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.

Semi-Recent NOTD Looks: Short and Simple

When my natural nails are in a phase where they need to be cut down to shorties, I bust out the shorter fakes that I can't wear otherwise (unless I want what looks to me like a huge canyon at the base, which I do not). Today I've got several sets I wore in one of those stretches, all from imPRESS.

The So Unexpected set had matte finish dusty rose nails with shiny silver and rose accents.



After my nails had grown out a tiny bit, I paired the accent nails from So Unexpected with solid dusty peach nails from the One Shine Day set. They didn't quite match but were neutral enough that it didn't matter; the neutral shade also helped not draw attention to the larger gap resulting from my natural nails being a tad longer and needing to place the fakes a touch farther down to cover my tips. (The accent nails from the One Shine Day set are still waiting to be used. I have a vision of sorting all the leftover nails from these sets by size and doing Skittles looks.)



Later I put on a set called Firefly. This came with periwinkle-leaning blue matte nails, pink/blue/lilac diagonal gradient accents, and silver glitter accents.



I used only the blue and gradient nails for my look, which meant using sizes that weren't always the best fit to get the colors I wanted on the nails I wanted them on. That happens sometimes with these mixed sets.





When working with this last set, I noticed something I hadn't before ... the size numbers for the nails were on the peel off tab to uncover the adhesive. Those were so much easier to read than the raised numbers on the underside of the nail tip. I don't know if this is a new feature or something that's been there all along but didn't pop out at me until I happened to be working against a black background.



The weather here is fall now, racing ahead toward winter (there's snow in the forecast for the weekend). That should mean I'll be home and inside more now that the busy summer travel and family visiting and huckleberry picking season is done. I do have swatches and nail wheels and more nails of the day photos ready; I just need to make my butt sit at the laptop long enough to turn them into blog posts and not get distracted by looking at social media. That shouldn't be hard but somehow it often is.

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.

SinfulColors Jingle Jells Swatches

It's almost Thanksgiving, which means Christmas decorations are up all over the place, so I feel it's okay to share some Christmas polishes, in this case the SinfulColors Jingle Jells, a four piece collection of glitters: Candy Apple, Mint Candy, Candy Ginger, and Rock Candy.



Because these have stickers on the caps saying they're jelly toppers, I experimented with different bases under them, but just in case the stickers were misleading, I also did one finger without a base. First up, Candy Apple, which has small and medium red hexes and tiny gold glitter in a red jelly base. Top to bottom: two coats of Candy Apple alone (it was surprisingly opaque, though admittedly I did apply thick coats), one coat over SinfulColors Cross My Heart (warm red creme), one coat over SinfulColors No Text Red (cool red creme), one coat over SinfulColors Georgio (burgundy creme). I put topcoat on all my nails, though the glitter wasn't especially bumpy. I liked this best over the darker base, which really made the glitter stand out, though it was perfectly fine on its own and over the two reds.







Mint Candy has a green jelly base with green hexes and tiny gold glitter. Top to bottom: two coats of Mint Candy alone, one coat over SinfulColors Pistache (mint green creme), one coat over SinfulColors Hey You (lime green creme), one coat over SinfulColors Exotic Green (grass green creme). All nails have topcoat. Some of the hexes are a warm-leaning green, so can also look golden in some conditions. That made me think this looked as much like a St. Patrick's Day polish as a Christmas one, though alternate it with Candy Apple and it'd be Christmas no question.







Candy Ginger (not Candied Ginger, which I what I want to call it) has gold hexes and tiny gold glitter in a yellow jelly base. Top to bottom: two coats of Candy Ginger alone, one coat over SinfulColors Simply Silver (silver metallic), one coat over SinfulColors Hush Money (rose gold metallic), one coat over SinfulColors Pull Over (yellow creme). I was hoping the silver base would make it more kind to my skintone, but that didn't work; the yellow jelly is not to be tamed.







Rock Candy is the odd polish out in this collection as it does not have a tinted base, nor does it have the tiny gold glitter. It's got silver hexes and small iridescent blue microflakies in a clear base. I went ahead and used colored bases on all my nails for this one. Top to bottom, two coats of Rock Candy over: SinfulColors A-Crush (pale blue creme), SinfulColors Rave New World (sky blue shimmer), SinfulColors Endless Blue (royal blue creme), SinfulColors Into the Blue (dark blue creme). I added clear topcoat to all these combinations. The blue flakies showed best on the darker blues though they did add depth over the lighter ones as well.







