Sinful Colors Why Not review, swatches, and stamping

      I picked up a few new Sinful Colors the other day and was really excited to start using them.  I decided to use Why Not and really really really liked it until...I had to take it off.  Don't worry I took pictures of the staining that occurred.  I don't think that I will ever use this color unless it is on my toes and can come of all on its own but if I have to use remover with it NO WAY!  

 Inside with no flash

 Outside with no flash

 Check out this staining!!!  Ugh.  I felt like a smurf

 In order to remove this I just used water and baking soda.  The cuticles were still a little stained but I used a  Q-tip with acetone and it got rid of everything.

Have you guys experienced staining like this before?  It was really funny because my husband came in right after I took it off and he was really concerned at first.  I am just glad it came off!

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Smooth Beginnings by Avon

Base color: Why Not - 2 coats from Sinful Colors

Stamping color: Innocent from Sinful Colors

Stamping plate from Essence.  The Essence plates are not numbered so I can't tell you what plate I used.  I really wish they would start numbering their plates.

Basketball Nails

     I did these nails on Friday because I was working the Harlem Globe Trotters game.  As stated in my previous blog post, I abhor sports, so I wasn't all that excited to go to this game.  But let me tell you!  It was SO much fun.  So entertaining!  I can't wait to take my kids there later in life.
     I am in love with this orange.  It looks much duller in these pictures than up close and personal.  I didn't want this mani to chip so I used OPI's Chip Skip and it was amazing.  I wore it through and entire day of work with no chips, and had a very hard time peeling the glitter off.  I only peeled it off because I wanted to see if it would come off easily since my polish usually peels off at work from washing my hands so much.

 With flash in doors

 Out door in natural light

 I know this is blurry but I wanted to show the amazingness that is this orange.  I love all the sparkles in it and all the pretty colors.

Base Coats: Chip Skip from OPI and Smooth Beginnings from Avon

Sparkly Orange: UFO - 3 coats from Sinful Colors

Orange Cream: Sunny Side Up - 3 Coats from Wet N Wild

Black stripes and brown dots: acrylic paint

Top Coat: RapiDry by OPI

Mellow Yellow Happy Ending

     I can't help but laugh at some of the names that companies come up with for their products.  Happy Ending...REALLY?!  Ok, enough of my sick twisted mind.  So, yesterday was my last day free on my five day vacation.  I spent two days celebrating my birthday and another two driving three hours away to see my Grandma with a girl friend and her two year old and seven month old.  Sounds really fun, doesn't it...  I spent some time at Chuck E Cheese lol.  But it was worth it seeing how excited my friends little daughter got when Chuck E Cheesus (as she says) came out and gave her a hug and took a picture with her.  OK, so as you can imagine, I came home exhausted.  I am so glad I took yesterday off.  I used to be the type of person to come home and head straight back to work.  I think I'm getting older... Any ways.  I started working with Mellow Yellow yesterday and after two separate manicure fails from lack of patience for it to dry and kept smearing it, I decided to go with a different color that wouldn't require so much cleanliness.  I am sorry for not cleaning my nails up but it took me two hours to just get some sort of good color on my nails so at that point I didn't want to clean them up.  I had pretty much given up.
     Now, if you live in Oregon I'm sure these will make you think that I am a Duck fan, (one of our college's mascots) but rest assured, I am not.  I know, I know, please don't throw rocks at me.  I am a Beaver Believer all the way.  I really abhor sports but since the Beavers are ALWAYS the underdog I always vote for them.  The funny thing about the town I live in though is that there aren't really many Duck fans until they start winning a lot of games and the all of the sudden there are Duck banners and flags and stickers EVERYWHERE!  I swear, you would think they barfed all over my town.  I don't even get on facebook on game days because ALL of my friend's updates are about the game.  I have friends who post play by play and I want to gouge my eyes out.  Ok, enough blabbering for today.  Here you go.

