Jamberry Nail Wrap Review & China Glaze Sun of a Peach

This post is long overdue, but here I am, ready and willing to give my full report on my only experience with Jamberry Nail Wraps.

If you haven't heard of it, the concept is similar to the full coverage nail stickers (Sally Hansen, Revlon, etc.), except that these are vinyl and are applied with heat. They're said to last way longer and generally be of better quality. I got a free sample from a friend-of-a-friend, and although the concept really didn't interest me I thought I would give it a shot.

I was sent two different samples, Funky Cheetah and Pickled Paisley. I paired them with China Glaze Sun of a Peach (one of my favourite summer colours).

Funky Cheetah

Pickled Paisley

My first thought was: wow, what a pain to apply. You have to take a hair dryer and hold it up to the wrap while the vinyl heats up, then apply it to the nail with an orange stick, file it down, and heat it again. This process annoyed me enough with only two nails to do, let alone ten. I also have very sensitive hands to cold and heat, so the second round of heat was a little much for me to handle.

Once the two wraps were on though they did look incredible, I'll give them that.

Fast forward 7 days.

Now you can see here that the wraps still look like the first day I applied them, and the nail polish is quite chipped. If you were someone who didn't feel confident with polish and wanted something long lasting, and didn't want to spend $30-40 at a salon, I would recommend these wholeheartedly. They'd also be potentially great for someone who doesn't want to risk ruining their nails while waiting for them to dry.

That being said, If you're someone like me who loves changing her polish every 3-4 days, and doesn't mind actually painting her own nails, I would pass on these. At $15 each I can't really see it being affordable for me, and it's way beyond the effort I'm willing to put in. At least with regular nail polish I can be at my computer or watching TV while I apply. The nail wraps are limiting because the dryer is loud and it's a pretty involved process.

So there you have it, they look excellent and they're durable, but they just aren't suitable for someone like me.

Easter Nails - Pastel Stripes

Happy Easter! For today I did a fun pastel rainbow using some colours I rarely even look at any other time of the year. I didn't bother using tape to make these lines perfect, handmade Easter eggs rarely are! Well, mine aren't anyway.

Pink: Revlon Peach Petal
Yellow: China Glaze Lemon Fizz
Green: OPI Gargantuan Green Grape
Blue: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Blue-Away
Purple: OPI Planks A Lot

Because these shades are so light I needed three coats of each (except the Blue, but I did it anyway), which was simple enough but fairly time consuming. When looked at in the shade they really POP, it's fabulous! There's definitely a part of me that has a soft spot for rainbows. Don't tell anyone.

xox

Essie Penny Talk

Again with the soft tones, I seem to be really loving the more delicate side of nail polish these days.
This is the polish I went looking for when I picked up No Place Like Chrome from the Mirror Metallics collection, and I thought I'd missed it but the store had restocked when I passed by this weekend.

I must say though, I'm not liking it at much as it's silver counterpart. The formula is really difficult to work with. Every bump, quiver, and hesitation is noticed by this polish. I have small dents on my nails right now and this finish really accentuates them. Maybe next time I'll use a ridge filling base coat. The colour itself is beautiful though, I can't deny that... but a crummy formula can really make or break loving a lacquer.

To be fair, I was hungover while doing this manicure so maybe that has something to do with it.

This is in direct sunlight.

Here we are with other metallic looking things. See the dents? Going back over the same spot with this polish was next to impossible. It left streaky, uneven splotches all over the place! Rose gold is quite a trendy colour right now so if you must get this I totally understand, just be wary of the questionable formula.

Essie Camera

Once again the busy-ness of life is starting to grab hold of me and I haven't had a chance to photograph my nails these days. However, I have something from the spring to share. Essie Camera is a really bright reddish pink that reminds me somewhat of China Glaze Rose Among Thorns. Except I like it more (shhh).

This photo came from my phone and the clarity is actually quite impressive! Could it be my phone cam is better than my standalone one? Gosh.

It was so bright and striking, though I must admit I picked it up anticipating it to lean more pink than red. This being said, I tend to buy pinks and then hate them, whereas I LOVED this one so maybe (probably) it was for the best.

