My favorite base coat - Nail Life Gripper

I have tried just about all base coats and one of the least expensive is my favorite. Nail Life Gripper is found at Sally Beauty Supply. I do like CND Stickey almost as much, but this stuff is great. It's a full ounce of base and I think it costs less than $8. Definitely worth a try, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Orly - Fancy Fuchsia - Update

I had forgotten that I already posted about the FF when I started to write up another one. I have to say that my opinion has changed. After only one use, it is thick and hard to apply. Very streaky. It's also chipping after 2 days and I've literally done nothing. I do like it on my toes though, so I guess this is one for the toe pile.

Fancy Fuchsia is part of Orly's "Precious" Spring 2011 collection. You can see the rest of the collection here. 

Orly - Fancy Fuchsia

Another one of my purchases from my outing yesterday. I LOVE bright pink colors but I don't like how neons have a matte finish. This is like the best of both worlds. It's a beautiful bright pink and it's not super matte. It's a bit flatter than some other polishes but not bad. It's like the missing link between brights and neons.

I never used to buy Orly nail polish. I had somewhere got it in my head that it was a poor quality OPI wannabe. As I've started reading more and more in the beauty and nail blogging community I decided to give it a chance and I love it. They have some great colors and I've had no problem with application or wearability.

essence fairytale nail polish

I've been pretty sick for a while (that's my excuse for my abscence) but today I decided to take a trip to Ulta and see what was new. I picked up mostly new polishes that I can't wait to post about.

One thing I did while I was stuck at home sick was go through my polish stash and tried on things I haven't worn in a while. I was testing out some of the essence polishes and had forgotten how much I like them.

So when I got to Ulta I found a special display for essence for a special release called fairytale. It was pretty picked over but I did manage to find a really nice polish. It's a shimmery purple with a touch of gray in it. It goes on like a dream. I did two coats for the picture but it even looked good with just the first coat. It's called Fairy Berry and here it is:

Sula Paint & Peel polish in Haze.

First of all I was sitting there wondering why I would want a polish that peels off, I mean isn't that what I am trying to avoid with all these grippers, top coats, etc.... Oh well, it was on clearance at Ulta so I figured it was worth a try.

i couldn't pass up a $.49 nail polish, now could I?

It went on fairly well. I did 3 coats and by the last you could see no brush lines or anything. You will see in the next picture that as always, I have extra polish around my nails.

I think the peeling quality of the polish helped make it easier to clean up that stuff on the side, since I was, as you may have guessed, able to peel it off. Now we'll just have to see what happens when I want to (or not) peel off the whole thing,.

NOTD: Zoya Emme

I'm not sure I like this color yet. It's one I got from the free Zoya Facebook giveaway. I guess I'll see if it grows on me.

all my base are belong to experiement

I have this week off from work due to illness, so what a better time than do a test on some of the different basecoats I have. I started each nail with Essie beam up. On my pointer finger I used NailTek Foundation II,  middle finger got Zoya Anchor, ring finger has Nail Life Gripper, and the pinkie has Essie 3-way-glaze.


I didn't take pictures, sorry, but for me the best are the Nail Life Gripper and the Essie 3 way. The NailTek and the Zoya had chips in them in day. In all fairness I am out of CND Stickey, which I have had good luck with, so I will keep that on my to buy list.