Shit bitch mother fucker

yea so I broke a nail.

UGH.  This weekend we had to put in a wooden floor in our dumb ass condo for the new tenant.  I thought I avoided the whole nail breaking scenario by skipping participation in the carpet removal step.  WRONG!

I wore Color Clubs Wild at Heart ... one of my favorites!

Mmmmm purple holo :D

Granted my nails were getting pretty long, so a slight trim would have been a smart idea.

However, as always, taking down length hurts ... my ego.

 

But you know what hurts more? Ripping a nail off past the quick.  F-ing OUCH. Okay so this shit really hurt.  Do you see how low that skank ripped off.  As always I went into panic mode and shortened the rest before I took this picture.

So what the hell was I doing? I was removing a nail from cement using a crow bar.

Oh and the color on my pinky doesn't match the rest.  That's another story for another time.

I guess you'll be seeing a lot of swatches from the left hand from now on. 

Isn't this iphone pic really good quality?

So I did end up shortening only the left hand a bit. The lengths of the nails are not all even, but I just couldn't take them down any further.

China Glaze - Side Saddle
natural light

 China Glaze - Side Saddle
 flash

2-3 weeks couldn't pass fast enough, but that ring finger does look kinda cute.

Sob Stories from a FOB

Finally a post to thank a whole bunch of lovely ladies for gifting me with some blog awards/tags and another opportunity for me to reveal some deep dark juicy secrets about myself.  It seems most of the things I've come up with have to do with my childhood and carries over into my adult life.  I hope that you will laugh and cry with me, lol

First some thank you's to the following lovely ladies ... <3

Minty at Haute Lacquer - Thank you for the Stylish Blogger Award
Eugenia from ommorphia beauty bar - Thank you for the Stylish Blogger Award and Kreativ Blogger Award
Allthingsnails - Thank you for the Kreativ Blogger Award
For Me, It Works ... - Thank you for the Stylish Blogger Award
Christina from Red Lip Gloss - Thank you for the Kreativ Blogger Award

If there was anyone else I forgot please forgive me. Let me know and I will make it right.

All of these ladies have fantastic blogs that I love to read so check them out at your leisure :D

Now on to my secrets ...  I'm sorry if I bore you ... lots of words ahead lol

1. When I was a kid I desperately wanted braces.  Maybe because it was cool because every body and their mom had them or because I had some serious gappy horse teeth about which my sister constantly reminded me.  So how does a poor FOB get braces?! I used to unroll paper clips and stick them in my mouth and pretend I had a retainer LOL.  OMG can we say chocking hazard.

pic found here

2. When we first came to America my sister and I discovered chips.  Life as we know it has never been the same since. We used to go shopping with my mom and both beg for a bag of our own.  On the car ride home we would demolish the entire bag.  Thank God our metabolisms were slightly higher back in the day.

 pic found here

3. Growing up all of my clothes came from the Salvation Army or Goodwill. No big deal right? Except the only available choices were bright yellow pants and a pink ruffled shirts.  But hey you do what you have to ... 



Holy crap I actually found this picture searching "Goodwill ugly clothes" after I wrote my post, amazing how my description fits just perfectly LOL

4. Christmas was never about presents for my family because we were po' but damn it the kids at school always made Christmas so damn depressing.  All the kids in school would come back from break asking about what everyone got.  All I had was a paper clip in my mouth lol, but to fit in I used to try to make new outfits out of the clothes I already had.  I don't know how you can change the yellow pants or pink ruffles so yea, I don't think anyone was fooled. 






pic found here

5. Growing up, I seriously wanted a tennis skirt (ya know the one with the pleats) sooooo bad.  But guess what, it wasn't available at the Salvation Army.  I love field hockey and Lacrosse for the outfits alone :D.  I finally got my wish when I started playing lacrosse in college!! :D


 pic found here

6. The family joke is ... I was found in a trash can.  Since I can remember, my lovely father has come up with this clever anecdote and my sister likes to encourage him.  Apparently I didn't look like anyone when I was born, nice guys ... real nice.  I did of course pop out of my moms womb, so she always had my back.


 pic found here

Image credit

7. Granted most Russians pop out of the vagina doing back flips I actually taught myself.  I was watching Ahmad Rashad on NBA InsideStuff and they showed a seriously ginormous man doing a back flip.  I was like 'What the HELL?!'. I had been trying to syke myself up for some time to do it and this was all I needed to get me over the edge.  I ran to my parents bedroom, jumped on the bed, and did it. Broke the fan in the mean time LOL but hey I did it!!

