Melmers!

I have entered the world of Melmers! Now, if any of you have been lurking in the nail blogging community, you have heard and seen photos of other nail bloggers posting photos of their organization tactics with something they call a Melmer. I finally got some!

They aren't actually called Melmers. Melmers is the name the nail blogging community named these badboys because they are similar to the Helmers that you can buy at IKEA. Helmers are also a good storage solution, you can find here. These are Recollections brand Drawer Cube with Three Drawers sold at Michael's craft stores, I got mine on sale for $19.99 ea. Their regular price is $39.99 ea. You can find them here, but cannot order off the website. They fit my polishes and supplies perfectly! I haven't had the time or inclination to decorate mine like Kayla over at Nails by Kayla Shevonne. I LOVE hers though! I am all about animal print haha.

I haven't photographed what is in my drawers, but I will type it out.

• On top, my little jar of the brushes I use most, the cut Teavana bag is my "to swatch" bag.
• 1st drawer: palette, acetone, orange sticks, polish towel, acrylic paints, cuticle remover, thinner, Orly nail rescue, french manicure guides, notebook paper hole reinforcers, dotting tools, China Glaze magnet for magnetic polishes, q-tips, makeup wedges, scotch tape, and Elmer's glue (for the glitter-specific basecoat).
•  Orly holiday minis (no idea why these are there), cotton balls, cuticle moisturizers of various kinds, stamping accessories and plates, polish strips, nail art pens, tweezers, clippers, files, scented removal pads (which don't work well), and Sally's receipts (just in case).
• This drawer I keep my silvers, clears, top coats, base coats, and blacks.
• Blues and greens.
• Reds, yellows and oranges.
• Coppers, browns, purples and burgundies.

For now, my polishes are organized by color. I don't have enough of each brand to organize it by brand. I love these things, they're a life and space saver. My boyfriend and I inhabit a small apartment and I was getting tired of having my polishes in random places, finally I know where everything is. No more sitting down, settling in and realizing something else I need is across the apartment. Rawr. This post will be updated as I add to my collection. Stay tuned! :)

Swatch Spam! [Photo Heavy]

So, christmas has passed and it's time to get cracking on manicures! For christmas I got a new Nikon 1 series camera with an additional lens and a tripod from my amazing boyfriend.

I'm still working on figuring out the settings and stuff, the manual that came with it is gloriously unhelpful. The macro setting is elusive so far, so my swatch photos are taken with my old camera still.

From my bff Kim, I got tons of nail polish! All from Amazon and super affordable, but man the colors were beautiful!! Just gorgeous. The collection is called matte-n-a Matte Nail Apparel by Max Makeup Cherimoya. All the colors are matte and named after movie genres! Very fun. Here goes:

This one is Musical, very bold and beautiful. Great formula! No thinner needed. 2 coats.

This is Chick Flick, a vibrant pink that's quirky and fun! No thinner needed. 2 coats.

This one is 5 Stars. It's a bright neon yellow that this picture can't give justice, I loved it. No thinner needed. 2 coats.

Comedy is a super bright orange I couldn't catch how magnificent the neon was though :( No thinner needed. 2 coats.

Indie is my first nude. It has a dusky rose hue that I love. I LOVE this color. But the formula was very goopy and I fought with it a lot. Even the 6 drops of thinner I gradually added didn't help the formula. BUT I am not giving up, because I love this color. Just beautiful. 2 coats.

This red is Rated R! Hot hot hot! No thinner needed and shown is 2 coats.

Romance is a muted pink I enjoyed. The formula was also rather thick, I didn't add thinner, I wanted to show what the formulas applied like right out of the shipping box. 2 coats.

Sci-Fi is an alien neon green! Such a fitting name. I REALLY wanted to apply more than 2 coats, but I only do 2 coats as a reference for my swatches. No thinner needed on this one either, the formula was very sheer and runny.

Sequel is a sky blue. I liked it, but the formula was so very thick and frustrating. No thinner added yet, 2 coats.

Thriller is an orange based pink that was crazy neon! I couldn't capture just how much, but man do I love it! Great formula for this one, 2 coats.

Now for the metallics of the collection! :)

Blockbuster was the single most infuriating polish of the entire collection, I swore so much while applying this. I experience this with every metallic silver I ever purchase, expensive brand or not. Thick, streaky and annoying. But it's so pretty :( no amount of thinner helped this polish. I won't give up though. 2 coats.

Cannes is a rusty pink color I loveddddd! So beautiful. A bit on the thick side. 2 coats.

Fairytale is the girliest and flirtiest pink of the collection, it's so simple and beautiful. 2 coats, this polish is so pretty I did two photos because I flashed one on accident and loved the way it showed off the polish. This is no flash.

This is Fairytale with my accidental flash. Beautiful right?!

Mystery is a metallic fuchsia that glows. Not as thick as it could have been, but thicker than I liked :( but I won't give up! 2 coats.

And the final color of the collection, Oscar! The same experience as the silver in the collection, Blockbuster. Thick, streaky and exactly as expected :/ 2 coats.

