Tag: Sation

The Lacquer Ring – Neon Pink

The Lacquer Ring – Neon Pink

Ok guys. I really tried to do a super cute manicure for The Lacquer Ring today, but things just didn’t work out. You know how you get pulled into watching a bunch of nail videos and you think to yourself: “That looks so easy! I could do that!” And then you try it and it ends up looking like your spastic pet chihuahua did your nails? Yeah, that was me last night. Hey, at least I still posted my neon pink base–give me at least some points for that. Let me show you the neon pink that I chose for today’s prompt:

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This beauty is Sation Shock Me Twice Pink. This color is so damn neon that it looks radioactive and is truly a bitch to photograph accurately. The actual color is darker in real life but because of the way it glows, it looks lighter in my pictures. This color also has shimmer in it which just makes it look even more awesome. It does dry to a matte finish, so use a shiny top coat if you prefer a glossy finish. By the way, I am still wondering what happened to the Sation brand. They were putting out so many awesome collection and then POOF: radio silence. I wish we had gotten some sort of announcement because I was a super fan. Oh well.

Sorry that’s all you get for my neon pink mani–I swear next time I’ll post my fail no matter how bad it is. Baby watch is still going strong over here so I’ll be sure to let you know when he arrives. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

Watermarble Tips

Watermarble Tips

I will be the first one to admit that I have a really hard time with different nail art techniques. I really started out as a swatcher, so that is what I am most comfortable with. However, I don’t want my blog and passion for nails to stagnate so I do try to do things that are outside of my comfort zone. Stamping was one of the first things that I tried so it became something that I have continued to enjoy because I find it easy and fun. Enter watermarble. I have been dealing with trying to watermarble for probably a year if not longer. I went through phases where I tried, gave up for a while, tried again and gave up again. It was just so frustrating because it seemed that no matter what I did, nothing worked. Finally, I am here to tell you that you can master this technique because if I can, anyone can! While there is no one technique that will guarantee success, I will be sharing with you what worked for me.

Water

You would never think that choosing the right water would make such a huge difference. There are people who will say that tap water works just fine or that you have to use distilled water. I’ve tried both and tap water never worked for me. I guess it could be that tap water differs from region to region, but distilled water is the only thing that has worked for me. The temperature of the water was also important because only room temperature water seemed to work well.

Polishes

Once you have the water issue figured out, you have to figure out what polishes work well for marbling. This is all about trial and error because not all polishes work well and some don’t work well together. Personally, the best polishes for marbling that I have used are OPI cremes. They spread well, are very pigmented and don’t dry too quickly. I’ve tried some cheaper polishes and they seem to dry out quickly. Certain holos and shimmers work very nicely as well, but to be honest, you just have to play around with polishes to see which ones will work best.

Creating your design

So you got the water right and your polishes spread nicely into rings. YAY! This is where my next womp womp moment occurred. I could not, for the life of me, get a nice even design. The easiest and most common design is the flower design where you drag your needle from the outside in and join the petals at the center. Well, I could not get this right. I figured out that my issue was that I was trying to drag from the outermost ring which was already beginning to set so I was breaking up the rings and just ruining everything. This might seem like common sense, but I was constantly messing up on this. I also wasn’t cleaning my needle/toothpick in between each drag so the excess polish on the tool wasn’t letting me create clean lines. Why must this be so hard???

The Big Dipper

You’re almost there, right? WRONG. Now you have to figure out how to dip your fingers into the design and not mess it up. I also managed to mess this up time and again. It’s easy enough to line up the design, but if you dip your fingers like a dumbass, you can get a big old mess. I also always got a billion air bubbles on my design which would then pop and ruin the design. The only solution for this, in my experience, is to dip your fingers at an angle and pull out your fingers very slowly.

After all this, why would anyone want to even bother with watermarbling? Well because when you get it right, it looks awesome. Let me show you what I did for my last watermarble.

1First you will want to paint your nails a solid color. White works well most of the time so I’ve used one of my favorite whites: Sation Strumming My Nails (press sample) which is a dupe for OPI MBSW. I think the formula on this one is slightly better than the OPI.

2Then you are going to want to tape up your finger to protect your skin from all the mess. I also applied a little glue around my cuticle area that would still be exposed to make clean up easier–especially because the polishes I chose have a lot of shimmery particles.

4For this watermarble I used the three shimmers from the Zoya Delight Collection (press sample): Daisy, Leslie and Rayne which work beautifully. In fact, the cremes from this collection also work perfectly.

5Imagine if you didn’t tape up your finger…you would have all this polish on your skin.

6With the glue and tape, this is what my clean up job ended up being. Not bad, right?

78And this is the finished mani after all the clean up was done. This looks like Easter exploded on my nails, but I think it looks pretty.

