Fun WIth Layering Wednesday: Gray by Gray and Star

Happy Wednesday? I've got one more final left to take tomorrow and some end of semester work to finish this week and then I can breathe for like one minute haha. Next week I start more classes and the 2 baseball radio and webshows I co-host start up. Phew! But I do have a cool thing planned for this weekend - it looks like Mimi from Makeup Withdrawal and I may be meeting up for a nail polish playdate!


I've got another Fun With Layering Wednesday post for you today, using Sally Hansen - Gray by Gray from the Complete Salon Manicure line. In case you want to check it out on it's own and missed my post about it the other day, here is the link.



sunlight


shade


inside


I used two coats of Revlon - Star overtop of Gray by Gray. I think the glitter in Star really works well with Gray by Gray, the colors work really nicely together. I'm not super into the random hex glitter in the polish, I need to figure out a way to make it a little more symmetrical or something next time I use it. The polish Star has special meaning for me though, a few months ago when one of my cats Starlight passed away, a really really sweet MUA-er sent me this polish to cheer me up. She included a poem and a little note with it too which was so wonderful. Do you have any polishes with special meanings to you like I do with Revlon - Star?

Gray by Gray

I'm so excited that we got sunshine here TWO days in a row! No, I don't live in Alaska haha, but the east coast has been rocked with gross overcast weather and a lot of snow and rain the last few weeks and there hasn't been sun for weeks. So I haven't been swatching in a few weeks and that made me sad. (Having no sun isn't an excuse for not posting much of late, I have plenty back-logged on my computer, it's just been hectic lately). But I've got a bunch of posts set up for the next few weeks so stick with me :)

Today I'll be showing you Sally Hansen - Gray by Gray, which is from the Complete Salon Manicure line. It drives me absolutely crazy that Sally Hansen has 8947493647 different "lines" of nail polish and that every bottle is a totally different shape. Add in the fact that their distribution plan seems ridiculously random... but I digress.

sunlight

shade

indoors

Gray by Gray sat in my untrieds for a looong time. I picked it up when it first came out and then it just sat, never really calling my name. I'm glad I finally did try it though because it sure is pretty. A kind of dusty blue-gray slate color. I'd much rather see this color on my nails than in the the weather outside haha. Gray by Gray is so easy to work with too; 2 coats of creamy goodness. I hope it's sunnier where you live right now!

Also, just a heads up, under the About Me section on the right side of my blog, I've added some new pages. My Stash spreadsheet and Contact Info are both there now, as well as my Wishlist/Swapping Info. I also will have a new giveaway up soon, so keep an eye out for that!

Festive!

Hi again! Second post today... told you I was playing catch up here haha. I just finished my radio show and I'm sneaking in really quick to show you a perfect holiday mani that Alexandra just did! And it's super easy, I promise.

base colors
close - up of some of the stickers

finished product!

Alexandra alternated Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Emerald City and Orly - Bus Stop Crimson for the green and red base colors. And then topped it off with some holiday Cina nail stickers from Sally's Beauty Supply. I think most of the time you can find these seasonal style stickers by the registers at Sally's if you want to pick some up to try this yourself!

I love it! I need to get to Sally's to get a pack of these stickers, they are so adorable :) Thanks again Alexandra!! Have any of you started doing holiday manis yet?

I Have Concrete Evidence That This Is A Pretty Polish

Sally Hansen - Concrete doesn't really look like concrete to me, and that's a good thing. This was a part of the last "limited edition" Xtreme Wear release. It came out with the much coveted Mystic Lilac (which I will be showing you another day.) This color initially didn't really jump out at me, and it wasn't until I saw a display for the second or third time that I picked this up. Mainly because it was purple and I think I had a coupon haha. But oh man am I glad I did!

sunlight

shade

indoors

This a really nice gray-ed out purple with hints of pink. Very interesting neutral color. Application was good, two coats and you're good to go. This is like the little sister of colors like OPI- Parlez-Vous OPI? and Confetti - Moonstruck. A nice color for work, job interviews, or any other places you would need a neutral nail look.

A Hidden Treasure of Diamond Cosmetics

I've had such a gnarly 2 days. My next door neighbors were having people digging in their front yard looking for the water on/off thingy. Very technical soundng right? Haha I'm not totally clear on what they were attempting to do, just on how it affected my life. Long story short, the workers cut the cord that controls my internet, tv, AND phone (silly me for bundling my services with one company!) at 11 am yesterday. After several phone calls someone came to fix it this morning around 10 (originally they said they wouldn't come til SATURDAY..because I don't need a phone or anything). By noon today, the same worker crew had cut the cord AGAIN. I couldn't make this stuff up, my goodness. So finally around 4 I had services again and the workers were gone and I could breathe a sigh of relief. But I had no way to post yesterday, so today I'm giving you twice as much!

I'm done venting now :) Let's move on to pretty picture shall we? I've got another Diamond Cosmetics nail polish to show you, Don't Teal My Heart Away; which I looooooove. But for some reason, it made my camera insane... so these pictures are way way greener than it is in real life. This is a true teal in person, much bluer than these pictures reflect. So make a little mental adjustment, kay? Great!

sunlight

shade

inside and closer to the actual color

Now how about some Hidden Treasure on top? Yes please!

wheeeee, flakies in the sun!

shade - look at the colors!

inside!

I also showed you Don't Teal My Heart Away in the very first Fun With Layering Wednesday, with Sinful- Nail Junkie on top (another magical layering combo). I really like working with this color because it's so opaque in just 1-2 coats so it's easy to use and it's gorgeous! Once I got my hands on this I stopped buying teals like crazy...I used to buy pretty much everyone that came my way but now I think long and hard about it. Mainly because this is my perfect teal creme, so reach for it the most, so why mess with that? :)

Do you have any go-to colors for layering for a favorite polish for one kind type of color, like me and teal? Let me know in your comment!

Fun With Layering Wednesday!

It's Wednesday already again... I feel like that week went by so fast! But I think I've found the only color that Sally Hansen - Hidden Treasure does NOT look good layered over. Yes, there actually is one. And I'm going to show it to you.

Essie- Sag Harbor with Hidden Treasure on top





Sorry I had to squish my fingers up to get the light to hit my nails in the right way to really show Hidden Treasure. This manicure kind of looks scaley right? Not such a good look in my opinion. What's weird is that Hidden Treasure looks good over other light colors... over white it looks like Opals! And I wore it over China Glaze - Something Sweet for a wedding I was in last month. (Demure enough for a bridesmaid but interesting enough looking to keep me happy haha).

I really thought this was going to work. In theory it was an awesome idea. Sag Harbor is one of my favorite polishes of all time. Hidden Treasure is chock full of flakey goodness. Maybe it was too much of a good thing to put these two together?

But since those pictures weren't very exciting, here's some bonus Sag Harbor pictures! Yay bonus pictures!




This is inside and yikes did I catch the worst possible angle for it haha, excuse my hasty and not so hot clean up here.

Like I said, Sag Harbor is one of my favorite polishes. I like it so much I went and bought it's L'oreal counterpart, High Tide, so I'd have a back up bottle. The Essie North Fork Collection is what really started my nail polish addiction. When I googled it to find swatches I discovered the wonderful world of nail blogs and never looked back :) I have the other two polishes from that collection (Shelter Island and Greenport) which I will show you all together at some point in the future!

I hope everyone is staying cool; it's disgustingly hot still in New Jersey. Now I'm off to finish two articles for the hockey site I write for!