Mary Kay Coral Stone Swatch and Stamping With Mash 42 Plate

 I went to a Mary Kay spa party about two weeks ago.  We got to try out their yummy mint foot soak, yummy mint foot lotion, microdermabrasion set, sun tan lotion, tanning lotion, and last but not least their nail polish.  At the time I had a glitter on my toes and was having a very difficult time getting it off.  I didn't want to sit there for 20 minutes removing it while everyone else waited on me so I just painted over the glitter.  I ended up purchasing Coral Stone.  Little did I know how much I would fall in love with this color and formula.
  Yesterday I decided I wanted to create a sunrise look on my nails.  I figured Coral Stone would be a great base to start this look.  All I can say about Coral Stone is OH MY GOD!  The formula is perfect and flawless.  All of my swatch pictures are one coat.  One coat!  No visible nail line, no brush marks, beautiful shine.  I did not apply a top coat to Coral Stone.  When I first purchase it I was a little iffy of the $9.00 price tag, but now, I would drop it in a heart beat.  This makes me wish Mary Kay was producing tons of nail color.  They have about six colors out right now, and I will be purchasing them.  My husband better find a job, fast.  Lol.
 This is the link to the tutorial I used to do my gradients.  As I mentioned before I was going for a sunrise kind of look.  I was thinking of a morning out on the ranch when I came up with this mani, so as to keep with my rodeo themed weekend.  I hope that you guys enjoy.

Base coat: Chip  Skip and Nail Envy from OPI

Base color: Coral Stone from Mary Kay - 1 coat

Gradient colors:

• purple: Let's Talk from Sinful Colors
• orange: Sun Kissed from Sally Hanson
• yellow: Mellow Yellow from Sally Hanson

Stamping color: Black Creme from Wet N Wild

Stamping plate: Mash 42

Top Coat: Out the Door

I apologize for my clean up job.  I ran out of acetone.  :-(

This was taken inside with the flash.

So, as previously stated, I ran out of aceton.  This is also my

non dominant hand so it is way messier than normal, but I really

wanted you to see the gradient without the horses stamped on.

Taken outside in natural light

Inside without flash

Taken inside with flash

Can you believe the amazing coverage I got with one coat!!

Claire's Neon Blue Swatching and Review Plus Stamping With Mash 37 Plate

 In Central Oregon, also known as Deshutes County, the Sisters Rodeo is a yearly event.  This even is HUGE.  In the town of Sisters they even have a rodeo arena that was built just for this event!  It drives tons of people to their small town from all over Oregon on the West Coast.  This weekend is rodeo weekend.  It will start tonight and go through Sunday.  I am actually on call to go work, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have to because I am really tired. 

:-)  That is how I decided I wanted to do a western theme on my nails today.  I will also be doing one tomorrow as well.

  The base color is a neon blue from Claire's that I got in their mini neon signs collection.  The formula was not that great.  I applied three coats because two coats was not cutting it.  I have included two pictures showing how streaky and funky this formula was.  I also wish that the glitter would actually sparkle.  It pretty much just looks like a textureized finish rather than a glitter.  Unfortunatly is a beautiful color and it dried really really fast!  It appeared to have a matte finish so I tried applying top coat to the pointer and ring finger to see if it would shine it up but it didn't do much.  I also wish that Claire's would put the name of the polishes on the bottle!  Super frustrating.  I am really glad that I only have a mini bottle of this.  If it weren't such a pretty blue I wouldn't even waste my time with it and throw it away.
  I really wanted to give the impression that the horse shoe was flying through the air so I really hope that is how this mani comes across.

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Yello-out

Bae color: Neon Blue from Claire's - 3 coats

Stamping color: clouds - Alpine Snow from OPI

                           Horse shoe - Nirvana from Sinful Colors

Stamping plate: Mash 37

Top Coat: Sally Hanson Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat

This was taken outside with out flash.  I am pretty pleased with 

the end result.

 

You can see a vague difference in the nails that I applied the 

top coat to and the ones I did not. This was taken out side in

indirect light. 

Taken inside with out the flash

Taken inside with flash.  Excuse my tiny hangnail on my pointer 

finger.  The flash always makes these look the worst.

I am including this pictures so you can see how gritty the glitter

looks.

If you look inside the circle you can see how

translucent it is.  This is why I had to do the three 

coats as apposed to the two.  This is how each nail

looked.  :-(

Have you guys tried any of the neon polishes from Claire's?  What did you think of the formula?  Also, what drives people to your area?

OPI San Tan-Tonio Swatches and Stamping With Mash 43 Plate

     About two weeks ago I was driving by my local beauty supply shop and saw a sign stating they were having a sale on select OPI.  I was really bummed because I was on my way back to work but guess what I did the second I got off?  That's right.  I left work, went straight to my truck and bee lined it for the shop.  The sale wasn't huge or anything but they had colors from the Niki Minaj, Muppets, and Texas Collections from last year for $6.99.  At that specific shop they normally retail for right around $8-$9 dollars.  And while it wasn't a huge sale, I could tell my husband I bought it on sale and that makes me look great so I had to snatch some up.

     In my search for the perfect brown and blue combo I picked up San Tan-Tonio.  A beautiful milky cream brown that dried very quickly and went really well with my skin tone. I think this will be a good color when I need something neutral in the future.  I'm not sure why but once I applied the first layer it seemed to dry much quicker than normal.  I'm not sure if it was because of how thin I went with my layers or if it is because it is an older color but I really liked how fast it dried.

