Pink Wednesday: Wet n Wild Tickled Pink and Sinful Colors Glass Pink

I decided to go with a pastel look for today's Pink Wednesday being how it's Spring and all. I Just picked up Wet n Wild Tickled Pink for $0.69 at my local Walgreen's this morning. I used three coats of Tickled Pink over one coat of Barielle Growth Activator. The formula was on the thickish side and left horrible streaks and drag marks, hence the 3 coats. It all took forever to dry even after I topped it with a coat of Seche Vite. It probably also didn't help that the brush was all wonky too.

I decided it was ok but kind of bland so I added one coat of Sinful Colors Glass Pink which gave this mani a lovely glass fleck finish.

Still though it needed something so I added a glitter gradient using some loose, iridescent, light pink, bar glitter. I topped this with two more coats of Seche Vite to help smooth it out. Notice I skipped doing this on my accent nail...I had other plans for that nail.

I realized it has been a while since I stamped skulls on a mani, figured it was overdue. I used plate OB5 and Konad Special Polish in white. Then added one of my newly acquired rhinestone bows in light pink to match. Then topped it with another coat of Seche Vite. I really like the effect of a creme stamp over the glass fleck finish. I think I will have to repeat this with other colors that aren't so close.

Accent nail macro

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Swatch & Review Saturday: Wet n Wild Chrome Hog-Quartz School

Natural light

I picked this up yesterday even though I am currently on a No-Buy for the month of April. There were several other colors in the display. Here's the picture of a Wet n Wild Chrome display from Nouveau Cheap, this is the picture that had me grabbing my wallet and keys and heading out the door.

As you can see from the picture, there is 2 blues (a light and dark), a green, a pink, a light purple, a gold, a bronze, and a silver. After finding the display case at my local Rite Aid, I was a little disappointed to see that the blues, and the pink looked like dupes of the Color Club foils (Lumin-icecent, Cold Metal, & Hot Like Lava) which I already have so I didn't need. I'm not really a gold wearer so I passed on that one too. I thought about grabbing the copper one because I don't have a copper foil (still might go back for it). I had the silver one in hand and realized it was a warm, gold-toned silver or a cool-toned gold however you want to call it, so that went back to the display as well. The green is a brighter yellow toned green so it's not a match to Color Club's green foil, Perfect Mol-Ten so I may make another excuse to go and retrieve that one as well. There was one bottle of the bunch though, that I absolutely knew was coming home with me and that was Hog-Quartz School, a lavender foil. Notice I call them foils not chromes. To me a chrome is smooth and more reflective, these are not. They are frosty like foils.

Now I feel I should mention that these aren't normal Wet n Wild price, they retail for $3.99 a bottle. If they'd been $1.99 I probably would have just grabbed them all! Also, the bottles are small, not mini small but somewhere between mini and regular sized. Again if they'd been full sized I may have bought more. Anyway, I went to put this beautiful looking polish on this morning and was surprised to see how thick it was (maybe it's just my bottle, I don't know) and the brush was kind of crappy and flared a lot at the end. Surprisingly though, I applied just wonderfully. Go figure! It went on smoothly with no hiccups and was opaque in 1 coat, but I gave it 2 just out of habit. There was no dragging or bare spots and it actually dried pretty quickly on it's own. I also tossed on a coat of Seche Vite (not photographed) to see if it changed the look at all and it doesn't. Also unlike chromes, this polish didn't show every little flaw which is nice.

Lightbox

Lightbox

I tried to mattify this mani but it was almost impossible to tell that it was matte. Also, my light box hates this polish, I don't know why. The true color shot is the top most one taken outside with an overcast sky. The ones in the lightbox make it seem a dustier lavender.

Final thoughts, if you have the Color Club foils you may want to run out and snag the non-duped colors and if you don't I'd recommend grabbing them up while they last. I hear these babies are Limited Editions. =(

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Happy Friday the 13th!

Anyone out there a Paraskevidekatriaphobic? Or perhaps a Friggatriskaidekaphobic? Basically they mean the same thing: "people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th." See when I think of Friday the 13th I think of the horror movies with Jason Voorhees. You might not know it but I LOVE horror flicks. I used to watch too many old USA Up All Night horror marathons on Friday the 13th! Jason is one of my fav psycho killers...So for today I have made a mani in honor of Jason and Friday the 13th.

I started with 2 coats Wet n Wild White Creme (probably could have used a 3rd coat). Stamped on some blood and that machete on the pinky from m13 (13, LOL I missed that while stamping) using Konad Stamping polish in red. I made Jason's hockey mask out of 2 black gems, 4 red tear drops, and some dotted on black spots using Wet n Wild Black Creme. It didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped...he kind of looks like an evil chicken. LMAO! But I had fun with it! There's always the next Friday the 13th, you know we have 3 this year...today is the 2nd. All three are 13 weeks apart...

