Autism Awareness

October is Autism Awareness Month! I was going to just paint my nails the color of the awareness ribbon, but the ribbon looks like this. It didn't look easy, but neither is autism, so I gave it a go :) I used Sally Hansen White On, China Glaze Lemon Fizz and For Audrey, Clairns 221 Golden Red, and ACO Electric Chic. My pinky looks ridiculously curved. I promise it doesn't look like that in person. I don't know what happened there. Also, this is about as close as I can get to my lens without it being blurry-- even on macro setting. I may have to ask for a nicer camera for Christmas o.o

<3Oreo

Summer lovin', had me a blast~

SO. I had an interesting week. Did you?
I had a major nasty-butt headache that lasted about 3 days and wouldn't go away for more than a few hours. Fortunately it went away yesterday long enough for me to conduct an interview for class and then be treated to supper afterwards, but it's threatening to come back today to accompany my brand spankin' new sore throat! 5 more days until Thanksgiving weekend and I can run home to my momma and some chicken soup... and turkey dinner... OH AND MY NAIL MAIL FROM Fingers!!! It has been impatiently waiting on my kitchen table at home for WEEKS.

So last week was void of posts because somehow, don't ask me how, people have started catching me on campus and booking appointments to come get their nails done. If I post open invitations and leave my door open, nobody shows up. Elite clientele list it is! XD So yeah, between coursework, the never-ending headache and the fairly steady stream of appointments (out of nowhere), no posts. I have come to terms with the fact that I update about once a week... I don't like it, but that's how it is for now I guess. I'm trying to update more! I guess if I have more to add during the week, I will. If these appointments keep up, I should be blogging every Tuesday and Thursday night (those afternoons fill up with appointments). This is crazy.

So in keeping with what I said about relevant manicures, here's one I did as an experiment and also to use my Layla Magneffect polish that I picked up in mid August(!!!!), before I saw them on any other blogs. And now that I'm getting around to posting it, of course, they're all over the place :P


This is OPI Houston We Have A Purple (2 coats), then a coat of Sally Girl umm... I can't find a name. 812011? The blue and purple glitter in a clear base, anyway. (have you guys noticed that the Sally Girl polishes changed their bottle ink from that scratchy textured stuff to plain white/offwhite?) Then a third coat of HWHAP. The purple was more purple and less blue in person, as always. It looked to me what China Glaze Flying Dragon should look like if it dried to bottle color (and was jelly, and had bigger glitter). I got bored at some point and mattified my middle finger, then got bored again and added shiny polka dots.

As for the Layla (08 Velvet Groove), I was completely against buying it. I ooh and aah'd over the display, and over the employee's nails they were swatched on, but at $16 a bottle they were way above what I'm willing to pay for a bottle of nail polish. My mother, being the hypocritic enabler she is (you have WAY TOO MUCH nail polish! You're never going to use all that! OhmyGOSH you HAVE to buy this one it's SO PRETTY. :P), decided that she wanted a magnetic manicure and gave me a choice of colors she liked to pick from. And then my mother, Mrs You Need To Go On A No-Buy, bought me a $16 bottle of nail polish because it was neat. And then she wonders why/how I have so much nail polish. I told her about Deborah Lippmann and Chanel. She just about crashed the car. XD 

Yay bad lighting! I really need to figure out something for taking pictures after dark. This, before you panic, is NOT MY HAND. This is one of my friends who came over. You don't leave my room with naked nails LOL. She had a really hard time picking out colors, but she finally settled on one hand in OPI The One That Got Away with a Layla accent nail....

And Wet'n'Wild Teal Of Fortune with a Layla accent on the other hand. Light green stamping in an attempt to unify the colors a bit. The more I use Teal Of Fortune, the deeper in love with it I fall. It just looks so pretty with EVERYTHING stamped over it. I stamped a deep purple over it on Tuesday, and it was gorgeous. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that. I spent half the week chasing people down on campus with my camera because I kept forgetting to take pictures LOL. Side note with the Layla polishes... if you mess up, for the love of all things chocolate, do NOT just re-paint over the nail and try again. You have to take it off and restart. When you layer it, the magnet tries to pull through ALL the metallic pigments, and it looks terrible.

Mmm I think that's enough for one day :P
<3Oreo

NOTW Again!!

