Oh hai natural nubbins!

So my nails are peeling so badly right now. They do tend to peel and break if they grow too far past my fingertips, but lately it's been worse. I need to work on moisturizing and find a good strengthener. In the meantime, I chopped my nails down to nubbins hoping to get ahead of the peeling. Because they haven't looked like this since September, I figured I'd post a picture. :)

Say hello to my fat cat Vinny back there!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Anne

Ugh! And the shitty pictures keep coming! Posting this as a reminder to update with a better picture later. Must. Get. Nicer. Camera. :)

I love this polish. Olive green base with gold and pink microglitter. Love! It is one of four in the RBL Housewives of the Tudor Dynasty collection and has had the hell blogged out of it. I kinda freaked about spending $18 on a bottle of polish, but justified it by telling myself it was a birthday present. I've worn this more than any other since I've started collecting polishes.

I wasn't very happy with this mani, and I think it's because I used Poshe with this polish for the first time. I think I've decided that I'm a Seche Vite girl, shrinkage and chemicals be damned! I've heard others say RBL polishes tend to work better with Poshe, but not this one. Not on my nails, anyway.

Formula is smooth like butter, but I have a wonky bristle in my brush. I'll probably clip it next time. I've also read that lots of people can get good coverage with 1 coat of this. I'm just not that good. I need 2 coats. Applied this Friday morning, and got a huge chip on my R index and middle fingers at Walmart today. I picked up Hard Candy Sky while I was there, so I'll probably try that out tonight.

China Glaze Ingrid

Okay, first off, I must leave a note to self to work harder on keeping my hands & cuticles soft! I wash them between 25 and 40 times a day at work depending on how many patients I have, and they get pretty atrocious during the winter. I am a reformed nail picker, and am working on being a reformed cuticle picker. *See hangnail on middle finger* Dry cuticles are too tempting to pick at, even when my nails look nice.

But on to Ingrid. I had to come to grips with this one. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I bought it... Maybe a little lighter and more greyed out? I drooled over it on ALU, and got it when I saw the Vintage Vixen display in Sally's. I tried it on and it was brown. Just brown. I was so disappointed.

I have since come to love it. Yes, it is brown. And I love brown. So there you go. It has a faint shimmer that keeps it from being dull. The formula was a little watery, but has great coverage with 2 thick-ish coats. Shown over Bonder, with a topcoat of Poshe. I put it on last night, and this is after washing my hair and a day at work. Hardly any tip wear. I wish I loved Poshe like I love Seche Vite. Or that Seche Vite didn't have such shrinkage. I've tried wrapping my tips and it doesn't help me much. (I usually don't have 1 color on long enough to worry about it anyway!)

And omg! I have a follower! Hi Kellie. :) I'm a goober. I totally look at Kellie's blog daily, but haven't formerly followed her yet. Off to remedy this. And post a polish-filled package to my bestie.

Zoya Valerie

This is the last of my 3 free from Zoya. It reminds me of black raspberry jam. With sparkles. On my nails. :)

This one had super dense pigmentation. If I were very careful, I could've gotten away with 1 coat. It's a very deep purple with gold glitter. It started drying very quickly, so it was kind of gloopy for the second coat.

Standard application... Orly Bonder, 2 coats of Valerie, 1 coat of Seche Vite

I also painted my toes with Hard Candy Beetle. I think it looks fabulous, but out of respect to the one person who has commented on the blog, I'll refrain from posting a pic of them.

Zoya Crystal

Here's the second of my 3 free from Zoya. Crystal has a shimmery, medium blue base with irregularly shaped, gold glitter. Super pretty.

This pic is after 2 days of wear. Orly bonder, 3 coats of Crystal, and Seche Vite. I've decided that I really like glitter polishes because it doesn't show barer spots very well. I'll end up redoing a whole manicure if I see one little uneven spot.

Zoya Raven

Last week Zoya ran a promotion on facebook that allowed you to get 3 bottles of polish for free once they hit a certain number of fans on the page. It didn't take long, and they probably got twice the number that was their goal. I picked Raven, Crystal, and Valerie.

Crystal was a given because I've seen it on quite a few blogs, and it's totally beautiful. I saw Valerie on Scrangie's blog, and since I've got a huge thing for purple, that one was a given. I couldn't decide on my last polish, so I cruised through more blogs and discovered that people thought Raven was a dupe for a Chanel black polish. What kind of polish collector would I be without a black polish? And why not get a bottle for free that would be mistaken for one costing 30 billion dollars? :)

I texted my bff and asked, blue with silver sparkles, purple with gold sparkles, or shimmery black? She chose black. I say good choice. So, here's Zoya Raven once again in my crappy fluorescent light. Shimmery isn't showing here, but I promise it's there. Orly Bonder, 2 coats of Raven (very smooth, best Zoya application I've come by yet!), and 1 coat Seche Vite.

I didn't mind doing my nails again since when I got to work, Peace on Earth was half peeled off my L thumb. It came off in a sheet. Started peeling off other fingers through my 45 hand washings today. Note to self... Always use rubbing alcohol to the nails before starting.

China Glaze Peace on Earth

What a deal on this polish! It is part of the China Glaze Holiday 2010 collection, and I walked in to Sally's a couple of weeks ago to find it on clearance for $3.99. On top of that, it was another 50% off since I'm a beauty club member. I'll take $1.99 for a polish that came out a few months ago.

I never took myself for a green girl, but I'm loving this one! Shimmery, not streaky, and super pigmented. This is Orly Bonder, 2 coats of PoE, and Poshe topcoat. The pic is way yellow due to my lighting.

What I've Got...

My collection so far. Please excuse the crappy pictures. It was nighttime and I've got fluorescent bulbs.

Topcoats, l to r: Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love, Poshe Quick Dry Topcoat, Seche Vite Quick Dry Topcoat, OPI RapiDry Topcoat

Purple: Mary Kay Intensity

Duochrome: Hard Candy Beetle

Browns, l to r: Zoya Cola, China Glaze Ingrid

Greens, l to r: China Glaze Peace on Earth, Rescue Beauty Lounge Anne

Pinks, l to r: China Glaze Heaven, Zoya Skye, OPI Polar Bare

Blues, l to r: Hot Topic Blue, Hot Topic Periwinkle, Rimmel Marine Blue, Zoya Ibiza, OPI Yodel Me On My Cell

Greys, l to r: Rimmel Steel Grey, Zoya Kelly, Zoya Harley, Zoya Freja, $OPI Just a Fairy Tale, OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

Reds, top to bottom & l to r: Zoya Blair, Zoya Kalista, Essie Wicked, OPI Color So Hot It Berns, Revlon Crushed Crimson, OPI You Make Me Vroom, OPI Red Like Roses, China Glaze Phat Santa

Orly Bonder

I tried to flip that reds picture, but my blogging skillz are lacking. :) I hope it can only go up from here!

Welcome!

As I've got plastered all over this site, I'm not looking to use this as a real polish blogging site. Just a singular place to post pics of my polishes and my thoughts on them. I seem to spend a lot of freaking time on the internet and this seems like a pretty easy place to make my catalog.

If someone other than myself is actually reading this, enjoy! Feel free to comment.