My First Dupe and a Comparison of Olive Cremes

When I saw that a couple of my local grocery stores started carrying OPI polishes, and even had some of the Pirates Of The Caribbean collection that I never saw anywhere else, I picked them up several times, but always put them back thinking that I probably already owned something similar. But I kept seeing bloggers post pictures of manicures that included polishes from the collection, and I thought, I've just got to get at least a couple of them. Also, I had talked about having a POTC movie marathon with a few friends, since none of us have seen all of them. And I thought it would be fun to do pirate-themed manicures for us girls while we watched the movies. So having a couple of the polishes from the collection would just be perfect! 

So I did some research and decided I wanted to get Steady As She Rose and Skull And Glossbones. But when I went back to the store, they had already sold the last Skull And Glossbones : (. But for some reason I still wanted to get two polishes, so I got Steady As She Rose and Stranger Tides. Unfortunately, when I got back home, I realized that Stranger Tides looked a lot like another polish I already had in my stash that I had bought just a couple months earlier, Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Creamy Olive. So I decided to swatch them both in a direct comparison.

(Sorry for the bad cleanup! This has been sitting in my Drafts for a while, and I've gotten much better at it since I took these pictures!)

Can you tell which is which? This is 2 coats of OPI Stranger Tides on my pointer and ring fingers, and 1 coat of Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Creamy Olive on my middle and pinky fingers. The formula on Stranger Tides is thinner than Creamy Olive, which is why it took 2 coats to reach the same level of opacity. Because of that, and the higher price on OPI, I prefer Sally Hansen Creamy Olive much more to OPI Stranger Tides. In fact, I'm a little disappointed that I spent the extra money on it when I already owned a cheaper dupe with a better formula. If that weren't the case, I would probably be just as happy with Stranger Tides as I am Steady As She Rose. But, oh well. It happens. 

I do think it's funny that I can't find Sally Hansen Creamy Olive anywhere now, though. It must have been part of a Spring or Summer collection. I just picked it up at Walgreens the first week of August when I was first really getting into my obsession with nail polish and nail art, just because I thought it was a pretty color. Which must have been what I was thinking when I decided to buy it again as OPI Stranger Tides. At least I have it for my POTC party. Or maybe, since it's only been swatched once, I'll use it as part of my first giveaway, when I hit my first big milestone : ) 


Thanks for reading!
Crystal

My Frankenstein Water Marble Halloween Mani

Okay, just a real quick post to show you my last Halloween mani, what I'm wearing today. Frankenstein & water marble nails!

 Sally Hansen Limestone with Tic Tac Green Litter, Wet n Wild Black Creme, French White & LA Colors Art Decco Black Liner

I've seen a bunch of Frankenstein manis this month, so I decided to try my hand at it. Again, I wasn't so sure I could pull it off on all 10 nails, so I opted for accent nails, with water marble on the rest. He didn't turn out quite as good as I hoped, or as good as my practice nail. So I must show you my nail wheel of practice Halloween nail art!

 Here's a closeup of my practice Frank, he turned out so good!



I'll come back later and give more info on each one, inpspirations and polishes used, but for now, enjoy the pics!

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

Crystal

My Second Halloween Mani

Glow in the dark ghosties! I got this idea from Sarah at Chalkboard Nails. She did a whole mani of these cuter-than-scary ghosts. But I wasn't so confident in my abilities, so I decided to just do an accent on my ring finger. 

First I painted a base of Sally Hansen Wet Cement on all nails. Then I used a dotting tool and Sally Hansen French White to draw the ghosts freehand on my ring fingers. I had just picked up a mini Sally Girl Glow In The Dark polish at Sally's, so I dabbed it on top of the white ghosts. I also painted it over the Wet Cement on the rest of my nails, hoping it would show through the crackle, but to the naked eye it didn't glow. Then I painted the eyes and mouth on the ghosts with a dotting tool and Sally Hansen Black Creme. Sadly, they got smeared by my top coat (Damn you Seche Vite!), but since it's a Halloween mani, it kinda works, right? : ) Since I didn't want to paint ghosts on all nails, I wanted to try out Sinful Colors Black Crackle I had just bought at Walgreens, and even though I am a little over the crackle phase, I actually like it with this mani. And I think Halloween is probably the most appropriate time of the year to use black crackle, don't you? Oh, and I did try one more coat of Glow In The Dark over the black crackled nails, just to see if it would work. It didn't glow in the dark, but it did add the slightest sparkle to the black crackle. You can see it more in the pictures than in real life. 

 With the Camera Flash you can see more of the Glow In The Dark sparkle over the Black Crackle.

In the Sunlight it looks a little like fresh asphalt.

 Here it is glowing in the dark! And with the Twilight setting on my camera, you can actually see it glowing under the Black Crackle!

One more glowing shot where you can actually read the Sally Girl bottle.

These are so cute and so much fun! I'm loving Wet Cement so far this fall, more than I thought I would. And the fact that I can use it for Halloween makes it even better!

Thanks for reading!

