Whimsical Ideas by Pam ~ Eloise

Hello Dahlings!

 

I'm up to my Inky eyeballs in camp prep today, so I will try to make this brief.

I said try! LOL

 

Da line up: Ruby Kisses Steel Magnolias; Whimsical Ideas by Pam Eloise; Ruby Kisses Snow White; Finger Paints Black Expressionism, Brushstroke Blush & Paper Mache.

 

JUMBO BLACK POLKA DOTS!!! The medium size white satin & small pink hexagons are fun, but da round black jumbo dots are what make this polish SO fun.

 

Ta Da! I hadn't done a Kitchen Sink Mani in awhile, so I built one around the colors in Eloise. I had done da alternating base colors to test some more pens,

but changed my Inky lil mind & did this instead.

Pinky ~ 2 coats of Steel Magnolias with skinny stripes in Paper Mache

& Brushstroke Blossom. I used my Essence uber skinny striper.

Ring ~ 2 coats of Snow White (needs undies) with one coat of Eloise. I was able to get good coverage with the white & pink glitters by brushing & dabbing.

I had to fish for da black polka dot.

Middle ~ probably my worst gradient ever! 2 coats of Steel Magnolias with a gradient of Black Expressionism, Brushstroke Blossom & Paper Mache. Brushstroke blossom is too sheer to work well in a gradient with such opaque black & white polishes.

(both work well for stamping)

Index ~ 2 coats of Snow White with double dots made of Brushstroke Blossom

& Black Expressionism. I used both ends of my largest dotter.

Thumb ~ 2 coats of Steel Magnolias with one coat of dabbed Eloise. I fished out one black dot for consistency, but it barely shows against da gunmetal gray of SM.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Inky

 

 

Weird Wednesday ~ Gunmetal Gray Holo Comparison

Hello Dahlings!

 

As I pondered my Polish Days idea, I knew I wanted my dice pips to be dark & sparkly, but not necessarily black. So I pulled out 4 gunmetal gray polishes that I thought had holo glitter in them...

 

Da line up: ELF Metal Madness, Sephora by OPI If You've Got It Haunt It, Wet N' Wild Diamond In The Rough & China Glaze Some Like It Haute.

 

Thumb & Pinky ~ 2 coats of Metal Madness, Index ~ 2 coats of Some Like It Haute, Middle ~ 3 coats of Diamonds In The Rough, Ring ~ 3 coats of If You've Got It Haunt It.

 

Metal Madness was rather gloopy & while good for stamping, not fun to use for a base color. It's less of a glitter polish & more like a metallic polish with fine holo glitter added.
 

SLIH went on easily & was totally opaque in 2 coats. I know it looks bumpy enuf to be one of da new texture polishes, but it was surprisingly smooth to da touch before tc.
 

Even with 3 coats, DITR & IYGIHI still weren't totally opaque, tho they did dry smooth. If I held my hand in front of a lamp, light showed thru da free edge of both of those nails, but not da others. Black undies for those puppies next time! IYGIHI is not a holo polish! Turns out it's a rainbow mix that just pretends to be a holo. LOL

 

I added a coat of Seche Vite to see how well da glitters behaved. While there was still a wee bit of unevenness in SLIH & DITR, it wasn't enuf to make me want to add a 2nd coat. The others were perfectly smooth.

 

Mattefied! I was slow to embrace matting my manis,
but have come to appreciate matted glitter.

 

If you missed out on getting Some Like It Haute in da stores, Diamond In The Rough is a do-able substitute. SLIH is more blingy with lots more chunky holo glitter in it as well as opaque in 2 coats, but DITR is easier to get hold of (I found it at Walgreens)
& with undies will do just fine.

 

I picked China Glaze Some Like It Haute to use for da dice pips & it didn't disappoint!

Thanks for Stopping by!

~ Inky

 

 

 

Polish Days ~ The Number 5!

Hello Dahlings!

I decided I needed a lil challenge in my polish world & Polly Polish's Polish Days monthly challenge is just my speed. Once a month is about all I can handle. LOL

This month's challenge theme is:

 

Da Number 5! Five, five, what connects, relates or signifies da number 5? Let's go find out...

 

Da line up: Revlon Powder Puff Matte Suede, China Glaze Some Like It Haute & Orly Matte Top Coat (not pictured are my special mix base coat & Seche Vite top coat)

This is 3 coats of Powder Puff & it's still shows a wee bit of VNL. Next time it will get white undies! It does have a subtle blue sheen to it in person that is quite nice. What isn't nice is its not a fast dry polish & even tho' it tends to go on thick, its not very opaque. (ironically, it did pass my Does It Stamp? testing...go figure)

Oh? You want to know what my 5 is?

