Beat the Heat!

I needed to beat the heat today; it was 109 in Sacramento.



SensatioNail "Beat the Heat", with accent nail of "Sun Kissed", three coats of each. Nailtiques 2+ as base coat, Sally Hansen gel base and top coat, one coat of each.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I LOVE yellow. And my sister's favorite color is orange. So when I wandered into Walgreens and saw the new SensatioNail Island Fever collection, I picked these two up immediately. Without hesitation.

The application was great! "Beat the Heat" could probably be a two-coater. As a hater of VNL, I did three coats of each. The orange is definitely a jelly and although the VNL doesn't show up well here, it was very much there. The colors are a little less neon than they are in the photos, more like straight yellow crayon yellow and orange. My camera really hated them. You can see that it's a little brighter than the box color, though.

The wear ... lacked. I had issues with bubbling, some after the fact. On one finger, the bubble peeled off and revealed several layers of polish which made me wonder if it hadn't cured correctly. I tried again, doubling the cure time, and it still happened. It only happened with "Beat the Heat" and is visible on my index, middle finger, and thumb in the photos. I have used SensatioNail polish without the base layer ("gel primer") before and never had this problem. I'm hopeful that this was a bad batch. A lemon even!

Verdict: the colors are worth it for me. There isn't a comparable/dupe yellow gel that I'm aware of.

*All products here were purchased by me for my own wear and review. 

Stitches nails!

This is: CND Stickey as base coat, one coat of Gelish base coat, three coats of SensatioNail "Espresso Bean", one coat Gelish top coat, alcohol wipe, Revlon "Golden" stamped with Bundle Monster plate 225, plus a coat of Poshe top coat. The pictures above show direct light, indirect light, and shade.

Last year was my first year going to Stitches West, a convention for knitters, crocheters, spinners, and fiber lovers of all other sorts. I went this year, prepared for being totally overwhelmed with gorgeous wooly things of every variety. While I ended up going down the rabbit hole and deciding to finally give spinning a try, I managed to make it out of there without too much damage to my wallet. Mostly, I got to see and meet some amazing humans at the LSG meetup.


(not my photo, click thru to flickr for the owner's feed with MORE pictures of us!)

Last year, I was asked quite a bit about my nails. (And I had a really awesome manicure so you can imagine why people asked about it.)  So I knew I had to do something pretty cool this year! Since I hadn't stamped in a while, I figured that was the way to go.

This manicure was inspired by another knitter, Amoena. She's also a polish blogger! (Although her blog is in Finnish. Google translate is your friend! The stripped-down tumblr version in English is here.) She has created some gorgeous stamped manis that look like tapestry like this one and this gorgeous beauty. I find myself admiring her work a lot and decided to try my hand at doing something tapestry-like and sort of tonal. I was already wearing SensatioNail 'Espresso Bean' and I thought gold would go great with it. I was right! I did audition 4 or 5 golds before I hit it out of the park with "Golden". Orly "Luxe" was my back-up in case nothing else worked out. We all know it stamps like a dream!

*All products featured in this review were purchased by me for wear and review. 

SensatioNail Espresso Bean

This is: CND Stickey as base boat, one coat Gelish base coat, three coats of SensatioNail 'Espresso Bean', and one coat of Gelish top coat.

This is the first SensatioNail polish I've picked up that is actually accurate to the box color (which is why I included the box picture!). I hope that's a good sign going forward, because some of their packaging is pretty misleading. (I'm talking about you Purple Orchid! You are not a warm purple!)

I LOVE rich browns and this is one of my favorite brown polishes ever. It has just enough shimmer to keep it from looking black or too dark. The micro-shimmer is multi-color and I found gold, red, and a bit of green in it. I had a nail chip and redid it with the same color. THAT is how I know I like a polish. Especially when it comes to gel! I highly recommend this if you are a fan of brown and/or darker colors.

This was an ideal base for stamping and I have a forthcoming post with a ton of pictures! My first stamped manicure since October!

*All products featured in this review were purchased by me.

SensatioNail 'Heirloom Lilac' giveaway!

Win yourself a bottle of SensatioNail 'Heirloom Lilac'!


Open to US shipping addresses ONLY. (Sorry, International peeps. Shipping is outrageous right now.)

Two winners will win one bottle each of SensatioNail 'Heirloom Lilac' gel nail polish.  Winners will be contacted via email and if no response is received within 48 hours, new winner(s) will be contacted until a response is received.

Please don't enter if you don't have or plan to get a gel nail polish system because you NEED a UV/LED lamp to cure this polish. It will not dry like normal polish. If you don't do gel yourself but plan on giving it to a friend who does or something like that, that is totally cool. I just don't want anyone disappointed that the polish they won doesn't work right.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Valentine's nails + giveaway info!

