NOTD 136 – Featured Color Friday – Lavender

I know I know… another week without a post until Featured Color Friday, What can I say, I’m a slacker. Today I have some purple nails for you that I am not 100% pleased with and then Monday, I will have some Memorial Day nails.

I painted two coats of “Zoya - Charisma” which for any of you that have this, know it’s SUPPOSED to look like a bright neon purple…. This is forever one of those colors that is just simply impossible to capture its true purpleness with my camera. I then took one coat of “Barry M – Lavender” over top it. Lavender is a clear based polish with silver glitter and lavender colored square glitter pieces. This polish is great, it’s not dry, glides on really well this is only one coat and I was pleased with it. The purple itself however, I was not pleased with.

Call me crazy, which I know I am sometimes… but this to me is just one of those toes colors. I love it on my toes but not on my hands. I currently have “Jade - Deja Vu’” on my feet and I don’t like it but I love it on my hands…

Anyway, here it is:

This next one is even further from the color, but I just love the way that the glitter shimmers in the picture. You will notice that a lot of the pictures make the square glitters appear silver, but look at the ones to the sides of my nails you can kind of see the lavender color in them

Well guys, that’s it for me today, like I said I will be back Monday for some Memorial Day nails.

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NOTD 135 – Happy Ending – Featured Color Friday

Good Morning and Happy Friday!

So I know that I promised some nail art this week, but I promise it’s still coming. It’s a surprise so I still can’t tell you what it is, but I promise it’s coming.

I think I may have used this color before, but that’s alright, never together. Today I have “Sinful Colors – Happy Ending” with a little gradient of “Sinful Colors – Call ya later” I love Happy Endings, its such a pretty green with a fine goldish shimmer to it, I thought it paired perfectly with Call ya later which is gold and green glitter.

You are going to get lots of pictures today because I just love this color! <3

Here is a picture where some are blurry but you can really see the glitter more here.

Lastly, I leave you with this article I found on Yahoo today (Click here) which is entitled “Best nail polish brands that last”. I don’t know if I agree with some of these, what do you think? Essie in particular the last couple that I bought tended to be more on the watery and runny side. I usually love Essie’s but the last few seemed to be going downhill. Some I have not tried and may now that I have read the article to see if I agree.

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NOTD 134 – Featured Color Friday – Girly

It’s the weekend! Woot! Although, I don’t know why I am so excited my weekends tend to blink by :/ At least today is nice and sunny for once, all week was rainy or cloudy. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain all day again but then nice for Mother’s Day!

I don’t have a lot of Revlons not because I don’t like the company just because I happen to prefer other companies to it. When I look at Revlons I usually have colors so similar to them from other brands, I just tend not to bother. Well, this was different! I picked up “Girly by Revlon” last week and this was different from most of what I have for once!

“Girly” It’s a creamy Pink with light pink, fuscia, and purple hexagonal shapes in it. I read some reviews and some had some trouble with it. Luckily I did not! Some had troubles with it drying out while applying, or drying to an ugly pink. When I applied, I did about 3-4 light coats and it dried just as it looked in the bottle! woohoo

This first pic is indoors with no flash

The next two are indoors with flash

Such a fun color, and I think girly is the perfect name for it! <3

Alright guys, that’s it for now, I have a weekend full of hopefully some IronMan watching, making cupcakes, making a cake for my husbands birthday, and then blink, back to work. Hope everyone has a nice weekend and Mother’s Day!

I’ll be back Monday with some surprise and fun nail art for you guys! ALSO: If I follow your blog, be prepared to be comment/like bombed by me today I am about 600 emails behind and back to as far as almost a month ago… ::sigh::

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NOTD 133 – Not A Cloud in the Sky

Happy Monday everyone, This week is crazy again so no posts again till Friday. :/ So I painted my nails over the weekend and ironically enough the name of the polish is “Not A Cloud in the Sky by Loreal” and the ironic part about it, is all week its supposed to be cloudy and rainy or at least partly rainy.