In order of application:

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Yello-out

Base color: San Tan-Tonio from OPI - 2 coats

Top coat:  Sally Hanson Insta Dri  Anti Chip Top Coat

Stamping Color: Why Not from Sinful Colors

Top coat: Out the Door 

Stamping plate: Mash 43

Finished mani

Outside with no flash

Inside with no flash

It still baffels my mind how lighting can play such a difference on picture quality.  What is the best way you have found to take pictures of your mani's?

Sinful Colors Innocent Swatches and My First Gradient

     Hey everyone.  I apologize for being absent the past few days but I am back and in action!  It has been a little stressful in my neck of the woods.  I am experiencing my first lay off, and it isn't even mine.  My hubs was laid off but luckily I am able to support us with my income.  Barely, but it will do for now.  Needless to say, I won't be buying to many new polishes for a while.  Speaking of new polishes, I bout three a few days before he was laid off and haven't been able to find them.  I am  so freaking frustrated.  I cleaned my whole house at 11 o'clock at night, (mind you I worked at 5am the next morning) trying to fine them.  I think I am now considered a polish addict.

     Innocent is a lime green cream from Sinful Colors.  I picked this up a few months ago and thought it would be a great base for my first gradient experience.  I personally love how bright this green is because my dad has a 70 Camero that is painted this color.  He quit showing it in car shows until I asked him to do it again and he was so excited that I wanted to do it.  Funny how something I hated doing as a child, (me+heat+outside for 10 hours=grumpy kid) is much more fun to me as an adult.  I still abhor the heat and avoid it all costs but I really enjoy pretending I at least know something about restoring classic cars.  Edelbrock?  Any one??  See, I know a brand... any ways!

     To accomplish this gradient I followed this tutorial from The Nailasaurus.  I am pretty impressed with how this came out.  I like that I used three colors but on some of the nails it looks like there are four to five colors.  I know this is picture heavy but I really wanted to show this mani off!!!  I am not going to center the pictures for now because I had a bunch of issues doing that last time.  For those of you who don't know my computer crashed and I am using an app on my Ipad to post my posts and it took me six hours to post my last one because of technical difficulties.  Not to mention if you look at my last post on a mobile device the pictures are off the screen.  You can see them if you move the web page around but it was a pain in the butt and I want my blog to be simple for my readers, because hey, I want to keep the ones I got; I like you gals!  :-)  I also want to apologize for my cuticles.  Normally I apply cuticle cream before taking the pictures but I only had a small window for taking pictures due to the unseasonal hail storm we had yesterday.

  These next four pictures were taken 

outside in the previously mentioned hail storm. 

 So as natural as I could get them!

I included these next two pictures because it 

shows the purple tips much better than the first two.

Inside with flash

Inside without flash

Out side with no flash

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Yello Out

Base color: Innocent from Sinful Colors - 2 coats

Gradient colors: 

• blue: Why Not from Sinful Colors
• purple: Let's Talk from Sinful Colors

Top Coat: Out the Door

What do you guys think?  Have you played around with gradients yet?  I thought it was fun.  A little messy but I really like the end result.

Sinful Colors Let's Talk Swatches and a Special Glitter

  Hey everyone.  So I have been having technical difficulties with my lap top so I am trying out a new app on my ipad and I really hope that it works because it seems like a very cool app.  I purchased Sinful Colors Let's Talk last month and really wanted to play with it.  Let me start out by saying this is an IMPOSSIBLE color to photograph.  It is an amazing purple but once you put a camera over  it it appears blue!  I tried adjusting every setting on my camera, taking pictures in every possible light source, and even charged my camera battery over night and tried taking pictures with that.  Sad thing is my phone has a better camera than my digital camera.  :-(  Pictures can't describe what this color is so I just suggest you go out and buy it.  The combination that I came up with for this mani is now one of my all time favorite mani's.  I will be wearing this for more than one day.

     Second most important thing to note about this mani.  I did no touch ups!  I am getting better at not making my nails look like my friends two year old drew chalk pictures all over the side walk!

     And the third most important thing about this mani is the glitter that I applied.  My friend Tina started making her own polishes.  When I saw this one I knew I had to have it and forced her to sell it to me.  It is a one of a kind and you can't have it!  Neiner neiner neiner.  Ok, ok, sorry, but I just love this glitter combo so stinking much.  It has blue micro glitters with pink, silver, green, and blue hexagonal glitter and I love it!

Here is the finished product.  It took me about 50 pictures to get one that somewhat showed the purple of Let's Talk.

I am only showing this picture so I can show you the prettiness of the glitter top coat.  

Here is a swatch of Let's Talk in side without flash.  As you can see it appears to be blue.  It is kinda fun to hold the camera up to the nail, see it blue, and then move the camera out of the way and it be purple.  It is kinda like a magic show.  lol

 

 This image is not mine.  I got it from Polish Etc blog.  I just could not for the life of me catch the beautiful purple that this is on my camera.

Isn't the purple just so pretty!  I LOVE everything about this mani!!

Base coat: Chip Skip and Nail Envy from OPI

Base color: Let's Talk from Sinful Colors - 2 coats

Glitter: Just For Me from Polish Plus - 1 coat

Top coat: Out the Door

Also, I really hope this post looks good because I have spent about 5 hours on it trying to figure out how to use the damn Ipad app!!!