Nails Inc - Devonshire Row

Today my manicure color was a deep lilac orchid color called Devonshire road from Nails Inc. My bottle is a mini. It came in a set with two other miniature lacquers and three matching lip products. Really cute set for summer!

The polish covers the nail very nicely and I used two coats for maximum coverage. 

And my parting gift for you to see. A grumpy Mauer. 

Tschüss

Day 6: Nail Polish Advent Calendar

Day 6 has arrived. I must say for putting these in randomly in the boxes I've had a lot of glitters in a row. Way too much foil and acetone these last few days. *sigh*

In my little box today was China Glaze Holly Jolly & Twinkle Lights. These were from last year's holiday collection. I used two coats of Holly Jolly. A nice green creme that dries darker than the bottle. Twinkle Lights are a multicolor glitter red, gold, and green.

I just love this glitter! It's a pretty simple glitter, but so pretty, especially over the dark green. I just love the super macro of this.

A Few Shades from OPI Germany Collection

I've been gently buying a few of these here and there when I can get them with a good deal. I've bought 6 colors from the collection so far and haven't paid much more than $3.50 a piece for them. Overall, I really liked the collection. The ones I will show you today are Don't Talk Bach To Me,  Deutsch You Want Me Baby, and Nein! Nein! OK Fine! The other three I bought were  My Very First Knockwurst, Schnapps Out of It!, and Danke-shiny Red. I'm hoping I'll pick up Every Month Is Oktoberfest and German-icure eventually! Maybe Berlin There, Done That... Then I'm done. (That's what we all say and then we buy them all).

My husband is German so I find some of the names hilarious. The first one I will show you is Don't Talk Bach To Me. Pretty much spotted in the collection as the ugly color. Yes it's ugly in the bottle but on the nail not to bad. It's a sort of yellowish-green with a silver micro-shimmer. I used two coats.

The color kind of reminds me of the fruit die Quitte which I think is Quince in English. It has the same sort of color to it. We use the jam to make our Christmas Bratapfeln (baked apples).

Quince Fruit

The next color I'll show you is called Deutsch You Want Me Baby. It's a rusty fall orange that is packed full of metallic shimmer. It looked like it was glowing when I had it on. This was definitely a surprise favorite for me! I used two coats.

 

The last one is Nein! Nein! OK Fine! Which is a dark slate gray, which leans a little green. I used two coats. My photos on this were less than spectacular but I still wanted to share.

Happy American Thanksgiving!

Mint Sprinkes

It is kind of obvious that I blog when I have the urge to. I don't keep a schedule and sometimes I want to post, but put it off. Then are the times I get sidetracked. I'm on summer break from University. So here I am once again trying to get myself back into blogging.

So back at the beginning of the month I got a hold of Orly Jealous, Much? It's from the Spring 2012 Cool Romance collection. A very pretty mint green. A little bit sheer and I needed four coats I believe. I think I could of made it at three coats, but I was having problems with coverage on one nail.

So this manicure kind of got built up. The next day I added on two coats of Milani Gems. So now it looks like I have little sprinkles on my nails.

Then the next day I got even more ambitious. I add a coat of Jealous, Much on top of this. It turned out awesome! Kind has a Mint Ice Cream with Sprinkles look. hehe!

So beautiful! Best idea I had lately.

Don't forget to help me out and vote on the poll to the left. :) I need some inspiration.

GOSH - Groovy Grey

You can see what I did for my birthday here. Don't forget to take the poll on the top left side.

This was my NOTD for my birthday. A  putty color from GOSH. It took two coats and applied very nicely. Dry time was great too. Be sure to vote on the poll to the top left. :)

My nails even inadvertently matched my purse for the day.

Here are some other photos I took a different day of the GOSH Display at Walgreens. For my past posts: GOSH - Ocean and when I first found the GOSH display.

