NOTD: Ulta Little Black Dress

This color disappointed me ... in the bottle Ulta's Little Black Dress is shimmery & you can see tiny sparkles of teal & purple & silver.  On the nail ... well, let's just say not so much.  & it chipped on the 2nd day of wear!  I was offended.  And a little sad - hard enough dealing with these nubbins ;) without having to deal with lame polish.  Not that I actually dislike the color - but it's not what's advertised, so to speak, in the bottle.  If it had looked like an extremely dark & minimally shimmery grey in the bottle, then I would probably have been very happy with this:

 

Thanks for reading =)

 

~Colette

NOTD: OPI Be A Dahlia Won't You + OPI I Lily Love You

Now that is a mouthful of a title.  When my mom asked what I was wearing, I think I had to repeat it 2 or 3 times LOL.  On it's own, OPI Be a Dahlia Won't You from this summer's Nice Stems collection isn't that impressive, although it's a nice enough pink - a little bit of a blue flash & at 2 coats a little bit of VNL, if I were wearing it alone I'd do another coat:

 

And on it's own, OPI I Lily Love You (from the same collction) is a sheer hot mess (additional swatches in THIS post).  But layer the 2 together, and you get something approaching ILLY's bottle color:

Very nice (imagine a Borat-voice ... even though I've never seen the movie)!  The only downside is that ILLY is both multi-colored & -sized glitter, but also flakies, and the flakies are NOT very smooth.  I even tried to press them flat before I did a top coat, yet still ended up with some very sharp places when I was done.  I ended up using the smoothest side of my buffer to smooth those down after everything was completely dry.  It seems to be a common problem with flakies but I don't understand why - Hidden Treasure always applies completely smooth for me, so if Sally Hansen can do it, why can't you OPI?

 

Have a look at this lovely in motion:

 

 

 

Almost, almost used to the not-really-nubbins =)  I'm going to see how I do with maintenance filing, and attempt to stay at around 5mm of free edge until ALL my patches are grown out.  I usually suck at maintenance filing, so we'll see how that goes LOL.

 

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

NOTD: Wet n Wild Ocean Grotto Funky French

I thought about titling this "Nubbins Mani #1" to see at what exact point I stop thinking about them as nubbins LOL, but I decided to refrain.  Mom said she thought the french tips made them look even shorter but I actually think a french makes nails look longer, and I prefer it when my nails are short,.  A french just start to look weird when the tip is the same size as the bed of the nail LOL.  So after a certain point in length I stop wearing them much.

 

This was 3 coats of Wet n Wild Ocean Grotto, then I freehanded the tips with WnW Black Creme, then one more coat of OG to give the tips some shimmer.  It looked green in the bottle, more yellow on the nail, but when I put it next to my green dress it matched.  So I'm not sure what color to call it:

 

Green or yellow or somewhere in between, I quite like how it turned out =)  Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Meet the Nubbins (Naked Nails 7-19-11)

My nails were so sad & patched I didn't even take before pics ... you can see the most recent long naked nails HERE from back on the 4th - I was at about 11mm of free edge.  Just about my favorite length LOL - and with 8 nails patched.  Very very sad.  Now I am down to about 4mm free edge & still 4 nails patched including my mangled left thumb:

I hate short nails.  The left hand is a bit shorter than the right to partly balance the nubbin that is my pinky.  Yes I know they're not SHORT-short ... but they're short to me.  Still past my fingertips but shorter than I like or prefer - shorter than I've had them since I think last fall.  I took me 2-3 days to get back comfortable typing LOL.  But I would really like to completely grow out all these bad breaks without getting any additional ones along the way.

Since this was last Tuesday, I've already had several short-nubbins manis - including one that may well be my favorite pink so far this year =)   So stay tuned for those.  Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Going Out With a BLING (NOTD: Icing Epic Winning)

Instead of going out with a BANG, the long nails went out with a BLING (I crack myself up, heh).  I was going to trim them after the double rainbow water marble, and then I thought - one more mani.  Something awesome.  Something ... epic.  Enter Icing Epic Winning - I think it can speak for itself:

Here's a look in motion:



It was actually a few days ago that I did the big chop so I'm almost used to them at this point ... but even so it just brings home to me that I prefer them long.  They just look so ... stunted now LOL.  You'll see, I'll post pics soon =)

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Guest NOTD: Zoya Valerie

Zoya Valerie is very pretty, but it was actually prettier when Mom first applied it - the glitter seemed almost so sink to the bottom so it got less sparkly as it fully dried.  But still a very nice purple:

 

Thanks for reading!

~Colette

TOTD: OPI Russian Navy + China Glaze Fairy Dust

I've really kind of sucked taking pictures of my pedicures lately, I keep forgetting until I've had them on like a week or so & they are no longer looking their absolute best - but I am still loving this combination & will probably keep it on another week =)  I started with a base of OPI Russian Navy & decided that it was too dark - looking down on my toes it just almost looked black.  So I added a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust & awesomeness happened:

 

It's like a galaxy on my toes!  I love it a lot =)

 

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

My Birthday Present - Another Hole in My Head

I'd been considering getting my lip done for a while - what better excuse than turning 30?

 

 

I go back to work tomorrow LOL - I suppose it will cause a small ruckus for the first day or so but I don't think it will be that big of a deal.  Maybe a bigger deal online for actually posting it, but my normal policy is to delete any purely hater-ish comments after laughing about them (some are such ... lame attempts at spite I guess) & I think I will have to exercise that even more with comments for this vid.

 

What do you guys think?  Do you have any piercings?

 

Thanks for reading =)

 

~Colette

NOTD: Double Rainbow Water Marble + Tutorial & My First Collaboration!

Excited & flattered to be doing a collab with Karina from BeautifulYouTV =)  Everything just fell into place, we agreed on a theme right away & it was actually a look I'd already half-planned to do.  Rainbow!  And these did indeed turn out to be my birthday nails.

After the Rainbow Double Spiral marble, I really wanted to do a design that showed off all of the colors in the China Glaze Island Escape collection (Senorita Bonita, Blue Iguana, Cha Cha Cha, Electric Pineapple, Papaya Punch & 108 Degrees).  I just kept the design really simple & I'm very pleased with the results:

Favorite nails are left index, middle, ring & right thumb:

& here is the tutorial:

Be sure to check out Karina's look too!  Thanks for reading.

~Colette