Inside with flash no topcoat on yet

 Inside with out flash - no top coat

 Outside no flash, no top coat

Finished product

Base coat: Yello-out

Base color: Happy Ending - 2 coats from Sinful Colors

Polka Dots: Yellow Mellow - applied with a dotting tool- from Sally Hanson

Top Coat: Out the Door

I just love the tiny gold glitter in this color.  Makes it perfect for St. Patrick's Day, don't ya think?  Don't worry, I used this as the main color in my Patrick's Day mani!

Hope you like this.  If you have any comments, questions, critiques I would love to hear them in the comments below.  Thank you.  Have a great afternoon!

Stamping Sunday

     Wow.  What a CRAZY week.  I haven't been able to post since Tuesday and I have felt so bad, like I have been neglecting you guys.  Yesterday was my birthday and I have five days off of work!  Woot woot.  To me this is a huge deal because I work six tens a week.  I spent ALL day yesterday working on swatches and blog posts!  Yay for you and me.  I am working on swatching my ENTIRE collection and going to set up a different tab on my homepage so if anyone wants to see a swatch they can click on that page and each color will be linked to the specific blog post.  It will be a lot of work but I think it will be so worth it.
     Sundays are for stamping!  I am glad that I am finally getting the hang of it because I was seriously frustrated with it for the longest time.  I am still going to invest in the special polishes for stamping but I have found a FEW in my collection that will work for this process.

Inside with flash

 Inside with out flash

Outside in the SUN!!!  I am SO excited that it is out! 

Base coat: Yello-Out
Base color: Real Simple by Essie - 3 coats
Stamping color: Midnight Plum by Avon
No top coat
The stamping plates from Essence are not numbered but it is the plate that came with the original kit that can be viewed here.

Do you like stamping?  What are your tips and tricks for stamping?

Somewhat successful stamping

     Since my last experience with stamping I practically gave up.  The one that I posted wasn't a bad one but I had tried a few times and was very upset and let down.  I have came to the conclusion that I really do need to invest in the special polishes meant for stamping.  I have read in a lot of blog posts that metallic colors work pretty well so while I was sitting at home sick this morning I went through one of my buckets of polish and did a little experimenting.  I came up with one color that I thought would work for stamping, and it did.  As you can tell I messed up on my pointer finger and missed the edges on my thumb and middle finger.

Inside with no flash

 Outside

 Indoor with flash

 Indoor no flash

 Outdoor no flash

 Indoor with flash

     Do you like my nubbin of a thumb nail?  It broke today.  :-(

Base Coat: Yello-Out

Base Color: Simple by Sally Girl

Stamping Color: On A Trip by Wet N Wild

Stamp: I wish I could tell you a plate number or something of the sorts but the Essence plates don't have a number.  But you can see the plate in this blog post.

Do you guys have any suggestions for stamping colors that are cheaper than the Konad special polishes?

Lemme See Your Peacock Fly

     If you follow me on Facebook you may have seen this picture I posted this weekend of my jean shopping trip.  I know, I know, buying jeans turned into buying jeans, shorts, and nail stuff.  Outlet malls are the DEVIL. Not to mention hubbs was supposed to go with me but got a "migraine" all of the sudden.  Don't men always get them when they are supposed to go shopping.  Funny thing is, is that I am probablly the fasted clothes tryer oner you will ever meet.  I HATE shopping for clothes, especially jeans, so I grab my size, try it on, do a few squats, and bam, I'm out the door.
     When the Nicki Minaj collection was released this January (2012) I wanted nothing to do with it.  I was not a fan of her.  And then I saw her on Ellen with Sophia Grace and Rosie and saw what she did for those two little girls and all the sudden I liked her.  :-)  If you haven't seen Sophia Grace and Rosie you NEED to watch the clip I just linked to.  It is about five minutes long but it will just melt your heart.  Any ways, after I saw this I started looking in to everyones swatches for the line and decided that I needed to add Fly to my collection.  I was finally able to do that this weekend.
     While on my jean shopping adventure I walked past a Claires.  I have never bought any polish from Claires before but have seen a lot of bloggers talk about their nail products before and decided to get it a look.  I found the two mini collections featured under the "picture" link above and left!  I knew hubbs would not be to excited about my venture.  I have a little rant about the Claires mini polishes.  They have NO NAMES on them!  Which I was fine with at first until I saw my almost exact mani on Rebecca Likes Nails blog today and she had a name for this polish.  I find it very ironic that we have almost the same mani post for the same day. lol  Great minds think alike.
     If you're anything like me when I was young and knew everything, you learned that Icing and Claires were the same stores but with a different name on their product.  In Rebecca's blog post she states that the glitter polish she purchased at Icing is called Lemme See Your Peacock.  I went to the Claires website to see if the names were the same and low and behold, they didn't have this product in the full size bottle on the website, and they didn't have this product on the Icing website AT ALL!  Hence, where my frustration came from.  But I will say, I got this coverage from the glitter in one coat!  I did blop the brush down at the base of the nail a few times and then just pulled the glitter in a normal painting manner.
     Ok, enough typing for todays post.  Here is my final product that I really really love!!

