LEMMINGS ACHIEVED! (and new ones acquired)

Merry Jewishmas to me! I had a great day, how was yours?

As a rule I try to avoid lemmings. Most of the polishes I see swatched by my favorite bloggers are brands that are impossible to get in my country, and my budget is too limited at the moment to do online orders. (I've yet to see anywhere that charges under $24 shipping alone.) For example: OPI, China Glaze, and Color Club are available if you look reeeeally hard- I found one shop about an hour away from where I live that carries all three, and their selections are limited (plus OPI and CG go for ~$15 a bottle, so no way I'm buying those, at least Color Club is only ~$6). I can get a limited range of Orly at my local pharmacy, which has quickly elevated them to my favorite polish brand. Even Orly has a limited range, but what they do have is really pretty, so I'm not complaining!

Now, MAC is an interesting story- we do have a MAC store at my local mall, and I know they're pretty expensive to begin with, so the prospect of shelling out $11ish isn't as insane. And unfortunately, they also hold Mean & Green, which is a dupe for Orly's Space Cadet, which I have lusted after from the moment I laid eyes on it. But every time I went to try and buy it, they were out of stock.

Until today. I lucked out. They had it. THEY HAD IT. I have fulfilled my longest-standing, most desired lemming ever! GO ME! *flailing around*

My friend Hannah came over to spend the day, and of course polish hunting was on the menu. We meant to stay at our local mall, but after getting high off the success of snagging Mean & Green, we decided to head out to Tel Aviv, where the one store that has other brands is located. Plus, I've been looking for purple hair dye for a month or so with little luck, and Tel Aviv is a great source for finding weird things that no one else seems to have.

To our delight, we found a teeny little cosmetics store practically straight off the bus. And not only did they have a wild range of hair colors with the most delicious purple, but they had something I didn't even know I'd been lemming- Seche Vite topcoat! I had become resigned to the fact that what everyone else considered the industry standard was something I could never obtain. And there it was. It was fairly pricey, but that I had to give a shot.

I'll probably do a SV comparison post with my current default topcoat (a domestic brand called Giora Sharvit). It'll have to wait until I find myself a proper desk job though- working in a coffee shop is a real nail killer. Especially when I'm working kitchen shifts and have to wear latex gloves. Did you know that the powder inside latex gloves is completely ruinous to your polish? I do.

Unfortunately, when we went to the store with the big name brands, I found something both wonderful and awful: They have the new OPI Skyfall collection. And man if I didn't immediately start craving three of them on sight. I mean, I've seen swatches for them all over the place, but in person- WHOA! I want to buy Live and Let Die, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and The Living Daylights. As if that weren't bad enough, I finally saw Just Spotted The Lizard in person for the first time. I know that nearly every single company has a dupe for that these days. I even thought after seeing a hundred and one swatches of the thing that I was pretty over it. But in person, hot damn! I need this in my life.

So now I need to save up $60 to buy lots and lots of OPI polish. Sigh. Too bad I'm too old for Hannukah gelt!

I haven't died, I promise!

...I just have no time frame in which to take pictures these days. And my manis generally don't last very long because of my job. I'm usually working 6 AM- 3 PM these days, and by the time I get home it's too dark to properly take photos.

Hopefully some time soon I will have at least one of the following: A job that is not minimum wage, a job that does not ruin my nails, a job that pays enough for me to buy a camera which takes good quality macro shots, or all of the above.

This December has been "greenicure month" for me, I've been wearing nothing but green. I might make this an annual thing :). To be fair, mostly it's just plain polish, no designs, since I have to replace it pretty much every day. But this week I did a marble and managed to stretch it for two days before it chipped off! And tonight I'm doing newspaper nails. There's even a minute chance that I'll have time to grab a sunlight photo before work, since I'm starting a little later tomorrow.

Anyhow, since I've done nothing in this post but complain, I'm going to wrap it up here. Hope to be blogging more frequently soon!

NOTD and a new collection

I have a holo skittles mani for you today, with a diagonal French over it. Originally it was just the holo, but when it started to show a little tipwear I decided to give it a new lease on life.

Sunlight

Shade 

Unfortunately when I applied topcoat, it smudged the black somewhat and left small streaks on some nails, but I don't think it's too noticeable here.

