Of personal notes and Puppydog Birthdays

I just thought I'd date a second to mention that today was my little baby boy's birthday! My little Moogle turned four years old, and I'm the proudest Puppymother ever.

My baby is also a Diva and likes to strike a pose/persona for the camera, when I can get him to actually look act the camera.

Spring Gradient Sakura Blossom Manicure

Hello, Internet Peoples!

Spring is one of my favorite seasons (Autumn being my second favorite) and I've been trying to think of a happy *~*~*Spring*~*~* manicure that didn't involve pastels as I seem to simply not be a pastel person .-. I like sparkles and vivid, rich colors. However most spring manicures are pastel creams that, while are lovely, are not just me. Suddenly I remembered that in Japan, the Sakura Blossom is a symbol of spring! But what to pair with those pretty blossoms? Well, that's when I went to Google and found this image:

After that everything fell into place. I raided my box o' polish, sat and took two hours of painting and sitting and letting every bloody coat dry (while listening to JRock, fittingly enough), admired the results once I was done... And then had to do dishes. Of course my topcoat was dry by that time but it didn't do any good for the rest of my hands. "Nothing some hand cream can't take care of" I thought. And just to make sure the pictures came out super sparkly pretty, I put on some more top coat juuuust before taking the pictures. In the view finder the pictures turned out great...Until I loaded them onto my laptop and saw my cuticles.
Guys, I'm apologizing for my cuticles right now.

Manicure pictures and  how I did it after the jump!

Base Coat: Seche Natural
Top Coat: INM Out The Door

How I did it:
Firstly, allow me to show you the picture I took of my workspace. My iPod's camera lense was slightly dirty so forgive the quality. Also - No. I am not that tan, but compared to the white polish and paper, along with our light bulb going yellow, I appear rather golden brown o.o

• SO! To start layer down base coat. Because Base coat is our friend.
• Applied two coats of Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in White On, waiting five minutes between coats to let them dry.
•  Applied a coat of China Glaze's Fairy Dust. I love this glitter, by the way. Let that dry.
• Ripped a cosmetic sponge in half and with the rough edge of the smaller half sponged a mixture of Sally Hansen Hard As Nails in Petite Pink and L'Oreal Color Riche in I Pink I'm In Love several times halfway up the nail. The mixture was very transparent and it took several layers to even make a dent in the white. I'd suggest a more opaque pink next time.
• After that dried I sponged CoverGirl Outlast Stay Brilliant in Grapevine a third of the way up. Let that dry.
• Grapevine I messily wrapped my tips and added a dot to the center of my nail and sponged that around to make the tips the most opaque.
• Sponged some Fairy Dust over Grapevine only.
• With a black striper (I have one from Sinful Colors that I'd found in Walgreens but even a thin brush in black polish will do as long as you can make a thin line) I drew on the limbs, trying to make them as wispy and non-repetitive as I could, leaving room between the branches to dot on the blossoms.
• With differing sizes of dotting tools I dotted on thick'ish dots of I Pink I'm In Love in a more or less triangle shape. I do wish I'd used a bolder color as the petals disappeared kind of >.<
• With White On and a smaller dotting tool I put a white dot in the center of each triangle.
• With an even smaller too (My set came in five double ended tools) I put a dot of Pure Ice's Crimson, an with the smallest tool in the set tried to mar it around so it'd blend in with the white.
• I think let them babies dry a very long time. I've found out the hard way that slapping on topcoat right away will ruin the work and reduce myself to a bag of colorful and nonsensical curse words.
• Applied a thick bead of quick dry topcoat. I've found applying it thickly leads to less streaking
• Admired the pretty! (Then freaked out at the amount of time it took)

 Wow...I think that was my first tutorial O.O

I'm sure I'll do the Sakura Blossoms again before warm weather's over (and in this part of the states? It'll be here a loooong time., but I think next time for the blossoms I'll use a bolder pink. I wish I'd have broke out my bottle of China Glaze's Awakening for this actually ^^; Otherwise? I'm happier with this manicure than I should be. I hope you guys liked it too :-)


'Til next time!

-
 Nerdy

CoverGirl Outlast Stay Brilliant's Constant Caribbean

Go Topless, We Dare you!

That's CoverGirl's new tagline for these polishes. (The polishes, dears, so lower those shirts! :0) ), claiming that these babies will shine just as well and last just as long without a topcoat. A bold claim indeed, especially to a topcoat lover like myself. However, I'm a sucker for a dare, so when CVS offered me a buy-one-get-one I decided to give it a try. The color selection is decent, though there's nothing outrageously fantastic about them either. I grabbed Constant Caribbean and Grapevine meaning to pair them up in a half-moon mani. Sadly I seem to always do my nails when I'm in a hurry as of late so I stuck with Constant Caribbean.

Swatch and review after the jump!

