HANDS, NAILS, ETC.

bought some matte top coat so going to play with it today

Have fun! I like it best when I do a normal gloss topcoat first and put the matte on that. Just putting it on the polish shows up all the drag lines and unevenness.

Ah I should've done that. It's gone a bit cack-handed!

I love this pastel mani I just did, so here's an update on my love for fishnets in all forms.

https://31.media.tumblr.com/505605b6e59fb03d0c4913cc5e22a3e5/tumblr_n17iusB01S1s9ce2qo1_500.jpg

https://24.media.tumblr.com/b559e8c2a7874ac25a16f4454b8190a2/tumblr_n0wbt7xUqS1s9ce2qo3_1280.jpg

https://31.media.tumblr.com/7bfd091151d58f740231bfd7dabe81ab/tumblr_n0w0n3fljQ1s9ce2qo1_500.jpg

As always, liabilitynails.tumblr.com!

i like the strokes on the leftmost heart a lot!

Me too! That brush-stroke thinning effect that trails off at the end is one of my favorite techniques, even though those are kinda faked because my brush is now so thin it took like three strokes to build those up. :)

There are nail artists who use tiny tiny pens and who can cut the tips down even more to get inconceivably thin, straight lines, but since I only use a brush I try to capitalize on the specific effect.

oh hi nail ladies I have a question

I got a very basic no-frills manicure for my bro's wedding while I was in oz. I don't know what kind of polish they used, but they did like 3 coats, it's v thick and shiny. they're not gels or anything, I think it might be shellac? but I'm not sure.

anyway, now they're starting to crack a bit and growing away and I want to remove it because they are looking kinda busted now.
I tried soaking in acetone last night but I sat there for 15 minutes and it didn't budge at all.

do I need to go to a salon to get it removed? what is my best play?

Acetone-soaked cotton balls applied to each nail and held in place with aluminum foil is what the nail folks on MUA always say. Are you sure your polish remover is 100% acetone? It may be weaker sauce.

hmm yeah not completely sure. I'll double check

ugh ingredients list has a bunch of other crap as well as acetone, so obv not 100%

back to drawing board. thanks Quincie!

That method has always worked for me.

Shellac is a trade name, I think it's a CND product? Basically I think it is a gel manicure even though they say it's a unique process (probably so they could trademark it or w/e).

Oh yeah: http://www.komonews.com/news/consumer/122994693.html

You'll need actual acetone, like quincie said, and some soaking.

You might want to gob a lot of lotion on your fingers first, because that acetone will straight dry out your cuticles.

yeah p sure this was a knock-off version of shellac

good to know, thxorbit!!

Orbit OTM. Out of all the gel polishes Shellac is definitely the easiest to remove and it doesn't damage nails at all. Some of the others (particularly Gelish brand) are really fucking awful to get off and require a lot more soaking and scraping. I try to avoid those and only get Shellac and one other kind but I can't remember it's name now. If you leave the cotton balls tin foil wraps on for enough time you should be able to gently push the polish off with an orange stick but if it's Gelish or similar you might have to scrape hard. :(

done! there was some hard scraping & a good 20-30 min of soaking, but i got there. i forgot i had a buffer stashed away in a cupboard, so i got them cleaned up pretty well

i was whining abt them on instagram and this girl i know that i wish i liked more but i reaaaaaally dont commented "blah blah i do mine every week it should only take 10 min" yeah good for you sister thanks for yr #protip PFFFFFLLLT showoff

got squavol acrylics... still loving my acrylics!!!

http://i60.tinypic.com/34eylxe.png

NOT THAT

THESE haha

http://i60.tinypic.com/2wd0x8m.png

Ha nice spreadsheet.

I love that nail color!

hey no reason you can't combine the two:

SPREADSHEET NAILS

oh god I need spreadsheet nails. And HTML code ones. I wish I could afford/could stand to wear LN acrylic nails!

I love those obviously! So sexy. My nails are shorter because of so much typing :( Can't quite code effectively with long nails.. yet

Look at this! Somebody do this for meeeeee:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JRZwmG6sKJU/TZhtsUgpJII/AAAAAAAABBg/2Xu0EoHNfuo/s1600/koala+nail+art.jpg

Come to mama.

Yeah! Or you c'mere! I'll letcha sleep on my couch.

Lol I can't even afford to do my laundry. I'm about 12 hours away from stomping on my clothes in the bath tub.

