Across the Ocean and Back Again

Hello! I am back from my month-long vacation which took me to/through 15 states plus one country outside of the U.S. It was a journey with a lot of different events and modes of transportation which took me and Mr. Karen to places both familiar to us and new. I put neutral (but a tiny bit sparkly because I'm me) polish on my toes and packed fake nails for my fingers and off I went. A few days before we left, I put on this set from imPress called Wash Away. It has light blue solid nails, light blue with tiny iridescent glitter nails, and light blue with a turquoise and navy flower and butterfly design nails. These started out medium length and square, but I cut and shaped them so they felt more comfortable and practical for me, as I often do with the longer fake nails.

 

Still looking good on day 6 (with the limited edition "XP Flavored" Coke limited edition).

 

I had a few nails loosen and need new adhesive tabs during the week I wore the blue set, so pretty standard. The next set of nails I used were from the Kiss Gel Fantasy Allure line. The box didn't have a name on it, but I looked online and these appear to be called How Dazzling. They have multi-sized iridescent glitter on a translucent ivory base. (The box was a bit worse for wear after being stuffed in a pocket of my suitcase for a week at that point.)

 

I used adhesive tabs for these, not the glue that came with them. I clipped and shaped them as I had the blue set. On the left, as they came from the box. On the right, how I wore them.

 

I wore the glittery nails for the whole second week of the trip. When it was time to change, I reached for a set I'd gotten off the Temu app, where they were described as "Press On Nails, Short Square Fake Nails, Beige French False Nails with Glitter Design, Glossy Clear Full Cover Acrylic Nails for Women and Girls; Color: Beige Cat Eye, Style: Gentle". The picture didn't appear to match a lot of those words, but for $3.48 I was willing to risk it.

 

These came with adhesive tabs. They were not short, so I clipped and filed them. They were a bit sheer, so before I shortened them, a hint of my natural nail tips showed through the fake nails in strong light.

 

Six days later, I hadn't lost a single nail. Those adhesive tabs were strong. I'm sure it helped that I didn't have my laptop with me, so wasn't banging my nails on a keyboard for a few hours a day like I tend to do at home.

 

I'd planned to change my nails again before the next phase of our trip, a seven-night transatlantic cruise, but they were holding up so well, I still had them on the day we boarded, a week after I'd applied them.

 

I figured I'd change to the last set I'd packed when I started to lose the beige cat eye ones as the adhesive got weakened, but they just kept hanging in there, so I ended up wearing them for the whole cruise and the multi-day drive home from New York to Idaho. There was definitely a gap at the base of my nails by that time, but given the neutral color of the nails it wasn't too noticeable.

 

On the trip, I was really trying to focus on experiences rather than buying things, so even though I saw polish and fake nails I don't have easy access to at home, I bought none of them. I'm kind of amazed at my self-control. I will have a display post up once I get through all the photos; hoping that won't take too long.

Hip Chic Semi-Cured Gel Nail Strips

I haven't made display hunting a priority for a while, what with so many mainstream beauty brands no longer putting out seasonal collections meaning there's not much to find and thus no dopamine hits for me. Still, habits are hard to break, so whenever I'm in a store that carries nail polish, I tend to drift to that section regardless. On a trip to Fred Meyer, I stopped at the clearance bins and found a whole bunch of boxes with Hip Chic Semi-Cured Gel Nail Strips in them. I'd never seen them at full price, so that's a sign I am shopping way less often than I used to. I figured it was a sign I should try them, so I bought a starter kit with the LED lamp in it (despite having at least two other LED lamps somewhere in my stash) and several sets of strips. I've now used these strips three times over the past two months so felt it was time to share. There was still plenty of snow around when I tried these the first time, so I chose the Freezing Blossom set, which has light blue with silver microglitter strips with two kinds of accent nails: white with snowperson faces and clear with white snowflakes.

 

 

The lamp that came with the starter kit was wide enough to get four nails at a time in, then my two thumbs side to side. The legs fold flat for storage.

 

These strips were even thicker than the Dashing Diva Gloss Gel strips I used earlier this year. That was good for covering the ridges in my nails but made it more difficult to remove the excess length of the strips. Rather than folding and filing as I usually do with strips, with these clipping as close to the end of my nails as I could and then filing worked better. I used only the blue and clear strips for my look, mostly because I didn't like the placement of the snowperson faces on the white strips.

