Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Nail P0rn

Hey dudes.  I'm going on vacay with the fam.  It might be quiet for about 2 weeks.  I'll leave you with nail porn...

KleanColor - Midnight Queen

One of my absolute faves.
It is mainly blue, but has small pieces of purple.  It's magical.


Color Craze -Treasure Island
(BCC556)

This is a fine blue and green glitter. It takes 3-4 coats, but it's so worth it.












A generous gift from the lovely and beautiful Emily from Green Eyes Pink Nails

Catrice - Absolutely Chinchilly











Revlon - Scandalous
aka Facets of Fuchsia














KleanColor - Puppy Love

My nails look awfully plump here. Do. Not. Like.













China Glaze - High Maintenance


Like sex.















Oh yea, check my ovals!

Not gonna lie, I bought this for the name.

Essie - Poppie Cock

However, it should be called Poopie Cock, no?

Finger Polish Mania, do you approve ?


China Glaze - Sugar High

Sugar High can look pink or peach depending on the light.  You can see more of it's range in the video below...





Essie - Mucho Dinero


They look better oval when they're longer.

Want to make your nails oval? Read the post here, or watch the video below...







YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/loodieloodieloodie

Friday, July 20, 2012

Thinner nails in 10 minutes or less!

Could your nails stand to loose a few?  Do you have extra saddle bags that seem permanent and unruly.  Well now, your nails can appear thinner with a few simple steps!

 
In a few previous posts, I have shown you just how chubby your nails can get when they consume copious amounts of water.  Look here, here and here.  But what if after shrinkage (i.e. tightening of your C-curve) they still seem to bulge and look obese?  Or what if your triangle shaped nail is making you feel down and out?

No fear!  Here is a techniques you can use when painting your nails to make them appear thinner.

First a little rollie pollie finger okay?


Click on any of these pictures to make them larger.

One coat of China Glaze - Vertical Rush

This nail is fully dried thus the C-curve has done all it can do to make the nail appear thinner.  The bulge is permanent.  Note that, it may look like I have polish on my skin at the sides of the nail bed, but I assure you I don't (pictures below). 





What to do?


If you are proficient at painting your nails, you can skip further down, otherwise....

Grab a fine cosmetic brush and acetone.

Here are a few examples:
The brushes with the black ferrules and white handles are no name brands, while the black handled silver ferrule brush is a Swissco brand, and the white handle silver ferrule brush is by ELF.  








Also grab a small piece of paper towel to wipe off excess acetone and polish.















Here is a shot of one of the sides.

1. Dip your brush in acetone. 
2. Get rid of excess acetone from the brush by lightly touching the brush against the paper towel
3. Run the brush along the nail side walls making a clean line.
4. Wipe off the polish on the paper towel.
5. Repeat steps 1. - 4. until you are happy with the lines.




You can take off more or less.  It seems on this side I took off a bit less polish.





If you are a proficient nail painter, just avoid painting the entire nail; leave a clean line at the side walls.





Here are a few before and after shots, head on. Depending on your own nail shape you may see only a subtle difference.  The flatter your nail (less pronounced C-curve) the greater the affect you will see. 





Here is a schematic for different nail shapes:


Each nail bed shape can appear thinner.  Since no filing of the side wall is necessary, you can maintain the integrity and strength of the nail bed.

Although this is a very effective technique, I am sometimes bothered that a portion of my nail bed is not covered with polish.  It will look good far away or head on, yet when I bring them close to my face and see them from the side, I have a raging desire to fill in the gap.  I struggle with them looking fat vs. thin. 

Do you ever use this technique when painting your nails?

Friday, July 13, 2012

Out of context

If you have a blog then you know about the feature in blogger which allows you to see the phrases people type into their search bars that happen to route them to your blog.  If not, let me just tell you, this feature really is the highlight of my day sometimes.  I'll catch some off the wall keywords that seem way out of context, but upon closer inspection I do have relevant posts.  I have linked the keywords.  Also, to really stay in context, I'll show you one seriously radical duochrome.


1. "6 ways to fight a crack whore"   ...... um, I didn't know I wrote a manual on this topic.  Perhaps it can be a chapter in my dissertation!?

CQ - Idyllic (544)


2. "Fat woman peeling oranges"    ..... hold up!  Is this a club?  Are they looking for new members or a spokesperson?



3. "Your fucking with the wrong bitch"  ..... weird.  This happens to be my personal motto, bad grammar included because it's more bad ass this way.




4. "Baby in a jar with formalin" .... WTF? I actually gasped at this one.




5. "How to shave your vag" .... lololol... I may have to make this a future post.  I owe it to the people.

I hope you got as many giggles out of these keyword searches as I did.  One thing is clear, I have an uncanny ability to use seriously inappropriate words for a nail blog.

Isn't CQ - Idyllic (544) beautiful?

Friday, July 6, 2012

Dermelect Color Comparison

In my last post, I showed you three of the six new color nail treatments from Dermelect.  Today, I'll show you comparisons to similar colors I own.

Comparison to Dermelect - Above It

Pointer -
China Glaze - Bahamian Escape

Middle, Pinky -
Dermelect 'Above It'

Ring -
China Glaze - Secret Peri-winkle




Clearly China Glaze - Secret Periwinkle is the odd man out. (Ring finger)









As a side note, China Glaze - Secret Periwinkle has more in common with Essie - Lapis of Luxury.

