Watermarble in July

A couple of weeks I ago I had the urge to actually take the time and watermarble my nails which doesn't happen often since I'd rather sit and do two coats of one color, throw on some top coat, and viola! DONE. Choosing colors is always a difficult task no matter but this time I went with Pure Ice "Silver Mercedes" and Zoya "Neve." The one thing that was different this time though? I used Simply Peel Latex Barrier from Bliss Kiss to try and minimize the amount of clean up I would have to do after I was done because we all know how much of a horror scene the aftermath can be! At the end of this post I'll have a little review of that going on to let you guys know my thoughts and feelings about it.

I usually don't take photos of anything until after I'm done but this time I tried to get my set up and after I took off the latex barrier but I like my camera a little too much and don't wanna risk getting it nail polished. My set up for this water marbling event consisted of grocery ads from the paper, two bathroom Dixie cups, a water bottle that is room temperature, toothpicks, tweezers, my nail polish remover, my brush (which I now realized isn't in the photo..oops!), my base and top coats, the Simply Peel, and last but not least (and of course) my two nail polishes.

I'm usually throwing tape on all my fingers and working like a robot but this time I decided that since I was using this new Simply Peel that I would do one hand at a time. So I put on my base coat first, the latex barrier on the skin around my nails after that, and then filled my one Dixie cup with some room temperature water. Now I'm not a master at creating designs or anything like that (no sarcasm I swear! I'm working on my skills) so I tried to keep to doing basic designs so I didn't waste too much time, nail polish, or the small amount of patience I sometimes have for water marbling. I do have to say though that this time around I wasn't failing so hard that I was doing pretty well. Halfway through my left hand, however, it was clear that I wasn't fully awake and needed more coffee considering the fact that instead of dipping my naked pointer finger nail into the design I created, I stuck in my middle finger..which was ALREADY DONE. I actually think I did this at least twice or so which is embarrassing but now you all know and I can't take it back. YOLO. After finishing my left hand I proceeded, with caution, to take the tweezers and peel off the latex barrier from my nails. I realized that on my right hand I might want to do a huge layer on the pads of my fingers because there's nail polish getting there as well. Here's a quick shot I took after I took the latex off and now I wish I had a before photo..my bad:

After taking the Simply Peel latex barrier off

 After the left hand I of course did my right hand and I literally cannot remember to save my life whether or not I put a base coat on before. But either way what had to be done had gotten completed! Although I do have to say that I wasn't exactly all that crazy about my right hand but hey it happens right? So now I shall get out with the plethora of photos that I obviously took *enter charming, quirky looking smile here*

The left hand:

And now onto thee right hand:

On a quick side note of a thought that just came to my mind while plastering these photos on here..do you know how DIFFICULT it is to attempt to take a photograph of your right hand?! I literally had to sit down at the table we have on our back deck in order to capture my right hand because I definitely don't trust my left hand, standing up, with an expensive camera trying to take a picture. 

 Now onto my Simply Peel short review:

So I've been seeing a bunch of posts on Instagram about people using a liquid latex type of barrier on their skin while they're doing their nails resulting with a whole lot less to clean up afterwards. So naturally, after forgetting to for I don't know how long, I went onto Amazon and looked up liquid latex nail polish and decided that the Simply Peel from Bliss Kiss was good so I bought a bottle. It came in the mail, I got excited, opened the bottle....and the smell is gross, it's what I like to call "it smells like fish paste" and I've literally had that smell saying since elementary school (art class, don't ask). I used it once when I was just regularly painting my nails and I wasn't so sure I did it correctly so I decided that before I'd judge it, I'd try it a couple more times, and so I did. The biggest test was during this water marble and I have to say, I just wasn't impressed too much. Also DO NOT wear good yoga pants while using this either! I kid you not, I accidentally got some splattered onto my good yoga pants and I went to put them on the other day, after they had been washed, and it was SUCH a pain to try and get it on. Yeah yeah yeah I know, liquid latex, clothing, I am NOT that well educated when it comes to things like that. But either way, after putting it on during my water marbling, I accidentally touched two fingers together and they basically stuck to each other....uh no thank you! Also after I peeled it off from my hot mess of an after math, I basically felt like all it did was peel off from underneath the nail polish that was on top of it and then left the nail polish on my finger. It completely defeated the entire purpose of using it, why would I spend extra time to put this on if it's not really going to even take the excess nail polish with it when I peel the latex off? So my overall thoughts and decisions about this one is a NO and I'd rather try a different brand from someone else.  

