Saint Patrick's Day Nails

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I didn't change my nails at all last week, so I didn't have any pictures to show you, but now I do.  I took off the French and changed to a St. Patrick's Day manicure, but had it not been for a little mishap, I think I'd have left the French alone for another week - it really held up well.  Here's the old one right before I removed it, on the eighth day of wear.

French Manicure on Day 8

See?  I think I could have gotten another week out of it with no troubles, but as I mentioned, there had been a mishap.  There have been just a few times through the years where I became so monumentally uncoordinated for one second that I set a chain of events in motion that resulted in a "What just happened?" as I assessed the damage when it was done, and the most recent of those was last week.  I had a break I've been growing out for a while on a nail on my right hand - I'd glued it and sealed it with gel, and it had stayed for a few weeks with no problem, then I had my moment.  I picked up a bottle of conditioner with my right hand, a bottle which requires a bit of force to dispense the product, and I somehow let the bottle slip a bit and it flew to the other side of the shower, breaking the repaired nail and clearing two shelves of stuff on its way.  The break was about halfway through,and I just taped it with masking tape until I felt like fixing it, which turned out to be a few days later after I broke it all the way off.  Since I'm on job interview alert, that really won't fly, so I fixed it.

I started with removing the French.  I'd mentioned glitter seemed hard to remove - I spent an hour and twenty minutes taking this off, with the last five being spent buffing off unremoved bits.  I used plastic (super cheapo sandwich bags) held with rubber bands to remove after that was successful last time, and that again was a lot easier to do and on my skin.  I just took out ten baggies, ten pieces of felt, and ten rubber bands, wet each piece of felt with acetone and dropped it in a baggy production line style, then put all ten on, and took was less than five minutes.  I waited twenty minutes after applying the last of the acetone until I checked the first applied and cleared off all the gel I could from each nail.  Not a lot came off, so I put fresh pieces of acetone soaked felt in the baggies and repeated the process.  This time more came off, but not enough, so I reapplied remover and waited another ten minutes.  I was then able to remove almost all of the remaining gel, and I was so sick of working on my nails that I just buffed off the rest.  I'm just grateful the local video store had Jackass 3 available to watch while I did this, or else I might have gone into a little fit of rage at the agonizing removal.  I'm also grateful that Johnny Knoxville is a teeny bit older than I am so I can pretend there's anything age appropriate about watching Jackass 3.

At this stage, I was an hour and twenty minutes into this and still had to do a repair and the new manicure, so I was getting drained.  For the repair, I decided to take a shot at my first sculptured gel tip, with extent of my prior experience with sculptured tips being a repair (singular) in the '90's using that Lee nail repair kit.  I'll admit I spent about the first ten minutes trying to figure out which part of the nail form went under the nail tip, trying to get the gel applied to it, then starting over.  I eventually managed to make the tip, which looks fine from the top of my hand, but I now completely understand why so many salons do acrylic, seal it with gel, and call it gel - using all gel was hard.  The gel kind of slowly settles, so it kept getting under the part where the form hit my nail.  It didn't move far, just about 1 mm, but all I had was clear builder gel for this so it looks kind of like those prehistoric mosquitoes encased in amber - it's kind of creepy to look at from the underside.  Anyhow, I finally finished that and did my Saint Patrick's Day manicure.

I'd decided to do green tips and some kind of accent nail, but hadn't settled on all the details.  Since by now, all I wanted in the entire universe was to be finished, I went with what I thought I could do on the first try and did green tips, and Irish flag accent nail, and I just left the rest clear.  I don't think I have ever seen my nails so white as they are now - previously, I could buff and whiten them, but they promptly picked up new stains as soon as I put on polish.  Since polish hasn't been on them in a while, they've stayed nice and white, so I seized the opportunity to wear clear.

My Saint Patrick's Day Nails

Sorry about the icky skin - my poor cuticles had just finished suffering through that removal, and are still at the tail end of healing from the cuts I got on them from using foil for removal.  This close up, and for about an hour after I finished the mani, I was displeased with it because I just ran out of steam when it came to getting the three colors for the flag perfect and the finishing buffing, so I did kind of a half-assed job on both.  However, this shade of green is really nice, and from a normal distance in person, my accent nail really gives the impression of the flag, so I accomplished what I set out to even though the picture's not one of my best.  For interview preparedness, I can put a neutral nail polish over it if I need to.

As for the fake tip, I'm really happy with it and it was completely worth the hassle - it feels just like the nail it's filling in for, even for typing.  I'd planned to just re-glue and seal the break until I broke the whole tip off, but once it was broken my choices were a massive chop (I've been growing the break out from about halfway down the nail bed, and it's just past the tip now) or a tip.  Chopping was low on the list since I just did a big chop, and I absolutely detest plastic tips (it's the same objection as to acrylic only more so - there's almost no feeling with a tip on), so taking a shot at the gel tip was my best choice.  Since it's made of soak off gel, I'll have to redo it each time I change the gel (a realization which almost made me cry when I finally finished this arduous process), but the fact is that I'm really bad at making a sculptured tip, so I don't have any business making one out of regular gel until I can make a good one.  I figure this will give me a few practice tries until I know what I'm doing, then I'll be able to use big kid gel and it'll stay on.

