The Art of Doing Nothing

So as you probably know I sort of like a group called Take That.  Or have I not mentioned that?  Oh yes I have.  If you didn't know this chances are you are new here.  But I'm also a fan of the stuff the members do on their own.  Case and point Mark Owen.

I decided to use some art work from his up coming album The Art of Doing Nothing.  Which is due for release on June 10th of this year.

 

I like how it's one of those manicures.  Where people may not understand what it means so they have to ask.  I like conversation starter manicures.   And it was really easy to do.  Who doesn't like a simple mani?  Horrible, soulless people, that's who.  Elizabeth Bathory would hate this.

Check out his first single Stars off of The Art of Doing Nothing. 



Also...

 

Stay tuned tomorrow for part 2 of my NCLA Nail Wrap review.

Neon Matte Madness!

Hi friends! I've been sick as balls for the last few days…which has meant Hannibal and nail art! Have you guys been watching that show? It's REALLY good. Mads Mikkelsen, get in my bed. You can bring Hugh Dancy too. *AHEM* Sorry, the cough syrup is getting to me.

For this design, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted something loud. Mission accomplished!

 Started with a yellow base, I then sponged randomly with blue, green and orange. Pink stripes in the remaining yellow patches. Then added black chunks. Then dots. I'm sure I could have kept going but it's probably good that I stopped there.

On my left middle finger, the topcoat caused some drag - which I thought looked really cool! The rest of my fingers had dried quite well, though, so this was only cool smudgey one.

I would normally never show you a picture of my thumb, because my thumb cuticles are always so gross. But this looks so rad.

China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Essie Orange It's Obvious, Prevail Roof Top Bar, Personelle Emy, Art Deco Wild Fuchsia and Black, Warpaint Beauty Matte Topcoat.

Top Down, Volume Up Nail Wraps by NCLA (Part 1): First Time Using Nail Wraps!!!

So when I was asked by Nail Polish Canada to review some NCLA nail wraps I was excited.  I've always been intrigued by nail polish wraps but had never made the jump.  No real reason why either.  I got to choose two sets to review, so I chose Top Down, Volume Up and another one which I will show later this week.  I decided to divide this post in two so in this post I can talk more about application and such and in the next tell you how it wears and removal.

I was extra excited when these came in the mail a few days ago.  I hurt my back and shoulder doing who knows what and I just didn't feel like doing nail art.  But with these I could have pretty nails and no back breaking labor!

First I have Top Down, Volume Up,  a colourful abstract design.  Two things I LOVED about this. 1)While there is a lot going on in the design it works perfectly without being obnoxious.  2)In the past I have seen nail wraps with fantastic designs, but were ruined by the fact that it looked like an old printer running out of ink printed them.  These do not :)

Each pack contains 2 sheets with 22 wraps(so 44 in total...MATH!)  You could use these 3 or 4 times as full manis.  Not bad eh?  Each pack also comes with a NCLA nail file.  All the instructions are on the back.  5 simple steps. I followed most of these steps.

The nails cleaning went dandy, and I used a coat of base coat.  The sizing is where I hit my one snag.  My fingers are long and narrow so out of the 22 wraps only 4 fit my fingers(ring and middle) without modifications.  The rest I had to trim because they were too big or in one case was too round for the base of my thumb nail.  This was easy to do.  As they aren't custom made for one person, I would rather have them too big than too small.  Next don't worry if your placement is off, these are resilient. You can peel them off and place them again.  I did this to my pinky finger maybe 10 times and it didn't get any less sticky(but it's probably best you do it less then 10 times :P).  Then I squished out all the air using my fingers.  Next I filed off the excess in a downward motion, and made sure the tip was perfectly flat by pressing down again.  Finally I made sure to wrap the tips, and added 2 coats of top coat.  I always add 2 coats when I place something that isn't polish on my nails.

 Light box.  The rest are natural light.

 Only photo of my thumb.

So far I love these.  It's a great way of having fantastic nail art but not have to do any of it.  Also it was super easy to use and really hard to screw up.  I can not wait to use them again!  Stay tuned for my second part to this post later this week!

What are your thoughts on nail wraps?  Have used used these, or any kind of nail wraps?  What did you think?  This is a safe place to speak your mind :)

If you would like some you can head on over to Nail Polish Canada.  Each pack retails for $16.00 CND.  And shipping on these is free!

*Product was sent for honest review.

Everyone sit down please. I'm going to tell you the tale of the most amazing glow in the dark polish your vision spheres have ever seen.

Normally I'm not a fan of glow in the dark polishes.  When I think of glow in the dark polishes I think of colours that have that glow in the dark...look.  Know what I mean?  Generally a neon colour that kind of has a milky look to it.  That look.  I'm not a huge fan of that. Which is was a was drawn to this beauty on the Born Pretty Store website.  Bk Candy Color Fluorescent Neon Luminous Nail Art Polish in #41.

