Monster Blood 3.0

Ok, I've officially got a Problem. I just can't resist drip art in October. Halloween has the best nail art color combinations: rich blue purples, the full range of pumpkin oranges, shimmery blacks, sparkly golds, sassy greens, warm crimson...how do you choose? Drip manis let you play with lots of colors really easily, and something about them just says Halloween to me.

So I did two more this year to add to my collection of Halloweenie drips from last year and the year before. This year I started with a skittlet-I guess I got excited.

You'll recognize the green and red combo from my first Monster Blood design. It's Sinful Colors Happy Ending with NYC Crystal Couture in Ruby Queen. Happy Ending has a great gold shimmer, and I completely objectively think you need it in your collection. This time I added a new shade to the party: Broadway Nails Gel Strong in Black. This color will not satisfy the craving if you're looking for a solid black creme, but is still very much worth picking up. It's got a red shimmer that makes it special, and the application is very good in two coats.



Once I saw the full mani, I decided I liked the red and black best. Next thing I knew, it had transmogrified onto all of my nails. Spooky!

For the red, I started with one coat of Julep Catherine, a red-red jelly, to get Ruby Queen to "take" in fewer coats (you can get similar coverage in 3/4 coats of Ruby Queen alone). Then I doused it all in Out the Door topcoat for big time shine. While it's hard to see the red shimmer in Black in photos, you can spot it in the bottle shot pretty clearly.

I can't promise this will be my last drip of the season. What colors would you want to monster-mash up? What colors do you use for drip manis outside of the Halloween season?

Broadway Nails Matte Strong Review

Just when I thought I was done with Broadway Nails...

So I know I have an erratic posting schedule, to put it mildly (one of the benefits of being Super Secret is I post when I want), but I did notice that my Broadway Nails posts still get quite a bit of interest, so I knew y'all would appreciate my gleeful surprise when polishes from their new Matte Strong line appeared in a Facebook group I follow. I picked up two shades to share today.

First up is Amore, a denim blue. The Matte Strong line boasts that it's quick drying, and has a really nice range of metallic and shimmery mattes. I'm not normally a big fan of matte finishes, but since I'd seen and liked swatches, I gave them a shot. Amore made me instantly glad I did. The application on this polish was amazing, and as promised, it dried hard within about 30 minutes, and dried to the matte finish much faster than that. No sheet marks! I didn't feel my normal instant need to topcoat it, because the soft, shimmery grey-blue was so pretty and understated. This is one medium coat. One coat! And I didn't need to do any cleanup, which is one of my holy grail qualities in a polish.

The second polish I picked up was Passionate Love, a warm, shimmery red. Even though I'm not a matte fan overall, I have been known to covet the plush sophistication of a good red matte mani. Passionate Love has lots of shimmer with berry undertones. 

I can't say I'm as in in love with the color of this one as I was with Amore, but the formula is similar. This is two easy coats, and it was a little harder to control than Amore, so some cleanup was required to get a clean edge. Even though I preferred the other shade, I would still recommend this polish if you're a fan of the in-bottle color. I wasn't sure what it would look like matte from the bottle, but the shimmer and color translated well to the nail, even though the bottle shade is very shiny. Dry time was similar to Amore, and if these polishes are representative of the formula of the other Matte Strong polishes, these $2 winners are an absolute steal.

I will definitely be picking up more of these Matte Strong polishes-the unusual shimmer choices and buttery formulas are melting my shiny, creme heart. Do you like matte finishes, and will you be trying these?

Broadway Nails Gel Strong: Neons and Shimmers and Glitters-Oh My!

I knnnnooowww my last few reviews have been Broadway Nails Gel Strong, but my mother-in-law got me a few new really cool ones that were a little outside my usual picks (she gets me, by the way), so I decided that you'd surely forgive me for one more Gel Strong review post.


