The Evolution of My July 4th Mani!

Good afternoon!

So I'm about to take this mani off, but I keep putting it off since I have about 9 layers of polish and some serious glitter on my nails and I know it's going to be awful. Here's how my Fourth of July mani evolved!

First, I painted my nails with two coats of Revlon Plum Baby, a mauve/purple cream. I didn't take a picture of this alone; I only intended it to be the base for the next polish I used. Next, I used three or four thick coats of Icing Bird of Paradise on top of the Revlon. Bird of Paradise is a wine-colored jelly with a ton of iridescent glitter. I wore it like this for about 5 days:

Revlon Plum Baby topped with Icing Bird of Paradise

I did like this even though the color is a little tame for my taste, but the glitter kept it interesting.

Then, I was going into NYC and wanted more sparkle, so this mani was topped off with two coats of Cover Girl City Lights, which is your typical silver holo topper. No picture of this, but you get the idea.

This past Saturday, I wanted red, and since I was dreading taking this off, I layered one medium coat of China Glaze Phat Santa, a red, I guess, jelly, over it, just to see how it would look. I ended up LOVING it, so this was the next stage of my mani =]

The glitter shows beautifully under the red. I guess you can say this is my "half sandwich" manicure.

And yesterday was the fourth of July, so I decided to incorporate some nail art onto this red, even though I didn't really go anywhere celebrate. On accent nails, I painted half my nail on the diagonal with China Glaze First Mate, a gorgeous navy cream. I also got out my stamping plates and used BM21 (many stars and swirls) and BM05 (the big star) along with Design-a-Nail polish in Frostbite, a plain white. I actually really love the result, even though it took all of 3 minutes and came out a bit sloppy. It served its purpose. After that, I topped with one coat of an old Wet n Wild 413, which is just a clear polish with very fine silver glitter. Here's the final mani!

So, yeah, all in all, I think there are about 10 coats of polish on my nails, lol! But I got absolutely no chipping throughout the whole week or more I've been wearing it. Pretty impressive! Oh well, time to take it off now!

Do you ever "recycle" manis like I did? Or keep layering until your end result is completely different from your first mani? I ended up really liking how drastic the change was despite the thickness!

Thanks so much for reading!
Janna

Face Paint Friday - Wet n Wild Mega Eyes

Hello everyone!

I decided to start an installment on my blog called Face Paint Friday. Before I go on, I wanted to point out that I thought of this idea without seeing it anywhere else, and I am unaware that something called Face Paint Friday exists elsewhere. If you know of another blog/site/anything that uses "Face Paint Friday," please let me know and understand that this is an unintentional coincidence.

Every Friday, if I post on a Friday (not sure that it'll be every week), I'll make posts regarding different makeup products instead of the usual nail posts. These posts could range from an eyeshadow look to a face primer review to a new favorite lipgloss or my top makeup products of the moment.

Please let me know what you think of this idea, and if you'd like to start posting your makeup looks on Friday also, feel free! I've been getting more and more into makeup since I've discovered the blogging world (you're enablers, all of you!), and it's so much fun to paint myself up. =D

So for this week's installment, I'm going to show you a green eyeshadow palette that I bought from Wet n Wild almost 5 years ago, so it might not look familiar. It's called Amazon Greens. I think the Wet n Wild Mega Eyes trios have been discontinued, but at the time of this post there are very reasonably-priced listings on eBay. Here's a picture of the trio:

I love the mirror on the side. For reference, these trios are exactly the same size as the current trios.

Here are some pictures of the look I did.
























To create this look, I used the pale green shade on the inner corner, the brown shade in the middle and the dark green shade on the outer corner.

Taking eye pictures is so hard! I give all of you beauty bloggers major credit. Any tips for a girl with a simple camera on how to take better eye makeup pictures? My "macro" setting is just a Close Up setting that is designed to shoot from 28 inches, which isn't a close-up shot if you ask me.

I will say that these are brighter in person, even though I did edit them a bit to try and bring out the color. It reminded me of the makeup version of Chanel Peridot, gold to green. See, I added a nail polish reference in there somewhere!


I added a quick poll in this post because I know most of us read through a reader. I'd really appreciate your feedback!

What do you think about Face Paint Friday?
	I think it's a great idea and I want to participate, too!
	I think it's a good idea and like reading through makeup posts as much as nail posts.
	I don't mind it, but I prefer nail posts.
	It doesn't interest me at all.
	Other - I'll explain in the comments.
pollcode.com free polls

That's it for now! What do you think? Thanks for reading!!

