Rescue Beauty Lounge, I'm Hooked!

I recently took advantage of rbl's huge sale, and picked up two polishes grunge and coral. Before this I only owned one rbl polish, locavore, and I liked it, but the rbl creme polishes application is amazing! These are two coats each, with my usual base salon sciences instant artificials and topped with seche vite.


First up is grunge, this is the perfect edgy nude for fair skin! It works great on me for the "mannequin hands" trend.

This is coral, I'm a huge fan of pinks, reds, and corals. This is the perfect coral, it's bright enough to be young and modern, but also great for work cuz it doesn't veer into the neon territory.

Excuse my absense!

It's been a while since I last updated, I recently moved (yet again!) and am just finally getting things settled enough to the point where I can paint my nails regularly again. For about a month I had to go nude (my nails that is, get ur minds out of the gutter!) I should be back and posting regularly now.

Dog Themed Mani

Over the weekend my husband and I headed down to York Pa to go to the small paws expo. It's for dogs under 25 pounds, and it all benefits rescue groups. We had a great time, and in honor of the occasion I broke out some nail decals.

I usually don't like the look of nail art on me, but I was so happy with how my nails turned out, and we had a great time! These decals are by fing'rs, and the polish is Opi Alpine Snow.

Notd updates...

It's been almost a month since I last posted and I have some pics for you. First up is a nail polish I picked up in the halloween section of walmart, it's a small green bottle with no name. This is two coats with my usual base coat of salon sciences instant artificials, and seche vite top coat.
On a recent trip to rite aid, i was shocked to find that they finally got in some new nail polish displays! There was a sinful display, it looked like a summer display (in october!), and I picked up bianca, I love pinks, and this fit the bill:

I got this idea from one of the blogs that I follow, cynful nails. She does an amazingly gorgeous gel glitter gradient mani. This is my attempt at it:

I used one coat of salon sciences instant artificials. Then 3 coats of RBL locavore, with each coat starting closer to the tip than the last. I then used another coat of salon sciences instant artificials, in an attempt to get the gel look. I topped it all off with a coat of seche vite. The pictures did not turn out that great, but irl it doesn't look too bad for my first try!

Wet n Wild, Wild Orchid

Today I'm rockin' some wet n wild, wild orchid. This brand brings me back to my childhood, i've received many a bottle in those little bags you used to get at the end of a birthday party. Well I saw this beauty sitting alone on the end of a store shelf, and I snagged it. I'm really starting to like purples! This one took three coats to be as bright as I wanted it, but it looks gorgeous so all is well!

Opi Grape Fit..

Here's a polish I picked up over the summer when I was on vacation. I love to bring back souvenirs, and what better than nail polish! Everytime I wear it, I'm reminded of the vacay (I went to Bringantine Beach, by the way) I present to you Opi Grape Fit. Before this color, I was not a fan of purple nail polish, I'd worn it maybe twice in my life, but since picking this up in june, I've already sported about 4 purple mani's this summer. Maybe it's because it's not a true purple, its kind of dusty looking, but that's why I love it!

Alpine Snow...

Last Friday I picked up the october issue of glamour, and on the cover is gwen stefani with white nails. I've tried white nails before, but the application just wasn't smooth, it went on streaky and reminded me of white-out! So I figured I'd give it another try, and went out and bought opi alpine snow. I wish I had bought this from the start, it goes on smooth, and the white looks high fashion, not like I slapped it on at recess!

Instant Artificials

I picked up some instant artificials after hearing about it on the nail board. I couldn't wait to try it, I've heard great things. I've been using it now for about 2 weeks, and I really like it. It takes a while to dry, but I think it's worth it. Worn alone it leaves nails shiny and hard, and you can use it as a base coat also. I don't know it if makes polish last longer, cuz honestly I change my polish too often to find out. You can find it at sallys beauty.

pedicure disaster!

ok, so i don't know what happened but I noticed that my nails were chipping, so I had to file my toesies super short, and start all over again. There won't be pedi posts for a while, so enjoy my mani's in the meantime.

Opi Spain

Last night I picked up two of the colors from the opi spain collection. Here today aragon tomorrow was my first choice and my mani color for today. It looks good today, but application was a different story. This applied so thin and watery that it needed 3 coats. And weirdly enough it looked gritty going on, mind you it's completely a creme when it's dry.

I picked Give me moor for my pedi color. This is one of the colors I didn't plan on getting, but couldn't resist when I saw the bottle in person. I love dark colors like this. Here it is as a pedi (pics are pre cleanup, sorry)

I've totally neglected you,

and now that fall is coming hopefully I'll have more time to keep my blog up to date. I've got a recent mani/ pedi to show you. First up is zoya. I took advantage of the recent zoya promo to try the brand out. I bought envy, barbie, and charlize. I used envy for a mani color, and I have to say it lasts really well. I applied it on a thurs. and it survived 4 days, two of which were spent at a waterpark! Barbie looked amazing on my toes.

