Mannequin Hands… And Then I Added Stuff.

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Janelle

I while back, I went on a quest to find my perfect “mannequin hands” polish. By that I mean a polish that was as close to a perfect match to my skin as I could find. I had heard that Deborah Lippmann had a polish called Naked that was a good match for a lot of people who are fair like me, so I checked it out at Sephora. Yep, it’s a great nude shade that was a really close match to my skin, but you know what? Deborah Lippmann polishes cost $20 and I absolutely refuse to spend $20 on a single polish. Nope, I’m never going to do it. I can’t imagine any possible scenario in which I would spend $20 on a single polish. If I’m spending $20 on polish, you’d better believe that I’m going to be getting like, 10 bottles for that price. Okay, let me get back on track…

So, this one time I was at Kmart and I spotted a color that I had never noticed before from NCY from the In A New York Minute line called Fashion Safari. I did that thing that you’re not supposed to do (even though everyone does it) and opened up the bottle in the store. I had polish on my nails already, so I just brushed a tiny bit of the polish onto the back of my hand and it blended right in! best of all, it cost under $2! I feel bad for the suckers who buy Deborah Lippmann Naked when there’s NYC Fashion Safari in the world. Anyway, here it is with a matte top coat:

Fun, right? My hand really almost looks like a mannequin’s, right? By the way, this is the color I used for the sand colored nails in my Beach Inspired Nail Art. In that tutorial, I actually painted my sister’s nails and her skin is definitely a shade or two darker than mine. It’s a little hard to tell in the picture, but in person, you could definitely see that Fashion Safari was lighter than my sister’s skin. I also used it in my Real Seashell Nails with a pearly color shifting polish over top.

Well, my mannequin hands fascinated me for about 24 hours, and then I decided that I needed to add something to them. I opted for some of the chunky glitter that is Funky Fingers Pep Rally and I ended up with this look:

I didn’t actually just brush the glitter onto my nails. I used a little dotting tool to pick the individual pieces of glitter off the brush and placed them where I wanted them. It’s a little time consuming, but not very hard. I also opted to top them with Sech Vite, since it’s thick enough to smooth out this really chunky glitter.

That’s it for today! As always, thank you for liking, following, and sharing! Come find me on instagram and facebook!

Frankenpolish Strikes Again!

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Janelle

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of cute nail art around that starts with a base that is sort of a light nude color. You know, not as dark as a “mannequin hands” nude, but definitely not white. I didn’t have a color like this, but I’m trying (although my hubby may not believe it) to not buy unnecessary nail polish.

Then I remembered that I bought a bunch of white polish so that I could compare them, and really, who needs 5 bottles of white? You know what that means? Frankenpolish time!

My initial plan was to add some of NYC – Fashion Safari to NYC – French White Tip.

I realized pretty quickly that I was going to have to add a ton of Fashion Safari to get my desired shade, so I raided my nail polish rack and found these two:

Wet n Wild Megalast – Haze of Love is a beautiful brownish-reddish-raisinish color that I love to wear in the fall. Spoiled – Permission to Proceed is just a true green. I knew if I just added Haze of Love to the white, it would end up being too pink, so added some Permission to Proceed just to mellow out the pinkness. I didn’t really keep track of how much of each I added to the white. I would just add some and then shake-shake-shake the bottle, assess the color and then add some more of the colored polish as needed.

In the end, I wound up with the color on my middle finger:

(Sinful Colors – Snow Me White is on my first finger, and Fashion Safari is on my ring finger.)

So, I think I’m pretty happy with how it turned out! Sometimes when I look at it, I think it might still be a little too pink. Maybe I’ll add a few more drops of green polish to it. Not sure yet.

Do any of you have any Frankenpolish stories? I’d seriously love to hear them!

It’s Not Exactly Polish, But You Might Need It Anyway

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Janelle

My usually part-time job is going to be closer to full-time this week, but I still plan to post things on my promised Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. I apologize in advance if my posts end up being a little skimpy, though.

