NOTD: Nailene So Natural Nails

I've had no time to swatch in recent days, as Mr. K and I are once again in western Washington working on his mom's move to assisted living, but I have at least taken the time to slap some more fake nails on to attempt to protect my poor neglected natural nails. The latest set, which are on my nails as I type, are some Nailene So Natural ones in a subtle brown lace design that looks golden in some lights and coppery in others.



These come with both glue and double sided adhesive tabs; I used the tabs to apply as I think that's kinder to my natural nails (which I further protected with a treatment base before I started). I found sizes to fit my nails without much trouble, though as per usual, finding one for my ring fingers was the most challenging, as those have longer nailbeds than my other digits. The shape covered my nails nicely.





Where these really came through is durability. The second day I wore these, I spent all day helping move furniture and stack boxes and rip tape and pallet wrap off things, as this was the day the big moving truck with the rest of my mother-in-law's possessions arrived in her new city. I did not pop off even one of the nails.



Today it's day five for these, days I've spent not only on the moving activities but doing dishes by hand without rubber gloves (yesterday I finally bought some to keep in my my mother-in-law's apartment) and other house chores. There is some tipwear, yes, though it's hardly visible at normal viewing distances. I've still not yet popped any of the nails off, which is pretty amazing given what I've been up to.



The way the base curve of these so closely matches my natural nails probably has a lot to do with their staying on, as there aren't any edges to catch. This straight on view shows how well these fit (the gap shows the edge of the adhesive tabs, not dirt).



With how well these fit and how well they're wearing, I'm sad that I got them on clearance since that means they're probably no longer available or if they are they're at ridiculous prices. Ah well, I'll enjoy them while I can and keep experimenting with brands I can get now.

So Many NOTD, So Little Polish

With all the travel I've been doing in recent months, once again I've turned to fake nails and nail polish strips to adorn my digits between swatching sessions. I certainly have and will travel with liquid polish, but sometimes it's nice to just toss a few boxes of nails and strips in my luggage and not worry about breakage or spills.

I've worn Sally Hansen Salon Effects in The Bold Rush before; the gold to plummy purple gradient is pretty, but not as pretty as the box, which has a strong scattered holo effect not evident on the strips themselves.





A set of NailBliss Magic Press fake nails in the Runaway Star design came next; I'd worn these before as well. The box has three finishes of nails: pale pink creme, white iridescent, and gold/iridescent glitter.



When I first put these on, I used only the pale pink and the glitter ones.



Four days later, I'd popped off and lost one of the pink nails and decided to go ahead and mix in the iridescent white.



I went super subtle with the next set of fakes, some Nailene So Natural ones I'd gotten ages ago when one of the drugstores had them on clearance.



By this point, my natural nails had grown out enough that I couldn't cover them with the fakes without leaving a bit more of a gap at the base than would be ideal. (Yes, I could have filed my nails but I hate to give up length if I don't have to, and these nails were so neutral I thought the gap wouldn't be too noticeable.) These had just a touch of shimmer to them that made them not entirely boring.



These lasted a long time, with only a couple needing re-attachment during the eight days I wore them. Here they are on that eighth day:



Lately instead of using nail glue or double-sided sticky tabs to replace fakes that I pop off (and I usually do pop one or two off within a couple days, as I have yet to break my habit of using my nails as tools, particularly the index and thumbs), I've been just putting on a thick coat of treatment polish and using that to put the fake nail back on. It's not as strong as nail glue, certainly, but it's kinder to my nails and easier to remove when it's time to change my manicure.

My Nails Are a Mess and So Am I

The other day, Facebook was nagging me with a reminder that I hadn't updated my blog page in 33 days. "Shut up, Facebook; you track my movements and life events, you know why I haven't," was my response.

