Misa, Lost to the World. (Happy Thanksgiving!)

Misa, Lost to the World. 2 coats.

I'm not proud of what I'm showing you tonight. I had all these great laid out plans to have this come out like I saw it done on this tutorial by Maria of Cult Nails on Let Them Have Polish. No fault of the excellent tutorial; it was my lack of experience with Gelish that was the true undoing of this disaster manicure.

First, the good part:

Misa, Lost to the World is an amazing milk chocolate creme with a subtle warm shimmer from the fall Wanderlust Collection. In low light it looks like thick melted milk chocolate. In sunlight a shimmer of gold, pink, and green emerges. It's a lovely color. The formula was like melted chocolate as well; it melted right onto my nails. The 1st coat was almost totally opaque, the 2nd finished it off. I had no issues with dragging or bare spots. Dry time was average on the 1st coat; the 2nd took a little longer.

 

I used SuperNail Dried Flowers from Sally Beauty Supply on my middle and ring fingers. I applied a coat of Zoya, Armor and then applied my flowers. It started off well. The only thing I noticed is that the nail on my ring finger is very curved so I really had to work to pat the flower down flush with my nail. I also used a few rhinestones from a package of Kiss Nail Stickers and placed them into the centers of the flowers.

It finally came time to use the Gelish. I have some back story to fill in first: My nail table sits underneath a window; I open the blinds completely to let natural light into the room when doing my nails. As I'm sure you all know; there are UV rays in sunlight. For some off reason the queen of sunscreen totally spaced on that factoid. Today, the sun was shining directly in through the window as I started applying the Gelish to my first flowered nail. About 10 seconds into application I realized the brush was hardening. I tried to save it; I put it back into the bottle as quickly as possible and slammed the blinds shut. I shook, and shook, and shook the house down the bottle. I was hoping, but hope only goes so far. I totally ruined the brush. So, I tried swapping out for another brush; it didn't work.

Now, I've only managed to screw up one nail so far apply the Gelish to one nail, it's not pretty but I'm thinking I can save it and I can get my other flowered nails coated too. I tried. Boy, did I try, but all I ended up with was a total mess (as you can see).

So, here's a tally:
- Ruined a bottle of Gelish.
- Ruined my Lost to the World manicure.
- Wasted 4 hours.
- Wasted 4 dried flowers.
- Wasted 4 rhinestones.
- Total Embarrassment.

Here's what I'm gonna do about it: Laugh it off and move on.

I learned a very valuable lesson today:

Do Not Apply UV Curing Polish in Sunlight.

Maybe I can save at least one manicure by putting my story out there... as difficult as it may be. :-)

So, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. A day to give thanks. I am grateful for sooo many things in my life and I try to always appreciate the things I have instead of focusing on the things I don't have. I am most thankful for my little family; My husband, our two dogs, and a cat. My husband has taught me that love is forgiving, and has a sense of humor. My two dogs are blessings sent to teach me as much as I teach them; Nikki has taught me the invaluable lesson of tolerance and Penny has taught me to see the joy in every moment. Our cat, Squeekie, has taught me that the best way to change someone is to change yourself.

Thank you for sharing in my blog with me. I hope to continue blogging for quite some time. There might be lapses where I can't be here as much as I would like but this is still an important piece of my life and I look forward to improving and sharing many more manis (and random information) with you. I'm all for constructive criticism and team work so always feel free to comment or shoot me an email. I hope to get to know you all much more and I look forward to meeting new people.

Have a Very Happy Thanksgiving and try not to hurt yourselves with all that food!