Bubble Gum & Flamingo

My OPI Gel Color Experience

Thursday afternoon I headed to the closest Ulta near to me in Chicago for a OPI Gel Color manicure. I will tell you right away that I did not have a good experience. I have no plans to go back to Ulta for manicure services and frankly will not be going there for hair services either.

Picture when I got home. Click to see full size. I have white fuzz stuck and tip wear.

My appointment was at 3pm and I arrived 10 minutes early. When I go into the check-in desk one of the hair dressers was splayed out in the chair away from the desk smacking her gum and calls over, "what can I do for you?" Talk about a nice first impression. She sends me over to the chairs where I wait for my appointment. Which conveniently is right next to the manicure table. Where the manicurist is just starting a client's nails! She just starts filing her nails... 10 minutes before the appointment starts. If you were following my tweets that day I was basically live tweeting my wait since I was bored. Needless to say my appointment started 20 minutes late.

So now it's 3:20pm and I'm finally in the chair getting my nails started. This is of course the time they finally offer me something to drink. She asks me how I shape my nails and she files them. The main reason I went to get Gel Color was because I've been having trouble with breakage so my nails are really short. So while filing she is really hurting me since she's using a really thick nail file. It's pulling the skin on the tip of my fingers. Not fun... plus I hate anything but a glass or crystal nail file. After that she put on the Bond Aid and started the base coat. Did I mention how she did nothing with my cuticles!? Yeah not impressed.

Since she didn't do my cuticles she didn't get the color close at all. So here it look like I have a week's worth of growth when really it's only a two day old manicure.

Base coat time... this salon had the light placed really awkwardly so you had to cross your arms to get your hand under. Whenever I've had Shellac the light is placed in front of you. Here they had it placed to the side so that you're reaching to get your hand under. She applied the base coat on and I put my hand under. Except that I'm 90% sure now that the light never went on because she never told me till halfway through that it's sensor activated when you put your hand all the way back. Plus, she wasn't paying attention to the light!

Now on to the color... I chose Pink Flamenco. It's a blue based fuchsia pink creme. First coat she bumped my one finger and we had to start over. This is when I start to realize that my base coat was never cured because when I put my hand under the light it burned. It never burned during the base coat so it never went on! Yes, the light hurt the tips of my fingers. It hurt really bad too. I've had Shellac done and the light never hurt like this.

At least I like the color.

Again, during the color part of the process she is never paying attention to the light. She had it set to an automatic 60 secs. Which, if you do any research on OPI Gel Color it's only suppose to be 30 seconds! And for only one cycle. She had me doing two cycles for 60 seconds each plus I accidentally triggered it a third time.

Now to the second coat of color... This is where I'm so close to walking out. She is getting the polish all over my ragged cuticles and on the sides of my nails. She tries to clean up with just an orange stick. Except she is just pushing and pulling really hard around my nail. It really hurt. For the longest time I thought I was a bit rough while fixing up my nails but she was just evil. She also stained my thumb so pink that she had to remove and start over. Two fingers also got black fuzz on them, I have white fuzz stuck to the edge of my one finger,and my index nail has a huge bump on it.

Click to Enlarge: see the bump on my first finger to the right. Plus the white fuzz on the tip of my nail.

Black Fuzz

Then the top coat is put on and she puts some cuticle oil on. The whole process took an hour since she had to keep correcting her mistakes. I ended up paying $25 for this. It is the introductory price and then it's going up to $35. Plus, I tipped... Which in theory I shouldn't, but it's so ingrained in me to tip that I did anyway.

Needless to say I will not be going back. I get that occasionally you're running late, but that was just too much waiting for me. I get that occasionally you make a mistake, but I was having constant mistakes which add up to a disgruntled client. I feel like I did not get the proper protocol for an OPI Gel Color manicure. So if you really want to try out OPI Gel Color make sure you go to a properly trained salon.

Here she flooded the side with polish and didn't clean up before sticking my hand under the light. So it was stuck up and I had to pull part of it off.

 My thumb started lifting up on day two and on day three came off completely.

