Fail Art the Sequel--cuz clearly I haven't learned my lesson yet.

I took off that God-awful Martha Stewart glitter accent finger I posted about earlier and, rather than just repaint that nail with the same N.Y.C. Empire State Blue & Spoiled Use Protection so it would match the others, I, of course, decided it was time to play with more fimo and I even busted out my dotting tools and well, let's just let the pics take it from here:

*cue the scary shower scene music from Psycho*

Get it? It's a fish swimming in the sea. The green smudges in the background (My apologies to Sally Hansen Insta-dri Just in Lime)--that's supposed to be seaweed. And those brown and gold smudges  at the bottom (sorry Insta-dri Coco a Gogo and China Glaze gold Romantique polish that I can't remember the name of right now)...yep! That's the sea floor. Somebody seriously  needs to just take away all my polish & nail art paraphernalia. Or strip me of my lap top at least; that way I can't continue to assault cyber space with all this fail art. 

But you know what? It's good I posted this because years from now when I have years of nail art and blogging experience under my belt, I can sit back and laugh at these craptastic posts from my 'early days'. I love when blogging vets do those "retrospective" posts because it gives me hope that one day I, too, will improve immensely...one fine day many years from now... 

On the plus side, though, my kids LOVED my "Nemo" nails. My 21 month old was particularly fascinated with the tiny 'feeshees' and he kept trying to take them off...and bringing smiles to my kids faces always makes my day...

Fail Art: how to ruin a perfectly good mani

It's no secret I love to stick ridiculous shizz to my nails. Observe:

My Lemon-lime mani from the other day, tackified. Ok, maybe this wouldn't have been THAT ridiculous if I were only capable of slicing the fimo lemon cane thingy evenly...

The current trend of sticking ridiculous shizz to one's nails (fuzz, fish-eggs, cupcake sprinkles, even salt) only fuels this innate desire. And, when the fates align and I find some crazy new-to-me material at Michael's, stuff like this happens:

I can't find my charger and my camera's battery died, so I had to resort to cell phone pics. That's ok, though. Certain things actually benefit from lacking mega-pixels. 

Yep, that's right. You had to see it 3 times. Just imagine the score from Psycho playing in the background while you look at these pics. So what is this? It's a vial of Martha Stewart "Vintage Leaf Glitter." It is AWESOME--looks like someone smashed a bunch of Christmas balls and put them on the market. I found a 12 pack of these vials during my last foray into Michael's. I busted out my 40% off coupon, snatched me a pack and told it right there in the middle of the store "oh yea you are SO going on my nails." And I skipped out of the store with visions of broken-glass nails dancing through my head.

My usual method for adhering crap to my nail plate is to slap on a healthy coat of Gelous, mash whatever material I'm working with down into it and then seal it up with MOAR Gelous. Of course, the problem with this stuff arose when I had to spend FOREVER layering and arranging piece after piece of randomly-shaped glitter and then snipping off all the pokey little edges at my cuticles and at the free edges of my nails. This glitter must be made out of Teflon or something because it simply did NOT want to stick. But I'm a hardheaded fool who is unable to accept defeit persistent chick and, after some time (more time than I care to admit to), I managed to beat Martha's glitter into submission and got it stuck down, leveled off and pointy-free. 

Too bad it's still a hot mess...yep, this is definitely one for the Fail Art folder. 

Oh, yea I guess I should mention what polishes I'm wearing here--2 coats of N.Y.C. Empire State Blue topped with 1 coat of Spoiled Use Protection (if that's not a 'WTF' name, I don't know what is). Empire State Blue is a beautiful teal-leaning blue with a green-to gold flash. It's almost duochromatic which is pretty damn kick-ass for a 99 cent polish. Spoiled Use Protection is a sheer teal jelly polish with copper, gold, blue and what looks like light green glitter (though it could be silver glitter tinted green by the jelly base). Oh and did I mention the gold micro-shimmer? SO pretty...

it's a shame cuz this mani was actually really pretty before I defiled it with that train-wreck of an accent finger.

When will I ever learn to leave well enough alone?

Dupe-atude and Dupe-ability--Spoiled Toad-ally amazing vs every other mint green I own

(...ok I lied. I actually have more mint green polishes than just these--they just weren't as dupe-alicious as these were...)

