Reinvention sneak peek, and new polish!

This month I'm trying The Lacquer Legion, a Facebook page designed to give nail inspiration to the masses. Some of the best nail bloggers out there have teamed up to come up with a theme each month, and anyone from seasoned professional nail techs to armchair artists like us can post an interpretation of the theme. January's theme is Reinvention. I was initially thinking I'd do a Phoenix inspired black tipped fire gradient. I still may sometime, but that idea was derailed by something much more exciting...

NEW POLISH!!!

So this year I entered the Adventures in Polishland New Year's Eve manicure contest, and was absolutely delighted to be awarded the judge's choice award. This meant two polishes of my choice from Beautometry and a special mystery prize from Christina, all of which arrived this week.

The judge's choice design

Christina's gift was the first to arrive, a trio of adorable little polishes from Physician's Formula. I hadn't tried any of their polishes before, so I was happy to try them out. The colors were brights that I wouldn't have bought myself, and they were just the pick me up I needed for this blah Midwest winter weather. The formula seemed unspectacular at first, but they dried crazy fast-I've never had polish that dried so well that fast. I barely had time to topcoat them, and they had good lasting power.The candy colors were lots of fun, too. Here's what I came up with:

Physician's Formula California Goddess trio

Now back around to the Lacquer Legion: The two polishes I selected from Beautometry were A England Dragon from the Legends collection and Turbulence by Glitter Gal, two holo polishes. I had ooh and ah'd over the Legends polishes, and Dragon seemed different from the other greens in my collection. I chose Turbulence because I didn't have a silver linear holo, and I'm obsessed with the look. That's also why I chose them for my Reinvention mani. The holo trend brought glitter back from being a staple for little girl princess polish to something you can wear to work. It's serious polish that feels luxe, but has a fun and unique finish that you can't help but notice. Holo glitter is glitter for grown-ups, and nothing makes me happier than being able to wear glitter whenever I want!

As for the polishes themselves, both are ah-mazing. I can't stop staring at them! Everything you've heard online about A England is true! Both brands are a little pricy and have to be ordered online if you live in the States, which you can do here through Beautometry. Dragon is a pretty, pretty, pretty moss green infused with fine, sparkly holo glitter- nice in one coat, perfect in two. It's mesmerizing. Turbulence is a pure holo that looks whitish on. I was a little nervous that it wouldn't be opaque based on the online reviews I found, and it is thin enough to layer over just about anything, but in three coats I got full coverage. I had trouble getting a nice photo (finally resorted to nail selfies with my phone-I'll try again when there's sunshine), but you can definitely see the shimmer in the pics below. For the stripe on the accent nails, I  laid down a layer of Sephora for OPI Frankly I Don't Give A-Dam, a pale grey, with my striper before going over it with Turbulence to use as few swipes as possible. Fewer swipes=cleaner stripes. ('Frankly' with a matte topcoat is also the base color I used in the contest entry at the beginning of this post.)

Here's a sneak peek of my ode to holo. If you want to get in on the Lacquer Legion fun, reinvent your favorite nail look and post it on Facebook or Twitter on January 27th with the hashtag #LLreinvention.

Dragon and Turbulence

Inaugural post!

Welcome welcome to my Super Secret Nail Blog! Why so secretive, you might ask? Well, this blog is my quiet introduction to the world of nail blogging-an introduction that I fully expect will bounce happily under the radar for many years to come. And that's fine by me. I don't expect to hit the heights popularity of the nail blog geniuses that I follow, including Cutepolish, Sam at The Nailasaurus, Robin Moses, or Christina at Adventures in Polishland. I'm not a nail tech. I'm not an expert. I just love nail polish and nail art, and I want to talk about my hobby. Hopefully some like minded geniuses like yourself will join me as I show off my nail art, offer up tutorials, and spare my husband my incessant chatter about topcoats and holo glitter. Head's up- I don't remember where all of my tried and true techniques came from. I don't want to skip designs I love because I don't remember where I found it, but I'm not trying to rip anyone off either, so if you ever see something similar to a design on another site, feel free to give credit where credit's due in the comments.

Painting my nails has stretched from something I do occasionally to hobby to borderline obsession. I started watching Cutepolish videos after a fellow nailophile spotted my Star Trek tribute art, and from there on I was hooked. In this introductory edition of my own blog, I'll be showing you what I'm working with and some of the tools I can't live without.

