3 fun looks, Top Coat Commentary & Plug Yourself Sunday ♥

I started with 2 coats of an awesome franken I made using Wet n Wild Bijou Blue and a stark white creme. I added the teal stripe polish in a swoop started from my cuticle extending across the tip of my nail like  a regular french mani. I traced the line with Art Deco green/teal glitter polish and added a coat of Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat.

This post started out as a blog & run, I planned on throwing up some photos, a few quick words, then catching up on my blog reading, but it has ended up as a long commentary on Top Coat. If you are in the market to meet your Top Coat needs, please read The Edge of Sanity Series on Top Coats.

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I got a few letters this week about Nailene Acrylic Strong Top Coat. It is just a regular Top Coat. I suppose the name 'Acrylic Strong' is in regards to it's strength? I like it because it dries shiny and in a decent amount of time. It is also available at almost every store where polish products are sold in my town ( except Walmart - this product specifically which is strange ) and I never have tip pull or weird puckering or other issues.  It is not a rapid dry Top Coat like Seche Vite where it dries ( or is supposed to dry ) instantly.  I don't mind sitting still for 15 minutes to ensure my polish is set.

I am not a fan of Top Coats that are instant dry or rapid dry for my regular everyday manicure. My experience is the product in the bottle stiffens up and leaves alot of polish strings.  I have not tried every available Top Coat out there ~ and will not ~ Below is my experience in the last few years.

CHINA GLAZE FAST FORWARD

Pros - dries fast, and hard. great for major glitter looks. FROSTY Bottle♥

Cons - holy frigg-digity. I could not use this indoors it stunk so bad. The product thickens to the point of unusable half-way through the bottle, as well as major polish strings. Polish thinner resolved this problem. Can now be found easily for me at beauty stores.

Final Thoughts = I was very, very happy with this but it smells sooooo awful, I haven't purchased it again.



SALLY HANSEN RED BOTTLE INSTA DRY

Pros -This is a fast drying top coat. easy to find at the grocery store, dept. stores etc.

Cons - bottle locked up on me, which is not bad as it is a fast drying top coat - but inconvenient and disappointing and a huge turnoff for even bothering to use Top Coat at all... Pricy for a grocery store product ( will check price )

Final Thoughts - I would re-purchase this in the future, and possibly try another Sally Hansen top coat product. I find that Sally Hansen is dipping into the 'high end' of nail care products and it is COMPLETELY UN-NECESSARY. They do have products at different price points which is smart but many of their Nail Care & treatment products are over priced in my opinion and NOT any better quality than another similar product at a lower price point.


NAILENE TOP COAT

Pros - dries in a fair amount of time - This is not an 'instant dry' product. easy to find for me. Inexpensive, FROSTY BOTTLE♥ It stayed shiny and did not show signs of wear and tear after extreme exposure

Cons - if it is sold out where I regularly purchase it  ( Zellers for $6.99 ) then I have to purchase it from Shoppers Drug Mart where it is $9.99 or more. ( I will double check prices )

Final Thoughts - There are many reasons I like this product. It is easy to find, in-expensive compared to pretty much every other quality Top Coat. It stays viscous ( fluid/runny/ whats a better word? ) in the bottle, meaning that I did not have to add nail polish thinner to this. Polish strings appear when it there is approximately 1/4 of the product in the bottle, it doesn't smell nasty and the bottle is FROSTY which means it is an object I can hold and take flash photos, or photos in strong sunshine.

I often use a clear polish over my base polish colour when I do nail art. I ALWAYS use clear polish over my franken polish or heavy glitter looks because I have picked up glitter, shimmer and other polish tid-bits and deposited those into my top coat. I am heavy handed and haven't yet mastered applying polish without the brush meeting the surface of my nail.

So in conclusion, I will use products that serve my needs, have an acceptable price and are easily available. So If something better comes along that fills my needs.......... I'll probably stick with this, actually.

{ Shopping Commentary }The last time I purchased this Nailene Top Coat Zellers had all Nailene Products for 25% off - and at least once every year Zellers has all Nailene Products for 50% OFF! I used to avoid Zellers stores ( Hudson's Bay Company ) but now I avoid Walmart at all costs, even though Walmart has products for 10 cents less, I will purchase it somewhere else.


Whew!  Also ~ computer issue solved; I have a few more backed up manis to edit and post - for now here is three looks I have recently worn.

...... and Please add you nail blog address to my comments, I barely did any 'new nail blog hunting' this week! If you are not already on my blog roll - pleas leave me a comment and I will add you♥♥♥

The pastel franken polish is a strong colour, it messed with my camera and made taking photos difficult. I have probably worn this franken polish 4 or 5 times on my nails. I definitely needed another coat of the teal stripe polish, there is bare spots on the tips of my nails and some visible texture as these stripe polish's from The Bargain Shop dried very, very fast.

stuff I used for this mani; WnW Bijou Blue & White Franken, Teal stripe polish, Teal glitter stripe polish

outline - fill in - add glitter and Top Coat

with my franken made with WnW Bijou Blue and Billie Cosmetic's White Creme

.... I had to try to do a plaid look. I used  the same pastel blue franken, and white and teal stripe polish. It looked alright after top coat, I planned on layering a the sheer, sparkly polish Wet n Wild Blue Wants to be a  Millionaire over this plaid nail art to disguise any wonky crooked lines - but decided to just leave it as is.

I don't think I would wear a look like this in the future, maybe with thicker lines and better line placement?

