Starry Night

Even if you're not at all interested in art, I'm sure you've seen van Gogh's Starry Night before. Housed in New York City's Museum of Modern Art, Starry Night is widely considered the painter's magnum opus, and it's probably one of the most well-known paintings in the world. So what on earth does this have to do with nails? Well, Inspired Nails makes Starry Night full-nail water decals, and I was lucky enough to get some to review. You can see the thumbnail on the left, and my other four fingers are shown below:

indoors, artificial light

My apologies for my dry fingers and the yellowish lighting . . . I'm still figuring out how best to use the lighting I have available here, and homework (or procrastinating, as the case may be) is still taking priority over cuticle cream, which has resulted in some unfortunate hangnails.

Anyway, I absolutely love these decals - they look incredible on, and I think the ring finger is my favorite. Since they're simply water decals, they're quite easy to apply, and the only slight complaint I have about them is that I wish my nails were longer so that more of the painting would show. However, the decals can't help that I only have nubbins, so I don't hold that against them. :)

Inspired Nails also has a ton of other art-inspired decals, including American Gothic, art from Alice in Wonderland, Monet's water lilies, The Scream, Creation of Adam, Botticelli's Birth of Venus . . . I mean, who wouldn't want American Gothic on their nails? Well, there are probably quite a few people, but I think it's awesome. Now I just need someone to restrain me so I don't buy every single set . . .

P.S. I have a coupon code that you can use to get 15% off your entire Inspired Nails purchase now through October 31, 2011 - NEVERUNPOLISHED15. Also, Inspired Nails is offering half sets of decals for only $5.00!  Half a set is 12 decals, which will do a complete manicure with two extras. That means that with my coupon code, you can get a set for $4.25. Great deal, huh? Now go wild!

*The nail decals were received by myself from Inspired Nails for the purpose of review. However, this will never affect what I say about a product. For more information, see my disclosure policy.

Sweet as Cherry Pie

EDIT: I have a coupon code for Inspired Nails that I completely forgot to post here the first time around. It's NEVERUNPOLISHED15, and it's good for 15% your entire order, excluding shipping. I'd definitely encourage you to take advantage! The code expires October 31, 2011.

For those of you who haven't heard of them, Inspired Nails is a fairly new company that sells full-nail water decals. They have a lot of interesting designs, so when they contacted me to see if I'd be interested in doing a review, I was thrilled. I was asked to choose two designs that I wanted to try, and I picked Mini Cherries on White and Van Gogh Starry Night. I figured it would be a good idea to pick one "unusual" design (Van Gogh) and one more normal one (cherries), though one that wouldn't be easy to recreate - I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd have an easy time making cherries that were that small without making it look like my nails have chicken pox. I decided to use the cherry ones first, because I knew that if I made any mistakes, the cherries would be a more forgiving design to make mistakes . . . also, I would be less mad at myself if I screwed one up, because there is absolutely no way I can paint Starry Night on my nails. So, here they are:

 outdoors, cloudy

outdoors, cloudy

I'm sorry for my messy hands...I've been a bit afraid of moisturizing my cuticles when I'm working at my new computer because I don't want to get it all greasy, but unfortunately that means that my hands look a bit gross. Soon I'll have everything set up and I'll be able to moisturize safely, I promise! ;) I wore the decals yesterday and the day before, and this is what they looked like mid-afternoon yesterday. As you can see, there's some tipwear on two of my fingers, and later that day the index nail chipped even more, so I sadly had to take them off. However, I honestly think that might partly be due to my base coat - I decided to give Nailtek Intensive Therapy II another try after it made my polish peel off a few months ago, so I'm suspicious that that might have been the problem. I'll be trying the Van Gogh decals over my normal base coat to be sure.

Aren't they cute, though? And to me, they're easier to apply than strips made of actual polish, because you can move them around before applying top coat, which makes them stick for good. I followed the instructions that came with the decals, and I had no problems. Unfortunately, my trusty Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - which has never bubbled on me before, even when I used thick coats - chose this manicure to bubble over. :/ I'm not sure, but I suppose it might be because I'm getting toward the end of the bottle and I've had to thin it several times. Or maybe I just slapped it on a little too thickly. 

Overall, I really enjoyed having these on, and I would've been happy to wear them longer. Also, I can't wait to try my Starry Night decals, and I think I might have to buy some for myself . . . except, I have no money. Boo. I suppose I can plan for the future - Burberry plaid? Peacock feathers? Alice in Wonderland? American Gothic? Blue lava? Blue stained glass? Okay, I'll stop - but seriously, there are so many great designs to pick from, so go check them out!

Fashionista Nails in Fortune

Fortune is the second set of Fashionista Nails that Esther sent me to try. Rather than using a silver polish as a base for the decals, as I did last time, I decided to use a holographic polish, like Lacquered Lizard did, so I used GOSH Holographic. The results? Absolutely wonderful. I only took pictures of one hand this time, since the designs on each hand were similar enough that you'd have to inspect them closely to tell the difference.

picture taken from Fashionista Nails

indoors, artificial light

outdoors, shade

outdoors, sunlight

*sigh* I am in love. Remember how I went crazy over the first set? Well, I like these even better. Yes, it's possible. I think this pattern goes particularly well over a holographic polish, though I'm sure it would look fantastic over gold, silver, or bronze as well - I may have to try an accent nail over Orly Luxe with one of the extra strips I have left. This time, I did a wear test, and these suckers lasted for four days, which is longer than my polish usually lasts on its own, and much longer than GOSH Holographic lasted on its own the last time I wore it. I don't have a picture because I'm stupid and forgot to take one, but after four days, one nail peeled most of the way off, and that was it. In fact, I think they would've lasted longer, but I inspected the edge of the decal that lifted up, and I appear to have not covered the edge completely with top coat. I suspect that my hot showers made them lift off, but to stay on for four days is nonetheless very impressive! I told my mom that she might have to get me another set of the Fortune decals for my birthday. She said maybe. :) 

Here's a new nail blog I discovered yesterday. They're almost to 100 followers - who wants to be the 100th? :)

A Polished Life

Until next time!

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town!

Sorry I've been so bad about posting lately...I am really insanely busy. No excuse, I know, but there you have it. I've kept up with taking pictures of my nails, though, so I'll have a bit of a backlog for awhile. After having Incoco Oscar Nights on for a day, I added some holiday water decals* I received to review from Born Pretty. I'd never tried water decals before, but I found them pretty easy to use. I also added a Nailene rhinestone* on one finger because I messed up the decal by using too much water. I put a stocking on my left ring finger, Santa on my left thumbnail, and a Christmas tree on my right thumbnail. Sorry for the crappy pictures and the more-frazzled-than-usual cuticles...I don't know what I was thinking.

I was really happy with these, and I can't wait to use more of my Christmas decals from Born Pretty! The sheet they sent me is huge, so I'm sure it'll last me a few Christmases.

*Starred products were provided to me for review. However, I will always say what I really think about a product.