I'm not typically a fan of neons, so I wasn't so sure about Powder Green at first. What won me over was, surprisingly, the application. Application has been very hit and miss with this line, and neons are notoriously poorly behaved overall, so I was very pleased with how smoothly and evenly this one applied without a white base. I still needed three coats to get to the opacity I like, but two would be sufficient if you don't mind a looser finish. It mattefies a touch as it dries (another common feature of neons), and is just enough "bright." As far as neons go, I don't have much to complain about on this one.


My second gifted polish was a mixed hex and round purple, pink, and orange glitter topper called Playground (shown here over Powder Green). It looks pink in the bottle, but as you can see, the color in the bottle is an odd representation of what it looks like on the nail. The purple kind of steals the show once you get it over another color. The clear base doesn't obscure the color underneath, making it good for a fun accent like the ones here. On the middle finger, I applied the polish to a sponge and dabbed it on, while on the ring finger I applied directly from the bottle. From the bottle gave a lighter touch, using the sponge really packed it in. This is a fun polish that will be great for experimenting. I want to try it over different color palettes, matte, shiny, dense, scattered...so many possibilities!


The third polish was Chalice, a blue shimmer. I had passed over this one a few times because I'm pretty happy with my midnight blue selection. I already have Julep Lacey and Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro Midnight Blue, both gorgeous, and I recently added Julep Austen to my midnight posse. Truth be known, though, Austen hadn't turned out to be exactly what I'd wanted. I'd expected a royal blue; what I got was lovely, but much darker than the website swatch. (Caveat: I got Austen from a batch that Julep proactively identified as flawed and replaced with a free polish for people who'd already ordered it, so my opinion of it may not be representative of the "good" Austens.) When I tried on Chalice, I was so excited-it was a dead ringer for the Austen swatch! Chalice is a royal blue/rich cobalt shimmer that applies beautifully in 2-3 coats, and cleans up really easily for a bright blue polish. And it is so pretty, y'all.



Can we just take one more look at this polish? This time it's paired up with Julep Angie, a silver linear holo, with Sinful Shine topcoat over the whole thing. I thought about doing a design on the accent nail, but these two are so perfectly paired that I didn't have the heart to mess with it. I'm in love with this mani right now.

I think my MIL is a visionary. These are all three polishes I'd consciously passed over, and now I'm glad they're in my collection, especially Chalice. Have you ever been wowed by a polish you'd initially written off as 'meh'?

More Broadway Nails Gel Strong! Grapefruity and Gatsby

I've made a dangerous discovery: the Dollar General to the east of my house has more Broadway Nails Gel Strong polishes than the one to the west. I was delighted and a little surprised at how popular my Broadway Nails post has been, and that plus the low price and compulsive need to have all the polish convinced me that you needed more swatches. You know, for science.

After carefully examining bottles until I started getting the side eye from the clerk, the first polish I picked was also the one that called me over to the display. Grapefruity is a bright, warm pink-not quite hot pink, but close. Not particularly unique, but still very nice.The formula was a welcome surprise. It covered nicely in two coats, but I used three since visible nail line tends to really bug me. It was shiny, too, and none of the streaking issues I had with my last Broadway Nails creme, Ballet Shoes. For the price, this one was a real winner.

The second polish I settled on was less so. Gatsby is a grass green shimmer. I picked it because I don't have a rich true green, and I hoped this would fill that gap. Unfortunately, I think the search will have to continue. Gatsby goes on super sheer. This is 4-5 coats. I even tried it over white, but if anything, that made it worse. This could make a nice enhancer to bring out the green in another color, but on its own, I'd say it's a miss. It just needs too many coats to get to any semblance of the gorgeous jeweltoned green in the bottle. Some of you mentioned trying out Ultraviolet; I would guess that this finish is similar. I may experiment more with nail art and as a topper, but my recommendation is that you pass on this one unless you have another polish you're trying to green up.

