Polished Lifting

I'm changing things up a little bit for this post. I wanted to start you guys off with close ups of ILNP Mountain View and Ten Fold. There's so much going on with these colors that I wanted to show them off before I added some stamping.


Those flakies in Mountain View are so, so good.


How about the flecks and holo in Ten Fold?! I would love to see more shades like that.

Ok, enough drooling. Here's what I did with the both of them:

Products used

Painted Polish is on the menu today. I can't seem to get enough of Lexi's sparkly creations, so here's Delilah 2.0.

Press sample

Proper hand care is the first step to a fantastic manicure. One of the more overlooked steps in hand care is exfoliation. We do it to our face and feet, but rarely do we consider exfoliating our hands. As someone with sensitive skin, I need to approach exfoliation carefully and with the right products. When Janah of LeeLoo Soap contacted me about trying her sugar scrub cubes I was ecstatic. I wrote up a glowing review of her soap and bath bombs a while back, so I knew the cubes were going to be spot on.


The sugar scrub cubes can be used in a variety of different ways, but I chose to explore them as a manicure prep tool. Let's start off by checking out some photos and scent descriptions.

Lemon Burst

The Lemon Burst has a strong, bright lemon scent that would be best described as fresh. It's not at all overwhelming, which is something I look for in a product like this.

Mimosa

Christmas may be over, but that doesn't mean that I've used all of those shades in my untrieds. Darling Diva Polish Wrapping Paper Coma is versatile enough that it could be used for Valentine's Day, so let's just pretend that's what this shade is for. I mean, if you exchange gifts on Valentine's Day there may be wrapping paper. We're going to just go with it.

Press sample

There are some fantastic shades out for Valentine's Day, but none quite like Firecracker Lacquer's Kissy Face Trio. There are flakies, shimmer, holo, and glitter. As far as I can tell, I think she covered all the bases. Let's start off with some macros so that you can get the full effect.

I Pink I Love You

Vio-Let Me Down Easy

My Heart Belongs to You Holo

I guess these aren't necessarily bloopers, but my cats frequently try to "help" me swatch. More times than not, I come back to my light box only to find a cat inside of it. With four fingers painted I do my best to shoo them out of the box and then lint roll it all over again. Before shooing them out and cleaning up, I usually snap a couple of photos to document the moment. Here are a few recent ones:



My sweet Tiki wondering if I'm really going to shoo her out of the box again.

Press sample

It's completely by accident that I have two Baroness X posts for you in a row. I usually try to space things out a bit more, but it didn't work out this time. Today I have the Valentine's Trio to share with you. The trio consists of a blue, a pink, and a glitter topper.

Hold Up the Sky

Crazy in Love

Go Through Fire

You know when you see a polish and just know you have to have it? Baroness X Fluorofizz was that way for me. It's a bright pink neon with a lot of fantastic things going on.

Press sample

Bliss Polish and Firecracker Lacquer are doing a duo!! It's called the Enchanted Winter Duo, and will be available later this week. I rarely use two exclamation points but it seems rather appropriate right now. There are very few things I get this excited about.

Ice Castles

Periwinkle Twinkle

I wanted to change things up a bit with some nail art. One of my goals for this year was to include more nail art overall. So far I'm off to a sad start considering that we are over half way through January, and this is my second nail art post.

Products used

• Alchemy Lacquers- Flight of the Fireflies
• UberChic plate 1-02 
• Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Cocoa A Go Go

Yes, I am swatching or rather posting polish from October of last year. I don't always get to wear polish right when it arrives because of prior swatching engagements. In this case I actually wore Painted Polish It's a Ghoul Thing on Halloween, but I didn't get around to posting it until now.

It's been a long, and relatively sad week for Bowie and Rickman fans alike. I needed to end the week on a good note, so I picked the most sparkly thing I had in my untrieds. It was a close call between Girly Bits Witch, I'm Fabulous! and their classic shade called A Stripper Has Been Sleeping In My Bed. Witch, I'm Fabulous won because of the multichrome flakies.

This is kind of a press sample and kind of not. The cuticle oil pen was originally a lemongrass scented pen from KBShimmer, and was a press sample from one of the Cosmoprof 2015 events. The oil I refilled it with was purchased by me.

I managed to blow through my lemongrass cuticle oil in two weeks because it smelled wonderful. Considering that the pen was only used for two weeks, I couldn't bear the idea of throwing the plastic out. How Oregonian of me. After flinging the cap in my face a couple times, I figured out how to safely disassemble, clean, and reassemble this style of cuticle oil pen.

Tools Needed

You will need: a butter knife, needle nose pliers, a syringe/pipette/dropper of some sort, an empty cuticle oil pen, and some paper towels (not pictured). Don't try to tell me you are clean and won't need the paper towels. I promise you will eat your words by the end of your attempt.

Disassemble it! 

I purposefully pulled apart my pen before taking this photo to exaggerate where you put the knife. That should give you an idea of where to look.

Start with your butter knife and wedge it between the plastic pieces on the ratcheting side of the pen. The best way to do this is to work your knife around the edge of the plastic instead of prying from one side. Be very careful at this stage or you'll end up flinging the back end of the pen into your face like I did.


Success! The hardest part of this whole process is over.


Gently tip your pen so that the spring and "gear" fall out of the back. Don't lose these!


Next you are going to take your needle nose pliers and grab the plunger from inside the tube. I pulled mine out a little bit so that you can see what I'm talking about. Now pull the plunger completely out of the tube.

Ok. We are nearly at the home stretch. This step is optional, but I chose to thoroughly clean my pen with hot water and Dawn dish soap. I let it air dry for about a day before I did anything with it. If you are refilling your pen with a similar scent, or one that will mix well with the old one, you can skip this step.

Refill please!

I was a bad blogger and didn't take photos of the reassembly -_-. In my defense, I had oily fingers and was home alone. I am going to walk you through this process to the best of my ability. I personally found reassembly far easier than the disassembly.

1. On the brush side of the pen, replace the exterior cap. 
2. Grab your refill oil and measure out approximately 2mL (if possible). If you have to estimate that's fine. Just know that it's better to under fill if you can't measure the quantity.
3. Fill pen with oil from your syringe/pipette/dropper.
4. Now turn your pen slightly on an angle, grab your plunger and push it into the pen until it nearly meets the oil. Some oil will spill out into your cap through the brush, and that's ok. 
5. Once your plunger is in its place, tilt your pen so that it's parallel. If the oil stays inside the chamber you are almost done. If it leaks you need to pull back the plunger, wipe the oil off of the plunger end, and try step four again.
6. Now replace the rest of the parts in the reverse order of which they came out. When you replace the gear make sure the "teeth" are facing toward the plunger and that they fit inside of the ratcheting piece. It needs to be done the right way otherwise it will not ratchet. After the gear is replaced you can replace spring, then the cap. The cap may be hard to replace, but it will go back on.
7. Turn your pen so that the brush side points toward the ceiling. You want to twist ratcheting end to get most of the air out. Ideally, you want no larger of a bubble than what you can see in the photo below. The idea is to create a seal which keeps the oil in. If you leave too much air, your oil will leak out through the brush over time

Conclusion