Misa Neons: Look On The Bright Side Collection

I've teamed up with Misa Masa! We've split our swatches in two for this collection. Check out Misa Masa's half of the colors here. She's a great blogger with a bit of a Misa obsession (and believe me, Misa is something you *should* obsessed with) and some great swatching and reviewing abilities.

Here's my half of the collection:


A Sunny Smile Makes Me Go Wild. A super-bright highlighter yellow. It may not look like it in the picture, but it's the exact burn-your-retinas bright yellow shade as a highlighter marker. Similar to Chine Glaze Celtic Sun, but less of a jelly finish. This is thick and a little streaky, not exactly easy to apply. For some reason this happens with all bright yellows and I have no idea why.



Hot People Like You. Bright neon pink with a purple/blue reflection and a touch of shimmer. Unlike other neons, this one doesn't dry to a chalky finish. I left the second picture huge so you can click to see the shimmer up close.


Pour Me Something Tall And Strong. Hey, that's my motto. A gorgeous bright Crayola blue that's perfect in every way. This is my new favorite blue polish. It reminds me of OPI Dating A Royal, but brighter and more vibrant. Like Rescue Beauty Lounge Dead Calm's baby sister.


Sandals, Flip Flops and Hip Hop. What do you know, three of my least favorite things all rolled in to one convenient package! Hahaha. Name aside, this is a gorgeous color- hot glowing corally medium pink- a deeper, more saturated hot pink. Very, very bright and beautiful.



Six-Pack Summer. Very bright neon orange. Like neon-orange spray paint. Very smooth and easy to apply. Definitely a shocking color!


The Grass Is Greener On My Side. This color is too pretty. TOO pretty! A bright, oceany blue-green shimmer. Very smooth, perfect formula, dries quickly. I think it's a twin to China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise (but it dries faster and has a better formula!) observe:

China Glaze Turned-Up Turquoise.

Maybe the Misa is a bit more green than the China Glaze, but still pretty darn close!

And here are the neons all together, because they look so much better when they're all next to each other. It increases the awesomeness by 500%!



I love this collection a lot. These aren't just neons; they're innovative neons. They aren't the gooey, chalky neons I'm used to. They're smooth and thin, dry just as quickly as their chalky cousins and have a little bit of an edge to them. They're not all creme, there is some shimmer to a few of them. Shimmery and neon? Hell yeah!

Thanks, Misa!

Let's Talk About Acrylics

I have seen a lot of nail enhancement "bashing" (maybe not quite bashing, but definitely no love) lately, and I think it's a little unfair.

Acrylics and gels and other forms of nail enhancements seem to have such a bad reputation for ruining your nails, and that's understandable, as your average nail tech usually does ruin your nails. It's not the enhancement's fault- it's the lazy nail tech.

Acrylics can actually be very good for your nails. It keeps them protected and helps them grow without fear of breakage or staining.

I don't know if any of you saw my post on Makeup Alley a couple weeks ago about making finger soup, but I had a little accident with my left index fingernail.


I was using one of these handy utensils to cut vegetables over a giant pot of vegetable soup. It was a wedding gift and I recently fell in love with it. It was so handy! You didn't need a cutting board at all, just like food scissors! Anyway, I was cutting carrots when all of a sudden something caused my hand to slip and SNIP!! I take a giant chunk out of my nail, nearly cutting off my finger. It cut down so far that the nail bed was exposed with only a thin layer of nail to keep me from bleeding all over. It was terrifying! And no, the nail didn't go into the soup- it flew across the kitchen and oddly enough, landed in the sink.

So, now I had a nail that was so short I couldn't file it down to even it out, it hurt and was on the verge of bleeding. What was I to do? Have a sharp, jagged, painful monster nail until it grew out? No way!

This is where acrylics save the day.



(Check out the wicked burn on my ring finger- I blame YOU, roasted asparagus!!!)

I used some clear acrylic and a tip to make myself a new fingernail until my real nail grew out enough to file. It was clear in real life, for some reason it looks really cloudy in these pictures. It was only a tiny bit thicker than my natural nail, and you would never know it was fake unless I told you. Not huge and thick, but thin, clear and natural looking.

And remember how I said a few posts back that I was having trouble with China Glaze? I'm wearing Passion In The Pacific on my nails in this picture. It's only about, say, 14 hours old in these pictures and look how damaged it is! It never fully dried, and I was chipping and denting it despite being very careful.

Back on topic. I don't do acrylics often (I really hate the way they feel- you can't scratch with them!! I really don't need them, my natural nails are very nice!) but sometimes I find myself needing one to repair a broken-down-too-far-to-file nail. I know that when I remove the acrylic nail, my natural nail will be in the same good condition as it was before I applied the acrylic. In fact, it may be in even better condition because it won't be stained by polish, it won't chip or break and it may even be a little stronger from the weight of the acrylic.

My natural nail had finally grown out enough to file down the jagged edges without making myself bleed, so I removed the acrylic yesterday. It came right off with a little acetone- about 30 seconds and it was gone! And underneath? My nail was smooth, strong, shiny and not one bit stained like my other nails.

The myth is that acrylics will severely damage your natural nail. What really damages your natural nail is a nail tech filing and drilling the hell out of it with an e-file, or YOU damage your natural nail by biting or peeling off the acrylic instead of removing it the right way (soaking).

Acrylics aren't evil- they're really not! They're great for repairs, or just to wear. If you can't get any length on your natural nails but want long nails, acrylics can do that. Or, maybe you want a french manicure that never chips? Acrylics. Maybe you want some really wacky, over-the-top nail art? Acrylics!

Hopefully I've helped to remove some of the stigma surrounding acrylic nails.

