Empties

I have some empties pictures that have been sitting in a folder on my computer for a while, so I think it's time to post these if I'm ever going to. They're just random stuff - mostly not nail polish. I hardly ever use up nail polish other than maybe base or top-coat or treatment products. (There is one nail product down at the bottom, here.)

This is expensive but it's a really good product: Briogeo's Don't Despair, Repair! conditioning mask:

Some of these are premium samples. This is another product that I really like, and I bought a small size of it and then a larger size. The Pep-Start products seem to be very reasonably priced - not much more expensive than similar drugstore products, at least for the moisturizer.

This is a Caviar (hair) cream sample that I've had for a good while. The brand here is Alterna, I believe, and  it looks from that link at Ulta that they've changed their packaging and I don't see that exact product offhand. But I'm sure there's still something similar. It's a good product, but I don't normally pay these premium prices for hair products (the Briogeo up above being my one-time exception).

(I take it back - here it is at Sephora. I imagine Ulta has it too. Sometimes Ulta's website is not the easiest thing to navigate.)

This is a full-size product that I bought at Sephora a couple of years ago - I believe I had had a sample of it back when I was getting Sephora boxes. I've never been sure if a "detoxifying" cleanser is really what my face needed, but I liked this cleanser and I only used it once or twice a week when I washed my hair, which is why it lasted so long. I really recommend it though, a tiny bit of it goes a long way and it didn't dry out my skin.

Oh, look, there's a nail product after all - Cuccio base coat. I actually liked this a lot and I would totally buy it again later on.

(I'm sure you can get Cuccio products other places but I've only ever bought it from HB Beauty Bar.)

Sephora - birthday plus NailsInc

April is my birthday month, and if you're a Beauty Insider at Sephora (which you should be if you shop at Sephora at all), you always get a little birthday gift. I'm still at the VIB level, at least for this year, so I got some extra options. There were one or two little sets, or there was the option to just get Sephora points instead of picking from their designated birthday sets. I'm never in love with their picks, really, so I looked at the options and went in the end for the 250 extra points, as I figured I would. Then I looked at what was available in the Rewards Bazaar and promptly spent the whole 250 points on samples - two 100-point skincare samples and one 50-point one. I also bought this Nails Inc base-coat and treatment, which I really like. It makes your nails feel really good.

So we have a Sephora moisturizer (which was the 50-point one), The Ren Evercalm mini which is my very favorite moisturizer to carry in my purse, and the Lancome Genifique which is basically a serum (they call it a "youth activating concentrate"):

NOTD: Stone of Reality

I tend to forget until too late to wear my appropriate fandom polishes to the appropriate movie, but I remembered for Endgame. This is Stone of Reality:

I wore it last summer and I liked it but didn't really love it. This time I decided maybe it needed an undercoat, and so I put a red creme polish underneath, and that helped a great deal. I even tweeted a picture of it from the theater right before the lights went all the way down.

This is a really sparkly microglitter. It is a "real" glitter, not a flakie or anything, so it goes on with some texture, and I assume it will be a little bit of trouble to get off. But I think it was totally worth it. (I'm toying with the idea of buying some more - the infinity stones are all still available, right now.)


And just for the record, this is approximately how many coats of polish are on my nails right now:

1. base-coat (whatever I happened to grab at the time - I've been alternating between a really old discontinued Revlon one and a brand-new NailsInc treatment one)
2. red creme - I'm pretty sure it was Wet n Wild Red Red
3. and also
4. two coats (I think) of Stone of Reality (if it wasn't two it was three!)
5. Gelous - just to make sure it was nice and smooth
6. NailsIncSuperfood

Nail care: base-coats

It goes almost without saying that I use base-coat and top-coat religiously, right?  You could go without it if you wanted to, but using both really extends your manicure-life in a big way.  And also base-coat helps reduce staining, although nothing I've tried seems to eliminate it completely.  But there's no question that they're worth bothering with unless you're really in a tearing hurry.  I tend to do my nails sitting in the living room at night, near the TV and the computer, and I usually do things layer by layer with a good bit of time in between.  I try to let every layer dry completely before I go on to the next, if possible.



Note that I don't think that the "complete care" kind of combination base- and top-coats work as well as the separate ones. They have different functions and I think they benefit from specialized formulas for each. Most reviews I've seen seem to agree with me.

