Born Pretty Holo Effects #11

Born Pretty Holo  Effect #11. You gotta love Born Pretty Store, they name their polishes with numbers. How boring and uninventive. They can do better than that!!

This is the dark purple holo polish from the line they released last year. Holo polishes are tricky. These pics, for example, are all taken WITH FLASH. Without flash or sunlight these polishes don't have half the holo wow factor these photos represent!

The formula on this polish was great. Two smooth coats and top was all I needed to achieve this holo goodness.

I guess the difference between a good holo and a not so good holo is whether or not you need direct sunlight to see the sparkles. If you've ever worn ANY of the Color Club Holo Hues you know what I'm talking about. This polish doesn't even come close to comparing to those polishes.

I realized I have a possible dupe for this polish. Which kinda pisses me off because I don't usually like to have dupes in my collections. I rather buy something new than spend money on something that I have already. But that's just me. I do make an exception with cobalt blues for some reason. I just can't have enough of them!!! Anyway, look for a comparison post coming soon!!

Overall, I wouldn't recommend these polishes. They are WAY overpriced, which is unusual for Born Pretty Store. They usually have amazing prices. These polishes come in 6ml bottles for $12.88. I think when I bought it they were on sale for a bit cheaper. But still…the bottle is tini-tiny!!! I don't think it's worth it for the fact that the holo really doesn't stand out unless it's in bright light. 

I know these polishes got great reviews from bloggers when they came out, which is why I bought this one. I'd love to know if you have any of the other colors and what you think of them. Please comment and give me your honest opinions. 

XOXO Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika

Born Pretty Store is still my favorite and #1 place to get nail art supplies!! They have unbeatable prices and free world wide shipping! Please consider using out coupon code when making your purchase:

Liquid Palisade Magic

Liquid Palisade, another product every nail art lover MUST have. Ok, it's not for everyone because it costs about $22 a tube. Ouch!! To some it's worth it. Especially if you do a lot of gradient work or stamping. Those require a ton of clean up and this product helps you completely skip that step. Heaven, I know!!

It looks like lipgloss, but STINKS!! I don't recommend putting it anywhere near your face. LOL

I got the same Konad stamping kit my sister got for Christmas. I have a little more experience stamping than she does, but I SUCK! I watched every Youtube video, followed every tutorial, but I still couldn't get the damn image to transfer to my nail in one piece. I gave up on it a long time ago.  

I  decided to give it another shot with this new Konad kit (the holy grail of stamping) and my Liquid Palisade. I guess my problem was the stamper. IT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE!! 

Basically the LP acts as a barrier between your skin and the polish. You paint it on and let it dry. You can see the wet phase on my thumb below.

When it's all dry you can get started. My base color is Zoya Dream. 

After I stamped on the image it was on to the fun part-pealing off the LP. Using a tweezer, get a piece of LP to lift it off of your skin. I grabbed it with my fingers and pulled, and was able to get it to come off in ONE PIECE! It's like magic!!

It's hard to see the stamp in this pic because I chose a bad stamping polish, but you can see some polish on the cuticle.

And that's that! So while this product is amazing and works great, it is crazy expensive. I have read that Liquid Latex and Masking Fluid work just the same as this product to some degree. I will probably test one of them out! 

Oh, oh, oh, you can also use LP ON YOUR NAIL to make nail art designs!!! Like blocking of the underneath area of a french manicure to make a straight line then peeling off the LP to reveal a perfect french tip! 

What do you think of this product? Would you spend the large price tag to experience it's magic?

XOXO Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika

Cult Nails Disillusion

It's been way too long since I've posted. Things have been crazy. I've been sick and now my little one is sick. It doesn't help that we got a foot of snow and it's 10 degrees outside!! Is the weather crazy cold where you are too? I'm kinda freaking out because I'm waiting for an awesome polish delivery and I know the super cold weather makes the polish thicken. Yikes!!

Anyway, onto the goodies! Today I have for you Cult Nails Disillusion. This is a spectacular polish. It's a black jelly base with bright pink shards. 

I had the hardest time photographing this polish. You can see from the pics that I tried a couple different types of lighting. Nothing picked up the sparkles under the jelly base. I just couldn't get it right. SO FRUSTRATING!

You can definitely see that shards in this lighting, so that's good. These pics are all two coats of polish. It gets a bit tricky to apply because some of the shards can stick out or clump together. You can see in some spots it looks lumpy, even with 2 coats of top coat. There were some catchy pieces too. You know the ones that snag in your hair or your clothes. I hate that!!

I used Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter-A-Peel as my base for this. What a life saver. I can't imagine taking a cotton pad and remover to this polish. 

I only have a few Cult polish, but I love them!! They have a great formula and apply like a dream. This polish is a different story because of the shards. It's still a beauty and I love it!!

