Top Down, Volume Up Nail Wraps by NCLA (Part 1): First Time Using Nail Wraps!!!

So when I was asked by Nail Polish Canada to review some NCLA nail wraps I was excited.  I've always been intrigued by nail polish wraps but had never made the jump.  No real reason why either.  I got to choose two sets to review, so I chose Top Down, Volume Up and another one which I will show later this week.  I decided to divide this post in two so in this post I can talk more about application and such and in the next tell you how it wears and removal.

I was extra excited when these came in the mail a few days ago.  I hurt my back and shoulder doing who knows what and I just didn't feel like doing nail art.  But with these I could have pretty nails and no back breaking labor!

First I have Top Down, Volume Up,  a colourful abstract design.  Two things I LOVED about this. 1)While there is a lot going on in the design it works perfectly without being obnoxious.  2)In the past I have seen nail wraps with fantastic designs, but were ruined by the fact that it looked like an old printer running out of ink printed them.  These do not :)

Each pack contains 2 sheets with 22 wraps(so 44 in total...MATH!)  You could use these 3 or 4 times as full manis.  Not bad eh?  Each pack also comes with a NCLA nail file.  All the instructions are on the back.  5 simple steps. I followed most of these steps.

The nails cleaning went dandy, and I used a coat of base coat.  The sizing is where I hit my one snag.  My fingers are long and narrow so out of the 22 wraps only 4 fit my fingers(ring and middle) without modifications.  The rest I had to trim because they were too big or in one case was too round for the base of my thumb nail.  This was easy to do.  As they aren't custom made for one person, I would rather have them too big than too small.  Next don't worry if your placement is off, these are resilient. You can peel them off and place them again.  I did this to my pinky finger maybe 10 times and it didn't get any less sticky(but it's probably best you do it less then 10 times :P).  Then I squished out all the air using my fingers.  Next I filed off the excess in a downward motion, and made sure the tip was perfectly flat by pressing down again.  Finally I made sure to wrap the tips, and added 2 coats of top coat.  I always add 2 coats when I place something that isn't polish on my nails.

 Light box.  The rest are natural light.

 Only photo of my thumb.

So far I love these.  It's a great way of having fantastic nail art but not have to do any of it.  Also it was super easy to use and really hard to screw up.  I can not wait to use them again!  Stay tuned for my second part to this post later this week!

What are your thoughts on nail wraps?  Have used used these, or any kind of nail wraps?  What did you think?  This is a safe place to speak your mind :)

If you would like some you can head on over to Nail Polish Canada.  Each pack retails for $16.00 CND.  And shipping on these is free!

*Product was sent for honest review.

Everyone sit down please. I'm going to tell you the tale of the most amazing glow in the dark polish your vision spheres have ever seen.

Normally I'm not a fan of glow in the dark polishes.  When I think of glow in the dark polishes I think of colours that have that glow in the dark...look.  Know what I mean?  Generally a neon colour that kind of has a milky look to it.  That look.  I'm not a huge fan of that. Which is was a was drawn to this beauty on the Born Pretty Store website.  Bk Candy Color Fluorescent Neon Luminous Nail Art Polish in #41.

First, it's nothing like any glow in the dark polish I've ever seen.  It's a STUNNING champagne shimmer.  I used 3 thin coats but you can get away with 2.  Wore her in the sunlight and she was sparkling like mad.  Then indoors after placing my hands under light, I turned them off admiring the bright green glow.  It was like my nails were independently dancing.  I really want to try nail art on these.

I should also add this polish smells...sweet.  I looked at the website and I can't find anywhere that says it's scented but I swear it has a perfume smell to it.  Not only in the bottle but my nails smelt the whole time.

I think it's great how most of this collection are actual colours.  They have everything from sky blue to a deep red.  Colours you could wear during the day and no one would ever guess it was glow in the dark.

I LOVE this polish.  It's like a lady leading two lives.  By day she's a classy, put together, elegant woman.  And by night she's pounding back shots of whiskey at the club, and could care less that the knees of her stockings are torn.

If you want 1 or all 41 bottle head over to the BPS and get them before I do.  They retail for 4.99USD.  And don't forget to use our 10% discount code(EAL91)!  And remember free shipping worldwide!!! 

Product was sent for honest review.

Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na Batman? Ft. Essence Black is Back

Happy Mothers Day guys!  I hope you all had a splendid day no mater how you spent it!

Before we move on to Batman I want to start by talking a bit about Essence Black is Back.  First of all those of you wondering where black had gone fear not it is back.  Second, I have been in search of a new black for a while as my OPI Onyx is lacking.  So I decided to give this a go.  It was cheap, what the hell.  Formula was...ehhhhh...ok but it started to coagulate.  I used 1 medium coat and 1 thin coat and it bubble quite a bit(which is my biggest complaint) but they were small enough for the top coat to cover it.  Long story short I'm still on the hunt for the perfect black.  Suggestions?