YAHTZEE!

I added da pips using my largest dotting tool & Some Like It Haute. This pic is without any top coat so you can see the matte/bling contrast.

For those who prefer an uber shiny finish...I added a coat of Seche Vite.

And for those who like a matte finish with glitter...a coat of Matte tc.

My thanks to Mr. Inky for letting me borrow some of his jumbo 6-siders!

My thanks to Polly for running this challenge & coming up with such interesting themes!

Thanks for stopping by & please go visit da others participating this month!

~ Inky

 

Does It Stamp? ~ black, grey & white!

Hello Dahlings!

 

Today's tested polishes are black, dark grey, light grey (aka silver) & white. Here we go...

 

Blacks ~ Black Heart Beauty Cursed, Joe Jet Black, Orly Liquid Vinyl

& Ruby Kisses Black Utopia

 

Ruby Kisses Pitch Black Darkness, Scandal Modern Black, Zoya Raven

& Sally Hansen Lustrous (this one is more of a blackened blue than a true black)

 

China Glaze Stone Cold & Color Club Beyond

 

China Glaze Liquid Leather & Finger Paints Black Expressionism

(I got these 2 after I tested the others)

 

Dark Greys ~ Nail Savvy Lightening, Loreal VIP Status, Orly Steel Your Heart & Zoya Freya

 

Elf Metal Madness, American Apparel Smoke Dazzle & Orly Faint of Heart

 

Light Greys (aka silver) ~ Wet N' Wild Going Platinum, L.A. Colors Live

& Color Club Harp On It

 

Revlon Silver Screen, Wet N' Wild Metallica & Scandal Eskimo Silver

 

Whites ~ Finger Paints Paper Mache, Milani White On the Spot

& Orly Dayglow (shows a blue sheen when stamped over black)

 

Revlon Powder Puff Matte Suede, Orly Platinum & Revlon Pure Pearl

 

China Glaze White on White

(bought after the others had been tested)

 

We've made it thru da basic colors! I'm not done yet tho' cuz I still have several specialty polishes to show you was well as monthly up dates on what new polishes I've acquired that can be used to stamp.

 

Next week ~ Color Changing & Magnetic polishes that stamp!

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Inky

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whimsical Ideas by Pam ~ Magical Mystery Tour!

Hello Dahlings!

Last Monday I told you about the fab pro-mani I got at Posh Nails Spa & how I had planned on doing some nail art over it to keep it going a couple more days.

Then this happened last Friday morning:

Toopid cat food drop feeder lid! I have a fault line on this nail that runs from cuticle to tip & that's exactly where this break happened.

Orly Nail Mender Kit to da rescue! You can easily see da white line that runs thru this nail. It's not so obvious on da nail bed, but it's there & has been there for over 7 years now.

While I did put da patch on da top of my nail, I've gotten great results also placing it under da nail as reinforcement. Alas, my pro-mani removed my undercoating & I think this is indirectly responsible for this break, tho I don't think it helped that I was so deep in prep mode that I didn't take da time to replace it. Since I had to remove da yummy holo polish I had on to fix it, I decided I wanted something fun

& untried on my nails to cheer me up.

 

Da line up: Whimsical Ideas by Pam Magical Mystery Tour, Sally Hansen BLU & Stanford Uniball Gel Impact pen in silver.

 

TA DA! This is 2 coats of MMT with no undies. Da jelly like base has an almost metallic sheen to it that lets da blue glitter shine thru while covering VNL. I added a Double Line French Tip using BLU with da bottle brush & added da skinny line with da pen. I really have to find da black & white pens in this line! If they work as well as da gold & silver ones, my Inky lil heart will SING!!!

 

You can buy Pam's uber yummy polishes thru her Facebook page: Whimsical Ideas by Pam

 

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Inky

 

 

 

 

Weird Wednesdays ~ Gel Pens are an Epic FAIL

Hello Dahlings!

 

I tested regular gel pens this week...and have nothing to show for it cuz they were an epic failure. I tested mostly Sakura brand along with some generics. The generics wouldn't even draw on my nails. The Sakura's Gelly Roll lines are great for coloring on paper, I've even used them on foil! Alas, even tho' I could get them to draw on my nails, the ink would not dry. I waited 15 minutes after I applied the last test group & easily wiped all of my nails clean with a dry tissue. I mean totally clean, no trace of the ink except where I got a lil on my skin. So there I sat with plain, single color nails & no showable test results...I can't have that!

