the end is where I begin

I'm playing catch up with my nail posts...I fell behind due to my sister's wedding and finals--legitimate excuses, right?  Well, it's summer now and I'm back (sort of) and hopefully I'll be able to update regularly.  There are five posts total coming your way--separated for easy linking. ^^

So, I finally did OPI's FLY on my whole nail and, let me tell you, this is a gorgeous color.  It isn't a bright teal, but one with a blackened base so it can be worn all the time.  I love that it's a creme--something rare in my polish collection.  Of course, I had to add something to it so I did flakies then decided it wasn't enough and did glitter tips.  ^^
Colors Used:

• OPI - Fly
• China Glaze - Atlantis
• Ludurana - Chuva

--Cheryl

So I decided to generally be lazy and use one of my many boxes of Sally Hansen Salon Effects polish strips...and what a fail it was.  I used half the box of Pink-A-Dot from the Spring collection and, man, was it ugly on my nails.  The pattern itself isn't bad...it's just that on me it was terrible and I hated it.  I admit the only reason why I even own this product is because it came bundled with another SHSE box of polish strips.  Guilty.  Terribly so.  So what I got for my laziness was ugly nails that turned out to be more work than they were worth--they popped off in two days.  TWO.  It seems the consequences for my laziness went further since I ended up painting my nails FOUR TIMES this week.  That's two times too many in my good opinion.  I'm only going to post two of the four polish changes since the last half of them were simple (white with black konad swirls; shimmery sheer pink with a rabbit on the ring finger).  The second polish change will follow in the next post for tumblr-linkage sake.

Colors Used:

• Sally Hansen Salon Effects Pink-A-Dot
• OPI - Black Shatter
• Ludurana - Trovao
• OPI - Not Like The Movies

I've decided to put a ban on buying nail polish for myself until either jlailin, these_ordinary_days, or ancienthearts come home. This was sort of what prompted me to take a break--there's more than enough here to keep me occupied, right? There's actually two more bottles coming from Nfu Oh (omg, so excited!) and that will be it for the next couple of months. Promise.  Oh, and I just had to recapture Tony Moly's Earth--the previous swatch images did not do it justice.
I've been meaning to get this posted, but it's been a crazy week so far. I've had an early Easter manicure on my nails since Sunday after removing the Sally Hansen Salon Effects tattoo polish strips. Honestly, I probably could have left the polish strips on for another week--there was only growth, minor tip wear, and minor chips, but I was itching to try out some of my new polishes. Before removing them, I swatched a England's Saint George and Ludurana's Trovao over it along with essie's Matte About You.
As you see, the tip wear on the polish strips wasn't too bad for being on a week. The flakies over Saint George were also terribly gorgeous...although you can't really see the holo effect Saint George contains due to it being a weaker holo and the bad lighting. Using a matte top coat also totally kills the holographic quality, but it makes the flakies pretty!
I also recently received my first etsy order!  I'll post pictures later since this post is already image heavy. ^^
--Cheryl