 

Well here’s to my pretty teal polish to brighten up the day

 

Well lovelies, that is all I have for you today. I will be back for Featured Color Friday. Have a good week!

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NOTD 132 – Featured Color Friday – Blue nubs

I have been such a slacker with posts the past two weeks. My finger nails are so short and stubby that is why you will only get one picture this week :/. My husband was sick, then he had a reaction to his medicine… my dog tore a ligament in his knee.. it’s just been crazy.

Iron Man 3 comes out this weekend, I am super excited to see that, My husband’s birthday is coming up, Mother’s Day, it’s Jessica over at Once Upon a Polish’s Birthday today, head on over and wish her a Happy Birthday.

Alright on to my nails. I had bought a set of Color Clubs at Marshall’s a while back and there is no name on these damn polishes, Sorry V, I know you couldn’t find your yellow name either. So after looking it up online I THINK that this blue is 220 Volts Chelsea Girl, but I am not positive. This is a medium neon blue, that took about 2-3 coats and dries matte, so you will need top coat if you don’t like that look.

Sorry again for only one small crappy picture, but I am very upset at my little nubs so I promise that as soon as they grow out, I will post more pics for my next post. Maybe some make up posts to come here while they are growing out.

Well that’s all for me today, Anything exciting coming up for you guys this weekend, or otherwise?

 

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NOTD 131 – Featured Color Friday – Winter is Coming

Well guys, I am back this week with an all new Featured Color Friday for those of you that missed this last week!

A while back, I had gotten Jessica over at Once Upon a Polish ”Smitten Polish – Winter is Coming” The polish is named and based after the HBO Series, Game of Thrones (and books of course); A show in which we share a similar love for <3. This gorgeous creamy jellie also has bright blue like royal/cobalt hexagonal glequins, along with teenie white and baby blue glitter mixed in. Once I saw Jessica do a swatch of this, I knew I too, had to have it!

For sure this polish quickly climbed its way to the top of my list of favorite polishes! Just gorgeous! I painted 2-3 coats on each nail. The creaminess to the Jellie definitely helped with non-noticeable nail lines unlike ”Pink Lemonade II” that I just did, where I had to use ‘underwear’. So far, I am loving both of the Smittens that I have tried and can’t wait to go back and order more!

Have a good weekend everyone!

NOTD 130 – Pink Lemonade

It seems like I haven’t posted in forever..

First, I will start with an update to the ‘Essie – Nail stickers’ , these things….. SUCKED! I put them on, on Wednesday morning I believe it was, and by Thursday on the plane they were already lifting up and peeling off. It was more of a nail sticker than a lacquer sticker like some others. Although the design was neat, I won’t be buying this brands ‘stickers’ again.

As most of you know by now the reason for my not posting much this last week, was that I went to visit my sister, brother-in-law and my new nephew in North Carolina. I left Thursday morning and came home Saturday night and had things to do around house before I left. I had such a nice time with my family and my new and first nephew He is a little over a month old now and just too damn cute!

While away, my polishes I ordered from ‘Smitten Polish’ came in. My husband texted me a picture of them that simply said “your loots came” and I got so excited!! I purchased, “Winter is Coming“, “Pink Lemonade II”, and “Bluebird II”.

I first applied the ‘Pink Lemonade II’ and thought it was too sheer for my particular taste. The polish is gorgeous on its own don’t get me wrong, I am just personally not a fan of nail lines. I used “Ulta – Cream of the crop” as underwear as it matched very closely. I painted two very thin coats of ‘Cream of the Crop’ and then two – three thin coats of ‘Pink Lemonade II’ on each finger. On my left hand only, I did an accent nail using “Urban Decay – Hot Mess” a bright pink I thought would bring out the bright pink sequins in the Lemonade polish.