I'm still at the early stage of the learning curve for using soak off gel, which is making everything about using it far more painful than it will eventually be, but I just love the stuff, even with the occasional nightmarish removal.  Now that I'm seeing some of the benefits as far as staining, I'm a bigger fan than ever.

That's what I have tell you about this morning, Dear Reader.  Until next time, love and nail polish to you!  

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Posted in green , IBD , Nail Art , nail polish , Soak Off Gel

The French Manicure

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Thanks for all the kind comments and the emails about the job thing - I really appreciate them.  I'll reply to all, but I thought I'd mention it explicitly since it seems a little empty the 30th time I respond with "Thanks," but it's not and the support really helps and is appreciated.

In hopeful anticipation of having job interviews this week, when I swapped out the soak off gel yesterday, I switched to a French manicure.  It sparkles, but is otherwise just a traditional French.  I haven't worn a French manicure in a while, but I recently saw a picture from a few years ago where my nails were about this length with a sparkly French and I liked how it looked.  In the days when I was an IT manager and unaware of quick dry top coat, my solution to a mid-week break or just not having a block of time available where I could change polish with it air drying between coats was to go to this super young (nineteen year old) manicurist who was exceptionally good, and I'd get a French because she was so skillful at doing them well.  She's apply the white, then go over each nail line with an acetone dipped brush to make the line perfect and very clean, and she was an absolute perfectionist.  I considered that and realized that I do like French manicures, but only with a pretty white tip with a really clean line, much cleaner than I can do freehanding with polish.  I thought I'd give it a shot with the gel and see how I did, and I'm pleased.

I read some tips before this application, as I'm finding out new things just by doing the gel.  One is that it's like polish with respect to variance in consistency - it's not IBD gel that's hard to remove, it's glitters, and cremes remove really easily.  I found a nail tech's site (that is, a site authored by a nail tech rather than one written for them)  with some tips, many of which seemed like they'd complicate the bejeebers out of it, but one I took was to disregard manufacturer claims about gel being self-leveling and to buff it before the sealer.  She also talked about some interesting techniques to manipulate the gel with partial curing, but I just bookmarked it since I'm not at that point yet.

For colors, I wanted a really white white.  I know a lot of people don't like super white tips with the objection that it looks fake, and while I completely agree that it looks fake, that doesn't change the fact that I like how it looks.  So I got a glittery IBD white called Sweet Nothings, and in looking for a pink discovered that IBD Antique Lace had the same glitter and went with it.  I applied the white first, covering the free edge to a few millimeters below the nail line, then I went back with a clean brush and scooted the edge into a straight line  working from the opposite direction, moving cuticle to free edge.  I did two coats, then filled in one of the pink, then one of clear gel, doing a quick cleanup by running the edge of a manicure stick all around each nail prior to curing each coat, and did the final three minute cure before buffing to smooth.  After buffing, I added sealer, cured again, and it's done.  Here, you can see that my lines turned out to be clean and sharp.

French Manicure with Lots of Glitter

I forgot to mention that I Photoshopped the heck out of cuticle injuries (which are looking grosser as they heal) out of consideration of your eyes.  Nothing of the nails or gel is altered, but I thought it was worth mentioning since I do such a rookie job of Photoshopping.  My middle and ring fingers were both cut at the cuticle the last time I used foil to remove soak off gel - after soaking in acetone my skin is displeased, and a scrape with a pointy edge of foil was all it took to slice it.  For the removal preceding this application, I used plastic wrap and rubber bands to hold the acetone soaked felt rather than foil and it was a thousand times easier to get on and to keep on.

So the manicure isn't perfect, but it ain't half bad for using a couple of new tricks, and without magnification it looks pretty good.  I don't really see altering this one too much other than adding a pattern to it here and there, so I likely won't have a ton of posts this week.  I just like how nice and clean a French manicure can look, and if it sparkles, I'll be content with it for a while.

That's the update on the nail front.  I have lots and lots to keep me busy this week, so I might miss posting a few days, but I'll be around.  Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!  

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Posted in Gel Nails , Glitter , IBD , nail polish , Pink , Soak Off Gel , White

IBD Soak Off Color Gel Be Mine

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I decided to change colors yesterday, at the end of six days of wearing Gelicure Hot Pink.  I took pictures right before removing Hot Pink yesterday, but I can't find them anywhere!  You'll see as today's tale unfolds, I was completely out of sorts yesterday.  That means the last picture of wear is from Day 5, and that was yesterday's picture.  There was no chipping or wear at all, and even the gel on the edges of my nails from wrapping my tips had no wear, but outgrown polish has always been distracting to me so it had to go.

