Hard Candy: Mischief- Another Clearance Find!

I'm so excited! I don't know if you happened to hear me talking last Halloween, but I was absolutely in LOVE with one particular color that came out in various forms. If I remember correctly, China Glaze came out with Ick-A-Bod-Y first, and then Hard Candy's Halloween collection hit the shelves with their very similar dupe Mischief.

I absolutely loved this color, and wanted it very much. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in my area. That's one of the problems that comes with living in an area where people love nail polish! By the time I saw the Hard Candy Halloween colors, Mischief was gone.

However, several weeks ago I was out for my evening walk and found this one lone bottle hiding in a clearance bin. My local WalMart has been renovating their store, so lots of items that apparently got lost in the back have come out into the clearance area! I didn't know what this would cost, but since money's so tight I was going to price it.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this was $1! Honey, I grabbed my change purse and started counting my pennies!! Unfortunately, once I got it home it went into my box of untrieds, where it stayed because I've been sick. No FUN!

However, I was able to swatch it finally, and decided I wanted to see it both with topcoat and without. I didn't realize topcoat would make such a difference! It really does, though, as you can see in the photos!

I also decided to swatch these on false nails because my own have been broken so badly. Seriously, my swatching hand looks pathetic. But falsies look good, yes?

Without topcoat, Mischief is bumpy and somewhat gritty, and it's got a strange, matte-ish texture. That doesn't mean it's not gorgeous, it's just not the average for polish. I kinda like that about it, honestly!

However, adding topcoat to it changes the feel of it. Instead of a somewhat flat, gritty look with subdued sparkle, the topcoat fills in all the bumps and gaps, causing this baby to glow like crazy. It is absolutely stunning with topcoat, and I chose to use Seche Vite for it's amazing ability to smooth out the bumpiest of polishes.

I love this polish so much. It really does say fall to me in a way many polishes just can't do. The deep olive green jelly base is another reason I love it- without seeming slimy or gross, the green base somehow gives the orange glitter an earthier tone. I don't quite understand it, but I absolutely love it!

Do you have this polish, or its dupe? What do you think of it? Leave me a comment letting me know if this is a polish you'd love to find hiding in a clearance bin!

Til next time!

Oh, how I love a good sale!

See my disclosure statement for more information.

China Glaze Tronica sneak peak!

Oh my goodness, y'all... Erin from Persistently Polished was lucky enough to find a shop selling the China Glaze Tronica collection, so she posted some wonderful swatches of them for us! I am absolutely drooling over this set of polishes, and unfortunately I'm on a no-buy for the foreseeable future. I can look at swatches, though, and think to myself how pretty they are!

They seem to be less holographic than the OMG collection. That could be a plus for some people, but it makes me feel less sad about not being able to buy them. Anyway, I totally think you should scoot over to Persistently Polished and check out those swatches!

Til next time!

Exhausted, so it's a quick one.

Patience, so they say, is a virtue. Unfortunately, I don't know who they are, or I'd tell them to kiss my heinie. I've never been terribly patient, and yesterday was no exception. My family and I were on our way out the door to go to the bookstore when I saw that I had a package.

I had nail mail!!

I couldn't wait. I grabbed the box and opened it while we were going down the road, giggling and squealing as I saw each carefully wrapped parcel. My prize from the Dainty Darling Digits Go Green giveaway has finally arrived! (Don't worry, there will be pics later, once I've had some sleep!) Once I got home, I couldn't just put the polishes away. I had to go through and play with them, test some, see if any of them work with stamping. (Lots do, btw... but that's yet another post to come!)

Unfortunately, I tend to have my own style when I swatch. I don't do a whole hand, or even a whole nail usually. I end up with bits here, bits there. I sometimes have three or four colors on a single nail. Tonight's was even odder, because I ended up stamping over most of the nails just to look at different combinations. What's the use of having all those polishes if you can't play with them?

After seeing my manicure, my husband suggested I take pictures for the blog. He said it's too interesting a look not to share. Personally, I think that means he wants everyone who reads my blog to be able to laugh at my awful swatching too. But you know?

I'm ok with that. :D

So here you go... my horrible swatchicure.

Remember, lovelies, when you do something silly like this to your nails? There's a really good chance you're going to have to go in public like this. People will stare, especially if you've got a headless purple dinosaur spewing blood on your fingernail.

