Peeling Nails

Now I remember why I stopped polishing my nails a few years ago!

1. The polish wouldn't dry and I had always this nice bed linen stamping.
2. My nails started to peel like crazy.
   

For the first point I found a solution (hello Poshe!) but the peeling is still a problem! It would be nice to pinpoint the reason for the peeling. Is it the polish or the polish remover? And how to counteract the effects? I'll try adding oil to my polish remover - but I already put oil on my nails after removing the polish, so I'm not sure if that will work. I already use a base coat that is supposed to prevent the peeling but well - my nails haven't read the text on the box, so they don't know about that.

Do you have a solution to peeling nails?

China Glaze - 2nite (640)

Hello polishfriends!

Okay, time for another holo! This time: China Glaze 2nite from the OMG Collection.

It applied easily in 2 coats but it tends to produce bold spots. It has a light blue color and a great holo effect. I love that the China Glaze Holos dry so fast!

1 x Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat
2 x China Glaze 2nite
1 x Poshe super-fast drying topcoat

I often read that a topcoat reduces the holo effect - I can' agree with that. Granted, while the Poshe topcoat is wet there is no holo left - but dried it shows the holo goddess again!

Ignore the big chip - that was my fault, the polish was innocent.

(in sunlight)

On the sunlight picture you can see my heavy ridges - but on the middlefinger you can see my special ridge with diagonal stripes - by now I really love it :o) My unique ridge.

(in the shadow)

(with flash)

And one closeup of the polish:

I think this one calls for a backup ...

P2 - elegant (017)

And again a P2 polish (as I told you, drugstore polishes tend to jump right into my shoppingbasket): P2 elegant

It's a toned down lavender with pink shimmer.

(with flash to bring out the shimmer)

1 x Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat
3 x P2 elegant
1 x Poshe super-fast drying topcoat

I had to try it in matte right away - so here it is with Essie Matte about You:

(daylight)

I don't know ... somehow it does not work too well with my skintone and I hoped it would be a bit more grey. It's not totally ugly but it's not great either. And again: Shrinkage! Seems to be normal with P2 and Poshe. I only wore this one for one day - just didn't feel right.

And lets face it: This is no way elegant - at least not on me and at least not in the matte version.

Lumene - Night Party / Öiset juhlat (75)

Lumene, now you're talking!! This is really wonderful and a can't understand that I ever questioned flakies! They are perfect and I can't stop looking at them! This depth! Great, amazing, I'm totally thrilled!

Okay, what we have:
A brown shimmer polish with very small silver glitter and flakies that vary from yellow - green - orange - copper/red



Dragon says: Too tacky.
Sheep says: Just tacky enough!

But judge yourself:



(at sundown, therefore the reflections)



These are:
1 x Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat
2 x Lumene Night Party / Öiset juhlat
1 x Poshe super-fast drying topcoat

And one close-up:

Isn't this just wonderful?!

This combination did not dry as fast as China Glaze Emerald Sparkle with Poshe but still fast enough for me. But for the first time: Shrinkage! But let's face it: No one realizes my tips when they are facing the flakies!

My co-worker was so distracted that she did not listen anymore and I had to repeat my sentences 3 times. Cute :o) She agrees with me: Great polish!

Well Lumene - go on like this! More of those polishes, please! You've shown that you can do more than sheer oder creme pinks!

Leaves me with a dilemma: Need more flakies ...

Do you have a craving for flakies as well or do you agree with my dragon?

P.S.: There is another giveaway I want to mention:

The Springtime Giveaway from The Dutch Nail Blog - check it out!

Nude swatches

It's weekend, I have a bit time - so it's time for nail polish! And some surfing! Just found this great Birthday Giveaway I'll take part in! I mean - Gosh polishes!! Gosh! Very hard to get around here ... nice idea for a givaway!

Okay, I'm in the mood for something nude or light pink, creme ... something low-key but nice.

You won't believe it, but the sun is shining!!

So here we go from left to right:

2 coats of OPI Tickle my France-y

2 fingers with 2 coats of Lumene New World - Uuteen maailmaan (hey, this is not properly translated, is it? It should be "To the new Word", not?)

1 coats of Orly Country Club Khaki + 1 coat of OPI Tickle my France-y

Of course with basecoats and topcoats ... the dents in the coats are from "hey are you dry" testings. Have to do them :o) By the way: The Lumene is from my 10 new polishes shopping spree.

I'm not really happy with the colors in the sun picture - they seem more similar than they are in reality. New World is rosy, the others not. The shadow picture is a bit better:

Okay, the OPI is what I really want. The Lumene is nice but very girly, even if it's not a real pink - it is quite toned down. The Orly+OPI combination is okay but the colors on their own a nicer.

And what is with my Tickle my France-y problem? Is it solved with only 2 coats and VNL? No, it's not! This time I tried it with Poshe base- and topcoat - and yes, it won't dry! Later on I will try it again with P2 basecoat and no topcoat. I want to make this work! Can't be that hard, can it?

Tickle my France-y - why can't you be like Orly Country Club Khaki? Almost a onecoater and dry within minutes without topcoat! Makes me want to buy more Orlys! I hope they are all that great. And I love the rubber-lid!

So, mental note: Need more Orly!

And now ... where is my polish remover?

OPI - Tickle my France-y (NLF16) - this time with Poshe

I think I give it up!

Or not.

The color is so nice!

No, I think I will make it an everlasting quest, always trying new approaches. Next time perhaps with this one from The Manicured Manatee (and then only two coats of OPI). By the way a really great blog!