So do you think this technique is worth all the fuss? Do you have any other tips that might help others who are watermarble challenged? Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

 

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The Lacquer Ring – Fuchsia

The Lacquer Ring – Fuchsia

You guys, I am so happy that I got a chance to post today. As you may have heard, Southern California is in the midst of rainmaggeddon and all hell has broken loose. The state is going down in flames–er, water? Yes, I’m kidding. We’ve had sporadic showers in the last two days, but people act like it’s the new biblical deluge. Everyone forgets how to drive, which causes tons of accidents, people fight each other Hunger Games style for parking spots close to the entrance of the store and it’s just general mayhem all around. I sit back in my car wondering what would happen if we had real horrible weather like some places back east–I guess we would all die instantly. For reals. So today The Lacquer Ring is bringing you the color fuchsia per Lesley’s choice. I pretty much love the color so I am very happy with Lesley’s choice. When it came to deciding which polish to use, I went with the obvious: Sation Fan The Flames Fuchsia.

Sation Fan the Flames Fuchsia 1Sation Fan the Flames Fuchsia 2Sation Fan the Flames Fuchsia is a super vibrant neon that dries to a satin finish. I adore this polish because he formula is perfection. Even though it dries kinda of satiny, it’s not difficult to apply, and it’s super opaque. I’ve been wondering what happened to Sation/Miss Professional Nail because I haven’t seen a collection from them in over a year and their FB page basically has no activity. I loved their collections so I’m sad that they fell off the face of the earth.

Shimmer Polish Alice 1Shimmer Polish Alice 2To finish everything off, I did a sort of sloppy glitter gradient with Shimmer Polish Alice (press sample) which is probably my favorite Shimmer beauty. I top coated the whole thing which gave my whole mani some shine–I kind of miss the satin look of the polish so maybe next time I’ll use a matte top coat.

What do you think of this mani? Is it to blinged out for you? I personally love it even though I wish I had done a better job with my glitter gradient. Don’t forget to check out the other fuchsia manis below. Our next prompt is all about stars so I need to start figuring out what I will do. Anyway, I hope you liked today’s post, and I will talk to you soon!

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Stamping Saturdays #26

Stamping Saturdays #26

Let me tell you how much I am enjoying my long weekend: I have been a total bum this morning after yesterday’s 4th of July bbq with my parents. I am actually still in my pj’s and don’t care what anyone thinks. I’ve also been watching stuff on Netflix since I woke up. Isn’t this the good life? Did you do anything fun for the holiday? I hate the fact that fireworks are legal in my city because I had to listen to kids set off fireworks all night. Since I was bumming around, I decided to work on a manicure for Stamping Saturdays because I didn’t want to miss out again. Let me show you what I came up with.

Sation Let's Mingle & Jingle 1Sation Let's Mingle & Jingle 2I absolutely love Sation Let’s Mingle & Jingle. The base of this polish is kind of a jelly but it slightly more opaque than a traditional jelly. I think the holo glitter just makes this polish look extra special and festive.

Winstonia W113 1Winstonia W113 2I’m kind of in love with honeycomb designs, so I took out my Winstonia W113 plate and stamped over the gorgeous blue base with my Konad white special polish. The image came out really crisp so I was happy with how it turned out.

So what do you have going on this weekend? I’m probably going to continue being a bum for the rest of the day and will probably scramble on Sunday to do my laundry and everything else I should be doing today. I hope you’re having a great weekend, and I will talk to you soon!

 

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The Beauty Buffs – Coral

The Beauty Buffs – Coral

beautybuffsI am finally getting into my old swatching and posting groove, so I am happy to once again be posting with my fellow Beauty Buffs! Today The Beauty Buffs will be bringing to you everything coral. I absolutely love coral–especially for the summer. Let’s take a look at the beautiful polish I have for you today.

Sation Drama Doll 1Sation Drama Doll 2I don’t know why I had Sation Drama Doll on my blog sale, because it is fan-freaking-tastic. Yep, not on the blog sale anymore! Drama Doll is an opaque pink-leaning coral that borders on neon which is why my camera had a hard time capturing the color. It is a bit more saturated than what my pictures show. The polish is a bit thick but it is very opaque and you have to apply a top coat if you want a shiny finish since this dries a bit satin-y.

Nailventurous A Dash Of Princess 1Nailventurous A Dash Of Princess 2I then applied one coat of Nailventurous A Dash Of Princess which was a gift from my lovely Jessica from Once Upon A Polish. I love this polish so much because it came from her stash and she knew how much I wanted it but was very hard to find at that point. I think it looks gorgeous over Drama Doll.

