Review: Aveniro Glass Nail Files

Hi Guys! 

Today I have a special review for you. I was recently asked by a company called Aveniro if I would be interested in trying their glass nail files to review. Of course I said yes because nail files are an integral part of my nail care routine, so to try something new sounded great. My only experience with glass nail files prior to this was with a set of files I purchased from Amazon (shipping from China) that contained five small files, all the same size and grit. They were okay, but they were pretty small and the width was a little narrow for my liking so I found myself reaching for my tried and true cardboard emery board from Sally's instead. The Aveniro files, however, have become my new favorite filing tool. The thing that sets glass nail files apart from regular files is that they don't shred the nail the way the traditional cardboard files do. I would always be a little irritated that I would file and shape my nails down to where I wanted with my emery board, only to have little burrs remaining that I would still have to take care of. With glass nail files you get a very pure, clean file, which is great. So, let's get into the review.

From L-R: The L42, XL62R, L62R

Review: California Mango-Mango Magic Cuticle Oil

Hi Guys!

Today I have a review of the California Mango-Mango Magic Cuticle Oil. I heard about this oil from Nicole/Young Wild and Polished on YouTube so when my bottle of Essie's Apricot Cuticle Oil ran out I decided to go ahead and try it out. I love cuticle products, so I was really excited to get my bottle. I purchased mine from Amazon (here's a link) for about $8 and free shipping, but I think the regular retail is about $12-$13. I believe you can also purchase it at Sally's Beauty Supply. I bought the 1oz. bottle, which I was very happy about because the Essie oil is only 0.5oz. and it retails for $8.50. It is also available in a smaller size (0.25oz), but for me the 1oz. bottle was perfect.

Fall 2015 Nail Color Favorites

Hi guys! It's been a while since I've posted, but I'm back! Today I am discussing some Fall nail polish colors that I have been wearing and loving this season. My lovely co-worker Leslie lent me some terrific season-appropriate polishes from her collection (first picture below), plus I've been re-discovering some things in my stash. So, without further adieu, here they are!

The first image is of the borrowed polishes (and the adorable note Leslie left on my desk). I haven't worn all of them yet, but three of them are featured below. They are (from left to right): On the Same Paige (OPI), Brown-a-licious (Milani), Two Cent (Sonia Kashuk), Leggy Legend (Essie), and Gilty Pleasure (Sally Hansen). The palette is just so pretty, so warm and rich and fabulously Fall!

Nail Art: Galaxy Nails

Today I want to share some nail art with you, Galaxy Nails! I've been fascinated by outer space since I was a kid, so naturally I just had to learn how to do this nail design. I've tried it once before, but it really didn't turn out very well. This time, however, I loved it!

Essie -- Fiji (plus how to score great nail polish deals on eBay)

Why do some of the prettiest colors have to be so damn difficult to work with? Such is the case of Essie's Fiji. Is it gorgeous? Yes. Is it a pain in the ass to apply? Oh, yes. Is it worth the struggle? Probably. Okay, yes, it's worth the struggle. 

Review: e.l.f. Nourishing Cuticle Pen

I am a cuticle product junkie, especially when it comes to oils, balms, and other hydrating things, so last week when I was ordering some makeup from eyeslipsface.com I threw one of their $1 cuticle pens into my basket. I was excited about the form of this product because I really like the idea of a pen-like applicator. If you are not familiar with e.l.f., they are a very affordable cosmetics brand with two tiers of products: their Essentials line, which is commonly priced around $1, and their Studio line, which is a better quality product ranging from $3-$8. I use their $1 concealer brush for nail polish clean up and it's been great, so if you're looking for a good clean up brush I definitely recommend it.

My recent e.l.f. purchase, including the cuticle pen and a backup concealer brush for nail polish clean up

Easy Nail Art: The Plastic Bag Mani

Easy nail art is my favorite nail art, that's why I love the plastic bag manicure! The technique itself is almost foolproof and it only takes a short amount of time to execute. There's nothing more annoying than spending a lot time working on some intricate bit of nail art that is always one wrong move away from disaster. Maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but you know what I mean. 