But now I am in a somewhat better headspace and able to pop in with a quick update. Since my last post here, I flew to Michigan, drove to Ohio for a weekend conference, drove back to Michigan to spend time with friends, then drove to Illinois and met Mr. Karen (who'd driven there from Idaho) for a family reunion, and event which I left early to go see my mom in a rehab facility, where she'd been moved afer a short hospital stay due to breathing troubles. After a few days in Illinois, Mr. Karen and I returned to Michigan to pick up a rental truck and pack up the stuff we'd left in storage there. On our way out of town, we'd planned to spend the weekend in northern Michigan, relaxing at a friend's place on a lake and picking up Mr. Karen's sailboat, which he'd left up there some months ago. I broke from the plan and decided to go back to Illinois on my own, sending Mr. Karen to the lake with the rental truck full of our stuff, since I wanted to take advantage of being so close to spend a bit more time with my mom. I had good visits with her at the rehab place on that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. She was on oxygen and weak, but was able to sit up on the side of her bed and walk to the bathroom without help, and perfectly able to talk and fuss about not wanting to be there.

I left that Monday expecting she'd be released in the next week or so to be at home with her beloved kitties and getting care there. I drove to Wisconsin and met up with Mr. Karen who took his own route there from northern Michigan. As we drove to Idaho over the next few days, I got updates from my brother and niece about mom and she was on track to be released. We arrived in Idaho midday on July 28 and started unloading the rental truck that afternoon, as I thought we had to turn in it in the next day. I didn't have my phone on me when I was wrangling boxes so missed a call from my niece that my mom had been taken back to the hospital due to dizziness and shortness of breath. The rest of the day into evening I got updates from her and my brother and while it wasn't looking great, it didn't seem any more serious than her other hospitalizations. The next day, July 29, we finished unloading the truck and turned it in—a day early, actually, which we realized when we double checked the paperwork, but that turned out to be a good thing, as it freed me up to start making arrangements to head back Illinois when Mom took a turn for the worse. I woke the next morning to a message from my niece; my mom had died early that day. Neither my brother nor I could quite believe it; we were both sure she'd hang on at least one or two more nights. He headed down from Wisconsin to be there with family; since there wasn't any rush to see Mom one last time, I decided to drive, too, as that's less stressful for me than flying and I could be more flexible with my return.

Since I got here to Illinois, I've been spending time with family and working on getting Mom's affairs in order. My nails have been an afterthought, as you'd expect. Here's how crappy they are; I was not taking care of them and ended up having to clip off splits and such.



The past several days I've had them covered up with Nailene So Natural Everyday French press on nails in Short Beige. They've at least protected my real nails as I've been going through boxes of stuff with my brother looking for important paperwork. Under the fakes, I'm wearing a coat of the Sally Hansen Hard as Nails treatment that I put on Mom's nails after I clipped and filed her finger and toes on that last weekend I had with her.



I did do a pedicure in Mom's honor. She loved bright colors and bold prints, so Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Spring Fever seemed perfect.



And yeah, I'm wearing this pedicure to the memorial service, though probably not with these bright sandals, though she also would have loved those.



So yeah, that's where I've been. I'm sad but doing okay. She lived to be 86, which is not a bad run, especially for someone with as many health issues as she had. I wasn't expecting her to go quite so soon, yet I am grateful she was able to be her feisty independent self until very near the end, which is a gift not everyone gets. She felt joy in life until shortly before she left this life.

I am not sure when I'll get back to regular blogging. I'm not sure when I'll get back home. I'm not sure of a lot right now except I am lucky to be surrounded by the support of family and friends.

Late May Displays

When possible, I like to share the displays before I swatch the polishes in them (if I'm going to swatch them, that is; I don't buy everything, though I know it might seem from my nail wheels that I do). Thus today I have my third display post this month, because I've got three or four posts planned with swatches of some the colors you're about to see.