First, it's nothing like any glow in the dark polish I've ever seen.  It's a STUNNING champagne shimmer.  I used 3 thin coats but you can get away with 2.  Wore her in the sunlight and she was sparkling like mad.  Then indoors after placing my hands under light, I turned them off admiring the bright green glow.  It was like my nails were independently dancing.  I really want to try nail art on these.

I should also add this polish smells...sweet.  I looked at the website and I can't find anywhere that says it's scented but I swear it has a perfume smell to it.  Not only in the bottle but my nails smelt the whole time.

I think it's great how most of this collection are actual colours.  They have everything from sky blue to a deep red.  Colours you could wear during the day and no one would ever guess it was glow in the dark.

I LOVE this polish.  It's like a lady leading two lives.  By day she's a classy, put together, elegant woman.  And by night she's pounding back shots of whiskey at the club, and could care less that the knees of her stockings are torn.

If you want 1 or all 41 bottle head over to the BPS and get them before I do.  They retail for 4.99USD.  And don't forget to use our 10% discount code(EAL91)!  And remember free shipping worldwide!!! 

Product was sent for honest review.

Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na Batman? Ft. Essence Black is Back

Happy Mothers Day guys!  I hope you all had a splendid day no mater how you spent it!

Before we move on to Batman I want to start by talking a bit about Essence Black is Back.  First of all those of you wondering where black had gone fear not it is back.  Second, I have been in search of a new black for a while as my OPI Onyx is lacking.  So I decided to give this a go.  It was cheap, what the hell.  Formula was...ehhhhh...ok but it started to coagulate.  I used 1 medium coat and 1 thin coat and it bubble quite a bit(which is my biggest complaint) but they were small enough for the top coat to cover it.  Long story short I'm still on the hunt for the perfect black.  Suggestions?

Next up I decided to add a bit of flair.  I took inspiration from a little game on my iPhone I have been playing for the past few days.  Draw Something.  For those of you who don't know what the game is you get 3 words and you need to choose one and draw it for the person you are playing with.  Each word is worth more or less points depending on how hard it is to draw.  Now there are people who play and are unnaturally amazing.

I suck.

But because I suck my pictures turn into magical, hilarious doodles.  I want to frame every one of them. Or draw them on my nails.  This right here is Batman.

These are my nails.

Nailed it.

What Time Is It?

TIME FOR OUR 300TH POST!

I have something really fun for you today! I'm sure many of you are great fans of Adventure Time. Recently, Kas tipped me off that Hot Topic was selling Adventure Time nail polish sets and I had to get my hands on them! Unfortunately, I only found the Finn and Jake set…the Bubblegum/Lumpy Space Princess set had sold out! These originally retailed for $14.50, but they were half off by the time I got there.

Finn is a true blue cream that looked great in 2 coats. Jake is green-leaning yellow crelly, 3 coats mostly eliminated VNL. They dried quite fast. No topcoat here.

I added Cover Bands Sticks and Stones to my index and middle fingers. Mathematical!

You can find these online and in Hot Topic stores. Looks like they won't be there much longer!

ETA: I forgot to show you the bottles, so here's a quick picture before I run off to school:

And the winner is... *drum roll*

First of all thank you all for entering!  It's nice to see so many people who love reading! So long story short we got over 50 entries(amazing guys) and we(George, Kas and Robyn) read them all and cut it down to 9 for Amy to read.  Then she choose a winner and runners up(just in case something happened and we needed a new winner).  So who is the winner you ask?

Onemused - Jackaroo polish!!!

 

 Onemused(aka Olivia) will have 24 hours to respond!

And then for runners up

Jen - Hobbit polish based on Smaug
Thea Adam - Tiffany Aching polish

And now a message from Amy:

Honestly I would love to make all three of these! The rest of the ideas were awesome too, it was truly difficult to choose.

I ultimately chose Onemused as the winner because I love the book, Jackaroo by Cynthia Voight, and the polish sounds like the most interesting challenge to me, a gold/green duochrome holo. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for the last few days, actually, and I already bought Jackaroo for my Kindle to re-read it.

Thank you to everyone for your beautiful, creative ideas!

Amy

Note: Sorry I meant to post this yesterday but I got home late and could barely keep my eyes open. - Kas

Ps.  In case you were curious these were the top 9(in alphabetical order):

Behappyandbuypolish
Caro Dee
Iroshi Windwalker
Jen
Jen Sky Walker
noxy minogue
Onemused
Rainbowify Me
Thea Adam

Congrats to all of you and everyone else who entered! Hope to see you for our next giveaway!