Fit It With Tape!

Good morning, Kitschies!  It's Wednesday...even though my mind keeps telling me it's only Tuesday.  I got some good Mommy-Son time yesterday afternoon with Nate.  We got to go to the park (he was *so* excited about that) and we played some MarioKart.  He's back at school today (for reals this time) and even though he wasn't quite as excited this morning, he skipped off to his classroom, so I guess he had a change of heart.  Mason is doing really well without his binkies - I'm glad we finally took that step.  Now it's time to get serious about potty training; wish us luck!

This mani was inspired by Nailside and her *awesome* tape mani.  She does the best tape manis...I can only try to live up to her example and for my first attempt, I think I did OK. 

As soon as I saw THIS explosion mani, I knew I had to try it.  I wasn't brave enough to try the 2-tone yet, so I settled with a single explosion.

I started with a base of Cult Nails My Kind of CoolAid (original post *here*).  For the explosions, I used Zoya Posh.  Posh is a gorgeous red matte, but I didn't want matte explosions on top of a shiny base so I used ChG Fast Forward to shine it all up.

I had a bit of shrinkage but I really liked the end result, especially for my first try.  Oh, and if you haven't picked up Zoya Posh, you might wanna grab it because it was not available for about a year and who knows how long it'll be around this time!

Here's a close up of my best explosion.  LOL  I definitely have some room for improvement, but I like it!

Have you tried a tape mani?  What do you think?  Wanna give it a go?

Pink Wednesday: Iconic - REPOST

This is the post that got away last week when Blogger was being super lame.  So, yeah. 

Good day, Kitschies!  It's been a day.  Nothing exciting to report other than some light rain showers earlier in the day.  Super exciting, right?  Yep.


I'm linking up with On Wednesdays We Wear Pink again to share a beautiful pink polish with you.

I'm sure you've seen this one all over the blogs, but you haven't seen it on mine yet: Cult Nails Iconic.

 

Iconic is a gorgeous berry pink with subtle gold shimmer and flakies.  These pics were taken indoors with flash.  In the brightness of the flash, you can't really see the flakies, but trust me, they're there.

You can see some of the gold shimmer and flakies in the bottle here, but again, this is bright direct sunlight.

See?  I told you. :)  There are those beautiful flakies and a bit of the gold shimmer.  This color is definitely a stunner.  This is my favorite color for nail polish...and then add some flakies in there?  *swoon*


The wear was very good with this polish.  But, if you're like me, you can't leave your polish alone if you've been wearing it for more than two days.  So, I grabbed a little something to jazz it up a bit.

You guessed it...SH Hidden Treasure.  I love Iconic by itself, and Hidden Treasure is nice, but it was a little too over the top for this one, in my opinion.


I know I said the wear was good, but I didn't tell you *how* good.  I wore this mani for *at least* 4 days with very minimal tip wear and absolutely no chipping.  If I ever need a quick, go-to mani, Cult Nails Iconic is definitely it!


Check out On Wednesdays We Wear Pink for a complete lists of blogs who participated this week.  Happy Wednesday!  See you soon. :)

*My* Kind of Cool Aid

Well, hello, fellow bloggers!  Yep.  It's me, again.  Here with another post for your viewing pleasure.  And, yes...this is my second post for the day.  I'm on a roll!!  Anyway...I've already shared two food-related posts with you this week, so it's time for a mani post, wouldn't you say?

If you've been in the nail blogging community for any length of time, you know that Maria from R3Daily started her own line of polish: Cult Nails.  The first color she released was My Kind of Cool Aid, a great gravender with subtle shimmer.  That sort of color usually isn't my thing, but I really liked MKoCA. 

The application was great - it was really smooth and it only took two coats for this opacity.  The shimmer is very subtle, but it's there and it's really pretty.

To take it to the next level, I added a couple stripes of turquoise and black Art Club striping polish.

The wear on this was great!  I wore this for about 3 or 4 days without any evidence of wear (other than some slight tip wear on my index finger but that's nothing out of the usual).

If you click on this one, you can see just a little bit of the shimmer.  The pictures don't show it, but I think this looks a little more purple IRL.  No matter what I did to the pictures, they always showed heavier on the gray than the lavender. 

At $10 a bottle, the price is a little higher than I usually spend, but for Maria and Cult Nails, I'm willing to spend a little more.  And just in case you didn't know, she's pre-selling her next collection, either individually or in a set.

I still have two other Cult Nails colors I haven't shared with you yet...I'm saving the best for last. *teehee*

I'm in the Cult

Good morning, Kitschies!!  Sorry I skipped out on you yesterday - it was super, super busy at work.  We had a new nurse practitioner start yesterday.  And his helper wasn't very helpful.  And we had EMR form problems.  By the time I got home, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in front of the computer (even though I spent an hour getting various pictures prepped).

Funny little side note here.  I was all happy, doing my work on the computer with my headphones on and my hood up and then my hubs turned off the lights in the whole front part of the house.  I knew he had done it, but I couldn't see him anywhere because my eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness.  I kinda wandered around the dining room trying to figure out which lights to turn back on and my turd of a husband was in the kitchen laughing his butt off because he said I looked all disoriented.  Nice.  See...this is the kind of support I get.

ANYway...have you heard of Cult Nails?  If you're a regular on the nails blogs, you know the deal.  But if you're not, let me tell you just a little bit.  Maria is a fellow nail blogger and she created her own line of polish.  Yep.  Her own line of nail polish!  I was totally down with the idea but hadn't actually bought any of the her first collection.  Don't ask me why...I just didn't.  But then Maria posted that if you bought My Kind of Cool Aid and pre-bought the other two, she'd throw in a color not yet available.  I guess that was the push I needed because I ordered all three.  This is the first color of the collection I tried.

Cult Nails Living Water.  This one is pretty!!  The site describes Living Water as a deep blue jelly polish with ice blue and emerald green glitter.  Great description - I'd call that spot on.

I really like the size and shape of the bottle.  The cap was easy to deal with and fit my hand nicely.  My only complaint was that the formula was rather gloppy.  I don't know if I got a bum bottle, or what, but I mentioned it to Maria and without hesitation, she sent me a replacement bottle!  I think my original bottle was a little off because the formula on the second bottle was perfect.  I was sold on the colors - but she won me over with the great customer service!  She even included one of her favorite recipes in my first order.  I love that she took the time to add a little something special that she *knew* I'd appreciate!

Sometimes this polish can look almost black, but in the light you can really see the sparkle and the deep blue of the base color.

This is a kind of blurry picture, but you can really see the sparkles in the polish.  I love that there's both blue and green sparkle in the dark blue base.

The wear on Living Water was great!  I didn't have any chips or tip wear after 3 days.  I rarely wear polish for longer than that and I was itching to change it out, so I can't attest to wear after 3 days.  The polish sells for $10, which is a little more expensive than I usually spend, but it's a fellow blogger!  I'm willing to the pay a couple extra bucks to support one of my own.  And the quality is top-notch.  There is nothing I don't like about Cult Nails. 

I have the other 3 colors, too, but I haven't used them yet.  I've been aching to wear Iconic and I think that'll be the next mani on my list.

Do you have any Cult Nails?  Which one(s) is your favorite?  If you don't, what are you waiting for?!

OH!  And take a look at my new poll (located in the upper right of my blog).  Take a second to click one of those for me, will ya?  Thanks!

***The Cult Nails polishes I talked about in this post were bought with my own money.  My views are my own.  I have not been compensated for my review.***