 

 

I liked the look of these, and after they were cured felt almost as hard as fake nails. Unfortunately, they also popped off like fake nails. I lost the first ones just a few days after I'd applied them. The clear strips seemed most likely to pop off. With the first one, I tried reattaching like I would a fake nail, but that didn't really work, as they just popped off again. Fortunately there were enough extra strips that I could just put a new one on and cure it.

 

A few days after the popping off started, I got some chips, like sometimes happens with traditional polish. Here you can see one on my thumb that I'd tried to disguise with liquid polish and one on my index finger. I removed these shortly after I took these pictures, using oil to loosen the bond of the strips and then gently prying them off with a manicure stick per the instructions. Six days of wear wasn't too bad, I suppose.

 

The instructions caution against using these strips continuously (bit a of a warning sign there?), so I waited before trying the next set, My Dear. This has solid red strips, red with white hearts, red with red hearts on a clear background in a sort of reverse French mani arrangement, and red and white checkboards with hearts.

 

I did mostly the solid red strips, with one accent nail per hand. I thought maybe I'd overcured the first set; the directions said to use the lamp 2 to 3 times, so I did 3. I did 2 rounds of 60 seconds with these and they held up better. Whether that was because of the reduced curing leaving them a bit more flexible, or the lack of full length clear strips, or what, I'm not sure.

 

 

I used the strips from the starter kit most recently. These are called Be Born and are all solid warm beige. I did have issues with these starting to pop off after a few days. Maybe my natural nails are just too thin and flexible to make a good base for these.

 

I did have issues with this last set starting to pop off after a few days. Maybe my natural nails are just too thin and flexible to make a good base for these, or maybe I was just too hard on them this time (I was at a craft conference where I was doing a fair bit of macrame). I'd never used this type of strip before. I like the concept; they're easy to apply and with the curing, should hold up better than strips that don't work that way. Similar to the Sally Hansen Salon Insta Gel Strips but without the hassle of a liquid gel topcoat. I do wonder if they're not good for my nails. I'm back to shorties now because when I took the last set of these strips off my natural nails were in rough shape and I had to file them down. I can't be sure that's the strips' fault, though, as I've battled weak nails and peelies what feels like forever. I'm thinking I may try removing them like gel polish next time—roughing up the surface to break the seal then doing the foil method—rather than popping them off and potentially taking the top layer of my nail surface off with the strips.

Wheel D16: Turquoise Blue Cremes

I was travelling last week and gave myself permission to just focus on that. I'm home now and have soft turquiose blue cremes for Nail Wheel Wednesday.

 

1. SinfulColors Believe in Love (2 coats)
2. Wet 'n' Wild Wild Shine Gyp-sea Green (4) [really a jelly, not a creme; looking up old blog posts, this one was never really green]
3. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Big Teal (2) [teal in my head is greener than this]
4. Luxvisage Defile 105 (2)
5. Rimmel 60 Seconds Too Cool to Tango (2)
6. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Lady Libra-ty (2)
7. Kiko Power Pro 37 Ocean (2)
8. China Glaze Capacity to See Beyond (2)
9. Nails Inc. Milner Street (2)
10. Orly Color Blast Nose in a Book (2)
11. Studio M Evolution (2)br /> 12. Color Club Evolution (2)
13. Milani Peacock (2)
14. Frida Kahlo 37 (2)
15. Deborah Lippmann On the Beach (2)
16. SinfulColors Sweet Nothing (2)
17. Maybelline Color Show Turquoise Paradise (2)
18. Zoya Rocky (2)
19. Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant Glosstinis Blue Hawaiian (2) [such a long name for such small bottles]
20. Sally Girl Candy Coated (3)

Bottles 1 through 5:

 

6 through 10:

 

11 through 15:

 

16 through 20:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orly Holo Jellies and Friends

Despite having a goal to continue buying less polish than I did in my stash expansion heyday, I'm still signed up for all sorts of brand newsletters and text alerts, including Orly's. I saw they were having a sale and went to look and noticed it included the shades from the Holo Jellies collection released this past summer. No better time then for me to share swatches of the bottles I bought a while back, along with two glitter toppers I ordered at the same time. Left to right: Party Animal, As If, Peace Out, Chill Pill, Like Totally, and Dancing Queen.

