Polish Donation Sensation - #2

I just received a second donation for the sweet ladies at OLPH! Thank you so much Jen Prewitt!
Wahoo! Look at this load of stuff!! The lovely carepackage included Color Club's Alter Ego collection Reveal Your Mystery (totally the same one I have :D), a cute set of 6 called Simply Sweet, 3 hand sanitizers, 2 Sally Hansen Cuticle Gel, a bag of cotton balls, 2 Color Club top coats, 1 Color Club Milky White Base Coat (loving this, as I have it too), some Revlon nail files (totally the best cheap ones ever, I used them all the time), a bottle of polish remover, and a bunch of super cute nail stickers. Go Jen!

Moose really got excited about the package too!!
By the way, you're awesome too Jen! Thanks so much love!! I can't wait to get pics of the ladies actually using all this awesome stuff!

Sally Hansen Salon Effects Review

I finally got around to trying Sally Hansen Salon Effects in Laced Up! I bought them for $6.50 ($8.50 at Wal-mart with a $2 off coupon). I waited so long because they're supposed to last a whole 10 days, and I didn't know if I could handle not polishing all that time haha.

Sally Hansen Salon Effects are strips of real nail polish that have a sticky side that goes on your nail. They come in loads of colors too. The steps on the box say "Peel, Apply, Shape." They also "Last Up to 10 Days" and have no dry time.

Sounds easy right? There were loads of good reviews too (All Laquered Up, Valentine Kisses, The Polishaholic, etc) so I decided I'd try them. Well I freaking hated them. Like super fail. So let's start with the cons lol.

Cons:

• Took forever to apply - like 2 hours.........
• Didn't want to stick to my nails, not very sticky. I had to use remover to sort of melt it a bit to make the part near the free edge stick.
• Easy to tear when you're removing the excess
• Annoying that there are 16 strips instead of 20 so you could get 2 uses instead of 1
• Strips are really not that big so I don't think they'd fit wider or longer nails.
• Didn't last any longer than a regular manicure - chipped after 2 days, awful after 3
  Yes I used a top coat.
• Not a good price $8.50-$9.99
• Says no dry time but pretty much everyone would apply a top coat to make it last longer anyway...meaning yes dry time.

Pros:

• Freaking awesome patterns and selections available
• Easy to find - Drugstores, Walmart, Target, Ulta, online, etc
• Looked great on, 99% like regular polish
• You can use the extra strips as accent nails. Sometimes you can use one strip for two nails if you have shorter nails.

So now for some pictures of the Sally Hansen Salon Defects.

They're so easy to tear. I managed to kind of smoosh it back on, but it still looked bad.

These chips were with a top coat, normal stuff, after 2 days.

Bottom line: FAIL
Would I buy again? If they were $2.

Polish Donation Sensation - Color Club

After I made the polish donation drive official, I tried to get the word out a little. I just posted on my facebook page, blogged about it, and posted on some other companies' facebook pages. I really didn't even try all that hard because I got such an amazing response that so many of you were interested, and I don't need a million bottles of polish for these little ladies.

There has been some progress in donations!! I have had 4 people contact me so far, including one company Color Club! They responded to my post on their Facebook page so quickly and were eager to help out the ladies at the elderly residential facility I'm doing a practicum at right now. Before I even replied they said they had already sent out a package! Freaking awesome! I was just so surprised and happy with how eager they were to help! I had no idea what they were sending, so I let them know how thankful we were, then played the waiting game. Sure enough it came on the one day a week that I actually go there. How cool is that?!? My supervisors were really happy about it and left the box for me to fully inspect. Well this is what I found - BEHOLD!

