Mommy and Me nails featuring Hello Kitty

 I know, I know. The pictures you are about to see are not perfect twins, but they weren't intended to be identical. These two pictures were taken about a month or so apart. I did my daughter's nails a few weeks ago and only had black nail polish with me, so she ended up with black nails. I thought they looked cute, but a bit too goth for a three year old. So, later that night I decided to add some nail decals and what's cuter than Hello Kitty??

  My nails were just done a few days ago, I was tired from a long day of swatching and just wanted plain nails. It was nice, oh, for about five minutes! I have a short attention span when it comes to nail polish, but I didn't have enough time to layer anything on top. I settled on some quick nail decals and they just so happened to be HK! After I placed them I remembered my daughter's nails, and thought it would be cute to take a picture with the same prop as I used for hers.

My nails:

My daughter's nails:

 This is the only picture I have where she actually let me do proper cleanup AND she posed for pictures too! I doubt this will happen again anytime soon, but it'd be awesome if she did. That way I could do Mommy and Me nails a permanent thing on my blog. ^_^

Julep Vanessa over Wet n' Wild Black Creme

 I loved the Julep program for the first few months I was enrolled, but it quickly lost it's allure when I realized that the colors I was receiving were mainly dupes for other polishes I already had. So, I went ahead and canceled to avoid spending money on more dupes. The program is great though if you don't have many polishes, because who doesn't love getting nail mail?? 

 Vanessa is a clear polish filled with small iridescent glitters and is best used for layering. I started off with a base of Wet n' Wild Black Creme to enhance the different colors the glitters reflected and used one coat of Vanessa. The end result was pretty awesome and looked somewhat like a galaxy. 

 Even though I loved the layering, I will be putting this polish up for swap because I have at least two other dupes. As I'm writing this post I can't help but wonder how it would look in a glitter flake sandwich. I recently bought the Nails Inc. The Old Vic duo and I think the blue flakes would look great sandwiched in between two layers of Vanessa or one of it's dupes. I need to put this idea on my list before I forget! ^_^

Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday over Wet n' Wild Silvivor

 Ever since I had to nubbinize my nails I have been on a glitter bomb streak. It makes me feel better and it's not as difficult to remove on short nails, at least for me. For this mani I decided to take out one of my long time lemmings, Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday. I wanted this polish for such a long time, but was disappointed when I finally received it that I never wore it until recently. The original formula of Happy Birthday also had square glitter in the mix and this particular version has NO square glitter. That really irked me because I feel that was the one thing that separated this Happy Birthday from all the other dupes floating around, but I have made peace with my version and have given up on the square glitter version.

 I did two coats of Wet n' Wild Silvivor with two coats of Happy Birthday on top of that.



Reminds me of Blue Bell's Birthday Cake!

 I really need to get through my untrieds, this is only the third Deborah Lippmann that I have tried out of the ten I have. I used to say that I would get on a no buy and place myself on a budget, but it is so hard that I give up on doing that. I always end up doing huge hauls when I do that, so I figure I'm saving money if I don't restrict myself. Ha, that's my kind of rationale. ^_^

Wet n' Wild R.I.P Black Magic

 The last tombstone polish I have is Black Magic. This is a black based polish with micro rusty-orange and silver microglitter. I love the fact that the glitters in this polish are very visible, despite it being in a black base. It doesn't dry gritty or bumpy either and I just need one coat of Seche Vite to get it smooth. I did use three coats because I had some bald spots with two. I only had two problems with this polish. One was the brush, it had stray hairs all over the place which I had to cut to be able to have an even brush. The other was the formula. It was pretty thick even though I added a few drops of thinner, so it did take a bit to get even coverage. Still, the end result was fab and the rusty-orange glitter in this polish really gives it that Halloween look.

 

 These polishes are a great bargain for 1.99, issues and all. I only wish they had a greater selection of colors because the tombstone packaging is so adorable! ^_^

Wet n' Wild R.I.P Creepy Pumpkin

 Creepy Pumpkin is a polish I picked up at Ulta for 1.99 during the BOGO free Butter London sale. Sometimes I have to put money aside for these things, so that I won't have to give any explanations later on. Yup, I'm talking about my husband. No need to worry him about these frivolous things. So, I had about 40.00 set aside just for the Butter London polishes and luckily for me there were only four that caught my attention. Which meant that I had a few extra bucks to spend and it was a great coincidence because I just so happened to spot these Wet n' Wild R.I.P. polishes!

