Nails of Recent Days on the Road

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you know I've been off on another trip. Mr. K and I spent a little over two weeks making a big loop from our home in Idaho, driving down to Utah, Arizona, and California before returning this past Sunday night.

I put on a set of nails from imPress the night before we left. I used a design I'd worn before called So Unexpected, which pairs matte dusty rose nails with accents in a silver and rose geometric design. I had these on when we took in the amazing scenery of Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon.

This is Bryce:



This is the Grand Canyon:



These are my nails at the Grand Canyon:



A week into the trip, I'd had only one nail come off (twice ... I think that means I abuse that finger more than the other), which I easily reattached with a thick treatment basecoat. My nails had clearly grown in that week as evidenced by the gap at my base, but given the subdued color of them, it wasn't too obvious.



Rather than file my nails down and put on another set of the same length, I went with a Kiss Glam Fantasy set in a longer length and more rounded shape for the next part of the trip. I didn't see a name on the box; the nails are shiny solid white with two accent types: iridescent white and iridescent tiny glitter.





These were the nails I was wearing while we were at Disneyland Resort; I didn't get any photos of them there even though I took lots of pictures there, including this one of the teacups at the end of one day:



I've had these on ten days now and they're still looking pretty decent, though the iridencense has mostly worn of of those acccents. I've had to reattach three of them along the way, which wasn't surprising since I've previously found the Kiss adhesive tabs don't work quite as well for me as the imPress.





This shape doesn't cover my natural nails as well as the more squared ones but it still does a good job of protecting my natural tips. I'm not sure why I don't have as big a gap at my base with these after over a week as I did with the imPress set. I suspect I was able to place them closer to the base to start with since they were longer; it could also be that the adhesive on these is more flexible so the nails can move more and somehow self-adjust.

Fakes That Took an Unexpected Turn

There was never any doubt I'd wear fake nails for the start of my trip to Indie Expo Canada ... all those opportunities to break a nail when packing, loading suitcases into the car, wrangling them onto and off of parking lot shuttle buses, grabbing them from the luggage carousel, etc., etc. Thus a few days before I flew out, I put on a set of Kiss Salon Color nails in an iridescent grey that I could find no shade name for on the box but which based on some Googling, I believe may be called Eclipse.



The medium length was necessary as my natural nails have grown out nicely during the summer as usual (much as I try to protect them from the dry air and harsh weather in the winter, I continually fall short, which leads to short nails). The curve at the sides left something to be desired compared to how I shaped my natural nails but I don't think it was noticeable to anyone but me (well, and now, all of you, since I've pointed it out and posted a closeup).





The above pics are in the artificial light in my dining room the night I applied them. The next morning I got the following couple shots in natural light to show the different faces of the iridescent finish (like the ones the night before, they also show the tenacious end of a splinter I wasn't able to dig out of my palm):





That iridescent coating didn't live up to the "stays perfect for entire wear" line on the box—or maybe they just didn't anticipate how long I'd wear them—because by day five, a lot of it had worn off, revealing the plain grey underneath. (My index looks less worn below because I popped off and lost that one and had to replace it a few days in. Usually I notice when they come off and just reattach but in the whirl of getting ready for my trip that didn't happen.)



To distract from the wear, I added accent nails with a glitter topper I found just across the border into Canada when I was driving to Toronto to IEC from Detroit (I flew in there because it was cheaper and made logistics easier at the end of my trip). Quo by Orly What's the Big Teal has turqoise glitter in a clear base, both small hexes and larger triangles. I actually did this in my car, completely stopped for a construction delay on the 401 somewhere in the wilds of Ontario. I was so happy to find such an interesting glitter at a drugstore; I hope to play with it more soon.



My intention was to take off the fakes and do a regular manicure for IEC, but when I swatched the polishes I intended to use over the fakes, they looked good enough I decided to just go with it. Yes, I did have to get the glitter off the accent nails I'd done, but that proved to be not too difficult, especially since I wasn't worried about ruining the finish. I ended up using three polishes for my IEC look; top to bottom, RK by Kiss Holographic Fairy Wing, Fairy Wing topped with Morgan Taylor Bedazzle Me, Fair Maiden Violet Eyes topped with Bedazzle Me, and Violet Eyes alone.