This is CND Stickey base coat, Gelish base coat, three coats of SensatioNail 'Heirloom Lilac', Gelish top coat, stamped with Konad m59 plate and this unnamed love&beauty wine-colored polish.

Stamping over gel is so much fun! It's so easy to clean up any mistakes without having to worry that you're going to damage the base color. I really don't know why I don't do it more often.

This is NOT my typical mani, as I'm sure anyone that has read this blog for any amount of time can tell. The reason for it? Two-fold! One is that I had to to hearts for TartanHEARTS! I spent quite a while looking through plates picking out which hearts to use. The second, and most important reason, is because I'm going to be giving away two bottles of 'Heirloom Lilac' and I needed a way to showcase it!



That's right! SensatioNail 'Heirloom Lilac' will be up for grabs! The giveaway will have its own dedicated post coming very soon. It will be a rafflecopter giveaway!

*Some of the products featured in this post were provided to me by the manufacturer. All opinions expressed are my own uncensored, regardless. 

twee and honey "Tutu" 061 over black

This is CND Stickey as base coat, Gelish base coat, three coats of Gelish "Black Shadow", one coat of twee and honey "Tutu", with one coat of Jordana Quick Shine top coat.

After wearing such a light, glittery mani for a week I needed something dark. I knew I wanted to do black gel and spent at least 15 minutes sitting in front of my Helmer looking through my un-photographed polish (which I have a lot of). I settled on this one and I am so glad I did!

"Tutu" is from the t&h 'All Hallows' collection, which I didn't even realize until I looked it up to link here. (I also didn't realize that Ms. Let Them Have Polish did this same mani, although she did two coats.) Though it is part of that collection, it is more than appropriate for any time of the year. There is glitter of several sizes and colors in hot pink, light pink, teal-y. There are flakies. There are HOLOGRAPHIC PINK BUTTERFLIES! (see last picture) One of my favorite things about t&h polishes is that often there are little bits that don't even show up on the side of the bottle but you end up with one or two on your nails. (Like the little orange hearts in "Viscera".) There are always little awesome surprises awaiting you with this polish!

The over-all effect of this mani is super shiny, although it didn't show up that way in the pictures. Which is okay, because it showed the actual colors and character of the polish without being too glare-y.

*Some of the polish here was provided to me by the manufacturer. All opinions are my own, without influence and without compensation. 

Christmas nails! featuring the Hungry Asian "Candy Cane"

This is three coats of Gelish "Black Shadow", with one generous coat of The Hungry Asian "Candy Cane". Accent nail has one coat China Glaze "Twinkle Lights". All topped with one coat of Jordana Quick Shine top coat.


"Candy Cane" is a clear/slightly shimmery base with small red and white matte hex glitter and small green matte square glitter. It spread very well. I used the dabbing on method to apply it, because it is somewhat thick but that helped get maximum glitter on the nail.

"Twinkle Lights" is a clear base with tiny red, green, and gold glitter.

This was my first time using any of the Hungry Asian polishes I have, even though I've got a few minis. (I'm not sure why, because they are almost all colors that will go great over gel, but that's another subject entirely.) I can't recommend it more enthusiastically! Not only are her polishes very cute and quite often stuff that you don't just see everywhere else, she adds personal touches to every order. The labels are hand-drawn and every order has a cute little handwritten note inside. I adore stuff like that! It will keep me coming back over and over more than anything else. Plus, the quality of the polish is wonderful. And you know being TartanHEARTS and all I don't have to say that I adore the heart-shaped bottles because it's too obvious but I will say it anyway! I know I would be justified buy full-sizes of any of her polishes because they are so beautiful, but I can't get over how cute the heart-shaped minis are.

I'd also been sitting on China Glaze "Twinkle Lights" for a year or so. I was surprised at how much I liked it on the nail! I wasn't sure, because it seems a little muddy in the bottle. Not so on the nail! The red and green stand out from the gold very distinctly.

Over-all, I wanted to put this back on after a week. I didn't so I could wear more Christmas-themed polish but I would have been happy putting this right back on.

*All polishes featured here were purchased by me. 

Candy Lacquer 'Midnight Gems'

Top photo: Three coats of Red Carpet Manicure's 'My Inspiration' with CND Stickey as base coat plus regular Gelish base and top coats. 

Bottom photo: Above PLUS a coat of Candy Lacquer 'Midnight Gems' and two coats of Jordana Quick Shine top coat. 

I LOVED this. The moment I saw Midnight Gems, I knew I had to have it. I love holographic glitter, so when you add many colors of holo glitter plus regular glitters, it is a wonderful effect. (CL's description: "Gunmetal holographic glitter mixed with lots of other holographic colors including red, blue, orange, pink, gold and lavender.") I loved it over the grey, and it really reminded me of a pendant I made. Holo over medium grey is a good look, all around! This look was perfect for a Christmas party my sister put on. Just enough sparkle to catch your eye, without being IN YOUR FACE! 