Crystal

My First Giveway Win & Military-Inspired Mani

I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long, September got really crazy for me! My Mom came to visit for about a week, then I caught a terrible cold the following week, that I'm still trying to get over. I have been doing my nails and taking pictures, but I just haven't had time to post, or felt like posting when I did have the time. But, I have several new followers, which is awesome! Thank you so much for following my little blog! I promise to try to post more often, and hopefully you'll enjoy!

I do have some exciting news. Yesterday I won my very first giveaway! And two new brands of nail polish for me! I won three Tic Tacs and one Nubar from one of my favorite blogs, Concrete And Nail Polish. Thank you so much, April! You totally made my day! And I can't wait to try them all, especially Green Litter! ha!

Okay, so now on to some nail art! This one was somewhat inspired by one of my best friends who just got back home from Iraq this week. Although I'm sure he'd love the idea that he inspired nail art! I wore Finger Paints Military Green alone for one day, and had a bit of tip wear and shrinkage thanks to Seche Vite. So I wanted to try my hand at a Military Chic mani a la Nailside. Jane makes it look so easy and awesome. But I didn't have any gold polish for the tips, the closest I had was copper, and when I tried it on paper, I just didn't like it as well. So I decided to stamp something, since it had been a while since I stamped anything. I tried a bunch of different stamp and color combinations on paper, and finally ended up with this:

Finger Paints Military Green stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Slick Slate and konad m62

I didn't get all the stamps centered on each nail, and you can already see some shrinkage on my ring finger, thanks again to SV, but overall I'm pretty happy with this mani. It still has a bit of a military theme to it, and I love these colors together. Finger Paints Military Green really does look a lot better on the nail than in the bottle. I had picked it up at Sally's several times and put it back. But after I saw a few bloggers swatch it, and talk about how this is one of the trendy colors this fall, I just had to go back and pick it up! And I'm so glad that I did. 

Well, that's all for now. I will post more soon, I promise!

Thanks for reading!

Crystal

My First Patchwork Quilt Mani

So this weekend I had plenty of time to play with my polish and try out some new techniques. Recently I had seen a few blogs about patchwork manicures. It seemed fairly easy using scotch tape, as long as I could get the tape to come off clean this time! : ) The only thing is, all of the pictures I saw labeled as patchwork looked more like color block to me. Remember some of those rad ‘80’s and ‘90’s fashions?

I actually had a color block leather jacket back then! So trendy, ha! While all of those patchwork (or color block) manis look awesome - I’m looking at you, Chloe’s Nails : )  – the word “patchwork” makes me think of quilts, more specifically, my grandmother’s quilts. My grandmother made some of the most beautiful hand sewn patchwork quilts. Each piece of fabric had a different design on it, and when the patches were sewn together they made the prettiest patterns, like my favorite, Grandmother’s Garden. When I thought of trying a patchwork mani, I wanted to pay homage to my grandmother and her beautiful handmade quilts.

I wanted each “patch” to have its own little design, and yet blend together with the other “patches.” Originally I planned to use three base colors, like most patchwork manis I have seen, but I ran out of time before I could add a dusty green “patch.” So this patchwork quilt mani is just dusty blue and grey. Not bad for my first try though, if I do say so myself!

Sally Hansen CSM Gray by Gray stamped with Wet Cement m21 & Sally Hansen Wet Cement stamped with Gray by Gray m62

I will definitely try this again when I have more time to add a third color. And will, of course, post pictures!


Thanks for reading!
Crystal

My First Taped & Stamped Manis

I just realized that so far I have only posted water marble nail art. But I have actually been trying more techniques. Thanks to my good friend, Tawny, for telling me to check out Chloe's Nails, I tried working with Scotch tape. I tried to replicate her shredded mani using different colors. I did have a little trouble peeling some of the tape off, so it's not perfect. And for some reason I didn't take pictures til after I had some tip wear. So it's really not perfect! But still kinda cool-looking. It's been a while since I first tried it, and now I kinda want to try it again to see if I can do it better. When I do I'll be sure to post some pics. But for now, here's my first shot at a shredded mani:

Sally Hansen CSM Pedal to the Medal & Wet n Wild Black Creme

Then my first Konad stamping set arrived in the mail! I shopped all over the internet to find exactly what I wanted to start with and the best deal, and I ended up ordering the B Set from Nail Essential on Amazon for $24.

It came with 1 stamper, 1 scraper, 3 Special Polishes (black, white and red), and 4 plates: m4, m8, m15, m21. I also ordered 4 additional plates from them, all for less than $4 each: m12, m28, m62, m63. I had seen m62 and m63 on other blogs and loved some of the images. I chose m12 because of the Christmas images I know I'll play with this December, and m28 for the skull & crossbones and spider images I thought would be fun for Halloween.

Since my shredded mani was on its last legs when I got my stamping kit, I decided to try my first stamping over it, just to see how it worked. If I totally screwed it up, well I would be removing it anyway. But it actually kinda worked. Again, far from perfect, but fun, and a learning experience.

