Nail Savvy brand?

Today I’m wearing a brand of lacquer that I really don’t know much about.  This unnamed shimmery baby blue polish by Nail Savvy has silver micro-glitter and it claims to be long-wearing.  I’ve had it on for 3 days… no chips so far, but a little bit of tip wear.  I like this polish…the tiny silver flecks are subtle but really pretty. I bet it would look great with some snowflakes or winter nail art.

I’m not sure where I got this bottle of polish and I can’t find this brand on the web.  It seems like it’s high quality- or maybe I’m just falling for their packaging ploys! LOL.  Their bottle brags of a special formula: Patented ceramic microsphere formula enriched with minerals.  Helps to strengthen, protect and xtend polish wear.  Now I’m curious – does anyone else own any bottles of Nail Savvy?  It says distributed in New York, NY & Wokingham, Berkshire RG…

The real cost of nail addiction?

Do we really save money by doing our nails at home? That’s the question of the day!

My initial argument is YES, of course we save money!  Why pay a salon when I can do the same thing at home!?

But… (there’s always a big but) now that my DIY nail art addiction has spiraled a teensy bit out of control… I’m really wondering if I spend more dough than someone who goes to a salon a few times per month?!

I have a growing stash of polish, an array of stamping plates, topcoats, treatments, glitters, stickers, and the list goes on.  As I’m sure most of you bloggers do too!  So what do you think?  Are we saving money by applying all these nail products ourselves, or are we spending way more than the average salon patron?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!  And since we all like to looks at pictures… here’s a quick mani I whipped up yesterday morning before I attended a family function- I stamped konad M35 on my tips and topped it off with a glittery topcoat.  Quick and easy- only ten minutes from start to finish.  Hmmm…. so if TIME IS MONEY… maybe we are saving cash then??  What do you think?

10 minute mani – white konad m35 on tips and sparkle topcoat

I Need a Refresh-Mint

11/23/12–HERE’S A LITTLE UPDATE ON THIS POLISH: This megalast polish lasted forever!  I got a small chip on the 8th day, so I removed the polish on the 9th day.  I was super-impressed with it’s longevity.  This stuff rocks!! here’s my original post:

11/15/12– Isn’t this a cute name for a polish?  “I Need a Refresh-Mint” is part of the megalast line from wet n wild.   I was a little perplexed when I found it at the store- I couldn’t figure out why they named it mint-anything…. it really looked light blue to me under the fluorescents.  Blue or green?  Who knows, but it is sorta refreshing 🙂

indoors it looks greenish

I stamped a Konad M35 bubble design on the tips to jazz it up a little bit!  I used an old AVON color called Foil Aluminum for my stamping.  I’m sure that Konad special polish would’ve stuck better to the surface of the nail….. but a girl can go crazy buying a zillion shades of special stamping polish!  I told myself that I was only allowed to buy the basic colors for stamping- black and white.  So for some silver bling… I just dug through my stash to find something opaque that might work- I think this avon color did the trick.

with flash it looks blue-ish!

Getting back to the wet n wild megalast- this line has what they call a ‘manicurve pro brush‘.  Because the brush was wide- I didn’t have to do multiple strokes to cover my nail.  I got a clean paint line along the base and edge of the nail without having to fuss too much.  On the flipside, I’m not sure if ladies with very petite nail beds would like this broad brush…it may accidentally bump into the cuticles?  But nothing about me is very petite … so I’m a fan of the manicurve!

Thanks for clicking! TGIF and happy nail painting….

I Need a Refresh-Mint

11/23/12–HERE’S A LITTLE UPDATE ON THIS POLISH: This megalast polish lasted forever!  I got a small chip on the 8th day, so I removed the polish on the 9th day.  I was super-impressed with it’s longevity.  This stuff rocks!! here’s my original post:

11/15/12– Isn’t this a cute name for a polish?  “I Need a Refresh-Mint” is part of the megalast line from wet n wild.   I was a little perplexed when I found it at the store- I couldn’t figure out why they named it mint-anything…. it really looked light blue to me under the fluorescents.  Blue or green?  Who knows, but it is sorta refreshing 🙂

indoors it looks greenish

I stamped a Konad M35 bubble design on the tips to jazz it up a little bit!  I used an old AVON color called Foil Aluminum for my stamping.  I’m sure that Konad special polish would’ve stuck better to the surface of the nail….. but a girl can go crazy buying a zillion shades of special stamping polish!  I told myself that I was only allowed to buy the basic colors for stamping- black and white.  So for some silver bling… I just dug through my stash to find something opaque that might work- I think this avon color did the trick.

with flash it looks blue-ish!

Getting back to the wet n wild megalast- this line has what they call a ‘manicurve pro brush‘.  Because the brush was wide- I didn’t have to do multiple strokes to cover my nail.  I got a clean paint line along the base and edge of the nail without having to fuss too much.  On the flipside, I’m not sure if ladies with very petite nail beds would like this broad brush…it may accidentally bump into the cuticles?  But nothing about me is very petite … so I’m a fan of the manicurve!

Thanks for clicking! TGIF and happy nail painting….

Konad nail stamping

I love my konad nail stamping kit!  Most retailers don’t sell Konad… but you can still get all the stamping stuff you need online at Amazon or http://wowsocool.com.  The designs are pretty easy to stamp on and the results look like salon-quality nail art.  To get started you only need a couple items:

1. Konad Nail Art Stamper
2. Konad Nail Art Scraper – if you wanna skip this you could just use a credit card!
3. Konad Stamping Plate – these around $6 ea
4. Konad Special Nail Polish– but you can use your own regular polish if you have a shade that’s very opaque.  I find that very frosty colors work good too.

scraper, special polish, stamper and M35 plate

There are tons of great how-to videos online if you want to know more about stamping.  Here’s a corny (but informative!) youtube vid put out by Konad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzEuVNvE5i0

Below I have posted a few of my past Konad designs.   The camera on my old phone was iffy, but this gives you an idea of the fun stuff you can do with stamping!