Indoor with no light

 Outdoor in shade

Outdoor in Sun

 

 Outdoor in shade (There was no sun left when I went to take this pic)

Base Coat: Yello-Out

Base Color: Fly by OPI - 2 coats

Glittler: Lemme See Your Peacock from Clairs - 1 coat

Top Coat: Out the Door

     What do you guys think about this?  Does it bug you when there aren't names on products you purchase?

Mani Monday

I am hosting Mani Monday over on my Facebook page. Please post your pictures, including your name, first only is ok, and what you used. I may have disabled the feature that allows people to post to my wall so if you can not post them please email them to me at melizajane20@gmail.com and I will post the. ASAP. Once I get off of work I will disable the sharing feature on my wall and post a new post for today! I can't wait to see your goods!

Rimmel London Sunset Orange

    What a crazy day I have had. Worked a ten hour shift, walked him, and then baby sat for five hours. That is why this is suck a quick post.  I have had NO time today. :-( I am glad that I get to share with you though.
     When I saw that tangerine was the in color this season my heart, shoulders, and eyes dropped. NOT my color. I just told my self I would be missing out on the in crowd with my nails this season (what's new though) because there was no way I would buy that color. Rite Aid happened to be having a 75% off sale and I bought this color for a "giveaway" or at least that is what I told my self.  And what do you know, I really like it!
     This is my first blog post using the Blogger app on my Android so if it is unlike my other posts format wise I apologize.  I will fix it when I am not in bed. :-)

Base Coat: Smooth Beginning from Avon
Color: Sunset Orange from Rimmel London - 2 coats
Top Coat: Out the Door

What are your thoughts about tangerine colors.  Excited or will they be "giveaway" items? ;-)

When in doubt, dot it up!

     I wanted to swatch one of my unused Zoya polishes the other day and dug for Audrey.  Not let me first start out by saying neutral and light colors are NOT the polishes that I go for.  I received this polish in a swap about a month and a half ago.  That is how unexcited I was to try this color out.  All I have to say about this color is, dang!  I need to step out of my comfort zone more often.  I LOVE Audrey.  Something about her is SO classy and says look at me and how primp and proper I am.  I definitely want to play around with this color and try some funky tips with it.  I think it will look really nice.  I tried to do some stamping, fail, and some nail art, fail and then just gave up.  I jumped in the shower and all the sudden thought, polka dots!  After I toweled off and took my normal spot on the couch I reached for some poppin colors and used my awesome dotting tools I won a few weeks ago and went to town.  Here is the amazing finished product.  (Funny that I love this mani so much because I hate polka dots as well)!

I wasn't going to show this picture but I decided to because I want you guys to see how easy it is to do your  

non dominant hand.