Since the daylight these days is LIMITED at best, I'll be putting some more phone pics as I go along, how does that sound?

China Glaze Champagne Kisses over Orly Powder Puff

With all the Halloween excitement I really needed a soft, gentle, palate cleansing nail polish. It's almost like I needed a bit of a breather from all the  high-octane manicure I've been doing lately. I wanted something simple and unassuming, so I reached for Orly Powder Puff. Normally this isn't a colour I would wear, but this summer I was really enjoying soft, muted tones.

I stopped in at Sally Beauty and Trade Secrets and grabbed some holiday polish. The first on my list was from the China Glaze Holiday Joy collection: Champagne Kisses. It's a clear polish with mall rose-gold glitter. I figured even though it was sparkly it wasn't too flashy and would look pretty over Powder Puff!

In direct sunlight

This is three coats of Powder Puff and one coat of Champagne Kisses.

I love this one. The shimmer is so delicate.

In the shade

This is definitely a switch from what I'd been posting lately and I really needed it! Enjoy your Saturday everyone :)

Valentine's Day Water Marble

The original intention was to take better photos of this mani before posting it, I don't like the fact that I'm just holding my phone, but it ended up getting pretty chipped with all the baking and crafting I've been doing for Valentine's Day so alas, if you want to see the mani this will have to do. I took these photos while waiting for the cupcakes to cool and haven't had a moment since to do anything a little more suitable.

Ultimately, I'm not normally a fan of Valentine's Day but I can't help but get into the excitement over just about any holiday. For this water marble I used Sally Hansen White On as the base and marbled with the same, along with OPI Charged Up Cherry and OPI Flower-to-Flower.

Oooh look, a little while later with the cupcake!

*gobbles*

Happy Valentine's Day to all you lovers out there! ^-^

Apologies and past NOTD - Hard Candy Beetle

First off, allow me to state that I should be renaming this blog to "Lisa's Blog of Neglect" because, if you hadn't noticed, I haven't actually posted since September. To all my followers: Thank you for sticking around, I promise I will keep up to date as much as I can from here on end.

That being said, it's not as though I haven't been photographing my nails to show you (eventually), so tonight is the night where I'm going to flood the internet with past NOTDs. Expect about five posts (including this one) to trickle through as the hours pass. I would put them all in one post but I feel that separating them will not only make cataloging them a lot easier, but also finding them again will be too.

This polish comes to me with a wonderful story. I frequent a nail polish board and a lovely lady named Tyra had posted a photo of her nails sporting Beetle by Hard Candy. I love, love, love that polish and was unable to get it in Canada (ridiculous) and it was driving me batty. She messaged me saying that she was willing to go to Walmart and buy it for me, free of charge and  no expectations of me sending her something in return! Of course I absolutely had to send her something for her generosity and kindness, but if that's not good karma I don't know what is.

What a sweet lady! I didn't get the chance to photograph it at the start of wearing it, but I managed to take some pictures a few days in. Very noticeable tipwear, but I hope you'll at least get an idea of why I wanted it so badly.

This is such a spectacular multi-chrome! You've got purple, you've got gold, you've got copper, sometimes you've got some green, sometimes you've got some pink, and sometimes you've got brown. Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. 

The world never ceases to amaze me, and on occasion it's in a good way. Thank you Tyra! 

NOTD: OPI Designer Series Amethyst

EDITED :

Here's a more recent picture of OPI Designer Series (OPI DS) Amethyst. I can't help but want to photograph this beautiful polish when I wear it. The holo is so magnificent in the sun, but at work under the fluorescent lights it's very blah and greyish.

This is naturally lit, indoors. See below for older pictures~!

June 11 2013 

______________________________________________________________________

This is one of the two holographic polishes that I own, the other one being OPI DS Glamour. I got them at the same dusty (nail salon where you can find old or hard to find polishes for sale) but since pink is definitely not my favourite colour it took a lot longer to give this puppy a try.

After yesterday's fiasco I wanted to wear a vampy red, but seeing everyone's swatches on the (new) nail board of their holographic polish and it being a beautiful sunny day here in Ottawa I figured it was time to finally give dear ol' Amethyst a shot.

I'm so happy I did. Holographic polish is a bottle full of rainbows and happiness. I need more, stat.

