Fail Fail Fail!!

I feel like utter crap today. It may be because I have been sitting in front of the TV for the past two days doing nothing and I am quite possibly in a Gilmore Girls coma. Today I decided to try one of the new neons from the China Glaze Poolside Collection. I thought Yellow Polka Dot Bikini looked like fun, so I pulled out all of my manicure implements and got to painting.

This polish is one of the worst ones I have ever put on my nails... here is the story.

I had heard that neons were difficult, but I have come to feel very confident in applying difficult nail polish. I put on one coat, and kind of felt worried, but I have seen polishes that were bad in the first coat. So I pushed on. And on and on and on! After 5 coats and still no beautiful opaque highlighter yellow nails, I gave up! I removed the polish, and was left with horrible stained hands. My hands looked like a yellow Bic highlighter exploded all over me. But, I am a polisher! I had to try something else! So, I painted a disgusting coat of China Glaze's White on White first. I have heard that a coat of white is sometimes helpful. I could do a whole review on White on White too... but that is for another day. Anywho... I think if I could have gotten an opaque coat of white the polish would have come out ok, and I might save that experiment for another day. But even after the coat of white, this yellow polish was atrocious. I removed the polish again and am still trying to get the yellow stains off of my hands. I'll let you know when I am flesh toned again.

Moral of the story... stay away from this polish! Run run run! Today's polish of the day was a complete fail. Now that I have tried this one, I plan to try some of the others from this collection. I hope the pinks don't let me down. I love pink!

Tomorrow's polish will be better I promise.

I have posted a picture for fun, just in case anyone doesn't know what this polish looks like.

Here is Yellow Polka Dot Bikini. If this is all you see in this post... RUN FAR AWAY FROM THIS POLISH! Below in the whole collection. When I look at this picture I get afraid. But I am going to try some others, as not to give up on this collection.See you tomorrow guys!

It's a beautiful morning!

I am thrilled to talk about today's polish. I could hardly wait for it to dry before I started typing this! It is a beautiful morning today in North Carolina, and I am wearing Pure Ice's RIO on my nails today. This polish was recommended to me by Jenni, one of my sweet YouTube subscribers. I went out and bought it and I am so glad I did. This is one of the most beautiful polishes I have worn in a long time. This is the first Pure Ice polish to ever grace my nails and I have to say, well done! Hot pink with blue and purple glitter. The glitter is very fine and makes the polish look like wet glass. The glitters are housed in a nice jelly base. I love jelly based polishes. The application was a little scary at first, as this polish is very sheer. I think I could have gotten away with two coats but I went with three just to make it extra opaque. I know now that the polish being sheer is a good thing, as you could use this as a top coat over another pink or purple if you really wanted to spice up a color that is boring you. RIO looks great indoors, but I would say that this is the perfect polish to wear if you know you are going to be outdoors in the summer. Or the winter... who cares? I love it. Check out the pictures!

This one was taken inside... I cannot believe how pretty this is. I am in love.

Outdoors is where this polish really shines. When the sun catches the shimmer it it breathtaking.

There are no dupes for this polish in my collection, so no dupe fun today. But RIO gets 5 cotton balls for it amazingness.

Note: Midori was a sinch to remove, no trouble or staining.

See you tomorrow!

Going green with a Midori Sour!

Today has been the busiest day I have had since I left school for the summer. I wanted to get this post and the video that goes with it done way earlier, but I have been running nonstop since I got up this morning. I did my nails at 8:15 thinking I would get the post done really early this morning, but alas, I was distracted. Scrangie posted some pics of a Nina Pro color and when I saw it I had to rush out to Sally's to get it. Then, I went to the mall because there was an Orly polish I had been meaning to pick up. One thing led to another and I was out half the morning. When I got home there was a package waiting for me and lo and behold it was my new nail polish rack. I wanted to hang it right away and get the polishes organized, of course! But, when I opened the box one of the shelves had broken off in shipping. SOOO... I ran to LOWES and got some glue and came home and fixed the sucker! Now my makeup/nail room is perfect and I am so excited to get a polish collection up on YouTube. The thought makes me a little nervous though because I have A LOT OF POLISH! I guess we'll see!

Anyway... Polish of the day is Zoya's Midori. I love green polish, it is probably my favorite to buy after blue. One or two days is enough when it comes to green though. Midori looks just like the drink. Perfect name choice Zoya. I wonder if the drink inspired the creation of the polish. Was someone at Zoya out for drinks one night and just decided they should manufacture a color such as this? Or maybe the color was created and then the panel of name makers thought the resemblance was remarkable and why not name it after the drink? I love a Midori Sour... but on to the review.

Midori was terrible after one coat. I wanted to give up and try something else. But, after hurling through the second coat I was in love! That first coat was STREAK CITY! But it evened out and has been a nice addition to my day. It made it through hours of hammering things to the wall, dishes, and just various household torture. Impressive. Check out pics below

This is Midori inside, with a flash. If you look at my ring finger you will see that there was some streaking that only the camera could find, so it is not exactly as perfect as I thought.

Outside with no flash... no sign of above mentioned streak.

But wait, there's more! While perusing my collection in search of the perfect polish for June 16th I realized that there were twins in my collection! I almost couldn't believe that I had never noticed them before. They must not get along too well because they have never been seen side by side until today. Midori's perfect twin is Wet n Wild's Envy! Take a look!