Audrey all by herself 

Base Coat: Smooth Beginnings from Avon
Base Color: Audrey from Zoya - 3 coats
Pink Dots: Strawberry from Avon
Blue Dots: No More by Sinful Colors Nail Art Line
Purple Dots: Moon Light by Sinful Colors Nail Art Line
Green Dots: Acrylic paint
Top Coat: Out the Door

Serena and Chloe

     I was thinking about doing the 31 day nail challenge so I wanted to do something with Serena and Chloe by Sinful Colors that I picked up last month.  But to my dismay, it is orange, not red.  It is a really pretty orange with red specks.  I think that I will wear this color more in the fall since it is such a harvesty color.  I did a bunch of art work to these nails after I did the swatches but the turned out HORRIBLE so all I have are swatches for you.  I'm sorry that this is such a short post...

Two coats with a top coat of Out the Door outside in natural light

Flirty Teenage Dream

     Ha!  Do you like the name I came up with?  Well, it is the names of the polishes but I messed em around a little to spice it up some.  He he.  I really wanted to do a syrup mani with Teenage Dream and I did, but you couldn't even tell that it was a syrup mani.  So I removed it and decided to try it over a different color.  In case you don't know Teenage Dream is part of O.P.I.'s Katy Perry line but I just was able to get my hands on it.  I was really excited for it but it has not lived up to the expectations I had.  I really, really wanted it to be pink like it is in the bottle but I have to do four coats to get it to show up pink and it still doesn't reach bottle color.  What can I say, I like pink.  :-)  So I grabbed one of my unused colors, Flirt by Jesse's Girl and decided to do the tips with Teenage Dream.

Here is the finished product outside with no flash

Inside with flash.

 Three coats of Flirts inside with flash

 Inside with out flash

This was the original syrup mani.  As you can see, you can't really tell it has a dark to light effect like I wanted it to.  This was inside with no flash

What about you guys.  Have you tried Teenage Dream.  What do you like using it with?  Have you done any syrup manis that have been sucessful?

Base Coat: Avon Smooth Beginnings 

Base Color: Flirt by Jesse's Girl - 3 coats

Tips: Teenage Dream - 1 coat

Top Coat: Out the door

Happy Easter

     So, this was one of the most frustrating manis that I have done in a long time.  What you see here was NOT my original plan.  I spent a good hour carefully drawing easter eggs on each of my nails, dotting designs on them and trying to stamp a grass onto them and decided I did not like what I was seeing.  Which sucks because I had taken a bunch of pictures for a tutorial and like I said, spent a good amount of time on it.  I am much happier with what I have now and have gotten a lot of compliments on it.  I know that I have shown the Whimsical over Mellow Yellow before but I love it.  It makes me happy.  What do you think?  What have you guys done for your Easter manis?

Base Coat: Avon Smooth Beginnings

Purple Base Color: Luxe Lavender from Avon - 2 coats

Yellow Base Color: Mellow Yellow from Sally Hanson - 2 coats over one coat of Bubble Bath from Sinful Colors

Bunny: All acrylic paint

I love flowers

     If there is one thing that I don't think I could do enough of that would be flowers.  I wasn't really sure what I wanted to put on my nails the other day so I started looking around at the blogs that I follow and I stumbled across this tutorial over at Polish Art Addiction.  Once you see this tutorial you will become minorly (majorly) obsessed with her artwork and waste enough time to make your husband think you have really lost it be inspired for countless hours to come.  I would post flowers everyday if I wouldn't lose readers.  He he.  Ok, so please go check out her blog if you like what I have done because it is WAY better than what I have done.

Indoors with flash

Indoors with out flash

Base Coat: Avon Smooth Beginnings

Base Color: Black Cream by Wet N' Wild - 2 coats

Blue and pink flowers: Acrylic

Purple flowers: Simple??? by Sally Girl (Not sure if that is what it is called.  It is a little bottle that was sent to me as a gift and that is the only name I see on it.)

Yellow: Acrylic paint

What is better than coffee?

