Perfectly Polished Tips 249 - How to Remove a Glitter Bomb

I have been wearing a ton of glitter polish lately and to be honest the reason I used to avoid it was because I hated having to struggle with removing it. The nail community is always coming up with clever ways to remove polish. For a while using foil was very popular, I tried to to do this and failed miserably. Basically you soak a cotton ball in acetone, put it on your nail, and then wrap in foil. For whatever reason when I did this all I accomplished was a mess.

Recently a gal on a nail board I frequent posted about using silicone finger tips. They are meant for filing papers. The premise is pretty much the same as the foil method but you can reuse the tips.

You need:
*something to remove the polish with
*silicone finger tips
*acetone (or your remover of choice)

 I used felt, you can use cotton balls or rounds too.

these are the finger tips - I got them in the section with the pens, pencils, and such. they were a little over $3 

Soak each felt strip, wrap around your nail, and top w/ a finger tip

After 5 minutes I removed every thing & ta da! To remove these bits I just swiped the same piece of felt over my nail a couple of times. No scrubbing required.

After! No more glitter! 

I am really happy to have stumbled upon this method. Previously I was just peeling off the glitter and really doing a number on my nail beds. They were all rough and peely. Hopefully I can nurse my nails back in to better shape now.

Oh! Make sure to moisturize after! This left my cuticles looking a little sad.

Perfectly Polished Tips 49 - Lemming Boards

Some people like to use lemming wheels to swatch their stash, but some people also don't have access to these lemming wheels/boards. I have yet to find them in real life. I've found them decently priced on ebay. My only problem with them is that my stash changes often. So now I have 11 color wheels filled with colors I no longer own. I went ahead and made a "ghetto" version of a lemming board with card board, fake tips, and glue (tacky glue and nail glue). So now if I decide to toss it I won't think about the time & money spent on shipping. I believe the real lemming wheels are reusable but I would imagine it would be a pain to do. Here is the lemming board I made:

A closer view of the polishes I swatched:

the numbers are revered so 10-1: OPI Blue Moon Lagoon, Hard Candy Sky, ChG Blue Sparrow, Zoya Kotori, Essie Starry Starry Night, NARS Midnight Express Franken, CND Blue Blood, Chanel Blue Satin, ChG Indian Ocean, SpaRitual Surreal


1-10: Chelsea Pyscho Green, CND NFS, OPI Green-wich Village, ChG Shower Together, Teal Franken, ChG For Audrey, ChG DV8, ChG On the Rocks, Pure Ice Heart Breaker

Perfectly Polished Tips 34 - Franken Polish

It's alive! A franken polish is a personalized mixture. You can mix up anything you'd like. It's helpful for recreating long gone hard to find polishes, country specific releases that you can't get your hands on, and those over the top pricey ones. If you are like me and cannot justify spending $$ on Rescue Beauty Lounge's new color Teal you can make your own.

To make this polish pictured here I used a mixture of half China Glaze Shower Together and half Color Club Naughtycal Navy. I also added a few drops of Revlon Color Stay top coat to give it a jelly look. If you don't have those colors exactly any other creme teal & navy should work.

To make a franken polish: Make sure you cover your work surface and that you aren't wearing a new mani. It will get ruined.

1. Start with a clean, dry nail polish bottle. If you need to clean one out, dump the old polish into a paper towel in a plastic cup or an empty soda can. I usually fill the bottle with remover and shake for a few minutes. Adding a bit of salt and warm water to the bottle will help loosen any extra bits of polish. Make sure the bottle is completely dry before starting or you will ruin the polish! Or you can start with a bottle of polish as well, just make sure there is enough room in the bottle to add new polish.

2. I like to mix drops of the color on paper to figure out my ratio and see how it's going to look before I commit.

3. When you have your recipe begin pouring. Go slowly, stop and shake every now and then to check the color. **I have never had this happen but remember you are mixing chemicals and they might not always mix smoothly! I've never had one explode but you never know!**

4. Add colors/sparkles/glitter until you have your desired shade of polish. Adding balls (or BBs) helps mix the color. I think there is an ebay seller with them, I can find out the name if anyone needs it.

5. Enjoy your new polish!

Perfectly Polished Tips 33 - My Pedicure Routine

I've been meaning to make this post since I started writing this blog but just never got around to it. I used to do this whole routine every couple of weeks but because of the move and being all over the place I haven't done it since June or so.

1. I run warm water in the tub, and add some bath salts. While the bath runs I take off my old polish.
2. I soak for around 10 minutes, I then use Sally Hansen Pumice Scrub all over my feet, followed by a quick go over with a pumice stone. Some people use Ped Eggs, I haven't tried it so I don't know how well it works.
3. After scrubbing I apply Orly Cutique and push back my cuticles. Make sure to rinse off the Cutique.
4. Then I dry off my feet and clip and/or file my nails.
5. Now I apply 1 coat of base coat, 2 coats of color, and top it off with Oh So Wet.
6. I wait until I'm completely dry and I apply lotion, usually Eucerine Calming Cream.

If I want to just change colors I remove the old polish well & then do steps 4-6. I hope this helps someone out!

Perfectly Polished Tips 05 - My Manicure Routine

I shared a couple of my favorite products so now I will share how I do my manicures. I'll do a separate post for pedicures because I have a ton of favorite products for that too.

1. I start off by filing my nails if needed, I found that doing it while I still have the old nail polish on helps me keep them neat and evenly shaped.

2. I remove the old polish using the pink Beauty Secrets remover and felt, which I usually purchase at Walmart in the craft section.

3. At this point I buff lightly if needed and push back my cuticles using an orange wood stick.

4. When I have it available I like to swipe my nails with Zoya Remove before I begin polishing.

5. I begin with a base coat, depending on the color of the polish I sometimes use a ridge filler, my favorites are Essie Ridge Filler and Orly Ridge Filler. I've also heard great things about Seche's ridge filler as well. If I choose not to use a ridge filler my favorite base coat is Orly Bonder. Some have reported staining so you might want to pair it with a ridge filler or something like Nail Tek.

6. Next is color, I apply 2-3 coats depending on the polish. My favorite brands include OPI, Misa, China Glaze, Lippmann, Orly, and Zoya. I love others too though. I try to clean up as I go with an orange wood stick, usually though I do my manis and night and just clean off the extras in the shower the next morning.

7. Some people like to make sandwiches with their base coat, which just means adding another coat of your chosen base coat on top of the color. Or you can just use a regular top coat. I like quick dry top coats. Seche Vite used to be my go too, but it gets goopy quick and causes a lot of shrinkage. I've found that if I apply a top coat like Orly Glosser before SV the shrinkage is not as bad. Other quick dry top coats I have tried and liked were INM Out the Door and Oh So Wet.

8. I like to top my mani off with quick dry drops and usually use Qtica Half Time Polish Drying Accelerator.

Ultimately you have to play around with products and see what works best for you. There are so many other base coats, top coats, and treatments out there. I just wanted to share what I use and love.

The products I listed here can be found at Sally Beauty, Artofbeauty.com, head2toebeauty.com, 8ty8beauty.com, and transdesign.com.