Here’s how it came out:

And now for those of you that wish to see, here are a few pics from my trip.. Never got to take a good one with my sister and/or brother-in-law just my nephew.

This first one is from when I first got there.

Next is Thomas I am pretty sure trying to blow me kisses.. lol

And finally just a big ol’ smile

And on that happy picture, Have a good day everyone!

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NOTD 129 – Essie Strips

As most of you have read by now, either via Twitter, Facebook, or my last post I am ( by the time this post hits – IF it works properly ) currently in North Carolina visiting my Sister and my Brother-in-law and meeting my new and first Nephew / Godson!!! So no ‘Featured Color Friday’ this week I’m afraid.

With that being said, I had a lot to do around the house this week to prepare for my trip and then with me being gone a couple of days there was just no time for nail up-keep this week. My green from Friday was chipping off badly so while at Target this weekend, I picked up some cute “Essie – nail strips”. Nicole over at Polish Me, Please has done some excellent reviews on which brands she liked, check her blog out for those.

The strips I got were a gray with what I thought were little rhinestones however upon further review they look like a cross between rhinestones and water droplet details, either way super cute.

The strips were very easy to apply, they were a sticker that you apply to the nail and just like most file the excess off. I did not use a top coat. I will let you know how they held up when I get back

Alright guys, well that is all for now, I will post again early next week.

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Going to visit Thomas

For those of you that follow me on Facebook or Twitter already know that I won’t be posting this week. I am going to visit my Sister and her husband in North Carolina and finally meet my Nephew / Godson this week. I am trying to get some last-minute cleaning and things taken care of at the house, then I will be gone for a few days. My nails are hideous right now, that green I posted Friday is chipping off badly! I am going to try out these strips that I got and will post them when I get back. Have a great week guys!

NOTD 128 – Featured Color Friday – Gemma

It’s Friday!! woot woot! So this week is a featured color brought to you by the lovely Frosso. My Birthday twin got me this polish back in December for my Birthday. It’s “Zoya - Gemma” and it really is a gem. This is an odd color for me, I don’t have anything else like it, it’s not my normal go to, but I saw it on others and just fell in love with it. It’s an olivey type of green with little hints of blue shimmer, you can kind of see it shimmering in the flash spots on the pictures below. This is three thin coats of the color.

I also got this fabulous two-fingered ring that I am simply in love with last weekend at NY and Company. I have been looking for a two-fingered ring for a while now, and what better ring, its like it was made for me as it’s a bow. (Speaking of which I just got some new custom bows in from Em’s shop I can’t wait to show you)

Alright guys, that’s all for now. Have a good weekend!

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NOTD 127 – Caribbean Temptation

My mom and I went to the store yesterday but before hand, I wanted to go get a Pedicure. We went to a place that neither of us were familiar with but it was the only one open at 10A on Sunday. We go in and sit right down. The girl took about an hour and 15 minutes just on my Pedicure. Now my feet aren’t gnarly if that is what you are thinking, I usually take care of my own feet but wanted to have someone else do it for once… lol no, this girl was just verrrry slow. I had already decided well before the length of time that it took for my pedicure, that I was going to also get a manicure. I just wanted to have someone else clean my nails up for a change. Anyway, when all was said and done, we were there almost two hours…….. o..m..g.. Another reason why I always do my own.

Anyone that knows me, knows I don’t match my nails to my outfits, and I don’t usually match my toes to my nails, but this time I decided to do that. I will just end up changing my nails in a few days, so they wont match anyway… lol I usually end up keeping my toe polish on for close to two weeks before changing that.

The color I went for was “China Glaze – Caribbean Temptation” This color reminds me a lot of “OPI’s – Pompeii Purple”.