Left -
China Glaze - Secret Periwinkle

Right -
Essie - Lapis of Luxury.







More clear from this picture, Above It is not a complete dupe of Bahamian Escape, but they are very close.




As a side note, China Glaze - Bahamian Escape is similar to Color Club - Factory Girl.  Factory Girl is brighter.


Left -
China Glaze - Bahamian Escape

Right -
Color Club - Factory Girl







Comparison to Dermelect - Luxurious

Thumb -
Revlon - Gum Drop (Smelly Polish!)

Pointer -
Essie - Lilacism

Middle -
OPI - Rumple's Wiggin'

Ring -
OPI - Do You Lilac It? (more here)

Pinky -
Dermelect- Luxurious




OPI - Do You Lilac It? looks like a dupe for Dermelect - Luxurious

Top -
OPI - Do You Lilac It? (more here)

Bottom -
Dermelect- Luxurious












Comparison to Dermelect - Persuasive

Pointer, Ring -
Color Club - Vintage Couture

Middle, Pinky -
Dermelect - Persuasive




I think here you can tell Dermelect is only slightly more peach and muted, but not by much.









Overall, these two are difficult to distinguish in certain lighting situations.  Like I mentioned in the last post, Persuasive is a bit of a chameleon.


Top -
Dermelect - Persuasive

Bottom -
Color Club - Vintage Couture

It's nice to have choices! :D




*The Dermelect polishes were sent for review*

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Lazy Solutions

There are base coat wearers and base coat ignorers.  What if these two groups of people came together and had a party?  What if in a tragic turn of events the base coat wearers had a momentary lapse in memory and forgot base coat?!  All is not lost.  A good time can be had by all, as long as Dermelect comes to the party.


Dermelect has come out with a new collection of color nail strengthening treatments for the summer.  I had a chance to try 3 of the colors.

Above It














Luxurious

 

 

Persuasive

 

 

 

 

 

 




These polishes are infused with peptides.  Peptides are made of small chains of amino acids (2-20 for example).  In contrast, proteins are large chains of amino acids, greater than 100.  My general view of protein based treatments (or polish) can be found in this post.  In short, I don't believe protein based treatments change the nail plate like formaldehyde, fluoride, DermaNail, and DMU can.  I do believe they can provide a nice layer of protection for as long as it is on top of your nail plate.  

What is interesting to me with these polishes is that because peptides are much smaller, I wonder if they somehow have the ability to interact with the nail plate?  I wonder about this, but have no other insight to give you.

The other tid bit I found interesting is the description of how to use the polish...

"The first coat instantly bonds to the nail, while the second fuses with the base coat to create a flexible web of color that resists chipping and improves brittleness (patent-pending technology)."

Wait, wait!  Are you telling me I can skip base coat??  That would be a fantastic option for my laziness and the ultimate solution for a successful party comprised of base coat wearers and ignorers.  I wrote Dermelect just to make sure that I was correct in my assumption and indeed you can do either or.  As soon as I heard this I ran with it.  *Feel free to click on the pictures to enlarge*

Out of the three, 'Above it' gave me the most trouble.  I did two coats for each polish except this one.  It was a bit thick and after two coats it was still a bit uneven.  I think some thinner will fix it right up.  This was the first coat, no base!



After 3 coats, 'Above It' ended up being a bright baby blue that is definitely eye catching.  I really enjoyed wearing this color.  

In direct sunlight.




This blue still manages to look bright in the shade.



The first coat of 'Luxurious' went on smooth and I only needed two coats to make it look flawless.  Again, I wore no base coat.







My camera makes Luxurious look a bit blue, but I guarantee it is lavender purple.  You'll be able to see it more clearly in the comparison pictures in the next post.





Lastly, here is Persuasive in full sun.  What an interesting color.  It is described as peach, but I noticed it tends to morph between pink and peach depending on the lighting.







 Indirect sunlight makes Persuasive look bright light pink.






More shade makes Persuasive look more peach ... and makes my skin look dirty. lol  

OPI's Mimosas for Mr. & Mrs. also has this distinction.





Aside from giving me "dirty skin syndrome", I liked the formula.






You know how I feel about stains?  Look here, here, and here for major stains and how I remedy them.  However, none of that was necessary.  None these colors left any sort of stains. Woot!

Conclusion:
I must admit, I thoroughly enjoyed skipping base coat for once.  It was very freeing.  I'm usually the type to wear two layers of base to prevent stains, so skipping this step allowed for frivolous dilly-dallying.  If you are looking for a Dermelect base coat, I reviewed their Anti-aging Ridge Filler in an earlier post, but as always feel free to use what works for you!

My absolute favorite out of the three polishes was Above it, even if the formula was a bit thick.  It was so bright, cheerful and compliment worthy.

This is the first color collection for Dermelect's color nail treatments, so I wouldn't expect the color range to be especially cutting edge, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have appreciated a surprise.  The colors are basic and as I will show in the next post, dupable.  I'm interested to see if their next collection keeps it safe.

These three polishes, along with 3 others, can be found on the Dermelect webiste.  
$14/0.4 fl. oz. 

 *Sent for review*