OPI xPress/On Nails

For the second week of my trip, I wore a set of OPI fake nails, my first time trying this brand's offering. I chose 100% That Scorpio from their zodiac collection (I'll share other signs from that in a future display post). I'm not a Scorpio, but I really liked the purple/green/blue multichrome effect. This set's shape is Classic, which I'd call oval.

 

After I opened the package, I struggled to find sizes that fit my nails. The assortment was very much skewed toward the smaller end. Other brands I've used have had a more even distribution, and my hands are not small, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to make this work.

 

I did the best I could with the sizes, but it wasn't great, especially the over large nail I had to put on my middle finger. As with the Ardell nails I shared in my last post, these came with glue but I used adhesive tabs.

 

The shift in these was strong and fun to look at.

 

The shape of these at the tips did expose some of my natural nails, which wasn't ideal, but the shiftiness of the fakes was distracting enough that I could ignore that after a while.

 

These nails did not like the adhesive tabs. I had the first nail pop off only a couple hours in, leaving the adhesive tab on my natural nail. Fortunately I found the nail, which is important as it was one of the larger ones and I didn't have a replacement for it. A few more instances of that, and I started using glue between the adhesive tab and the fake nail. That helped them stay on longer, though I still lost several even with the glue. That issue and the sizing make me less excited about trying other sets of these, though they have a lot of attractive ones and other shapes so I'll probably give them another chance or two.

Ardell Nail Addict Sun Kissed Nails

As usual, I had the best of intentions for posting more here now that I'm home, except I've been sick. I spent the first week after I got home thinking I was just tired from travel. Then I woke up with a swollen, red, goopy eye and decided I needed to get that checked out. I also had some bug bites that were not healing well, so I had the doctor look a those too. She gave me some antibiotics for the infection she diagnosed, and I took those for almost another week, feeling worse and worse rather than better. I went back to the doctor's this past Friday and saw a different professional and got some different drugs and have slowly been feeling better. Still don't know exactly what I've got, as the first sample they took wasn't usable when it got to the lab. Hoping to hear on the second sample when I go back on Wednesday. I have enough energy now to do more than huddle on the couch under a blanket, so today I've got one of the sets of fake nails I wore on my recent trip, the Ardell Nail Addict Sun Kissed in Color Cadet.

 

These came with nail glue only, but I used adhesive tabs instead since I continue to think they're less damaging to my nails. The fit and base shape of these worked pretty well with my own nails, though they were a tiny bit too square at the base. The pinky peach color indoors went nicely with my skintone, if maybe being a bit unexciting. The nail material was a bit on the sheer side, which meant some air bubbles between the adhesive tabs and the nails showed through, as well as my nail tips, which were shorter than the fakes. It bothered me at first but after a while I stopped noticing it, and I don't think anyone else saw those details the way I do.

 

In filtered sun, hints of pink showed up.

 

In full sun, they went to a light magenta.

 

I kept hoping I'd see the deeper purple shown on the box, but I never caught them doing that in the week I wore them. Here they are at a rest area somewhere along the road.

 

These stayed on pretty well with the tabs and the color change aspect was fun. I'd wear this style again.

Spring Colors from Kokie

Products provided for review

 

Well hello again. I'm recently back from my not officially summer yet vacation, a road trip from Idaho to Illinois and back again. In a bold move, I left my laptop at home, which meant, among other things, that I was able to wear longer fake nails than usual, but that's a story for another day. The story for today is that Kokie kindly sent me some polishes in colors perfect for spring. Left to right: Iris, Rock Star, Crown Jewel, Classic, Georgia Peach, All the Envy.

 

I started with Classic, a pale milky peach crelly. This was buildable; I did four coats but could have stopped at three for a faux French mani look. This is indeed classic. I wore similar polishes for years early in my career as an accountant when I was trying to fit the mold of a serious businesswoman.

 

Nothing like dots to quickly add color, so I decorated with Georgia Peach, Iris, and All the Envy before adding clear topcoat.

 

Iris is a light lilac creme. This one covered in two coats.

 

I topped Iris with Crown Jewel, which has blue and holographic blue glitter in a sheer gold shimmer base. (I knew this would work because I swatched a different bottle of it over another light cool creme back in 2019. Because I was craving sparkle, I used two coats of Crown Jewel and added clear topcoat to bring out the bling even more.

 

All the Envy is a medium green creme. I used two coats for my swatch.

 

I put one coat of Crown Jewel on top of All the Envy and added topcoat to that. The somewhat deeper base brought out the gold in Crown Jewel more than Iris had.

 

I combined Rock Star, a warm lavender flecked shimmer, and Georgia Peach, a light red-leaning orange creme, into a funky French look alternating with Georgia Peach alone. Rock Star took three coats and Georgia Peach two. I did add topcoat to the funky French nails to smooth the line between the polishes. This look does say spring to me. If you want to see Rock Star on its own, I swatched a bottle I bought myself back in 2019 (and also topped it with another Kokie shimmer/glitter topper).

 

Given that Rock Star was three coats, I wondered if it would work as a topper, so I laid down a base of two coats of Iris and added one coat of Rock Star to all but my index finger. I really liked the combination. Rock Star warmed up Iris just a tiny bit, and Iris brought out the pale golden shimmer in Rock Star.

 

These are all nice polishes; good basic cremes and some bling to liven them up. It's nice that Kokie doesn't seem to discontinue things too quickly, given that I got two of these colors four years ago and you can get them today. 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.