That's 36 bottles of nail polish, a base coat, quick try top coat, and nail strengthener. SUPER WOW! I have to say I'm dying to try some of those gorgeous colors and see if the Vitabase is nice since I've been wanting to try a nail strengthener lately. Totally going on my wishlist! I can't wait to use these on all the women who love having their nails done so much! Now dear god don't ask me to tell you the names of all the colors lol...There was quite an array though, and there was only one double. About half were mini bottles and half were full size bottles. They really kept the population in mind and sent all sorts of colors like light pink, super pale baby pink, pink shimmer, red, dark red creme, soft brown, taupe, beige shimmer, peach, cream, whites and pearlies, a couple french sheers, hot pink, frosts, so many different ones!!! Here is a little break down of the rows so you can see them a little better.

Thank you so much Color Club, on behalf of myself, my co-workers, and all the ladies at Our Lady of Perpetual Help!!

What's Your Cuticle Care?

Taking picture all up close and person like for nail polish swatches has really made me notice my cuticles. I feel like they're okay, but not great. I want gorgeous cuticles and surrounding skin :D!
Currently I use a J.R. Watkin's Hand and Cuticle Salve. It's a medium/soft vaseline type product in a silver tin.I used to have a Burt's Bees one, which I only heard was good after I gave it away to a man at a homeless shelter lol. So I never really got to try that one. I also put lotion on after my cuticle salve, to rub over my hands and everything. Lately I've been using Bath & Body Works Sun Ripened Raspberry or Victoria Secret's Coconut Passion.
I also use my metal cuticle tool I got from Sally's to push back my cuticles and get some of the dead skin from underneath. I finally found a cheap pair of cuticle nippers at Ross for about $4, as I can't seem to find them cheaper than maybe $12 in normal stores. I go by the rule: if it hurts, it's alive, so don't take it. If it doesn't hurt, it's dead and it needs to come off.

What do you use? Do you use anything at all? I really want to try something different for me and see if I notice anything fabulous. What I have in mind that I'd like to try is Solid Gold Cuticle Oil Gel from Qtica or maybe a Sally Hansen Cuticle Pen because they look so easy.

Updates in Bloggy World

Giveaway:
My giveaway ended the 19th and I drew a winner - Manicured Monkey! I was soo excited! The package has already been sent off so hopefully she'll receive it soon! I hope it was a little fun even for those that didn't win.

Polish Donation Drive:
So far Color Club and two women have contacted me about donating. Color Club has already sent a package! I'm really excited to see what they're donating because they didn't give me specifics. I'd really like to hear from more of you who seemed interested! Things have been difficult because all those who commented on my Facebook posts - apparently it won't let me message people from my professional account. So I really need you ladies to message me again please! Remember, email me with the subject "Polish Donation"!

-- itsrainingstars13@hotmail.com --

AAnndd! I just put my Sally Hansen Salon Effects on late last night. They were pretty fun! I suppose I should wait to blog about them until I see how long they last. Or maybe I could do an application review/tutorial now, then an overall review later? What should I blog about while they're on? :D

Oh oh annndd! My Zoya bogo order is totally in the shipping process! I can't wait till it gets here!!

Polish Donation Sensation!!!

Let's Do It For The Ladies

Some of you may have already heard about my super cool new idea! So the story goes:
I'm doing a practicum for one of my college classes at a residential facility for the elderly. Most of them have severe dementia and require constant supervision, or need constant medical care (nursing). For one of our activities today, I painted some nails :D. Of course I wish I could have taken pictures, but I felt a little intrusive (I have seen my supervisor take pictures though, so this might be possible for the future!). I was inspecting their polish collection, and it was atrocious. This collection had like 7 polishes, and I threw out 2 completely awful ones. Another wing of the facility had a slightly better polish collection, maybe like 15. I didn't actually inspect all of these at the time. One collection, as there is usually one small one per wing (4 wings), didn't even have a top coat! The horror!!

One of my supervisors happened to be sitting right next to me and I said "man we really need a better selection here. These ones are unusable, and the others are okay." My love of nail polish has been mentioned once or twice before, so up came the topic of "well you could donate some." I thought for a moment..."You know, I do have some connections in the polish world...I'll see what I can do :D." That was that. I really didn't expect much to be honest. I thought I would test the waters by posting my possible idea on my Facebook page. Let me tell you I got an amazing response, so I decided to make it happen!

