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 Beauty Brow Pencil

I spent a little too long standing in front of the revamped Broadway Nails display at my local Dollar General checking out new Gel Shine finishes (more on that soon!), and got sucked into an unexpected purchase: a brow pencil. A little context: I never do anything with my brows. I've had them waxed a few times, but in general, they just kinda do what they do. It's their journey. I don't interfere. But circumstances have forced my hand, so it's time for me to learn about brows. The story is a little embarrassing, but I can tell you, right?

Oops.

So the other day, I decided to try Nad's Eyebrow Shaper Pen. Good news: it works great. Highly recommend. Bad news: my inexperience with doing my own eyebrows paired with heavy sprinklings of rushjob and user error left me with some very noticeable gapage:


Not good, especially for a gal with thick, dark brows who doesn't do anything with them, and therefore does not have ANY eyebrow products just hanging out in my makeup stash, I immediately rushed out to purchase something that would make my eyebrows look completely ordinary while I wait for them to grow back. I spent too much on a fancy new brow product from a big name drugstore brand that will remain nameless, and I may as well have just thrown that money in the garbage. There was no way I was going back to wading through the sea of brow products out there again, so I resigned myself to filling them in with my liquid eyeliner, which had great lasting power and did the job well enough, but still felt like I looked a little off.

Then I happened on Broadway's new brow pencil, and the first thing that caught my eye was the color: brown black. Brown...BLACK? Oh yes, I'd read it right! A major issue with the previous shopping trip is that apparently companies that make eyebrow products think that "deep brunette," which falls somewhere between Crayola brown and sable, is the darkest that eyebrows are supposed to be. My hair and the corresponding eyebrows are so dark that they're functionally black. However, the ultra-black liquid eyeliner I use was a little too intense for a natural eyebrow look, which was why I was looking for a product in the first place. No one had it. Then Broadway Beauty saved the day, and gave me an eyebrow pencil in "functionally black," and it even had the little spoolie blender thing on the end. And also, can we talk about this?:

It has a sharpener IN THE CAP! How weird and fantastic is that?

But I digress. You're probably wondering how it works. My answer: pretty well. The color match is very good, and it was very easy to apply for a novice like me. I just drew my eyebrows back in and tried not to wipe them away when I was doing the rest of my makeup (I still haven't figured out whether the pencil goes under or on top of foundation. I'm open to suggestions here, eyebrow magicians!). The staying power isn't as good as the eyeliner, but a quick touchup midday kept me from looking like, well, I have a hole in my eyebrow. I think the end result is pretty natural looking:

Excuse my dark circles- I LOST a piece of EYEBROW!

Broadway proves again that a product doesn't have to cost a fortune to do the job-I only paid a few bucks for this, and it will probably be my go-to product until my eyebrows look normal again. According to the packaging, this is a Dollar General exclusive item, but if you have one nearby, this is a great pickup. 

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?

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?