SUPPLIES NEEDED:

• Nail polish (duh)
• Top coat
• Saran wrap, or any sort of plastic bag, ie: a Ziplock or a plastic grocery bag. It helps to have the plastic pre-cut into little squares that are a little bit bigger than your finger nail.

Step 1: Apply your base nail polish color and then a fast-drying top coat. I used OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls and HK Girl for both looks below. 

Step 2: Once your base color is dry, apply your accent colors in fairly big blobs in various spots on your nail. 

Step 3: Take a piece of your plastic wrap and place it over your nail. Lightly press down to marble the colors together, and then gently remove it from your nail. 

Step 4: Top coat and viola!

NOTE: This technique can get messy, so if you own a protective barrier product like Liquid Palisade you'll probably want to use it. 

(L-R) My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Van D'Go, Mint Candy Apple, Chinchilly, Bronze Beauty, HK Girl topcoat

(L-R) My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Tart Deco, Chinchilly, Did He Wink At Me, HK Girl top coat

I've been really loving using Chinchilly by Essie with nail art. It's such a great accent color that really pulls a look together. I can't wait to experiment with more color combos using this technique! I think the look it produces is really cool, and I just love how fast and easy it is. 

I hope this post was helpful in some way. If you want to see the plastic bag manicure in action there are lots of videos on YouTube and Instagram, and here's one by Young Wild and Polished. Until next time, happy polishing!

EPIC July Nail Polish Haul

Hey guys! Today's post is my July nail polish haul, and this month was pretty epic thanks to the generosity of a former co-worker of mine. I got a DM asking if I'd like to take some nail polish off of her hands and OF COURSE I (excitedly) said yes, but I had no idea just how many bottles I would be inheriting. Turns out that there were about 60 bottles of nail polish and nail care items in the bin she gave me. Can you imagine how shocked I was? It was like Christmas in July. So, if you want to find out what nail polish I added to my collection in the month of July just keep on reading...

Tutorial: How I Photograph My Nails

  Taking a good picture of my nails was something I struggled with when I first started trying. I would see all of these awesome pictures on Instagram and I just couldn't figure out how to make my pictures turn out like that. Every time I would paint my nails I'd try to snap a picture with my phone immediately afterwards and let's just say it didn't look great. I just couldn't figure out how to get that nice, tight shot, or how to get the lighting to not look awful. It was frustrating. I asked Nicole from youngwildandpolished how she took the pictures that she posts on Instagram because her nail pics are always so good. I asked if she was using a real camera, or a macro setting or something, and she said that she always just used her iPhone. That meant that there was hope for me! She extolled the importance of really good lighting, and encouraged me to keep trying. It was that same night that I finally (a little late to the party) realized the tools I had at my disposal in the form of editing a picture. It was like a little lightbulb went off, the missing piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place. Rather than trying to get the perfect angle, or put my hand in front of the lens close enough for a tight shot, I could just crop and rotate my pictures! #duh...

June Haul and reviews

Hi guys! Somehow it's already July... How did that happen? I don't know about you, but for me the month of June just came and went in the blink of an eye. I love summer because I work at a college and over the summer we work four 10 hour days since the campus is closed on Fridays, which means 3-day weekends for 11 glorious weeks. It's wonderful, and it means I have more time for blogging (yay!), reading (yay!) and shopping (bad!). 

So over the summer my goal is to put up a bunch of how-to posts: how I paint my nails, shape them, photograph them, care for them... you get the picture. I know that I found those types of posts very helpful when I started painting my own nails, and I still hit up those kinds of things every now and then, just to see if there are any more techniques out there that could improve my routine. So if you're interested in those types of posts, stay tuned.  : )

But now, on to the haul. If you remember from my May haul, I told myself that in June I would be under a "no-buy" moratorium. Well, I almost immediately broke that promise because I found a super sweet deal on eBay for a lot of 4 Essie polishes that included three specific shades that were on my "want" list. But it was such a terrific price that I really don't care, I literally couldn't pass that offer up. After that I actually only bought one more bottle of nail polish in the month of June, everything else I'll be talking about below were all gifts. I did, however, buy a lot of makeup and makeup tools in the month of June, so I guess I really didn't do a very good job after all....

