Moms nails!

A few weeks ago my mom came over to hang out with me and my kids cuz she hadn't seen us in awhile. While she was here I was like "Mom! Let me paint your nails!!" They were so long and mine have been stubby for awhile. She had acrylics put on awhile ago, but they eventually, after lots of fills, became her own nails under the acrylic.

We sat down and she picked out some colors that she liked and started to paint her nails with the base color we wanted to use. I was like mom, I am supposed to be the one painting your nails... lol But I ended up just letting her finish that part. We used Wet n Wild Megalast in Candy-Licious.

After we did that, she really wanted to use Color Club's Wing Fling from the Take Wing collection. I don't blame her, its my favorite from the collection! Side note... If you have a Meijer department store near you, they have the Take Wing collection, also the Halo Hues collection on sale right now!!! Scoop them up!!

On her accent nail, we did the slant with Color Club Harp On It. Also for the lil dots! The white on the nails is Diamond Cosmetics White Nail Art. I used a dotting tool to apply it though because I had just gotten them and wanted to try them! haha

I wish she still had her nails on though, they were so fun to play with. I bought some fake nails to play around with, but I need to find a way to display them when I do some funky stuff on them. They were only a dollar for a pack of like 20 at Dollar General! So I was like why not!

I am really trying to get my nails long right now. I was just introduced to some stuff called Duri Rejuvacote. I have seen before and after pics from the people who recommended it and I am so excited for it!! I have some and been using it, but my nails were already getting really long, but since the stuff didnt really have time to work on them that much they did start to break and one hand is way shorter than the other, so I think I am going to file them down and start over and see how it goes. Here is a pic of what my nails on my left hand look like. I need to get rid of the stains, but otherwise they are looking awesome. They're just SOOOO thin and they chip off easily. So I am really hoping this stuff works wonders for me!! My fingers look terrible, don't mind them. lol

Left hand

Right hand

Hope you guys enjoyed my post! Have a great week! xoLeah

Leah's Collection

Happy New Year everyone!!

So I recently went to put my new Christmas polishes that I got into the box that I keep my nail polishes in and realized they're starting to not fit anymore. Not to mention the $40 I just spent at the Julep end of the year sale which I haven't received yet. All these polishes except for about 3 I have acquired in 2 years, but mostly in the last year. We moved about 2 and a half years ago and I wasn't all that into polish at the time like I am now, so I put a bunch of it in storage. I have no idea where that box is now, not to mention they're probably all broken/exploded from the heat/cold changes. That makes me very sad, and I wish I would have kept them all out of storage, but at least I got a new collection going for me now!

This is the case I currently use. I was being lazy and didn't want to get my camera out again so I took a screenshot of the case on the Caboodles website. Its a great case, has shelves for other stuff like brushes, files, etc... Currently all my polishes fit in it, and I have a lot.

That is the top view of my current polishes that aren't in storage. You can't really tell from this pic, but I have an obsession with sparkly and glittery nail polishes! lol I have been trying to branch out from pinks too with my new collection of colors. My old collection was mostly pinks cuz its one of my favorite colors, but I seem to be leaning towards blues this time, haha.

To be honest, I am not really sure why I am doing a post about my collection of polishes, but I would really love to see pics of everyone elses collections!! Nail polish is one of my favorite things, and I love to share it! Panacea and I were talking about how we like to mention how we want to see certain things that you other ladies do, and we have yet to see anything from anyone! So don't be shy, share your pics with us!!

 Essie (owned by L'Oreal who DOES test on animals)

 Milani (cruelty free)

 Kleen Color (cruelty free)

 Wet n Wild (cruelty free)

 Sally Hansen (cruelty free)

 Studio M formally known as Massini (cruelty free)

 Pure Ice (cruelty free)

 Lynnderella (cruelty free)

 More Sally Hansen (cruelty free)

 L.A. Colors (cruelty free)

Blue Cross Beauty Care Winter Wonderland Ornaments Holiday Glitter Collection (not sure if they're cruelty free or not) 

 Rimmel London (claims to be cruelty free, but says in cases where required by law, like selling in China, etc... they do test on animals for that reason)

 Diamond Cosmetics (cruelty free)

 NYC (cruelty free)

 Julep (cruelty free)

 YH Beja (not sure, but they have been messaged to find out. I will update you all with the answer)

 Nabi (not sure, can't find any info on them.)