I would donate all of the nail polishes and supplies to this facility (Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Virginia Beach, VA) so that the ladies, who love having their nails done frequently, could have a nice selection of actual quality polish. Even if the result is a few .99 WetNWilds, that would be SO much better than what they have. Used polishes would be absolutely welcome as well. I already cleared that with my supervisor. Anything at all would be great! Even if you'd like to help me get the attention of some polish companies like our beloved Zoya, maybe others like, OPI, China Glaze, Orly, etc. Actually, Color Club is so awesome, not only have they expressed their desire to donate, they have already shipped some! I can't wait to see what it is!

So this is how it goes!
~ Email me (itsrainingstars13@hotmail.com) with the subject "Polish Donation" that you'd like to donate new nail polish, used polish, or polish supplies (like thinner, cuticle balm, top coat, etc)
~ I email you my address, you ship the stuff to me.
~ Once I get a few, I'll take a picture just for awesomeness, then take them on down to OLPH to donate. Hopefully they'll let me take some pictures of the ladies enjoying them! The Chaplain asked me to do his jokingly once, so maybe he'll reconsider now haha.

Got that? You email me with the subject "Polish Donation" so I'm sure not to miss it, I give you my address, you ship, I donate. Of course I will let them know about this awesome donation drive that I'm doing and that all of my fabulous friends here donated the products to the sweet ladies at OLPH. You have no idea how much they enjoy looking pretty :). If you include something else in your package like a letter, for example, that's awesome too! If you need to know my name for any reason, it's Megan :D. They know me as Megan, not Painting Rainbows haha.
Please let me know if you are more comfortable shipping directly to the residential facility, because I'd like to give them a headsup. Not sure what they'll think when they just get a box of polish. This is why I'm trying to get it all shipped to me. I would love to get them all at once and take a monster picture, but I'm sure I'll end up getting them in waves. I will absolutely keep you updated!!

Let's Do It For The Ladies
Picture from www.ourladyperpetualhelp.com

Zoya Dove with her Sister Marley

I was in the mood for something sweet and simple.

Zoya Dove is exactly the gray I have been looking for! I need a simple light gray and tried many others to find they were too dark. I love her! She is a concrete light gray creme that applied fabulously in two coats, as we have come to expect with Zoya's :D. Unlike her other sister Caitlin, Dove doesn't really lean towards a certain color. She really is just a nice normal gray. I picked her up in a recent promo that Zoya did for National Women's Day. The whole Intimate collection was on sale for $25 and free shipping (worth $48, recently increased from $36).

I kept with my subtle, sweet, and simple look, and tipped Dove with Zoya Marley. Marley is a light lavender with a pearly shimmer. I freehanded the tips, as usual. They aren't perfect, but I don't think anyone would really notice. That's all that matters to me most of the time. I can never make myself redo a manicure unless it's really just ugh. Isn't this a pretty combo? I love how colors from the same collection go together so well. As they should! Did you notice the ring? I totally added that pic for the sole reason of all those manicure pictures where the woman is wearing an awesome ring and people always comment on that as well haha. I made this ring a while back with a genuine black pearl and sterling silver balls. Cool huh? :D

Did you notice how much shorter my nails are? I got sick of the upkeep with trying to keep my very broken nails attached. I just trimmed the three broken ones down as much as I had to...which was absolutely all the way for both my thumbs and stubby for my left pointer finger. It HAD to be my picture hand. So most of the full hand swatches are my right hand...at least for a while :~/.

I end this with my late night snack. GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!!!

Samoas are my fave! :D

Zoya Promo Is Here!!!