Hey, look, it's me again...and I'm STILL talking about Spoiled polishes. I promise, after this post, I won't mention them EVER AGAIN (unless of course you want me to--your wish is my command, dear readers!!)...just delivering that dupe comparison post I told you about. Ok, so here's the suspects in their line-up:

left to right: our old friend Toad-ally Amazing, Wet N Wild Megalast "I Need a Refresh-mint," Sinful Colors"Mint Apple," OPI "Thanks a Windmillion, OPI "Mermaid's Tears, China Glaze "For Audrey."

 (click to biggify)

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(not flashy)

Left to right, Toad-ally Amazing, Mint Apple, I Need a Refresh-mint, For Audrey, Thanks a Windmillion, Mermaid's Tears

With all the mint green polishes running around these days, I couldn't resist busting out the magnifying glass on these to see how alike they are. As you can see, Sinful's Mint Apple and Toad-ally Amazing look pretty much dead-on (they do to my eye, anyway). If you squint your eyes real hard, you'll notice that MA is just a whisper of a touch grayer and it has a smidge more shimmer to it than TA. Mermaid's Tears, to me, looks like TA sans the shimmer, For Audrey and I Need a Refresh-mint are too close to own both (unless you are me and hoard polishes despite their dupeness) and Thanks a Windmillion really is the odd ball out because it's much grayer than any of the other polishes here--although interestingly enough, when it's in the bottle it looks MUCH more similar to Mermaid's Tears than it does when it's actually on a nail (don't ya just love when polishes go all chamelian on you like that?)...

so booyah--mint greeny goodness and I love every last one of them and can't wait to get MORE (yea, I'm looking at YOU Milani Mint Candy!! Got the ninja grabby hands all set to go as soon as I come across that baby!)...

Are you as obsessed with this color as I am? Do tell...

...

Look who finally finished her Spoiled nail polish swatches!

Yep, in between the diaper changing and the dish washing and the laundry folding and the kid-chasing, I finally managed to swatch, photograph, edit and, now, finally type this post. Go me!

This is the remainder of my recent Spoiled haul. (You can view my previous swatches and reviews

here,  here and  here.)...so let's turn this mutha out (warning, this post is massively pic heavy and, like, 5 years long so go grab a cup of coffee and settle in):

(click to em-biggen)

the rest of the Spoiled bunch

Spoiled Tattle Tell--a sheer light pink jelly with itty bitty gold shimmer

Spoiled Are Mermaids Real?--a blue-based light purple with all kindza crazy gold shimmer

Spoiled Steel the Show--a taupe creme

Spoiled Bite Me (best name ever!)--a vamp-tastic blackened burgundy shimmer

Spoiled Pirate's Booty-gold and orange baby flakies in a clear base (LOOOOVEEE!!)

Spoiled Toad-ally Amazing-a minty green creme with silver shimmer

Spoiled Pet my Peacock (hehehe)--a chunky glitter with gold, silver, purple, green & teal hexes

Spoiled Jewelry Heist--glitter with large and small gold and pink hexes & smaller square holo glitter. Freakin amaze-balls, yo.

(no flash) 

Left to right, Tattle Tell, Steel the Show & Are Mermaids Real. Tattle Tell is 4 coats (SUPER sheer polish) and the other 2 are both 2 nice, easy coats. 

Flash. 

So far NONE of these polishes has disappointed me formula-wise. They're the perfect consistency & they apply so evenly--no dragging or bald-spot issues at all. Granted, Tattle Tell is very much on the sheer side, but me thinks it's supposed to be that way and I think it'd be an awesome alternative to the usual sheer pinks used for french manis (if french manis are your kind of thing)...moving on...

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Here we have Bite Me. It's the token vampy polish--think Black Cherry Chutney or Midnight in Moscow but only way cheaper. Not really much to say about this one. It's pretty and all and easy to work with, but I've just seen this color like 7 zillion times before. yawn....next...

This beauty is Pirate's Booty (ok that just rhymed--well, sorta..damnit I hate when that happens)...I'm in LOVE with this one. It's a layering polish and it's DA BOMB like tick tick! I just love all the gold and orange flaky goodness! What can I say, I'm a ho for the flakies!