Ones you won't be seeing me swatch anytime soon are the Sally Hansen Hard as Nails ones in the Summer Splash display I found at Walgreens, because these are core and I feel like I can get around to them whenever (or never, though I sometimes think it might be fun to pick a line and just swatch my way through the entire core collection). Left to right: Rock Candy, Tough Chick, Hard Lemonade, Rock 'n' Roll (bonus points for correct use of apostrophes there, Sally!), Firm Fig, and Teal Steel.



In my last display post, you saw the Sally Hansen Magnetic display at Meijer, which had six slots for eight colors. At Walgreens, I saw a different display for these. It was at the end of an aisle and had five shelves for the eight colors, along with some Mega Shine Top Coat hanging below one of the shelves. On the left side, Golden Conduct shared a shelf with Polar Purple and Kinetic Copper was paired with Red-y Response. On the right, Silver Elements got its own shelf, Ionic Indigo (I keep wanting to type "iconic") and Electric Emerald shared, and Graphite Gravity went solo. (Apparently this store thought that putting giant price tags with "GREAT BUY!" on them would distract a person from heading down the street to Meijer where the magnetics were $2 cheaper.)



Target had theirs both along the back wall of the cosmetics section and on an end cap, in both cases with ten slots for the eight colors—the two grey ones had two slots each.





At Rite Aid they had yet another display configuration; this one had one slot for each color. The OCD part of me heaved a sigh of relief at seeing this.



In other magnetic polish news, Ulta had the Orly Magnetic FX. There are three colors here: Opposites Attract (deep blue), Force Field (deep berry), and Paint on Electron (charcoal). I was quite surprised to learn that these are priced at $15 each. Sure, that's 50 cents less than the Layla magnetics for a bigger bottle, but Orly and $15 do not go together in my head.



In still more magnetic polish news, Rite Aid had a display of Magnetique by Blue Cross. These were $4.99 each and had no color names. I saw a red, a purple, a grey, a bronze, and a green; it wouldn't surprise me to find other colors at other stores if the snowmen and pumpkins that Blue Cross does are any indication.



There's been so little action at my CVS recently that I had to resort to taking a picture of the Nailene SensatioNail gel polish display, which I've been ignoring because I do not need to get into gel polish. (It's similar to the "no flannel" line I drew for myself when collecting quilting fabric.)



Rite Aid hasn't been slacking; in addition to the Sally Hansen and Blue Cross magnetics, they had a L'Oreal display I hadn't seen before called LA Entourage. On closer inspection, these colors aren't new; they're the ones that were in the Trendsetter section of the big display when the Colour Riche line launched at the end of last year/beginning of this year. Left to right: Tweet Me, Boozy Bunch, Check Me Out, Penthouse Pink, Club Prive, and VIP Status.



The Essie summer colors that Rite Aid had were new: Mojito Madness, Off the Shoulder, Fear or Desire, and Bikini So Teeny.



Target had all six of the Essie summer 2012 shades on an end cap. Left to right: Cascade Cool, Off the Shoulder, All Tied Up, Fear or Desire, Mojito Madness, and Bikni So Teeny.



Also at Target (and only at Target for a limited time, according to the sales associate who saw me studying them): Cos Bar colors. These don't have names on the bottles, but the tags on the shelf called them Purple, Lime Green, Copper, and Bronze.





Finally, I saw two Sinful displays at Walgreens that I hadn't come across before. First, there's Dare to Play, with eight colors intended for something they're calling a "rock star French" mani; judging by the photo this is a funky French with glitter tips. I don't think any of these colors are new, but Sinful has fooled me before. Left to right: Pink Forever, Frenzy, Hottie, Why Not, Rise and Shine, I Miss You, Nail Junkie, Boom Boom.



The other Sinful display was called Suit Up. I don't think any of these are new either. Left to right: Star Fish (two slots, repromote from Adventure Island), Open Seas (two slots, also from Adventure Island), Casablanca (two slots, repromote from Lone Star), Boom Boom, and Unicorn.



Now I just need to decide which swatches to share tomorrow and which will have to wait until next week. Choices, choices.