Today I thought I’d highlight a few of my favorite nail products that are not nail polish. Let’s start with these little guys:

These are nail wheels that I got at Sally Beauty Supply. I think they were around $7 for a pack of 10 wheels. These are great for several things.

I love to use these to practice nail art. They are a great way to organize your nail art ideas or recreations. I find that when I do other people’s nails, they come in really handy in helping people determine what they actually want done on their nails.

These wheels are also a great place to just simply try out your new polishes. Often when I get a new polish, I will wonder how it will look with a specific topper (glitter, iridescent top coat,…) over it, and this is a great way to test it out.

I also like this stuff:

This is a really nice cuticle oil that will last me a really long time and it was under $3 (I think). I like to use this after doing my nails, when the polish is dry or on days between polish jobs. It will really keep your cuticles from looking ragged and crusty. Truth be told, though, almost any oil that you have around the house will work just as well – olive, vegetable, … Lately, I’ve been using coconut oil on my hands and cuticles right before bed, so I haven’t been using my actual cuticle oil as much.

I use these little guys ALL the time:

The thing on the left is a cuticle pusher that I got at Sally Beauty Supply for like, $.69 or something really cheap. The red end is a softer plastic that is great for gently pushing back your cuticles. The other end is a tapered harder plastic which I end up using for all sorts of stuff, like scraping stubborn glitter off my nails during the polish removal process.

The little brush on the right is a $1 concealer brush from e.l.f. cosmetics. I dip it in acetone and use this to clean up any polish that accidentally gets on my skin after I do my nails. It works like a charm! Any brush with really stiff short bristles should work well as a clean-up brush. I know a lot of people use a Q-tip dipped in acetone to do their clean-up, but a little brush allows you to be so much more precise.

Make-up sponges!

I guess they are technically called “cosmetic wedges”, but there’s really make-up sponges. These are great for certain glitter application techniques (like the gold glitter here) as well as gradient or “ombre” looks (like I did on the blue fingers here). And they’re cheap. This bag of 32 sponges was under $3.

OK, I confess that I’m mostly including this last item because I just got it and I think it’s super cute:

It’s the Revlon Crazy Shine Nail Buffer! Isn’t that the cutest buffer you ever saw? And PA folks, it’s on sale at Giant this week for $1.09, regularly $3.09! Buffers are great for shining up your polish if it starts to dull after a few days. (Truthfully, I just usually slap on another layer of top coat, but if you don’t want to mess with that, a buffer is a great option.) Buffers are also a great way to shine up natural nails without any polish or chemicals, perfect for people in the medical field or any other job in which you can’t wear polish.

By husband (begrudgingly) let me buff his thumbnail:

It’s so shiny that it looks like it’s got a coat of clear polish on it!

OK, that’s it for today. As always, I love hearing your comments and ideas! Thanks for reading!

Real Seashell Nails

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Janelle

By now you’ve probably seen those little kits that you can use to create a seashell manicure that include the little bottles of dyed and crushed seashells. They are pretty cute, but I don’t like paying for stuff if I don’t have to.

A few weeks ago, we did a day trip to the beach and I took it upon myself to collect a bunch of these really thin shells.

I’m sure they have a name, but I don’t know what it is. They are the kind of shells that you can just easily break with your fingers, and they are really plentiful along the mid-Atlantic coast.

I broke them up into little pieces that were about 1/4 inch or smaller (That’s about 1/2 cm for those of you in the rest of the world.)

Then I painted all of my nails with a few coats of NYC – Fashion Safari. I topped my index finger, pinky and thumb with a coat of Orly – Sky Blue-Pink to mimic the iridescence of a seashell.

Then, I applied one more layer of Fashion Safari to my middle and ring fingers, and while they were still wet, I sprinkled my crushed up shells onto them. I tapped off the excess and then patted down the shells that were stuck to the nail. I then topped it with several layers of top coat in order to make it (sort of) smooth. Here are my results:

I didn’t LOVE-love them, but they were okay. The nails with the shells were pretty thick, and after 4 or 4 days, they started to pull away from the nail. I do want to try it again, but I think next time I will use a dotting tool dipped into clear polish to pick up the pieces of shell and place them on my nail like a mosaic. Obviously, this will be a little more difficult, but I think the results will be better.

