Giveaway winners!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who entered! We're pretty close to 100 facebook 'likes' so we will probably be having another one pretty soon! 

my first at-home gel mani!

I would definitely call it a success! Honestly, if you're considering gel but avoiding it because you think it'll be a pain, DON'T! The worst part is the removal, and it's really no worse than taking of glitter. (Coincidentally, I'm interested to see how this glitter gel comes off.)

I used the SensatioNail cleanser, primer, and base/top coat with the pictured ProGel 'Trophy Cup' polish (three coats). It was just as easy to do as a regular manicure, and I did possibly my best job ever at leaving "the gap". This is my right hans, and I actually did better on it than the left hand. This is a great color! Very light gold with holographic pieces. It looks almost silver in a lot of lighting.

That all aside, I did my sister's nails last night and boy! It was not as easy as doing my own. Especially because I haven't painted someone else's nails in at least a decade. I also used a less forgiving color (a fairly opaque wine color) which didn't help.

Consider me a 100% total convert to gel. I'm obviously going to use regular polish sometimes, but you can bet that it'll be in conjunction with gel!

OPI Gelcolor 'You Don't Know Jacques'

This is my first foray into gel nail polish and I have to say, I LOVE IT! I work in a kitchen and I do a lot of things with my hands (you know, that whole jewelry thing), so I'm pretty hard on polish. It's been a week, and this stuff is pristine.

However, the application was awful. See how it looks like there is tipwear? Especially on my pinky? That's the way it's looked since she put it on. I really should have taken a picture of how awful my thumb looks. The polish goes across my nail at about a 20° angle. And I have some major peeling on my middle finger (not pictured). All this is, I know, not the gel's fault, but rather bad application. (I got mine done with a friend, and the guy doing her nails told her, when she asked about a dark spot showing through her mani, that is was HER FAULT and from her previous manicure. Sure.)

All of this was worth it, though. It's been amazing to be able to get acetone on my nails and just wipe it off or get other polish on there when doing jewelry stuff with no issues at all. Plus NO CHIPS. For a week!

As I mentioned before, I got stuff to do gel at home. (I have since ordered my own YDKJ gel because I love this.) I can't wait to do my first mani, but I'm not rushing into it. I really want to keep this on until something major happens to it. I clipped off the edge of the peel on my middle finger, and everything has been stable since! The only thing that's bugging me is that it's starting to look grown out. (She left a preeeetty big gap.) Let's see if it will last two whole weeks!

50 Follower Giveaway!

I promised a giveaway when I hit 50 followers and 20 etsy sales, and I did that yesterday! How's that for a Friday the 13th?

For this giveaway, I am offering custom TartanHearts jewelry pieces to two winners! You'll get to pick whether you want a ring or necklace and what polish I use and all that jazz. There are tons of ways to enter, and some of them you can do once a day (like tweet about the giveaway). Please share this, so all your friends can enter too! It will run for two weeks, and winners will be drawn on 4/30. If the winners do not respond within 48 hours, new winner(s) will be drawn. This is open internationally, but international participants (non-US) must be willing to pay their shipping.

(click "read more" to enter)

China Glaze Magnetix 'Drawn to You'

This is Essie First Base base coat, three coats of China Glaze Magnetix 'Drawn to You' and one coat of Poshe top coat. (Three coats meaning two regular, thin coats and one magnetized.)

Magnetic polishes are so much fun! If you haven't tried them yet, I highly encourage it because it is so neat to see it go from normal looking polish to this! It's also really appealing to me because it is and interesting design without being HEY LOOK AT ME! As much as I love bright green houndstooth nails, sometimes I need something a little less in-your-face.

Kleancolor 'Blue Eyed Girl'

Again, Kleancolor glitters. I can't say enough good stuff about them. I want them all. Like, Veruca Salt-style.

This is:
one coat Nailtiques 2+
one coat Essie First Base base coat
three coats Kleancolor 'Blue Eyed Girl'
two coats Poshe top coat

I also had a cute little extra star in my bottle that ended up on my thumb.

Gel!

I've got OPI gel (You Don't Know Jacques Gelcolor) on my nails for the first time. It's been 3 days and it's still looking exactly like I just walked out of the shop.

I may have also decided that I LOVE gel, and I've fallen head over heels for it. Naturally, I bought a starter kit.



I bought it at CVS for $59.99 and got a bottle of polish with it for free. (I saw it on the CVS website today for $47.99 on sale.) It comes with an LED light, which I considered a deal because the cheapest one I found was more than $60.



I'm sourcing all kinds of gel polish and stuff now, and am really excited about it. I plan to to the gel + regular polish thing a lot. (Putting on the gel stuff minus the color and putting regular polish over it. I hear that you can get regular polish to last a week this way.)

I'm anxious to be able to try putting gel on myself, but enjoying the fact that the only manicure I've paid for in years is going to last me ~2 weeks.

'Born to Purple' over black.

Kleancolor glitters. There is nothing like them. They make me feel nostalgic, because the smell reminds me of the days before 3-free polishes. (And no, the smell doesn't bother me. I know a lot of people who can't stand it, but I've had no problem.)

This is:
one coat Nailtiques 2+
one coat Rimmel 'Black Satin'
two coats Kleancolor 'Born to Purple'
one coat Poshe top coat

I did a little glitter "placement" with this one, consisting mostly of using the brush horizontally on the nail to get the glitter on there. (Sometimes I call this "glomming" it on the nail.) Pretty happy with how this turned out. I did end up with some pillow/sheet marks because the Kleancolors take SO LONG to fully dry. Watch out for the top is set so the whole nail will slide off thing with these.

Happy Tartan Day!

I decided to celebrate my Tartan Day by having a sale in my etsy shop! Everything is 15% off with the code TARTANDAY2012.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TartanHearts

I wish I could say I did a really cool tartan or Scottish-themed mani, but alas I am getting gel done on Saturday and didn't want to "waste" a cool mani by only having it for one day. I'm now reconsidering this.