So note to self, continue to just do own nails and toes… ::sigh::

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NOTD 126 – Featured Color Friday ‘Your Web or Mine’

Finally Friday and the weather is finally looking up! Today is going to be 60, and all next week 60′s and even a couple that hit 70! Wooohooo! I just cant wait to get out and plant my flowers and veggies

On to the nails, today I am featuring “OPI’s – Your Web or Mine” This was a mini that I got in the Spiderman mini set a while back. I had never tried it until now. It’s a very pretty pink with a little hint of metallic I think. Unfortunately that glimmer makes you see every brush stroke, which I personally HATE. So when all else fails, add some glitter, and of course I go to my favorite topper, “Lush Lacquer’s – Salt N’ Pepa”

Don’t forget to ‘Like’ MaesBeauty on Facebook and follow me on Twitter at @Kalelmari

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NOTD 125 – Fresh Teal glitter

I cannot believe it’s April already! Hopefully that means that it will finally start to get a little warmer and sunnier

Today I have for you a Featured Color since this past Friday’s “Featured Color Friday” didn’t feature one particular color that I hadn’t already but more of a Holiday inspired feature.

I painted two coats of “Milani - Fresh Teal” and did a gradient effect with “Shimmer’s – Linna”

Here is a little picture in the sun, that’s right actual sun lol

Indoors

Close up of glitter “Linna”

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NOTD 124 – FCF – Easter Peeps

For those of you that follow my facebook page see that I was unable to have my Friday look done in time, so I promised it for today instead. This week’s inspiration was Easter Peep candies.

The base color was: “Julep – Emma” my middle finger inspired by the purple peep was “Shimmer – Gerry”, my ring and pointer finger inspired by the yellow was “Ulta - Cream of the crop” topped with “V.I.P. – Gold” and lastly my pink inspired peep color on my pinky and thumb was “China Glaze Pink Voltage topped with “Kleancolor - Chunky holo fuscia”

We also dyed our Easter eggs today so I have a fun picture I took of us dying.

Here are my Peeps inspired nails

So there you have it Peep inspired tips for Easter <3 Have a good weekend everyone!!

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NOTD 123 – Really Winter…

Are you kidding me right now with this crappy NJ weather….. So last week was the first day of Spring, and now today it’s snowing??? Does that make much sense to you? The news this morning said that we should be in the 50′s about now, and It’s snowing… ugg! When I say snowing, I mean it… These snowflakes are huge! and coming down fast!

So today’s nails are perfect for the occasion, I did a needle dragging Spring mani. It was supposed to be needle dragging since Winter is dragging its feet on its way out, and Spring colors, well because I just simply want it to be here. Now the mani is even more perfect because it just proves my point even more.

The colors I used for this mani were: My Base coat of “OPI – Nail Envy”, the green is “Essie – Turquoise & Caicos”, the blue is “Bikini so Teeny” and then “Ulta – Snow White”

• After my base coat was fully dry, I painted one strip of polish on each nail. Some nails I did two split colors, and my middle, I did all three. For some thinner colors (the green in this case) needed a second coat before I did the effect.
• Once dry, I started each nail one by one. I painted a thicker white coat, and quickly beside it a thicker blue coat, while still wet, took my needle and slowly dragged back and forth until desired look was achieved.
• Follow last step for all nails using which ever colors you chose for each nail.
• Finally, for the top coat. I used “OPI – Nail Envy” *With this look be sure that your polish is as dry as it can be, I used Seche on one of the nails and ended up redoing it all together as it was still kind of wet and didn’t look right. Unfortunately, once I put the Seche topper on, it made the effect look like it hadn’t happened. When I re-did, I switched to the OPI toppper and made sure all were pretty dry!

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NOTD 122 – Featured Color Friday – Beachy Keen

Although the first day of Spring was Wednesday, and as much as I want Spring to be here… it’s not. It’s about 40 degrees and with the wind chill, it feels like it’s in the 20′s. Oh, and Monday they are calling for snow. . . .  not a lot and probably won’t stick, but not the point. Where are my flowers, and my sandal weather, and my butterflies, and hummingbirds?? I know that we didn’t really have the harshest weather this NJ winter, but I tell you, I am done!

