Blerg.

Maybe it's me, maybe it was the product, but this manicure was frustrating.

Today I have the liquid latex tape from Born Pretty Store. If you don't know what that is it's liquid latex that you place around your nails to make clean up easier. The first thing I noticed about this product was the smell. It smelt EXACTLY like lemon Pine-Sol which was a bit unsettling because I couldn't find an ingredients list on the bottle or the website.

ETA: When they read my post they immediately sent me a list of ingredients :) The only thing in it that is potentially "harmful" is the latex if you have an allergy.

  Applying it was easy, but unlike some other brands specifically meant for nails that change colour as they dry, this one looks exactly the same from the minute you put it on till the minute it dries.

For the review I did the most annoying manicure to clean up. The watermarble. Now I've actually tried this 3 time. The first time I did it with the watermarble and I only ended up using it on 2 fingers because removal was such a pain. It pretty much just came off in small pieces, slowly. The second time I did a thicker coat on a few fingers w.o even doing a manicure, just to play with it, and removal was fine and for the most part peeled off in one piece. So when I did this manicure I took note and did a thicker coat. It again was a pain to get off despite the fact that I did a thick coat. It would have taken me less time to take off the polish from around my fingers with a cotton swab. On the bright side I did love my manicure in the end.

Honestly I wasn't a fan of this product, but maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I'll give it another go because it seems to work for the other people on their site and it worked fine when there was no polish on it. It would be fab if I could get this to work. If you would like to give this a try you can find it here currently on sale for $2.99 USD. In addition you can use our 10% discount code 'EAL91'

Have you used this? Did it work for you?

Ps. This manicure was inspired by what's left of the boys of Take That and one of their outfits from their recent III tour.  I used Joe Fresh polish in Bloom, Sinful Colors Amazon and Sally Hansen Pacific Blue(Old version) and topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust.

:D

 

*Product sent for honest review

A-Z Challenge - Inspired: Tonight, we gotta live for, we gotta live for, these days! + 500th POST!!!

So after a break I didn't forget to do the A-Z Challenge, I was just really tired yesterday and made an executive decision not to do my nails.

I've had quite the week. Remember how I said this year I was going to do more performing and whatnot? Well this week I did 2 shows and 1 audition :) And in an effort to motivate myself I have decided that for every show, or audition I do, I will have a chocolate from my tin of Quality Street chocolate. And that is the only time I can have those chocolates! Huzzah! Also this is Varnished Valkyrie's 500th post! Double Huzzah!

Back to nails! My inspiration today is my favourite boy band in the history of everything, Take That, and the outfits they wore when they performed their first single 'These Days' on the X Factor in November. As well as their logo, and the number III(Which is the name of their new album, because now there is only 3 of them). And you know what? While I do miss Jason and dynamic he brought to the group, TT3 is growing on me. It's a slightly different dynamic, but different doesn't have to be bad.

All I used for this manicure was Orly Liquid Vinyl and white acrylic paint.

 

Who here loves Take That? Or am I the only one here :(

Take That - These Days (X Factor performance 23... by ilabarlowed

Check out more fab A-Z Challenge manicures!

An InLinkz Link-up

Random Wednesday: Let's do MATH! (Don't worry it's nail polish math)

The is is regards to the post I did with 53 coats of polish.  Or as I like to call it my claim to fame.

For people who are saying that’s a waste of polish let’s do some math.

Let’s say the average bottle of polish gives you 17 full manicures.  2 coats a manicure.  So every time you do a manicure you use 20 coats total.  So this would have used just over 2 manicures worth.  Let’s just round it up to 3 for fun and to make the math easier.

The average price of the polishes I used were probably $9.  But I’ll bump it to $12 because of the Chanel.

Now if we divide $12 by 17 we get $0.71 a manicure.  Therefore 0.71 x 3 = 2.13

I wasted under $2.13 on this magic.

ETA: Apparently the math is more like $7 something.  But either way my average is actually too high and I said I used more coats then I actually did just so it wouldn't be 2.blahblahblah coats.  So I spent like $5 on this. Oh noes.

*I am not yet a certified mathematician, math wizard or math oracle.

** This is post 234

Ripping Out My Wisdom One Tooth At A Time

So I'm getting all four of my wisdom teeth pulled today!  Huzzah!  While I'm not looking forward to the next few days I'm excited because, if it means no more constant pain I'm all in!

