Whistle while you work!

Happy Wednesday, Kitschies!! Why whistle? Because I'd get in trouble if I yelled (at work).

I hope your week has been good so far. It's been the usual here: get up, get ready, drop kids off at grandma's, go to work, pick kids up from grandma's, go home, have dinner, collapse and go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. I will, however, have a change of pace starting on Saturday. My mom, dad and sister will be coming to visit from Cali. I can't wait!! We saw my parents in February, but I haven't seen my lil sis since July last year! They're coming to visit and to help celebrate Mason's first birthday. I can NOT believe Mr Mason is almost 1 year old. *sigh* It goes by much, much too quickly.

Enough of the stroll down memory lane. On to the point. I had a point? Wait. Oh, yeah. Over the last couple of weeks, I've added quite a few new friends to my polish stash. It is quickly becoming a collection (much to the dismay of my dear husband). This post will review my new lovelies.

First up: Goodies from Dollar Tree. I heard through the grapevine, that some Dollar Tree stores, the larger ones, carry some older discontinued products. I knew the one near my office was pretty big, so I checked it out. Low and behold, look what I found!

From L to R: LA Colors Art Deco nail art lacquer in red glitter, Maybelline Express Finish in Shooting Stars and LA Colors Art Deco nail art lacquer in silver. Not pictured is LA Colors Art Deco nail art lacquer in gold glitter.

What's great about these is they were just a buck!! Are they old? Probably. Are they still good? Yep. I haven't used the nail art bottles yet, but I plan on playing with them soon. I did, however, use Shooting Stars over ChG Spontaneous. But wouldn't you know it? I took that off last night before I remembered to take a picture. Shooting Stars is holographic micro glitter with thin metallic blue glitter mixed in in a clear base. Really pretty over a bold color. I think if you used multiple (say, 4 or more) coats, it would be ok on it's own. As for it's Express Finish claim. Bogus!! On the upside, the finish is not very bumpy considering it's a glitter. One coat of Diamond Dry and it was smooth.

Next is a little Claire's purchase. I've been drooling over everybody's mood polish posts, so I broke down and picked one up this last weekend. And of course I had to get two because it was buy one, get the second 50% off. I don't know if that's an ongoing thing, but who wants to chance it? LOL Any little justification to add to the collection is good with me.

L to R: Claire's Mood nail polish in Calm/Wild and Claire's nail polish in Mean Green.

I'm excited to try the mood polish. I was going to do this as my next mani, but I had just worn a similar shade of purple so I decided to give that one a reprieve until next time. Now for Mean Green. I. HATE. NEON. Really. I hate it with a passion. I put this on my toes on Sunday. LOVE it on my toes. But my toes don't see much daylight, so spotty application doesn't matter all that much. I hate that it dries...matte...I guess that's what you'd call a neon finish. With a topcoat applied, it's not bad, though. BUT...I decided I'd mix it up a bit and do one finger of my current mani in conjunction with Orly Blue Collar. I. HATE. NEON. It sucks because I love the color. It's a pretty minty green neon. The application is HORRIBLE. I applied 3 coats and still had blad spots. I applied a topcoat and was still pretty disappointed with the bald spot, so I applied another coat on top of the topcoat and it STILL isn't completely covered. Grrrrr!! I'll be posting about the mani tomorrow. The color: great. The formula/application: horrible. :(

Now a little bit of happiness. I've made a couple of trips to Sally Beauty. Their discount club card is a dangerous weapon...must use responsibly. :)

L to R: small glass cup, Orly Blue Collar, Finger Paints Gossamer White, ChG Blue Sparrow, Sally Girl neon pink, ChG Designer Satin and Diamond Dry topcoat.

The little glass cup is to help with clean up. I have a big bottle of acetone and pretty soon the brush isn't going to reach to the liquid without me dropping it in. Orly Blue Collar is SO pretty. It's a bright blue creme that reminds me of The Simpson's sky in their intro. In the pic it looks more Smurf-like, but it's deeper than it pictured. I did a mani with this color (along side Claire's Mean Green) and I love how it turned out. I'll post about that tomorrow. Finger Paints Gossamer is a pretty sheer pale pink that I plan on using with French manis. Blue Sparrow. Blue Sparrow. You're so pretty in the bottle. But, have I mentioned...I. HATE. NEON. I had high hopes for this one, but I should've put it back. I debated over this one for a while and then decided to go for it. SO disappointed. Not only does it dry that weird neon matte, it's bumpy, too, because of the glitter. A topcoat helps a little with the finish, but it's still so bumpy. To add insult to injury, this chipped on at least 3 nails before I even got out of the house. Neon pink. 'Nuf said about that one. May use it on my toes eventually. Designer Satin = my signature color. I blogged about this one last week. Here's the LINK for that one. In short, love the color, the formula is consistently good like most ChG and the wear is excellent. Finally, Dimaond Dry. I got this because Sally's is having a buy 2 ChG and get Diamond Dry topcoat free. I'm always in the market for a good topcoat and this was fast-drying, so why not?! I used this last night - I really like it. I really sped the drying process. I didn't have those annoying sheet prints when I woke up this morning, so that's a score in my book. And they're pretty shiny. Score two!

So, girls and boys. What have we learned today? I. HATE. NEON. ChG has some great colors. I found the blue creme I was searching for. Dollar Tree has some great deals on old-ish polish. Oh, and...I. HATE. NEON.

Listening to: Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon
Mood: industrious