These two polishes confirmed my initial assertion that Broadway Nails Gel Shine polishes aren't much competition for the high end stuff, but they're still worth a shot, and I'll definitely be back to the Dollar General I've now officially dubbed the "good" Dollar General to pick up a few more. Have you tried any of the newer shades? Thoughts?

Sinful Shine Topcoat Review

Hey everyone! I just had to snap out of my semi-hiatus to tell you about Sinful Shine topcoat! I don't have any photos for you this round (sorry), but the bottle looks like this:

Photo from SinfulColors.com

My local Wal-Mart recently got a Sinful Shine display, and I was instantly sidetracked because I had to pick up every. single. polish. I got to what I thought was a shimmery black, and then realized it was a topcoat! Exciting!!! For those who don't know, here's some beauty science: a black or opaque silver bottle usually means quick dry, because quick dry polishes often work by reacting with light. In a clear bottle, they start thickening up. If you have a quick dry, avoid letting light get in the bottle to keep it working well for as long as possible. I actually turn of my small LED desk lamp while I topcoat and then turn it back on after I close the bottle to preserve my topcoats. A $1.99 quick dry would be almost too good to be true, but I decided to give it a go anyway, and was thrilled to find that Sinful Shine topcoat had all of my three essentials of a great topper.

First up: dry time. The reason I love my Julep toppers is because they dry in minutes, but I go through them pretty quickly and hate giving up one of my coveted Maven box spots for yet another bottle of topcoat. I tried the Sinful Shine topper with Sinful Shine Picante (an absolutely gorgeous shimmery red based orange). I found that in about 15 minutes it was dried to the point where I could get around without ruining my nails, and at 20 minutes it was dried hard. No sheet marks, no wrinkles, no dents. I tend to paint at night, so drying to the point that I can go to bed shortly after is a must. To double test, I tried it again with several more manis, including two non-Sinful Shine polishes. Same results every time, no wet polish malfunctions. I can confidently say that it's fast enough that I can put it on, watch a TV show or read a few articles, and be good to go. While it isn't as fast as Julep's Freedom and Oxygen topcoats, it's fast enough to meet my everyday needs, and it's much cheaper than Julep toppers.

Second test: shine. It's all about shine for me, and this topcoat passed that test, too. Once again it wasn't quite at the level as the Julep toppers, but Sinful Shine was satisfactory for me. I do not mess around about shine, so if I tell you it's sufficiently shiny, it's still about a level shinier than most people would probably be satisfied with. It didn't dull, either-it stayed shiny until I removed it.

Finally, lasting power. This was the least impressive area, but I would still call it mixed results. I had lasting power ranging from minor chips and tip wear in a day or two to several days with no sign of any wear at all. I tend to have chips and tip wear fairly quickly anyway, so I can't hold that against them too far. I would say Sinful Shine is about average in this respect- no worse than most other topcoats I've used, but not spectacular either.

So the final verdict is BUY THIS! I got similar performance to my favorite topcoats at a fraction of the cost. I'd compare it to Sally Hansen Mega Shine, but better. I'll still use my gold standard Juleps when I need to polish and go right away, but for everyday use, this is a great match. The brush is thin-ish, a little thinner than normal Sinful Colors brushes; I wasn't crazy about that, but otherwise, no complaints. This value topcoat is a great buy, and will probably be my go-to topper for a while.

Broadway Nails Gel Strong Review: Where's Nemo and Ballet Shoes

First of all, let me apologize for the long gaps between posts. My laptop is on the fritz, so getting photos from my camera to the blog has been a bit of a nightmare. I'm working on getting it fixed, but thanks for being patient with me! Even though this is a hobby blog, I feel terrible for taking so long between posts-plus I miss telling you all about my polish excursions. Speaking of...