Next up I decided to add a bit of flair.  I took inspiration from a little game on my iPhone I have been playing for the past few days.  Draw Something.  For those of you who don't know what the game is you get 3 words and you need to choose one and draw it for the person you are playing with.  Each word is worth more or less points depending on how hard it is to draw.  Now there are people who play and are unnaturally amazing.

I suck.

But because I suck my pictures turn into magical, hilarious doodles.  I want to frame every one of them. Or draw them on my nails.  This right here is Batman.

These are my nails.

Nailed it.

What Time Is It?

TIME FOR OUR 300TH POST!

I have something really fun for you today! I'm sure many of you are great fans of Adventure Time. Recently, Kas tipped me off that Hot Topic was selling Adventure Time nail polish sets and I had to get my hands on them! Unfortunately, I only found the Finn and Jake set…the Bubblegum/Lumpy Space Princess set had sold out! These originally retailed for $14.50, but they were half off by the time I got there.

Finn is a true blue cream that looked great in 2 coats. Jake is green-leaning yellow crelly, 3 coats mostly eliminated VNL. They dried quite fast. No topcoat here.

I added Cover Bands Sticks and Stones to my index and middle fingers. Mathematical!

You can find these online and in Hot Topic stores. Looks like they won't be there much longer!

ETA: I forgot to show you the bottles, so here's a quick picture before I run off to school:

And the winner is... *drum roll*

First of all thank you all for entering!  It's nice to see so many people who love reading! So long story short we got over 50 entries(amazing guys) and we(George, Kas and Robyn) read them all and cut it down to 9 for Amy to read.  Then she choose a winner and runners up(just in case something happened and we needed a new winner).  So who is the winner you ask?

Onemused - Jackaroo polish!!!

 

 Onemused(aka Olivia) will have 24 hours to respond!

And then for runners up

Jen - Hobbit polish based on Smaug
Thea Adam - Tiffany Aching polish

And now a message from Amy:

Honestly I would love to make all three of these! The rest of the ideas were awesome too, it was truly difficult to choose.

I ultimately chose Onemused as the winner because I love the book, Jackaroo by Cynthia Voight, and the polish sounds like the most interesting challenge to me, a gold/green duochrome holo. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for the last few days, actually, and I already bought Jackaroo for my Kindle to re-read it.

Thank you to everyone for your beautiful, creative ideas!

Amy

Note: Sorry I meant to post this yesterday but I got home late and could barely keep my eyes open. - Kas

Ps.  In case you were curious these were the top 9(in alphabetical order):

Behappyandbuypolish
Caro Dee
Iroshi Windwalker
Jen
Jen Sky Walker
noxy minogue
Onemused
Rainbowify Me
Thea Adam

Congrats to all of you and everyone else who entered! Hope to see you for our next giveaway!

These were going to be my Valentine's Day nails. Nails the boy will like (Somewhat mature content...don't worry no n0odz)

When it comes down to it I do my nails for me.  If people notice them that's great.  But in the end if they make me feel great that's perfect.

These nails were half for me and half for someone else.  The words on my nails(if you seek amy) are from a Britney Song by the same name.  It's also a double entendre(you see now why the nails aren't just for me?).

I actually wanted to do these around Valentines Day because I'm a class act.  And let be honest no one is really surprised I would do this?  Something fun and a bit cheeky :P

More about the actual nails now.  I started with a white base and the sponged on pink, blue and yellow.  Which when sponged over each other can create orange, purple and green.  Then I topped it off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.  I wrote the lyrics with a roller ball pen.  I know people have tried using sharpies(which I haven) and said they smear but I have yet to have this problem with roller ball pens.

Winner for our giveaway should be announced tomorrow!

Gone. But at least I have my very first piCture pOlish!

So sadly everything was in fact erased from my laptop.  They have no clue what went wrong with it but no one could seem to get in.  So all my writing is gone from the past 5 years and all my boy band photos.  *cries*.  Everyone should go back their stuff up right now!

While it was shitty(I only cried once).  I did get something that made me feel a tad better the next day!  My first piCture pOlish! I actually got this from the boy because he didn't go to one of my shows. 

piCture pOlish Cosmos is part of their Collaboration collection and was created in collaboration with Camille of Pshiiit.  Cosmos is rich dark blue jelly filled with shimmery scattered holo flecks.  It went on easy as ever in 2 coats!  It is STUNNING in real life.  Pictures do NOT do it justice!  It's what the night sky looks like it movies that have a really huge budget!

I NEED more of these polishes.  NEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDD.

 

Ps.  Giveaway winner will probably be announced Monday!  Stay tuned!