Fourth of July Nails

This year I wasn't too motivated to be very fancy with my Fourth of July nails, it's been a funky past month or so. This time I decided to do a simple gradient on my accent nails with red, white, and blue, and just did plain blue on the rest of my nails. For the blue I used Pure Ice "French Kiss" which I'm pretty sure there two different colors with the same name..and yes I own them both! That's how I found out :). For the red I also used a Pure Ice nail polish (since they're cheap and pretty good) "Siren" and for the white used Studio M "French Tip" (I swear I'm not trying to theme this).

For the gradient I used a makeup sponge in which I painted the colors onto one by one. I would totally make a video of how I did this but I honestly have no idea how to for one and..okay well there's only one point! I get a lot of amazed looks when I explain how I do this to people and it's pretty funny, makes me look like a genius! My explanation might not help either but the way that I do this after I paint the nail polish onto the sponge is I dab it onto the nail in a back and forth motion while also doing an up and and down motion at the same time. I always do two layers of this as well, sometimes more depending on the nail polish, and like always, a second coat makes such a difference.

I wish I was more motivated this year to go all out but maybe I'll have more energy next year....let's hope so! The blue went on pretty well and if I wasn't so adamant about doing two coats every time, it could be just a one coat nail polish which is great. The red is the same way and I feel like that's how a good chunk of Pure Ice nail polishes are like that. White has always been one of those nail polishes that no matter what brand it is I'm always looking at my nails thinking to myself "Hm I don't think I have enough on my nails, doesn't look like EVERYTHING is covered." But anyways, that's pretty much it for this post and hopefully I won't slack too much in the near future. My life is about to get a little thrown upside down so I apologize in advance!

This Color's Making Waves by OPI

I BLOGGED I KNOW! The last few weeks seem to have been..very unproductive which isn't good. I'll just go ahead and blame the weather since it seems like it's mostly been raining and storming with a few nice, warm, sunny days here and there. And we all know how much rainy crap weather doesn't do anything good for our moods and sleep is basically the only thing one desperately wants. Secondly I did turn 25 (speed limit, yeahhhh!) so I'll maybe assume it's a mid-twenties-crisis? Anyways onto the blog post for this week, which is the 4th of July tomorrow! I'm kind of scared that it's already July since August means I'll most likely have my sanity sucked away.

For this post I want to be honest and to say that I have NO idea if or what this nail polish is part of..a collection? Random? WHO KNOWS! I picked it up at Ulta when I went to search desperately for my favorite dry shampoo, Batiste, and I planned on not buying a single bottle of nail polish going in..we see how well that worked right? I can't help but to browse through the clearance to see if there's any good nail polish on sale then found myself wandering over to the little tower of nail polish. I couldn't leave the store without buying at least one bottle and OPI's This Color's Making Waves was the chosen one basically for the color. If I had to describe this color I'd say it's similar to a sea foam green type of color. I noticed as well that if I tilted my hand forward that at the angle it seemed to shift a little to a blue which I find awesomely cool.

See? Maybe?

Putting the nail polish on was smooth, of course I put on two coats, and that always seems to help. There are also little sparkles in there too which I always forget are sort of a pain and a mess when I'm cleaning up my nails. However that could also contribute to the way my brush cleans up but I guess it's a mystery we may never solve. Overall I really like this nail polish as well as shifting it around in the bottle because well, I'm easily amused, what can I say?

Santa Monica Shore Thing by NCLA

Believe it or not I actually didn't have to go rummaging through my nail polish stash in order to find this polish! It was nicely in place at the front of the top drawing just staring at me begging for me to use it. So I did and I'm glad because I haven't used it in a while. I got "Santa Monica Shore Thing" by NCLA a couple of years ago along with a few other nail polishes. Since it's been a couple of years since I've gotten a bottle from NCLA, I'm not sure what has improved but my only problem/complaint with this one was that the brush wasn't my favorite. When I would brush on the nail polish it didn't go on that smoothly and put lines into what I just brushed on. During my second round of coating I tried to put more nail polish on the brush than I normally would so that it was a little thicker and wouldn't put lines into the polish. Overall that seemed to helped and after putting my top coat on they look pretty damn good!

