Kell's DIY Nails

Sooo... It sucks that I didn't have more time to play with my nails this October. If there's one thing I love it's Halloween and I would have loved to have had more time to do more Halloween nails; especially some nail art. Alas, it was not to be so I thought I would revisit my October Nails instead. It's all I got. Barry M, Dusky Mauve Haze Glaze, Party Rockin' Zoya, Opal over China Glaze, Smoke & Ashes Naild'It, Duck Call over Illamasqua, Omen & Oujia Finger Paints, A Grape Catch Duri, Kingdom of Shadows and last but not least my favorite mani and what I am currently wearing... Lucky 13 Lacquer, Fool of a Took! I hope you are all enjoying your Halloween and stay up late enjoying the night. Sadly, I must be in bed by 7:00pm so I can wake up at 3:00am to go to work. Works really cramping my lifestyle right now. LOL Happy Halloween!

2 coats. With Gelous & In A Hurry. I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday because I love that its just pure fun. But this year has been less than stellar for me; I'm just not feelin' it. However, when I spotted this polish on Lacquer or Leave Her! I didn't hesitate to buy it. It's pure awesomeness. It looks like something that would spew out of a zombie. I dig it. The formula on Fool of a Took! was a little thick for my preference so I thinned it out a little using Zoya's Renew. It's nice and opaque in 2 easy coats. I love the ratio of glitter to base color. Dry time was average and I finished it off with a coat of Gelous & In A Hurry. It did dry a little bumpy but my 2 layers of top coat smoothed it out with no problems. This is my first time buying a Lucky 13 Lacquer and I'm very impressed; I love the bottles, the label, and the brush. There are tons of great looking lacquer's on the website with very unique names too. I'...

1 coat over Finger Paints' A Grape Catch w/ In A Hurry Top Coat. If you love dark, mysterious, and interesting nails then you need to add this polish to your lemming list. Kingdom of Shadows is an appropriately named polish and fitting for the time of year as well. The base is a very dark vampy reddish purple with icy blue shimmer. The shimmer has a duochrome effect to it; at some angles you will see the shimmer turn magenta. It's pretty sheer. I layered 1 coat over 2 coats of Finger Paints' A Grape Catch . I used 3 coats on my swatch stick and it still looks sheer. Its one of those colors that looks different every time you look at it. The consistency was great and it applied very easily. I especially love the brush; a flat tipped brush that fans out over the nail nicely. Dry time was average and I applied a coat of In A Hurry to finish it off. It didn't dry gritty at all I just like to use a top coat for durability. I picked this up online at www.duricos...

2 coats with Seche Vite Top Coat. This certainly is A Grape Catch ! I have been looking for this kind of purple for quite sometime. It's elegant and sophisticated but not boring. I love the slightly muted cool tones to this polish. The combination of the shimmer and metallic mediums give you get a very reflective finish without any brushstrokes. A perfect purple for the fall and winter seasons. The formula is very thin but didn't give me issues with pooling at the cuticle. The 1st coat went on a bit sheer but the 2nd coat made it opaque. My brush was a little wonky so I had to turn it until I got the brush to fan out on my nail properly; otherwise I typically like the Finger Paints' brush. Dry time was average. I did have some bubbling but a final coat of Seche Vite smoothed it all out. This polish is from the A Pair Affair Collection by Michelle at All Lacquered Up! So far I've tried out two of them and while they had completely different formulas, consiste...

1 coat of Duck Call over Illamsaqua Omen & Ouija. Check out this fantabulous custom I had made by Naild'It Unique Polish . It's chock full of glitter; Orange (both metallic and matte), Gold, Black, and White glitters in various shapes and sizes. There's even some Black & White Bar Glitter. I had this made for my love of the Anaheim Ducks NHL Hockey Team. It also does double duty as a great Halloween glitter! I layered 1 coat of Duck Call over Illamasqua's Omen (bright green) and Ouija (magenta pink). The formula is really thick because of all the glitter but using a light hand and of course a little dabbing here and there got really nice coverage. There's even some ginormous glitters in here as you can see on my pinky I got a big black circle and a white hexagon. It was like winning the lottery... twice! It dried quickly but very gritty so I used a coat of Gelous and then a coat of In A Hurry to smooth things out. Quite a funky Halloween mani if...