Here's  Pirate's Booty layered over Bite Me. Seriously, my stupid, lame little point & shoot doesn't do this polish any kind of justice. I just love the shimmer and the depth it gives to the base polish!

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Here we have, left to right (once again) Pirate's Booty over Bite Me (it's so pretty I just couldn't crop it out of this pic), Jewelry Heist on its own (two coats) and Jewelry Heist layered over Bite Me. Jewelry Heist is another crazy mix of glittery awesomeness. FFS it's PINK and GOLD and HOLO and GLITTER--it's like they took all my favorite things and dumped them all into one bottle. The only way it could get any better is if it could clean my house and take care of my kids for me....

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Next up is Cougar Attack (I just realised I didn't get a solo bottle shot of this one--doh!)...This is copper micro glitter in a deep dark brown jelly base. Now if you are a Wet N Wild fanatic like me, you know there was a polish called Cougar Attack in the LE On the Prowl polish collection from Halloween 2011. I was one of the unfortunate souls who NEVER managed to locate that collection (and yes, my heart still aches over it! ::sniffle::) so I cannot say for certain that this is a repackaging of that exact shade. What I CAN say is it's highly likely, given that Spoiled is by Wet N Wild and this polish does look an AWFUL lot like the 2011 Cougar Attack swatches that I spent so long drooling over. Either way, it's pretty frickin awesome. It looks gritty in my pics but that's because I was too lazy to top coat any of my swatches (tsk tsk tsk)...

ok, next one (phew, anyone else getting winded??)

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This is Toad-ally Amazing. I don't know about you, but I've never come across any mint green shimmering toads, so the name doesn't really make sense to me but the polish is SO pretty. Once again 2 nice, even coats to opacity and I'm such a sucker for this kind of color but it's dupeable (stay tuned for a seperate post about said dupe-ability, coming up next!)

Ok people, I dont' know if anyone is still with me but I'm just gonna pretend there IS. We have reached the FINAL polish of this post ::::throws confetti & releases the balloon-drop::::

Here we have the very amusingly named Pet my Peacock (hehehe--yes I find it funny and yes I'm a 12 year old at heart). More glitter madness--but, unlike Jewelry Heist, this glitter is all one size & shape--chunky hexes ftw. I heart it but I'm pretty sure I have, like, 3 other Forever 21 polishes that look like this. This glitter wanted to huddle together like a group of scared kids in a haunted house. I busted out my patented "drip n dab" application technique for this and it helped a little...this is 2 coats.

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And here it is layered over the closest polish to me at the time (which happened to be Toad-ally Amazing)...

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no flash....

::::pant pant pant---catches breath--looks around::: 

OMG, we made it! We survived til the end of this post!! You know why? Because we're AWESOME!!

So have you hauled any Spoileds yet? Do the CVS cashiers laugh knowingly at you when they see you come in the store like they do to me? 

Spoiled Trust Fund Baby layered over Checkin into Rehab

I got a free minute, so I decided to layer Trust Fund Baby over my existing mani of Checkin into Rehab. Here are the results:

Please excuse any errant glitter pieces & dry cuticles. I didn't clean up or moisturize before the pic because I was just trying to snap some shots before I lost too much daylight. 

(click pictures to enlarge)

It has been rumored that Trust Fund Baby is a repackaged version of Correction Tape, from Wet N Wild's massively popular & frustratingly elusive LE On the Prowl collection. I was one of the unfortunate souls who never managed to track down an On the Prowl display, so I can't comment on any dupeness. All I know is I love this polish! It's full of mid-sized hex AND square glitters in teal blue, gold, magenta and (bestill my gothic heart) black (the teal and the gold glitters are hex-shaped and the black and gold are square). 

These chunkier glitter polishes can be a pain in the butt to work with and this one was no exception. In my experience, I have found that dabbing or sort of stippling the polish onto the nail--rather than trying to stroke it on in any kind of regular way, helps distribute the glitter more evenly. If you try to stroke it on, all the glitter ends up either at the base or at the tip of the nail. I had to fuss with the glitters a bit to get them positioned well and that fat mop of a brush didn't help matters--but it wasn't impossible. I top coated everything with my trusty Out the Door and everything managed to dry nice and even and surprisingly not overly thick. 