Zoya has been hinting at a promo for ages now on their awesome Facebook page. It's finally here ladies!!!
It's buy one polish from their three new summer 2011 collections, get another from the collections free! And only pay $2 shipping for all of it (free if you buy $55+)!!! The collections include their new Sunshine collection (foily shimmers), Summertime (bright cremes), and ModMattes.

With such low shipping this is a great time to take advantage of it and add some other polishes and some Zoya Remove+ you've been wanting as well!

This promo should last until 3/25, but I still wouldn't wait. The best case scenario is that your order will be on back order which could seriously extend your waiting time until you receive your goodies. The worst case is that once they run out of bottles, the promo ends. They really weren't super clear with that. If I find out otherwise I'll let you know!

Which ones are you thinking about getting ladies? I'm feeling Reva, Breezi, Keiko, and I can't decide on the last one. Either Tanzy, Faye, or Apple. Temptalia is the only place I have been able to find swatches so far, so let me know if you find others!

Swatches
(Summertime) (Sunshine) (ModMattes)

Detailed information is available on Zoya's official blog.

I Got the Greens - Flaky Gemma

I'm really on a St. Patty's Day green trip lately! A loyal fan asked me to swatch Sinful Colors Green Ocean over Zoya Gemma.
To the left is the lovely Gemma all by herself. She's a little lighter and more exciting in natural light.

This is 3 medium/thick coats because the fake nail I used was so huge. Below we have Gemma topped with one coat of the flakies. I did tap a couple in here and there to make sure it looked relatively even, so you could call it one careful coat.

The first on is actually in dimmer light, turned away from the light source. For some reason that really brings the flakies out. This is honestly more of what it looks like most of the time anyway. It doesn't have to catch the light just right for you to be able to see the flakies. The second picture is an example of what this combo looks like in pretty much the worst case scenario. Still gorgeous right? Right :D!

This is a pretty awesome St. Patty's Day combo, or for anytime!

Pot O' Gold at the End of the Rainbow

Yay St. Patrick's Day! This mani has been in my head for days now and I finally put it down on...nails. A sparkly rainbow with all the colors is spanning across my fingers, over a matte sponged sky, with a big pot'o'gold at the end :D.

I used 20 polishes for this manicure. I know right? Wow.
Base: Seche Ridge Filling Base Coat (Love this, little opaqness to it)
White: 1 coat Milani White, then 1 coat WetNWild Rock Solid in Ice Crystals
Sky sponging: WetNWild Crystalic in Cool Blue Blast, Katy Perry
by OPI Last Friday Night
Matte sky: China Glaze Matte Magic
Rainbow: Obvious colors from ArtNails striper polishes, and the blue is Sally
Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue
Seche Vite Quick Dry Topcoat over the rainbows, then I decided it
needed some sparkle with Diamond Cosmetics Glitter Opal
Pot: Zoya Kelly outlined with Zoya Dove
Gold: Zoya Jules, highlighted with ArtNails gold, covered with Afterthoughts
Lemon Drop (gold glitter)
Carefully topped with SV Quick Dry Topcoat to keep the sky matte still
That makes 20 polishes total!!!

Here is the sky before I painted on top it. This was my first time sponging and it was fun! I just painted right onto the sponge after wiping off most of the polish from the brush. I used a sponge brush from the hardware store kind of thing, not a special nail art sponge brush. This picture is after the matte top coat. I thought it was super cool!

Closeups of my sparkly rainbow and one of the pots of gold. The gold is way sparklier in person!! You can see all seven colors of the rainbow a little better in this one. The ArtNails only had one blue, but there is blue and indigo in a rainbow. So that's why I made the SH polish the lighter blue. I freehanded all of this nail art. I used the striping brushed in the bottles for the rainbow stripes. It was much easier once I started (after red) because then I could just follow the lines. For the gold, I used a dotting tool to make the coins. Then I dipped a toothpick in the ArtNails gold and added a few curved lines to highlight some coin edges. Gotta have the gold glitter on top too!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

St. Patty's Day Mani

So I noticed Color Club was having a nail art contest on their Facebook page (over now, winners announced on St. Patrick's Day). I thought I would spice up my Sheer Disguise and Sinful Colors Green Ocean mani with some St. Patrick's Day nail art!!

