Back Home with Review of CND Vinylux!

I'm not sure how many of you read my (over wordy, super long!) posts versus just browsing over the pictures but I've been away on vacation for the last little while, just getting back home last Monday night. I see all my scheduled Digit-al Dozen posts posted like clockwork so that was fantastic!  Once I got back, I spent the first two nights home with the family (didn't arrive home until almost 10 pm so it hardly counted) so actually had on my holiday polish for an impressive 9 days! My third night home, I took off the CND Vinylux but left my nails bare for 24 hours as I spent most of that night catching up on the over 425 blogs I follow right back to the time I left (thank goodness not everyone posts every day but I really did go back in reader that far!)

While my trip was fantastic, it is great to be home with the family and back to normality! I'll be sharing some pix and polish purchases from my trip at some time, but first, I wanted to share my review of the polish I wore while I was away, CND Vinylux Polish in Hot Pop Pink #121. Some of the upcoming pix of the nails aren't the best; my camera either focused on the nails, or the background, but wouldn't do both and the lighting in some cases wasn't the best (not to mention the strange looks I sometimes got taking these pix from people who couldn't figure out why the crazy lady was taking pix of her nails! lol)! So some pix, the nails aren't the best....but I do have good nail pix on Day 1, Day 7 and Day 9 when I finally took the polish off for comparison/review purposes which I think is the most important thing!

This is two coats of CND Vinylux Polish in Hot Pop Pink #121*** with one coat of Vinylux Weekly Topcoat, taken the night before I left at around 11:35 pm on Sunday, September 8th.  CND Vinylux polish applied just like normal polish; I had no problems with application nor with the brush.  The topcoat was a little thicker than normal topcoat, but there were no application issues and it left a nice shine. The polish and topcoat dried in a reasonable amount of time; I went to bed shortly after I finished, maybe half an hour later, to be up for my 7 am flight (which means, yes, I was out the door at 4:30 am!) and didn't even have sheet marks in the morning!



I followed the instructions on the box so this was applied; however, I didn't clean my nails with ScrubFresh as I didn't have it.

This is a pix taken on Day 1, Monday, September 9th.

****I guess I didn't take any pix this day!*****

 Day 2, Tuesday, September 10th.



 

Day 3, Wednesday, September 11th



Day 4, Thursday, September 12th



Day 5, Friday, September 13th







Day 6, Saturday, September 14th





Day 7, Sunday, September 15th



I tried to get good pix on Day 7 as the CND Vinylux states it is 7+ days without chipping and wanted to show if this was the case....and in my case, I had no chips at all!



Another Day 7 pix.






Day 8, Monday, September 16th





Day 9, Tuesday September 17, 2013.  The pix below was taken right before I took the polish off at around midnight; a full 9 days after applying. There is wear at the tips and my thumb has the start of a peel from when I caught my nail on my zipper on Day 4 (but was still holding on 5 days later!), but otherwise, the Vinylux was still holding up well! I took the CND Vinylux off with acetone as I normally remove polish; removal was no issue at all.



These are my thoughts on CND Vinylux.....FANTASTIC!

While I had minor tip wear on day 4, I had no chips at all even on Day 9. By Day 7, my nails had grown out to a point that under most circumstances, I would have changed polish but to be honest, they still looked pretty good by Day 9!  The tip wear (and grow out) was very similar to when I had artificial nails and would have tip wear after a couple days with them, so I didn't really think the minor tip wear was an issue at all. Overall, I was really pleased how well the mani held up and there was no need at all to be worried about my nails when I was so busy enjoying the holiday!  My only regret was that I didn't stamp my nails or add some nail art but in fairness to the review and for pix reviewing, wanted to leave them without stamping.  In addition to this bottle, I was also sent another, which I'm going to add some nail art to see if there is any stamping nuances (ie, will the stamping polish adhere well to the topcoat). But overall, I was thrilled how well this polish stayed on and know I'll be picking up a few more colours!

Day 1
  

Day 7

Day 9



Here's a link for more information regarding CND Vinylux, which is available at Trade Secrets in 62 different shades and a FAQ sheet for more information.

While I was away, the Digit-al Dozen Giveaway ended and a winner was chosen.....the winner was chosen, verified, notified and responded as outlined in the regulations....she is one happy lady with her $200 in gift cards and has chosen gift cards from a couple of well known polish etailers. I'm sure she will be enjoying the benefits of her winnings in the very near future. Congrats!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for looking!

(Did you guess where I went? lol!)

