Orly Color Blast True Neon Pink

Bold claim, Orly.

I apologize for my busted cuticles in this picture. They look that way because my cuticles are busted right now. Thanks.

My favorite nail polish of all time is Essie's Punchy Pink. It is the most neon pink neon pink of all time. Yes, it had a ridiculously difficult formula, but it literally made my nails glow. I once had it on my toes and my dad told me my feet looked like Miami. #goals

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find another bottle. I've been searching high and low for the past three years and nada. So whenever I see a new neon pink, I snatch it up and bring it home to compare to the dregs I have remaining of Punchy Pink. This jumped out at me while I was cruising the surprisingly lovely beauty section at Kohl's. It's from Orly's new Color Blast line, which has slightly smaller than usual bottles, as you can see. The name? True Neon Pink. How does it stack up against Punchy Pink? It's pleasingly close. Not quite as bright, but better than anything else I've found to this point. The formula is pretty good for a neon, too, I'm wearing three coats with a shiny top coat, since it dries a bit satiny matte.

But I won't stop looking for the true neon pink, Punchy Pink.

Mani Monday: Put Your (Top)Coat On

Part of being a noob at doing your nails is thinking you don't really need topcoat. I myself used to think just that way. And you know what? My nail polish didn't last for shit. If you want your manicure to stand even a snowball's chance in hell of lasting a week, ya gotta add some protection over that pretty color.

I've used a number of different topcoats in the past six years, and I'm here to give you my thoughts on them so you don't have to waste your hard-earned dough, yo.

Seche Vite
Have you heard of this one? Of course you have. This is the be-all, end-all of quick drying top coats. Super shiny, crystal clear, dries in mere minutes. No matter how many different formulas I try in search of the perfect at-home manicure, this is the one I always come back to for its incomparable ability to hit all my musts. Careful, though, this sucker tends to get super thick in the bottle once you're about halfway through, and if you apply it before you've let your color dry enough, you will get craaaaaaazy bubbling. There, I just saved you the learning curve.

Orly In a Snap
Personally, I don't think Orly gets quite enough love as a brand, especially considering how wide the range of products is. That being said, this is not my favorite topper. Yes, it does dry quickly, but that's where the buck stops. The finish tends to dull pretty quickly, and I don't notice any advantages in its ability to prevent chipping over a few days. It's good in a pinch, but instead, I think you should go for...

Orly Sec'n Dry
I greatly prefer this to any of Orly's other offerings in this category. It claims to add shine and resist chipping, all while reaching down through your layers of polish and drying them all. By and large, it makes good, although I can't speak as well to the last one because I really like to give my polish time to dry a bit between layers. It's not as shiny as the Seche Vite, but it wins the not getting weird-in-the-bottle contest.

Julep Freedom Polymer Top Coat
(Not Pictured) If you wanted to spend a stupid amount of money on a topcoat, you could give this one a try. As a long time Maven, I've gotten this a couple of times in my box, and I don't hate it. Its one big drawback is that you have to cure it under either natural light or a light bulb to get it to dry. What I actually tend to do is use a quick dry top coat underneath this to make sure nothing moves while I'm trying to cure it. All told, this gives a fantastic shine and a nice hard sheet of armor to protect your precious nailsies, but the steep price keeps it at more "fun toy" than "absolute necessity."

Honorable Mention
Essie Gel Effect Top Coat
I can't offer a full recommendation of this yet, as I'm just now trying Essie's new release for the first time, but thus far, the shininess factor is undeniable. I'll keep you updated when I've made a full assessment of its pros and cons, but it looks like it might be a real winner.

Welcome to the 90s

As someone who grew up in the 90s, I occasionally get super nostalgic for the terrible unisex fashion of my early childhood. Loosely inspired by all those insane tracksuits that populated our lives at that time, for this I used a base of Revlon Colorstay 025 Seashell with random brushstrokes of Orly Neon Heat and Julep Linden. I'm really quite pleased with it, though the Orly is showing up way more magenta and less neon in this picture than it looks in real life.

I've been finding that I like to use Julep polishes as accent colors more often than a full nail color, which is somewhat puzzling. I'm considering canceling my Maven subscription just because I haven't been particularly inspired by the color choices the past few months. Are any of you Mavens? What do you think? If you're not and you'd like to become one, feel free to use my referral link.

Orly Neon Heat

Wearing loud as hell nail colors probably ranks as my favorite thing about summer. My all-time favorite, Essie Punchy Pink, having finally bitten the dust and proving GD impossible to get a hold of, I'm always looking for another neon pink to add to my collection.

