Nail Layering with Sally Hansen and NARS

I REALLY need to get better about the timing of my posts- I took these pictures last fall. I guess that would be fine, but the two Sally Hansen polishes I used were limited edition and no longer available. I suppose a few may be floating around on eBay if you get desperate enough.

I LOVE layering. It's rare these days for me to wear just one polish by itself. Some times the layering experiments are huge fails and some times they turn out awesome. This was one of the awesome times. I layered Sally Hansen All Aglow, a purple foil-y polish, over NARS Midnight Express, a dark blue jelly, and slapped Sally Hansen Crystal Beading, a sheer multichrome that flashes from teal to blue to purple to pink, over the top. My pictures didn't manage to capture the best duochrome actions, but it was fabulous. Trust me.

NARS Zulu and Midnight Express Are Just Meh

Hrrm, feelin' kinda introspective today. Probably because I'm sick. And just a little down in general. I'm a weak person. Well, I find people in general tend to be weak, haha. But, the areas I'm weak in, I try to avoid.  Like I know I'm weak when it comes to drama. I try to avoid it because it is so freakin' easy for me to get sucked in to it. It starts out just chatting with friends and devolves into this terrible beast of a thing. At the time you don't realize that what you're doing maybe isn't the best and people could get hurt or whatever. But then afterward I'm just kinda sick at all the drama I participated in. So, I try to avoid it altogether.

And you know what? People always associate drama with women, but men are just as bad. I didn't realize this until fairly recently. My boyfriend is a firefighter and he is in an environment that is 100% men all the time (they have no female firefighters. I think it's partially a cultural thing here and mostly because the physical test you have to pass it freakin' hard. Only like 10% of the guys pass it.) Anyway, he tells me that men are just the same as women. They gossip about each other, get mad at talking behind each other's backs, and are just as petty.

Anyway, I have a couple NARS nail polish swatches for you. Unfortunately I dropped and broke both the bottles (ugh) while rearranging my polishes so I had to salvage what I could and put it into random bottles. For me personally, I think Zulu and Midnight Express are overrated. I don't care for polishes that look black in most lighting so I'm not even sure why I bought them. But if the formulas were perfect I might could overlook that. They are both fairly streaky and take 3 coats on my to even out. As GSP would say, "I was not impressed by your performance." (if you get the reference I love you forever). I actually like Midnight Express a little. I might be tempted to wear this one occasionally.

These swatches are pretty turrible, but that's okay. It goes with my turrible mood!

NARS Zulu in the sun

NARS Zulu in the shade

NARS Midnight Express in the sun

NARS Midnight Express in the shade

Available:

• There retail for $17. Sephora doesn't have these shades listed on their website, but there are still a few places online you can find them.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a better day than I am having! Haha.

NARS Purple Rain (and something fun)

NARS Purple Rain was my first high end nail polish.  I kept seeing pictures of it over and over on blogs loved it, but there was NO WAY I was going to pay $16 for one nail polish (Hm, it looks like they raised the price to $17 recently).  But maybe you can guess by the fact that this post is called Purple Rain that I caved.  I still don't own that many high end nail polishes; I don't really see the need to when there are so many cheaper brands that are just as good, if not better like China Glaze and Orly.  But still, Purple Rain is one of the prettiest polishes I own.

Stick around to the end and I'll show you something THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND!  Well, maybe not, but it is pretty.

Purple Rain is a blackened  red-toned purple with pink and purple shimmer.  This was 2 coats and no top coat.

Purple Rain in full sun

NOW FOR THE EXTRA PRETTINESS!

1 coat of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure over NARS Purple Rain!

Full sun

Outside in the shade

See? Aren't you glad you stuck around?  I told you it was pretty.  I wish Hidden Treasure was still available and east to find.  Oh well, at least I have a back up!


Available:

• $17.00 at Sephora.com
• Brick-and-mortar Sephora stores
• $17.00 at NARS' website

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!