Green Cheetah

Hey everyone!

I can't believe it's been over a week since I've been here! And I can't believe my number of followers has increased! Thank you all so much for taking an interest in my little blog, it really means a lot :).
Even though I said I would this month, I decided I won't be attempting the blogger 31 day challenge. There's no way I can do my nails every single day, I simply don't have the time.
But anyhow, the nails I'm currently wearing were inspired by the Wet n Wild On the Prowl display at Duane Reade. I was lucky enough to snag Correction Tape, Cougar Attack, and Behind Closed Doors. The only one I'm still looking for is Tangled in my Web.

Materials Used:
Orly Bonder base coat
Wet n Wild fast dry Ocean Grotto (3 coats)
OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air (2 coats)
Konad image plate m57 and Konad Special Polish in Black
Wet n Wild Cougar Attack (for filling in the spots)
Dotting tool
Seche Vite Top Coat

Green Cheetah!

Thanks for stopping by!

Pumpkin French Mani

Hello!

Today, I'll just let the pictures do the talking. I freehanded the orange tips; no need to go crazy, since they're more or less covered anyway. Enjoy!

(natural light with flash)

(natural light without flash)

(artificial light with flash)

(natural light without flash)

Materials Used (L to R):
Orly Bonder Basecoat
Seche Rose
Wet n Wild Scratchiti
Konad Black Special Polish
Seche Vite Topcoat
Bundle Monster Image Plate BM-224 (not pictured)

 Thanks for stopping by!

Vampire and Bats Nail Art

Hey everyone,

I'm back home after a nights stay in the emergency room of the worlds worst hospital. I'm so happy that I'm a nurse and have medical knowledge, because doctors will take advantage of your ignorance and turn you into a pin cushion unnecessarily. I realize now that private hospitals are out to do one thing: make money. They'll come up with reasons to perform all sorts of unnecessary tests, just so they can tack on another hundred dollars to your bill. It's so sad to say, but healthcare is nothing but a profit driven business. They don't care about people...they care about the money going into their pockets.
The one highlight of my night? A couple of the staff members noticed my nails :). I always love it when people compliment me on them. One person even asked if they were my real nails! I figured that would be pretty obvious, considering that they're so short now.

Natural Light

Artificial Light (with flash)

Natural Light

Artificial Light (with flash)

Artificial Light (without flash)

All the pictures taken in artificial lighting were taken today, just a few moments ago. The ones taken in natural light were from yesterday, when the mani was still fresh. After the fact, I realized that I forgot to give my poor little vampire a nose! I tried drawing one in with a sharpie last night, but as you can see, it didn't last (since I didn't use a topcoat)
Drawing that little vampire was no quick task. By the time I was done with him, I made up my mind that one was enough. So on my right hand, I did the bats on every finger. I like it though :). It looks interesting with the single accent nail.
I used Bundle Monster image plate BM-213 and Konad Special Polish in black to stamp the bats, over Wet n Wild Writings On The Wall. For the vampire, I used China Glaze Frosty as my base (for the glistening 'Twilight' vampire effect), Wet n Wild Vandalize for the black parts, Sally Hansen Whirlwind White for the whites of his eyes and his teeth, and Writings on the Wall again for the drops of blood on his teeth.
It's times like these when I miss my longer nails. It's nice having a larger canvas to work on, but I think he looks pretty cute on the short nail anyway. What do you folks think?

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Hello Everyone!

Today is my 24th! And so far, it's been great. I got some great gifts, and got to spend the day with my family, so it's been pretty good :)
For my birthday mani, I wanted to combine elements of my favorite things. This mani incorporates my favorite color (purple), my favorite insect (butterflies), and of course glitter!

Materials Used (in order):
Milani 3D holographic Hi-Res
Sinful Colors Purple Diamond
Wet n Wild fastdry Hannah Pinktana
Sinful Colors Fiji
NYC Long Wearing Nail Enamel Starry Silver Glitter (2 coats)
Konad Image Plate m1
Konad Special Nail Polish in Black (stamping)

It may be hard to tell, but this was actually a gradient mani. My first successful one! I used a make up sponge to apply the polishes, and it was a breeze.

I got money as birthday gifts, so guess what I bought? Polish of course!

L to R: Milani Garnet Gems, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Red Carpet, (2) NYC Long Wearing Nail Enamel Starry Silver Glitter, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Wet Cement, Revlon Not So Blueberry

L to R: Revlon Blue Mosaic, Starry Pink, Facets of Fuchsia

 When I saw these 3 beauties in Target for $3.36 each, I literally squealed. My mom looked at me like I was a nut or something. She couldn't understand why I was so excited over polish. 3 lemmings satisfied in one go!

L to R: Sally Hansen High Definition Nail Color in Spectrum, Milani 3D Holograpic HD, NYC Long Wearing Nail Enamel Top Coat, Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat.

 I got the four above from CVS. I haven't been to CVS in years and was shocked to see that they had a good selection of Orly products! Of course, at $7.99 a pop, I wasn't about to go crazy. The basecoat sounded good, so I decided to grab it. On the back of the box, it says that it prevents nail lacquer from wearing off for up to two weeks. I will definitely be putting this claim to the test soon.

$5 for this set at Target! The polish junkie in me simply couldn't resist.

Shades from Payless. I paid $9.99 for one and $4.99 for the other! Payless is buy one, get one half off of everything.

Spin Pins by Goody. Greatest hair invention ever made! It holds my bun up all day long.

Inked Wet n Wild Craze Collection: $1.99 ea. at Duane Reade

Pretty decent birthday haul! And I'm totally happy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Autumn Leaves Mani

 Hi there!

