Revlon Colorstay Polish Going on 9 Days Now + Nabi Polish Display at Walgreens

I put on the Revlon Colorstay nail polish on Sunday, April 1st, and now it's Monday, April 9th.  The polish was actually in perfect shape until Friday night when I hand-washed one of the dog's kennel towels in the hotel sink.  After that the polish started to lift off the nail on a couple of fingers.  Tonight, if I can get over the migraine I have now, I will finally remove this polish and put on some Sally Hansen nail polish strips.

I took the picture below last night, in the hotel room, so the polish is a week old in that picture.  I last touched up the tips a few days ago and since then have only been putting on a coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat every morning.  Sorry about the lack of cleanup on the top coat; I didn't bring polish remover with me on our trip (so I'd have an excuse to go to local drugstores).

So, I went to a Walgreens in northeast Florida on our way north to Savannah, Georgia, with my excuse reason being needing some polish remover.  I saw a huge Nabi polish display (picture below), and I got very excited thinking it might be a display of the Nabi magnetic polishes that Scrangie found at her Walgreens (see her post here), but it was all crackle nail polish.  I never got into the crackle trend.  My sister-in-law likes crackle polish, though, which I only remembered after I had already left the store, or I would have bought her some bottles.  Anyway, for those of you who love crackle polish, this is an amazing assortment of colors, and the colors are vibrant and beautiful, and you can buy three bottles for $10!  We do not have any Nabi polishes at all in my local South Florida Walgreens stores.  Here's a picture of the display.

Below is a picture of my manicure today, in our hotel room in Savannah, Georgia.  I took the picture in the sunlight from the picture window in our hotel.  Day 9 of the Revlon Colorstay manicure!  Can you believe it?

Base coat, two coats of Revlon Colorstay Indigo Blue, 1 coat SV, 1 coat Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat, 2 coats Finger Paints Motley (blue-green flakies), 1 coat Seche Vite, and another coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat each day for 7 more days.  That's 15 coats of polish, if my math is correct.

I will update the Colorstay polish posts if I get any staining when I try to remove the polish.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Blue Nails, Day 5

I took these pictures yesterday afternoon, Day 5 of my blue nails.  I do patch up the tip wear every morning and add another coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.  Didn't have time to do a full clean-up before heading out the door.  These are all in the afternoon sun in my car.  Most are in direct sunlight and the last picture is in indirect sunlight.

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Blue Nails, Part Two

Yesterday I added some flakies to my blue manicure from World Autism Awareness Day.  I used Finger Paints Motley, which has blue and green flakies in a clear base.  The flakes leave a dimpled appearance on the nail after top coat, but it's still a relatively smooth finish.

In the pictures below I have one coat of Sally Hansen's Age Correct Growth (discontinued) as a base coat, two coats of Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night, one coat of Seche Vite, all applied on Sunday, one coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat applied on Monday, two coats of Finger Paints Motley and one coat of Seche Vite applied Tuesday, and a coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat this morning.  I couldn't get the sparkliness to come through in the pictures.  The Finger Paints Motley creates the look of dimension, and it makes my nails look like stone with other little stones embedded inside.  The blue flakes in Motley flash a deep neon indigo blue, and I couldn't get that to show in the pictures either.

In my office, with flash.  You can see a little of the dimpling.

In the car in afternoon sunlight.

In the car.  Indirect sunlight.

Also in the car, in indirect sunlight.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Blue Nails for World Autism Awareness Day

Sunday I painted my nails with blue polish for World Autism Awareness Day the next day.  I used my new Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night that I mentioned in my earlier haul post here.  I hesitated wearing such a vivid blue to the office yesterday, but no one said anything.  My nail-loving coworker was not in yesterday, though.  We always admire each other's nails when we have a new polish on.

Application was very easy.  The polish was opaque at one coat, but because I'm not good at polishing my nails and am still learning, I had to use two coats to cover up some spots I missed.  You have to work fast, though, and confidently because the polish dries quickly, so you can't go over your prior strokes very much, but you can dip your brush in the polish and do a quick cover-up if some strokes dried quickly but they weren't good enough.

I used Seche Vite because I painted my nails Sunday night before going to bed.  No sheet marks.  No denting, and I was actually worried about that because the polish dries so shiny and squishy-looking that I worried it had not cured and dried properly.  I did, however, get shrinkage.  I got a little from the Seche Vite  I used on Sunday night, and I got a little from the Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat that I used on Monday morning.  I put on the Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat every morning while I drink my coffee or cafe con leche.  It keeps my polish looking nice and keeps it from chipping, and it's what lets my manicures last a week or longer.  I think the thicker the application of Seche Vite or Revlon Quick Dry, the more shrinkage I get.  I may also get more shrinkage if the underlying coat of color polish is heavy and thick. Maybe it's because the SV is forced to dry more paint that it shrinks more with heavier coats of polish underneath.