On another note, my hubby won't make me another nail polish rack. Buzz kill! You may have seen it on FB. So I was thinking of having a blog sale. Would there be any interest? Also, I have a bunch of full size indies that I was given to swatch. What is the best way to purge these? Your comments are greatly appreciated!! :)

XOXO Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika

Stamping Fishnets...

The stamping practice continues!! I have to say, stamping might be my new favorite thing! Even though I still kinda stink at it and it takes me 10 tries to get one nail to look decent, I still love the finished look!  

For this mani I painted my nails with Sinful Shine Rendevouz and used Mash stamping plate #39.

Up close it is easy to see a lot of imperfections with this mani but it's hardly noticeable to the naked eye.  The black bled a little bit on a couple of fingers but I just couldn't bear to take it off and start over again.

I'm so excited that I'm getting better at this whole stamping thing.  I had a couple of people ask if these were stickers and was so happy to answer, "No, I did them myself!"  But, I promise all my future manis won't be stamped!  

I hope everyone has a great weekend! 

XoXo  Vicky

Nail Addicted Sisters

Crazy Nail Contraption & An Dot

Calling all polish lovers!! You have got to see this crazy contraption my mom got me for Christmas. Every year she orders TONS of fun things you will never see in the store from a catalogue called LTD. This year she got me and my sister this thing called the Nail Polish Station. 

I ALWAYS do my nails while sitting on the couch watching TV. This is a tricky thing to maneuver. I usually bend my knees and squeeze the polish in between the them so both hands are free, leaning my hands on my legs for leverage. If I'm doing some kind of nail art, I have a TV dinner tray thingy I set up. And that's how the magic happens. HAHAHA!! It sounds crazy when you put it all out there.

In comes the the Nail Polish Station. This pic shows it set up with base coat, color polish, and top coat. And it is laying on my LAP. :) The contraption holds the bottles in place and has a pivoting hand rest. The perfect little tool to do your nails on the couch without making a mess!! What do you think?? Is this kind of thing for you??

 On to the mani!!! My hubby did an awesome job of stuffing my stocking with a few new polishes. He picked out some Essie shades I never saw before. This one is Essie Armed & Ready from the 2012 Go Overboard Collection. It's a olive-gray color with a hint of golden shimmer. And true to most Essie polishes, the formula was amazing!!  

I decided this mani needed a little something extra. I just picked up OPI Love, Angel, Music, Baby from the new Gwen Stefani collection. Using a dotting tool a just added a simple dot to each nail. I will definitely be showing you all more of this amazing gold  color!

This polish had a matte finish, so I added it after the top coat. 

XOXO Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika

My First Attempt at Stamping

I know I'm a little late to jump on the stamping bandwagon, but the only reason it took me so long was because I have been so intimidated by this nail art technique.  I asked Santa for a Konad stamper kit and a set of Mash plates for Christmas and I'm so glad I finally tried it!  

I used Julep Josephine, a grayish-blue shade I picked up from Julep's Black Friday sale.  Then I used the pattern from Mash plate #41 using Julep Isla, an almost-white silver.  First I tried using the Konad stamping polish that came with my stamper kit, but that polish dried way too quickly for me!  Finally I experimented with some of my regular polishes and this one was exactly what I needed.

Simply stated, stamping is hard!! It took me several attempts to get this acceptable, photo-worthy mani.  I see so many other bloggers that create such beautiful manis with stamping and I wonder how much practice it takes to get that good.... hmmmm...

I have so many plates with tons of designs I want to try.  After more practice I hope I can get even better results.  Stay tuned!  And please share any stamping tips you might have!

XOXO Nail Addicted Sisters
 ♥  Vicky

Happy New Year…Belated!!

We are well into 2014, this I know, but Nail Addicted Sisters would like to wish you and yours and very happy new year.

For our first post of the new year I wanted to share with you my mani I attempted to for New Year's Eve. I say attempted because it didn't make it more than a few hours. I'll get to that later.

I guess I would call this a fishbone french manicure. I had seen something that inspired this mani that was  more of pointed french tip and this is what I came up with. I used a thin striping brush to freehand everything so each fingernail is slightly different.

From cuticle to tip, the colors I used are: Essie Mademoiselle, Zoya Trixie, Polish Yer Hooves Milky Way, and MOD Lacquer Thunderbird. I absolutely loved the way all of these colors complimented one another and more importantly SPARKLED!!

The problem I had was that none of these polishes were opaque with one coat. Therefore, in some spots I ended up with up to EIGHT coats of polish, TEN if you count base and top coat. While I left hours for this mani to dry, and it was fine while I did my daily activities, it all came crashing down when it was time to take a shower. :( I didn't realize half my polish was GONE till I got out of the shower. Needless to say I went to New Year's Eve dinner with my family with NAKED NAILS. MY WORST NIGHTMARE!!! LOL

Anyway, I was glad I had taken pics and am able to share it with you. I hope you are all have a great new year. 

XOXO Nail Addicted Sisters

~Erika