This is so pretty. I can't stop looking at my nails. I hadn't stamped in a while, so I kind of got in the mood to show off to people who didn't see my nails last year XD


Orly's Fantasea with Nail Art Diva in Tulip Pink stamped on. When I first painted my nails, I had no idea what to do with the color. I stared at it for two full hours before deciding that a pale pink would look best. I didn't think I had one that would work, but sure enough, I do! This picture shows the multicolor flashes in Fantasea, but I hate how the stamp went so crooked on my ring finger... so, my right hand makes another appearance!

Fantasea is an odd duck. The best description I can come up with is "purple-pink-copper". People always think that description SOUNDS like a butt ugly color, but then they see my nails and they love it! I'm really glad I had a light pink to stamp with. I'm not sure it would have looked good with any other color =/

I might even call this a subtle look ;)
Oreo<3

Naughty Camera

So like I said, I moved. I've been using my mom's sweet FancyPants Canon all summer, but I figured my old Canon PowerShot A510 with its whopping 3.2 megapixels wouldn't be THAT bad... 


Right, so, as I was saying... what? This picture was taken with the, erm, model standing on a chair and me standing on my bed, holding her hand about four inches from the light bulb. Rimmel 60 seconds #615 Night Before (which absolutely GLOWS. One of the most gorgeous purples I own. I've seen swatches of a similar green by them and I've been stalking my drug stores for it but no luck yet) with Zoya Apple sponged on top. Deep purples with light greens are such an awkwardly gorgeous combo XD I love them. Anyway we felt like spicing up her manicure a bit so we added a rhinestone.  I don't understand why this picture came out so dark. The two we took right before came out almost entirely black!

This is the manicure I was talking about when I said it lasted through moving, unloading, unpacking and cleaning (two rooms)! Yay house colors lol. I actually liked the ones where the stamp went on crooked better! Clairns Golden Red and Konad Special Black. High noon with my hand in the brightest corner of my window to make it take a normal looking picture.

I finally got the flash working for this one! China Glaze Flying Dragon with Tree Hugger tips and green Art Deco striper. My  thumb came out the best for the wavy tip look I was going for, but by the time I got a picture I was semi satisfied with, my thumb was chipping so bad :(
HOWEVER, I finally noticed my camera must have fallen against something in my bag, because it was on a setting called "Tv". No idea why I didn't bother checking the setting before! I guess I just got so used to ignoring settings on my moms camera. So apparently the tv setting makes it compensate to take pictures of... bright tvs? Who wants to take pictures of their tv screen?

Also, I finally broke down and bought some pure acetone and a small angled paint brush to help with cleanup. Usually I just hop in the shower after I'm done painting my nails and the extra stuff on my skin comes right off, but sometimes I do such a sloppy job on my cuticles that it bothers me to the point where I have to take it off mid week.  Speaking of Sally's, not sure if anyone else has noticed, but mine had a bunch of polishes labeled LAST CHANCE and discounted to $1.99! I grabbed Light My Tiki, In Awe Of Amber and Lemon Fizz. They were sold out of Solar Power :( and another color from the reds section, I can't remember what it was called. Tempest was also discounted, but I already have that one so I didn't get it.

While I was at Sally's picking that up, I hit up the dollar store and found some tiny little beads to use! I never buy loose glitter to use on my nails because glitter is the herpes of the craft world. I was staying in my friends room this weekend and we bought some glittery foam to cut shapes out of for her wall, and I woke up with glitter in my hair the next day. I'd rather not have that stuff all over my DORM CARPET and in my top coat etc XD But I found some tiny colored bead-type things in with the glitter this time, so I'm excited to use those. They look just like the ones I've seen other people using, although maybe not all exactly uniform in size. Oh well :)

There was a Winners next to the Sally's and dollar store, so I decided to pop in and investigate a rumor that you can find Nubar polishes there. I have decided that you might be able to, since I picked up a bottle of Nubar cuticle oil for $5(!), but I didn't see any polishes. I DID pick up an 8-pack of Art Club glitter stripers for $13 though, so it all worked out!