Essie -- Coacha'Bella

Hello again!

Today I am featuring Coacha'Bella, one of the new polishes in the Essie Summer Neon "Make Some Noise!" collection. My darling mother got this one for me, and while it wouldn't have been the color I would have chosen from this collection, it still is a really pretty shade. For the record---If I was buying I would have picked up Groove is in the Heart. All Access Pass also caught my eye, but after hearing multiple people say it had a terrible formula I sort of gave up on that one. 

Formula X -- Power Source

Hi guys! Today I just have a quick swatch of Power Source by Formula X. I got a tiny little sample bottle in my June Ipsy bag, which is officially the cutest little bottle of nail polish ever, lol.

Color on my nails here is NOT Power Source

May haul and musings

Hello again! 

I've decided that at the end of each month I will try to do a monthly haul post of all of the new nail polish I've accumulated. I am TRYING, however, to behave myself and not buy something nail or beauty related every time I go into Target or a drugstore. It's hard though, because I like to think of myself as going through what I call my "rubber band" phase. For the longest time I spent money strictly based on need. I literally almost never bought anything for myself, except a quarterly Bath & Body Works splurge to get my favorite lotions and body wash (which are Moonlight Path and Warm Vanilla Sugar---for the record). I just didn't care about buying things for myself, I cared more about saving money. But now I realize spending some money here and there isn't gonna break the bank... hence the rubber band theory. I think that since I have held back for SO LONG I'm like a rubber band that has been pulled tight and released---now I want to buy SO many things! It's really not good....

Confessions of a Nail Polish Addict

Hello again! So, I saw this tag going around on YouTube and thought it'd be kinda fun to fill out, so here goes!

1. What color are you wearing right now? I'm currently wearing Go Ginza, by Essie. 

2. What nail product can't you live without? A fast-drying top coat. No one really has time to wait for their polish to dry, do they? My favorite is currently HK Girl by Glisten & Glow.

3. What is your favorite nail brand? My favorite brand is Essie! For now...

Essie -- Blossom Dandy

Blossom Dandy was the big hit of the Essie 2015 Spring Flowerista collection; it was the shade that everyone was raving about and me being obsessed with mint things meant that I just had to own it. As usual, I hunted for a good deal. I won this bottle on eBay for $3.36 (plus $1.65 in shipping), so all in all I paid $5.01. I usually hate paying for shipping, but since this was from a current collection and my winning bid was so low I didn't mind too much.

Essie's website describes Blossom Dandy as a "mint creme hydrangea... an eye catching light blue with a hint of spring mint green" and that really is spot on. When I had it on last week I had a girl tell me that she felt like the color was very relaxing, and I thought that was a pretty cool observation. 

Blossom Dandy

Essie -- Mint Candy Apple [blue hue]

Can we all just stop for a moment and appreciate the divinity that is Essie's Mint Candy Apple? This picture is from last month, when I still had the blue-hued MCA [which I traded for the green-hued version... see my post on April 25th for more details]. Even though I traded it it's still such a GORGEOUS shade that it's plain to see why it's such a cult favorite. This was two coats, topped with HK Girl by Glisten & Glow. The formula is... okay. MCA gets a bad wrap. It may not be the best formula in the world, but it's definitely not the worst either. The color more than makes up for any application struggles, in my opinion. I'm such a sucker for light blue nail polish! Who am I kidding... I'll probably buy this one again, and then I'll have BOTH shades in my collection. #nailpolishgoals

Easy Nail Art: The Dry Brush Technique

Last week I tried the dry brush technique on an accent nail, and I loved the way it turned out. It was super easy to do, yet it looked like it took more effort than it really did. If you want to learn how to create this look keep reading...

