Brain Cancer Awareness Nails

CW: cancer, death

My father passed away on September 1, 2020. He had been diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive form of brain cancer, in April of this year. 

OPI Skyfall and Goldeneye

Happy Christmas Eve! What's everyone's plans for tonight? My family is planning on making pizza (our yearly tradition) and watching holiday specials.

Today's mani is brought to you by two cult fave OPI polishes. Both come from the James Bond Skyfall collection back in 2012!

Creative Cuticles Take Chances. Make Mistakes. Get Messy.

December is a muggy month in my neck of the woods. Lots of muck on the ground after the latest downpour(s). Snow would be an improvement. This latest mani isn't the most festive but I appreciate the rainbow this polish provides.

JReine Lagniappe over OPI My Twin Joey

Who's already set up their lights and/or tree? Congrats, you're faster than my family. My dad is currently out setting up some lights and I'm about to make some room for the tree after writing this. Christmastime is finally here!

As it's finally getting more festive here, I decided that I didn't want to go with a simple creme polish like I've been wearing lately. Not just holo, either. We're gonna get showered by some Unicorn Pee in this joint!

Halloween Colors ft Colores de Carol's Don't Look Behind You!

As I mentioned in my September Polish Pickup haul post, Colores de Carol's Don't Look Behind You! has a lot of layering potential. Halloween is next week so a holiday color mani was inevitable!

Magica de Spell nails

I'm always waffling between whether or not Magica de Spell or Flintheart Glomgold is my favorite Disney Duck villain. Probably Flintheart. But Magica's a super close second. Both are awesome.

OPI Mrs O'Leary's BBQ

Another simple weekend mani. Cremes are wonderful for that. I've worn OPI cremes countless times before, but this is my first time using their Infinite Shine line. Probably fitting that I'm wearing a popular shade like Mrs O'Leary's BBQ as my first.

Goosebumps Monster Blood

Being a 90s kid, Goosebumps was absolutely part of my childhood. The iconic book covers creeped me out, the famous TV show theme song haunted my ears, and there was a year where I read almost exclusively Goosebumps during DEAR time at school. You bet I watched that Jack Black movie that came out a few years ago. It was a nostalgia gold mine. Now that that movie is getting a sequel that's debuting this weekend, why not get covered in Monster Blood?

Chikorita Nails for Community Day

Today's the Autumn Equinox in the northern hemisphere, which means that Fall is officially here! Now it just needs to get colder...

Anyone play Pokemon Go? Every month the game hosts a "Community Day" around a certain pokemon which includes all sorts of bonuses from increased shiny drop rates to exclusive moves. This month's Community Day is for Chikorita. Gen II is my favorite game wise, and Chikorita was my starter in both Silver and Crystal. It was only natural that I wanted to do a mani for it.

OPI Peru Sally Beauty Exclusives Swatches and Reviews

Greetings, y'all! I managed to grab all three of the Sally Beauty Supply exclusives for OPI's Fall Peru collection. It took a couple minutes of finding these because my nearest Sally's did not have a collection display and just put them in with the core collection OPIs. But found them I did. Stay tuned at the end for comparisons!

(BTW, if you want to see my post for the ULTA exclusives for this collection, click here.)

Team Rocket Nails

I figured that since I recently did a Pokemon mani, why not do another? Last time was Pikachu and pokeballs. This time is inspired by everyone's favorite band of wannabe Pika-nappers, Team Rocket!

Pokemon Nail Art ft OPI Hello Kitty polishes

Still on that nail art kick. I've always wanted to do a Pokemon mani or two, and finally got around to doing one this weekend.

Stamping Mani: Wheat ft KBShimmer You Dew You over Virago Varnish Bloody Mary

I'm on a nail art kick right now. I just want to do all the nail stamping and freehand. Of course, with my luck most of my ideas are more appropriate for October. However, today I have the first fall mani I've done this year. It's a tweak of a mani I did last fall.

Nail Art Ft Cirque Colors Socialite and Crystal Tokyo

I follow color seasons for the most part. I'm currently in a transitional period where now that it's September, I want to do more autumn based manis now, but it's warm enough that I still want to do summery ones. For my first mani of the week, I decided to wear my untried Cirque Colors Socialite since it's a bright neon pink. It's cute, but felt too plain. It was super late in the evening when I painted my nails and I wasn't up to stamping or gradients. (That, or the design ideas I had were more appropriate for Valentine's Day.) That's when glitter toppers are your friend. It's definitely the easiest way to "bling up" a mani. Swipe and done. I decided to see what Crystal Tokyo, also from Cirque, looked like over it.

