ASK Rich Sapphire + RA-106

Here is the is the mani I did on Sunday to test out the longevity of the ASK polishes on the nails.  Pictures are from two different cameras so that's why the colouring is different.  I painted on one coat of the ASK base coat, then three coats of Rich Sapphire and topped it with two coats of ASK top coat.  For the ring finger accent nail I stamped on an image from Red Angel plate RA-106 using Konad white special polish before the two layers of top coat.

I don't think the base and top coats helped to keep the mani from lasting a long time.  When I home Tuesday night I noticed that there were a few chips on my nails with one peeling away.

These are pictures of my left hand, I couldn't get focused pictures of my right hand.  My index finger had the peel while my ring finger had the corner chip.

Not very long lasting.  Two days, maybe 2.5 days of chip-free-ness.  I didn't even do anything like crafting or sewing, I just went out to have some wings and gelato.

I'm not sure if it's the polish itself or the base and top coats being crappy.  I think it might possibly just be the top and base coats not being that great.  I did my nails earlier after cutting down my nails and I've already got small chips on three nails.  And I didn't even take pictures yet.

I'll test the longevity of the polish again, but with my regular Seche Base and Seche Vite.  If it's no good again then the polishes are probably not gonna provide long lasting wear.

One last thing to add, my bottle of ASK Romantic Sunset has already started to separate.

No biggie, just shake to mix it back up, but odd as I've only had the polish for a week.  This hasn't occurred in any of the other ASK polishes.  So just weirdness with this one.

Scales + A Couple of Giveaways

Fish scales?  Dragon scales?  Either one would be OK for the upcoming Lunar New Year.  It'll be the year of the dragon and fish is a symbol for something.  At the Asian malls there are various sweets shaped like fish and one of the dishes for new year's eve dinner is suppose to be a whole fish.  I think every Chinese holiday or special occasion tends to have fish present. 

Anyway, for this I used two coats of Quo by Orly in Turquoise Moonlight.  There were some bald-ish spots, but since I was stamping over it I didn't really care, they weren't that noticeable.  I then stamped with American Apparel Gold Flash and Red Angel plate RA-111.

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A couple of really awesome giveaways that I thought people may be interested in.

First up - Giveaway by The Polished Perfectionist

You can win the Hits No Olimpo collection, that includes 12 colours and one top coat.  Click on the above picture to take you to the giveaway.

Giveaway ends January 28, 2012.

Next up - Giveaway by Bunny Nails

Bunny Nails has tons of prizes so the next part is taken directly from her blog.

There are going to be 13 winners!

The prizes are:

1 winner: XL nail stamp plates A, B, C & D (same as magnonails)

1 winner: QA series nail stamp set of 19 plates (QA 1- QA 19)

1 winner: A series nail stamp set of 20 plates (A 01- A 20)

2 winners: 7 QA nail stamp plates 1, 2, 3 , 4, 12, 14 & 17 (Cartoon characters)

2 winners: 6 QA nail stamp plates + 2 A series stamp plates (random selection)

6 winners: 1 Kleancolor nail polish in Chunky Holo Black + 6 nail art sticker sheets

Click on the picture to take you to the giveaway.

Giveaway ends February 17, 2012.

Polish Gifts #1 + Grey Glitter Snowflakes

Long time no write.  Not because I was super busy or anything just that I haven't been photographing my nails much.  I didn't really paint my nails much during the holidays. When I did do my nails they usually didn't last all that long.

Hope everyone had a happy holiday and a good start to the new year.  To start off this post I have a pic of a set of mini polishes of Quo by Orly polishes that my friend Amy got me for Christmas. (Hi Amy, that was your shout out, though you had to wait a while for it, thanks for the polishes.)

Quo by Orly polishes are available at Shoppers Drug Mart stores and I had never tried them before so this set was a great introduction to them.  No pictures of any of them yet, but I will get on it.  Ah I just realized that the bottom of the pic is missing the names for the bottom row.  D'oh.  I'll list out all polishes.

From left to right, top row:
Very Vixen, Mystic Night, Garnet, Precious, Sapphire Sparkle, Cold Stone, Rock Show, Rock Star and Night Sky.

Bottom row:
Turquoise Moonlight, Celestial Star, First Class, Filthy Rich, Red Hot, Wine and Dine, Old Hollywood, Love Game and True Love.

Most of the polishes are glittery or shimmery and seems like they may work best as layering polishes.  However 3 thin coats will get you full coverage with minimal or no bald spots.  The tiny brush is not to my liking, but that's OK.

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Next up nails.  I did this some time last week.

Base colour was two coats of American Apparel Echo Park.  I forgot to include Konad special polish in white in the photo, but that's OK.  Used Konad white to stamp with and plates SH17 for the snowflake on the index finger, RA 119 for the thumb and ring finger and HB23 for the smaller not so well stamped snowflakes on the middle and pinky fingers.  I also did some glitter snowflakes with Color Club Sugarplum, but they didn't turn out as nice as I thought they would.  They kind of just looked like blobs of glitter on the nail.  Topped everything with CoverGirl Boundless Color in Disco Dazzle.

That's it for today. 

Red Angel + SHANY Stamping Plates

A friend helped me buy these plates and sent them to me from the U.S.

First read about Red Angel plates from Canadian Nail Fanatic and the SHANY plates I read about from omgnoodles.   I haven't really stamped with the plates all that much yet.  I broke two nails trying to remove the battery cover from a cordless phone.  So I have shortie nails and haven't really been painting my nails much.  Waiting for them to grow a bit longer 'cause I they are too short for my liking.

There are 21 plates in the Red Angel set, 12 plates with full nail designs, 2 with french tips and 7 plates with individual images.  The plates are the same size as Konad and BundleMonster plates, but they have no backing to them.  Not really a problem I just use some contact paper/drawer liner to cover the backs.  The plates stamp perfectly fine.  The full nail designs aren't wide enough for my thumb, but I take that as a norm.  Some or maybe most of the individual images are quite large so if you've got short nails it may fill up all or most your nail.  A few images might be slightly similar to those of Konad and BundleMonster.  Also I mislabeled the numbering of the plates, they should read like RA 120.

There are 25 plates in the SHANY set, 5 full nail designs, 1 french tip and 19 plates with individual images.  These plates are OK.  Some of the designs here are also slightly similar to Konad or BundleMonster.  The plates are slightly smaller than other plates and also have no backing.  The blue film that covers the top of the plate is very difficult to peel off.  But once you've lifted a large enough section off the edges you can pull it off in one large piece.  A few plates also have random scratches/dents on them, but they don't affect the images, the scratches are often in between them.  Everything stamps just fine, except for the french tips, but I think that's more user error on my part.  The full nail designs vary in size, some cover my entire thumb while others don't.  Weird, but that's how it is.

And a bit of a comparison between Konad, BundleMonster, Red Angel and SHANY plates.  They all seem to have a similar full nail circle pattern so you can compare the images and stamp sizes.

Looking at RA 105 it's not really circles, but looks close enough.  If I ever wanted to do various circular patterns on my nails all at once I've got options to make them all different.

And finally a nail look using one of the plates.  The last mani before the breakage.

Not quite centred, but still like.  Two coats American Apparel Poppy stamped with Konad special polish in blue and Red Angel plate RA 105.