Dashing Diva Gloss Gel Nail Strips Update

After I posted about my NOTD on Friday, I remembered I'd taken a photo of my nails in the sun that I'd forgotten to include. So I was going to just edit the post and add it, but got distracted (no surprise there). Then on Saturday, I had something unexpected happen to the strips so here I am with a two-photo update. First, the strips in the sun on a recent still wintery but not so cold I needed full gloves day. I liked the sparkle and glow a lot.

 

Then Saturday I was a party at some friends' place. Helping to clean up, I used a disinfecting wipe from a container they had. Didn't think anything of it until I noticed the tips of my strips had turned dark. Guess the chemicals in the wipes weren't compatible with the chemicals in the strips. Good to know.

 

Given how ratty they were looking, I removed the strips yesterday. As per the instructions, I used a bit of oil on my nails and then peeled them off. They all came off cleanly in one piece each and my nails didn't seem to have suffered any damage. I will probably use the Dashing Diva strips again, though I will probably try putting down a ridge filling base coat first. I can buy the strips at Fred Meyer, so that's convenient, though they just had a few designs the last time I was there. Maybe supply chain issues from the pandemic still.

Dashing Diva Gloss Gel Nail Strips

Well hello. I had a good break from nail blogging. I've still been paying attention to a couple of polish groups on Facebook and looking for displays when I have the opportunity. Last month, I saw a mainstream collection that inspired me to not just photograph it, but buy all the colors and I've used two of them already (on my toes, so won't be sharing those here because that's a whole thing). I hope to at least get a display post with those in it up next week. Now, though, Ij ust couldn't let all of March go by without posting something, so here I am with the first nail look I've done in ages that didn't involve press on fake nails (not that there's anything wrong with fake nails).

Late last week I found a set of Dashing Diva Gloss Gel Nail Strips when I was looking for a new set of fake nails to put on (yes, the organization of my nail stuff is an ongoing issue). I'd had a few too many nails pop off from set I was wearing so thought why not try the strips. Those aren't going to end up on the floor of someone else's house the way my fake nails had the other week (twice at the same party, even). I put them on late at night at home, so please forgive the wonky lighting in these next several pics. This set is called Gleam Queen and has mostly lilac creme strips, with three different accent options: purpley pink microglitter, silver microglitter, and lilac and pink "stained glass" with white leading.

 

The directions for applying these are similar to my beloved and long discontinued Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips: prep the nail, choose a size, smooth from base to tip when applying, file off excess. Removal is different: these can be peeled off rather than needing nail polish remover.

 

I did lilac on most of my nails, with silver glitter as an accent on my ring finger. In comparison to the nail polish strips, these are thicker, feeling sort of rubbery. That's good in that it makes them easier to handle: they don't tear or flop over onto themselves the way the very thin polish strips can. That's bad in that it's harder to smooth them out at the edges (my pronouced C-curve makes that harder) and harder to remove the excess at the tip (forget about the sides ... you can't cut these with the sharp end of manicure stick like you can regular polish strips). You can see some little wrinkles on a couple of my nails and some fuzziness at the ends where I had trouble filing them smoooth. The set does come with a fairly good sized one-sided file to use, but I still had trouble. The glitter strips were thicker than the plain ones, which meant they looked better since they didn't form those wrinkles at the sides and camoflauged irregularities in my nails better than the plain strips.

 

In the light of day the next morning, I wasn't super happy with how the plain strips looked, what with the wrinkles and the showing of every ridge underneath. The ridges aren't so obvious in this photo as they were to the naked eye. I also noticed some "fuzzies" stuck on the ends of some nails, likely clinging to the adhesive on the bits of strips I'd struggled to file off the night before.

 

Since I liked the glitter nail, I decided to just put accent strips over the plain strips. Much better.

 

There weren't any thumb-sized accent strips, so I just laid one of the stained glass ones down the center, hoping that would distract from the wrinkles at the sides. It looked pretty good, I thought.

 

I've now had them on for six days. There's been some slight lifting of the strips at the tips and corners of a few of my nails, perhaps because of the double thickness. The stained glass ones on my middle fingers are showing the most raggedy-ness, probably because I tend to bump those fingers into things more since they're longest.

 

I'd use these again, just stick to glitter sets rather than plain ones, or do a ridge filling base coat first, though I don't know how that would affect their sticking power.

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.

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.
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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.

Shifty Duo from Great Lakes Lacquer

Today I have two beauties from Great Lakes Lacquer that have been languishing in my stash waiting for their day to shine: Making Peace With Past Indiscretions and Resolve.

 

Making Peace With Past Indiscretions is a multichrome shimmer that's deep green shifting to purple, with shades of blue and even gold in between depending on the light. It has scattered holo microglitter, too, to add even more interest.

 

I used two coats for my swatch and that was plenty. Straight on in indirect light, it mostly showed its rich green base, with hints of purple at the edges.

 

Start changing the angles and the shifts appear:

 

 

 

Out of the lightbox under direct light, it looked like a gorgeous night sky:

 

Resolve has small shifty glitter pieces that go green to blue to purple along with a holo microglitter scatter in a clear base, so it pairs very well with Making Peace.

 

I put one coat of Resolve over Making Peace and added clear topcoat. Loved this combination!

 

Resolve is so sparkly and it seemed to really enchance the shift in Making Peace.

 

 

 

One more of the combo in direct light:

 

On the one hand, I have so many pretties I haven't worn, so at least swatching them so I get to enjoy them for a little while is a good thing. On the other hand, seeing them on my nails just makes me want to go look for more pretties. We shall see if my commitment to a low buy survives the post-Thanksgiving rush.