Here is a pic of the twins side by side... shocking huh!?

The finger on the bottle is WnW Envy and the thumb is Midori. In fact, I went around all day with Envy on my middle finger and could never tell the difference! Amazing.

If you can overlook the horrible bluriness of this picture you will see that the colors are almost identical. It is safe to say that it makes no sense to own both. So, of you have one of these polishes, you can get away with calling it either name because they are so similar.

Mini review: The WnW polish was much thinner and runnier than the Zoya. But, after two coats it makes no difference. I do not know which one lasts the longest and since I cannot look at green nails very long I will not be testing them. I think I can safely say the Zoya is the higher quality. That is not because it is four times the price, but because I could tell during application.

You can find Zoya here: http://www.artofbeauty.com/scrpt/scr.dll/cat?brand=2
They are doing a fantastic nail polish exchange right now, so if you have any polishes you hate, send them to Zoya and they will send you some Zoya polishes in return.

Wet n Wild polish can be found at Rite Aid and CVS.

Midori gets 5 Cotton balls because she has a cheap sister!

That was a fun find today. I am off now in search of other twins hiding in my collection. See you tomorrow!

One more thing...

Before I go to bed, here is a new video for you. I am still trying to get the hang of this tutorial thing. I will keep trying until someone begs me to stop!

Night everyone!

Polish of the day 2

Polish of the day video for June 15th is now up on youtube!

Rating system...

I think we need to come up with a way to rate the polish... Cotton balls maybe? 5 Cotton Balls being the best and 0 Cotton Balls being the worst? I like it!

I got the blues... but not really! Hey, let's Shower Together!

On day 2 of my summer vacation I decided to wear China Glaze's Shower Together. Something inspired this choice, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was. Anyway, this color really brightened my mood today, even though they say blue is a sad color. Shower Together was released with China Glaze's Ecollection which promoted eco-friendly living. Other colors from this collection include Recycle and Solar Power. Perhaps some of the others from the collection will come out and play with us this summer.

Shower Together is a very easy blue to wear. Many people are afraid of blue and believe it to be a childish or "tween" color. I do not agree. I think women of all ages should rock blue nails no matter what their occupation or coloring. There is a blue out there for everyone. I cannot wear blue for more than a couple of days though... but that may just be my nail polish ADD.

Much like many of the others from the same collection, Shower Together is a cream based polish. You will learn quickly that I am not a huge fan of cream polishes because they have a tendency to be streaky and not lay well on my nails. This polish is the exception for sure. It only took me two coats to get this one completely opaque and there was little to no streaking. The shine is amazing, and it almost looks like patent leather. I do not anticipate this one being difficult to remove either. I will edit this post with info on removal, as blues tend to stain like crazy.


This picture was taken inside with a flash. My camera just cannot capture this polish correctly. I really like the grungy, dirty quality of this blue, but that does not seem to be coming through in the photograph. There is nothing neon about this one. The grunge is very understated though. It's actually a perfect polish!

Natural light didn't make a bit of difference really. I wish I could describe this polish better for you. It is not shocking... think China Glaze Towel Boy Toy, but it isn't dull either. What more can I say... this may be my new favorite blue!

Shower Together gets 4 Cotton Balls... she looses one because there were some thick places during application. Nothing that affected the overall look, just annoying.

See ya tomorrow!

Edit @ 5:40 6/16/10 - Shower together was very easy to remove! No issues!

Ahhh Summer... and Polish!

As I sit here on my back porch, drinking a Margarita, it almost feels as if the past 10 months of my life never happened. It is 3:30 in the afternoon, I am in a mousy house dress and no shoes (or bra hahaha) the dogs are here with me and I love it. I plan to do as little as possible over the next two months and I refuse to feel guilty about it. I plan to indulge in many fruity drinks, late wakings, and lots of crazy eyeshadow and nail polish. That being said, my summer challenge will be to wear as many different nail polishes as possible and make videos, blogs and tweets about them all. My first ever UK swap is already underway and I am looking forward to a magical, polish filled summer.

So let's get started. The first polish of the summer is Rescue Beauty Lounge "Scrangie". I love this color, and I made a friend on ebay when I purchased it. That is a long story, but lets just say the seller I got this polish from is a fellow lacquer head! Here is "Scrangie" in all her glory...

This photo was taken in artificial light, with a flash. Isn't it marvelous?

This one was taken outside in natural light... amazing color!

I found "Scrangie" to be very easy to apply. Two coats and it was perfect. I do not own any other colors from Rescue Beauty Lounge, but their founder, Ji Baek, is a nail care goddess. I adore her book "Rescue your Nails" and consider it the nail maintenance Bible.

Before I go, I have something amazing to show you. If you cannot get your hands on "Scrangie" and do not feel like coughing up the $18 dollars it will probably set you back... try Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri in "Grape Going". Sally's polish is almost a perfect dupe! Take a look...

I took this picture a while back and I am sorry it is a little blurry, but believe me, "Grape Going" is a "Scrangie" twin! So, if this color tickles your fancy, pick up the Sally Hansen version at Target. It is part of the permanent line and should not be hard to find.

Alright friends, I am going to return to my drink and talk to you later!

EDIT: Scrangie was very easy to remove. 1 cotton pad... no staining! Scrangie gets 5 Cotton Balls!