Today I wore a duochrome nail polish. The polish is from a German brand called Artdeco. It's was sent to me from my best German friend, Tini. We've been sending packages back and forth to each other for two years now! She supplies me with all my favorites from German cosmetics companies. And when I can I send her awesome American beauty products that she can't find. We also chat with each other online and lean on each other for support. Tini is the best. :)
I used three coats to reach opacity. The color of the polish shifts from a light blue to purple to dark blue purple depending on the way you move your hand.
It's a gorgeous polish. One of my favorite bottle shapes too. :) Thanks again Tini for the great nail polish pick! Tschüss!
I received this nail polish box from Influenster to try out and share my opinion about the product. Inside was the Sephora Formula X - System XCEL and the Delete All nail polish remover. The System XCEL kit contains a nail prep, base coat, top coat, and a polish color. If you were to order or buy this at Sephora you would be able to choose the polish color. I received TGIF, a pretty coral in my box. The Delete All is sold separately from the System XCEL Kit.
I did actually take the first video ever of applying my nail polish. I used all four steps of the system. If you would like to watch. You can see that it was generally easy applying the polish.
I've purchased Formula X polish before and have used it. I've generally liked it. It's in the same price point as OPI and Orly. The brush is wide which you can notice in the video. I followed each of the steps. I first cleansed my nails with Cleanse XCEL. It helps remove oils from the nail bed. I followed up with a coat of Prime XCEL the base coat. After that I applied two coats of Formula X - TGIF. Following that I applied the top coat Shine XCEL.
The System XCEL claim is that it will provide you a gel like mani. I would have to agree. The Shine XCEL top coat really set the manicure. After it dried which was very quickly! It had a very hard shell to it. My nails were extremely shiny too. I'm unlucky in that I've never really been able to have great wear time with polish. Usually about two days before I have giant chips. No matter what type of steps or products I use. I have a similar issue with gel polish with a light. Where I usually need to take it off in 7-8 days. So I wasn't expecting too much with this product. Surprisingly, I got nearly a week of wear which is pretty nice. I believe they claim you can have 10 days with no wear. So I was getting closer to that mark.
Day 1: Sephora Formula X - TGIF
Day 3:
Day 7: This is after two different painting projects. So I was actually generally happy that I didn't have even bigger chips. The one nail with no polish wasn't nearly as bad but I was picking at it.
Yesterday, I painted my nails with Essie Mojito Madness. This polish is from a collection that came out in Summer 2012. I just picked it up this past summer.
Mojito Madness is a yellow tone grassy green color. Very beautiful! I love this shade of green. The formula was a little runny, but I had no problem with coverage. This was two coats.
Because the polish was Mojito Madness. I obviously had to make a Mojito and I watched some episodes of Mad Men. ;)
I love Joan's red dress in this Christmas episode from season 4.
Today, I even importantly visited a very Mad Men-esque home.
Finally, today I added on some nail art to my nails. Creating a little Halloween look.
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.
This year I moved back to Wisconsin. Because that's the perfect place to be when life throws you a curve ball. I know Wisconsin, I love Wisconsin, and that's what makes Wisconsin great.
So Sunday I headed out to a Wisconsin State park. Beginning of Summer I bought a State Park sticker for $25 with the intention of using it as much as possible. Which I have! I drove 30 minutes to Kettle Moraine State Park in Mitchell, WI. Specifically, I went to the Parnell Tower Part.
I should give y'all a science lesson now. Haha. Moraines are the leftover debris, soil and rock, from glaciers. Two glaciers slammed into each other and left some rocky hills with low valleys that have kettles. Kettles are shallow lakes. Don't quote me on that I didn't go to school for this stuff and this was taught to me in 4th grade. That's was ages ago. ;)
The main reason I came was to climb the 60 feet Parnell Tower. Allowing me panorama views of the area.
I've been here a few times since I'm local to the area. It's a pretty easy climb for those who might visit. It's not extremely easy, but definitely not impossible. But the top of the tower could scare you if you are afraid of heights. It's extremely windy at the top and the structure does sway. But I'm a gutsy girl and don't have a problem with any of that!
I like to visit Parnell in the fall. Because it's awesome to check out the change of leaves. The other reason I like to visit is that the views are fantastic.
The motivation to go this Sunday was because for the last week I was in a huge funk. A pity party for one if I'm truthful. So I decided, I could stay in like most of the week or motivate myself to get out. So I made the plans and went and it did it. :)
Here is my new attempt at blogging again. I did enjoy it at one point. It was extremely helpful with my homesickness when I was living in Switzerland. Now I find myself living back in my hometown. I have a bit of wanderlust. I'm also extremely lonely and making huge transitions.
I will probably keep up to date things here. Pictures of my nails and makeup. Share the shenanigans of my cat Mauer. To actually tell you who Mauer is because I never really blogged when I got him. I'll probably do some flashback traveling posts since I'm most definitely stuck in a small town now. I'll share adventures I have too. Because I do have them, they just are as crazy as they used to be.