2 coats of Omen & 2 coats of Ouija on my accent nail. No top coat. I'm finally breaking out some of my new Illamasqua's from the Paranormal Collection . The 4 nail lacquer's from this collection were my gift to myself after I went the whole month of July on a No-Buy. It was totally worth it. 3 of the lacquers are brights with in-your-face silver shimmer; A red-toned purple, a magenta pink, and a bright green. The 4th lacquer is a clear coat... They all glow in UV Light. It's really cool in the online swatches I've seen. For this mani I decided on the green, Omen , and the pink, Ouija , as an accent nail. Pink & Green are a favorite combo of mine. These both have the same exact formula and it is excellent. I love how these apply so smoothly; they are the perfect consistency. Not too thick, not too thin, just right. The opacity was excellent as well; not quite a one coater but two easy ones. I had very little clean up and got a nice line at the cuti...

One coat of Zoya, Opal over China Glaze, Smoke and Ashes. It's time to break out some dark and mysterious nails with Halloween approaching. I fiddled around at my Smart Deco IntelliDesk with some dark colors and some color shifters and came up with this; It looks like the Wicked Witch meets the Emerald City. One coat of China Glaze, Smoke and Ashes. No top coat. I layered one coat of Zoya, Opal over 1 coat of China Glaze, Smoke and Ashes and it's pretty darn awesome. Can you believe that Smoke and Ashes only took one coat? It's a very opaque black base loaded fine green glitter flakes; it's fantastic. I'm not normally a fan of black polish but this one is a necessary part of my stash. The formula was also very easy to control and apply. Smoke and Ashes was released with their Hunger Games, Capitol Colors Collection . Opal's formula was pretty awesome too; you can keep reworking it until you get the coverage of flakies you desire. It's anothe...

Haze Glaze, Party Rockin. 1 coat over Barry M, Dusky Mauve. A few days after wearing Barry M, Dusky Mauve I decided I needed to add glitter. In perusing my untried glitters I found an indie I bought quite a long time ago but never got around to using. This is Haze Glaze, Party Rockin. It's a fun glitter bomb full of medium hexagon glitters in magenta, light pink, teal, light blue, and silver. There are also tiny hexagon glitters in light blue and holographic bar glitters in silver. There's still more! Unknown by me until I wore it, there is a blue shimmer in the black jelly base. Wow! It totally took Dusky Mauve in a completely different direction with a blue shimmer instead of a pink one. I'm a bit of a jerk for showing you this glitter because Haze Glaze is no longer in business. However, Haze Glaze was the very first indie polish I ever purchased and I have quite a few of her creations so you will probably see more in the future. Check out Sweet Tart and In The ...

My last care package from Barielle included a new nail treatment; the Intensive Nail Renewal Oil . Barielle's site says it 'Restores lipids, providing flexibility & reducing breakage'. Key ingredients are Sesame Oil, Safflower Oil, Sunflower Oil, Coconut Oil, Keratin, Vitamin E, and Calcium. I'm not a fan of cuticle oils; they work really well at restoring your skins natural oils but I find the majority of them to be too heavy and strongly scented. Whenever I have bought a product specifically called 'Cuticle Oil' I've found the scent way too overpowering. They can also be messy; running down your fingers and nails causing you to leave oily fingerprints all over the place. I am happy to report that this product does not have those issues. First I want to mention the generous size of this bottle; a full .50 fl. oz. Any past 'Cuticle Oils' I have purchased were maybe half this size if I was lucky. I also love that its a nail polish brush; so...

Finally fall is here! Well, not really. We are still experiencing summer heat here in SoCal but the nights are definitely cooling off and I think everyone is happy about that! I normally love summer but it was especially hot this year. It made it not so much fun. As you know (or I hope you know by now) I love neutrals! Dusky Mauve is a very special neutral because not only is it a great dark taupe brown color it also has a soft pink shimmer to it. There is a bit of a purple tone to this as well. This is a dupe to Chanel's Paradoxal. A really great dupe that is cruelty-free ( Chanel isn't really cruelty-free even though many say the company is ). The formula is excellent; thin yet easy to manipulate on the nail. It's nicely opaque at 2 easy coats. I especially loved the brush; it wasn't a wide brush yet it fanned out nicely on the nail. I got a really nice line at the cuticle. My index is peeling a bit at the free edge which is why there are a few bubbles in the ...