A Konad French Experiment And Nfu Oh 61 is MINE!

Hello my friends :) What a beautiful Saturday morning in New York! And I'm laying in bed on the computer instead of jogging and doing something productive....as per the usual.

I've really been polishing it up lately! This week, I think I had about 2 colors per day on. So my hands are pretty shot. I need to mellow out and let them soak up some moisturizer.

Thursday morning, the mail surprised me with Nfu Oh 61. It finally, after quite some time on hiatus, became available for sale on fabuloustreet.com and soon after, sold out (i'm talking in less than 24 hours sold out)

Since this is swatched like crazy already, I didn't feel I had anything fresh to add, so here's one little photo...

Also received the most beautiful Orly swatch I've ever seen, called Royal Navy. I don't know why my camera insisted on turning the blue shimmer into white, lets call it outdated camera creative license....but this has such an intense powder blue shimmer in it, and it reminds me of the microshimmer in Clarins 230. It's amazing. This is a MUST own for blue lovers.

And last, took the dogs to the park last night - this is Sasha and Raven, our pitbull and boxer.

I had done a fancy konad french mani yesterday, and couldn't find the right lighting to photograph it. Then, as the sun was setting in the park, I was so glad I grabbed my camera! Because the photos just lit right up and looked beautiful. I also used my shih-tzu's fur for some contrast ...thanks, Abba :)

 

Spring pink pedi

Yay, it's finally starting to feel like spring!!

Spring pink pedi, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

I've been avoiding pedicures for a looong time, mostly due to the fact that I haven't had a salon pedicure since December and because of that, my feet were looking pretty scary.
I had some time today and decided to give one a shot myself.

The main color is a no-name hot pink pearly polish. For the big toe I painted the upper corners with NYC Polyester Pink Creme, put Broadway Nail Art stickers on the border of the two colors, and topped it off with Coffret D'or gel topcoat.

Halfway There Mini GIVEAWAY - Nfu Oh Flakie Victorian Series #048 And Mystery Premium Polish!

Hey everyone! So here's the deal. We're working on a HUGE giveaway (eventually, and it'll be a 1000 followers giveaway, and will keep you posted when we get closer to the #)

So for now, to keep the prizes a'rollin', I, personally (julie) am going to do a giveaway for 1 bottle of Nfu Oh 48 Flakie polish :) and a mystery polish from a premium brand. Do you see this Nfu Oh color? It's a flakie, it's a microshimmer, it's sheer, and PERFECT for the summer, or topping off any color. Just gorgeous. And works beautifully alone, or as a top coat for just about every color you can imagine. It's so versatile, and so uniquely Nfu Oh.

Sign up here, and once we hit 500, we will keep the giveaway open for 1 more week, and a winner will be picked.

So please, enter and spread the news! This is open to any country to enter. Please post below your e-mail address and name. (first name only) If you blog about this giveaway, you get 5 extra entries. If you put us in your blogroll, you get 2 extra entries. Tweet about us, 1 extra entry. Also, comment on our posts! Each new comment from hereon will get you 1 extra entry. (10 maximum limit) We have many months of past blogging racked up from before we had very many followers, so be sure to check those out!

Good luck!

Spring Mani and Iwashimizu Shrine

Spring Mani and Iwashimizu Shrine, a photo by KitaRei on Flickr.

This week I did a spring mani. I love this color, it reminds me of fruit juice, and the gold glitter really works well with it. Today my friends and I went to Iwashimizu Shrine in Kyoto, and since the temple is an orangey-red color I thought this would make a great shot.
Look, Yoshi made the picture!

This look is inspired from a look in my nail art book. The original has 4 pinky-orange nails with the ring finger being a pearly yellow. As I didn't have a pearly yellow, I made all nails a citrus orange and painted gold sparkles over the entire ring finger nail.
I also like how this manicure has gold glitter lining the top and bottom of the nail, not just the bottom.

For the main color I used Vacances Power Stone Magic #8 Carnelian (the idea of each of the colors in this line is to look like power stones, as power stones are trendy here now.) This line is really cute, and comes with a booklet of nail designs, but the only problem is the bottles are TINY. Here are some of the designs and colors from the booklet:

For the dots, I used Diamond Nail Homei, which is white with glitter. I DO NOT recommend this brand. It is a Taiwan based brand (not Japanese.) I bought it thinking it was pretty, and it is horrible. When you try to polish your nails, it does not cover evenly, and it just goops and looks horrible. I can only use this for designs.

The border glitter is Vissee, and the chunky glitter over the ring finger is from my Beauty World nail cocktail nail kit. I finished it off with Coffret D'or gel topcoat.

A Colorama Top Coat For My Funky Fingers!

Whilst visiting Erika today in The Island of Staten, we exchanged many highly anticipated gifts. Gifts of polish, of course. Erika managed to snag a lot of Coloramas on eBay and in the lot was one of the colorama top coat flakies!! And she gave it to me. Ohhh, happy days. So here is the top coat, over Funky Fingers Riot (my first) Thank-you Erika! This mani made my day.

Do you like flakies? What's your favorite brand/color that makes flakies?

 

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