Janna

Fauxnad and Family Nails

I have a feeling this is going to be a long post, so here we go.

First off, does anyone remember the Design-a-Nail by Dee? I got it for Christmas from my parents years ago, and I don't even think they make them anymore. It basically was Konad stamping, only you used a machine with it. You pushed down, pulled the piece closer to scrape the excess polish, pushed the stamper down, picked it up, and pushed it directly onto your nail, which sat snugly on top of the curves of the machine. Sounds complicated, I know. I haven't used it in years, but since I've been reading all these blogs, I wanted to try it again, but I just used the plates it came with, the special polishes, scraper and stamper. Turned out my scraper was absolutely useless, and nothing else seemed to work, so I ordered both a scraper and stamper set and the 21 Bundle Monster plates from amazon.com. The plates were $17 and no charge for shipping! I placed the orders on the 21st of July, the stamper arrived on the 24th and the plates, on the 26th.





As soon as I got my new scraper and stamper, but before my new plates came in, I did my mom's nails in 2 coats of Wet and Wild's Wet Shine "Sunny Side Up" with one layer of Savvy in "French White White" as a base. Then I . . . fauxnaded. . . them using a plate from the Design-a-Nail system, 52M, and a Design-a-Nail special polish in "Rage." I love how it looks, and she was excited to be a hand model.







I love it and I think this was my first full manicure I've ever done using any kind of stamping system, and it was so fun! Her nails are soo long, and she actually just trimmed them. I owe my good nail genes to her!

My sister, on the other hand, can't really grow her nails long, so I guess she got my dad's nail genes, lol. Earlier this week I asked her to let me paint her nails in periwinkle, her favorite color. I also got to use my new-ish dotting tool =]

Super blurry for some reason...






And I used. . .

L.A. Colors Color Craze in Static Electricity, An old unnamed Petites polish that's a periwinkle with a purple flash, a Stripe Right in Gold (that's the name, but it's actually one of those amazing colors right between metallic gold and metallic silver), and a dotting tool/nail brush from Sally's.

Of course, this manicure bit the dust the next day when she went to the beach. She polished them again herself and I begged her to let me put some fauxnad on them, but she won't let me yet. Oh well =p

I'm going to end this here to avoid a super long post. Thanks for reading!

Janna

My First Haul Post

Let me start off by saving that I LOVE when makeup is inexpensive. Yesterday I went shopping at a Dollar Tree and Rite Aid in my town, and this is what I got:

Dollar Tree:

Top Row: e.l.f. Brightening Eye Color quads in Punk Funk and Butternut

Middle Row: Nail Art Kit distributed by Greenbrier International, Inc., L.A. Colors Art Deco polishes in Bright Green, Silver, and Blue Glitter

Bottom Row: L.A. Colors Art Deco polishes in Bright Orange, Black, Red Glitter, and Baby Pink, L.A. Colors Color Craze polish in Static Electricity.

First off, I had NO IDEA that e.l.f. was sold in Dollar Trees. That was super exciting. These are my first e.l.f. eyeshadows and I can't wait to try them out. I was also super happy to find the Art Deco polishes, and I've never used them, since I usually use the Stripe Rites sold in Sally's. I actually even had one of the employees climb a ladder to make sure I had all the colors! lol. Finally, Static Electricity seemed like a really cute denim blue, so for a dollar, why not?!

Then I was off to Rite Aid, where I made a couple more purchases:

Left to Right: Sinful Colors in Dumpling, Sinful Colors in Bamboo, Wet and Wild Shine in Sparked, Wet and Wild Shine in Sunny Side Up, and N.Y.C. in Starry Silver Glitter.
The eyeshadow is Secret Weapon by Jessie's Girl Cosmetics.

I've never tried Sinful Colors before, and the only reason I looked twice at the display was because Bamboo reminded me of Jade is the New Black by OPI, which I have really really wanted ever since it came out, even though Bamboo has a slight shimmer to it, while JITNB is a cream finish. But I'll try out Bamboo and see if it satisfies my craving =P The Wet and Wilds and the N.Y.C. polish were each 99 cents. I'm super excited about Sparked because I need a good glitter polish and it looks awesome in the bottle; it's kind of a mauvey pink fine glitter.

Jessie's Girl is also a new brand for me, and Secret Weapon looks absolutely beautiful. It's a white iridescent powder, so it also appears blue and lavender. Can't wait to try that one!

Thank you so much for reading!

Janna