I've gotten so far behind in things I want to show you guys and tell you about since I've been trying to get through some backlogged posts before I post the new stuff, but I've decided that between my frustration with blogger at the moment and the neverending supply of old pics, I'm going to try to update a little more with RELEVANT things like the Sally's sale before I end up posting something like "so this is Light My Tiki, I bought it in a great sale at Sally's umm... two years ago..." >.>

Hopefully this long winded post will get my butt in gear lol :)
<3Oreo

Took A Beating

Hi loves. I moved!

My nails (not these ones) survived packing, loading two jettas, driving 2 hours away, unpacking, putting things away, then helping a friend move in, unpacking and putting away HER stuff, and putting together a tv stand all by ourselves. TANK. I touched up the tipwear on them but they had more by the time the week ended. I'll post those tomorrow or something.

THESE beauties survived almost TWO WEEKS (!) of working with car parts in a warehouse. No chips. (just tipwear)

This was a base color of Wet'n'Wild Teal Of Fortune, tips in Sally Hansen HD Laser, and the glitter line was NOPI Brilliant Idea (which people on the internet seem to not like to wear by itself). I squished it into place with a rubber cuticle pusher I randomly have that came in a kit with some rhinestones or something. I was testing out Orly's Polishield which an extremely nice Sally's employee gave me a mini bottle of. I've been using it here and there all summer (with non-stamping manicures, because it does streak) and I'm pretty much in love. I might have to buy a full bottle of it when this one runs out. I've never had a manicure chip while using it, even with the lowest quality polishes I have, for the full week I usually wear them. :-o

This was the best color picture I could get, in the corner of the basement with a lamp sporting a black lamp shade. You can see the purple flashes in the tips, and the bottom was a lot greener than any of the pictures are picking up. It was like wearing the city of Atlantis on my nails. :D

So what do you think of the whole me being lazy and linking to other places for swatches thing? Other people do such a better job than me XD I'm getting better at application though!
<3Oreo

ACTUAL NOTW!

So this is pretty amazing guys. This is what's on my nails RIGHT NOW. I've never done this before XD

I know, I know. Terrible picture. I took this when Irene was unleashing her unholy PMS on my area, so I had to make do. This is OPI's Skull & Glossbones, with China Glaze Shower Together and Tree Hugger, and some random sparkly yellow L.A Colors. I was debating adding dots in Essie Jamaica Me Crazy and ChG Flying Dragon, but everyone in my house agreed they thought I should just leave it be. I could go into some artsy BS about it being the sun, trees and water struggling against the giant grey hurricane's forces and all that jazz, but really, I just wanted my nails grey and the other colors jumped out at me from the pile in front of me :P This mani got mixed reviews. Everyone liked different aspects of it and disliked others. I like it. I wouldn't do it again in these colors though.

<3Oreo

Amazing Awesomeness (sans soleil)

So every time I upload pictures via Blogger, it messes with them. Either it won't upload them or  they don't resize nicely or they throw my text into center-align... Today, it decided to upload them sideways. I really give up trying to fight with it. I need to find a new way to upload pics though, because this is making me not even want to post anything (as you may have noticed). ANYWAY.
Pics!


This is Sinful Colors Nail Junkie (LOVE the name) with one thin coat of China Glaze Watermelon Rind on top. It was AMAZING. I wore it for two weeks. TWO. Weeks! Unfortunately, during that time there was some drama and I got abducted by a(n amazingly awesometastical) friend to get me out of the house for a week, and of course I didn't bring my camera. When I got back home, the sun was playing hide and seek :( So there are no sun shots which is terrible. 

Yes I filed my nails as soon as this came off. Somehow they were getting really... crooked O.o So here are some good pictures of what Nail Junkie looks like (I also found it gooey, but I only did 3 coats and it was opaque enough for me) and here is a good swatch of Watermelon Rind. I know it's easier for you guys if I just get good swatches and shiz myself, but I'm not a huge fan of swatches/swatching... I figure there are loads of other blogs pretty much dedicated to swatching, so I might as well spread some love and link to them. Is that bad? I don't know. Someone tell me if it is :(

So I noticed that this, while it was sparkling pink and orange in the sun, completely and utterly killed my need for China Glaze's Atlantis. They're not the same (Atlantis is far more blue and the glitter is a little more sparse), but it's close enough for me :) I'm super excited about that.

<3Oreo
(THREE followers! :D)