 

I first Skittled the Holo Jellies, doing three coats plus topcoat. They're not quite opaque at three coats, but close enough. All have a generous helping of silver holo glitter in a jelly base. As If is a soft orange. Peace Out is lime green. Chill Pill is a blue between turquoise and sky. Like Totally is purple, such a pretty purple, not too red and not too blue. I like these; the formula is good, with the jelly base being buildable, not too opaque so it hides the glitter.

 

 

 

I then reached for the glitter toppers, grouping them each with the Holo Jellies shade(s) they were most compatible with. Party Animal has pink, orange, and yellow matte hex glitter in various sizes plus silver holo microglitter in a clear base. I layered one coat of it over As If, finishing with clear topcoat.

 

 

 

Dancing Queen has lime, purple, and sky blue matte hex glitter plus silver holo microglitter in a clear base. It seems made for the remaining shades of Holo Jellies. I did a gradient over a creme base that matched my skintone, then Peace Out on my middle finger, Chill Pill on my ring, and Like Totally on my pinky, topping the three non-gradient nails with one coat of Dancing Queen plus clear topcoat. This whole look made me happy. I really should take the time to do manis like this again because they do make me smile.

 

 

 

I don't regret getting these at all despite having more polish than probably all the nail salons in town put together. They're mood lifters for me. And I'm proud of myself for resisting the plain jellies that Orly came out with sometime after Holo Jellies. Maybe I don't have exactly those shades of blue, pink, and yellow in exactly that consistency, but I do have blue, pink, and yellow jellies in my stash. If you don't, those are also in the sale going on now on the Orly website. Five dollars a bottle is a deal. Dancing Queen and Party Animal are available still at full price. I'd pay it because I'm a fool for glitter still, even though the nail world has mostly moved on to other things for now.

Kokie Green Skinny Dip and Friend

Sample provided for review

 

Wrapping up my month of Kokie Green, today I have Skinny Dip, a blue shimmer with a subtle purple shift that's hard to capture on camera. This isn't one of the newest eight shades in the Green line, but one I hadn't tried before. I used three coats for my swatch.

 

 

You can maybe see a hint of the violet in this side shot:

 

I added Starry Night on top of Skinny Dip (you may remember Starry Night, a gold holo glitter, from this recent post). I was going for a glitter gradient look but I'm out of practice.

 

 

Skinny Dip is a nice shimmer, more flecked than frosted. I wish its purple side showed up more for the camera but it shows up for my eyes so that's fine.

These shades are available at select Meijer stores and online for $8 each on the Kokie website.

Kokie   Website    Facebook    Instagram

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.

Two New and One Not from Kokie Green

Polish provided for review

 

There are eight new shades in the Kokie Green line, which the brand was nice enough to send me to try out. Kokie Green is bio-sourced, plant based, free of animal by-products, 16 free, cruelty free, and not tested on animals per the card that came in the box with the polishes. I've got two of the new colors today, along with a previous favorite that I thought looked nice with them. Left to right: Glass Slipper (previously swatched back in August), Oasis (new), and Dewy (new).

 

Oasis is a light cool-toned blue. It has a very subtle shimmer that's visible in the bottle but which tends to disappear on the nail. Perhaps the shimmer helps with self-leveling, as this was opaque in two coats and not at all streaky (any wobbles you see are due to my nails, which are in winter breakdown mode now).

 

I tried direct light to see if I could get the shimmer to show for the camera. No luck with that, which is fine, since this sort of blue is right up my alley regardless.

 

I remembered that Glass Slipper showed a hint of nail line at two coats, so thought it might work as a topper for Oasis, so I added one coat of it to my index, middle, and pinky fingers. That combination really worked for me, with Glass Slipper adding a bit of shimmer and sparkle without changing the pretty blue color of Oasis significantly.

 

As long as I had both of these blues out, I did a quick comparison. Two coats of Oasis on my index and ring fingers versus three coats of Glass Slipper on my middle and pinky.

 

Dewy is a blue-leaning lavender pearly finish shimmer. At two coats, it shows a hint of visible nail line at some angles, which I didn't find objectionable.

 

 

Dewy had a nice glow under direct light.

 

These shades are available at select Meijer stores and online for $8 each on the Kokie website.
Kokie   Website    Facebook    Instagram

The polishes shown in this entry were provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polishes for my own use.