Rimmel Kate Moss Lasting Finish Matte Lipstick in 111 (Kiss Of Life)

This post is full of firsts. My first lipstick review of my first matte lipstick. First fistity-first-first!

I've been seeing these lipsticks around for a while now and had always been a little curious about them. My preferred lipsticks are Maybelline's Color Sensational collection and Revlon's ColorBurst Lip Butters, so when I read 'Matte' on the display I was instantly intrigued and slightly wary as it was a step away from my norm. Finally after reading some positive reviews and seeing some interesting swatches, I decided to take the plunge.

Pretty tube, interesting name (And the only named color in the line that I saw.) So an A on packaging from me!

Swatch photo and review after the jump!

Spring Manicure with Sally Hansen's Mint Sorbet

About a week and a half ago the weather here in Arizona started warming up (which is a bit of a joke as we're warm here all year 'round, but when you live here for a while you get acclimated to our brand of hot and 'cold'), which reminded me that we were due for spring soon. As result I wound up deciding to try my hand at a pastel creme manicure. Thing is? I own no pastels, nor do I own any creams other than a black creme. I'm a shimmer girl after all :-) Luckily (I think) that day I found myself in Walgreens and decided to pick up a bottle of Sally Hansen's Mint Sorbet.

My review and mani pics are after the jump!

Nail Whitening Saga - Denture Tablets

Hello internet peoples! :-)

It's a new installment to the Nail Whitening Saga! After my dissapointment with Orly's Cutiqe (as a whitener, mind you. As a cuticle softener it's great) I decided I'd resort to my most preferred method of remedies - The at home kind xD

I'd heard from several different websites the miracles of denture whitening tablets for nail whitening. Having also read they work as a jewelry cleaner I finally decided to go grab me a box. What were my findings?

Naked nails and results after the jump!

Hard Candy - Beetle

Hello out there, Internet people :-)

Back again with another review of a polish. Up for love (and I do mean love) this time is Hard Candy's Beetle!

(Sorry for the messy cuticles, the glitter in the polish decided to play peek-a-boo with the clean up brush!)

Pictures do not do this polish justice one tiddly-bit. I had originally went to the Hard Candy section of Wal*Mart's makeup department looking for another color (Envy), which wasn't to be found. However this caught my eye and as I picked the bottle up I saw the colors transition. Happy to have found a duochrome (and for so cheap!) I brought it home, only to find out Beetle is not a duochrome...It's a tripplechrome! I don't care if that's not a real term, it should be.

Beetle color-shifts at the drop of a hat in the light. I sometimes think if you look at it too hard it'll flash a different color. It goes from a lovely gold, to a brilliant shade of green, to a vibrant purple. Indoors it mainly sticks with gold with the occasional flash of it's other two colors. And oooh the glitter. Have I ever mentioned I love shimmer colors? The more shimmer and sparkle the better. Beetle is a sparkleaholic's best friend, and removes oh so easily. (At least it did for me, although I tend to remove my polish with pure acetone which is stronger than a drunk Jedi.)

More pictures after the jump!

Nail Whitening Saga - Orly's Cutique

This is the first in what I'm sure will be a series of nail whitening attempts.

Let's face it, if you use nail polish, you're going to have some staining. It's a lesson I've learned, no matter how much base coat I use. So late one night after having learned this lesson I turned to my best friend - the Internet - and asked what I could do to whiten my nails. Amongst calls of baking soda, toothpaste and peroxide, I found mention of Orly's Cutique.

Oh Cutique...

I had read many a wonderful thing about Cutique prior to ordering myself a bottle. Of course quite a few wonderful reviews talked about it's main purpose - cuticle remover - but what I had actually purchased this bottle for was it's apparent powers of stain removal.Why? Well. I, too, suffer from Nailus Stainus.

From the bottle and box:
Cutique gently removes dead tissue, making cuticles soft and pliable. Leaves nails whiter. Great for pedicures.

SO! Did this little bottle of white goo pull through on it's promise of pliable cuticles and (most importantly) whiter nails? My results are after the jump!

Though beware. Naked Nails lay ahead.

China Glaze's Rare & Radiant

As I had mentioned in my last post, I had been so impressed by Deviantly Daring from China Glaze's Bohemian Luster collection than I went and ordered a second color the day after applying the color - And here it is!

China Glaze's dupe of Channel's Perdot (or OPI's Spotted The Lizard) - Rare & Radiant.

I do find it somewhat amusing that a color that seems to be a dupe of a dupe has the word "rare" in it's name. though this sucker is definitely radiant! I could actually see my (somewhat distorted) reflection in my nails while I sat and waited for the layers to dry! The only reason I applied topcoat at all was to make sure this wonderful color lasted. I wish I had thought to take pictures before applying top coat. Oh well -.-

More pictures after the jump!