Please let me know if you attempt anything similar and how it turns out for you! As usual, tag me on instagram or facebook or use the hashtag #polishmesnazzy so I can see your recreations!

Splotchy Neon Nails

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Janelle

Splotchy Neon Nails is what I’m calling these, because I can’t think of a better name, although I’m sure there is one:

Again, these are my sister’s nails. She felt she needed something cute and beach-appropriate for her trip to Cancun. Here’s how we got this look…

First, I started with two coats of white polish. Specifically, I used Sinful Colors – Snow Me White. Then I put tape around the nails to make clean up easier at the end.

I’m hoping you can see the tape that is over the top of the nail, and around the finger at the base of the cuticle.

I used these four polishes for the colored part:

L-R: Nina – Blue Blaze, Fresh Paint – Guava, Funky Fingers – Glow Stick, Sinful Colors – Dream On.

From here on out, the technique was pretty much exactly the same as it was for the white polish for my Beach Inspired Nail Art. (Check it out for a more detailed description of this technique). Basically, I took a disposable plastic container, filled it with room-temperature filtered water, dropped nail polish on the surface of the water, and sprayed it with some alcohol-based body spray to get the polish to break up. Then I had my sister dunk her fingers in the water, which allowed the polish that’s floating on the surface to adhere to her nails. While her fingers were still in the water, I used a Q-tip to pull the remaining polish off the surface of the water. It’s hard to do more than about 2 fingers at a time, so you will need to repeat this process quite a few times. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it’s really not too hard, just a little time-consuming.

We did Guava on the index finger, pinky, and thumb, and Glow Stick on the other two fingers.

Then we repeated the steps with Blue Blaze over the Guava nails, and Dream On over the Glow Stick nails.

Then, one more time we did Guava on the index finger, pinky, and thumb, and Glow Stick on the other two fingers, just to make sure that those lighter colors were showing up well enough on the nail.

At this point, it was a little hard to appreciate the designs on her nails since there was so much polish all over her fingers. My sister was an enthusiastic finger dunker so she had polish pretty far up her fingers.

From here we took off the tape and topped the nails with Seche Vite, a quick dry top coat. Then using a Q-tip dipped in acetone as well as a little brush dipped in acetone, I cleaned up all of the excess polish.

Here’s our end result!

Fun and cute, right? If you give this look a try, I’d love to see your recreations on either facebook or instagram. Just make sure you tag Polish Me Snazzy or use the hashtag #polishmesnazzy so that I can see it. Thanks for reading!

Nails of the Day

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Janelle

I guess this post should actually be called “Nails of Last Week” since that’s more accurate. I just realized that I never officially posted a pick of this really easy “doticure”. No artsy skills required, just a few different size dotting tools.

These are two of the polished that I picked up in my Five Below Haul a few weeks ago. These colors just make me so happy! I loved this manicure so much that I kept it on for 8 days, and even when I took it off, I was tempted to just paint my nails again with these colors.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back with a more substantial post on Monday!

July Favorites

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Janelle

Happy August! I got really excited, probably irrationally excited, when I realized that July was over and I could do my first monthly favorites post. I’ve always enjoyed checking out other bloggers monthly favorites, and for some reason, I just get a huge kick out of being able to do my own.

So, here we go…

Wet n Wild – Tickled Pink

This is just the most beautiful baby pink. It looks so pretty with a tan. It’s the pink I used for this look. This is a polish that I’ve had for a year or so, but I just remembered this month how pretty it is!

Broadway Nails – Sour Apple

This is such a great neon green! The formula is a great and it only cost me $1! The only place I’ve see these sold is at Dollar General / Family Dollar stores. It’s the green I used here.