But back to my problem:

These are:

1 x Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat
4 x OPI Tickle my France-y
1 x Poshe super-fast drying topcoat

approx. 35min after applying the topcoat. Great, isn't it? And I needed no effort at all to achieve this wonderful polish mountain. Indeed I waited another 15min till my dragon (I'm sheep, he is dragon) came home to show him the real beauty of this and pushed it even more together without effort. So perhaps my anger towards INM Out the Door is unfair - at least in regard to this polish.

4 coats of Tickle my France-y are simply too much for my topcoats and less than 4 coats of the polish are too sheer for me and leave VNL. Perhaps I should live with the VNL - in this case 2 coats would suffice.

Will have to think about it - I want this one to work!

OPI - Tickle my France-y (NLF16) and INM Out the door

Total disaster! I didn't even take a picture of this. But first: Tickle my France-y is a wonderful color! A really beautiful creme nude.

First I applied the Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat.

It took me 4 coats to get the OPI almost opaque, there was still a slight VNL. 4 coats is a lot of work. And I'm kinda lazy. But it was such a nice color that I thought it's worth the time.

Then I applied one coat of INM Out of the Door and waited. And waited. And reached out for another bottle of nailpolish and accidentally touched the bottle with one fingernail. And there it was ... a big mountain of nailpoilsh pushed together on my nail. Oh yes, it was still totally wet. Seems that INM Out the Door and I won't become good friends, this is the second letdown. But since INM and the Poshe basecoat already worked fine together and OPI and Poshe have proved that they are compatible too, it seems to be a problem between INM and OPI.

On one nail I tried to apply one coat Poshe - perhaps this would save me - but no, it was too late. So I waited till my partner came home, showed him the nice color - he agreed that it looked very nice - and pulled out the nailpolish remover ...

I wasn't in the mood for another 4 coats - so I went with my favorite: China Glaze FYI.

But I'll try OPI Tickle my France-y again - then with Poshe base- and topcoat. Guess I'm just more the Poshe-girl ...

China Glaze - Ruby Pumps (182)

Hello out there!

Yes, I know: I said that I wanted to enjoy my Dorothy Who? nails for a while but it seems that Poshe + CG are very delicate regarding to water. The polish peeled right off the nail (and I admit: I take pleasure in picking the polish away like this - and it prevents me from the work of removing a glitter polish the conventional way).

Anyway, I had to redo my nails and since it was Valentine's Day I went for a glittery red: China Glaze Ruby Pumps.

This one is really nice - such a deep color and red glitter! Well ... silver glitter, as you'll see when you remove it with nailpolish remover (which, by the way, is a nice effect: Polish the nails, carefully rub with a bit nailpolish remover over the nail until the glitter is silver and then apply topcoat) but on the nail: red red red! But also a hint of pink - at least at some angles - this makes it even more interesting for me, I like those effects!

Application was nice, this time it went better than with Dorothy Who? at least regarding the thickness of each coat. But since I was in a hurry I messed around a lot and didn't even purge properly - so please excuse the messy application on the following pictures:


A closeup:



And here you can see that the surface of this polish is not smooth, even with one coat of INM Out the Door:

I applied:

1 x Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat

2 x China Glaze Ruby Pumps

1 x INM Out the Door

A small excursion to INM Out the Door:
My first try with this one was a disaster! I had 2 coats of P2 Base + Care Coat on my nails and applied 2 coats China Glaze Emerald Spark to one nail and 4 coats of P2 happy to another nail. Then I applied INM Out the Door and waited for 20 minutes. Then I gently pushed one nail into the polish and both nails were totally squashy. I applied another coat of INM and waited another 20min and pushed the P2 polish again - it was wet down to the basecoat - I could move all 8 layers from the nail without using force. The CG nail was a little bit better but still a big letdown. I was surprised: Everybody seemed to be happy with INM Out the Door and it won't work for me?!

After my test yesterday I can say: INM Out the Door works fine and is a good alternative to Poshe fast-drying topcoat, but you should never use it together with the P2 Base + Care Coat - it simply won't work.

China Glaze - Dorothy Who? (857)

Finally! Today I got one of my 2 ordered polish-packages!

Since I need a serious cheer up I went for a glitter: Dorothy Who? from China Glaze. I was surprised because it looks pretty dark blue with a purple hint in the bottle. Once applied I liked it much better because it has a nice teal color. But I had some trouble applying it. This is my first glitter/jelly polish.

First I'll show you some pictures:

It was not easy to capture this color or the wonderful glitter effect.

Back to my problems during application. Here are the used layers:

1 x Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat

2 x China Glaze Dorothy Who?

1 x Poshe super-fast drying topcoat

The Poshe basecoat was nice to apply and one coat was enough to smooth out my ridges the same amount as two coats of P2 basecoat do. The first layer Dorothy Who? was a pain. It seemed to dissolve the basecoat and I got terrible blotches, parts with hardly any color or glitter. The second coat made almost everything nice again - only the biggest blotches on my thumb needed a 3rd coat.

But there are big differences in the depth of color in my 2 coats. I'll have to learn to apply the polish more evenly over all nails!

And then: My first time with a fastdrying topcoat. What a relief!! It didn't take 30min to dry my nails perfectly and I can't detect the much dreaded shrinkage. I'm really happy with the Poshe topcoat! Now I hope that it makes my polish last at least 3 days - then everything is wonderful.

Before polishing my nails I made two test-nails with fastdrying topcoats, one with INM Out the Door and one with Poshe. I had the feeling that the INM didn't really work with the China Glaze glitters. Will have to run a real comparison between those two fastdrying topcoats - but first I'll enjoy my Dorothy Who? nails for a while.