I felt bad that I hadn't given Rock Candy a chance to shine on its own, so I did another handful of swatches with it. Top to bottom: three coats of Rock Candy alone (it isn't as sheer as I thought it would be), two coats over SinfulColors Simply Silver on remaining nails. I left the topcoat off in this case; you can see it's not especially bumpy. The blue flakies get lost in all that silver though they do spark here and there as the light catches them. If they'd put this in a blue base, it would have paired more nicely with the Candy Ginger's gold.



Finally, to show the base colors of the jellies, I swatched them over white. Left to right: Candy Ginger, Candy Apple, Mint Candy, Rock Candy. All one coat over the white, no topcoat.



This is a fun little collection for the holidays, and not just Christmas. Like I said above, Mint Candy will do nicely for St. Patrick's. Candy Apple will work for Valentine's, of course. I'm not sure what holiday is yellow ... Easter maybe? Combine Candy Ginger on some nails with Rock Candy layered over various pastels fo make an Easter candy look. There are a lot of possibilities with jellies like these, and of course I love my glitter regardless of trends.

Salon Perfect Drop Dead Gore-geous Swatches

Nail Wheel Wednesday is taking a break today so I can post the swatches of the Salon Perfect Halloween polishes before Halloween is over. (I know being a better swatcher means being a more timely swatcher; I just don't seem to be able to manage it these days. Guess this blog is more of a historical document.)

There were five new shades released in this year's Halloween display: Ashes to Ashes, Shapeshifter, Under Her Spell, Lust at First Bite, and Dust to Dust.



Shapeshifter is an orange scattered holographic shimmer (perhaps a case could be made for calling it a weak linear holo, too). I did two coats, though it was nicely opaque and one thick coat might have been sufficient. In the indirect illumination of the lightbox, there are no rainbows.





In direct indoor light, some hints of holo start to show:



In sunlight, more colors appear:



I also bought Too Cute to Spook from the display; it's an orange glitter that's been re-released which I missed last year. I did a rough glitter gradient with it over Shapeshifter and rather liked the result (I did add clear topcoat, too).







Ashes to Ashes is the other holographic finish in this group; I swatched it next in case the sun decided to try and hide later. This is a two-coat dark grey almost black shimmer that in the lightbox displays no holo effect.





In direct indoor light, though, the rainbows do appear:



In sunlight, wow, so many colors:





Ashes to Ashes got the rough glitter gradient treatment with Lust a First Bite, a gold glitter. This has clear topcoat on it as well.





Under Her Spell, a light purple shimmer, looked so sheer in the bottle that I put down a base of Pure Ice Your Majesty, a blue-leaning purple shimmer, on three of my nails before I opened it. My index finger has three coats of Under Her Spell alone, and it's hard to see it's there. Two coats of it over the purple adds a delicate pink and gold shimmer.





You know I love layering, so I tried some more bases under this one, too. Top to bottom: three coats over a white French tip, two coats over OPI Care to Danse (pale pink jelly), two coats over China Glaze Plur-ple (medium purple creme), and two coats over black creme. I really liked it over black; it shimmered in purple, gold, and pink.





Since I was in layering mode, I tried Dust to Dust over a variety of bases as well. This one has black, silver, and holo glitter in a clear base, but it's so densely packed that it doesn't layer as well as I'd hoped. Top to bottom, one coat of Dust to Dust over: Revlon Silver Base, Salon Perfect Shapeshifter, Salon Perfect Ashes to Ashes, Funky Fingers Dark Knight. I had to add clear topcoat as this one was a bit bumpy on its own.





The colors from the holo glitter popped in direct indoor light:



Nine Lives is another re-release I got from the display; it's a black with gold shimmer that covers in two coats.





It seemed natural to try the gold from this year, Lust at First Bite, over Nine Lives. I slicked on one coat of Lust at First Bite on my middle through pinky fingers, which pretty much obscured the base color.





I'm glad I picked these up. I'm also glad that some brands are still putting out limited and holiday editions.