Acrygel 6 week follow up

6 weeks ago I started a nail growth journey using acrygel. If you want to learn more about that system you can check out my previous post on the how to! 

My nails have always been soft and peeling. I could never grow my nails past the end of my finger without cracking and breaking. Even using the best strengtheners and being very careful with my nails. 

I had basically given up on having long natural nails and assumed every time I wanted long nails I would have to head to the nail salon. Then I heard about acrygel and how it could help you grow your natural nails with minimal damage to your natural nail. I decided to give at a try and 6 weeks later I am so glad I did!

This is a lot of work. Probably as much as acrylic but it is easy to do at home and has minimal steps. The only downside is if you like to change your nail colour a lot, as this gel is soakable and will be effected when removing polishes. I do get about 2 weeks before I need to redo my mani which I think is pretty good! I layer my polishes or file off the old when I want to change so as to lengthen my time in between gel sessions.

Overall if you want to grow your nails and are willing to put in an hours work every two weeks or so then this could be the perfect method for you! I can see myself sticking with this method for quite a while! When I decide to do short nails for a while I would take a break but I love this system both for the look and what it does for my nails in strength!

Would you try this system??

Nail of the week...red and glitter

This weekend I went to a Christmas pub crawl. I wanted nails that would be bright and festive so I chose a combo of red and glitter. I used 5 polishes in total to get this look but it took very little time to create. I finished it off with a gel topcoat to make my colours shine and seal in the mani for a few days.

Used in this look were... Wet and Wild Fergie collection in New Years Kiss, Sinful Colors in Queen of Beauty, Quo by Orly in Clean Sweep, China Glaze in Long Kiss and finally China Glaze in Ruby Pumps. I layered the cream and covered with the glitter polishes; as well I used Long Kiss first and layered Ruby Pumps over that for extra sparkle.

I am really enjoying creating these holiday looks!! This coming Friday I have a black tie Christmas party... What do you suggest I do with my manicure for the party???

Nail of the week... Holiday nail art :)

This week doesn't feature a particular polish but I did try a couple of nail art projects this week. I am a huge beginner and it shows but it was fun to play! 

The first look had red nails as a base with gold glitter accents and snowflake designs. I loved the red and gold together but my snowflake technique needs a little work.

The second was a simple dark grey nail with snowflakes on my thumbs. This time I used a nail art brush instead of my dotting tool to create the flakes and I think this one works out better for me. I will keep working on it to prefect my technique!

What nail art designs do you think I should try to tackle next??

Nail growth using acrygel

So I go through cycles where I decide I want nice manicured hands, then quickly give up after my thin peeling nails begin breaking! I have tried every nail treatment I read about and while they work in the short term I never get far... Especially when life gets in the way and I cannot commit time every third day to redo my manicure. I say every third day because no matter what I use that's how long I get before I start seeing peeling and chipping with my products. Now I am not going to mention names because the products may work amazingly well for some of you... Just not for me :(

Recently I read about acrygel on Pinterest. This is where you layer soakable gel with acrylic powder to give strength yet a natural look. This product soaks off instead of being filed and will last 1-2 weeks before needing attention. After much research I went to Sally's and bought what I needed.

Pictured above is a LED Gelish lamp, fine file, acrylic powder, cuticle pusher, nail brush, Gelish ph bond and Gelish foundation. 

I will walk you through the steps and then link you to the best video I have seen on how to do this process.

1) prep nails by pushing back cuticles, shaping nails and gently roughing up the nails surface just to remove shine the use ph bond on the nail bed.

2) apply a thin layer of Gelish foundation to the nail. Wiggle the brush on the nail need for better adhesion.

3) scoop acrylic powder over the nail covering the nail bed and shake off excess. Then cure for required time. This will change depending on your lamp. Then brush away excess powder.

4) repeat steps 2 and 3

5) apply a thicker layer of foundation and cap each nail (run brush along free edge) . Turn finger upside down so that gel can shape itself. This really saves on filing! Then again cure your gel.

6) finally use alcohol to remove gel residue (sticky layer) using a knot free cotton pad.

Voila strong nails that look amazing, polished or left as is!

Please watch the video below to see the process step by step. It is the best one I have found.

