Category: Nails

Valentine’s Toes
Super bowl, shmooper bowl…aren’t my toes cute?
I took a cue from Lily and picked a handful of pinks for my toes…Clockwise from the top: OPI “Animal-istic” (from their Muppets Collection), Sally Hansen “Hot Magenta”, Revlon Top Speed “Candy”, Sally Hansen “Strobe Flash” (top coat), Sally Hansen “Posh Plum” and China Glaze “Caribbean Temptation”.
I wish it was sandals weather already…
Also…taking pictures of your toes is hard when you’re 6’1. I had to almost get into a pretzel shape.

February Julep Maven Box
It’s that time of month…the time of the month when I ask my husband if I got a box in the mail before I even tell him “Hello.”
It’s Maven Box time.
This month’s goodies are called “The Dramatic Collection.” In addition to polishes, the boxes came with a customizable shade of eye sheens – a liquidy pot of eye shadow. I haven’t had luck with these types of shadows before, but I’m willing to try again. Even though my quiz results revealed that I am an “It Girl”, I selected the “Modern Beauty” box for the second month in a row. I couldn’t resist the Ink Gel eyeliner. I’ve been searching for a good liquid eyeliner – one that doesn’t make me look like a hooker or a goth teenager. I hope this is the one.
As a special treat, all of the boxes contain an extra shade of polish – “Love”, a full-coverage gold, pearl & fuchsia microglitter. I’ve been overdosing on microglitter lately, plus, FUCHSIA!
I’m going to hooker myself up now…wish me luck!
Not a Julep Maven? CLICK HERE to join! Your first box is free with code FREEBOX!

Glinda’s Bubble
Since I will probably be repainting my fingernails within a day or so (Maven Box!!!), I took a quick pic of my paint job from last Friday. Yup, this paint job is 4 days old and still looks good.
I used Julep “Brenda” – 2 coats. In the bottle it looks like white opalescent shimmer, but it looks like opalescent rose gold on my nails. It reminds me of Glinda’s bubble from The Wizard of Oz, just slightly less pink. I love how it gives the appearance of a french manicure. This may become my favorite “don’t have time to repaint for 2 weeks” paint job.

Did I just invent the “Petticure”?
Yes, I totally just invented the “petticure”.
Dottie is a very docile rat terrier, so I decided to start with her instead of tackling the Boxer. I figured speed is important when it comes to pet nails, so I used Revlon Top Speed in “Currant.”
My son, Logan, helped keep her calm and held the bottle of polish for me…and then he went into my room and grabbed the nail dryer. I thought the noise would freak Dottie out, but she was okay with it. I wish I had been able to get a picture, but my husband was on the phone…maybe next time.

No Rules for Lily
Like most 5 year olds, my daughter Lily doesn’t follow “rules” – she has her own style. She chose Revlon’s Break-up (their version of Crackle) as the basecoats. Half her fingernails used the basecoat “Fatal”, but she wanted the crackle topcoat “Attraction” as a basecoat. It actually worked okay and didn’t crackle. She then picked two of her own glitters as a second coat. (Santa brought her a cheapo Color Concepts set, so they have no names. I’ll call them fuchsia glitter and turquoise glitter.)
Again, they turned out very cute…is it the fuchsia?
Next project…figuring out how to paint the dog’s nails…

Vegas Nails
This is one of my favorite paint jobs since I started painting my fingernails again recently. (I had always kept my nails painted…until I had kids. I spent so much time with my fingers in mouths that I stopped painting my nails and just concentrated on toenails…until I discovered Julep.)
We took the kids on their first trip to Vegas over Xmas break and I decided that I needed something snazzy, so I started with a base coat of Julep “Nellie” and topped with Julep “Aviva.” No top coat! For just a two coat application, this paint job went without chips far longer than I expected – a full week. That’s what I love about Julep – it is absolutely the longest lasting polish I have encountered.
Those who know me in person have learned to expect a lot of fuchsia. Ever since I bought my “Furious Fuchsia” Challenger, I go to great lengths to get stuff that matches my car. Yes, I have been called RIDICULOUS on more than one occasion…but I LOVE fuchsia.

Lily’s Choice
Since I only have 20 nails of my own to paint, I have co-opted my daughter Lily’s digits for my experiments. I recently picked up a couple of new Sally Hansen glitter dots at Target for 68 cents, so I had Lily pick out colors to go underneath. She chose Sally Hansen “Hot Magenta” and Hard Candy “Scam” to go underneath Sally Hansen “Green Rocket.” The results are nice…for a five year old, she’s got great color instincts.
I know many nail purists roll their eyes at any product that can be bought at mega-stores like Target, but I have always had good results with Sally Hansen…and it’s relatively cheap.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I now finish all of Lily’s paint jobs with Ta-Da Quick Dry Drops by Julep. A must have, unless you like fingernail polish all over your carpet…





