Sunday, January 29, 2012

From My Heart To Yours...

The title is corny, I know....but that's just how I roll. :P

So, I've decided to do an early Valentine's day mani because I think that v-day nails can be oh-so-adorable and hearts are appropriate all year long!
So for this mani I used a base coat of Seche Clear (my favorite base), Sally Hansen Hard As Nails "White On" (which I really need a new bottle of...it was yucky to work with cause it's so old), Pure Ice #603 Creme Siren and Seche Vite top coat. Thank goodness for Seche Vite...it made the white look presentable!

How did I do the half heart and dot design, you ask? By hand. I used a thin brush and made the outline of the heart shape and then just filled it in with the nail polish brush. The dots were made with the small side of my Orly dotting tool (I think it was $10?) from Ulta. If you don't have a dotting tool you could just use a toothpick!




Hope you enjoyed my heart manicure in time for valentine's day! Let me know if you decide to try it out or if you're doing a different design for Heart Day! ;) I would love to see pictures!

With love,
Lindsay



Tuesday, January 24, 2012

A shellac manicure and review!

So I had a week where I couldn't do my own nails....and I'm here to tell you I survived. :P
Haha the reason I didn't do my nails for a week is because one of my best friends got married this past weekend and I was in the wedding! It was a lovely winter wedding and we had a great time. Best wishes, Danielle and Scott! Anyway, as I was saying....I was a bridesmaid in the wedding and had to have a French manicure....for a whole week. Don't get me wrong, I love a good French manicure....just not when I have about 10 new bottles of brightly colored/glittered/duocrome lovely-ness waiting for me to use! (It was a GOOD birthday! :P haha)

I should mention that this particular French manicure was a shellac manicure. This was my first experience with shellac. Danielle's (the bride) step-mother works as a nail technician in her family's nail shop and she and her sister were so generous to close the shop on a Sunday and have all the ladies in the bridal party come in for free shellac manis. SCORE! Haha

So instead of a mani by me this week, I will be doing a review on how I liked the shellac manicure. (ALSO, I have figured out how to safely remove the shellac at home by myself. Stay tuned for another blog post on DIY shellac removal process! The ladies at the nail shop told me it couldn't be done and I would have to go back in to have it taken off...HA! :P)

So if you know a little bit about shellac you probably know that it is advertised as a manicure that will last for two weeks and still look like new. As you probably already figured out, I had mine for exactly  one week. More on that in a bit. First I will show you some photos of my nails on the first day.

Pretty, right? Agreed. 

This is from the second day.
Excuse the cuticles. :/


This is day four...
Middle finger is really wearing at the cuticle.

And day five. You can really see it wearing by my cuticles. :/

See how it separating from the nail back by the cuticle? 
It was getting yucky under there and was kinda gross. 
I would have removed it on day four but they needed to last until the wedding!
(REALLY dry hands. Apologies. My skin doesn't like the winter. :/)

After day five things got really busy with the wedding and I didn't have a chance to take any more pictures of my nails...but it was getting bad. I wasn't very happy with the way it started to peel at the cuticle. I will say that the tip wear was very minimal, that was a plus, but I don't really have a job that involves typing or something that would typically wear that part of my mani. I did, however,  build a piece of Ikea furniture (My new Helmer for nail polish storage!!! I will blog about that another day!) with the shellac on and not a single nail chipped or broke...pretty good. Another plus is that I didn't experience yellowing of the white part of the French manicure like I usually do when I get/do a french manicure with just regular polish. (Am I the only one who has that problem?! It's gross.)

The shellac did seem to help strengthen my nails while it was on and I'm very happy to say that my nails do NOT feel weak/brittle after removing the shellac. That was something I was worried about.

Would I get a shellac manicure again? Maybe. I think it would be a perfect manicure for vacation when you don't really have the time or supplies with you to re-do or touch up your nails. Do you have a job that requires a lot of typing? (or do you work at Ikea as a funiture builder?! Haha) This may be a good solution for you. Do you have a job that requires a lot of hand washing? If so, I'm not sure this is a good solution. I say that because the 3 year old that I watch has been potty training and I've probably doubled the amount of times I wash my hands recently because we "try" on the potty about double the amount of times I was changing diapers....just in case! Haha I don't think that water and soap (and then moisturizer for my very dry hands!) was helping once the shellac started to peel at the cuticle.

Would I get a shellac manicure on a regular basis? No. I personally don't like to keep the same color on my nails for more than a week. That's just me. I get bored and want something new and exciting. (ADD? Maybe....don't judge me.) Also, I wasn't thrilled with how the shellac started to separate from my nail at the cuticle. It aggravated me. I think that the whole "two weeks looking like new" is a stretch. It did not look like new after one week...I wouldn't even allow it to get worse than that to see what it would have looked like after two weeks. Haha

So, if you're thinking about trying out shellac, go for it! Let me know in the comments how you like it. If you've already tried it let me know what you think about it in the comments.

Like I said...my next post will probably be on how I removed my shellac mani. And no, I didn't peel it off!
Stay tuned! :)

Lindsay

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Cupcakes, Purple stripes and "Happy Birthdays" all over!

Welcome to my Nail blog, Manicure What Ails You! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lindsay. :) I am a caregiver to a 3 year old little guy during the day, a dance teacher/Zumba instructor by night and a wife/daughter/sister all the time! I have a passion for all things nail related and have been thinking about doing this blog thing for a while. So here we are on January 11, 2012...my birthday. :P I figured that there would be no better day to start it then on my own birthday! ;) Today marks my 28th year (OLD. haha) and my blog's first day of life! WELCOME TO THE WORLD, BABY BLOG!

So, for my very first post I will share with you my birthday nails! This is a design inspired by the ever-so-talented, Nailside. (love her tape manis!) Enjoy and stop by often! :D 






Colors used:
Essie - Play Date (darker purple)
Essie - Lilacism (lighter purple)
Orly - Fancy Fuchsia (pink candle)
Orly - Lemonade (yellow flame and dots)
Sally Hansen Hard as Nails - White On (white cupcake)
Sally Hansen Hard as Nails - Sun Kissed (orange dots)
Sally Hansen Hard as Nails - Pacific Blue (blue dots)