 The brush on this one wasn't as crappy as the one from the Purple Potion one, which was good because I'm getting tired of having to nip stray bristles. This was a pretty sheer polish, but it wasn't too thick so I was able to get away with four semi-thin coats to get it opaque. I don't like it when my visible nail line shows too much, otherwise three coats would have been good.

 Orange polishes are definitely not a color that I purchase often, but October really gets me in the mood for orange and black! Plus, my son's school colors are orange and black, so it doesn't hurt to represent every once in awhile. ^_^

Wet n' Wild R.I.P Purple Potion

 Wet n' Wild is such a great brand. I love their collections, but I hate, no I LOATHE that they choose not to have their products for sale online. According, to Wet n' Wild, it is up to the stores to decided what to order from them. While, I respect the choices that regional, district and regular managers at every store makes, it would be a lot less stressful for so many of us nail polish enthusiasts if Wet n' Wild would just offer their limited edition collections online. Luckily, I found these Fantasy Makers at Ulta, but I have yet to locate their On the Prowl and Claw polishes. Many people have already complained to them about our first world problems and maybe in the near future they will listen, but for now all I can do is search far and wide for those collections.

 Purple Potion is a purple glitter suspended in a black jelly base. It looks very similar to another Wet' n Wild polish that they have out, but I can't remember the name at the moment. Hmm.. anywho it is a beautiful polish. In regular lighting it can look pretty much just like a black polish, but in brighter lighting and in the sun? Well, its super sparkly. It did dry to a matte and gritty finish and could have used two coats of top coat, but I only used one of Seche Vite. I did three coats because at two it did leave a few bald spots since I had a bit of trouble applying this polish. I had to put at least eight drops of thinner, if not more, and it was still a gloopy consistency. Also, the brush didn't help, it had several stray bristles that I had to cut to make the brush a bit less crappy.

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 Being that this polish was only 1.99, I'm not complaining. It was a really nice polish and according to my husband, it was a badass color. He doesn't say this about many of my polishes, so this is a keeper for sure. 

Wet n' Wild How I Met Your Magenta

 One of the reasons why I have so much nail is because I tend to buy all the colors in a collection, regardless of whether I like them or not. I used to be like Pokemon: Gotta Catch them All! Now, I will admit that I still am somewhat like that, ok no that's a lie. I'm still like that. I know I shouldn't buy nail polishes just because I need to complete my collection, but it's so satisfying to see one of my collections completed. The reason why I jumped onto this rambling train is because this polish is a perfect example as to why I bought How I Met Your Magenta.

 Now granted, this polish was only .99 and I love the show, but I don't even like pinks all that much. In fact, I haven't done a full pink mani since, hmm... a long, long time ago. I don't even think I've done a pink post before. This is one of those polishes that I made a mental note to purge when the time comes. The idea behind this polish was really great, if you like pinks. A pink polish with gold micro glitter. It looks really awesome in the bottle and the nail.. after 4-5 coats. Yea, 4-5 coats people. This polish was so frigging sheer and would be best if layered on top of another pink.

This is four coats with a coat of Seche Vite in the sun. Visible nail lines should be way more visible in pictures than in real life, but this polish is the exception. The visible nail line is waaay visible in real life and hardly noticeable in pictures.

A closeup. The gold glitter makes this polish a bit less straight up bubblegum pink.

In the shade.

 *Sigh. I love how pinks look on other people, but I just couldn't get used to it. I wonder if this color is a "don't worry, it'll grow on you" color. I ended up taking it off the right after pictures.

My take on Deborah Lippmann's Forget You

 I love the concept of creating your own lacquers by mixing and blending in other lacquers. This process is known as frankening. When I first saw Forget You, I knew I had to have it. The only issue? It was out of my price range at the time.

 I couldn't stop thinking about Forget You, so in the middle of the night, I woke up and started my first franken. I used a mixture of Ulta's Pinata Yada-Yada, Wet n' Wild Party of Five Glitters and Milani Gems with Wet n' Wild Ebony Hates Chris as a tint..

Here's a shade pic and I think I should have only used Ulta's Pinata Yada- Yada instead of a mixture. It looks almost green, but that could also be the black polish I used as a tint.

Sun pic. I like the way it looks in the sun so much better, but still those big glitters throw it off for me. 

 This is the first time I have attempted frankening and overall I was ok with it. However, I don't think I'm going to be trying it again anytime soon, though. It wasn't enough to kill my lemming for Forget You, so I will just have to put it on my Christmas list!