NOTD: Snow

Well, we didn't have a white Christmas this year, but today I created a snowy manicure with Whitehall from the London collection of indie polish maker charme.

NOTD: Christmas Trees

Merry Christmas!

Today, I did a fun jelly sandwich with essie Waltz and a no name red glitter polish, topped with Christmas tree glitter I received with an order from Etsy indie polish maker Super Nails.

NOTD: Snowman Manicure

Today, I have a fun snowman manicure! I got some great Christmas glitter with a recent purchase from Super Nails on Etsy. I separated out the snowmen and mixed them with white hex and red dot glitter for a fun Christmas glitter. The base coat is an unnamed frosty green OOAK that I got from Leesha's Lacquer, also on Etsy.

PSA: Zoya PixieDust BOGO

So, apparently Zoya is discontinuing their PixieDust line. This makes me really sad! These textured beauties have better staying power than regular nail polishes for me. In any case, now's the time to stock up, as they are having a BOGO sale.

Review: Seche Vite

 

Seche Vite is my current go-to top coat. It is closer to perfect than Orly Bonder, but it still is not perfect.

Seche Vite is a dry fast top coat, and I would agree that it is pretty speedy. My nails are dry to the touch within minutes and seem to be totally dry within an hour. I wish there was a magical top coat that enabled me to paint my nails and then immediately move on with my life, but I haven't found that product just yet.

One nice thing about Seche Vite is its great shine. It really seems to add something to my manicure, which is especially great if you are using glitter.

I still get chips and tip wear with Seche Vite. I have to blame that on my body chemistry.

Review: Orly Bonder

As I've written before, I am in search of the perfect base coat that will hold onto my nail polish for dear life, despite my apparently weird body chemistry. I haven't found it yet. Today, I'm reviewing Orly Bonder, which is my usual go-to base coat. However, Orly Bonder is far from perfect.


Orly Bonder is a rubberized base coat, which is supposed to help the polish adhere to the nail. I can't attest to the science behind it, but polish adheres relatively well. Some nail bloggers rave about Orly Bonder, but my polish always chips within a day. I can't ding Orly Bonder too much for that, since my experience with Orly Bonder is no different than my experience with other base coats. In fact, on this count, Orly Bonder works a little better than other base coats I've tried.

I also like the bottle and brush for Orly Bonder. The bottle has a big rubberized cap that is easy to hold onto for even a nail polish novice like me. The bottle is large and made of pretty frosted glass. I'm looking forward to using this bottle for a frankenpolish when it's empty. Orly Bonder is orange in the bottle but applies clear on the nail. I also liked the self-leveling that I got from Orly Bonder.

The allure of nail polish

Prior to June of this year, with the exception of summer pedicures, I had probably painted my nails a handful of times in the past five years. Since June, I have purchased (and created!) literally hundreds of bottles of nail polish. My stash has gone from miniscule to "do I need a Helmer?" in the space of just a few months. What gives?

Individually, a bottle of nail polish is an affordable luxury. I have never spent more than $10.00 for a bottle of nail polish. And there's nothing like opening a package and discovering it's my Etsy haul, with a new one of a kind bonus polish! There are so many beautiful colors. Sometimes I can't help but think, "my life would just be so much better if I had that *perfect* color for my nails." But, collectively, my purchases have crossed the line from "affordable" and something that can bring a little color to my life into territory verging on

Review: Zoya Remove Plus

So, I'd like to develop this into a nail polish blog of sorts, but I don't quite have the skills to pull off acceptable looking swatches. Therefore, for my first review, I decided to review something that doesn't require swatching, which is nail polish remover.

Zoya sent me a two-ounce sample of its nail polish remover, Remove Plus, with my Black Friday/Cyber Monday order. Remove Plus is a three-in-one formula that "removes old polish, cleans nails and preps for new polish." Cleaning nails and preparing for new polish is helpful for someone like me with a weird body chemistry, as I may have a pH imbalance or oily nails. I've heard good things about Remove Plus's gentle formula, so this morning I tried it out for myself.