(People spell "base-coat" and "top-coat" several different ways, and you'll probably find all of them on this blog if you look hard enough. One word, two words, or hyphenated? I don't think any of them are right or wrong. I just picked hyphenated, finally, and have tried to stick with it. I still forget sometimes, though.)

Oh, and I have not had good luck with peel-off base-coats, so you won't find any of those here. I get annoyed when my nail polish randomly pops off within the first hour.

I poked around in my spreadsheet and the "base-coat" tag on this blog, and here are all the base-coats I can find that I've used in recent years:

Base-coats that are still available (as far as I know) & work well, in my experience:

• Bridge the Ridge (American Classics) - ridge-filler
• Butter London Nail Foundation  - expensive but goes a long way
• Cuccio
• Instant Artificials (Salon Science) - this is a hardener but it works pretty well as a base-coat, too, unlike most other hardeners
• NailsInc Superfood
• Orly Bonder
• Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure 
• Sinful Colors
• Zoya Get Even (ridge-filler that's a bit too goopy for my taste, although it's useable)

No longer available, but I liked them:

• Chick Polish's base coat
• Revlon Colorstay (old formula)
• Sally Hansen Insta-Grip

Up next: top-coats

Stash: base-coats

Frankly, I picked base-coats to go first before top-coats because I have fewer of them, and therefore it's not so daunting to do. I'm not sure why I have fewer - to some degree this seems like a chicken-and-egg thing, I have fewer because I use them up, but I use them up faster because I have fewer (compared to top-coats, in particular, as you will see). One of the few nail-related things I am quite methodical about is that I always wear base-coat, so I'm sure that's part of the equation. Mostly that's because I don't want to stain my nails any more than I can help, and also because I think it helps with wear, which - unless you're one of those fortunate people who have nails that really can keep a manicure unchipped for 10 days or more - is always a problem.

The selection below is not really representative of what I've worn in the past. Those are the ones, after all, that got used up, as I said. I do think I'm on the second bottle - and probably last, since this formula's discontinued - of Colorstay. Most of the ones I have now are frankly somewhat higher-end than what I've worn in the past, which as far as I can recall, mostly involves Sally Hansen. I've gone through a couple of bottles of Insta... (hmm, Insta-something, I think, but not Insta-Dri, which is polish & top-coat - aha, Insta-Grip!), and at least one of Complete Salon Mani base-coat and before that, I was probably using Hard As Nails for base-coat, because that gets you back to the dark ages before I knew all this other stuff existed.

By the way, I seem to be primarily using Makeup Alley (aka MUA) reviews to link to here. Reviews of boring stuff like base-coat are just not as easy to find as for shinier things!

top row:

• Rimmel Base Coat Top Coat Pro - I think I put this one at top left so that I could get it over with first; I don't really approve of the whole concept of combined base- and top-coat. (It came in a combo-pack with a bottle of nail polish, or I wouldn't have it at all.) MUA reviewers at the link above seem to agree with me here - although I didn't have as terrible a time with it as some of those people. It was just okay.
• Revlon Colorstay - as far as I know, this is discontinued, but I haven't exactly been haunting the Revlon aisle lately, so I could be wrong. (MUA says yes, it's discontinued. But even so, it might well still be findable at various discount places, if you're really moved to go look for it.) Anyway, I've gotten good results with this in the past, and it is (or was) reasonably priced, and so if it's gone, it's kind of a shame. (But Colorstay Gel is not supposed to need a base-coat, right? So I guess that's the reasoning there.)
• Orly Bonder - I like Orly Bonder. I have used it a lot. I can't say I'm in love with it but it works.
• Chick Base Coat - another one that's discontinued. I've liked most of Chick's products I've tried and I expect to like this one too, when I get around to it. (Some of these, I've saving until the other stuff is gone...)

bottom row:

• Nail Foundation (Butter London) - You can't tell it since the bottle is not transparent enough to see, but this bottle is damn near empty. I have used the heck out of this stuff. It's got a high list price but you can get deals on it, and if you find one, I have to say it becomes totally worth the (lower) price. (I'm not sure anything at all is really worth full-on high-end prices, in the end.) Anyway, there are mixed reviews up there but honestly, I have had very good results from this. Also it's in a big bottle with a long brush that's pretty good at fishing the product up from the bottom of the bottle, and that becomes important when you get down low there.
• Get Even (Zoya) - I really only bought this because it was said to be important to keep your ridges from showing on Zoya's matte polishes. I use it on other occasions, too. It's even more gluey and goopy than other ridge-fighting formulas, but it works.
• Bridge the Ridge (from American Classics, the same people who make Gelous) - obviously, another ridge-fighting polish. My aunt gave it to me for Christmas and I haven't tried it at all yet, I'm waiting on some of these others to run out first! It only has a few reviews but they seem positive enough.