 Maybelline (owned by L'Oreal who DOES test on animals)

 Mary Kay (used to be cruelty free, but dropped their cruelty free status in order to sell their products in China who requires by law that companies test on animals.)

O.P.I. (cruelty free)

 Sinfun Colors (cruelty free)

 Sinful Colors that I forgot to put in the pic (cruelty free)

Another Sinful Color that I forgot to put in the pic (cruelty free)

Funky Fingers, Color Club, Lex, and Spoiled (all cruelty free)

When I first started to do this blog with Panacea, and we discussed making it a cruelty free polish blog, I was scared that I was going to have a lot that were NOT cruelty free, but I was glad to find that almost all of mine are!! 

I hope that you enjoyed looking at my collection of polishes!! Please don't forget, we are curious to see what your collection looks like too! Post pictures on our facebook page HERE or you can email them to us at Mynailpolishispoppin@gmail.com!

Dollar Store Awesomeness!

I am all about inexpensive nail polish that is good, so when Panacea told me about Dollar Tree having some good stuff, I had to check it out. And i'm glad I did!

I went in there thinking I was only going to see the L.A. Colors that Pan told me about, and that it was going to be some like ugly colors that nobody wants and that was it. I was happy to see that it was quite the opposite. They had all kinds of awesome colors! The best part is, L.A. Colors is cruelty free! Not to mention, Dollar Tree also had some other nail goodies which I was quite surprised about!

I have been wanting to try some of the glitters, foils, and beads because I have never tried them before, and when I seen that they had some I was so excited!! They aren't L.A. Colors, the brand is something I've never heard of called Donna Michelle Salon Basics. I tried to look up information about them online to see if they were a cruelty tree company as well, but I couldn't even find anything about them. I sent a message to Dollar Tree a few days ago, but I haven't gotten a response yet, but I will be sure to update everyone when I know. The gold glitter is by Diamond Cosmetics and I spoke to someone from their company and they assured me that all their products are cruelty free! How exciting!!

So anyways, I decided to just stick with a simple design that would go with my costume for our after Halloween party. I went as Callie Torres from Grey's Anatomy. I wanted to do something flashy because it was a party. I decided to only use the Dollar Tree finds because the only colors I bought were glitters! lol

I started off by doing a thick coat of the Sassy Sparkle 652. It is very pretty and doing a thick coat of it seemed to work pretty good for being a clearish glitter. Usually you have to do a few coats to get it thick enough like I have it. Oh no wait, I lied, I started off with the Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hardener. lol

Then I wanted to just stick with a simple design and used the Treasure Island 653 on the tips. Once again, a thick coat of that seemed to get the job done, but I did end up going over it one more time just to make the color stand out more.

Finished it off with a top coat of Super Dry by Diamond Cosmetics.

They both look really awesome and the glitter really pops when the light hits it. I admit, I was a little skeptical about getting dollar store polish because I have bought dollar store stuff before and it really wasn't great, but this stuff is awesome!

Since I wanted to keep it simple I didn't get a chance to try out the other nail art stuff I bought, but I plan to pretty soon since I went shopping with my mom yesterday and decided to get some acrylic nails put on! Next I want to work on some good brushes so I can try to learn to do things like this!! I don't normally like getting fake nails because I have thin nails and they really get bad when I take them off, but I was really wanting to have long nails to paint and do fun things with, so I will be trying out some stuff once I am over the nail art I have on now. Also, the nail people don't have any regard for sores and things on your fingers. I have a crack in my thumb from my skin being so dry (i'm slightly ocd about hand washing) and the lady dug her nail right into the crack. I almost punched her and almost started to cry.

Anyways, hope everyone enjoyed my blog, sorry it was so long and kinda on the boring side. I will try to make the next one more exciting! haha Thanks for reading! Have a great day!!

xoxoLeah

Here is a pic of me in my costume. Sadly, I got my acrylic nails put on before the party, so I didn't get to wear my awesome dollar store nails with my costume.

My husband was a Jager Bomber and I was Callie Torres from Grey's Anatomy.