Enlarge these photos to get an even better view!

Ooohhh

Ahhhhh...

Look at that bottle!

Still pretty, even in the shade

Enlarge this one. Seriously.

Isn't it wonderful?!

This was three coats with a regular base coat (not Aquabase, which is supposedly good for making holos even more holo-y) and no top coat. It was a surprisingly liquid formula so watch out for cuticle flooding!

NOTD: Pride Nails with Black Shatter

Yesterday was Ottawa's Pride parade! I didn't get a chance to actually go, but I did help a local organization prep beforehand by... body painting the parade participants! How much fun is that?
I did this mani the night before (Saturday night) and I've gotta tell you, it's a lot more difficult when you're downing something stronger than your average grape juice ;)

I accomplished this look by applying a base coat of white as undies, then layering the neons into a rainbow so they just slightly overlap and blend. I'm a little disappointed that the pink turned more red/orange, but I've gotten a bazillion compliments on them so I guess it's no harm done.

I originally wanted to do an animal print on top instead of the shatter but the rainbow didn't blend as nicely as I'd hoped and the shatter covered more imperfections. Forgive the quality of the clean-up in this photo, intoxication leads to sloppiness. My lesson has been learned. :P

Kinda neat huh? Reminds me a lot of this mani I did a few months ago.

The colours I used were China Glaze Rose Among Thorns, China Glaze Sun Worshipper, China Glaze  Celtic Sun, Claire's Lime Yours, Claire's Marine Blue and OPI Black Shatter.

NOTD: OPI It's My Year

I set out looking for this little lady a couple of weeks ago, only to find her sold out at my regular spots. This is the only one from the collection that I actually wanted (it's from the Miss Universe collection) but I wanted it bad. By chance I came across a salon and found the very last bottle buried in a bin at the end of the counter. What luck! I know it's not very close, and definitely not a dupe, but this polish is helping me quash my MAC Bad Fairy lemming just a bit. It has a purple base and flashes with bronzey/gold/pink shimmer.

It went on beautifully and was supremely easy to control. I do feel like it will look a little bit better on me once my tan fades a bit, at the moment the gold flashes are blending with my skin tone a bit too much for comfort.

NOTD: China Glaze Rose Among Thorns

I got this bad boy in a swap with Ali and I do not regret it one bit. It's bold, bright and perfect for my skin. If it was too orange it would have clashed horribly with my tone (I can only wear Sun Worshipper on my toes) but this pulls much more on the pink side.

I used 4 coats, no underwear. There's still a VNL (visible nail line) which is driving me a little mad, so next time around .. undies it is!

Cameras have a way of gobbling up all the neon wonder of a polish, so I took another picture that made my skin look atrocious, but it kind of points out the intensity of the colour.

I really need a kick ass camera. Nonetheless, this polish simply screams my name and I adore it. <3

NOTD: OPI Guy Meets Gal-Veston (& my other Texas collection swatches)

I finally got around to putting this nail polish on! I have three from OPI's Texas collection - Don't Mess With OPI, Y'All Come Back Ya Hear? and Guy Meets Gal-veston. The latter two my dear boyfriend actually got me for Valentine's day. It's taken me a while to get around to using GMG on its own, I haven't been feeling too pink lately... or too jelly, as a matter of fact.

So here it is, Guy Meets Gal-veston.

So juicy looking! I love jellies. This collection marked my first time using them, and I just can't get enough. (This was 4 coats, by the way)
Here is Y'All Come Back Ya Hear?

I never thought I would love an orange polish as much as this one! After a couple of days of wear, I added a layer of GMG on top. The colour turned into a juicy, fruity, tropical papaya shade.

I didn't realize my fingernails could look so delicious.
And to complete my bit of the collection, here's a swatch of Don't Mess With OPI.

I love this green, it's such a beautiful shade and the formula is awesome. I'm happy I decided to go with this one instead of Jade is the New Black (one of OPI's staples), I prefer the richer green tones than the blue-ish that lends itself to JitNB.

These polishes are still available for purchase in most stores too (probably until the Pirates of the Caribbean collection comes out in May), go out and grab these if you haven't yet!