Awww...poor Jason.

Hope everyone had a safe Friday the 13th and no one is currently running from you-know-who! Don't forget to vote on the two polls for the upcoming 750 Follower giveaway (In the first sidebar to the right on top)! Much Love, The Dragon Lady

P.S. Please excuse the sporadic posts and crappy cuticles. I have had some rough homework/classwork the last few weeks and I am catching up on more coding, labs, projects, etc so not doing proper hand/nail care or posts. I hope this changes soon! ;)

Week 15: Easter Mani

For this week's challenge, the Easter mani, I decided to use the mani I did for my almost 12 year old daughter (her b-day is on Tuesday). She loved the little chickies but also wanted an accent nail with a bunny. Her nails are pretty small so I was worried about tried to fit a bunny with his ears on there, but hey, sometimes you just have to say, " I can always take it off and start over if I screw it up!" LOL! I think they turned out pretty cute and she absolutely LOVES them!

We painted her nails with 3 coats Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow and 2 coats China Glaze Bahamian Escape on the accent nail. For the chickies I used Wet n Wild Black creme (eyes) and Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up (toes/beaks). for the bunny I used Konad stamping polish in white (for it's opaqueness factor). I was actually able to just brush on the half circle face and ears. I then used China Glaze Dance Baby and my dotting tool for the nose and inner ears, and again used the Wet N Wild Black Creme for the eyes. I also used the dotting tool and Konad white to finish up the eyes. I then coated it all in Seche Vite - I did wait about a minute for the nail art to "dry" a bit so the Seche wouldn't smear it.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. I will leave you with this cute bunny pic I found the other day.

Happy Easter!

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Fellow Challengers:

**Again if you are doing this challenge and aren't on my list please leave a comment below with a link to you blog home page so I can add you and check out your designs too! ;)**

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Easter Mani #3 - Easter Chickies

I saw this adorable Chicken mani by Kelly @ Kelly's Kolors. I just had to try it out. I admit that although yellow was once one of my favorite colors, being a redhead it really just isn't my color. I didn't want to do 5 yellow chickies, so I thought I'd give you my 5 colored chickies instead.

Kind of like these:

I used China Glaze Dance Baby, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Color Club Twiggie, China Glaze Bahamian Escape, and Revlon Charming. Same base colors I used for my first Easter mani, the Easter eggs.

For the beaks and claws I used Wet n Wild Sunny Side Up (orange creme). For the eyes I used Wet n Wild Black creme.

 So here they are:

Then I added some sparkle with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.

Sorry, the sun was out wanted to see some sparklies after so much rain!

So, after seeing my chickies SOMEONE else wanted chickies. Sounded close to this, "Chickies! Chickies! Please! Cherry top!" Yes, the two year old wanted chickies enough to use the magic words Please with a cherry on top or at least her version. Now I want you to stop and think a minute about how small a two year old's fingernails really are. We are talking about 2/3 the size of a small polish brush, the pinky might be less than half. Those of you with kids or younger siblings know what I'm talking about. I should have posted this on it's own with the post title, "An Exercise in Patience." LMAO! She begged for these but would NOT hold still for them. Kept trying to lean over and see what I was doing. Oy!

The oldest also wanted some chickies and she wanted a bunny as an accent nail...we'll see how that goes and maybe I'll post it tomorrow. For now, goodnighty all and a great big thank you to all my followers for well, following! ;)

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

P.S. As I am previewing this Bug-bug is in my lap pointing at the screen and yelling, "Mine chickies." She actually scratched and peeled hers off hours ago. LOL

Easter Mani #2 - Easter Water Marble Skittles

Okay, first off I feel the need to say that I have only water marbled a couple of times and the last time was back in September 2011. That said, ready for my newest attempt? LOL! Of course, if you don't zoom it's not too bad! ;)

 

I used China Glaze Dance Baby, Sinful Colors (an unnamed light yellow), Color Club Twiggie, Sinful Colors Cinderella, and Sinful Colors Zeus. I used two colors at a time and used one of those colors with another on the next nail. The swoops and design came out okay but I guess I was having trouble with the water temperature? It's very cold were I live right now, so I was using filtered water warmed up and it was either too warm or too cold for my attempt. I tried several times (3?) and this was the best one. Dang those stupid air bubbles! They totally messed it up! Oh well.

I tried a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust to see if that hid the bubbles a bit....not so much!

Then I tried one coat of Wet n Wild Kaleidoscope, that did a better job but also kind of covered up some of the water marble pattern. These water marbles might have to wait until summer. =(

Much Love, The Dragon Lady