Pre-Blog Mannequin Hands

Today I'm going into the archives to share some photos from early in 2010, when I was posting a lot on the MUA nail board but hadn't yet decided to start this nail blog. At the time, a lot of us were looking for our "mannequin hands" shade, which All Lacquered Up had written about. The Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure line was pretty new back then so I thought if I found my color there it would have a better chance of not getting discontinued in the near future. I bought four shades I thought might work:


Left to right: Naked Ambition, Café Au Lait, Nude Now, Choco-Latte.

I swatched them and shared this photo with the nail board; bless those ladies, no one suggested I might want practice my clean-up skills before posting more pictures.


Top to bottom: Choco-Latte, Nude Now, Café Au Lait, Naked Ambition.

I decided Café Au Lait was the closest match of those four, then tried some other options from my stash to compare:


Top to bottom: China Glaze Heaven, OPI Samoan Sand, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Café Au Lait, a Sally Hansen Beyond Perfect which was missing its shade label.

All Lacquered Up was taking submissions of readers' mannequin hands, so I sent mine in, doing the best mani I could at the time. Here's three coats of Café au Lait:



Here it is with China Glaze Matte Magic on top:



I was a bit giddy when my nails showed up on ALU. Who knows, without that little taste of blog attention, maybe I wouldn't have ended up starting my own blog.

*****

Reminder: My Apothica giftcard giveaway closes at midnight Eastern U.S. time tomorrow, July 15th. There's still time to enter if you haven't already and get a chance to win some nail polish spending money.

Warning: Pre-Blog Nail Photos

This entry will be my last for several days as I am heading off to be with a tribe of my internet friends for what's become an annual gathering (though not everyone makes it every year). We have lots of fun and food and drink and change our outfits at least once a day, if not more. The last time I went, I changed my nail polish every day, too. Today I am taking a deep breath and sharing pictures of those looks, even though they make me cringe a bit now. My cuticle care, polish application, and clean up skills have come a long way since then, I think.

I arrived wearing Sally Hansen Beyond Perfect in Almond Essence, which I had worn to work all week. This survived going bowling with other early arrivals pretty much intact.



For the next day, I put on a taupe ombre. Thumb to pinky, I used: Maybelline Express Finish Touch of Taupe, Sally Hansen New Lengths Sandstone Creme, Rimmel Steel Grey, OPI You Don't Know Jacques, and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Leather Creme.



Then I switched to OPI Jade is the New Black with OPI Mad as a Hatter layered over that on my ring fingers as an accent.



Finally, I put on Borghese La Strada Rose, which I then wore to work the following week.



This year, I'm definitely packing my clean up brush!