Purple Chrome Mani with Holographic Tips

Hi everyone!

It's Golden Week here in Japan, that means VACATION for all work/schools. My good friends are visiting me from Tokyo now (I missed them lots :) so I won't be posting a new mani this week, but I do have an oldie but goodie that I haven't posted just yet.

I got some new nail polishes recently, including some from-you'll never guess-an arcade in Osaka. One of the crane games had nail polishes in it, and Yoshi won me some. I didn't have my phone at the time so I couldn't take a pic, but I'll see if he remembers where it was so I can go back and try for some more!

I'll put up some pics of my latest haul next time, but for now I'll post the mani that I mentioned that I had done previously before the pink marbled one.

As the main color I used Sally Hansen Chrome Nail Makeup in Violet Sapphire. The purple polish is Sally Hansen Chrome Nail Makeup in Violet Sapphire. It really is "nail makeup", nothing like nail polish. It goes on smoothly, without ANY streaks, however many times you swipe it with the brush (you know, how sometimes polish doesn't go on evenly the first time or two, and when you try to touch it up it goops or streaks? NONE of that.) It also dries instantly! I'd almost compare it to the way eye shadow primer applies and dries, smoothly and dries instantly. Here's a swatch:

Now the main event. I purposely took a blurry pic to try to capture the sparkle. I can't rave about these polishes enough.
On the tips, I used Sally Hansen Teflon Tuff Nail Color in Secrets Frost #62. This is the most amazing holographic polish I've owned yet. The photo does it no justice. It is truly amazing.
I am looking for ANOTHER one of this color (none on ebay as of yet) as mine is half empty. If anyone has, please, I will trade you LOTS of Japanese goodies for this!

Purple Chrome Mani with Holographic Tips, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

Not Feeling So "Rescued" By Rescue Beauty Lounge - But I did Get To Try SCRANGIE!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Store Front

So I FINALLY made it over to the Rescue Beauty Lounge in the Meatpacking district of Manhattan today for a manicure.

I walked up and down the block a few times, stupidly looking for a store front, and not the store #, and then I finally found it! A walk up 2 flights of stairs took me to what I was expecting to be nail polish bliss.

They were out of ALL the good colors...the new spring line was sold out, Scrangie was sold out as well, so I didn't buy any colors which I definitely expected to do.

The manicure (a plain old nothin' special mani, mind you) was $30, and a $5 tip for the lady who conducted it.

It was ok, hand massage was lacking, and the weirdest part of it all was that there were no hand dryers. You have to "air dry". Even in the dankest of nail salons I've been to, I have never had to air dry. And whatever they used for the top coat sucked, because the nails never fully dried, and by the time I got home, I had dents and smudges on my nails. I actually topped off the mani with seche vite when I got home, to help it dry.

The store, once inside, was decorated nicely, had some cute stuff for sale, mainly hats and scarves for the winter. I noticed that the pedicures were done in these small station-like rooms, which is great for people who have ugly feet like myself, and wish for nobody to have the unpleasant experience of having to look at them...

But all in all, was it worth the money? No. Not even no. A big fat old HELL NO! I will stick to Long Island $8 mani specials, thank-you very much. And, not to mention, the place I usually go to gives me a back rub the entire time I'm getting my manicure...still, just $8. Beat that, Rescue Beauty Lounge!

Anyway, here's a look at Scrangie which they painted my nails to, but could not sell me...

excuse my dry hands please!

taken with my cell, sorry for poor quality

It's Wednesday, and I'm wearing pink!

Hi everyone, happy Wednesday!! I actually have an older mani and swatch to post, but I thought I'd post this one first since it's Wednesday, and well, I so happen to be wearing pink!

First the good news: The Japanese school that I will be attending isn't just a Japanese school, it isn't even just a language school. They offer all sorts of programs in the arts, which just so happens to include-are you ready for it-classes for Japanese manicures! The best part is- the regular class is about $10, and one class per month FREE for students! What does this all mean? Well I have a chance to become professional in Japanese nail art, SQUEE!

Ok so back to the manicure. Yoshi just got me a book on Japanese manicure tips and tricks (still learning some of the Japanese terms yet for this stuff) and I saw a relatively easy tutorial for marbling (well, much easier than water marbling anyway, and less messy) so I decided to try it.

First, here's a swatch of NYC Long Wearing Polyester Pink Creme #108A. Just like the other NYC polishes, it took four coats to get an even color, but it is a nice shade:

Now the mani. This is my first attempt at a marble manicure, so forgive me if it isn't super-awesome :p

First Marble Mani, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.
For the base color I used NYC Long Wearing Polyester Pink Creme #108A. I used Visee Glamorous Sparkle #10(I still can't find my fine brush, so I used a toothpick..) for the glitter half moons on my nails. Half moons are really big here. For the actual marbling, I used NYC Long Wearing French White Tip #134 and Revlon Limited Edition Diamonds Are Forever. I topped it off with Coffret D'or gel topcoat.

Thanks for reading!

Dorothy who? More like Dorothy..SAY WHAT?

So apparently, I have discovered that pretty much any nail polish will look a million times more amazing with black underneath it. As you saw from my post with Zoya Faye, black just brings out the color so much more! Also it saves about 20 coats of said polish.

I bought Dorothy Who? last year and I have to say it is one of the most gorgeous colors that china glaze has put out, but the sad fact is,  that you have to use about 5 coats to even look like what's in the bottle. So I thought, I wonder what it would look like if I put black as a base first. And VOILA!

I just can not get over how amazing this looks. And I am telling you, to the people who spent over 20$ for Chanel Black Satin, NYC makes an amazing black polish for 99 cents. Just saying.

But I'm going to keep this a short one, I'm just dealing with something private at the moment and I have a buttload of school assignments. I can not wait for June 17th, where I can call myself a college grad:) But ta ta for now ladies...(and gents!)

An Eastery Sparkly Day- And My Easter Present!

Happy Easter! 

Is that just about the scariest easter bunny you've ever seen? I couldn't help myself.

You know by now that I cannot just keep one color on my nails for longer than 24 hours, right? So consider the last Easter post a "trial" of sorts! A preparation for the real deal ;)

I was also just thinking, as I know I've pretty much created over-kill on sparkly accent nails. What do you, as readers of our blog, want to see more of? Because we are ready and willing (perverted thoughts aside!) to deliver what you would like to see! At first, we started this blog more as an outlet to feed our obsessions, and share our nail polish looks as friends, but now since we have followers, we want to keep you entertained as well! So speak up. Let us know what we can do more of, less of, no more of....and hey, we'll give it a shot :)

I recently purchased an armload of nail art stamps (copies of the real Konad deal on Amazon for  a fraction of the price) so look forward to many Konad experiments ahead in near-future posts.

And moving on to my Eastery Sparkly Day look.....

My new Sephora OPI swatch "Havanah Dreams" accented with Deborah Lippmann's "Today Was A Fairytale". The blue jelly blended in really nicely with the blue cream swatch, and I really like this look! Maybe I will try it over purple next time. I *like* the Deborah Lippmann swatch, but I feel like it's been done before, by just about everyone. I think they could have really knocked this swatch out of the park if they added super-micro glitter, too. 3 levels of glitter would have been bliss!

this is just 1 layer of TWAF

Now on to the Easter present....please note, this was an Easter present to myself! I don't expect Mr.Scary Easter Bunny to leave anything at my doorstep, so I have to take initiative and buy a present for myself, right? I found this Juicy Couture Kindle case for $35 at TJ Maxx, and didn't even hesitate. I had to have it. I love it!