So last night, I painted my nails last night with “Lush Lacquer’s – Color Me Gray” and I was all done and looking at my nails there was just something so familiar… Well that would be because I already featured this color and forgot. ::sigh:: I had to take it all off and start over. Not that I won’t ever wear that color again, because I do love it, just that this is ‘Featured Color Friday’ and I’ve featured it and couldn’t believe that it slipped my mind already! I guess I just wanted to wear it again so bad..

I ended up with a new color I just picked up, can’t go wrong with that, I know I haven’t used this one for Friday yet! It’s “Sonia Kashuk’s - Beachy Keen” it’s a coral, peach, orange type of Springy color. Of course another hard to capture polish. The slight Peachy – ness to the polish was hard to catch, but you will see the two outside ones, you can see the hint, where-as inside it takes on the more orange hue of it.

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NOTD 121 – Spring is almost here!

Wednesday is the first day of Spring and of course my Bestie Gina’s Birthday! She recently made me this amazing Spring wreath that I get to put up this week.

Gina is extremely crafty, talented, and altogether creative. She started making wreaths and came up with the name Creative-Twists. She makes amazing wreaths, anything custom from sports teams, to Seasons or Holidays, anything you can think of she can do (If you remember my Nightmare Before Christmas one I showed.) Gina’s shore house was devastated by Hurricane Sandy this past October so all proceeds are going toward her shore house. If anyone is interested in a fabulous custom wreath check her site out, she is amazing! She will work with you to fit your price, needs, ideas, and if out-of-state, shipping will obviously apply. Check out her site and contact her now!

I also got another Hello Kitty sign made by a friend of ours, Angela, this one is Spring related. I picked her up over the weekend too and put her in the garden. How stinkin cute is she!!

Okay, now on to my nails. With Wednesday being spring, and seeing my flowers start to sprout, I did a Spring themed mani. I used two thick coats of “Ulta - Cream of the Crop” and then one coat of “Milani – Fresh Teal” over top. “Fresh Teal” has a bunch of green, teal, and silver hexagonal glitter pieces, and then a bunch of teal small glitter pieces.

Alright, that’s it for now guys!

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NOTD 120 – Featured Color Friday – Evanora nails

Happy Friday! So last Sunday we went to go see ‘Oz The Great and Powerful’ and I could not help but notice Rachel Weisz’ nails. She plays Evanora, The Wicked Witch of the East and might I say is the most stunning Evil Witch I have ever seen. The make up and costumes in the whole movie were just amazing. I loved Rachel Weisz’ character make up, dress, and jewelry as well as Michelle Williams’. Mila Kunis who played Theodora, as well had gorgeous make up that is until she turned into the green Wicked Witch of the West. Maybe I was being too critical but the green make up job was terrible. Although she was green, her skin was so smooth and flawless, not something I would expect from the Wicked Witch… Just my opinion.

In any event, after seeing all the gorgeous make up, costumes, and nails of course I had to do this look. I did Evanora nails with a St. Patrick’s day flare.

For the base I used two coats of “Sally Hansen – Platinum Frost” This is a slower drying color so rather than painting seche for it to dry so I could use tape, I painted this on Tuesday night so that it would be fully dry for the tape on Wednesday night. I usually do my nails for ‘FCF’ Thursday’s but I have my Ladies Aux meeting this Thursday so I did them earlier in the week… anyway. The next step was scotch tape to make the triangle, and I painted one coat of “China Glaze – Liquid Leather” Once dry, I took a very thin, fine brush and used “Sinful Colors – Call You later” as the green glitter to make it more St. Patty’s Day themed. Once all of that was dry, I finally then used my stamp with the shamrocks and used “OPI – Just Spotted a Lizard” for the stamps.