(And now it's time to go to bed - I've had an Ambien, and when you start seeing patterns on what's supposed to be a plain white background, then it's time to go to bed because it's kicking in. 'Night.)

Matte Velvet

A not-so-great iPhone picture of Posh (with topcoat):

It''s not actually a terrible picture, but Posh-with-topcoat is utterly gorgeous and this fails to capture anything unusual about it - except that it didn't chip immediately, which actually in my experience of bright reds is pretty extraordinary in itself! I put it on Friday night and this picture was taken Saturday at lunchtime; right now as I write this it's Monday night and it has some very minor chips but it still looks pretty good. I used Zoya's own basecoat, Get Even, but I don't own any Zoya topcoat so I used Butter London PDQ. And it is shiny and gorgeous, with a depth to it which is what makes it really extraordinary. I almost didn't put topcoat on it, because it's pretty without. But I'm glad I did.

So since it was only a little bit chipped, I decided to patch it up and put some glitter on top of it. I used Be Merry, Be Bright, which I believe I said the last time I put it on seemed more like a Valentine's Day polish than a Christmas one. And it looks really pretty over Posh. I'll try to get a picture later.

Basecoats and nail nutrients

Basecoats and other assorted products:

The "other assorted products" are mostly across the top: Seche Restore, which I discussed briefly yesterday, and then four Sally Hansen nail care products: VitaSurge, Nail Nutrition Strength Formula, Vitamin E Nail & Cuticle Oil, and Nail Nutrition Growth Formula.
The bottom row is basecoats: Glitter A-Peel (from Nail Pattern Boldness), Orly Bonder, Colorstay, Butter London (Nail Foundation), Sinful Colors, and Zoya Get Even..

I talked a bit about the Sally Hansen nail-care products in the entry where I showed all my SH polish, but only very briefly. I like their nail-care products, generally, and my grocery store, which likes to have in-store coupon sales, has such sales on these products pretty regularly, and I use up enough of this stuff that I usually use those coupons to get more when I run across them. I bought Nail Nutrition Growth first out of these four, and I've used it a lot. I'm not sure it actually helps my nails grow, but it makes the bed of my nails feel better, I'm sure of that. I just started using the cuticle oil lately, and I think I need to be using it more often, but certainly it helps. VitaSurge also has a nice feel on the nails, once it's on, but it's got little bubbles in it and you're supposed to sort of massage it into your nails, so it's not actually something you just put on like nail polish. And I haven't tried the Nail Nutrition Strength Formula yet; I'm saving it for after the others have run out. (I've more or less given up on ever getting really long nails, so really the strength one is probably more what I should be using. Good, strong, and maybe sort of medium-length is all I'm shooting for. I think long nails are unrealistic for me.)

Like the topcoats, I use my basecoats pretty interchangeably without having any really clear favorites. I've used the Butter London a lot (and like the topcoat, have barely made a dent in it) and I've used Get Even a lot since I got it for Christmas. But I've used Orly Bonder a ton, too - I tend to just use whatever's handy really. I am sort of thinking that ridge-filling basecoats might be what I ought to be using in the long-term, though - I don't have terribly uneven nails, but I have some visible ridges. I also used to use Sally Hansen - I know I used up at least one bottle of Insta-Grip, and I might have had Complete Salon Manicure at some point, as well. I do think basecoat is something it's important to use, but I have never established in my own mind whether one is superior to another, to speak of.

I've used Glitter A-Peel a couple of times, and if I have a gripe with it, it's that it works a little too well. It's intended to allow you to peel thick coats of glitter off without damaging your nails, and it does that. I've had a little problem with it coming off sooner than I want it to, but I suspect that this is similar to my general chipping problems in that it's more or less self-inflicted. I'm just hard on my nails, and that's certainly going to affect what Glitter A-Peel does!