*Bump for finefinemusic*

ha i was just about to do the same

Thanks dudes! I'm sorry - searching ILX on iPhone can be so frustrating! I wrote:

Nails thread not on ILS & no search fnctn in Zing, so.. Are fake toenails a thing? Hear me out :( I'm a lifelong ingrown big toenail sufferer so this winter I cut insanely deep Vs into them to try to fix. It's working, but not fast enough and toenail baring season is upon us. Was thinking maybe I could paste fakes on top of my big toes then paint and hide the bad stuff? I hate bare foot season :( xp

― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Wednesday, 7 May 2014 02:05 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is the third time fake toenails have come up in conversation in my life this week and, yes, they're a thing! I know a couple people that have had them. I'd leave it to the professionals and ask what they think but it's definitely possible.

Yes, you can def get acrylics on your toes! Go to a salon that does it on the reg, though, you know? I've never had acrylics so I'm not sure what they do if there's no nail covering the area you want? But let them advise you on that.

I'm making minimum wage so probably just gonna search out some stick on dudes and do it myself like my teenage years :( I'll keep a backup in my purse for emergencies obviously! Glad to know they exist, haha. Thanks ladies!

(There's no exposed underbed at play here but they're shaped like so: \_/ to poke past the edges on the sides - just need to cosmetically cover the inner bit so it doesn't look like my toes are always throwing devil horns!)

get pink and whites, they can build you a fake nail

also i type a shitload and still have acrylics. acrylics forever. until my nails rot away.

Pink and whites?

i bought one of those X formula polishes from sephora that are supposed to be so amazing and long lasting and it chipped off the second day

i bought a $1.50 (the 2nd one was half off!!) wet n wild polish and it's now 6 days with minimal chipping just at the very tips

Been getting back into painting my own nails again. I just painted them hot pink (Wet n Wild Wildshine Lavender Crème, which is not lavender in the least) and used some old black and white striped nail stickers of an "accent nail" despite having misgivings about whether that's still a thing (I saw a grocery cashier and a random woman on the bus with accent nails recently and decided that was good enough for me) and it's kind of silly but I'm still enjoying it.

The striped accent nail is silly. The pink nails are great.

I tried it previously with this really pretty sparkly red (Star Spangled by Orly) on all my nails but used a shiny top coat on the ring fingers and a matte topcoat on the rest. They both looked good just because the polish is so pretty but there wasn't enough of a contrast between the shiny and the matte to really make it noticeable.

I'm really into the Sally Hansen miracle gel nail polish! Decent colors, dries insanely quickly and lasts a lot longer than regular polish. No lights needed to cure it!

You gotta apply three coats plus the top coat to get smooth finish though

Intriguing. I've seen it in the stores but never really looked into it. What does it take to get it off?

Just regular remover. Even my acetone-free remover gets it off. It might take a little longer if the color is dark.

I think you're supposed to go outside and let the sun cure it too but I usually paint my nails at night so I don't bother. My job is hard on my hands and I can get at least a couple days in before I start getting minor chips.

Gather round let me tell you my tale of woe...

I decided to treat myself to some indie nailpolish and bought three colors from Super Black Laquers - The Bends, Switch, and Spanked. GIS for Super Black the Bends and you can see how amazing that looks. THEORETICALLY. It is possible jelly nail polish is just too advanced for me right now, but my nails looked like junky, uneven, streaky shit after three coats of that stuff.

So I took it off and tried Switch, which is cool but really not for me. It's kind of a greenish black, which doesn't work on me in the least, and I was unimpressed by the holo effect.

I'm going to set The Bends aside and try it again some other time when I'm done being angry at it but I will never like Switch. LET MY MISTAKE BE YOUR WINDFALL. I will send Switch to anyone who wants it. If you want to trade something, that's fine, but I mostly don't want it to go to waste nor do I want it taking up precious space in my nail polish box. LET ME KNOW.

http://superblacklacquers.com/products/switch

ugh that's disappointing - i thought her stuff would be really good!

ytth bought me a couple of nars nail polishes - i haven't tried the metallic purple yet, but the forest green was a lame, flat black with greenish cast like yours, and was not impressive at all. looked really cheap.

Yeah I wanted to like it so bad. I remain hopeful that The Bends and I can reach an agreement. I can't bring myself to try Spanked yet because if I don't like that, I will be too sad. Also I've painted my nails three times in two days, which is ridic and my cuticles are paying the price.

And I don't mean to be like "This is fugly. Who wants it?" I really think switch would work well for the right person.