Sorry I don’t have as many pictures as normal, was hard to capture the pearliness of the white, and some of my stamps have sheet marks because I have been trying not to use Seche due to shrinking. Anyway, I still absolutely love this mani! I love the shape and the colors, it’s such a fun mani. Definitely not as fun as my, every nail different St. Patty’s Day mani last year, but still fun, I think!

So what do you think?

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OPI Nail Envy Review

Back in January, I posted that I was still having some issues with peeling and cracking of my nails, I also felt that my polish chipped way too fast. I was using Nailtek and Nailtiques which helped strengthen but didn’t keep the polish on long or I would use regular OPI or CND Sticky as a base but it didnt keep my nails good, only kept the polish on. Some of you had some awesome suggestions, thank you so much! Most of you seemed to agree that “OPI- Nail Envy” was the answer.

I picked up my very own bottle at the end of January and have been using it ever since. No peeling, cracking, chipping, I am loving it.

“Nail Envy” comes in multiple different formulas like the other brands (Nailtek, Nailtiques, etc)

 

The one I picked up was for Sensitive & Peeling nails The other formulas are above.

I wouldn’t say that I necessarily have Sensitive nails, they are pretty strong, they just kept peeling. But I wanted something geared more toward my problem other than the original formula. It’s been a little over a month now, so I may head on over to the Maintenance one, we shall see.

I use the product per the instructions, my bottle says to paint two coats as a base, either leave plain or paint polish. Every day paint one coat of the top coat over your polish, and you can also use as a top coat. I have been using this instead of Seche to avoid shrinkage. It of course does not dry nearly as quickly but still fairly fast.

The only downside to the one that I chose, (and may be all of them) is that about half way through the bottle, just like Seche Vite, it gets thick and “stringy”. When I use it I drag long very thin strings along with me the best thing I can compare it to is if you have ever used a hot glue gun, you have long strings everywhere (or at least I do!) lol It also has a faint nail polish odor, most polishes now a days don’t stink as often but this one has a sort of faint smell that I am normally not used to with OPI.

As a final result, other than the fact that it gets a little thick after about half the bottle’s use, and the minor smell, I would still definitely recommend this as a base coat for any one that has peeling nails. I have not tried the others, but I am sure that they are just as great. I will let you know when/if I get the Maintenance one, how that holds up as well!

NOTD 119 – Featured Color Friday – Marilyn

So I am a big fan of the show SMASH on NBC and it’s about a Broadway show about Marilyn Monroe. Naturally, just looking at this beauty, plus my love for Marilyn herself, and this show, as soon as I saw this gorgeous color, I just had to have it. Today I bring you, “Shimmer’s – Marilyn”

‘Marilyn’ is a pinkish/red toned jelly based polish but more on the red side, with gorgeous red glitters. It looks fine on its own, over red, or black, or I even tried silver, but ended up with the red. I put two coats of ‘Marilyn’ over one thin coat of “China Glaze – Adventure Red-y”

soo sparkly

And now, for my new tattoo

So here is a side story on this…. My husband and I have been married 9 years now and we had discussed getting tattoos with our names on them. I was going to get Jack and Sally and put our names, and he Superman and Louis Lane. So we go to the tattoo shop, all ready to go, so I show the guy the picture I wanted. Problem is, unfortunately not all pictures transfer well over to tattoos. The drawing had too many thin lines and would have just blended over time and you would lose the details, specifically in the clothing and in their stitches. So we nixed that and went to lunch to think on it. He wasn’t 100% sure on his picture just yet either so we decided to just get the names for now and come back when we had good pics we knew we wanted for sure. I picked a Nightmare Before Christmas-ish text and got Don on my wrist and Don drew the heart on me and the guy tatted it in. Don had me sign my signature on his chest and the guy tatted that in.

Here they both are:

Here is the picture I wanted (with some changes) but he said that in order for it not to bleed into each other over time it had to be BIG, so it’s off to find a better Jack and Sally for my next tattoo

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