 Today officially kicks off my favorite month of the year, O glorious October! Not only is it the month of my favorite holiday, Halloween, but it's also the month of my birthday. October is also the first full month of the Fall season, which happens to be my favorite season. I love to see the leaves change colors :).

All pics are enlargeable when clicked!

Right hand  (with flash)

Left Hand (with flash)

Left Hand  (no flash)

Right Hand (no flash)

Materials Used:
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed ( 2 coats)
Wet n Wild Fastdry The Gold & the Beautiful (1 coat over Sun Kissed)
China Glaze Haunting (2 coats)
Bundle Monster Image Plate BM04
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Rapid Red (red leaves)
China Glaze Passion (gold leaves)

On my left ring finger, I tried to use Sun Kissed and Passion to make a sort of dual color effect with the leaves, but Sun Kissed didn't show up over Haunting so well. So if it looks like I have half a leaf stamped on just that finger, that's why. I'm really enjoying using multiple colors and alternating colors on each hand.  I hope you folks like it :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Polka Dots

Hey everyone,

I've been sick as a dog for the past few days :(. When I did my nails on Monday, I was just starting to get sick, so I really wasn't up for doing anything too fancy. I decided to use 2 of my newest Wet n Wild polishes, Teal of Fortune and How I Met Your Magenta, and do a simple design with dots.

Wet n Wild 'Teal of Fortune' and 'How I Met Your Magenta'
(Outdoors, no flash)

(Outdoors, Flash)

(Indoors, no flash)

I used Teal of Fortune and a dotting tool to make the dots.
I admit, I really wasn't a fan of the Wet n Wild fast dry brushes at first, but now I love them! I'm able to paint my nails neatly, which means little to no clean up after. Both polishes are beautiful, but Teal of Fortune was the showstopper for me. The indoor photo is the most color accurate in my opinion. It looks a lot closer to green than teal, and is packed with shimmery particles. How I Met Your Magenta is a hot pink polish with beautiful gold shimmer. It dries to a semi matte finish, so you might want to use top coat to gloss it up.

Both polishes were completely opaque after 3 coats. 

Wet n Wild Fast Dry polishes are still only $0.99 at Walgreens, but the sale ends 9/24. Get them while you can! For the price, you really cant go wrong.

Toodles!

Drugstore Haul!

Hi everyone!

And welcome new followers! Always good to have you :). I was feeling pretty restless this morning, and decided to take the long, looong walk to Walgreens and Rite Aid. Turns out it was the best decision I've made in a while, because I came home with goodies!

Walgreens is still selling the Wet n Wild Fast Dry nail color for $.99, so get them while you can! The Sinful Colors were $1.99 at Rite Aid.

L to R: Wet n Wild: FuchsiaRama, How I Met Your Magenta, Teal of Fortune, Teal or No Teal, Grays Anatomy, Sinful Colors: I Miss You, Queen of Beauty, Love Nails

L to R:  Midnight Sky, Pumpkin Spice, Set the Stage, Twinkle Twinkle, Teal-y Cool, Teeny Greeny Bikini, Deep Blue Sea, Very Cherry

I was mega lucky at Rite Aid. All the polishes had literally JUST been put on display. I could tell the salesgirl was pissed, because I snatched up a good quantity of the Sally Hansen display she had just finished putting together. But oh well! Finding Pumpkin Spice alone made the trip worthwhile. And I immediately fell in love with Twinkle, Twinkle and Set the Stage. All of the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polishes were $2.99 at Rite Aid. Even though I already have an insane amount of nail polish, I just couldn't pass them up.

I previously posted about using a nail polish remover jar/sponge combo to remove glitter polishes. The big one was $2.99 and the baby sized one was $1.39 at Rite Aid. I love mini sized things, so I couldn't help myself :).

Last but not least, my nails for the past 2 days:

Shown with the book I've been reading. It's zombie fiction! Due to the unfortunate lack of good zombie movies that I haven't already seen, I've turned to books to satisfy my craving for zombies. And it has! Feed is written by Mira Grant, and It's set after zombies attacked and wiped out most of the population. The book follows 2 bloggers, a brother and sister, that report the news on their blog. There's a lot more to it, but I wont spoil it for you :).
On my nails is 2 coats of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Golden Tourmaline.

Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Golden Tourmaline,  2 Coats

Beautiful red polish with scattered holographic particles, but chipped after not even a full day of wear :(
I'm still pooped from my journey earlier, so I'll probably redo my nails tomorrow. See you then!

Thanks for stopping by!

Buffy the Violet Slayer

Hi!

I was in the mood for purple today, and Wet n Wild's Buffy the Violet Slayer caught  my eye.

Buffy the Violet Slayer- 2 coats (Natural Light)

I had a hard time photographing this color. It kept wanting to photograph blue, so I had to play around a little to get a good shot of this. The name is corny as hell, but all the names in this collection are corny names based around TV shows. The photo above was actually taken immediately after polishing, so you see how neatly I was able to apply it. I didn't have to clean up at all! It was a dream to work with, even though I'm not a fan of the brush.

Buffy the Violet Slayer with Pink and Black Roses

I stamped the roses with Bundle Monster image plate BM14, after applying pink blobs.

The roses were stamped with Konad black special polish over the pink blobs. I used L.A. Colors Art Deco Nail Art Lacquer in Intense Pink for the blobs. If you try to do something like this, make sure that all layers of polish are completely dry before stamping.

In the end, I didn't love it. In real life, it's a little darker than in the pictures, so it's a little harder to see the details of the roses. But at least it wasn't a total fail. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

-SmokE