Chimera Nail Polish a Review

Recently I was sent some nail polishes to test. As you know I am fairly new to polishes as my nails in the past were something I tended to ignore! This polish came at a great time as my passion is evolving and I had 5 polish colours to play with from the Chimera line!

Chimera was established in 2008 and was launched to to compete with labels in the Australian market as well as the international stage. This company boasts over 100 colours offers pearls, neons and glitters.

While the polishes are listed online by colour name the bottles I received only have numbers so I am not sure how you keep track of the colours you purchase. My polishes did come with a chart that included the numbers so I would assume that once you do your first order you are able to order from the chart you are sent!

Moving from pinky to thumb here is a break down of the colours. On my pinky is a creme bubble gum pink that was completely opaque in 2 coats. On my ring finger is a very light lavender colour with silver sparkle. After 3 coats this polish was still transparent. My middle finger has a bright red with an orange gold glitter. This polish was opaque in 2 coats and was one of my favourites. On my pointer finger was a creme blue that is in the same tone as Tiffany blue only a little darker in hue. This polish was opaque in 3 coats. Last on my thumb was a rich brownish red with a metallic glisten.

Overall these polishes wore very well. I didn't find chipping or peeling any earlier then my other polishes and found for wear on my toes it lasted a very long time! I thought the colours were nice although not completely unique. There were however many very interesting colours listed on their site that I would like to try in the future. I did find the brush a little long making it somewhat difficult at first for me to control application, however I did become used to the brush and now find it no problem to use.

NOTD Summer Colour Fade Nails

I tweeted about this nail look this week but for those of you who do not follow me on twitter I wanted to do a little post. Recently I have become interested in manicures that are a little different then the norm. There are so many resources out there now for learning different techniques.

This look was created using 3 nail polish shades fading one into the other to create this look! I really liked the results and enjoying learning and playing with new techniques!

Have you ever experimented with different manicure techniques?? Did you like the results?

NOTD China Glaze Gradient Manicure

I have only really started wanting to play with non-traditional manicures. This one was achieved using various China Glaze colours to create a fire-ish type look. The polishes were applied using a cosmetic sponge and I really like it for a first attempt ever! I think I will keep playing with these type of manicures to see what I can come up with in the future!

NOTD China Glaze Fortune Teller

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So I jumped on the bandwagon and went out and bought China Glaze's Holloween colour Fortune Teller today. This colour is a black base with lots of different sized chucks of orange glitter inside.

I personally love this colour, which I didn't really expect! I thought it would be ok but once I was done I thought the effect was stunning! I took a couple of pics but my camera didn't do it justice with my lighting last night. 

The finish is a little dull due to the glitters creating an uneven effect, but a coat of seche vite cured that leaving an ultra shiny result! I've seen many people use CG's matte top coat over this colour, for me though I think it makes Fortune Teller loose it's charm.

If you love polish and Halloween as I do, run out and try to get this polish. In my opinion it's well worth it!!

NOTD-Orly's Enchanted Forest

Yesterday I decided to buy two of Orly's polishes from the Once Upon a Time collection . Today I wanted to give my feedback on Enchanted Forest. 

I rarely find a green polish that I like but I must say that this deep forest green is a great one. This is a creamy looking polish with now sparkle but lots of shine. Two coats gave a great deep colour with lots of depth and no streaking. This is day one so I will have to get back to you on the wearability of this one but I was so exited about the shade that I just had to post right away!

For fun I added Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear in Lime Lights over the Orly on my middle nail just to see now it looks. I really liked the effect and will probably do a full manicure this way sometime in the future.

Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Hard as Wraps Review

I recently bought Sally Hansen's Hard as Wraps from the Hard as Nails collection because I am always looking for a way to strengthen my weak and peeling nails! This product claims the following; Patented formula with Acrylic Gel seals and hardens nails with an instant, long-lasting wrap-like surface and a smooth, shiny finish. Nylon fortifies nails and helps prevent chipping, splitting and peeling. I don't know why I had such high hopes for this one but lets just say I was greatly disappointed.

I don't know if I have the worst nails in the world or something, I always read the reviews before buying something new. If the reviews aren't good I move on to the next product. This one had good enough reviews for me to try it, especially for the price at only around $6. I gave this one a good try using is consistently for for over a week. All I have to show for it is 2 broken nails and the rest are peeling worse then they ever have.