Here is a different angle where you can really see the flakies. I got the idea for the fun lines from this awesome picture someone posted on the Color Club page. Okay so mine look nothing like hers, a nd not even close to as good. Isn't her nail art amazing? Like wow.

I also added a little freehand shamrock to make it more festive. And just to make it pimp, I made the shamrock glow in the dark! I used Diamond Cosmetics Gloworm Green, which I love! You should check them out. As far as I know they are only sold online, but they're only $2.50 each. Even their closeout colors are pretty awesome, and they're only $1.00.
If you did a St. Patrick's Day mani, send me a pic/link. I'd love to see it!!

My First Flaky!

I finally found my very first flaky! Sinful Colors Green Ocean ($1.99)! It's apparently a LE polish that only comes out around St. Patrick's Day. I bought one for you for the giveaway, and another for myself!!

See tha flakies? :D :D :D
I knew it was going to be pretty sheer with a green tint, so I wanted to layer it. I just bought the Color Club Alter Ego set (the lighter one), so I layered it over Sheer Disguise.

Here is a sunlight pic (note the new sun symbol I've been using :D). It really does look like this pretty much all the time though, even indoors. It's just really hard to capture the look on camera. If you don't know what a flaky is, it's like a glitter, but cooler. It usually has some amount of glitter or shimmer to take up the spaces in between larger "flakes" of a similar material. It makes a really cool effect huh?

When there is very little light or it isn't hitting it right, the flakes look like this. They don't sparkle as much, but it still looks really cool like mosaic tiles on my nails.
Sinful Colors Green Ocean has loads of shimmer and flakes in a tinted apple green sheer base. The flakes and glitter flash bright green, gold, and light blue. The application was a little bit difficult, but still worth it. The jelly base was a tiny bit thick. It was a little bit difficult to get the flakes to lay right. Sometimes they would be hanging off the end of my nail or onto my cuticle, and sometimes they would stick up a bit. Even with this, it still was pretty good for application, and it is SO worth it!

Do you own any flakies? Do you like them?
I'm dying for the Nfu Oh ones!

My Feet Are Getting Intimate

I got my Intimate Collection 6 days after I ordered. It was from the awesome promo Zoya did last Tuesday, so I got it for $25! I also ordered a bottle of Zoya Remove+ and am loving it so far.

I was talking on the phone with my deployed boyfriend and made him pick which color I should use for my pedi. After a verbal description of all the colors in the Intimate Collection, Jeremy chose Caitlin :D. I thought okay, not what to stamp with. Well Amber from Rainbows & Sparkles used Marley to stamp on Caitlin, suggested that to me, so I did! Then I wanted to use Dannii too because she's so pretty, so she is in the center of the flowers. I love how all the colors in a collection look so good together. As they should!

Here are a couple close ups :P. Caitlin is a gorgeous medium gray creme with a blue/purple tint to it. It is really unique and fabulous. She is definitely Kelly's lighter sister. Marley is a pale lavender with subtle shimmer, although she looks a bit light gray in the stamps. She is on the gray side though. As you can see, Dannii is a super sparkly purple. Isn't she pretty? I have to say, clean up on your toes is difficult! They're hard to reach, never turned the right way, you can't see them really close, etc, etc. And stamping on toes is even harder! I think it's because there is less nail away from the skin because toes aren't as long as fingernails (I hope). And the sides of your toes don't just nicely come away like on your fingernails...know what I mean? I really want the tiny stamper I have seen some ladies use. Here is a picture of what I stamped with - Konad M53. The design is a pretty flowery design with some curly vines in between. I thought it was fun to also take a picture of my tools, especially my scraper. It's covered in paint, and this is after cleaning off the blade area with acetone!