WnW Bijou Blue Franken, white & teal stripe polish

on my ring nail is an un-named franken

For this look, I used the same method as my first mani to create the partition, but I first did a light outline with the stripe polish, then filled it in with Wet n Wild Blue Wants To Be a  Millionaire = then went over the line again with the stripe polish & added a coat of TC.

I prefer to have a glitter line, rather then the strip polish line. 

♥

AVON Bare Necessity and Midnight Plum

Hi everyone - here is a quickie post = I am experiencing some OMFG computer problems and it has killed my desire to be on the internet or even the computer all together ( all dramatic lol )

But ~  here are two lovely Avon Polished paired up in a gentle S-curve manicure.

I cut out the design template from mailing labels these seem to leave the least residue. I have tried to cut out shapes for designs from painters tape using scissors with little success, and using a utility knife is dangerous, so this is the way to go for me.

Both of these Avon Polish's are creme finishes. The apply wonderfully, dry fast and are richly pigmented.  I have recently acquired a few Avon polish's and can say with certainty that this line of Nail Wear Pro Polish is awesome.

3 thin coats of Avon Bare Necessity

when the base polish was dry I applied the 'S' shaped stickers that I cut out from mailing labels

and added 2 coats of Avon Midnight Plum

I removed the stickers and added a coat of Top Coat

.... and here are a few other 'S-Curve' manicures I have posted in the past

♥

Berry Blast Off

This is 3 thin coats of NYC Manhatten, followed by 2 coats of At Deco pink stripe polish, a purposely messy addition of Raspberry glitter and a few of those fake rhinestones set into wet Top Coat. I really should have used 2 coats of top Coat, becuase this glitter textured and marred what should have been a shiny surface.

It's strange how some glitter nail polish is smoothe and only needs a light coat of Top Coat, and some glitter polish needs 2 or even 3 coats to get a shiny even surface. I got these fake rhinestones from the DollarRama and if they are covered by polish, any polish, the shiny finish clouds over. So now I just set them into wet top coat.

These fake rhinestones hung on for the day despite being placed into wet Top Coat..... My thumb nails and ring nails lost a few gems towards the evening but none of them got stuck in my hair.... this time!

NYC New York Color Manhatten, Art Deco Pink Stripe Polish, Icing Raspberry Glitter

Free gif maker

I used a piece of spaghetti ( not cooked lol ) to pick up these gems and place them into wet TC

My Right hand, which I plan on adding to more posts.... my left hand gets all the glory

Icing No-Name Glitter...... I think I'll call it Raspberry Glitter

 2 'coats' of Stripe polish

with the glitter & gems

♥

Yesterday Again Tomorrow franken

My camera battery conked out before I could get shots of the green painters tape on my nails. I started with a base of my latest franken, applied painters tape, and used 2 coats each Claire's Dream Catcher at my cuticles, and Sinful Colors Mint Apple at the tips. I removed the tape and applied Nailene Top Coat.

I carefully cut 1/4 strips of green painters tape with box cutter on ONE OF THOSE SPECIAL  HEAL-ABLE CRAFT MATS from the dollar store. I stuck down a 4 inch piece of tape, used a ruler and carefully cut it into 1/4 inch strips. I tried snipping pieces of green painters tape with scissors and it just didn't work out.


Below 3 thin coats of my latest Franken 'Yesterday Again Today' with a coat of TC.  I was channeling the newest OPI Collection's grey green 'On Stranger Tides'.

the polish's I used to make this franken; Billie Lime, Billie White, NYC Black ( old ) = My Franken

below - before TC

Above and below, the ridges where the polish meet are raised textured, usually 1 or 2 coats of top coat will 'melt' this away.

Claire's Dream Catcher

Franken Polish Yesterday Again Tomorrow

Sinful Colors Mint Apple

♥

New Blogs & spotlight nails

I started with a base of copper artificial nails, then used a black stripe polish to make the lines, filled in with WnW Black Creme, then traced the line with Stripe Rite copper glitter. I filled in my pinky nail with glitter, but thought that just tracing the outline of the spotlight was 'enough'. PLUS ~ I remembered how this glitter sucked up top coat, and didn't want to add too many layers of polish.

GIF!

Loogix - Free gif maker

here a few new blogs........................

miss 80 million

Enigmatic - rambles

Olivia's Nails

legally lacquered

nails in the air

unas de colores

pixie polish

makeup masala

purrr polish

one chic bella

Here comes the sun

...............and a few more photos of my 'spotlight' manicure

 ♥

Wavy Gravy & Plug Yourself Sunday

 I have been meaning to try this look for a few months now. I started with the same base of Copper artificial nails then traced the black area with black striping polish, then filled it in with Wet n Wild Black Creme, then used Stripe Rite Copper Glitter Striping polish for the wavy area. VERY EASY.

This Stripe Rite Glitter is a Hooongry glitter - I went over the glitter area twice resulting in a textured surface which would require more TC then a regular manicure. I did not do a proper clean-up with acetone around my cuticles as i planned on adding another thicker coat of TC for the day.

OOPS! I got a late start today - as always, please leave your blog address in my comments so I can add you to my blog roll

Also; this is the 6th time in 2011 that I have spilled nail polish! This has rarely happened to me...............

Outline the wave & trace around nail. Fill in with WnW Black Creme, Add Glitter and a coat of Top Coat

Fin.

Wow - these stripe polish's from the Bargain shop ( Canada ) are really good!

♥