Here we have Orly Neon Heat. Orly has some strong contenders in the neon department, and I am loving their redesigned bottles. When I spotted this sucker on sale at Sally Beauty Supply, I knew I had to give it a go.

This is a nearly neon magenta pink creme with great opacity that dries down to a satin finish. Application was a breeze, it was nearly opaque in one coat, though I did two for good measure. This may sound odd, but as soon as it hit the nail, I knew it wasn't going to be quite what I was looking for. The telltale problem of a true neon is that the formulas tend to be streaky mofos that are near impossible to level out and dry down to a totally matte finish. It came out much darker than I expected it to, and though I do like it for its own sake, it won't fill Punchy Pink's place in my heart.

I can't call it a failure, that's for sure. This is a really excellent summer pink. If this is the kind pink you've been looking for, look no further, it's pretty awesome. You can usually find Orly on sale at any of its typical locations, if not, just give it a week and check back. And Punchy Pink? I know you're out there, I'll find you, baby.

Grow Stronger, You Badass Mother

I realized that I haven't mentioned the new base coat I've been using, which I should because it's really proving to be a BAMF. 

I picked up Essie Grow Stronger base coat a few weeks ago when I had some coupons, as I wasn't satisfied with the Orly base I had been using lately. I guess based on the name that it's supposed to be a nail strengthener. I hadn't really been paying too close attention to that aspect of it, but now that I think of it, my nails have been flaking considerably less. The real reason it occurred to me to mention this base is that it is doing a champion effing job making my polish last. I would say it extends my manis by about 2 days. This is a big deal for me, as someone who typically chips her nails by the end of the first day.

This sucker will definitely be holding a permanent spot in my home mani line up.  Bonus! It's a really pretty pink color, so you can also just wear this as a colors.  Yay!

Strawberry Kiwi

Who doesn't like a tropical treat every now and again.

I am verrrrrrry impressed with the green color, Essie's The More the Merrier, from their 2013 Summer collection. A bright chartreuse creme, it's totally opaque in two coats, and in two days of wear isn't showing any tip wear at all.  This formula is definitely a winner, and I'm loving it so much as an accent color, I think I'm going to be brave and try it as a full mani.

The pink is Orly's Butterflies, which I happen to think is an incredibly stupid name.  But aside from that, I quite like it. It's a bit softer than it appears in the photos, but definitely has enough punch to be a true summer color.

Hope you're all having an excellent Monday! Let's all hope the Blackhawks kick some Bruin ass tonight!

Summer Sunset

I wanted to give some new formulas a try, and I discovered that both Revlon and Orly were on sale at CVS the other day.  Here, I layered three coats of Revlon Brilliant Strength in Sunburst with one coat of Orly in Butterflies. The Revlon has a translucent jelly finish on its own, but takes absolutely forever to dry, so to wear it solo I would definitely do Seche Vite as a top coat so I could get on with the rest of my day.

With the Orly polish on top, which is also slightly translucent, it gives the impression of an intense summer sunset (or a tequila sunrise, however you choose to think of it).

I hope you're all having a wonderful Tuesday!

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

I really adore the sheer volume of tulips in my neighborhood, it's so invigorating to see the bright colors everywhere. Of course, seeing them all inspired to me to do a tulip-esque manicure. I used OPI Bubble Bath for the base and Essie Olé Caliente and Braziliant for the "petals."  Nothing like a fresh and fun manicure to get you past the middle of the week!

Here are some more of the tulips I encountered, I hope one day to have a spot where I can plant some of my own, since they bring such a wonderful lightness of spirit into my life.  What lifts you above the clouds?
 

April Showers and Flowers

Hola mis amigos.

Aquí está donde I paint my nails and do my bloggy thang.  I found some lovely and inexpensive flowers at the grocery store the other day, and I'm finding that they're just the thing to liven up my space.  As you can tell from my wall decoration, I'm quite fond of flowers.  That piece was a simple DIY: all I did was find an upholstery fabric I liked and then staple gun-ed it to those wooden piece you use to stretch your own canvas.  All told, it cost me maybe $40 to do, most of which was the cost of the fabric itself.  Would I love to have curtains of it?  Of course, but I ain't got that kind of money (or those skills).  But this was a perfect solution, and I like how lively it makes my room.

Nails

Base coat: Orly Bonder

Red: Essie Forever Yummy

Pink: Essie Cute as a Button

Nude: Essie Mademoiselle

Top Coat: Orly In a Snap