8. I want to live in a castle when I grow up.  Seriously, Harry Potter style.






 pic found here

9. Magic is real. Growing up my mom read me fairy tales for hours until her voice was gone and I finally passed out.  What can I say, I'm a dreamer.



 pic found here

10. You may already know I am a scientist from my profile blurb, but what exactly do I do?  My dissertation work involves shooting x-rays at alternative energy systems like fuel cells and batteries.  I'm talking about the same type of x-rays that you get at the dentist except in my case I need really high energy x-rays because I need to excite core level electrons in precious metals (platinum, cobalt, tantalum etc).  These types of x-rays require the use of a synchrotron.  pic found here

These things are miles long and the most famous one is located at CERN. Anywho, a whole bunch of quantum mechanical principles later, I tell you how this stuff works at the atomic level.  zzzzzzz .....Okay please wake up now lol.




This is a fuel cell




I am passing the Kreativ Blogger Award to:
Girly - Addictions
My Little World of Polish by Lily Nail
Polish Insomniac
Spaz and Squee
Rachels Marie's Nails
Whale's Nails
Kitschy Suburbia
Nail Narcissism
Polished Pirate
The Brrrds Nest

Feel free to do the tag or not, doesn't matter to me as long as your nails look pretty :D love you ladies!

Sinful Daddy's Girl

The way I see it, you can't go wrong with purple. 

Sinful Color's - Daddy's Girl

I love this one soooo much.  The sparkle it has is really unique ... and its a jelly.

I was surprised and glad it was lighter on the nail than the bottle color.

Since it's in a jelly base it tends to be on the sheer side.  See the difference between 2 and 3 coats.

What is a girl to do?!

You could go with 4-5 coats OR use some undies.

And since the next best thing to purple is a blurple ...

here is what I do sometimes:


One sloppy coat of China Glaze - Bermuda Breakaway





 

 Then two of Sinful's - Daddy's Girl

I am sneaking this picture in because I love how juicy the polish looks :p

 Here is a comparison with blue underneath ...

and Sinful by itself.

A picture in the sun with only Sinful, probably 4 coats.


I want more Sinful Colors.  Do you have a favorite?

Smelly mannequin hands in the house!

When your skin color melds with your polish ... that is the mannequin look right?

Revlon - Peach Smoothie

It just so happens this polish gives me mannequin hands, and I don't know how I feel about it.

Sometimes I look at my hands and I am like 'wow how elegant'.  Other times I'm like 'where are my finger nails?'

As a bonus this polish smells like generic sweetness peach smoothie.

It's kinda nice. When you don't want people to notice your hands wear this polish, however they may smell you out.

Actually the best thing about this polish is the secret tiny flakies.  Its tough to see, but maybe you can see in this pic with flash.

They are not abundant, but when they catch my eye in the light I swoon.  









 

The formula on this guy was nice ... that is IF you like Revlon, which I do.

It took 3 thin coats to achieve opacity.

If you are not a fan of waiting for polish to dry, I have good luck with Seche Vite and Revlon together in general.

Do you own mannequin hand inducing polish?

Do you want shorter nail beds?

Some people are probably thinking WTF?!  Why would you want that?!  Believe it or not I get about one hit a week from people searching the topic.  Normally people want the opposite of this and I showed how you could achieve longer nail beds in a previous post found here.

Actually I've had the tutorial pictures for this post prepared months back, but I am a bit hesitant to post because I thought I might get some back lash with the method.  Hopefully people will read the post in it's entirety.  Either way maybe a few words of caution first ...