(All products reviewed were purchased by me. I'll have a post pretty soon where this won't be the case, so I figured I'd better start specifying!)

RCM 'Dress For Success' over black

Shown above is Red Carpet Manicure 'Dress For Success' over Gelish 'Black Shadow', with one, two, and three coats.

Thanks to whomever requested this! I know it's how it was intended to be worn, and it looks fantastic! My favorite is just one coat.

Black Friday black nails.

Gelish 'Black Shadow'. Once again I used regular base coat (CND Stickey this time) and no dehydrator. I still use the Gelish foundation gel. This seems to work great! I get no chipping but it's still very easy to remove. (Using the dehydrator and no foundation gel let to chipping on the edges but still hard to remove gel in the middle.)

This is the first time I've done plain black nails since early high school, ten-ish years ago. I love it! It's not very interesting in terms of blogging, but plain ol' black cremes are my favorite nails to do. As great as stamping and glitter are, sometimes you need some simplicity!

Simple Election Day nails. (plus how to scrub in glitter)

Election Day nails, a photo by TartanHearts on Flickr.

(late to post them, I know. I put them on facebook and nowhere else.)

This is two coats of RCM 'Midnight Affair' with Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers glitter scrubbed in on my ring fingers. I used Nailtiques 2 as base coat and did not use the nail dehydrator. Removal is so much easier that way! No scraping.

If you are doing gel and have not done scrubbed in glitter DO IT NOW! I mean, unless you hate glitter or something. Which is fine, no judgement. (more for me!) If you do gel and like glitter and haven't done this technique, let me tell you: IT IS SO EASY!

I was thinking I'd have to ... do something complicated to achieve this. Nope! Let me go through the steps for scrubbing in glitter:

1. Choose a relatively jelly-like gel color. Most gel is fairly jelly-ish, so this shouldn't be hard.

2. Do your nails as usual, stopping before you apply the gel top coat. After curing gel color for the last time, get your glitter.

3. Using small paintbrush, pat glitter onto nail. It will stick to the cured gel, which is tacky.

4. Paint over glitter layer and cure that layer in the lamp. You can use a colored gel here or just clear coat/top coat. I've seen suggestions to wipe off any glitter that sticks or have a specific clear coat just for glitter. I am not that particular. You may be. Proceed accordingly.

5. Finish manicure as you usually would with top coat and then wiping/spraying with alcohol.

6. PROFIT!

Basically, let me sum this up: tap glitter onto your cured gel sometime during your mani.

This will not be the last time you see this technique from me. I love glitter, and I love that the removal for this is just as easy as regular gel removal (which rivals removing normal glitter in terms of time). I'm considering doing some pretty cool stuff with this technique for Christmas. Maybe that tape mani to make a tree with multi-size glitter scrubbed in as ornaments. How neat would that be?!

Nfu-Oh Gelist 'Twinkle Gold Silver Black 08'

This is three coats of Nfu-Oh TGSB08 with Gelish base and top coat.

This stuff is really pretty. If you're into dark colors (obviously I am!) and you're into gel, I highly suggest this one. The only drawback is that it's a little goopy, and that makes the super-thin gel layers thing harder to do. I can't decide if the glitter is holo or just iridescent or what. It's one of those polishes that I end up just staring at my hands with, watching the colors change. (I swear, I'm not on drugs!)

And because there is large glitter, sometimes you get pieces of glitter hanging over the edge of your nails. One of these was the reason that my pink ended up "chipping" (i.e. lifting up and then being broken off), because it caused the edge to un-seal.

Nfu-Oh Gelist polishes are available in the US here: http://www.fabuloustreet.com/

Fourth of July mani!

Fourth of July is my favorite holiday for manicures! I love the creativity that's involved; you can go a lot of different directions with it.

Okay, let's get into the nitty-gritty. This one used a lot of polish!

Two coats RCM 'Midnight Affair'
taped corner/diagonal French with Milani One Coat Glitters 'Red Sparkle'
ring finger accent nail with Pretty & Polished 'Freedom Calling'
touch-up on red with LA Colors red striper
white dots with dotting tool and LA Colors white striper

The blue is darker and more opaque in person. The red isn't see-through in person. (It's interesting what the camera picks up!) Overall, I love it! I'm considering doing an opposite thing on my toes, which currently have China Glaze 'Ruby Pumps' on them.

Happy (early) Fourth of July to any other Americans, and happy Tuesday to anyone who isn't.

