Lace, Strips, and Cinderella

My nails of the day photos tend to pushed down my posting priority list in favor of whatever collection has caught my swatching eye most recently, but today I am going to catch up, all the way to what's on my nails right now as I type.

Way back at the end of January, I went to my company's holiday party (which we have after the holidays) wearing gold and lace on my nails. After base coat (Qtica Natural Nail Growth, which I used twice and then misplaced the bottle so don't have any idea if it really works for me), I did one coat of China Glaze White Cap, decided it wasn't quite what I was looking for to coordinate with my dress, and followed with two coats of Chanel Pearl Drop and Sally Hansen Diamond Dry topcoat. Then I added Sally Hansen Nail Stickers in Little Black Lace, which I picked up last fall but hadn't tried yet. These are actual lace on a clear sticky backing sheet. These were a little trickier to work with than nail polish strips because you can't take off little bits at the base or sides after application to neaten up the fit like I sometimes do with polish strips, and the excess at the tips really needs to be cut off rather than filed, and that's hard to do with one's non-dominant hand (I found a nail clippers worked better than a scissors). I wore these to the party without topcoating them, in part because I liked the texture, and also because I was curious how they'd hold up, but mostly because I was running late. Here's what they looked like just before I left for the party:





And here's how they looked when I got home six hours later—you can see the lace frayed some at the tips:





Before I went to bed, I did try adding topcoat (Hong Kong Girl). A thin coat seals the lace but still leaves some texture; laying it on thick makes the lace shiny, as on my middle finger.



These lace stickers were great for the party; I got a lot of comments and compliments. If I were planning to wear them for more than a night, I'd definitely use topcoat.

I was back to regular nail polish strips the next weekend, when I applied Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Out of Line at the beginning of a quilting retreat with some of my friends from work. I did it right at the table we were all setting up our sewing machines at, so it was fun to show them how fast and easy the strips are. I picked this particular design for the weekend because it reminded me of a quilt (I have others that are more quilt-like, but these colors seemed happier to me, and at the time I needed extra cheering up as it was the part of winter that drags on and Mr. K had been gone for two weeks and I was missing him).





My NOTD between those strips and now did make it into the blog already, but I did want to share what my St. Patrick's Day mani looked like afer a week of pounding my keyboard at work (yeah, I left my holiday nails on all week). There's some tipwear and base gaps due to nail growth, sure, yet they look pretty darn good still. I imagine if I'd used topcoat they might have looked even better (though topcoat doesn't keep my nails from growing, so maybe not that much better.) Points to Incoco for making a good product.



And now I'm caught up to what's on my nails right now: three colors from the Morgan Taylor Cinderella collection. I've got If the Slipper Fits, a light blue shimmer with holo glitter, on my index fingers (and thumbs), Best Ball Gown Ever, a periwinkle shimmer with gold flash, on my middle and ring fingers, and Party at the Palace, a seafoam green with golden shimmer, on my pinkies.







I used two coats of each of these colors, but three probably would have been better. Two coats of topcoat on the glitter would definitely have been better, as I can still feel some bumpiness. The sparkles of color coming off the glitter nicely distract me from all that, though.



If I had this latest manicure to do over (and I suppose I could), in addition to the extra coats, I think I'd do a funky French tip on my pinkies with the glitter, to better integrate that green nail in with the blue on all my other fingers. Obviously it hasn't bothered me that much since it's been on my nails since Saturday; I didn't feel a need to make any changes before I had met up this past Sunday with some of my nail friends. We had lunch and then headed to Sephora to fondle the polishes there and pose for a group hand shot. That's me in the lower left, of course, then going around clockwise it's honeybee_nails, traceyloveslacquer, and holoqueen.



It was great being able to get together with all of these partners in polish; I hope we follow through on our intentions to do it more often.