NYC – Amazon Green from the City Samba collection

This polish is actually a little lighter and greener than it looks in this pic. It’s got a lovely frosty finish and makes me feel like my nails are covered in mint chocolate chip ice cream, which of course is a good thing. I haven’t seen this in stores for a little while, so it might be tough to find. Sorry about that.

China Glaze – Turned Up Turquoise

This color is just do deep and rich! It’s also got a beautiful shimmer that I feel sometimes reflects blue, sometimes green. This polish was promoted as being a summer neon, but I think it’s also part of the permanent line, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding it. If you’re a sucker for turquoise polish, do yourself a favor and get this one asap.

NYC – Matte Me Crazy top coat.

I used this top coat for this aforementioned look and I was really happy with how it held up! I actually bumped one of my nails before it was completely dry, but this top coat sort of plumped back up and fixed itself so that you couldn’t even see where I had bumped it! Some matte finishes will start to get glossy after a few days, but this just held up really well.

Funky Fingers – Sand & Stilettos

I already gushed over this polish in my Five Below Haul, but I just can’t get enough of this polish! It’s just SO sparkly and SO holographic. I had it on my toes for a while and I just felt like they were covered in little diamonds when I was in the sun. I used this polish for the little dots on my thumb nail here.

Fresh Paint – Guava

This is the current color on my fingers. Pardon my nail growth. I just love this color so much that I’ve left it on for a whole week, and that’s saying something! This is the most beautiful neon peach / light coral, and it’s one of those neons that just sort of glows at dusk when you’re outside. It’s a dupe for China Glaze – Flip Flop Fantasy and way cheaper. I picked this color up in my Five Below Haul also. I love this color. I love it so much. I need to stop saying that.

So those were my July favorites! What polishes have you been loving so far this summer?

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Five Below Haul

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Janelle

I went into a Five Below store. That’s a rarity, because well, I’m a solid 20 years older than their target demographic. I had been in a Five Below a year or so ago, and I had a vague recollection of seeing nail polish there, so when my path crossed a Five Below a few weeks ago, I figured that it might be worth checking out. Was it ever!

Five Below is a chain of stores that specialize in trendy gadgets and accessories and whatnot that appeal to the teen and tween crowd, so not surprisingly, the nail polish they carry is all very young and trendy. They carry two lines of nail polish: Funky Fingers and Fresh Paint. They were all $2 each or 3 for $5, which you could mix and match between the two lines. I ended up with 6 polishes. My little sis was kind enough to let me use her nails for swatching. Here they are:

Fresh Paint: Guava

This is a beautiful neon peach. Although the middle and pinky fingers have a white base underneath, you don’t need it for it to be amazingly bright. The formula is really great and it’s also a dupe for China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy! I had been itching for Flip Flop Fantasy for a few months, but I didn’t want to spend $7. I actually went into a Sally Beauty Supply right after I picked this up and did a little comparison, and yep, they’re identical.

Fresh Paint: Sugar Crush

This is an iridescent topper that pulls primarily orange, but also green, blue and yellow. It’s not really a glitter, but little flakes. We tried it over Guava, white and black. It looked great over Guava! It sort of took Guava from just neon to classy neon. It was not that amazing over white, but it was really fun over black! I’m definitely going to be wearing it over black in the cooler months.

Funky Fingers: Glowstick

This is a neon yellow that leans a little toward the green side of things with a subtle iridescent sheen. Again, the middle and pinky fingers have a white base, which did make this polish a little brighter.

Funky Fingers: Pep Rally

This is a really fun neon glitter with matte blue and pink hexes in different sizes, big green iridescent hexes, small metallic purple hexes, and small orange and purple bar glitter. We swatched this glitter over Glowstick, white and black. It really looked cool over all of those colors! There are a few drawbacks with this polish. The clear base is really thick and a little hard to work with. I think I will end up using the makeup sponge method to apply this glitter. Also, the glitters themselves were pretty thick, so it may take 2 or three layers of a thick top coat like Seche Vite to make the nails smooth.