Anyways I couldn't decided what I wanted to do so both my hands are worlds apart (and I don't care). 

I guess my right hand is Halloween/teeth themed.  Each finger was originally going to be a bloody mouth.  But after I did the splatter I decided to leave it as it is.  They still kinda look like individual bloody teeth right?  It also doubles as general murder blood splatter. Double duty nails!  Also after I did the blood splatter (which as you guessed is a tad messy) I looked at my thumb and there was a smiley face on it.  Cool, or creepy?

 

Next up on my left hand I have my Take That nails.  Each nail represents a different song in some shape or form(Lyrics, music videos, tours). The songs are (T-P) Fun Times, Blurred Vision, Crossing, Innuendo, Higher Than Me. I really liked this mani so I had to post three photos of it.  Well that's sort of a lie.  I think the nails are ok.  The reason I posted it three times was for the surprise giveaway so you can see some of the nails better.  First off all the song titles I listed aren't real. I made them up.  If someone can tell me the real songs in the comment section you'll get your choice of any polish off ninja polish dot com. This is open internationally for the most part.  You know minus places that have rules against shipping polish.  Finally it closes at eleven fifty nine eastern standard time on Thursday night.

So I'll see you guys in a couple days!  Wish me luck!

Take That Part 2

This post was inevitable.  And in case you didn't know I have a mild love for Take That.

I got my inspiration from Take That Presents:  The Circus Live.

This is my right hand.  I'm surprised by how much I like it. 

 

My right hand is based on the Clown Medley.  At first I did colourful french manis in the colours of their hats.  But it didn't look all that interesting to be honest.  So I did it again and used the colours of their hats but used dots instead.  And my thumb is their jacket/pants. The horizontal lines look kind of shaky.  I find they are much harder to do than vertical for some reason.

 

Mark, Jason, Gary, Howard :D, (Robbie had yet to rejoin the band at this point).  Now you can fill out the Take That question in our giveaway!

If you want to know what colours I use feel free to ask.  I would put them but I don't remember all of the right now.

So I'm going to go now.  I had too much to drink last night.  But I'll leave you with the the Clown Medley, and a BIG yay for all our new followers.  Almost 200! Anyhoo...I sleep now.

Take That Inspired Nails

So I'm not sure if you've figured this out yet but I sort of like boy/man bands.  Especially Howard Donald of Take That.  Anyhoo I've been wanting to do this mani for a while now and I noticed this competition going on over at More Nail Polish.  And even though I know I probably wont win I figured I might as well do this now.

I began with Nailene's French Manicure polish as a base.  And I let it dry completely. I like using it as normal polish because it's such a pigmented nude and it goes on like a dream.

Next I knew when I did music nails I wanted to have actual music on them.  Now I've seen music nails before but most of them consist of like 3 lines and random notes.  Which I get is cute but the music nerd in me could not do that.  I needed the whole staff, the treble clef, the key signature, the whole party.

I actually did this a few times.  At first I tried a striping pen.  But unless you have really long nails or can do uber skinny lines it's super difficult. Next I contemplated using some string of sorts, but that proved tricky as hell to get it exactly how you wanted it.

Finally I found something that worked. A rollerball pen. Now here's where the matte comes in. I mattified my nails so they were easier to draw on.  Then with Rembrandt's guiding hand I freehanded the whole thing.  When I was done I finished it with a coat of topcoat.

In case you didn't know I used their classic song "Back For Good". If you haven't heard it before I suggest you go listen to it.

Close up of the treble clef and key signature.

What I used

The only thing that kind of irks me about this manicure is it's missing rests :/ Oh well I will be doing this again for sure!... Both musical manis and Take That manis :D 

OPI Black Onyx

So I love OPI.  Great formula, stellar brushes, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I hate this polish.

Back Onyx is a black, cream.  In the photos I used 2 coats.  It went on smoothly and everything.  It's probably because since I have had it I've used up most of my polish thinner in it.  90% of the time this is a goopy mess.  I make sure to close it properly, it's always standing upright.  And I've seen reviews saying this is amazing.  And you know what? Maybe it is and I just got a jacked up bottle.  *Sigh* I may give it another go because I do like OPI a lot.

There was far to much negativity in this post. Let's negate that with a picture of Take That's Howard Donald!!! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D