Pass The Pint

Olivia from The Unknown Beauty Blog decided to start an off topic series known as Pass the Pint.  In one particular post she listed 5 random non-beauty items she likes.  What a fun idea!  I forcefully invited myself into her post ;)  

Here are a couple of things I LOVE, that are completely unrelated to nails. 

1.  Seltzer water – at this point I am addicted and aside from coffee and tea, it’s the only thing I drink.  My sink water tastes like chemically feet, not my favorite flavor, so seltzer water has presented itself as a great alternative!  Oh boy here comes another immigrant story ... when we first came to this country coke was like … well … coke.  Everybody wanted a hit.  The family would buy a 2 liter bottle and it was gone the hour it was cracked open.  You snooze, you loose.  Seltzer water gives me hydration and fizz without the sugar and other nasty boo kaki they put into it these days.

*Ignore the random alky in the background.*

2.   Pens – OMG I love pens and pencils.  No, let me clarify, I am very picky about my writing implement.  The implement heavily determines how pretty the writing will be.  Writing utensils put me in a certain mood.  I especially love long thin implements with fine tips.  *uh, that’s what she said, wait what?*

Considering, I was seriously obsessed with handwriting as a child this is no surprise.

3.  Eating deliciousness – All we could afford when I was growing up was hot dogs and that bologna with the red plastic around it.  I can’t remember how many times those strips ended up in my gullet.  I’m guessing this is where my food obsession began.  Now my days, and particularly weekends, are planned around the phrase “hey what are we going to eat.”  

pic found here

4. Laughing – one of my favorite pastimes.

5. Laughing louder – After love there is nothing better.  Wrinkles from the sun … curse them, wrinkles from happiness … count me in!

To celebrate 4 and 5, I am passing the pint to a few ladies that make me laugh (with a little bit of pee).

First if you have not read Olivia’s Blog … you should.  Not only is it informative, but she makes my side hurt on the regular.

1. Polished Pirate – She has a nail blog, but also a hilariously funny random blog called Your Mom’s Face.  I mean really, this story is a prime example … click here.  Keep a change of panties close.

2. Nefertiti Wore Red – Nail blogger with a fantastic sense of humor.  Brings me joy to read.

3. Worse than a meat dress – I met this little lady on the MUA nail boads.  Cassie and I have had some deep AND meaningless conversations and she simply cracks me up.  Her blog explores health and beauty products and the ingredients we constantly expose ourselves to; makes you think and laugh.  I miss you! <3

There is no responsibility with this tag.  Just giving you love <3

Hello New Loodie!

Hello New People!

I have had so many new followers I thought I would say 'hey' and 'WELCOME'! *waves spastically* :D

Many thanks to the other nail ladies in the nail community for their love and support ... especially Polish Insomniac and Rebecca likes nails. <3

If you're new to my blog you may have missed a few interesting posts.  I thought I would summarize a few interesting series and/or topics:

Nail Filing Series:
X-Files Post and Video
Nail Shape and Balance Post
Taking Down Nail Length Post
Shaping the Free Edge - Square Post and Video
Shaping the Free Edge - Oval Post and Video
Shaping the Free Edge - Squoval Post and Video
Sealing the Nail Plate
Buffing out a peel

Nail Hardener/Treatment Series:
Nail Hardener/Treatment Categories 
Formaldehyde Nail Treatments
Are Formaldehyde Based Treatments right for you?
Protein Based Treatments
Formaldehyde + Protein Based Hardeners
Formaldehyde or Protein Based Hardeners + Moisturizers
Fluoride Based Nail Treatments Part I  
Fluoride Based Nail Treatments Part II
Dimethyl Urea (DMU) based Hardeners

Nail Conditioners, and more nail conditioner talk here
Formaldehyde vs. Formaldhehyde Resin

Cuticle Care:
Moisture
More Moisture
Cuticles - to cut or not to cut
How to use cuticle remover

Nail Fix Series:
Gel polish to the rescue!

General Nail Care Tips:
Rules to live by

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!

Nothing like leaking personal information ...

One more blog award, yeay! This one is the Stylish Blogger Award (or the "lets all get to know each other award") I'd like to thank Once Bitten, Silance is Loud and Polish Wasteland. I'm sorry if I missed one other.

So these are the rules to the award:
1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award!


It's been some time since I received this award and I have been delaying the post simply because I am having an internal struggle about what to share about myself. In general, I am a pretty private person and so it's actually pretty ironic that I even blog, but then again it's not like I am showing my lady parts here, they're just nails. I guess it's in my nature to be fairly private and untrustworthy upon meeting new people. ALAS, I have thought of a few things ....