As a bonus, here's China Glaze Passion In The Pacific for lovely reader Sigrun:

Random Swatches: Creative Nail Design (CND)

Thank you all SO MUCH for the photography tips! I'm going to play around with the different suggestions and hopefully I'll be able to take great pictures indoors on dark days! You guys are the best. Seriously. Love you all.

Anyway, since I haven't been able to do new swatches this week, I thought I'd post a few past nails-of-the-day that I liked. As much as I love new stuff (and I really, really love new stuff) sometimes I just have to go back to my old favorites.

This time I'm going to focus on CND. While I do not like the formula of these at all (they never actually dry, no matter what I do!) the colors are truly spectacular.

Polish Addict recently posted the announcement that CND plans to discontinue almost all of their polishes and keep a core line. This is very sad. If you see a CND polish you like that's not on the list, grab it while you can!!


Okey Dokey Artichokey. Sort of an olive green weird pinkish duochrome. I love colors like this.


Cashmere. I'm not even sure how to describe this other than, "it's awesome".


Family Secret. Sort of a dirty taupe brown color with red shimmer.


Souvenir Junkie. Glowing hot fiery orange shimmer!


VIP Status. A really horrible picture of it, too. It's an incredibly shocking gold and holographic glitter polish that's positively blinding! It explodes with sparkle. I love it to death.



Black Platinum. I think the name covers it pretty well.


Cuppa Joe. I think this is tied with VIP Status and Disco Ball for my favorite CND polish of all time. This polish just makes me feel happy. *sigh*


Deep Velvet. I don't know how well this polish goes with my skintone, but I love the color of it. It really does look like deep velvet. Very interesting to look at.



Hotski To Tchochki. I'm not even entirely sure I spelled that right. This is not only super bright and sparkly, it wins the award of Hardest To Spell Nail Polish Name EVER.


These are only some of the unique and fascinating colors I have from CND, and it's so sad to hear that most of them will be gone soon. I guess I never really wear them very often because of the drying issue, but I sure do love to look at the bottles.

Turquoise Swatches, Part 1.

The sun is interfering with my swatching this week, but I promised reader Carla G. some turquoise swatches! Uh oh! Special thanks to all the lovely ladies (and the occasional man!) at Makeup Alley's Nail Board for turquoise suggestions!

I'll post these turquoise colors that I've previously swatched, and when I have some nice, bright sunlight I'll do the rest.



China Glaze For Audrey


CND Hotski To Tchochki


CND Turquoise Tint


Color Club Bizerk Turq


Color Club Emerald Depths


Misa Blue Over A Boy


OPI Blue Moon Lagoon


China Glaze Sexy In The City



Nicole Turquoise Joys


More to come!

China Glaze Sexy Sport Collection Swatches

So, really, this isn't much of a "collection" as it is one new polish lumped in with a couple old ones displayed alongside a really terrible and bizarre advertisement. I'm not about to post that ridiculous Sexy Sport promo image with the sweaty silicone-laden football player again.

Anyway, the new color, "Sexy Lady" is a medium bright pink creme, not ugly by any means but definitely nothing special.


Sexy Lady.

And the old ones:


Sex on the Beach. Very pretty sheer peachy duochrome with fine shimmer. Reminds me of OPI Peach A Boo!


Sexy In The City. Bright blue with deep frost and shimmer. This one reminds me of MAC Plasma Blu, so if you're unable to find that one, this would be the next best thing.


Sexy. That's exactly right. This is a bright orangey-red "jelly" with that glass fleck shimmer that I love so much. It's bright, vibrant, shiny and sparkly.

Nubar

This is my first experience with Nubar polishes, so I think I'll do a little review.

Service, overall, was slow and with very little communication.

The polishes themselves are awesome. The formula, which is 3 free, seems nice and smooth but still has that annoying dripping problem that 3-free polishes have.

The range of colors is excellent, and they have enough of glitter and duochrome shades to keep someone like me happy.

The bottles are great, a unique yet stable shape with a comfortable, wide lid.

Enough talk, on to the good stuff.


Angelic Glitter. Not the most flattering due to the yellow tint, but would be awesome layered over just about anything.


Gilded Gold. I love this. You probably can't tell from the picture, but there are little gold glitter shapes in it. Like little triangles of foil, they catch the light and reflect like crazy.


Golden Glow. I'm not sure about this one... This could possibly be the most unflattering polish I own. I love the holographic gold glitter. I think this one would be best for layering, unless you have the patience to do 20 coats.


Gold Leaf. This is incredible. It's an extremely strong gold/bronze/copper duochrome. It glows so much you'd think it was lit from within.


Grass Green. Lots of very fine green glitter. I love this. It's oddly smooth for a glitter polish. This is three coats.



Indigo Illusion. It's blue/green/gold/purple. Need I say more?



Iris Dust. It seems to be a purple/orange duochrome that changes a lot depending on how the light hits it. Yes, those two pictures are of the same color.


Love Rainbow. In the bottle it looks like blue/pink/silver duochrome, but on the nail it looks kinda blueish silver. My only true disappointment out of the bunch.



Peacock Feathers. This is the one that made me try Nubar. It's amazing. Sometimes it's purple, sometimes it's blue, sometimes green or gold. It's freaking amazing. The lovely Makeup Alley member Love8Brain has much better pictures of this.


Purple Beach. It's futuristic looking, isn't it? It's purple/green/gold/grey.


Purple Rain. it's dark purple with multicolored and holographic glitter. No Prince jokes required.


Sour Candy. Very cool turquoise jelly tint with holographic glitter.



Stardust. Can you tell I have a thing for duochromes....


...And glitter? This is Sugar. Hot pink jelly with holographic glitter of varying sizes.

Last, but not least, they threw in a bottle of this color (as well as base coat and quick dry top coat)


Sexy Red.


What do you think? Are these cool or what?