Assorted new purchases

I am so bad with the purchases lately... I just bought some Nostalgic Nail Lacquer, mostly just because I like the names! (Well, I also like the polish but I love the names...) I got As If! (from the Clueless collection, of course), F*ck and Run, and Girls on Film. I did get mini size for two of them. (I know a lot of people have to have full-size, but actually I love minis. How often do you actually use up a full-size polish? I usually don't, anyway.)

And here is the last collection of stuff I bought lately, aside from the Sephora haul which I've already posted pictures of. This is stuff I got from Amazon, drugstore.com, Walmart and H-E-B. (Some of it I've had for a couple of weeks, some was backordered - that was the Seche - and some is newer.)

The first two came from Wal-Mart, the rest of that row from the grocery store (H-E-B, that is) except for the Seche Restore, which was Amazon. The Colorstay base coat on the bottom row was from a drugstore.com purchase in which I convinced myself that it was "needed" to get free shipping. (Only then I added some sinus medicine which put me wayyy over the free shipping limit, - and then didn't take the Colorstay out again, of course.)

The color polishes here are (L-R):

• Hard Candy Crush on Lava
• Diamond Strength Royal Invite
• Diamond Strength Private I
• CG Glosstini in Sangria
• Nicole by OPI Gumdrops in Cinna-man Of My Dreams

I've got a whole stash of untrieds now that I'm "saving" for fall - in this bunch, Cinna-man Of My Dreams, in particular, and maybe Crush on Lava too. I am going to try to make myself wear my summery colors for the next couple of weeks. Generally our weather doesn't really break until sometime well into October, so I try to wait until Oct. 1st, at least, to break out the serious fall colors.

So far no love for Ali - although I've had a couple of people say "I'd love to have it, but..." Go see if you do! It was probably a mistake to say, "I don't like this so I'm giving it away" rather than phrase it in more positive terms. It really is a pretty color, or I wouldn't've bought it in the first place! (Also, I just don't seem to be loving pink this year, or even fuchsia, which is a huge change for me. I'm not sure what's up with that.)

In which I find that base coat really does help

(Tuesday)

Since I put Alegra on with no base coat last night, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the polish on the top quarter or so of my index finger sheered right off this morning. Interestingly, the rest of the polish survived fine for well over an hour in the bathtub while I finished The Cuckoo's Calling (it was really interesting, what can I say? - and actually the worst thing about that is that I was reading on my Kindle, which is really stupid because sooner or later I'm going to drop it in the tub, if I keep doing it). So I guess I'm going to just patch this manicure up, at least for the rest of today, and worry about it later. I like it enough that it's possible I might take it off and put it right back on again, though.

Here's Zoya's description of Alegra (disclaimer: that's an affiliate link): "Zoya Nail Polish in Alegra can be best described as: fuchsia pink sparkling metallic. An expensive-looking metallic shade for summer." What I want to know about that is, what makes it expensive-looking? Are they implying it looks like a Chanel, or something? I'm undoubtedly overthinking this, and I love this color; I'm just slightly baffled by that phrase. I guess I don't think this polish looks any more expensive than anything else. Is there something I'm overlooking here?

(Tuesday night)
Well, I tried patching Alegra, but it didn't last long (as in, an hour, and it was badly chipped again) so I gave up on that, and rather than doing it over again I went on to something else. I imagine we will see it again before long, though. With base coat this time, for sure.

I decided instead to give the Gumdrops another try, only in a different color this time. So far, so good. This time I tried Blueberry Fizz. The interesting thing is that it doesn't actually look very blue, at least in the light in this room (which is fluorescent and often misleading) - it looks silver. Or at least sort of a blue-leaning silver-gray. But it's really pretty, in any case, so it's good with me! (I said that Crushed Candy would be a good winter color, and actually Blueberry Fizz would be really stunning as a holiday polish. Which is not to say I don't like it now!)

It looked opaque after 2 coats, so I stopped. Maybe it would look even better with a third, but I didn't try it to find out.

Bright green and textured purple

(Saturday night)
Interestingly, I got a ton of compliments on the Cutie Colada/Ipanema Girl combo today - FAR more than I got on Ipanema Girl alone. I like it better, too, but I don't always think that translates to what other people like.