Instagram Photos in Real Size

So every time that I go and post some cool photo that I've taken and edited onto Instagram I always have to screen shot the photo so I can get the whole thing on my profile. I feel like this doesn't give as many up close and personal details that it would if I was able to post the entire photo from the start. So I decided, hey I have a blog right? Right. So I'll make a post where I can just post the full sized photos on and then maybe people will be able to look and seem them better. Yes? Yes. And here they are! I feel guilty being the only person able to really see the images in the entirety and posting them on here lets me make them pretty damn big.

Also probably should add that this is pretty photo heavy!

Gradient: Color Club "Beyond" and "Eternal Beauty"

Today I said to myself, "Self, I think it's time that you be creative with your nails. You're up early and have done what you can so far, so be fancy." So there I was, sifting, once again, through my heaping pile of nail polish wondering which ones I grab and use. I figured I'd pick a not-blue color since I just had one on and then I saw "Eternal Beauty" from Color Club, which I forgot when I HAD to have the entire Halo Hues set (which I do). So I grabbed that, thought maybe I'd take the blue one too..but I've done that combination before, so let's do a different one. Recently on Instagram I've seen someone do a black and red gradient design so I thought black and purple? Yeah those two definitely go together. So I sifted some more and grabbed "Beyond" which is also part of the Color Club Halo Hues from a couple years ago now (Jeez has it been that long?). And so the process began!

Now this process is an absolute MESS! And I wasn't pleased with myself that I haven't gone online and bought that new latex-y type thang that I've seen some nail people putting on the skin around their nails lately. Now that stuff is something I DEFINITELY need to get ASAP because I feel that it'll allow me to do messy designs and not take forever to clean up. Anyways, after I put my base coat on, I took small pieces of tape and only put them on the bottom of my nail/cuticle figuring that it couldn't be TOO big of a mess on the sides (yeah I was wrong). It becomes a little harder, in my opinion, to use the nail polish bottles when there's tape around all sides of the nail to avoid a messy clean-up.

Before I started I made sure to unscrew each bottle first so that I wasn't trying to do it with semi-stiff fingers due to having tape on them. I use a make-up sponge to actually apply the nail polish to my nail by painting the sponge with the nail polish first in strips and then I dab the sponge on my nail back and forth in a small circle motion so that it covers (mostly) my whole nail. I always go through all my nails first and then go back for a second coat repeating the same thing I did the first round. For this one though I did three coats just to be on the safe side since the purple didn't seem to be going on as thick as the black was.

The aftermath..oh how it was a mess! I had actually waited a little while because I started to clean up because I was actually rambling on to my mom about something that I can't remember. This allowed all the nail polish, on my nails and around them, to dry a bit so I first took a pair of tweezers and tried to peel/pick off as much of the dried on nail polish around my nails off. After that I used my regular angle brush, which is now dead, RIP, and tried to clean up as much as I could of what was left of the non-needed polish. I have found that black nail polish, whether it's this one or any other, is a PAIN to clean off because it seems to just never want to go away. That's my own personal view on it though. Either way, it was all totally worth it because 1. I've been pretty uncreative the last couple of years in terms of my nails, and 2. Do you see how it looks in the sun?

"Blue Funk" by Studio M

Imagine me rummaging through 4 drawers of nail polish, completely unorganized, sifting, sifting, sifting when....BAM! The heavens open and here is this beautiful bottle of blue nail polish that has only been used once or maybe twice in its entire life that it's been in my possession.