The reason I will not go back to Ulta for a manicure even with a different person is because the atmosphere sucks. It's bright fluorescent lighting and ugly tile stuck in the back corner of a beauty shop. It's not relaxing and it's not calming. There definitely isn't any soothing design.

I don't think I will be getting the OPI version done again. This type of service I only get done occasionally and I want to get what I payed for. I will probably stick to Shellac since that is what my salon specializes in. Frankly, I'm too scared to try a service out anywhere else, especially near my new home in Chicago. So my closest place to get my nails and hairs done is three hours away.  I'm dedicated to my salon!

If you're from the Chicago area and have a great place to get your nails done I would love to know!

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Edited: To add this since Reality doesn't like my pointing out the my technician was poorly trained on the OPI Gel Color system. I did contact Ulta two days after this. I'm not a total coward... I just don't like confrontation. Who does!? I then contacted them again when I took the product off. Because low and behold the base coat was cured wrong and I had staining on 8 of 10 of my nail beds. Bright pink hard core staining that took lots of work to get off.

See for yourself here.

They replied back that it was forwarded to the Market Trainer in my area. So hopefully all Ulta's in the Chicago with have some restructuring on teaching soon.

I truly write reviews because I want everyone to be aware of what is going on. I could of just posted my pictures and said look at what I got done. But I'm not a liar and want to give an honest review. See you all again sometime soon!

OPI - Miami Beet & Finger Paints - Twisted

This nail of the day is what I would call a mixture of old and new. Sometimes I think it's fantastic to show off something that is most likely long forgotten now.

Miami Beet from OPI came out way back when in the spring of 2009! Back when I was just leaving for my first trip and long term summer visit to Switzerland.

Here I am wearing it on a weekend getaway to Varazze, Itay in August of 2009...

I used two coats of this lovely magenta color.
 

I really do love this color. Shame I haven't used it since 2009! But I wanted a little something special to top it off. I have the whole set of Finger Paints Flakes, but I've really haven't used them yet. So for my bling I added two coats of Twisted. It has pretty multi-colored iridescent flakes. Mostly blue, yellow, orange, and green.

I think it just looks stunning!

So have you ever rediscovered a nail polish color you used to love but have now mostly forgotten? I challenge you to put that forgotten color back on your nails.

Fourth of July Manicure

Happy Fourth of July to the American ladies home and abroad! This is my third 4th of July I've spent in Switzerland. I also officially moved to Zurich last year on the 4th. I've never really got to celebrate much year. The first year we grilled out the day before and I wore my flag t-shirt, the 2nd year we were at the Zurifest and watched a bizarre dragon boat firework show, this year I spent the evening alone but ate every usual thing I could. Chicken breast, corn on the cob, blueberry muffins, and coca cola. When I'm done writing this I'm breaking out the watermelon!

Here are the different polishes I used for my manicure.

Color Club - Art of Seduction, MNY 661, Milani - Ruby Jewels, Nivea - White, N.Y.C. White Lights Glitter

First, I used two coats of MNY 661 as the base color. Then I used two coats of N.Y.C White Lights Glitter. I did the glitter gradient with Color Club Art of Seduction. Lots of different coats of glitter for that. I think I had to paint it on at least five times for the gradient.

The flag on my thumb had a base coat of Milani - Ruby Jewels. I used a paint brush to create the rectangle with MNY 661, Sally Hansen nail art pen for the dots, and the Nivea White to make the stripes. Obviously it's not totally accurate, but it's a lot harder than it looks!

I love this shot of the manicure!

You can really see the between coat of N.Y.C. White Lights Glitter in these photos. Which is a lovely color btw. I'm going to need to use it again soon.

 

 Here is the right hand. It's got dented a bit on two nails since the glitter didn't dry to well.

What's your favorite way to celebrate the 4th? Or to celebrate your nation's important holiday? Swiss National Day is August 1st but it's pretty tame compared to American fourth of July.