Funky Fingers: Unicorn Farts

This polish is all medium size metallic hex glitters in pretty much every color. The glitter gives off light is a linear sort of way that gives the glitter the appearance of being curved, but it actually does lay flat on the nail. The clear base is similar to that of Pep Rally, so I think I’m going to end up using the makeup sponge method with this one as well. We tested it over white, black, nude, and green. Actually, with the green I attempted a jelly sandwich, but it got a little thick and goopy because of the thick clear base. This polish is just really fun and shiny and versatile, so I know I’ll get a lot of use out of it.

Funky Fingers: Sand & Stilettos

This polish should be called The Most Sparkly Polish In The World. these pictures just aren’t doing it justice. This is a light purple -almost gray- holographic micro glitter. In the picture, I believe we have 3 coats on bare nail on the first, two coats over white on the middle finger, and two coats over black on the ring finger. The glitter is so dense, that it’s opaque in 3 coats, which is pretty amazing. There are two kinds of holographic glitters: scattered and linear. Scattered reflect all different colors all over the place. Linear reflects a more defined rainbow so that you can actually see bands of color. I really feel this polish is both scattered and linear. You definitely get different colored sparkles all over the nail, but when sunlight hits the bottle of polish, I can see a rainbow, too. I have this color on my toes now and I just feel like my toenails are covered in tiny diamonds. Seriously, it’s the kind of polish that you just can’t stop staring at.

The polishes from this haul are so fun and I feel like they go together really well! I think I could do a ton of different looks only using these 6 polishes. If you follow me in instagram, you may have seen my current doticure using Guava and Sand & Stilettos. They’re so fun together!

Thus concludeth my Five Below haul. I highly recommend that you check out the polishes at Five Below, and if you do, please let me know what you think and what polishes you get!

White Nails Are A Thing

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Janelle

Did you know that white nails are a thing? Well, they are. I think they started showing up on the runway about 3 summers ago, so the time is about right for them to make their way here to Smalltown, USA.

White polish looks great with tan summer skin and it’s also makes a perfect blank canvas for all kinds of nail art. It’s also can help your sheer neon polishes look extra bright. White polish can be tricky, though. Light polishes can sometimes be sheer, and light colors seem less forgiving than darker ones when it’s not quite perfect on the nail. That’s why it’s important for every nail polish fan to own a good white polish.

I decided to do a little comparison between 6 different brands of nail polish, most of which have a pretty low price point. Here are the polishes I tested:

From left to right:

Wet n Wild – French White Creme, $1.00

Broadway Nails -Snow White, $1.00

NYC – French White Tip $1.00

Sinful Colors – Snow Me White, $2.00

Sally Hansen – White On, $2.50 – $3.00

Essie – Blanc, $7.00 – $9.00

For years I used the Wet n Wild white because well, it was cheap and easy to find in just about any store. I felt like the formula was okay, but not great. Then one day I found Essie Blanc on a good sale! I really thought it was going to be this amazingly wonderful stuff because it was regularly 8 times more expensive than my normal Wet n Wild. Sadly, that was not the case, but it did motivate me to go on a hunt to find a really good white polish.

Okay, less rambling and onto the results. For each of these polishes, my first finger has 1 coat, my middle finger has 2 coats, and my ring finger has 3 coats. Here we go:

Wet n Wild: With 2 coats, you can see that it’s still a little shear, but with 3 coats it’s pretty much opaque.

Broadway Nails: Pretty similar to Wet n Wild, but maybe a bit more sheer.

NYC: I think with two careful coats, this would be opaque. You can see on my middle finger near the cuticle that I had a little trouble with the polish pulling up and leaving a bald spot. Generally, that’s caused by going over the polish with the brush too many times, which causes the polish that is partially dry to pull up from the nail. I think if you are able to apply a coat of polish in 3 strokes, this polish will look good with only 2 coats.

Sinful Colors: This polish looked great in 2 coats! I did a third coat on my ring finger for consistency’s sake, but it really didn’t need it.