This is last year's mani for July 4th:

RCM 'Dress for Success'

This gorgeous polish is from RCM's new Shimmering Nights collection, which is amazing. I checked out all four at Ulta and settled on 'Dress for Success' initially. Filled a void in my small but growing gel collection, and is now my only green.

(photo from RCM's facebook)

RCM calls this color a yellow, which I completely disagree with. I'd call it chartreuse, sure. These colors were designed to wear over black, but I don't have a black gel (yet), so aren't super opaque. I wore this over two coats of ProGel 'Trophy Cup', which is an opaque gold glitter. It covered it quite well, and on a couple of edges where the green doesn't totally cover the gold, I get a real idea of the opacity of the green, which is much better than what I expected. I'm left wondering whether I could have just done 3-5 coats of 'Dress for Success' with no VNL.

The glitter almost looks like a holo, but isn't. The label is a holo, and you can see the difference in the second photo. There is a bit of a range in the glitter that almost verges on being a duochrome. (Maybe like a very light version of 'Zombie Zest'.)

Verdict: in a world where there aren't a lot of green gels available, this is a gem!

RCM 'Who Are You Wearing'

I love glitter as much as the next girl, possibly more, but after the last couple of super glittertastic crazy manis, I was pretty excited to put something simple on my nails. I own a TON of blues/aquas/teals in this color range because I LOVE THEM!

This is three coats of Red Carpet Manicure's 'Who Are You Wearing' from the new Neon collection. (Which, if you're into gel and into neons in the least, you need to check out!) It's a little more yellow (teal) in real life, although the swatch on my nail wheel looks just like the bottle. (I assume this is due to my skin tone and nail actually showing through.) I'd call it a darkened sky blue. This color is very jelly-like, and totally squishy-looking. It looks more see-through here than it actually is, and I'm not sure why it looks like my nails are dirty. They aren't!

I'm starting to formulate a plan for my Fourth of July mani! Everything's up in the air at this point, but I'm really excited for it. (This was one of last year's.) It's my favorite holiday for nail polish! Do you have any plans for a special July 4th mani? I'd love to hear about them if you do.

China Glaze 'Optical Illusion'

China Glaze 'Optical Illusion', a photo by TartanHearts on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
this mani was:
one coat Gelish base coat
two coats RCM 'Midnight Affair'
two coats China Glaze 'Optical Illusion'
two coats Gelish top coat

more sandwiching gel and regular polish. 'Midnight Affair' was the only blue gel I had, so I used it even though it was WAY too dark. Didn't show through, through. There was a little bit of a hot pink duochrome with this polish. I couldn't capture it in any of my pictures.

This is a polish I probably won't wear much, but I LOVE it! I spent a lot of time looking at my nails for the week I had it on. The glitter in this one seemed to show way more than the glitter in the purple 'Prism'. And there was duochrome here, which was absent with 'Prism'.

SensatioNail 'Purple Orchid'

Well, this one was a disappointment. In all the packaging, this looks like a nice, dark, warm purple. It's not. It's a cool purple. Very cool. Although the top color shows pink sparkle, it's not visible at all in real life. This isn't what I was expecting, and I probably wouldn't have bought this, had I seen a swatch of it already. However I wanted another dark, non-pink color, and didn't want to wait for shipping.

Possible next addition to my gel collection: OPI Gelcolor Suzy Says Feng Shui. I need a lighter blue. I need some greens, though! And there are very few green gels.

swatches of my gel collection!

1. Red Carpet Manicure 'Midnight Affair'
2. RCM ' Plum Up The Volume'
3. SensatioNail 'Taupe Tulips'
4. SensatioNail 'Raspberry Wine'
5. SensatioNail 'Sugar Plum'
6. ProGel 'Trophy Cup'
7. OPI Gelcolor 'You Don't Know Jacques'
8. SensatioNail 'Purple Orchid'

You've seen my nails already with quite a few of these, but I've got one with #8 coming up!

Gel swatches so far!

1. Red Carpet Manicure 'Midnight Affair'
2. RCM ' Plum Up The Volume'
3. SensatioNail 'Taupe Tulips'
4. SensatioNail 'Raspberry Wine'
5. SensatioNail 'Sugar Plum'

Silly me, I forgot to swatch the ProGel gold glitter and You Don't Know Jacques! This is the beginning of my gel collection. No new additions ... yet!

SensatioNail 'Sugar Plum'

SensatioNail 'Sugar Plum', a photo by TartanHearts on Flickr.

That's not a chip in my middle finger. I actually took a chunk out of the nail itself. When I first looked, I thought it was a chip and was pissed! It was day two, and I could not believe that GEL would chip that quickly. Thankfully, it hadn't!

This is a pretty typical color. Typical fuchsia. Nothing crazy or out of the ordinary about it. It's the kind of thing I would have spiced up with glitter or stamping if I had not had a fairly busy week!