So my main nail challenges are cuticle care, breakage, and getting clean edges on my polish. The first two I'm slooowly starting to conquer, but getting those clean, crisp edges is my white whale. You'll probably see evidence of these challenges in my posts, so be kind. Recently I had a breakage which took me down to a nub on my right index finger- no good! Here's what my nails look like now:
 

My nails right now, using Rimmel London Bare Naked and Sally Hansen White On

Same hand, right before The Break. :( Wearing Revlon Jaded Night under NYC Precious Peacock, Revlon Copper Penny under Julep Joelle, and Sally Hansen White On

One of the frustrations I ran into after The Break was finding advice on what to do with short nails. I never know what will look good while I'm waiting on them to grow out. On the web, I got a lot of  "oh, everything looks good on short nails!" Nope. Not true. That's part of the reason I decided against waiting until I had long, pretty, perfect nails and cuticles again to start this blog. Because it's not a blog for experts, it's a blog for people like me- humble DIY folk who struggle with broken tips and jagged edges sometimes. On my "after" pic, I had shortened them down to even out my look, shaped to a soft, round curve, and created a French tip gradient. This is a look I'd wanted to try, and I don't love french tips on super short nails. The gradient is a great compromise: classic and pretty without making my hands look stubby while my nails grow back out. There's a great gradient tutorial here. The key to the French gradient look shown, FYI, is to use both a nude polish and a white on the bare nail. Blends the look together. I like Rimmel's Bare Naked because it's a little warmer toned than many nudes.

My exploding nail collection has advanced beyond polish to include to a cadre of nail tools. To keep up with me, you'll definitely need cotton balls, cotton swabs, tweezers, and toothpicks. I also have a couple of favorite items I like to have available.

I like to have pure acetone on hand, but I never use it in place of regular nail polish remover. Acetone is for cleaning brushes and touching up my edges when I'm done painting only. I like to use a shotglass for acetone, since it melts just about everything else (clue #1 as to why I don't use it in place of regular remover). When I get a wild hair and decide to do water marbling, I use a rocks glass to hold the water, so a cheapo liquor glass set could be a nice thing to pick up if you love nail art! For hand care, I prefer use the products below, plus a hand cream. My current favorite is Mary Kay Satin Hands. Some of my products are pricy, but I never pay full price for them. I buy on sale, or find a cheaper product. You do not- I repeat, do NOT- have to spend a ton of money to have pretty nails.

Julep Luxe Skin Serem, Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream, Acetone, and  a snazzy 1 oz shotglass from my high school reunion.

Now, one thing I am willing to spend a little more on to get exactly what I want is a good topcoat. A fantastic topcoat can salvage some pretty bad polish. I have several topcoats, but my newest, and favorite, is Sally Hansen Mega Shine. It gives me the high shine I like and dries much more quickly than a regular topcoat. I do like to swipe a layer of a regular topcoat like Kleancolor or Wet n' Wild, which are crazy cheap and good quality, under it when I'm doing elaborate nail art to keep the lines from blurring. I also like Green Tea strengthener as a base coat. NutraNail has one that has really helped my nails grow fast, and it retails about $2.

Mega Shine topcoat

NutraNail Instant Nail Strengthener. I just bought a new bottle, so I could show it to you in the packaging. I picked it up at Wal-Mart (who, ironically, do not carry Mega Shine in my area).

The other tools I use are things you could probably pick up in your local dollar store. I love a file with multiple surfaces to shape and smooth my nails (two are shown below). I also like a very coarse file for when I break a nail and need to shorten all of them, so I can avoid the clippers as much as possible. My latest obsession is buffing blocks. Julep sent me a pair of small ones (one shown below) in my January Maven box (oh yes, come back soon and we'll talk about the Maven program), and now I can't live without them to smooth and prep my nails for polish. Another dollar store nail purchase you'll want to make is makeup sponges. They're super versatile for dozens of easy, pretty nail designs.

My favorite files and buffers

Finally, I am SO glad I got some actual nail art tools. Don't get me wrong, you can do a lot with toothpicks and makeup sponges, but having some other tools to work with is really nice. I bought a generic set of brushes and dotting tools in different sizes on Ebay, spent less than $10, and I use them all the time. There are a few brushes I don't use, but the number that I do were worth the price. I also have a brush from a Jordana striper polish. I threw away the old bottle, cleaned the brush with acetone, and voila.

My dotting tools and a few of my most frequently used brushes

So if you've made it through this post, hopefully you'll be interested in the things to come. I have some new polishes on the way for swatching, designs to try, and products to review. Let's hang out and talk nails.