Removing Hot Pink wasn't bad at all.  The worst part of it was getting the stupid foil to stay on my fingers.  At one point, I got all mad, took them off, swore a whole lot, then redid them so they'd stay on.  What a frustrating expenditure of effort!  The remover stayed on for ten minutes, and when I checked the first nail it looked like it might need more time.  I used an orange stick to scrape down the middle of the layer of gel, and that made it come off.  By the time I removed the last foil a few minutes later, the gel fell off in one big piece.

After the swearing episode, I should have taken a break after removing the old gel, but I didn't.  At the time, tidying up the shape of a few of my nails using the coarse grit sandpaper-y file I had handy to break the seal on the Hot Pink before putting on the remover seemed like the wisest choice, so I did it.  Quickly, and evidently without comparing the length of nails I'd filed to those I had not.  Then I applied new gel, which complicates matters further, you'll see.

I used an IBD Soak Off Gel that came in a little Valentine's Day pack of four shades called Be Mine.  It's a pink base with pale pink and hot pink glitter.  I went through the preparatory steps of applying primer and bonder, and then the gel.  I did one thin layer of clear before two really thin layers of the color.  This kind comes in little pots rather than being packaged like nail polish, so I used a gel brush to put it on.  The gel brush is a squared off, somewhat flattened, short brush, and the gel itself is WAY thicker than Gelicure.  Gelicure's about what I'd expect gel to be, but the pot kind is more like cookie dough that spreads out.  The down side to that is that in mixing it up before application it's hard to avoid air bubbles, but the up side is that it's really easy to control.  After applying the gel, I put on a coat of IBD Intense Sealer, one of two recommended ways to finish the manicure.  Intense Sealer is not soak off, so I'll have to file it off in order to remove the gel under it.  Here's the finished manicure, with better and thinner application than last week.

IBD Soak Off Color Gel in Be Mine

Want to hear the thought process that resulted in that markedly shorter ring nail and misshapen pinky nail?  After my "it was a good idea at the time" filing, I considered filing all of them, and thought, "Eh, no one will notice."  In what universe is that not noticeable?  It reminded me of something I hadn't thought of in a long time.

When I was a kid, my mom always wanted a dog.  She'd wanted one since she was a kid really, but once my sister and I weren't tiny was the her first opportunity to have one.  She'd try to convince my dad that "the girls really need a pet," which would result in a trip to Fish Emporium with my dad and a toiletside ceremony a few weeks later.  When I was 8, she finally just told him she was getting a dog and went through a process of interviewing breeders until she found the perfect dog, a black miniature poodle.  She'd hold him in her lap at night and pet him, and she especially loved his long, flowing ears.  One day when I was 9, after we'd had him about a year, my sister and I were home alone after school (that was normal), and she decided we should play Hair Salon with the dog.  I was a nervous little kid, always the one standing ten feet back saying, "I don't know if this is a good idea..." and she was the adventuresome kind with bad ideas that could and did result in injury and/or property damage, always answering my concerns with, "It'll be fine."  This case was no different than any other...

I was willing to participate in Canine Hair Salon only as far as having an arm around the poor dog to keep him calm.  She got the scissors and gave the dog a little trim on one ear.  But that made him uneven, so she had to trim the other.  I checked her work, and now the first ear was longer.  After a few rounds of that, she got serious, did it right, and had me check.  The dog's ears were finally even, but each looked like a little puffy triangle with the third point at the middle of the dog's ears, like his stylist had put a Dorothy Hamill  twist on traditional poodle ears.

Triangle Hair

My response at first was to laugh, then of course I got nervous.  I said, "Mom's going to be mad."  She answered, "Mom won't notice."  Even nine-year-old me knew that was ridiculous, and after I finished my nails and saw the uneven ones (there are two others on my right hand!), I had a moment where I simultaneously felt like my sister as she sat there looking me dead in the eye and telling me my mom won't notice that she just Dorothy Hamilled the poodle and skeptical nine-year-old me knowing there's no way that's going to fly.  The lesson I take away is that if there's something I knew was a ridiculously stupid idea thirty years ago, it's likely that it will be at least as stupid today.  Hence my nails.

The complication here with the sealer is that if I file to even things out, I'll break the seal.  If the sealer were soak off, I'd just do that and apply a second coat of sealer to the whole thing, but this sealer has to be filed off and I made an effort to keep it very thin, so a second coat of it isn't something I'd be up for.  Just filing and leaving the seal broken would normally be a reasonable approach likely to shorten the life of the manicure, but I don't want to do that since it would be an unfair (well, useless) product test if I did.  So my options are change it or live with it.

I'll probably have to change it just so I don't have to cringe and say, "WTH, Self?" every time I go to take a picture this week.  I can't believe I Dorothy Hamilled my nails!

That's about it for the State of the Nails and today's storytime, so until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!  

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Posted in Glitter , IBD , Pink , Soak Off Gel