I have to say that I was disappointed by Remove Plus. I'm used to using pure acetone to remove my nail polish, so this gentle three-in-one formula isn't nearly as powerful as what I'm used to. But it did handle glitter removal fairly well. I had to use three cotton balls instead of my usual one or two.



The most off-putting thing about Remove Plus was the fragrance, which was a little sickly sweet for my taste. Zoya is known for being green, so it's interesting to me that they would add fragrance to their product. When I swab chemicals on my nails, I expect it to smell like those chemicals, not roses.

Unfortunately, the three-in-one formula was not the magic solution to my quick-chipping manicures that I am searching for. My next manicure chipped basically right away, even with base and top coat. I do use nail prep products of my nails before painting them, so it was nice to save a step.

Want to try Remove Plus for yourself? Zoya often sends out a free two-ounce sample with orders over a certain dollar amount on their web site. Alternatively, they sell the two-ounce bottles for $4.60, which isn't a huge investment to see if you like it. If your least favorite part about removing nail polish is the smell, perhaps you will like the scent of Remove Plus. On the other hand, you could buy at least sixteen ounces of pure acetone at the drugstore for that amount! Therefore, this beauty lover is going to stick to the acetone.

Patience

I have to admit that sometimes I struggle with patience. But it's something that I work on.

The other night, I had to go to the emergency room. I went right after work, and it was absolutely packed. Even people who looked really sick had to wait hours and hours to be seen. Some people started yelling at the employees at the front desk and the triage nurse about the wait, even though there was quite literally nothing that these people could do to speed up the process, as there were simply no available beds in the ER. It made me so mad to see people take out their frustration on people who were just trying to do their jobs. Frankly, I've been to a number of ERs quite a bit over the past year, and I didn't even think the waits were *that* ridiculous. To a certain extent, you have to know what you are getting into when you head to a place like an ER and prepare yourself for all that might entail.

For some reason, our society doesn't seem to value patience as much as it used to. In this digital age, we all expect instant results, which aren't always possible. A little bit of patience can go a long way.

In any case, at least now we have smartphones to distract us in waiting rooms!

Glitter!

As I wrote yesterday, painting my nails has become my new hobby. What is my favorite shade? Anything sparkly! I may be nearly 27, but I don't see anything wrong with glitter nail polish at my age or any age. Life's too short not to enjoy it! Glitter makes me happy, so I wear it. End of story.


I've even gone so far as to make a few of my own glitter polishes, or "frankenpolishes." It's been a lot of fun to get the creative juices flowing! I've also become somewhat addicted to indie nail polish brands. They have amazing glitter creations that I could only dream of making myself. Etsy is my new happy place.

Of course, there are limits to glitter. I'm an attorney, and it's very important to look professional at times. I would never wear anything but the most neutral nail polish to court. But there is a time and place for everything, and I currently work in a casual office where I am comfortable wearing certain kinds of glitter nail polish depending on my schedule for the day. Of course, I keep a stash of nail polish remover pads in my desk in case something comes up.

Speaking of which, the only downside to glitter nail polish is that it's a pain to remove. But wiping down my nails with pads soaked in pure acetone is a necessary evil. As Jackie from the Real Housewives of Melbourne would say, shine shine shine!

Spurned lacquer lover

Is anyone else terrible at painting their nails? I ask because I've spent much of the past three months recuperating from knee surgery, and painting my nails has become a creative outlet for me. Only problem? I'm just not very good at it!

Actually, that's not the only problem. I can live with having nail polish on my cuticles and elsewhere on my skin. But, 95 percent of the time, my nail polish chips within 24 hours! I have tried all different kinds of base and top coats (and am not using cheap polish), but I am incredibly prone to chips, even with professional manicures. I continue to experiment with different base and top coats, but the internet suggests that my "body chemistry" may make it harder for polish to adhere to my nails. It's just my luck that the addictive hobby I turn to in an attempt to forget about my body's problems can't work properly because of my body! I mean, what?

But, of course, I'm not going to give up! I guess I'll just have to give myself daily manicures.