**polish was sent for review; please refer to disclosure policy

Digit-al Dozen DOES It Again; Day 12, Fashion

It's the last day of Digit-al Dozen DOES it again; today's theme is fashion. This is also the last day to enter the Digit-al Dozen $200 giveaway so if you wanted to enter but haven't yet, please go to the bottom of the post here for the rafflecopter form...remember, it's open internationally!

Here's what I came up with for fashion!

Started with a base of one coat of FingerPaints Black Expressionism, no topcoat.

Topped with one light coat of KBShimmer We Three Blings; topped with SV.

Stamped using CND Gold Chrome using an image from Chez Xmas 001.

Topped with SV (which was the first pix).  

Here's the dress I used for my fashion inspiration...I adore it!  

I made it!  It's always a challenge for me to do so many daily posts and to top it off, I'm on holidays this second week (hopefully you are seeing this on the right day, right time!) and had to do so many mani's and scheduled posts in advance before I left...hopefully they went off without any glitches!

Welcome if you are a new follower to my blog (I hope you stick around!)....... and a huge THANK YOU if you've been here for a while, maybe back to June 2010 when my little blog started......thanks for staying with me despite hangnails, poor cuticles, lack of cleanup, bouts of infrequent posts and everything else that turns followers off! lol!!  Thanks, too, to the other ladies of Digit-al Dozen who welcomed me into the group. I wasn't an original 12 but was asked if I would be interested in joining in December 2012.  While I don't always manage to do all five posts and sometimes even post the odd one late, I try my best....I love that the challenges take me out of my comfort zone....I don't think otherwise I ever would have done a Dr. Seuss mani for example....and I think some of my most creative mani's have been as a result of the challenges.  I strive to just keep up to the other ladies endless talent as there is simply so much creativity and nail art skill in the group......the only nail art I do is stamping and for the most part, have been lucky enough to be able to stamp a mani for most of the challenges but even then, the challenges have been forcing me to go out of my comfort zone by trying to come up with a tape mani for example!  So honoured to be a part of the group ..so thank you ladies of the Digit-al Dozen!!  I look forward to the next year of monthly challenges and only hope I can keep up and be a worth contributor to the group!

Here's the other fashion posts! Hopefully you're having a fantastic weekend.....and as always, thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen DOES it All Again; Tape Mani, Day 11

This is a mani completed for Digit-al Dozen does tape mani's back in July 2013.  Unfortunately, life was busy at the time; I only posted a couple of tape mani's for that month's challenge and never got around to posting this one.......so am using it now!

Started with a base of two coats of Morgan Taylor Super Ultra Violet, topped with SV.  I don't believe Morgan Taylor polishes have made their way to Canada yet....I haven't seen any in my GTA travels anyway. I was able to pick up a few during my recent trip to Las Vegas at the end of June when I met up with a bunch of other polish fanatics (which I still haven't posted about yet.....in the meanwhile, you can see Frazzle and Aniploish related posts here and here.)  When we seen the Morgan Taylor polishes at a supply place, they weren't a brand that was familiar to any of us (IIRC); however, I have since seen a few blog posts about Morgan Taylor polishes and hopefully they will make their way here eventually....or maybe I'll just have to pick up more at the next polish meet up in Vegas!



Placed V shaped nail guides on nails.



Topped with Pahlish ....Stays in Vegas.  This is a custom polish by Shannon from Pahlish, who was good enough to create it for me, which in turn was gifted to the ladies I met up with in Vegas along with WingDust What Happens In Vegas....



I layered it on thickly as can be seen; I really wanted an obvious glitter versus creme line.  These pix really don't do the glitter justice.



Just a little thick...lol....



Slightly different lighting; the glitter can be seen a little better but the base is brighter than IRL.



Topped with SV to finish.



Different lighting to see glitter better.



This is a pix of my right hand; topped with a thin layer of Pahlish....Stays in Vegas on it.  I actually think the glitter would have been more obvious in the tape mani if a light layer was used versus a thicker one, as the V got kinda lost in the mani as the polish was so thick.  Next time, I'll try it with a lighter hand.




Here's the other ladies Day 11 Tape mani's.



Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen DOES It Again; Day 10, Books

I should retitle this post:  Day 10, mani from H  E L  L .....but I'll be nice and leave as is.  I'll explain as I go along...but anyway, here's what I came up with....can you guess the book?

Started with a base of two coats each of OPI Bride's Bouquet and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, topped with SV.  I knew I was going to be adding stamper decals so even though I topped with SV, I waited about half an hour for nails to dry at this point.