BE GENTLE

More on how later in the post but first, why would someone want to do this?!  How about some pictures?

I suppose some people would actually want to shorten their nail beds while others just want to even out the smile line.  It's all about what you find aesthetically pleasing.

Not all nails are created equal. Sometimes they grow all weird at the free edge. What we are really talking about is skin connected to the nail called hyponychium.

This picture shows one nail that grows pretty even (in black) while the other (in red) is a bit wonky.

Lets look at the hyponychium from underneath the nail ...

Some people have this skin grow up the nail free edge while other people will not even notice it. 

It's this skin (in blue) that you can GENTLY manipulate to even out or shorten the nail bed.

Manipulating this skin is not a permanent fix.  It will grow back ...

I swear it grows back.  Here is one hand where I GENTLY pushed back the skin.

Here is the same hand months later.



















Finally the HOW TO:

There are a plethora of ways to go about doing this.
For example, you could put your hands in warm water for a couple of minutes or even better do this after a hot shower.  Doing this after a shower with cuticle oil is the way to go if it's your first time. 

Some tools.  It looks a bit scary, but that is why I stress pushing back the hyponychium SLOWLY and GENTLY.  This shouldn't hurt ... ever.

So, let's grease up first k?

Apply oil to the cuticle.

Apply oil underneath.

Wait 5 to 10 minutes for the oil to penetrate and soften the skin.


Use the tools GENTLY and SLOWLY to push back the hyponychium to create the smile line you find appealing.

After the skin is pushed back your nail will be clear underneath.  You can see this on two of the nails in the picture.  After the nail dries it will go to the normal free edge nail color. 












Is this safe and should you do this?!  That is up to you.  All I am saying here is that I've been there done that and survived, lol.  If you don't feel comfortable poking yourself underneath your nail then don't do it.  However, if you are doing it gently and slowly it should not hurt and it will grow back.

I had a fight with a razor

Sometimes I just love wearing nail polish.  It's like a cup for your crotch nails ... a nice layer of protection.  Please let me demonstrate.

Have you ever gotten out of the shower only to discover that sometime between shaving your legs and washing your goodies that you have cuts all over your fingers.  LIKE WTF. 

Exhibit A : Pre-shower

oooo yay! pretty and smelly :D

Revlon - Cotton Candy

You can see more of this pretty baby here.

Exhibit B: Post-shower

Observe the pointer.  Damn! I hate when this happens because there is nothing worse than taking off a slice of nail mid way down.  

However, tragedy was averted.  When I took off the polish the nail was completely intact. 

Reason # 3,348 why I love <3 nail polish :D

X-files VEEEEDIO :)

Blogger broke and erased this post, so here it is again.

The proper version (written with lots of pictures) of this post can be found here, however here is a YouTube video if you're into that sorta thing.  I have to admit the written version is more useful, but hey what eve's ...

You want to smell my finger?

LOL ewwww!  I promise it smells good though ...

Revlon - Cotton Candy

I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure this was 3 coats.  The formula was nice for me.

I think it looks so cute on short nails.

This is a basic light pink, but in full sunlight you can see the golden shimmer. 

 But otherwise it looks pink.

 In the shade the shimmer is harder to see.

I also love this one for longer nails.  It's light, pink and girly.

As a bonus it smells delicious. If you're not a fan of sweet things this can get a little nauseating especially if your fingers are constantly near your nose.  

The smell sticks around even with topcoat, but definitely gets less pungent as the days go by.


Are you a fan of smelly polish?

When in Canada ...

... do like the Canadians! And by that I mean playing with GOSH. I'm currently on travel for work, but I thought I would try to see if I could post this during my 2 hour lunch break.

I'm doing this from my phone so who knows how this is going to turn out. Because of that less text k? Just look at the crappy cell phone pic's. Actually they are amazingly decent considering.

I will have to do these again in more lighting situations, but for now enjoy!