freakin' serious?" I haven't read anything so delusional, nor more clarifying of how I feel about the whole thing. I was a bit Switzerland on the whole thing until today. Now I understand why a few people reacted like they did and their actions. My actions will be to not enable any further delusions of grandeur ...do you think the average chick wants polish at super inflated prices supported by the creator? Not this one. Simple as that.

Anyways, moving forward, I hear Dollish, Pretty & Polished AND Crows Toes have joined Llarowe..so exciting! I have managed to order some Dollish polishes and am waiting for them. I also have some Pretty & Polished polishes which I love and was sad when she announced that she wasn't going to ship internationally. Also was lusting after some of the Crows Toes polishes but again no international shipping, now not a problem! I shall make some mine :) Lets go forthwith onto the gradient mani!

The colors I used, Kleancolor Sandstone (42), Ulta3 Gold Rush Fever and Earl Grey. I was hoping to achieve a neutral but still interesting mani! I applied Ulta3 base coat, 2 coats of Kleancolor Sandstone. Then took a makeup sponge and painted 3 lines of polish with Kleancolor Sandstone at the top, Gold Rush Fever in the middle and Earl Grey down the bottom. The polish lines made up the length of my nail and then I dabbed and moved the sponge up and down slightly. This is the result.

I like the foil shiny effect, even though Earl Grey is a creme

 Beige, Gold, Taupe gradient with flash

With a change in light/angle the gold can look gold or bronze, the bronze doesn't mesh quite as well.

After a day I tired of the neutralness and thought, stamping..have at it. I'd swatched Kleancolor Coffee Addict previously and thought it would go well, so did a few accent stamping nails to make this mani bling a bit :)

 Left hand stamping using Konad and Bundlemonster

 Left Thumb stamping with Cheeky Plates

 Right hand stamping with Cheeky plates and Bundle Monster

 Right Thumb without and with flash

 The stamping transforms this gradient mani from pleasant to great. I particularly like the thumbs as one looks very giraffe pattern like and the other thumb looks snake skin like! A very happy co-incidence. This also answers my posed question does Kleancolor Coffee Addict stamp well? Yes, yes it does. I did a top coat with Seche Vite and there was no bleeding of the stamped design as with some Kleancolor colors.
Phew, that turned out to be a bit of a marathon post..I hope you didn't mind and congrats if you made it all the way to the end! Hope your week is going well, I get to sleep in tomorrow before my shift and am mightly looking forward to it :)

Nail Venturous Floam and China Glaze Flying Dragon

Flying on a Floam Dragon..Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Well it is! I was going to have Floam Friday and I infact did this mani on Friday BUT there may have been a slight hitch with the lightbox that I use when my naughty black cat attacked it a little. There was some clean up to be done before use again. Grr. He's too cute to stay mad at for long and there wasn't any unfixable damage, so onward and upward.

So, what does Floam and Flying Dragon combo look like, it looks awesome!

I did my whole mani yesterday without taking photos except for the final look, but you'll get the general idea. I was inspired to use my Floam and thought China Glaze Flying Dragon (neon) would go well. It didn't turn out as neon as I wanted it, but it was still pretty darned good.

Nail Venturous Floam, without and with Flash

 China Glaze Flying Dragon (neon) with and without flash (so hard to photograph!)

 Kleancolor Jazz Olive, Catch Me and Metallic Aqua

 I applied Ulta3 Base Coat, 2 Coats of China Glaze Flying Dragon Neon (borrowed pic)

Then I did a coat of Floam on my index and middle fingers and stamped with Catch Me and Jazz Olive and using a dotting tool I dotted some accents with Metallic Sapphire. I used Bundle Monster plates for the stamping.

Flying Dragon with flash and Floam!

I think the color combination looks very fun :)

Left Thumb, I attempted to layer the stamp with interesting but not super clear effect. The detail is hard to pick up in a photo :(

Right Hand stamping

 Without Flash

 With Flash

 Right Hand Thumb Design (with flash)

Flying Dragon is so hard to photograph! I didn't think it would be. The photos with the flash seem to show the stamping designs a lot clearer. I actually really love this look in person, the contrast between the Flying dragon and Floam is awesome! The color I chose to stamped were in an attempt to compliment the Floam, I hope you think I did alright on that. Any thoughts?

Oh, and here is a quick pic of my furbabys who I love as much as my polish!

Meet my boys :) Gixxer is on the left and Tiller (special kitty) is on the right.

These 2 are brothers who are so fun and great company for me and each other.