Source

Ha..I'm funny right? Yes okay, onward! I feel so bad when I neglect my bottles of nail polish and this is how "Blue Funk" made me feel (I apologized profusely). I'm pretty sure I bought this bottle at my local Meijer and if I remember correctly, I knew that this one a bottle I HAD to get. It's such an amazing shade of blue, dark but not too dark, and it goes on so well. It makes me think about those nice, gooey caramel..anything actually, but it just flows so well onto the nail. One coat probably would have been good enough but I safely stay with two coats because I like when a nail polish is opaque rather than sheer and see through. Clean up was a little bit of a pain I have to say but I'm thinking that was in part because of my cuticles (which are kind of horrible) and that my current bottle of nail polish remover isn't exactly that clear. Either way, I definitely recommend this nail polish especially if you love the color blue as much as I do. I also recommend the brand, Studio M, because, for one, it doesn't cost you $9 per bottle, they're pretty cheap, and their nail polish isn't crappy, goes on well, and who doesn't love those factors combined?

Of course the color is 5 million times better in real life but since I haven't been able to completely capture the true colors of blues, purples, and pinks yet with my Canon, I had to do slight editing in Photoshop. But don't let your judgment of my (hopefully not a huge pile of fail) photos stop you from looking into this AMAZING color! Until next time my amazing, funny, smart, beautiful, awesome as all hell, readers! <3

"Damsel" by JulieG and "Experimental Rocket" by Varnish Vixen

I love getting my Ipsy bags every month especially when they come with a new bottle of nail polish because..I love nail polish right? In my April bag I got this bottle of JulieG nail polish which I've never heard of before but I was really surprised at how thick and well it goes on and covers. I got a nice shad of pink that I really liked and of course I decided to try it out rather than sift through my unsorted collection to find a color I wanted to try. Since I haven't really done anything fancy or somewhat different than just plain nails, I threw some "Experiemental Rocket" from Varnish Vixen on my accent nail. I know I've posted about Experimental Rocket before which I had gotten on Etsy a while back and I sadly don't believe that the store is open/around on Etsy anymore. This makes me extremely sad because I love the color.

I'd also like to point out that it was kind of hard to really capture the in real life (IRL) color and hopefully I can work on that! I retook my original photos a day or so later since the weather decided to not be raining and all that along with some Photoshop retouching so thankfully I was able to make it look less pink purple and more pink. Oh and that's right! I decided to add some nice silver rhinestones (oh how I love me some bling!) on my accent nail and I think it adds a little flare.

The JulieG nail polish went on really well and I'm pretty sure that I could have only used one coat but I always like to do 2 coats just in case. It went on really smoothly covering all parts of my nail and added with a top coat, it just looked even more slick and smooth. I was really impressed with this nail polish especially coming from a brand that I haven't heard of before. This is one that I would definitely recommend to others to try although I'm not exactly sure how much a bottle costs in a store.

Sorry this was, obviously, taken a little shaky. My bad!

Starbucks S'mores Frappuccino

So I've literally had a drink from Starbucks, after today, only TWICE in the last month or so, which is quite the accomplishment for me. Today I decided that I wanted a frappuccino since it's (supposed to be) getting nicer out and it's been a while since I had one. I went after work to try this new S'mores frappuccino and I wish I was here to say that it was the best thing I have ever had and all this good stuff. Sadly, I can't do that in this post and I think part is because of the Starbucks store that I went to, but still I wasn't really impressed with this. All it really tasted like to me was coffee in the bottom of a cup rather than like I was drinking chocolate, graham crackers, and marshmallows. The whipped cream (which did taste marshmallow-like) and graham cracker toppings did, however, make my nose quite happy. Overall I'd probably say that I'll try the frappuccino again but if it isn't better than this first one, I might just have to give up!

UPDATE AS OF 5/16/15: So I have now successfully gone to TWO different locations to see if it was the drink itself or those baristas that made it was the reason for my not liking the S'mores frap. I have since declared that it depends on the location and who is there making it on whether or not it tastes like a good and decent drink. The second store that I went to on Thursday, OH WAS IT GOOD! They made it look how the picture is (I know nothing looks the same as the photo) but this time I said to myself, "Oooo now THIS one tastes good!" I was sadly disappointed when I went into yet a different store yesterday after work in which my first sip included a huge chunk of chocolate syrup which was WAY too much even for me. The bottom was literally a layer of a chocolate, there was no fluff on the bottom but it was the whipped cream/top or whatnot, and it just..no..no. After this I have decided that I no longer will go out of my way to go to a Starbucks in order to get another S'mores frappuccino as I see that it's not worth the effort. I hate to give bad reviews but! It is something that must be done in this world.