 

Da line up: Wet N' Wild Metallica, Essence Miss Universe & Milani Fast Fuchsia

(I recently got the Essence & Milani and had them sitting there after adding them to my swatch book.)

 

This is 2 coats of Metallica. I bought it to try for stamping &/or use for frankening. I don't like it as a base color, it's rather streaky & I have better metallic polishes I can use, but I thot I'd at least try it out in this capacity. Seche Vite did smooth out some of the brush lines. If you're on a tight polish budget, this is a tolerable stamping polish for $1.

 

Ta Da! On da fly mani rescue. LOL I did a Double Line French Tip using Fast Fuchsia & Miss Universe. I used da brush in Fast Fuchsia & my Essence skinny striper to add da lines of Miss Universe. Note to self: just cuz it says fast dry, doesn't mean it actually dries all that fast. Fast Fuchsia suffered from spot bleeding when I applied SV. I had lil smear spots of pink near the cuticle on 3 nails cuz it wasn't dry yet. This was at least 10 minutes after I applied it! It had plenty of dry time while I added the stripes. I hope this one can be stamped with cuz I don't know if I trust it a potencial base color.

 

Miss Universe is deceiving in store lighting! I got it thinking it was a dark green teal. It is, but what I couldn't see in da store was da sprinkling of purple bits in there playing with the blue & green micro glitters. Me likey!

 

I still have a few more pens to test plus lots of other craft supplies.

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Inky

 

I Got A Pro Mani!

Hello Dahlings!

 

I like to get a monthly pedi & face waxing. (Nobody told me I'd look like a mini Schnauzer if I didn't do something about da facial hair when I got older!) I've used a few different salons over da years, but my loyalty is to da quality of service rather than da salon or da person providing these services. Da one I used most for many years did an ok job on da spa pedis, but I didn't like how they did da waxing. (My skin is very sensitive & can turn very red as well as explode with acne after a waxing.) I started going to a new place last year & while I liked how they did da waxing, their pedis were just ok & then just recently they changed their schedule. So now they're closed on da one day a week most convenient for me & Mr Inky. I don't drive. Mr Inky is great about taking me where I want & need to go and he was great about helping me to think of where other mani/pedi salons are in our area. We have a bazillion of them, but of course thinking of where they are actually located was leaving us both stumped. Mr Inky uses Yelp all da time to help him find good restaurants. (He likes food!) So I asked if Yelp offered reveiws of other types of businesses. They do! We pulled into a parking lot & he whipped out his phone. In a few minutes later he'd found a listing for Posh Nail Spa  They have 16 reviews...all gave 5 stars! We headed there asap. I got a lovely spa pedi & had no lil snags to file off when I got home. I got my doggy face waxed & Michelle asked me something no other person about to do my waxing ever had: Do you have problems with either the wax or lotion used after waxing? I told her about my persnickety skin & she made sure da wax was cooled a bit before she applied it & she didn't use lotion after she was done, just aloe vera. I use aloe vera on my skin all da time cuz it helps heal da out breaks & doesn't make me break out worse, like most comercial skin care products do. I've tested many, many products in da last 30+ years that were for 'sensitive' skin & many that were also non-comodemetic. Almost all of them made my skin worse.

Michelle did such a great job that my face didn't explode! This makes me a happy Inky!

 

I also got a mani, just to see how well they did. Long before I started doing nail art on my self, let alone blogging, I was uber picky about my manis & generally I do a better job on my nails than I've experienced in any salon or spa. Considering how picky I am, I give Posh Nail Spa a B+ on my mani! Amy (Michelle's mom) & I chatted about life while she did my hands. I very much enjoyed myself!

Wanna see my pro-mani?

 

Da line up: China Glaze 2 Nite. The had it on their polish rack

& I knew this was da one that I wanted on both my hands & feet!

 

Look at all that holo goodness! I think 2 Nite was part of China Glaze's last holo collection? I wish da 2013 collection had this much rainbow yumminess. Amy did such a good job that I left this on for FOUR days! I rarely go that long without doing my nails & I didn't even do any nail art over it. LOL I was going to, but I broke a nail & had to remove da polish to repair it. More about that on Friday.

 

HA! This was supposed to be a Monday Quickie post.

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Inky