Sally Hansen: This one is my favorite! It was perfect in 2 coats, and a third coat actually made it a little too thick. Really, this is a smooth, perfect white polish.

Essie Blanc: This one really preforms about the same as the Broadway Nails polish. It’s really not that great and a rip-off for the price. And do you see the teeth marks on the cap? Yeah, I had a little trouble getting it opened this one time. Anyway, I disliked this polish enough that I used it to do a little Frankenpolishing.

So, in the end I really feel like the Sally Hansen polish is the bet polish of this lot, and at $3 or less, it won’t break the bank. If you can’t find the Sally Hansen or you want to save a buck, I don’t think you’ll be disappointing with the Sinful Colors polish. The other 4 polishes are just okay. They will work in a pinch, but they don’t really rock my world.

Have you tried any of these polishes? What’s your favorite? Have you tried any whites that aren’t on my list?

Battle of the Base Coats

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Janelle

I have long been under the impression that Revlon makes one of the best base coats out there. I’m talking specifically about the Quick Dry Base Coat. This stuff is sort of elusive. It’s not always available at every Revlon nail polish display. (The one place that consistently has it in stock at the best price is Christmas Tree Shoppes. )

It looks like this:

I used this stuff for several years as my regular base coat, and was always really happy with the results.

Then Seche Vite (pronouced “SESH VEET”, according to French people) came onto my radar. It pretty much seemed like everyone praised their top coat as being the best thing ever. Well, I can now say from experience that they do make an awesome top coat, so I assumed that they made an awesome base coat as well.

That’s what prompted me to buy Seche Clear:

The formula for these two base coats couldn’t be more different. Revlon is thick and pretty much looks exactly like Elmer’s Rubber Cement. It fills in any nail ridges and self-levels really well. When it dries, your nails feel rubbery, almost sticky. Seche Clear is crystal clear and super thin. It feels like you are just painting a really thin clear polish on your nails. When it dries, it is slightly shiny a bit tacky.

I have never put these two base coats to a head-to-head test, so I figured it was time to do so. I painted alternating fingers with the two base coats and followed them with 2 coats of white polish, a cute neon glitter polish, and Seche Vite top coat. Specifically, Revlon is on my first and ring finger on my left hand, and my thumb, middle finger and pinky of my right hand. Seche Clear is on my thumb, middle finger and pinky of my left hand, and first and ring finger of my right hand.

Let’s see what happens…

Day One:

Both base coats trucked along beautifully for 3 days. On the 4th day, I started to notice a few little chips.

Day 4:

Seche Clear nails. There’s definitely some tip wear, and a visible chip on the pinky of my left hand, and the first finger of my right hand.

Revlon nails. There’s some tip wear and a little chip on the middle finger of my right hand.

By day 5, I was getting really tired of looking at the same polish every day. Under normal circumstances, I would have repainted my nails. Since I wanted to hold out a little longer on this head-to-head challenge, I satisfied myself by adding some different colored glitter to my nails.

At the end of day 6, I got a HUGE chip on one of my nails. The chip was huge enough for me to declare day 6 as the last day of this little challenge. Here they are..

Day 6

Seche Clear nails. The left hand doesn’t look too much different than day 4, but look at my first finger on my right hand! I lost almost half of the polish! It chipped off some time while I was at Hersheypark, but I didn’t actually notice when it happened.

Revlon nails. Still only that little chip on the middle finger of my right hand.

I also compared the tip wear of each finger on my right hand with its counterpart on my left hand and found that…

Thumbs: Revlon wins (on my right hand)

First fingers: Revlon wins by a landslide (on my left hand)

Middle fingers: Seche Clear wins (on my left hand)

Ring fingers: Revlon wins (on my left hand)

Pinky: Revlon wins (on my right hand)

This little experiment has pretty much confirmed my hunch that the Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat will help your mani look better longer than Seche Clear. Revlon will continue to be my go-to base coat for the foreseeable future.

What has been your experience with base coats? What base coat do you love?

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