I'm Back!!

I know I've been away for a while, but I'm back with some awesome colors to share! First up is essie greenport. When I saw the pics of the north fork collection, I expected to be hunting and waiting forever to own this one, but to my surprise my ulta had it two weeks early!! (they never get anything early) This is two coats and the color just screams spring to me, it's gorgeous!

Next up is opi miami beet, this is from the south beach collection, and it's taken me awhile to get around to wearing this one. It's a great color, especially on my fair skin, but for some reason it feels more like a fall color to me.

Last, but not least, is misa push up bra. This color was extremely hard to photograph. Sometimes it looks orange, sometimes pink. Irl it's a bright pink coral. Not neon but close. (the second finger pic is a closer match to how it really looks .

My 1st rbl !

I placed a pre-order for rescue beauty lounge locavore a while ago. It came yesterday and I just love it! I am normally not a glitter person, because they take too many coats and are never opaque enough for my tastes. (when I layer another color underneath I end up with about 7 coats of polish) This polish is amazing, I'm so glad I made the leap and splurged on this one. This is three coats and the glitter is opaque, but it's not scratchy like some glitters can be.

When you can't stop looking at your fingers you know it's a great polish!

Mini-haul, swatches, and mani-pedi of the day.

I've got lots of pics for you today readers. Yesterday the dh and I made a trip to walmart, and I picked up these beauties.
Left to right: kiss me there, spit fire, strapless and dreamy.




Here they are swatched on one of my nail wheels, (with and without flash):

Finally my notd. While watching antm with mom, I picked spit fire for both my fingers and toes. On my fingers I used my usual basecoat, borghese magnetico, then one coat of misa strawberry wine (a sheer pink), I followed that with coats of spit fire, and one coat of poshe. (I've put my seche to the side for now, I feel that the poshe dries shinier) The toenails are basecoat, 3 layers of spit fire, and poshe.

Essie... say it ain't so!

There's some news floating around about a new collection that essie may be doing for the summer. It is mostly blues and greens. I don't own a single blue polish, because normally I think they look weird with my skintone (a personal thing). If this collection is true, consider me a convert! I especially love the sag harbor set and hope to post a link to some pics soon!

updated to include a link to the pics (thanks siobhan) http://thenailphile.blogspot.com/2009/03/essie-summer-2009-preview-north-fork.html

Barielle natural nail camo

This weekend I started aggressively getting my feet ready for sandal season. I'm the type that always uses a foot file and lotion, and always have fresh polish on my toes. (my polish obsession started with my feet afterall) But I did some extra cuticle cleanup, and decided that I wanted to go with a sheer polish. I believe barielle camo is meant to be a base coat, but I like it when I want to have a natural look (and I can't stand to be unpolished!)

You don't know jacques

I mentioned that I was in the middle of moving, well we're finally getting stuff in order now, and I've got my nail polish unpacked and all set up! This notd is one of my fave colors. I keep wavering between ydkj and lincoln park after dark. I included two pics one without flash and one with flash.


Without flash in office lighting:

With flash in office lighting:

my "new" nails

I'm in the middle of a big move, and even though my nails are short, I still hate breaking them. I got an acrylic overlay over the weekend. If you're not familiar with this it's basically a thin layer of acrylic over your natural nail. It helps protect it and the best part... polish lasts way longer! I know the jury's still out on acrylics but done right they can look tasteful. So here they are before I polish them tonight.

opi south beach pics

I've tried out two of the new opi south beach colors so far. The first one I'll share with you is paint my moji-toes red. Which is exactly what I did! This makes an excellent pedi color, I loved it so much I did my fingers in it too. This is the perfect red color to complement fair skin!

The other color I have for you is feelin' hot hot hot. I love the color, but I can't say the same for the application. I had to do three coats of this one to get it opaque and smooth looking, it was a pita! It's redeeming quality is how gorgeous the pink is. I know I may be in the minority here, but I love this collection. Pinks and reds are my faves, so bring em on opi!

$opi madame president

This is the color I wanted to use for the inauguration, but it didn't arrive in time, so here it is better late than never. It's a pretty red, but it's just another red. By that I mean that if you have other red polishes, this one isn't anything different than the rest of them. I had a little trouble with cuticle drag on this one too, maybe I should have done 3 coats?

Get out your sunglasses!

After being m.i.a. for awhile, I'm back and I brought you something bright! This is one of the polishes from my misa order, bikini with a martini. It is bright! Almost glowing, it's hard for me to pin this color down, in some lights it looks hot pink, other times it looks like a bright orangey coral. This color definitely needs a good topcoat on me, like most neons it dries matte. Overall a gorgeous color!

$opi metro chic

I finally got around to trying this one. I'd been wanting it for a while and just finally got it. I love this color, but I don't love it as much as opi's you don't know jacques. This is a bit more purplish on me, while ydkj leans more toward brown. I also noticed some dragging at the cuticles with this one. (maybe I should have done 3 coats?)