For the mani, I had made a couple stamper decals the night before to use; the cat's hat for the middle finger and the cat for the pinky.  This was the first sign of trouble....I applied a layer of clear coat for the middle finger and when I took the decal off the stamper, it flew off and fell into the little lid of acetone I keep at my work station for cleanup.  What does a polish stamper decal do in a pot of acetone....disintegrate immediately! It takes a bit a time to make a stamper decal as you have to wait between stamping, adding the colours and then the topcoat for the decal to dry which is why I make them the night before or sometimes days in advance of using them.  But my nails were already prepped and ready to go....so I started another one and just thought I'd work at it as I went along this mani and hoped for the best. (I suppose I could have just stamped on the hat but I had a vision and a stamped decal is what I was wanting).

So while I was waiting for the stamper decal to dry, I decided to do a multi-coloured stamping of the fish images.  The plate used is for all images is MJ XIII; stamping polishes used are red Konad special polish, FUN stamping polish in Bubble Blue and Mundo de Unas yellow and green stamping polishes.  Here's a quick pix of applying the polish to the plate for the multi-coloured images.



This was another trouble spot that took a fair amount of time.  The green and yellow polishes are on the thick side and quite a bit come out on the brush so I had blobs of polish and trying to fit in into the small space of images that are fairly close together was hard.....I was really trying to do the scraping so that the colours didn't bleed into one another.  This took me a several tries (well, several is being conservative) until I got a couple stamps that were OK enough to use.  Even then, I did have a couple of bleeds from one colour onto another but felt that enough time and polish had been spent on trying to do it better.  I didn't think my nails were wide enough for five fish so didn't pay too close attention to the green polish and got two rows of them...oh well, just pretend they aren't there!  Because I was being so careful too on trying to keep the colours from intermingling as well as trying to keep the colours thin, some of the polish dried before it made it to my nails so the stamping wasn't the best so I had to hand paint in them a little too.



Added eyes to the fish using a brush and black Konad special polish.  I purposely did a brush dot versus a dotting tool to make it more like the book drawing...in hindsight, my filling in the fishes a little with a brush gave the fish more of the book drawing imagery too.



Time to start adding the stamper decals.  This is the Cat in the Hat decal I was going to apply to the pinky.  Keeping in mind that I was working on the hat stamper decal as I was going along to replace the one that landed in the acetone bath.



The rule of thumb for stamper decals is to add a coat of clear coat to the dry base coat  as it helps maneuver it on the nail, so used the first clear coat I found; Orly topcoat.  Added this to the pinky, took off the stamper decal and went to apply to the pinky...only to discover that I guess Orly TC and SV don't like one another because the base polish started smudging and squishing like no tomorrow.  I quickly tried to place the stamper decal without trying to touch it too much as the topcoat eats at the stamper decal too so topped it with SV to apply.  At this point, I was probably two hours into the mani and was fed up...so I didn't take too many pix of step by step as I go along as I usually do as I just wanted this mani to be over! Once the hat stamper decal looked dry enough, added a coat of HK Girl QD topcoat to the middle finger then added the hat stamper decal.  I had no weird reaction and it adhered to the base no issues without any weird disintegration of the base polish underneath, but had some minimal decal smear as it wasn't terribly dry.  Not too noticeable (only in macro!)



Added Dr. Seuss wording and a couple fish on index finger too before topping with SV.



Here's the book cover that was my inspiration.




I thought this mani would be relatively fast to do and while it didn't turn out too badly in the end, it was a lot of time and issues galore.

Here's the other ladies book mani's!


Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen DOES It Again; Day 9, Bling

This is probably the most unlikely *bling* mani you'll ever come across....but it came out of necessity!  My daughter wanted me to do a John Deere mani with her (yes, I kid you not especially being the city slickers that we are lol!) and I was in the midst of doing mani's for the Digit-al Dozen 12 day challenge....so came up with this mani which killed two birds with one stone!

Started with a base of two coats of China Glaze Happy Go Lucky with accent of Sinful Colors Exotic Green, topped with SV.

Stamped using Mundo de Unas stamping polishes in yellow and green using MJ IV.

Added a little bling!

Topped with SV to finish.

Here's a pix of my right hand...I did it slightly different but really liked how it turned out  with the dots instead of the stones.

A final pix of mother and daughter matching mani's just in case you thought I was joking!

Here's the other ladies Bling mani's!


Thanks for looking!