Essie -- Van D'Go

Essie's Van D'Go is officially one of my all-time favorite Essie shades. It's the most beautiful pinky-peach color, it's so delicate and pretty... I am OBSESSED. It had been on my nail polish wishlist for a while, and then one day I was at TJ Maxx (for the first time in eons) because I heard they carried Essie and other brand name polishes and just as I was leaving (empty handed) I stopped by their impulse area by the cash registers and there she was. I'll be honest, I freaked out a little. 

The prettiest girl on the block, Van D'Go by Essie

Tiny Haul (plus a surprise Essie score)

Lately I've been feeling like I've been going a little crazy with the nail polish purchasing. I've decided to [try to force myself] to slow down a little bit and NOT purchase a new nail polish every time I go out [literally]. It's NOT easy, especially when I go to Target and see the $1.99 Sinful Colors rack staring me in the face. So, what I'm trying to do now is to save my money for those specific things that I want, rather than operating on impulse. 

To that end, I think I've only purchased two new nail related items over the past month, which I think is really good. But I must confess, I've started getting more into makeup lately, so I have been buying a few inexpensive E.L.F. brushes and blushes, I started an Ipsy subscription, and I'm also going to order some ColourPop Lippie Stix (I already have the Lumiere lippie and pencil and they're AMAZING). 

But back to my tiny nail haul....

Essie "Liked" My Picture!

In exciting news, this week I posted a picture of my nails on Instagram (@crystalsloan) wearing Flowerista from Essie's new spring collection, and their official U.S. account (@essiepolish) "liked" it and even wrote me a little comment! Needless to say I was REALLY excited because I've been been tagging them in pictures where I'm wearing their polish in the hopes of getting re-posted. I also usually tag the German (@essiedeutschland) and Canadian (@essiecanada) Essie accounts too because they have a lot of followers as well. I think the German account has liked pretty much every picture I tag them in, which is cool because they seem to have a really big following over there, so that usually earns me a bunch of likes from gals over in Deutschland. I took German in high school, so it's also kind of fun to try to translate their posts....

Fuji Nail Polish Rack

When I started getting into nail polish I was keeping them in a small drawer in our powder room. Eventually that drawer filled up, and my collection started seeping into a shelf in the medicine cabinet. Eventually that shelf filled up too, and I knew it was time to find a better solution. I needed a rack.  

I had seen the the rack I wound up purchasing in a video from MissJenFABULOUS (and if you want to see that specific video, it's right here). It is from Amazon, and the price may vary a bit from time to time/seller to seller, but on average it's about $30. When I ordered mine it was $26.99, with free shipping. I actually had to order mine twice because the first order was very poorly packaged and the rack arrived cracked. When we went to return/re-purchase it the seller had changed and it was more expensive, but Amazon had great customer service and credited us back the difference, and gave us free one-day shipping on the new rack. The replacement rack was packaged waaaay better, and it also came with a (slightly cheesy/slightly cute) topper that says "Polish Station." It also came with hardware to hang it, which the first delivery did not. 

Hanging the rack was super easy (so says my husband); it just attaches to the wall with two screws. Design-wise it is a fairly basic 6-tiered clear acrylic rack. It is thin and sturdy, and holds 96 bottles. The hardest part was deciding how to organize... by color or by brand? I originally set it up by color...

Birthday Haul

My birthday week (haha) is off to a great start! I have a really funny story to share... I have a co-worker, who is the most amazing co-worker in the history of co-workers. And this fabulous person has an equally fabulous 5-year old granddaughter. This little girl is the type of kid who is 5-going on-25. She is a smart little lady who knows exactly what she wants, and apparently what she wanted this week was to pick out some nail polish for me for my birthday. How adorable, right? But the super exciting part is that somehow this tiny little person, who hasn't even made it to grade school yet, somehow managed to pick out the absolute PERFECT polishes for me, including three specific shades I have been wanting, and two bottles from a brand that I have been wanting to try. I have no explanation for this, other than that she just might be my soul sister. 

So, with the exception of these first 3 polishes (which I bought), everything else was a birthday gift from my co-worker's darling granddaughter. 