First of all I found the product hard to apply. It wasn't as thick as I had thought it would be, so it spread too much on the nail leaving a lot of clean up to be done. I could not use my Seche Vite as a top coast because it caused the product to bubble up within a day. My nails did not feel as strong as when I use my Orly Nail Armor, and I was right as my nails were easy to bend which caused the Hard as Wraps to begin peeling leaving my nails completely unprotected. Within the week I had to reapply this product 3 times which I found a little high. When using my normal routine all it takes is one maybe twice a week which is normal when taking into account polish changes.

Overall I really don't have anything good to say about this product. There as a few formulations of the Hard as Wraps and I don't know if one of the other formulations works better, but this one was a complete waste of my $6, I could have gotten a really nice lip gloss and been happy with my purchase.

NOTD-Rimmel's Green with Envy

I've been wanting this shade for a while now but for some reason just kept putting back on the shelf every-time I was in the store. Well I finally picked it up as they were on sale for $2.50 at the big W the other day when I stopped in. 

This shade is great the name says green but certain lights it is more of a turquoise colour. I apologize for the picture but for some reason my camera just didn't want to take this one. I also did a gold glitter polish over the top today and love the way it looks, I would have taken a pic but I don't have the camera with me today. Rimmel does some great shades and for the price you real can't go wrong. The staying power isn't that of some other brands but I find 3 days is usually the max I go with any given polish anyway so I really didn't see a lot of signs of wear.

 I'm going to try to do more polish reviews as I get a lot of emails about what I like so stay tuned for these from time to time.

Orly Nail Treatments!!

So until this year the only time I put on nail polish was special occasions. I think it's because my nails and cuticles have always been something I hated. My nails peel and crack and my cuticles are dry and split etc. Now for some reason my nails have become an obsession. I have done posts in the past about my favorite top coat and polish and now I am going to to tell you a little about my favorite base coat. As well I am going to tell you what is on my nails when I want a break from polish.

My favorite base coat is Orly's nail armor is a treatment but I use it a base coat. I really don't find it makes my nails more healthy but it does make them stronger while I am wearing it and as well fills in all imperfections in the nail and gives something for my polish to really adhere to. It has silk fibers in it which over lay to create a harder nail surface. This is the best base coat I have ever tried and I have used a lot in the past year!!

When I remove my polish and don't want to reapply right away I always put on a layer of Orly's Touch Cookie treatment. It is something to keep my nails protected takes no time to dry and leaves my nails looking manicured without any effort. If I forget this step I always find that my nails start to chip and peel right away and I end up having to file them down and start again!! Not what I want to be doing!!

So I hope these reviews are a help. Today I am starting a new experiment which I will tell you about soon. I want to work with some cuticle oils as this is part of my hands that I am still not happy with! So stay tuned for that!!

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China Glaze Nail Polish

I recently read about China Glaze nail polishes on MissChievous's blog. I had been looking for a great polish and decided to try it out. The only place that I have found them in Canada is at Sally's Beauty Supply however they may be available from other retailers.

I love the colour range that is available and the quality of the polish itself comparable to OPI without a doubt. The polishes retail for around $7 but if you are a Sally's Beauty card holder you can get them for much cheaper then that!

I have been wearing them for a couple of months now and have already accumulated quite a collection of colours! Using my Seche Vite topcoat which I have mentioned in a previous blog I can change my polish several times a week without a fuss and enjoy all the colour selections that China Glaze has to offer!

Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat

Hello All!

So my next product review is actually a nail product that I am quickly falling in love with. It is Seche Vite's Fast Dry Top Coat! Over the years I have loved to do my nails but simply could not sit still long enough to let them dry and always seemed to ruin them before I even got out of the house. I found fast dry products but found that many seemed to make the polish peel quickly so that I was re doing my nails almost everyday.

This product is amazing, only minutes after doing my nails I can do about my business without worrying that my nails will be ruined. Now I'm not saying go out and do some gardening, but normal activities will not damage your nails. As well this top coat does not make your polish peel so my manicure lasts for several days before signs of damage occur.

The product isn't the cheapest at around $12.00 CAD, but it is better then some brands and for what it does is well worth the investment!!

I give this one a big thumbs up, I now have great nails without the wait!!!!