Ok, I know someone's going to ask. I was testing stamps, and I had one of the Hot Topic plates out and ready to go. Well, once I saw the purple stamped so well, I *HAD* to stamp the dinosaur with it. Except that I missed, and his head didn't actually stamp so well onto my nail. So I was stuck with a mostly-headless dinosaur! Now, tell me you wouldn't have grabbed your red art striper and painted blood drops all around him! I know I certainly couldn't resist!

Ok, I need sleep. It's been a long stressful night, and I just want to lie down and go blank for a while. Much love to you all, my lovelies, and may you have a more peaceful day than I had night!

Incoco Dry Nail Applique- too good to be true?

I've been seeing the Incoco Dry Nail Applique packets at my local drugstore for a year or more, but I can't lie, the price was definitely an issue that kept me from trying it. But every so often, I would wander over and look at the various colors and wonder if they were any good.

Part of the problem for me was the display. The colors looked so dull, so boring. I'm not a creme polish sort of girl. I like glitter, I like shimmer, and I like colors that are deep and interesting. From what I could see, the Incoco selection seemed limited and bland. I just couldn't bring myself to spend $8 on a pack of nail polish stuff that I couldn't even really tell what kind of color and finish it was.

Then one day I was browsing through the Walgreens' clearance section. I don't know about you, but I adore finding things on sale. I'm not bad about buying things just because they're on sale, but if it's something I'm interested in? Oh, heck YES I'll jump! So, when I saw packs of Incoco stickers for one dollar, I couldn't resist. I pulled out my wallet and left with Sinderella feeling like I'd just made a super purchase!

The packet sat in my nail box for ages. I'm not even sure why, but I always seemed to have something else to do, or I was worried I didn't have enough time to figure them out, or I was just flat out intimidated. How on Earth would I be able to put nail polish stickers onto my right hand without making them look horrible?

Then I decided to try them. I sat down with the packet, opened everything up, read the instructions and decided to go for it. If I'd had any sense at all, I'd have looked on YouTube for instruction videos. Incoco has a channel with instructions for both plain and French tips, and the videos are very clear and informative. I'd have had much more luck if I'd watched them first!

Of course, if I'd been thinking ahead, I'd have photographed the whole process of applying them. I didn't, though, because I hadn't really gotten into this whole blog thing yet. I did take pictures of things five days after the application, though, because I'm weird like that. (I even have pictures of me in an ambulance, because my husband is as much of a photojournalist as I am. One of the pictures has me with the emesis bag over my mouth and my middle finger in the air, because it captured the spirit of the moment so well. But I digress...)

The first thing that surprised me was the color of the polish. This wasn't a creme after all! No, this was an absolutely amazing deep golden shimmer polish that was intensely beautiful. Still, getting it on was a bit intimidating, but I found that as long as I took my time, they came out beautiful. And amazingly enough, they were actually dry immediately, with no dinging or smearing at all!

As soon as I finished the polish, we left to go run errands, and it seemed like we didn't stop for days. This polish stayed on like a dream, though. Look at the tipwear, for pete's sake... that's insane for 5 days! All of my nails were like this. They stayed beautiful and glossy, and made me so incredibly happy every time I looked at them.

One thing, though. The Incoco instructions say that their one little packet of nail polish remover will clean the polish off all 10 nails. Maybe they're talking different people than me, because this stuff was on there. Their polish remover pad is made of felt, so that it really did work nicely, but I still only managed 5-6 fingers before needing my own remover. Still, if that's the worst I can say about the stuff? Not bad...

So let's look at the pros and cons. It's fast, it's easy, and it's incredibly neat. The product has no bad smell at all. You could use this on an airplane, in a hospital, wherever without any guilt at all.

As for the negative aspect, I'm not fond of the packaging. It's too hard to see what type of finish you'll have. I also find it pretty expensive, since you're getting one manicure for $8, as opposed to a bottle of China Glaze polish (or Orly, or OPI, or whatever your favorite brand is). Also, there's not as much flexibility with these as there is with a bottle of polish. You can't really layer them (I think?), and you can't do any frankening.

Still, these are sweet as heck if you need them in an emergency. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for sales, because these would be fabulous to keep on hand. What do you think- would you like to try Incoco Dry Nail Appliques? Do you think they're priced well, or over- or under-priced? Tell me what you're thinking...