I know, going to an indie polish event, I probably should have worn more indies, but I hadn't brought very many with me (what with wanting to save weight on the way there to have more allowance to bring new bottles back) and the holo and the glitter I'd bought on my drive just went so well with the Fair Maiden (an IEC purchase from a previous year) I had to use them. The holo in particular delighted me ... only $3.99 at a wig store and has rainbows just as flame-y as much more expensive ones in my collection.



On my way out of IEC on the Sunday, loaded down with shopping bags, I popped a nail off somewhere between getting on the elevator from the event space and getting into my rental car. Excellent timing. I couldn't find it (not that I looked very hard), so right there in the car, I just put on another iridescent one from the box I'd been carrying with me all weekend. It coordinated pretty well considering I hadn't planned to do this.





I wore these one more day after IEC, at which point, I needed to get them off so I could swatch a few of the polishes that came back with me from the event.



It's a long holiday weekend, and I have family visiting for the big festival that closes out the summer season here (dubbed "Mountain Drunk Fest" by a friend of ours ... I'm glad we're walking distance from the fun), but once that wraps, I hope to get through my IEC pics and what swatches I've done so far and do a post (or two?) on that next week.

Various Fake NOTD

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I've been wearing fake nails a lot. Some of them I don't have much to say about: I put them on and they looked nice for around a week and then I took them off. So today I have a handful of those looks. (The sets I do have something more to say about I'll save for other posts.)

These lilac and silver Textured Foil nails from MOB (The Ministry of Beauty) have been in my stash for a while; I only ever saw them available at Meijer stores for a brief time in 2015. Depsite having them all that time, I'd only ever worn one from the Ultra-Reflect series before (starting with a dark and mysterious set.) Here they are after a few days wear, nicely coordinating with my t-shirt for the day:



I'd worn a set of China Glaze purple iridescent pre-glued nails from the Chic Physique collection last year but had another set on hand that I'd gotten on clearance at Sally Beauty. These were labeled "short round" on the box; I'd call them medium oval myself.



The NailBliss Magic Press set called Up, Up, & Away had solid nails in lilac and pastel teal as well as glitter gradient accents. I used only the lilac and glitter ones when I put them on.



I do have a little more to say about these; as they wore, the lilac ones revealed pastel teal underneath, which I wasn't expecting.



The NailBliss Magic Press Check Mate set had navy solid nails with white accents that had a grid pattern where some of the squares were filled in with a pink/gold iridescent coating.



I'll wrap this up with the China Glaze white iridescent set from the Glam Finale collection; these were labeled "short squoval".



As I type this, I'm wearing yet another set of fakes, so look for more posts like this one. I do also have some new polish I want to swatch, and even have time booked on my calendar to do that, so look for polish posts, too.

Recent NOTD: Fake Nails from Two Brands

I'm aiming to get a display post up on Thursday; I got distracted by huckleberry picking over the weekend and failed to spend enough time at my laptop to get all my display photos sorted out and cropped and described. But one has to pick while the picking is good, especially when one is going to miss another two weeks of the season due to a semi-unscheduled road trip (it's a long, not nail-related, story, so I'll spare you). Today, instead, I have the tale of some recent nails of the day, when I've once again turned to fake nails to protect my natural ones.

First in the order were some iridescent pre-glued nails from China Glaze; these were released with the Chic Physique collection. You may remember I was pleased with the silver chrome fakes from China Glaze that I shared back in January, so I was looking forward to wearing these. They're a different shape than the silver ones, with an oval tip, which is more my style.





Unlike the silver ones, which showed tipwear after about four days, these showed all over wear after only two days. That was disappointing. The glue also seemed less strong, though maybe it was just this tip shape is more prone to getting popped off.



Despite the coating wearing off so badly, I wore them one more day before removing them (which was easy, most just popped off easily, a couple I needed to drip remover along the side to loosen then) becase they coordinated so nicely with my shirt for the day.



