*Nothing to Disclose*

      Hi Everyone and Happy Wednesday. It feels great to be back blogging, although I'm not sure how consistently I'll be able to get posts up since I am still in the process of moving into my new house. It's an amazing 101-year-old farm house with tall windows, thick baseboards and original intricately carved door hardware. But the best part is there is a room for me to dedicate to a polish room. I can't wait to get it all setup and have everything organized. I'm thinking that I might dedicate a set of posts to it. What do you think, would you like to see how I transform a beige colored office into my own personal polish heaven? Let me know in the comments.

     Before I get to all that, I should probably share a post with all of you. And I thought a double stamped manicure would be the way to go. One that featured roses of course because we all know that I love floral manicures.

     

     It's a simple manicure but one that I really like. It's also a manicure that helped me discover that you can use stamping polish just like regular polish but with fewer coats.  For this look, I used Hit the Bottle Psycho pink as my main color and to stamp the rose image from Winstonia plate W-04 a plate I've used several times over the years.

*Nothing to Disclose*

     Well, the temperature has dropped to below zero here on quite a few occasions lately. It was -14 when I woke up yesterday morning. Which means winter is in full effect, my nails and skin are suffering from the extreme cold and Christmas is just around the corner. That means it's time to break out some seasonally inspired manicures! I thought with the severe cold and snow predicted to hit my area over the weekend it was only fitting to share with you the frozen snowflakes manicure I wore this week.

*Nothing to Disclose/Gift*

     I've had another busy weekend with getting ready for Christmas this last weekend but I did manage to squeeze in a few winter manicures. In fact I've got 3 to share with you today. As I was editing my photos I realized that all 3 looks are very similar and I've got a thing for snowflake manicures. Let's take a look.

     The first look I created I'm calling Winter Wonderland. You  might recognize the base color here from a previous review.  I just knew that I wanted to do a frozen nail art look when I wore Daily Lacquers Narwahl. 

*Nothing to Disclose*

     On Monday I showed you my failed attempt at making my own decal and the feedback and suggestions I got was so great that I decided to try it again. I figured the Hobby Polish Bloggers May link up would be the perfect time since the theme is May Flowers.

     Now this is not my original idea but I loved the look and knew I needed to try it myself. The original manicure was done by  Nailartstampingmania. <----( click here for the original post.)  Here is my version.

     What a difference the top coat makes! What I once thought was a difficult technique is now so easy! I can see myself doing this over and over again. Of course I'll need to pick up a few more stampers so the process goes a bit quicker. But man o man am I impressed with my results. Now as much as I want you all to sit here and admire my work, it's time to check out what everyone else has come up with. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!

*Nothing to Disclose*

     On Monday I showed you my failed attempt at making my own decal and the feedback and suggestions I got were so great that I decided to try it again. I figured the Hobby Polish Bloggers May link up would be a perfect time since the theme is May Flowers.

     Now, this is not my original idea but I loved the look and knew I needed to try it myself. The original manicure was done by  Nailartstampingmania. <----( click here for the original post.)  Here is my version.

     What a difference the top coat makes! What I once thought was a difficult technique is now so easy! I can see myself doing this over and over again. Of course, I'll need to pick up a few more stampers so the process goes a bit quicker. But man o man am I impressed with my results. Now as much as I want you all to sit here and admire my work, it's time to check out what everyone else has come up with. Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!

*Press Sample*

     Last week I brought you the press release for the new Color AMP'D collection from Orly. Today I'm sharing my experience with this new 2 part color system with you.  I figured being gone on vacation was the perfect chance to test the wear time and I was not disappointed. I was sent Surfer Girl and the Flexible Sealcoat for this review.

     

     Surfer Girl is a bright neon pink with flashes of purple micro shimmer. Application was a little tricky compared to your typical nail polish but not so much that it was unusable. It just took a little getting used to. The first coat I applied a thin layer, which seemed to end up a little patchy. The second coat I used a bit more polish and it seemed to even out for the most part. But I still had some spots where you could tell the polish was uneven.  A thin 3rd layer evened everything out nicely. I think if I had started with a slightly thicker first coat I would have avoided most of the hassle.

     I topped everything off with a layer of the flexible seal coat and waited for it to dry. The sealcoat is not a quick dry top coat so I had to wait a bit longer for my nails to dry. After 3 minutes my nails were dry enough to handle a light touch. That wasn't long enough to wait to stamp over the nail however and I ended up with some wrinkles in my polish. But you'd never know that by looking at my pictures. When Orly said this has smudge proof technology they weren't kidding! I added another layer of the flexible sealcoat over my image and everything evened out. Right then and there I was impressed.  But I still needed to test the wear time.

     Over the last week I put my hands through some pretty rough conditions. I was in Northern Minnesota where my kids and I went hiking, collected rocks, skipped rocks into Lake Superior, and spent a lot of time outside in the cold. Not to mention I still had regular things to do like washing dishes, cooking, and giving baths. Oh and before we even left 8 inches of snow fell and I had to shovel my way out on top of scraping the ice off my car. It was the ice scraping that caused my first casualty and I tore the nail on my pointer finger causing a small chip in the polish. 

  

    This is day 4 of my wear test and you can see the small chip on my pointer finger. Other than that I still have a glossy finish on my nails and there is no sign of tip wear. My hands however are starting to show the effects of the cold weather. 

     After 6 days my manicure was starting to show definite signs on wear. After having to trim down the nail on my pointer finger the polish really started to chip. (I know if I hand't broken that nail this picture would have looked a lot different.) You can just start to see the signs of tip wear on my middle and ring fingers. But I still have a glossy shine. Oh and did I mention that I didn't wrap my tips during application? 6 days before showing tip wear without wrapped tips! I say the problems I had with application are more than worth it for 6 days on wear time. What do you think? 

     Orly Color AMP'D polishes are available exclusively at Target in 36 long lasting shades for $9.99 each. Or you can pick up a launch kit containing 1 flexible color and 1 Sealcoat for $14.99. Have you seen these popping up in your local Target yet?  Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!

   

*Nothing to Disclose*

   
     It's Friday! I think that calls for a fun, sparkly nail polish. So today I have just that for you. Ladies and Gentlemen feast your eyes upon Lumina Lacquers Soleil.