OPI Peru ULTA Exclusives swatches and reviews

Greetings, y'all! Today I have all three of OPI's Ulta exclusives for its Fall 2018 Peru collection.

(BTW, if you'd like to read my reviews on the Sally exclusives for this collection, click here.)

Like others online I was originally unimpressed with the Peru collection. The colors didn't gravitate towards me. Too many similar looking nudes, or the few colors it did have appeared too pastel for a fall collection. It has grown on me over time, with these three were particularly attractive to me. They are very "fall."

Formula was the same for all three; it is the standard OPI creme that one expects. All three only required two easy coats. I used matte top coat on my ring finger to show how they are matte.

Topic Tuesdays: Top 3 Favorite Finishes (and my favorite polishes in those finishes)

Well I had an eventful weekend. If you can avoid it, don't move on your birthday. 0/10 do not recommend. My birthday mani managed a day before it chipped to oblivion, so there's that. My poor nails are naked and I had to cut them to nubs from all the stress I put on them. I believe I'm finally settled in enough that I think I'll be able to paint my nails tonight. Can't wait.

Anyway, today (as of this writing) is Tuesday, which means that Topic Tuesdays has released their weekly nail related prompt on Instagram. This week's question is a two parter. Followers were asked their top three favorite nail polish finishes, as well as what their favorite polish was in each finish. This did take a little mind juggling to do, since I love a lot of nail polish finishes. Even the ones I'm split on, like jellies, I can enjoy if they have a good formula. But I do have some that I am more partial to, or have a lot in my collection, so here they are in no particular order.

Topic Tuesdays: My First Instagram Nail Pic

I follow a nail prompt instagram called Topic Tuesdays. Their latest prompt was to share the first nail related pic you ever uploaded on Instagram. This is not only my first nail pic on Instagram, but also my first post on that site period. It was originally uploaded in March 2016.

*drumrolls*

Megalodon Shark Nails featuring Live Love Polish Midnight Mako

Greetings, y'all! Anyone going to see a movie this weekend? I'm probably seeing the new shark flick The Meg either today or tomorrow. Hoping it'll be cheesy fun. A level above Sharknado in production quality and a few levels above Shark Attack 3: Megalodon in terms of, oh, virtually everything. I mean, take a gander at this:

Quality.

Okay, okay, there is a charm to slapdash special effects fail. That being said, let's be honest. A shark attack movie is seldom genuinely good. Name three outside of the original Jaws. At least have it be cheesy fun. Even Archie Comics eventually got into the Sharknado fun.

I'm not joking.

But shark talk ain't what you're here for, is it? I'll stop. Promise. Anyway, nails.

I didn't get to read the novel The Meg is based on in time, but I did feel inspired enough to come up with nails to tie the occasion.

Shark Nails, whoo!

Cirque Colors Vice 2018 Collection Swatches and Reviews

It took me ages to like neons. They say that first impressions shouldn't matter, but the ones that I tried early into my polish obsession were total crap. Such total crap that I was turned off by the finish for a long time. I hated how sheer they were and how finnicky they were even over white undies. I shouldn't be taking six-plus color coats to make something opaque just because the color is a streaky mess. The sheerest ones were useful for jelly sandwiches, yet still required coat after coat. I quickly concluded that they were not worth the hassle and stayed far away.

Those days are an increasingly distant nightmare as neon formulas are vastly improving across the board. There are still some that require white bases or have terrible formulas (mainly old popular shades you can still get off the shelf), but otherwise, they are becoming an endangered species. Most current neons no longer require white undies and are opaque in two or three coats like standard cremes. Some are even nearly opaque in one coat. Case in point? Cirque Colors's Vice 2018 collection.

Cirque Colors Vice 2018 collection

Stamping Mani: Sally Hansen Cerulean with Whales and Waves

Sally Hansen x Crayola Cerulean with stamping

As I mentioned in my previous post, Sally Hansen Insta Dris are fantastic for nail art. I've done a series of monochromatic nail stamping manis featuring polishes from their first Crayola collaboration "Back to School" for roughly the past year. Last August I did a flower themed pink mani, then this spring a green leaf mani. This weekend I wore a blue ocean mani.

For this mani, I wore two coats of Cerulean as a base. It was almost a one coater, but needed that second to even out. I then stamped using Rica's stamping polish in Robins Egg Blue and a nautical themed Born Pretty plate. It wasn't until I worked on this plate that I noticed the little whales on the sides of the design. So cute! I wish they were more apparent.

Anyone else do a sea themed mani this summer?