After the China Glaze nails, I tried a new-to-me brand I'd picked up at a Sally Beauty store: Nailbliss Magic Press in the Runaway Star design. This pack had 30 nails in it; most were a pinky peach "creme", but some were accent nails, split evenly between white iridescent finish and gold/iridescent glitter. I used Essie TLC Gloss Fit (aka clear) as a base under the nails (not recommended on the Nailbliss box, but I don't like to put glue directly on my natural nails).



Like the China Glaze, these are pre-glued. Unlike the China Glaze, these have a plastic tab covering the glue, so it's easy to try them on for size. It's also easy to know which end is which, since the plastic extends at the base end of the nail.



These nails were on the short side, though long enough to cover my natural nails, except for my pinky; there wasn't a size that was narrow and long enough at the same time. They were thicker than the China Glaze, so I think they look a bit more "fake", but I'm past worrying about that sort of thing. (And hooray for that!) It was somewhat frustrating to have to put the accent nails where they fit rather than where I wanted them. I only used the glitter accents this time. The white iridescent are still in the box, waiting for I'm not sure what—maybe I'll collect all my unused fakes and do a franken-mani one day.



A couple days later, these nails were looking as good as when I put them on (I'd taken off my ring here because we'd gone hiking and my fingers were swelling). The ski resort runs one lift during the summer, and Mr. K and I got the summer add-on to our winter season passes so we can ride up and enjoy the view whenever we like—as long as that's between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.



Three days after that, they were still holding up quite nicely, with just a tiny bit of tipwear on the solid color nails, though that gap on my pinky was more gap-py due to nail growth. I did have a few of these pop off during the week, but it was simple to reattach with more Essie TLC ... that seemed to work almost as well as using nail glue and was way easier on my natural nails. The solid color nails here were more interesting than I'd expected ... depending on the lighting conditions, they looked peach or pink or even white at times.





My peelies seem to be doing better lately (they often do in summer since the air isn't quite so dry), and the fake nails protect against the other type of damage I get, namely inattentively whacking my fingers into things and smashing the nail tips (every room in our house has the light switch at a different height/distance from the door, and I still have learned to find them reliably in the dark). I know a lot of people are "yuck, fake nails, those look bad" but I ignore them. I like wearing fakes at times, and I'm gonna keep doing it until I don't like it anymore.

Recent NOTD: Ministry of Beauty Ultra-Reflect Nails, Take Three

When I came back from vacation last month with those two broken nails (as documented in this post), I filed down the others into shorties, which meant it was a perfect time to dip into my stash of shorter fake nails. I turned for the third time to Ministry of Beauty Ultra-Reflect nails, which I stocked up on back when they were sold at Meijer stores. I wore the olive multichrome and white iridescent earlier this year and didn't want to repeat, so chose the lavender iridescent this time.



Because my own nails were shorter this time, I was able to snug the base of the fakes closer to my cuticles, which minimized the gaps from the squarer shape of the base on the fakes.





The above two pictures were shot in regular room light next to a window. After a day's wear, I got out my lightbox and took the two shots below.





I got so many comments and compliments on these; they're very eye catching. I like the adhesive tabs that come with them because they're very thin, but they aren't quite as sticky as I'd like; I had to reattach a few nails during the week I wore them (to be fair to the tabs, the nails that came loose are the ones I most like to use to pry and scrape at things, which I know I should not do but I need to have some bad habits to keep me from being too perfect, right?). The iridescent finish is a thin coating that will start to come off if you use your nails hard or scrape your nail against something sharp. Below see my right thumbnail after four or five days during which I packed many boxes of stuff in the I hope ending soon quest to get our house ready to list for sale.



To wrap up, here's a shot I took at Home Depot, where we went to look for new carpet for some of our rooms, again with an eye toward getting the house ready to sell.



It appears that ebay is the best place to get these now that they've disappeared from Meijer. I wish I could tell you more than that, but the Ministry of Beauty Twitter feed hasn't been updated since 2013 and their website I'm not even going to link because trying to go there makes my antivirus software pop up an alert. The back of the package says the nails were made in Korea, so that's a lead I intend to follow up more on at some point. So far, that just lead me to a shopping site which offered various beauty products, including a whole category called "Hairs".