 There is only one thing that I can think of that is better than coffee and that is a rad, rockin,g robust coffee design on my nails!  I have been waiting to share this mani with you guys and I am SO stinking excited.  I really hope that you guys like it as much as I do.  I wish I could say that I thought of this all on my own but I was inspired once again.  I do not know who originally thought of this design but if you know, PLEASE tell me so I can give this rockin chick some freaking credit!  

Bad hand

Good hand

This was way easier to do than I thought.  First I did the coffee beans, just by doing some ovals.  They didn't have to be perfect because hey, coffee beans aren't perfect.  Then I went through and added the lines through the center of the coffee beans.  Did the cups and the steam and the words...  Do you guys think I should do a tutorial when I do mani's like this?  I never know because I generally look at the end result and can just go from there but I know other people like being shown step by step how to do something.  Please let me know what you guys want because I am here for you!  I want to inspire and be inspired!

Base Coat: Avon Smooth Beginnings

Base Color: Nude It by Essence - 2 coats

Coffee Beans: Brown acrylic mixed with some white to make it lighter

Stripe in center of coffee bean and coffee in cup: Brown acrylic mixed with a tad black to make it a dark dark brown

Coffee mug: White Acrylic

Top Coat: INM Out the Door

   

Would you like a free bottle of Zoya nail polish?

This is a GREAT opportunity from Zoya.  If you are new to their website and haven't created an account with them before you can get a coupon for a FREE bottle of polish.  That is an $8 dollar value.  All you have to do is click here and sign up!  AND if you want free shipping all you have to do is purchase two additional bottles of polish.  $16 dollars gets you three polishes and free shipping.  Sounds great to me!  I hope that you guys take advantage of this opportunity.

My second experience with stamping

     As the title says, this was my second experience with stamping.  I know it looks like I missed a lot of spots but I didn't, it is just how the sun was hitting the nail.  I can't wait until I really get the hang of stamping and can get them to look super fantastic.  I am also really loving the base color in this mani.  So shiny and sparkly and pretty.

The finished product

 Inside with the flash

 Inside with out the flash

 Outside in natural light

Base Coat: Avon Smooth Beginnings

Base Color: Mama-San by Sinful Colors - 2 coats

Stamping Color: French Tip White by O.P.I.

Top Coat: LA Colors

Stamping Plate: by Essence, they are not numbered

Thoughts?

Weekend mani

     This mani was supposed to be for Friday night but I had a heck of a time with it.  I have never been so frustrated with one before.  I painted on three coats of the white and threw my top coat on and then decided to take a nap because I was going to have a late night.  When i woke up to ATTEMPT the stamping portion of this mani I had sheet marks EVERYWHERE.  :(  I didn't have time to fix it before I had to be at my friends so I just left the white as was.  I ended up fixing the four nails that had sheet marks everywhere the next day.  After they dried I tried to use my cherry stamp but it would not pick the image up off of the plate.  The entire reason I bought this plate was for the cherries.  It is an inside joke between my friend who passed away a few years ago and I so anytime I see cherries I buy them.  I was about to throw in the towel when I realized I had just won a dotting set from Jen's Nail Files on facebook and this was the perfect way to try them out.  This turned out to be one of my favorite manicures, (I think I say this in every post) and I have worn it for two days!  I never wear one longer than a day!

Here is the dotting set that I won.  She threw in a few little surprise gifts too!

Three coats.  I LOVE this white

Finished product

Base coat: Avon Smooth Beginnings

Base Color: Bubble Bath by Sinful Colors - 3 coats

Red and green for cherries - acrylic paint

Top Coat: INM Out the door

If you look at my pinky you can see that the cherry close to the top of the nail is a lot bigger than the rest of them.  This was the stamp I tried to do but it would only pick up half of the image.  Trust me.  I tried about 15 times to do this and finally gave up.  I used the biggest dotting tool in the set for the cherries and painted the stems on with a brush.

Have you guys had any major stamping flops?  And what about that white.  I just am in love with it.  It is so pearly and ironically enough, it looks exactly like a bottle of shower gel I just purchased the other day.