Lust For Lilac, Dust Rose, and Sail La Vie

Review: Base and Top Coats

Probably two of the most important steps in making my manicures last as long as possible (and chip-free!) is the use of a good base and top coat. And I can't say enough about the absolute necessity of having a fast-drying top coat! We all know how annoying and debilitating it can be waiting for nail polish to dry on its own... It takes FOREVER, and then you have to be on high alert making sure you don't accidentally smudge it. It's awful. Fast forward to my discovery of fast-drying top coats *insert the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah here* (Here it is, for the full effect). How did I ever paint my nails without one? Anyway, these are the base and top coats I've used, and what I think of them...

Sally Hansen's Double Duty Base & Top Coat and CND's Stickey Base Coat

OPI -- My Boyfriend Scales Walls

Here's a quick swatch of OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I'm not too sure about the availability of this color, but I got mine on eBay for $6.95 with free shipping. The color is a cross between white and gray, and the formula is really good. It's opaque enough to be good for nail art, and the fact that it's not bright white makes it very wearable all by itself. This is three thin coats, topped with Seche Vite. 

Nail Polish Haul

This week I've added five new polishes to my collection. I bought two OPI shades on eBay last month (my first OPI's, by the way), and they finally arrived on Friday. It took two freaking weeks for my order to go from Texas to California--grumble, grumble--but I digress...

I got Don't Bossa Nova Me Around and My Boyfriend Scales Walls for $6.95 each with free shipping. My Boyfriend Scales Walls is a white polish with the tiniest drop of gray in it, so rather than it being the standard shockingly bright white, this shade should be more wearable. And I continue to want to expand my collection of nudes, so I went with DBNMA because I like the dusty, putty-like pink vibe it has going on. Both of these shades were highly recommended by my favorite Youtuber (Nicole/Young Wild and Polished), so into my collection they go. Here's a link to Nicole's nail polish videos: Young Wild and Polished.

L-R: [OPI] Don't Bossa Nova Me Around, My Boyfriend Scales Walls
[NYC] Tudor City Teal, Lexington Lilac, [Pop-arazzi] Sugar Spun

Manicure Essentials

These are my current nail care go-to items that I use weekly/daily. From removing old nail polish, to making sure my cuticles stay hydrated and polish-free, these items have all become staples in my nail care routine, which (in my opinion) makes all the difference in having your hands and nails look beautiful. 

Essie -- Bikini So Teeny

I blame a lot of my nail polish obsession on Essie. Those cute square bottles in all of those fabulous shades just make my little heart flutter. Sadly, they retail for way more than I'd willingly fork over ($8.50), even for **gorgeous** nail polish. Enter eBay, and my new (bad) habit. I scored Bikini So Teeny, along with Romper Room, Sand Tropez, and Mint Candy Apple together as a lot of four for $14.95, with free shipping. That's roughly $3.74 each, and now I am constantly on the hunt for sweet deals. On my ring finger in this picture is Essie's Lilacism, which I also got on eBay for $4.67 (the polish was $1.99, plus $2.68 shipping). 

Essie's Bikini So Teeny and Lilacism

But back to Bikini So Teeny... I love the color blue, especially pastel shades, but wasn't so sure I'd like it on my nails. My only other experience with blue nail polish had been with shades of navy, and I absolutely HATE the way that color looks on my nails. So I was very pleasantly surprised with how beautiful Bikini So Teeny was, and the fact that I didn't want to take it off immediately, screaming (which is how I've felt with the before mentioned shades of blue). This shade is an absolute dream, and I really think it should be a must-have for all nail polish lovers. 

[L-R] Mint Candy Apple, Romper Room, Sand Tropez, Bikini So Teeny, Lilacism, Splash of Grenadine

This was my Essie Collection as of last month. I've doubled my collection since then. The first four shades were from the lot of four mentioned above, and the last one is Splash of Grenadine, which a friend found at TJ Maxx for me for $4.99. That's the most I've spent (so far) on Essie, and the only reason I even paid that much is that I was absolutely DYING for that damn shade! It's divine!