Due to my less than excellent camera work, you can't really see the holo in these, but let me assure you, it's a fantastic holo. As a matter of fact, I fell so much in love with these particular holos that afterwards I went back and stupidly bought the entire collection. Now that I own all the colors, I would probably use a slightly different combination of skittles here, but I still like what I have on now.

I have only owned one entire collection of something before (Chic Metalix) and I accumulated that one over a couple of months. This is the first time I've bought an entire collection in two days.

Click the jump for details and more photos!

The convention!

So I did it, and it went well!

This past Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday was Icon, the biggest annual Israeli Sci-fi and Fantasy convention. I opened a nail art booth with all kinds of geeky designs. I posted a teaser last week with my superhero wheel, and now I'm back with the rest of my designs.

Sadly, I wasn't able to bring a camera with me to the convention, so I only have photos of my sample wheels. Hopefully next time I'll be able to get a camera! Especially since there were customers who had me do designs I didn't do samples of- one girl did all ten fingers with Disney princess themes- an apple for Snow White, a glass slipper for Cinderella, etc.

Two other things of note, before I begin the picture spam: One, I had plenty more ideas than I actually created, so if there are some gaping holes in my geekdom please forgive me! I'm hoping to have a more comprehensive set of geek designs by the time the next con rolls around. Two, this time I partnered with my friend Hannah, and some of her designs will be featured here.

Onwards!

Starting with the geek basics of course, Star Trek and Star Wars! I wouldn't be the geek I am today without these very powerful influences in my childhood. Plus my parents met at a Star Trek convention, so there's that! It's in my DNA and everything! 

(I don't know what happened with that Darth Vader nail... I'm gonna have to redo it for sure.)

Hit the jump for lots (and lots and lots) more designs!

Coming up soon: Convention, round two!

Hello dear readers!

It's been ages since my last post, mainly because I work at a cafe at the moment, and 99% of the time when I get home my nails are destroyed. Polish doesn't last more than a few hours in this line of work.

HOWEVER! I have managed to do some swatches, which I will be posting soon. And more importantly, I'm doing a convention!

This past Passover I opened a nail art booth at a Sci-fi convention, and now I'm going to do it again in a month or so from now. I've begun preparing nail wheels to showcase my work, and today I'm posting the first one.

This one is superhero insignia, predominantly Marvel because I'm kind of a Marvel fangirl :D I'll probably do at least one more comic-oriented wheel, although that'll be a mix of villains and heroes. We'll see if I even spill over into a third. In the meantime, there are lots of geeky but not-comic things coming up soon- I'll post them as I finish them!

What do you think?

NOTD: Water marble, Loki edition!

So like nearly everyone else on the internet these days, I've been fangirling like a boss over The Avengers, specifically over Loki. Well, specifically over Tom Hiddleston. If you'll allow me a hipster moment, I have kind of always had a thing for movie villains*, so I guess this is pretty predictable for me!

*Before you ask, Usrula is my favorite Disney villian. The Little Mermaid isn't specifically my favorite Disney film overall, but Ursula is just the best ever :D I'll probably do nails inspired by her some day.

Also, I've always been a Slytherin at heart, so even though Slytherin is green and silver, I do love me that green-gold motif. I'll probably do a lot of green-gold nail art and jewelry over time.

On to pictures!

Left hand shade

More pictures under the jump

NOTD: Nubs! And pink!

I mercilessly filed my nails down recently, now they're the shortest they've been since I stopped biting. Why would I do such a terrible thing? Sadly, having long nails sort of interfered with playing the harp. A little. Well, a lot. I hope eventually I'll figure out how to play the harp with long nails, but for now they keep getting caught in the strings and end up making a horrific buzzing sound. And when they get caught too far in, it hurts!

So. Short nails. That still doesn't excuse the pink, but I decided to try it out. It's only barely pink, anyway, it's seriously blackened.

Behold:

Welp.

I have to say, having short nails makes it much harder to be neat. I've pretty much mastered the technique of applying polish without needing any cleanup, but somehow with short nails that all goes out the window. Also the topcoat completely smeared my design. It's frustrating, because I waited around twenty minutes before applying topcoat and this *still* happened!

I used one coat of Orly Moonlit Madness over black, and the silver is a no-name brand which I love to use in marbling. Oooh, maybe I'll try marbling next! It's been a while since I've done that! It's also been a while since I seriously sat down to make jewelry. I should do that too.

I think my ADHD is coming out. Now I'm in the mood for potato chips.