Nail Mail Haul + Reviews

So this is my most recent and final nail art haul from www.banggood.com . They're located out of China, and like I said in my last nail haul from them, you're getting the same stuff you get off Amazon but for dirt cheap + no shipping. This 12 color hexagon set on Amazon is trying to sell for $17!! I got it for $3. 

The tiny jars ha twist on lids, as with most glitter pots, and there was only a small about of spillage. I wouldn't even call it spillage, it was just a few hexagons stuck to the larger container. I swept them off with a paper towel onto my glitter laden carpet and that was that. They are about 1mm (sorry I didn't have my ruler out to show you) and they are small enough to stick on to your nail with top coat and not have it be sticking out off the nail in one corner, also small enough to throw into a glitter acrylic mix (pic in my next post). But large enough to tell they are hexagons. The only problem I have with these is that some of them are straight metallic (red, black, silver, copper, pink/purple) and some are irridecent (pink, blue, purple, green, yellow, and clear/white). The only reason why I don't like that is because I was REALLY hoping the green would be a straight metallic green so I could do red/green/silver acrylic mix for Xmas! But I still have time before Xmas to figure it out or find a new green hexagon. LOL.....

These are 10 colors of striping tape that I also ordered... kind of an impulse buy because they were I think $1.50 for all ten colors? I just thought since I was ordering stuff, and everything takes so long to get here that I might as well stock up on stuff.

I'm not quite sure how I will use the stripe tape, but here you can see that it is very thin, but you can still clearly see it's pretty metallic blue color. As I was just testing the size of the tape on my nail and wasn't planning on leaving it there, I must report that it came off very easily and remained sticky, so if you place it in the wrong spot, it will be easy to pull off and move over.

The tape was so thin and hard to tell which color was which

, I thought while I had everything out during my nail mail photo shoot, I labeled all of the striping tape bags so it would be easy to grab the correct on quickly while doing nails.

And last but not least, a new set of double ended dotting tools (whose handles match my acrylic art brush set from my last haul) a wheel of flat backed pearls, and some 1.5mm and 2mm rhinestones, I thought I swore off rhinestones forever but these were too cheaply priced to pass up- I think each wheel was about $2 for about 24000 stones/wheel. And to answer the question you always ask: how do they hold up under top coat? They don't! Never do that! Rhinestones always look best if they are the very very last thing to apply! Even Swarovski crystals- you don't want to top coat those either! They lose their tiny facets under a layer of topcoat and therefore, lose their sparkle.

Here are my flat black pearls^^. Love them, haven't really seen them being sold before. I got these because my girlfriend Chrissy loves everything azn and cutesy so these are prolly going to only be used on her nails- maybe I'll take the red and blacks though. 

Oh yeah and I also got a pair of tweezers for picking up tiny things like Fimo slices, glitter shapes, rhinestones, etc. They were 79 cents each and they work great!

I hope you guys check out www.banggood.com because they are cheap, good quality, and they have free shipping!! Only took about 2 1/2 weeks to get here, but hey, I didn't pay a penny for shipping :)

DIY: Custom Striping Brush

If you don't want to drop $8 on a tiny tube of nail art polish, here's a super cheap (free) and easy way to make striping brushes out of your old nail polish.

You will need:
A bottle of old nail polish (that you do not use anymore)
Nail polish remover
Paper towels
Scissors

Step #1:

Take a bottle of nail polish that you no longer use. (I am using this bottle of white nail polish that is too thick and chunky to use anymore.) Take the cap/brush off and wipe the excess nail polish off with a paper towel. Before it starts to dry, clean the bristles carefully with nail polish remover. I like to fill the cap of the NPR with it and soak the brush for a few seconds, swirl it around until the color comes out.

Wipe the brush clean with a paper towel or cotton ball to dry. Note: all nail polish brushes are different! If you clean the brush off too roughly, you could easily pull the bristles out! So be careful if this is your first time; the brushes are sometimes very fragile.

Step #2:
Using your fingers, carefully split the bristles into two sections: a section that you want to keep, and a section that you are going to remove. I have split off roughly 15-20 bristles here that I want to keep. The less bristles you have, the thinner the stripes will be.

Step #3:
Use scissors to carefully cut off the sectioned you have decided to remove. Cut as close to the base of the brush as possible. If you are afraid to cut off too much, I would say just cut off half the bristles; you can always remove more later.

Step #4:
Test out your new custom made striping brush!! I drop a few dots of nail polish on a piece of paper and dip my brush in it to apply.

This is a really great way to make use of your retired nail polish, especially if you (like myself) have a problem throwing things away. Also, you can make them as thick or as thin as you want so you have just the right striping brush for you. You don't have to be a slave to the nail art polishes anymore. Hope this helps, and thanks for following!

Crazy Ass Nails OMG

I just got a little carried away with my nails and I'm not even going to explain how I did these. My nails apparently DID NOT enjoy this design; THREE of my acrylic nails broke or fell off RIGHT AFTER I did this. Do not attempt this design: very bad luck!

New colors

My roomate brought home a ton of new nail polishes this afternoon including the new Sally Hansen HD polish. We got "Blu", a see-through sparkly medium blue, and "LCD", a see-though bright pink with tiny tiny blue sparkles in it. I used NYC "Pink Promenade Creme" as a base for my french tips and then topped them off with the "LCD". Then I added some twinkle designs with my striping brush in Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure "Calypso Blue" to bring out the blue sparkles in the pink, but I'm not sure if you can really see it in the pictures. Then I stuck some rhinestones on there and topped everything off with some top coat.
I was playing around before I did all my nails and painted this really cute skull, which I later redid on my roomate when I painted her nails. Enjoi.

Ode to Valencia's Shoes

Experimenting with my NEW really thin striping brush to make these white cross patterns. I painted my tips with Wet N Wild "Red Red" inspired by my friend's signature red heels. Nice.

While watching the news...

While watching for potential riots on the news today in downtown Oakland, I was experimenting with some more designs. The first is boring; I used patches of white "French White Creme" by Wet N Wild, maroon "Burgundy Frost" by Wet N Wild, and a metallic light blue/purple "Rain Check" also by Wet N Wild. I just outlined it with some "Black Lace Creme" by NYC and there's some dots on there too because I'm so into dots since I found my new dotting tool. The second is an idea I got from Love4Nails on YouTube. She's amazing; she does lots of nail tutorials on YouTube and is really talented and the way she talks is just strangely relaxing! So for those who haven't seen her YouTube videos, definitely check her out! I made four checkered patches and outlined them with white dots. I used Nicole's "Respect the World" as the blue, Nicole's "Virtuous Violet" for purple, "Caribbean Frost" by Wet N Wild as the greenish blue, and "Burgundy Frost" by Wet N Wild as the maroon. Then of course, as I do with most every design, covered it in glitter BEFORE dotting on the white outlines.