So what do you think about these two polishes? As much as I love coral, it’s a color that is more prevalent during the summer and we all know how I feel about the heat. Poo! Don’t miss out on some awesome posts by the rest of The Beauty Buffs so make sure that you check out the links below. Also, you can follows us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Thanks so much for visiting today, and I will talk to you soon!

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Sation Shock Me Twice Pink

Sation Shock Me Twice Pink

PressSample

 

 

Hi. I’m still here even though I’m ready to murder someone because of the heat. In fact, it feels like even my hair is sweating. However, I should not be complaining because there are a bunch of demonic wildfires here in Southern California so I just want to say I hope that the people affected are able to recover. I also want to thank all the brave firefighters who are working to contain the fires. This is something that we see every summer but it never gets less tragic and scary.

I wasn’t planning on painting my nails today, but I just randomly picked up Sation Shock Me Twice Pink because it’s one of the most electric pinks that I own. My camera pretty much took a million dumps when I tried to get a color accurate picture. Just imagine the polish being darker and more neon…then multiply it by 5 million. I love this polish!

Sation Shock Me Twice Pink 1Sation Shock Me Twice Pink 2Because it’s a neon and a jelly, it took 4 coats to get full opacity. Unfortunately, 100 degree weather doesn’t cooperate with any nail polish so I got tons of bubbles even though I waited 10 minutes between coats. Poo! Incidentally, I haven’t heard a peep from Sation since they put out their fall collection so I hope they’re still in business because I love their polishes!

I am super glad that tomorrow is Friday! I just started a new job so of course my first weekend is going to be lovely. I know that in the past I talked a lot about my other job, but I won’t continue that trend. Ultimately, I think I was way too stressed out and rehashing my job woes only made the situation worse. I hope you’re all doing well and that you’re staying cool if you’re in one of the hot zones. Thanks for the visit and stay cool!

Sation Dating The Duke

Sation Dating The Duke

PurchasedMyself

 

 

Lately I’ve had tons of stomach issues. I had my gallbladder removed in 2007, and I don’t think that my stomach and digestive system has ever been the same.  I have noticed that the blander my diet is, the better I feel which really sucks because now that my parents are visiting, I am eating a lot of spicy food. It’s oh so delicious, but it’s killing my stomach. Sadness. Since Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I am going to work on my diet and also get back into the gym. I’ve been going sporadically, but I really want to get a nice routine going. I’ve been feeling especially fat and disgusting lately so I need to stick better to the changes I have made. I have lost a few pounds (nothing too excited about yet), but I just want to feel better and no so tired and lethargic. I do hope that Thanksgiving—the time of decadent gluttony—doesn’t completely derail all my best efforts. I finally did some stamping last night and it felt good to do that again, but I’ll be sharing that mani with you tomorrow. What I do have for you today is a swatch of a pretty color I got a few months ago: Sation Dating The Duke. Let’s take a look at it!

Sation Dating The Duke 1Sation Dating The Duke 2Sation Dating The Duke 3Sation Dating The Duke is a polish from the Miss Antoinette Collection that came out this last Spring. It’s such a fun cyan hue and I definitely agree that it’s a perfect spring color. It looks a little muted in my pictures because of my lighting, but it’s definitely bright.  I didn’t have any issues with the formula as it was thick and pretty easy to work with. I applied 2 coats for my swatches and that worked out just fine.

I haven’t heard anything about any holiday Sation collection so I’m excited to see what they put out. I always find their collections to be really fun and I can’t complain about the awesome formula and great price point. So what have you been up to this weekend? Since I had to work early this morning, I’m a little grumpy, but I’ll get over it…maybe. I hope you’re doing well, and we’ll talk soon!

Sation You’re My Lacquer Charm

Sation You’re My Lacquer Charm

PurchasedMyself

 

 

Happy Sunday my peeps. I’m still not used working on Sundays so I’m so irritated about having to wake up at 5 am today, but I’m starting to think that I have found my perfect sleep amount: 7.5 hours. I think that if I sleep more or if I sleep less, I wake up felling shitastic. I’m going to try to sleep these hours for the next week and see if that makes a difference in how much I want to stab myself when I have to wake up in the morning. Since it’s kinda freaking hot today, I decided to show you a nice neon that I tried out. Let’s take a look at Sation You’re My Lacquer Charm.

Sation You're My Lacquer Charm 1Sation You're My Lacquer Charm 2Sation You're My Lacquer Charm 3Sation You’re My Lacquer Charm made my camera go completely bonkers and makes my skin look extra tan. While this polish looks very peachy here, it’s actually more pink than peach, and it has a really beautiful shimmer that is more apparent in sunlight. It’s pretty darn bright so I definitely consider it a neon. The formula is a little streaky so I needed three coats to really smooth it out and get full coverage. This polish is part of the LE Candylandia Collection, but it is still readily available.

