Back from Break

No wear test report on the gel strips today because they're still on my nails (this is day 13), but I can tell you where I went on my fall break: Hawaii!

(Warning to the foot-phobic: photos of my toes ahead; click away now if you'd rather not see them.)

This trip was the first time I've visited to Hawaii, and now that I've been, I just want to go back—there's so much gorgeous and interesting scenery and so much to do. Sometimes what we did was just watch the sunset; there were some good ones, including this on the North Shore of Oahu:



At home in Michigan, it hasn't been sandal weather for a while, but in Hawaii, it sure was. Our first night there, I stripped off my shoes and socks, put my feet up, and enjoyed the view from our hotel room balcony in Hilo (on the Big Island). My pedicure was Zoya Carly topped with CrowsToes Cheshire.



The trip wasn't all sunsets and relaxing; we did some hiking, too, including across a dormant volcanic crater.



We snorkled, too; I didn't get any photos of that, but here's the aftermath, with my face that's gotten too much sun and my hair that's gotten wild from being in the salt water and then blowing around on the drive back to the hotel (this was on the Kona side of the Big Island).



All the snorkeling and pool time and beach time was hard on my pedi; I had the polish on some nails pop right off even though it was only five layers. I touched up with Carly alone, which meant by the last part of the trip I had an odd arrangement of accent nails on my toes.



In a shop across the street from the last hotel we stayed in, I finally saw an Island Girl nail polish display in person. It was packed with regular polishes in all sorts of finishes, layered polishes, scented polishes, nail art stripers, mood polishes, and boxed sets.



I didn't have time to take detail photos of all the different bottles so don't know what all the color names are. I did have enough time to get the idea that Island Girl may have a problem when it comes to controlling colors batch to batch or perhaps they have some issues with mislabeling. Both of these were called Island Sunset:



Two versions of Island Surf:



Lighter and darker versions of Island Volcano:



I managed to limit myself to buying only five colors (including both versions of Island Sunset) though when I'll manage to try them is a mystery.

Nail Wheel Wednesday will return next week; before that I'll have the usual assortment of swatches and such.

(Note to readers using mobile devices: I've temporarily disabled the mobile template due to a test that BlogHer is running. This should last just for a week or so. Sorry for any inconvenience.)