Frankenstein inspired nails

Hey guys! I'm Leah. Panacea's best friend. She was so kind as to ask me to join her in doing this nail blog, knowing how much I LOVE nail polish I'm sure. lol Anyways, like I said, names Leah. I am a wife and mother of two little boys. Ezekiel (Zeke) is 3 and Elijah will be 1 on December 1st. So they keep me pretty busy, and I don't really get much time for myself. Some nights, no time at all. So when I do get some free time, one thing I enjoy most is painting my nails, trying different techniques and designs out. You could probably say that I have a bit of an obsession with nail polish. I don't have millions of polishes, but boy do I wish I did. I probably only really have about 60, but someday hope to have LOTS more! lol

As Panacea mentioned earlier, we are all about cruelty free polishes, however from time to time you may see us using one or two from our collections, but ONLY because we had them before realizing they were NOT cruelty free. Sally Hansen, which is one of the brands I am actually using in this tutorial claims on their website that they do not test on animals, however they are NOT on PETA's list. As for the rest of my colors in this tutorial, to the best of my knowledge are all cruelty free.

Seeing as Halloween is coming up, I of course wanted to do something for the occasion. My son Zeke is going as Frankenstein this year, so I thought why not do that. I am sure since today is only the 25th, I may be doing one more Halloween inspired nail, but we'll see. Cool side note... Did anyone else know that Frankenstein is not the name of the actual monster? Frankenstein is the name of his creator, but everyone just kind of turned it into being referred to as Frankenstein.The creator is Victor Frankenstein and if you click that link, you can read for yourself about the rest. For now here is what I did.

                                 

First I started off by cleaning up my cuticles a lil. I admit, I am a picker and I pick at the sides of my nails. Never been a nail biter, but picking at them is just as bad, if not worse. I am trying to break that habit however and they're looking pretty good compared to normal.

Second thing I did was put some Sally Hansen: Hard as Nails Hardener on them. I have thin, weak nails that like to chip, so a friend gave me a bottle for free and since I actually starting to give a crap about my nails, I thought I would try it out. Personally, I think it works pretty good! Been using it for about a month, but not very frequently and I like the results so far. I like to use it as a base.

Recently I read somewhere... I wish I could remember where... that if you put some sort of greasy lotion on your fingers around the edge of your nails, it will help to remove screw ups. So if you suck at painting your own nails like me, this is great for you! Make sure not to get it on your actual nail, because then it's hard to paint over it. I like to use Aquaphor by Eucerin. I had some already for my kids, so why not use what you already have! Vaseline works great too. So not only does it help you keep nail polish off your skin, it will keep your fingers moisturized!

For the green for Frankenstein, I used Innocent by Sinful Colors. I had to do about two coats of this. I really love Sinful Colors and am so glad to hear that recently they have stepped up and admitted to doing wrong by some other nail bloggers. They have some great colors, but this one for me seems to be a lil weird. Its almost like its trying to be matte, has that weird texture, but is still semi glossy. I could just have a defective bottle too, who knows. Anyways, put two coats of that on and let it fully dry.

For Franks hair, I used Ebony Hates Chris by Wet n Wild in the Fast Dry line. If you are looking for a cheap black polish with gloss that goes on GREAT then this is your color. I absolutely LOVE this black. I have been using it a lot lately too. To apply it, you don't want to use the brush in the bottle because it creates too thick of points. Unless you're like super talented, then I guess you could try it, but I did and failed horribly. lol So I went and bought myself a set of painting brushes. They were $4.99 at Meijer in the craft section. I bought a variety, so that I could use them for other designs. What I did was just dab some of the Ebony Hates Chris onto a paper plate and then dipped the brush in with only a little on the brush. You don't want too much on there, because then it will just be a mess. You can always go over it later if extra coats are needed. The rest is pretty much self explanatory from the pictures. I didn't do any fancy tricks to make the jagged edges, just free handed it. Which btw is a lil difficult for me because I am shaky. I think they turned out pretty good though!

 

After finishing all the black hair, I applied a top coat of clear "Super Dry" which I have no idea where my mother bought it from. (My mom bought me some because I kept stealing hers!) Its fantastic however! On the bottle it has a website, for anyone interested...It is Diamond Cosmetics.

I hope you guys enjoyed my post. I am quite surprised with myself on a few things. 1. I didn't screw up my nails. I even had to stop mid painting, because Elijah woke up and wanted a bottle. So I fed him, and changed him, and played for a lil bit, and they're still completely intact, which for me is a pretty big deal. GO ME! 2. I was having second thoughts about doing this blog ONLY because I kinda suck at words and coming up with things to say, but look at how long this is! I think I did good. Hopefully I kept it interesting enough and nobody left because they were bored. So yea, I hope that you guys will come back every week to see what new ideas Panacea and I have to come up with and what colors we have to share with you!

                                                                                          Peace out!
                                                                                                       -Leah