SH CSM Pedal to the Medal & WnW Black Creme stamped with Konad white special polish & m28

My next several stamped manis, for some reason, I still didn't take pictures of until they were a couple days old and showing wear. I think maybe I wasn't real confident with them at first, but still wanted to document them before I removed them. So here are pics of some more fun with stamping:

Sally Hansen Creamy Olive stamped with Konad white special polish & m62

I absolutely LOVE this dainty image!

Sally Hansen Gunmetal stamped with SH CSM Pedal to the Metal & m63

Revlon Blue Lagoon stamped with Sally Hansen Celeb City & m63

LOVE this blue polish, but Celeb City is not opaque enough to stamp with. Will keep looking for a good opaque silver.

Julep Miranda stamped with Konad black special polish & m28

I did this on my thumbs just before I removed this polish because I wanted to see how the spider looked. It turned out better than I thought it would with even more detail than I could see on the plate! I can't wait to use this for Halloween!

Well, I hope you enjoyed my super-long post about my discovery of stamping and taping! Now I am completely caught up with posting pictures of everything I have tried so far since I really started playing with nail art just a little over a month ago. So now I'll really have to start working at it so I've got some cool new stuff to post more often. I can only hope that I keep getting better at it as I go along, for your sake and mine! Let me know if you have any ideas you want me to try, and I just might give it a shot!

Thanks for reading, and inspiring me!

Crystal

My Third Water Marble Mani

As promised, I'm posting a pic of my current mani, a purple water marble. This is only my third attempt at water marbling. It didn't turn out as I first planned. Last week I was wearing Revlon Blue Lagoon, and I loved it so much that I wanted to do a water marble with it, white and silver. But unfortunately, either the Revlon or Wet n Wild white I was using, or maybe both, would not play well in the water. I forgot that I had the same results on my first attempt at water marbling. I tried a couple of Revlon polishes and none of them worked. I thought maybe since this bottle was brand new that it might work, but no such luck. I'm curious, have any of you had any luck at all using Revlon polishes in a water marble? Or are they just not formulated to work properly?


Well, since my new favorite light blue polish wouldn't work, I ended up doing a purple water marble. But this time I wanted to go lighter. And I had already applied a base coat of WnW French White Creme on my nails in preparation of the blue/white/silver marble I had planned. But since I wasn't sure if my white polish was having issues in the water as well, I decided not to use it in the water. Which is why, if you look closely, you can see a little bit of white around the edges on some of my nails. That does bother me. I would rather my base coat match the colors in the water marble. I will definitely work on getting better at that in the future. But for now, here's my current mani:

Sally Hansen CSM Plum Luck & Pedal to the Metal, HAN Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac & Celeb City with a base coat of WnW French White Creme

So far I've found that Sally Hansen and some Wet n Wild polishes work best for me in water marbles. I've seen on other blogs that China Glaze seems to work pretty well. I look forward to getting more CG polishes and trying them in the water myself. What brands do you guys like the best for water marbling? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!


Thanks for reading!
Crystal

Welcome!

Welcome to my very first blog! I’ve only been aware of nail art blogs for a little less than a month now, but I’m already so addicted to looking at all of your wonderful posts that I decided to start my own.

First of all, thanks to Hey, Nice Nails! for unwittingly introducing me to this world. I first saw a picture of their Jill Sander sweater-inspired striped nails on AOL, which led me to check out their blog on tumblr. That’s where I caught my first glimpse of water marble nail art and thought, “I have to try that!” They had a picture tutorial, and in their comments they included a link to My Simple Little Pleasures’ YouTube channel and Colette’s amazing video tutorials. I watched several of her videos that Sunday night and, after much trial and error with my (then) small nail polish stash, I did my very first water marble mani! Of course I had my fair share of mistakes, but overall it turned out way better than I imagined. Sorry the picture’s a little blurry, I took this one with my cell phone and it looked clear on the smaller screen.

Sally Hansen CSM Plum Luck & Iced Coffee

Initially I just became addicted to My Simple Little Pleasures, I couldn’t stop going back and looking through all of her archived posts. I swear I hardly got anything done that first week! I was just admiring her art and techniques and making notes on what products I needed to buy for myself to get my nails looking as good as hers! Then I started checking out some of her favorite blogs, and some of their favorite blogs, and now it’s an addiction that just keeps growing! There’s so much terrific nail art out there that I never even dreamed about a month ago! So many techniques and products that I can’t wait to try! I plan to chronicle my journey here.

And because that picture of my first water marble is pretty God-awful, I just have to share a picture of my second water marble! I did this one just 5 days after my first try, and it’s 1,000 times better! It also helps that I took this picture with my camera.

Sally Hansen CSM Gray by Gray, Pedal to the Metal, HAN Xtreme Wear Gunmetal, Wet Cement, and WnW Gray's Anatomy

So, thank you to everyone who inspired me to start playing around with my own nail art, and now posting my own blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Thanks for reading!

Crystal