If my drawerful of Sinful Colors bottles has taught me anything, it's that you can't judge a polish by its price point, so recently I decided to give a new discount brand a shot. A line called Gel Strong recently hit my local Dollar General store from the Broadway Nails brand. Broadway Nails has been around for a while and has some cute shades, but I've never tried them, and the Gel Strong polish just showed up here recently with a retail price of $2. In the interests of science, I picked up two colors in different finishes to get a feel on whether this is the next fabulous steal brand. Short answer: probably not, but they're ok. Long answer: read on.

The first polish I picked up from this line was Where's Nemo, a cheerful green shimmer. I would describe this as a granny smith apple with silver and green shimmer. I really like this color. I wore it for several days, then wore it again as an accent in some tulip nail art that wasn't quite blogworthy, but the polish was great against a darker green creme for my leaves and flower stems. It's shimmery and pretty, different while still understated, and I looked at my nails a lot when I was wearing it. Applying it, though, was kind of a pain. It's not thin, but not thick either, and getting even coverage was not easy. Here I'm wearing three coats.

The other color I chose was Ballet Shoes, a peachy pink creme. I think of pale pinks with that name and bright oranges with Nemo references, so I'm not sure who's naming these colors. Nevertheless, Ballet Shoes is a really nice color. While the peach shows more in my photos, on the nail it's more balanced with pink. I used Zoya Lux as an accent and they looked great together. Application was a mess here, though. I used three coats, waited between coats even, and they still looked streaky to me until I applied a generous coat of Julep Freedom Polymer topcoat, which seems to even it out to a beautiful, shiny finish. 

So are they the next Sinful Colors? The colors themselves are delightful. Hats off to the Broadway Nails color team, because there wasn't a ton of selection in the Gel Strong line, but they were all interesting, on trend colors, like a shimmery nude, midnight blue, and a line of ultra bright neons. Several of the polishes seem to be oddly named, as if the names were chosen before the colors were actually finished. They also have a topcoat that I haven't tried, which could have contributed to the most glaring flaw of the line: I don't get what's supposed to be "gel" about them. Neither polish was particularly squishy, and lasting time was about average. If I buy more of these and feel adventurous, I may give the topcoat a try, too. I probably will buy from this line again because the colors themselves were so good, but the formula issues were a serious strike.

Have you tried Gel Strong or any of the other Broadway Nails line? What did you think?

$5 Mani: Jelly Sandwich

I love indie polish...because who doesn't anymore? It's the best. But there's still a special place in my heart for drugstore polish. The sad reality is that I can't afford to buy all the indies and high end stuff. Luckily for us, there are some really good polishes readily available in most areas for decent prices. For those of us who can't go on an indie shopping spree every time we decide to get a new polish (insert brief fantasy of being able to waltz into K-Mart and pick up baskets full of A England and ILNP), I bring you $5 Mani! In these posts (hopefully there will be lots of them), I will feature full nail art looks with two or more polishes that I purchased for $5 or less, and most will be easy to find at mass retailers.

For my first $5 mani, I went back to the jelly sandwich, a trend that I never got to when it was cool-typical. Jelly sandwiching is when you take a jelly polish and layer it both over and under a glitter. I hadn't tried it because I have a preference for opaque looks, but the sheer squishiness of jellies is winning me over. I brought out NYC Color NY Princess as my base and layered with Sinful Colors Love Sprinkles, an LE matte white heart and hex glitter. NY Princess has its own glitters, which made it fun for this look. Oddly, I mentioned back in August when I reviewed the NYC Fashion Queen collection that I may try it in a jelly sandwich sometime, so it's fitting that I used it for my first one. Incidentally, NY Princess was much more cooperative this time around. The base on Love Sprinkles is a little thick, it had to be sweet talked into participating in this look. Both polishes retail at $1.99, so even without any discounts or sales, the total cost of this look is $3.98.

Jelly sandwich technique will take some practice, but I like this mani. The different types of layers make a monochromatic look that's really interesting-and it's so squishy! I have tons of glitters that may be fun in this technique next time I need something that both squishes and sparkles. Do you still wear the occasional jelly sandwich, or are you on to the next look?