NOTD: Flaming Poker

Hey all! Today I have a NOTD for you- a gel manicure I did on my sister over the weekend. I picked up the gel polish at Ulta from a brand called Pro Gel. The color is called Flaming Poker:

I'm really liking this brand of gel polish. The color was super easy to apply and I was able to achieve my desired opacity in just two coats. What I also like is that the color is reminiscent of China Glaze's cult favorite Ruby Pumps, but is more on the brighter berry red side.

I love the red glitter in this- it makes the color much more glam.
What are your favorite red polishes?

Essie Starry Starry Night Franken

Hey all! I wanted to show you a franken I created the other day. A franken is a nail polish that you mix yourself by using nail polishes you have to create a different polish. I was seriously lemming Essie Starry Starry Night after seeing it on  Scrangie's blog. It's basically small silver squarish glitter in a navy blue jelly base. Its a beautiful color and really does look like a night sky full of stars buttttttt it was limited edition and goes for a lot of money on ebay so I decided to make my own!

Thumbs up for a cool franken!

For this franken, I dumped out an old bottle of nail harder I had laying around and poured in about 3/4 of Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Navy Baby. For the silver glitter (the remaining 1/3 of the franken), I used a nail art polish from Sinful Colors, which was just small square silver glitters in a clear base. Though I don't have the original Essie polish, I think my first franken came close enough. The navy polish I used wasn't a jelly, so the silver glitter didn't peek through as much as I would have liked... but hey not bad for a first try!

Orly Royal Navy

Hello everyone! Today I wanted to show you a beautiful nail polish I recently picked up at Sally's. Its called Royal Navy and it is by Orly. As far as I could tell, it is part of their core collection and I'm glad it is because it's gorgeous!

It is a bright blue that's almost a neon. Its hard to tell from the picture, but it has the most amazing light blue teal-y shimmer to it. Application was above average - a creamy, smooth formula, opaque in two coats and dried pretty quickly. When it was fully dry, I did notice that it wasn't glossy- it dried down to a satin finish which was probably due to the neon-ish quality. Wasn't a big issue for me because I always finish my manicure with a top coat!

What's your favorite blue nail polish?

Essie Fill in the Gap!

Hello everyone!  I thought I'd kick off the blog with a review on Essie Fill in the gap! base coat. I typically like to keep my nails short and polished, but chipping has always been a big issue for me. Whereas nail polish might last at least 4-5 days on others, by the next day, mine is almost surely chipped! So what gives? I am not particularly hard on my nails and have used various top/base coats to prolong the life of my manicure. My latest experiment with base coats involves Essie Fill in the gap!, as several bloggers have raved about it. Read on to find out how it measured up.

Essie Fill in the gap! is a light beige semi-opaque base coat that dries down to a satin finish. Its consistency is pretty thin and while I do not have many ridges on the nail, it does do a good job of making the nail even, smooth and ready for polish.

Essie Fill in the gap! Base coat

Last night, I used one coat of Fill in the gap!, two coats of polish, and one coat of my favorite topcoat- Seche Vite. At mid-day today (roughly half a day later), I inspected my nails and was disappointed to find significant chipping. In the picture below you can see two huge chips on my middle and ring finger, plus some tip wear:




Boo for chippy polish!!!!


The verdict? Though top coats typically fail to keep my nail polish on for more than 2-3 days without getting chippy, Essie Fill in the gap! caused chipping only after a few hours! If you're looking for a base coat to fill in ridges and create a nice canvas for polish, this may be a base coat you really like. If you find that nail polish chips quickly on you, this may not be right for you.

Have you tried Essie fill in the gap? What base coats do you recommend?