There is the cutest little old lady - and I mean that literally, she's a tiny thing - who has always come in where I worked and always stopped and asked me what I was wearing on my nails that day and admired it, whatever it was. She hasn't been around as much lately, but she was in not long ago and we discussed nail polish, and then today she called on the phone (asking about something else), and after a minute she said, "Well, what have you got on your nails today?" and I said bright green, and she said, "I'm sorry I can't be there to see it, I'll just have to imagine it." Aw.


(Sunday night)
The green was chipping, so I think I'm about to go back to purple - the texture, Julie G Crushed Candy. At least that's the plan. Up until it actually goes on my nails, my plans are usually subject to change. But I've gotten as far as getting the bottle out, so it's a fairly definite plan.

Yuck, I just put CSM base coat on and it's all goopy, I got a full coat on but then I threw the bottle away, clearly it's at the end of its useful life. It's pretty good basecoat, though, although not that cheap so at that price point there's a number of equally good competitors, I think.

Also, I went to Walmart earlier (I am trying to remember to leave the hyphen out of their name since they don't use it themselves any more) and managed not to buy any polish, assuming that by polish you mean the kind with coloring in it. I did leave with a bottle of Seche Vite, though - my first. (Come to think of it, I left that out of the entry yesterday where I was talking about major brands I'd never bought.) When I said I was going on no-buy, though, I specifically (at least in my own head) made an exception for base coat and top coat and other such "maintenance" type items. It was color polish I was thinking of. I need base coat more than I really need top coat, though, I should've bought that instead. Although I do still have an almost-full bottle of Sinful Color base coat.

Also - speaking of should have's - I should have taken a picture of the green nail polish before I took it off. Too late now, though. I was too interested in the other things I bought at Walmart - strawberries and pizza - and wasn't really thinking about my nails. For once.

(Added on Monday)
Crushed Candy is sort of a lilac, I guess, or violet - I never know what to call pale purples - and it looks pinkish in some lights, and sometimes almost bronze. It's nice, in any case. The texture was bugging me, though, so I decided to put top coat on it. I didn't want to waste my new bottle of Seche Vite pouring it into a texture, so I used that NYC clear polish that I got lately - three coats of it, in the end, and you can still feel some texture. Oddly, it doesn't look that much different.

Top coat and base coat

I'm no expert on the technical aspects of nail polish, not at all. (Loodie is the nail blogger I think of who falls most into that category.) But I thought I'd talk a bit about top coat and base coat, from my experience.

I was thinking this morning (while I was waiting on my nail polish to dry) about how much the climate I live in makes a difference here - when people online talk how long it takes their polish to dry, most of the time it's considerably less than I find it is for me. But I live in the land of high humidity (on the Gulf Coast) and presumably that's the main reason for the difference. I spend a LOT of time waiting for nail polish to dry. (I tend to do something like read during that time, or goof around on the computer. Keeps me from picking up something else that might be more likely to mess my nails up.)

I like Sally Hansen's basic Insta-Grip and Insta-Dri base coat and top coat, but I haven't been using either of them lately. I do have a half-empty and slightly gooey bottle of Insta-Grip that's my backup basecoat these days, but when I went to the grocery store to buy another one, they were out. My grocery store has a whole aisle of nail polish, so they usually have a lot of selection, but that day they were sadly short on base coats. They also happened to be out of Orly Bonder, and a couple of other things I thought to look for, but they did have Sally Hansen Complete Salon base coat, so that's what I came home with. I had never used it before, but like most things Sally Hansen, I quite like it. It seems to do a good job - of course it costs more than Insta-Grip, too, so it should!

I have several different top coats I've been using, but since Fleck Effect also doubles as a top coat, I've been using that most of the time and not using the general-purpose ones. (I like the way that multiple coats of Fleck Effect looks - I was using three, a lot of the time during the summer - and a nice side effect of that was that it really makes your polish wear well. I am rather famously hard on my nails, so I like anything that'll extend wear life!)

Today's (redone again) version of the Rage combo I keep talking about is:

1. base coat (SH Complete Salon)
2. Flagstone Rush
3. Rage
4. Rage
5. Orly Pearl Wisdom
6. Orly Diamond Love (both of these last two are pretty sheer, I couldn't tell that either one changed the color significantly)
7. and for good measure, Chloe (and even Chloe only shows up a little - I see a flash of it occasionally, but that's all)

Small update: I found somebody talking about Rage on YouTube who also said that Rage looks different in the bottle - here. (I hadn't seen her videos before, but I like that one.)