 That's it for my swatch spam! Phew! Overall, I LOVE these polishes. I facepalmed myself hard though when I realized that I should have topcoated them all before removing them so I could have photographed what they looked like glossy. DUH. The swatches were done with no top coat, only a base coat.

Sally Beauty Clearance and Fimo

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I did do a few christmas manicures but none I deemed worthy of a post on my blog haha. So I'm back and posting some fun stuff today! To start off, I was in Sally's the other day and found their clearance section... China Glaze and Orly polishes were $1.28! You better believe I went crazayyy! It was amazeballs.

So, I bought China Glaze Immortal, which is a beautiful gray color. Gray is my favorite color so I'm always on the hunt for gorgeous grays. This one, the formula was a little sheer for my taste but I did like it.

I forgot to swatch the polish alone before I applied the fimo flowers, oops. After the initial color, I added Northern Lights Hologram Topcoat, which I believe is NOT worth the price. I recommend exploring other options if you're in the market for a holographic topcoat. The photo above shows the topcoat over the CG polish...... yea.

This photo is the bottle of topcoat, looks promising right! It isn't. I was very disappointed. Also, the fimo flowers of this mani popped off an hour after I completed these photos. :(

That's it for this post! Swatch spam coming up next!

Acrylic Paint Experiment! [Photo heavy post]

Hey guys! So I've had a bunch of things on my "to get" list for my nail art collection and I've finally gotten around to checking 2 of those items off. Acrylic paints and tiny detail brushes. I wasn't sure what kind of manicure I wanted to do, I actually started out intending to use every single acrylic in the package to see how the colors turn out. I chose black and white polishes as the backdrop to get a good idea of how opaque they are against the hues. I hope you enjoy the post :)

Reeve's 18 count acrylics, on sale at Michael's for $8.99!

Tried to capture the brush codes for you guys that may be curious exactly WHICH ones they are.

These are a close up of the tips :)

And the other codes on the brush stems in case you guys are interested in buying them. They're VERY good detail brushes. Better than nail art brushes I've purchased.

I started with a base coat of Essie Blanc and made fishtail tips with Orly Liquid Vinyl. For the tips, just use the brush from the bottle and swipe in a curved motion. All additional colors are acrylic paints, applied using the "round" detail brush.

 

My right hand so those of you that claim I'm so great can see I too struggle! :)

Close up of the design done on all nails.

I admit I got WAY carried away with the photos... but I really REALLY LOVE this manicure! I will be wearing it for as long as possible! :)

Thanks for looking!

Liquid Vinyl

One more post for the night! :)

I have discovered a new favorite black polish. Orly Liquid Vinyl! It's just gorgeously glossy and fabulous. I only needed 2 coats for this manicure.

I decided to put a new Pure Ice polish I fell on love with on top of it. Pure Ice Pardon My French is GORGEOUS. This is also probably among my new favorites. I saw it in Walmart of all places and couldn't resist. It's a beautiful dusky rose shade glitter suspended in a clear base. The glitters are hexagonals and micros. It looked brilliant over Liquid Vinyl! I of course sealed it all in with Seche Vite.

I didn't take too many pictures of this mani, because the light was getting low. But I think the two I did manage to capture show it off well :)

Have a good weekend guys!

Orly Naughty or Nice Holiday Minis Swatches!

Hey loves!

I know many other bloggers have the hookups and get all this stuff as soon as it comes out in the big bottles and swatch way before I am right now, but I still wanted to post my own :)

I found this image of the set on Google:

I didn't take my own picture. The picture isn't mine, it was found on Google. Source: http://thesilvernail.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/orly-holiday-minis2.jpg?w=610&h=391

I began with the gold glitter on the far left, Halo. Halo consists of silver hex glitters and gold micro glitters suspended in a clear base. Good for layering or by itself. Shown in my swatch is 3 coats on its own.

Next up, I decided to swatch the blue glitter, Angel Eyes. Angel Eyes consists of silver hex glitters and deep blue micro glitters all suspended in a clear base. Ideal for layering, as shown in this swatch is 3 coats and I didn't get coverage I prefer.

 

The other glitter gave me a fight I didn't feel like battling so I do not have a swatch for it, but it is called Devil May Care. It is a glitter that consists of gold hex glitters, littered with red micro glitters suspended in a clear base. From my experience with it, I recommend it as a layer polish over one of these reds in the collection.

I also didn't swatch Torrid. For some reason those two polishes just didn't want to cooperate with me! Torrid is a beautiful crimson shimmer red that appears to gleam with gold when it hits the light.

Next up is Unlawful. Unlawful is a flat red polish like any other. But this one was an amazing formula. Minimal infamous vampy polish spread during removal, which was surprising.

I love scarlet polishes!

Last but certainly not least, probably the first gold polish I actually like... Flare! Flare is beautiful. I'll post the pictures so you can see for yourself.

I recommend layering Halo over Flare for some drama, just gorgeous. This formula had virtually NO streaking like I find with most metallic polishes.

That's it for swatches for the night! :) Hope you like.