So there you have it. What do you have on your nails today? Thanks for stopping by, and I will talk to you soon!

Sation Let’s Mingle & Jingle

Sation Let’s Mingle & Jingle

PurchasedMyself

 

 

Ok, I’m super excited that it is Friday because that means that I have tomorrow off and I can be semi-lazy once I get my laundry, cleaning and errands done. Uhm, ok, that doesn’t sound like a lazy day, but that’s what happens when you only have one weekend day off. I sort of had a total womp, womp day today because I was super excited about getting out of work today and going to pick up a bottle of Tom Ford Black Sugar and the Essie Encrusted Treasures Collection. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get either so here I am totally disappointed. Polish disappointment is the worst. Fortunately, I had some awesome nail mail waiting for me at home so at least my Friday was salvaged. Polish to the rescue! The polish I have to share with you today is Sation Let’s Mingle & Jingle. Let’s take a look at it.

Sation Let's Mingle & Jingle 1Sation Let's Mingle & Jingle 2Sation Let's Mingle & Jingle 3This is Sation Let’s Mingle & Jingle and yes, it is gorgeous. This polish was part of Sation’s 2012 Holiday Collection called Holiday Golightly and sadly it is discontinued, but I think there is still stock available at various etailers. The sapphire blue base is deceptively thin at the first coat, but it does build up nicely so you should get good coverage with two coats.

While I was writing up this post, I was catching up on last night’s episode of Scandal. HOLY CRAP. OMG I love this show. I have such a soft spot for Huck and I am totally in love with Noel…I mean, Jake! Scott Foley will always be Noel to me. Remember how amazing he was in Felicity? Speaking of old shows, do you guys remember a show called Relativity? It was with Kimberly Williams and she played an American student who went to Rome and met another American student there who then followed her back home? I loved that show and then it got cancelled. Le pooh. Anyway, I’m totally talking about random crap so I’ll stop now. Let me know what you think about this polish: do you like it or not? Do you think it’s too early to start talking about holiday polishes? Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Sation Beyond Bubblegum Pink

Sation Beyond Bubblegum Pink

PurchasedMyself

 

 

Any time I wear pink–especially super hot pink–I tend to get a lot of compliments.  Maybe it’s because neon colors really POP on my dark skin? Either way, I love how hot pink look on me and some of my favorite lipsticks include NARS Funny face, Illamasqua Eurydice and MUFE #36–yep, all eye-searing pink. Yesterday my friend coaxed me out of my sickness coma and we went out to get some lunch and then we went to Michael’s to pick up some melmers. They are currently BOGO Free so how could I resist?  You may recall that early this year I had some massive blog sales where I think I probably got rid of close to half my stash–I think I sold over $1,000 in nail polish!!!  In 6 months, I think I have pretty much bought back the quantities I sold off and then some! That’s pretty scary and I’m in a delusional frame of mind where I am telling myself that the reason I have acquired so much new polish is because I’ve gotten a lot of them for review. *cue delusional music*

Anyway, today I was working on putting together my two new melmers and also wanted to consider a new way of organizing my stash. Well, I saw this  pretty pink polish and couldn’t resist taking it out for a spin. Sation Beyond Bubblegum Pink is a beautiful bubbleyum-bubblegum pink with a lot of shimmer in it which makes it look a little frosty. Let me show you what I’m talking about:

 

Beyond Bubblegum Pink 1

 

Beyond Bubblegum Pink 2

 

Beyond Bubblegum Pink 3

 

This polish so full of shimmer that it does have a sort of frosty look to it.  It is a very bright pink and it acts like a neon in that it dries to a satiny finish. I applied 3 thin coats for the swatches above and did not top coat it.

 

Miss & Makeup 1

 

Miss & Makeup 2

 

Miss & Makeup 3

 

Miss & Makeup is a super fun glitter topper from their I Love Miss-self glitter collection. There is something about that shard black glitter that really makes this look unique. It’s a really easy glitter to apply and I didn’t have trouble getting a nice even coat. I did notice that I had to shake it up real well because the glitter in the bottle had settled.

 

So what do you think of this pink polish? Is it something that you would wear? How do you feel about bright pink polish and make-up in general?  I am still super sick so I’m not looking forward to going to work tomorrow.  My throat is bugging me a lot and my cough is really dry and painful. I am probably going to have to drink some hot tea at work tomorrow to soothe my throat and be able to get through work. Why did I have to get sick just as the summer season is starting? It’s supposed to get outrageously hot in the next few days so I’m dreading it big time. Thanks for catching up with me today, and I’ll talk to you soon!

P.S. Have you entered my giveaway for the OPI Couture de Minnie minis? Click on the image below to be taken to the giveaway post!

 

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