1. I have never dyed my hair. I totally enjoy my real hair color and for the most part am afraid that if I mess with it, it will never go back to it's original awesomeness. I have gotten several suggestions through out the years though, highlights, blonde, black (wtf), and so on. My current stance on the subject is that I would start dying it when I start going gray .... however that may take awhile ... my dad (who I most favor) is 50 and still no signs of gray and his mother doesn't really have gray hair either.


2. I have a thing for long hair. I was slightly traumatized as a young child and now find great difficulty cutting my hair. Lets go back a few years ... in Russia when you get lice, there is one solution ...cut your hair like a boy. So, you can imagine my devastation when some crap-dude decided to spread his lice to everyone. My parents made me a deal. "You can get your ears pierced if we cut you hair." Sweet deal! Well, guess what, hair was chopped and ears were not pierced. Sheesh! Cutting hair = sadness.


3. Since I'm talking about trauma, let's talk how my dad traumatized me when I was young. He used to like to say the reason I had freckles was because flies liked to poop on my nose and cheeks. F-ing hilarious .... for a 25 year old, traumatizing for a 5 year old. I love my dad though and he'd do anything for me, that's just his strange sense of humor. Silly guy!


4. Since we are talking freckles lets talk sun. I have an obsession with SPF. I wear at least SPF 70 on my face everyday. When I'm at the beach, I am constantly reapplying every hour. (Note: sunblock eats nail polish in such high doses, so fresh mani's are a must at the beach.) Since we all know freckles and wrinkles come from sun exposure I say this is not such a bad obsession ... that is until we all find out some other ingredient in the lotion causes cancer, BLARG!


5. I carry my own bar of soap to most places. I have had an allergy to an unknown ingredient since ~2000, which presents it self as hives and dry skin, and it wasn't until this year that I finally figured out what it was from. Curse you Red 33! Unfortunately, I can not wear many perfumes, lotions, and cosmetics. It's sad and a pain in the a$$. I do get some pleasure in rejecting the annoying ladies at the perfume counters though.

6. Okay another sob story, this time with a happy ending: When I first came to America I didn't know English. On my first day of school I was dropped off at the front office along with my sister. My sister was quickly placed in a classroom, but I think they forgot about me. I obviously couldn't communicate my needs so I just sat there and I guess they didn't know what to do with me so I sat there some more. Lunch came and went. My sister passed by the office in a single file line with her class on their way to lunch. We did the FOB wave as she passed :/ The desperation was obvious. To the rescue! My sis came back bearing TATER TOTS. It was heaven. The End.

7. I absolutely hate calling to order pizza. I think this stems from my early FOB experiences. I get all frazzled and don't know what to say. Sometimes I write down a script for myself, but then if the dude on the other line goes off script I'm screwed. Aaaahhhh!

Here are my pick's:
Acetone and Old Lacquer
Nikki's Nail Files
Nailbamboo
We are Fish
Enamel Girl
Did someone say nail polish?
Varnish Vixen
Diva's Lacquer Box
Rachel Marie's Nails
Nailstah

If you have been tagged before, no biggie, just do what you do. I have love for all of you :)

What's the point of Loodie Loodie Loodie?

In my first post I told you where loodie loodie loodie came from and now on to the content of this blog.  So, lets fast forward a few more years in my childhood.........

I only wanted two things in my life, at least up until then,

1. curly hair
2. beautiful nails

The first only half came true when I got one of those horrible 90's perms.  Luckily, a few years later puberty hit and it really came true.  Weird, but definitely cool.

The second started as an obsession in 6th grade.  I hated my weirdly shaped, large, wide, manly fingers and was desperate to fix this and my constant peeling and hang nail problem.  Sixteen years later that "hobbie" of mine eventually developed into a lot of knowledge in nail care and I would like to share it with you. 

In the beginning, my search for perfect nails started on the internet.  BUT the internet was not what it is today (we were paying for internet by the minute for God sakes), but I did find a few helpful hints that got me trying new nail products.  Amazingly, one web page I first stumbled across still exists; however, I don't think its been updated since I last viewed it in the 90's.  If anyone is interested ..... http://www.waningmoon.com/nails/

I began reading labels and wanted to understand the ingredients.  What role did each play, what can I do to make mine look fabulous?!  Strangely enough this ingredient reading somehow eventually drove me to study chemistry and here I am today working on my dissertation in chemistry.

To make a long story short, everyone can have beautiful nails.  If you have stumbled here looking for how to improve the appearance of your hands, I hope I can help you shape, file and polish them to perfection so that you can grab a chair, press it to your butt, start running and scream loudly, Loodie Loodie Loodie!

Loodie Loodie Loodie!

People People People!

When I was a kid my sister and I would sit on chairs, pick them up (with our butt's still hovering over them) and run around the room screaming, "People people people!"

Why, you ask?  For attention of course.  We wanted people to look at us and it seemed only natural that this action would do it.  So next time you want someone to look at you .... hold a chair tight to your bottom, start running and yell very loudly, Loodie Loodie Loodie!