So it's love once again for another Spoiled polish and deep, burning hate for the brush...I'm seriously looking into getting a bunch of empty polish bottles to rehome these gorgeous laquers...

Yes, ANOTHER Spoiled polish swatch

Today I have another polish from the major Spoiled haul I did a few days ago. This time I have  Checkin into Rehab--which is an awful name for a gorgeous gold-flecked royal purple jelly polish.

Unfortunately, the beautiful gold flakes in this polish are incredibly camera shy and I just couldn't get them to come out and shine no matter what settings I had my camera on. 

Click to enlarge the photos...

This polish is super glossy shiny even without top coat. Here it is pictured with Seche Vite top coat, which only amps up the shine all the more. 

You can actually see the gold flecks in the bottle. They're more subtle when the polish is actually on your nails but I like the subtlety. Not every polish has to be full of flashy, seizure-inducing bling.

Trying hard to get those flecks to show...

The formula on this polish was a little fussy. I had some problems with dragging and bald spots. It took 3 coats for decent coverage, but there is still some visible nail line (which I expected since it is a jelly polish)...I'm eager to see how this polish will work in a jelly sandwich. I also think it will be a perfect base for Trust Fund Baby, which is a Spoiled glitter polish I picked up. This polish, much like the other Spoiled polishes I've tried so far, has that same God awful scraggly mop of a brush. All brush hatred aside, though, I'm really loving these polishes--obviously or I wouldn't bother battling that brush to get it on my nails.

Stay tuned for more Spoiled swatches! 

Dupe comparisons: Wet N Wild Teal of Fortune vs Spoiled Deeper Dive vs Zoya Charla

If you follow nail polish blogs as obsessively as I do, you probably might have heard that that Wet N Wild Teal of Fortune is a pretty good dupe for Zoya Charla. When I spotted the new Spoiled polish display, my eye was instantly drawn to a shade called Deeper Dive--another teal polish with gold flakes.  Especially since Spoiled is made by Wet N Wild, I was curious to see how it might compare to Teal of Fortune and Zoya Charla. Take a look:

(click to enlarge)

First let me apologize for the fact that the sun has ditched me once again. There's a thick layer of clouds in the sky annoying and depressing. Oh well, that's what I get for living in New England...anyway...

Pictured above from left to right:

Polish number 1 = Wet N Wild Teal of Fortune

Polish number 2 = Spoiled Deeper Dive

Polish number 3: Zoya Charla

Above from left to right is Zoya Charla, Spoiled Deeper Dive and Wet n Wild Teal of Fortune (sorry I forgot to rotate the pics so the polishes would all be in the same order)

from top to bottom: Wet N Wild Teal of Fortune, Spoiled Deeper Dive, Zoya Charla (and yes I re-use empty spaces in the color plates Zoya sends with orders--they don't call me cheap for nothing!)

Left to right: Zoya Charla, Spoiled Deeper Dive, Wet N Wild Teal of Fortune

Left to right, Spoiled Deeper Dive, Wet N Wild Teal of Fortune, Zoya Charla

So after staring at the swatches until my eyes crossed, I determined the following: Zoya Charla is a touch warmer than the Spoiled and the Wet N Wild. The gold flakes are smaller but there's more flakes in the Zoya than there are in the other 2 polishes. Tone-wise, the Spoiled polish is just a touch deeper than the Wet N Wild. Also, the gold flakes are just slightly bigger than they are in the Wet N Wild polish. Formula wise, all 3 were pretty much on par with one another--they were all thin but not runny,  applied nicely without any dragging and they each took 3 coats for opacity. So are they different enough to own all 3 justifiably? Only if you're a polish hoarder like me. If not, you could just pick one of the 3 and be all set. (Of course, it must be said that the Wet N Wild and Spoiled Polishes are both 1.99 while the Zoya will set you back $7-$8)...

One thing I gotta call attention to before I publish this post is the ridiculousness of the Spoiled brush. I know I complained about the brush in my OTHER  Spoiled post, but this brush was even worse--Observe:

Is that not the worst brush you've ever seen? I had to snip and trim it with cuticle scissors before I could even work with the polish. 

Triflin!