Finger Paints Easel-y Entertained

Guys! This polish sucks! Haha! I'm sort of gleeful about how much this sucks, because it looks like pure win in the bottle. Seriously deep, starry, sparkly, navy win! But no, it's just pure, unadulterated fail. My pictures don't look that bad actually, but let me tell you the cons before I even hit the pros.

First: the base looks colored. It is NOT. Second: the glitter is not that dense. At all. Third: This required many coats. Many, many. 4? 5? Way beyond my limit of patience. Fourth: It took forever to dry (even with Seche Vite, my love). Fifth: Cleanup was incredibly hard and little blue glitter got everywhere. Sixth: Taking it off? Even with a scrubby tub and foil... nightmare.

So, what's good about it? After a couple hours of not really moving whatsoever (yes, even with Seche Vite) I am happy to report that this polish dried and looked relatively pretty. Cue my deceptive pictures:

Look! I could not get that glitter off to save my life. Tiny and terrible, even acetone wouldn't wash it away.

Blue for shine, oooh, ahh.

OH, and the kicker of it all? This is one of those polishes, and there are certain ones, that you use once and there's an inexplicably HUGE dent in the bottle. It looks like I've used it five or six times. So strange. Another I can think of that was like this was Sally Hansen Purple Pizzazz. I'm digressing (as usual). I usually like Finger Paints, and this won't deter me from buying others (well, I might not buy another of their glitters without thinking long and hard). Anyway--if you have the patience for what amounts to a not terribly original glitter polish, then by all means make this a part of your stash. If not, please skip it, for your sanity's sake!

Thanks for looking!

Finger Paints Blissfully Blue

They say that hindsight is 20/20, and "they" are right. In this case, anyway. For two reasons, a little planning would've changed today's nails so much. First, I got bored this morning (a day off! Woo!) and had some Fing'rs Edge nails I'd wanted to play around with... and even though my nails are pretty nubby (in comparison to how long I've been able to get them recently), they were not fitting properly. So I glued them all on, for about an hour, only to take 45 mins to soak them off later. Fail. Then, I decided to try out Finger Paints Blissfully Blue, which, if I'd thought a bit harder about, I would've waited to try until my Bundle Monster plates arrived (they've shipped! Can't wait!). I love stamping over pastel cremes. Hindsight. I should've just worn Zoya Charla like I planned.

Anyhow. Finger Paints. The only Finger Paints polishes I've felt compelled to buy were the Christmas 2009 LE's (couldn't find last summers LE's anywhere). They are all gorgeous and perfect, and wore like champs on me. I remember wearing Icy Iris to visit my fiance, and any polish that can make it through a day of packing, hauling luggage through 2 airports and a cab ride, without any sort of wear is pretty much amazing. So I've had good experience with the brand. As you'll see a few posts back, I recently bought a few of the new ones with the B2G1 at Sally's, as well as Blissfully Blue. I think this is LE (not certain), with a collection of 5 or so blue polishes I found on an endcap at my Sally's. It's the only one I felt like grabbing. The rest seemed unoriginal. The only reason this worked for me is that I'm fairly certain I don't have a straight up pastel blue. I do have Color Club Blue Light, but that's much starker (neon). I can't believe with all the pastel madness this spring that almost no one released a straight up pale blue (except Color Club, I guess, Take Me To Your Chateau). The formula on this was good: 2 coats, not perfect, but pretty darn good. Dried quickly. We'll see how the wear goes, I seem to have less luck with cremes than shimmers.

Blissfully Blue:

And, for good measure, with one coat of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure:

Aaaand, well, I know I'm only in the fledgeling stages of this blog, but for those of you who are following, I've made a Twitter account! Add me, I'm @sparklypaints, and I will add you back. (See widget on the side, too). Also! I'm trying to scare up more readership, so do pass the word around. If we can get more followers soon, I have a pretty cool giveaway in mind.

Thanks for reading! :-)

China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy & Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure

First, friends, the nail polish gods have been kind to me lately!!

My Zoya exchange arrived today (minus Ivanka & Charla, which were backordered but are ALREADY on their way!). Last night, I found Hidden Treasure. Yesterday, I went to Sally's because my 15% off coupon was about to expire, and the SA allowed me to use the B2G1 promo on treatments: so I got Gelous to experiment with (I'm devoted to Instant Artificials but Gelous is cheaper by almost $3 and easier to find), a new Seche Vite (on sale for $5.99) and a lone Finger Paints polish in Blissfully Blue (my freebie, I have no true pale blues). This was all for like $10. Today, I got a NEW Sally's coupon for 20% off (check your mailboxes!) and on my way home from a meeting with one of my thesis advisors, I stopped at a Sally's I don't usually go to. Jackpot! They had China Glaze Poolside out AND the new Finger Paints (which was exciting because the B2G1 is only for April and I think these weren't supposed to be put out until May 1). So I got 3 new China Glazes (Flip Flop Fantasy, Towel Boy Toy & Sun Worshipper) and 3 new Finger Paints (Sketch N Etch, Scenery Greenery & Easel-y Entertained) for something like $14? SIX of 'em!

Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure & Gelous.

L to R: Sun Worshipper, Towel Boy Toy & Flip Flop Fantasy.

My thoughts on the Poolside collection: I bought the three most unique to my collection (I'm satisfied with the pink/green/yellow neons I have now, so I skipped the other three). I hope Sun Worshipper is everything I wanted Color Club Explosive to be. Towel Boy Toy seems like it might be in the realm of Color Club Pure Energy or Zoya Tallulah (I got this one mainly because I like these bright shimmery neon blues). My thoughts on Flip Flop Fantasy are below.

L to R: Easel-y Entertained, Sketch N Etch, Scenery Greenery, Blissfully Blue.

The new Finger Paints look wicked! I'm glad they're permanent because that means I can get a few more and don't have to get antsy about it. LE's are a bitch. I swatched the cremes--so smooth and opaque. Shimmers look nice too. Not sure about the glitter but we'll see. I've never bought a "core" line Finger Paints polish before, only LE, so I'm glad for these.

L to R: Mimi, Alegra, Nidhi, Gilda.

The Zoyas, which I swatched on paper look INCREDIBLE!!! The only one that looks slightly lackluster (due to sheerness issues) is Gilda. Can't wait to get Ivanka & Charla. I'll be wearing these soon to show ya'll.

Anyway anyway anyway... PHEW after all that craziness, what did I pick to wear?? Well, obviously I wanted to try out Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure seeing as it's hotter than sliced bread lately. I found it the first place I went! And because I was itching for something bright, enter Flip Flop Fantasy--a neon pink that is slightly orange toned, like a neon salmon/coral. Unique, I think. The application on that one was about what I expected for a neon, but a GOOD neon... 3 thin coats (over 1 coat Barielle Natural Nail Growth Activator & 1 coat Gelous), didn't get gloopy. Topped with 1 thin coat of Hidden Treasure & Seche Vite. And it actually dried.

So, not to add fuel to the fire, but I really like Hidden Treasure... yes, more than my Nfu-Ohs. The consistency of the polish itself is so much better... I find Nfu-Ohs to be a tad gelatinous, even with thinner... and the flakes were so thin and not clumpy... gorgeous rainbow iridescence (though it pulls very orangey over FFF). Anyway... snap if up if you run across it.

Thanks for looking!