Kelly's Nail Blog: May 2013

Friday, May 31, 2013

Essie Naughty Nautical from Essie Summer 2013 Collection... Nubar Star Sparkles Detail... POLISH AND PACKAGING Swatch / Review

I picked up Essie Naughty Nautical from their Naughty Nautical Collection Summer 2013. It was the stand out color of the collection that I had to have as soon as I set my eyes on it. I also picked up The More The Merrier, which I will be posting soon. I was going to do a mani with them together, but when I started... it just was not working for me. So I switched to an awesome sparkling detail nail using Nubar Star Sparkles.

THE POLISH
Essie Naughty Nautical is a marine blue-green based, silver shimmer polish. The simmer is very subtle. You can not really see it if you are not looking for it. I absolutely love the color. Application was on the thick side and dry time was slow. The formula was a let down for me. My entire manicure was ruined within two hours. I had to remove it all because it looked like a total nightmare! And it wasn't like I did my nails and went out to play a game of football either! If I were to use this polish again I would make an extra effort to apply very thin coats and plan tons of time doing nothing during dry time. I applied 2 coats.

I applied 3 coats of Nubar Star Sparkle to my ring finger. I just love this polish with Essie Naughty Nautical. It seems like a perfect accent polish to complement this color. It has amazing sparkle and I included a blurred picture to try to get across the true sparkle-liousness of this polish. Love it. :)

THE PACKAGING
The bottle is square with rounded corners comes with a labeling on the top of the handle. This makes it easy to see the color without any obstructions of a label on the body of the bottle. The handle is of the shortest and smallest diameter in a standard size bottle that I own. Holding on to the brush is a bit more of a challenge. The brush is a smaller size, narrow brush. Contains 15ml of polish.

THE MANICURE
For this manicure I applied the following:

OPI Nail Envy...as a treatment coat, 2 coats (applied previous day)
Milani Smoothe Base Coat....1 coat
Essie Naughty Nautical...2 coats
Nubar Star Sparkles (detail nail)...3 coats
Out The Door...as a top coat, 1 coat

THE REST OF THE STORY

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Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Memorial Day Manicure... Nicole By OPI If The Blue Fits... Sinful Colors Sugar, Sugar... Stamping

Happy Memorial Day ladies! Hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend and got to participate in some fun since this weekend is the unofficial kick off to the Summer. Barbeque, picnic, pool parties...what did you do this weekend?

I also wanted to take a moment to thank those in the military who died serving our country. This is a day to honor all those that gave up their lives for our freedom. Thank you for your sacrifice for the rest of us!

So for todays manicure I did a Memorial Day theme. I wanted to incorporate a patriotic feel along with a summery, fun feel we all tend to have this weekend every year. So that explains the star stamping image, the BBQ stamping image and the red, white and blue colors. So, what is with the pink in the BBQ stamping? Good question because I stamped it using a white polish!

This mani was one of those that just fought me tooth and nail! I had to redo that ring finger three times! It was just meant to be imperfect from what I was trying to achieve. So this was the least screwed up this looked and I was not will to give it another go and risk another horrendous outcome. I suspect what happened is... because I didn't topcoat the base color before stamping this nail like I did always do. So I think the red bled through the white stamping after I top coated the finished stamping.

For this manicure I applied the following:

Milani Smoothe Base Coat
Nicole By OPI If The Blue Fits...2 coats
Sinful Colors Sugar, Sugar...2 coats
Out the Door Top Coat...1 coat
For All Stamping Sinful Colors Snow Me White was used
Nail Plate W107 Winstonia
Seche Vite Top Coat...1 coat

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

KB Shimmer... DIVA... POLISH AND PACKAGING Swatch / Review AND Summer 2013 Collection Release Info

KB Shimmer has announced the Release of their Summer 2013 Collection on June 1st. Check out the gorgeous polishes in this collection on their Official Press Release. I love them all! I know I will be ordering at least 5 of them!! KB Shimmer has amazing nail polishes. Of all the Indy Polishes I own, I own the most from KB Shimmer. I just placed another order for a few more that I have been wanting and you can bet I will be purchasing several polishes from this new collection! :)

So in all my excitement and anticipation of this new collection I decided to do a mani in one of my favorites from KB Shimmer...DIVA!

THE POLISH

It is a purple based, heavily glitter packed polish. They describe it as a "grape-like purple, we added several sizes of holographic silver glitter along with aqua and pink holographic glitters. Over 10 different colors and glitters ensure that this pretty purple polish packs a punch." Polish is “3-Free” and does not contain Toluene, Formaldehyde or Dibutyl Phthalate.

Application was on the thick side, but is normal for a glitter packed polish and is certainly manageable. There was no fishing for glitters. They came out nicely and evenly on their own. I applied 3 coats. May have been able to get away with 2, but I wanted the intense color and all the sparkle this polish had to offer.

THE PACKAGING

The round bottle comes with a clear label making it easy to see the glittery goodness of this polish with out the obstruction of a big, bulky, white label. The handle is of the shortest and smallest diameter in a standard size bottle that I own. Holding on to the brush is a bit more of a challenge. The brush is a average size brush, not too big and not too small. Contains 15ml of polish.

THE MANICURE