Clean-up was very easy, but I'm trying new methods of clean-up, and the orange-stick-soaked-in-acetone method did not work well for me this time.  It just dissolved the polish a little and left my edges looking sloppy.  So, today I added some Finger Paints Motley flakie coat to the manicure, and I'm going to try a prior method of cleanup to see if it looks better.  One of my prior methods of clean-up was to just paint my nails before bed, and then just scrub the polish smears from my skin the next morning after a shower.  It worked well, and it seemed to increase the circulation in my cuticle area and seemed to keep the cuticles neat.  But, that method doesn't work on polishes that have a kind of vinyl texture.  Then if you pull on some stray paint on your skin, you can tear the paint on your nail that is next to the stray paint.

There was no staining on my skin from the polish, and I was able to quickly clean up bigger spots of polish with a Q-tip and then I tried and failed with the orange stick and acetone clean-up method.

The color of the polish in the bottle was darker at home than what it looked like in the store.  Also, it dried darker on my nails than the color in the bottle.  The polish actually looks different in different lighting.  In some lights indoors that I didn't photograph, it looks like teal blue.  At work it looked like the blue in a pair of 4-inch imitation-patent-leather pumps that I wore in the 80s.  Can't believe I actually wore those with stirrup leggings made of sweater wool-looking material in the same color as the pumps, and with a matching sweater . . . in South Florida.

As far as the claims that the polish is like a gel manicure, it does actually look like one to me because it dries incredibly shiny and squishy-looking (not in a jelly semi-translucent type of way, in a gel opaque type of way).

Although I'm embarrassed to post them with the sloppy edges from my failed orange stick and acetone clean-up method, here are some pictures taken with my iPhone:

In my office.  You can see the shine.

With flash, in my office.  The polish can look like all those colors.

With flash, under my office desk.  You can see the shrinkage.

Blurry, but you can see the range of shades of this polish.  I have seen it look like all those shades in this picture depending on the light.  This picture was taken with flash, underneath my desk in my office.

In my car, in the afternoon sun.  You can see the shrinkage

In the car, but not in direct sunlight.  Very shiny.

In the car, but not in direct sunlight.  The polish looks like different shades depending on how much light is hitting it.

Thank you for reading!

Nail Mail and Nail Haul

So, I had not been buying nail polish for over a week.  It doesn't seem like a long time, but my buying polish whenever I wanted was leading to larger online orders and more purchases at my local stores.  I didn't want to have to buy more storage. . . yet.  And, I told myself that I couldn't keep spending lots of money on nail polish and instead should be buying work clothes.  I have not bought work clothes since July 2011, and I need some.  But, I also told myself that I don't go and get mani/pedis at a salon, so I'm saving lots of money there, and why not just buy polish bottles instead of getting mani/pedis at a salon, right?  As long as I didn't spend more than $95 per month, I figured it was O.K.

After not buying polish for at least 10 days or so, and planning to continue on my no-buy path, I got surprise nail mail on Thursday.  Essie and Tom's footwear got together on Facebook a few weeks ago to give away 15,000 bottles of a limited edition Essie polish:  Barefoot in Blue.  It's a perfectly smooth cream in the most dreamy periwinkle color.  And, oh, how I had been wanting a periwinkle blue!  I swatched it on a nail wheel right away!

Then on Friday, I had *more* surprise nail mail!  My aunt-in-law sent me three new amazing L'Oreal polishes with a very sweet note.  She sent me Now You Sea Me (an aqua polish), Greyt Expectations (a greige polish), and L'Orange (an orange polish).  I was ecstatic!!!  I didn't even wait to take off all my work clothes before swatching all three colors on a nail wheel.

Here are pictures of my nail mail from Thursday and Friday:

 

 

The colors IRL were in between the colors in the two photos above.

#13 is L'Oreal L'Orange.  #16 is L'Oreal Now You Sea Me.  #17 is Essie Barefoot in Blue.  #18 is Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night.

I *love* orange, and I was afraid I might have a dupe of L'Oreal L'Orange in my Essie Orange It's Obvious, but L'Orange is lighter and brighter than the untried Essie, and it's darker than my untried Wet n Wild Megalast Club Havana.  Yay, no dupes!  

Some of my orange polishes.  No dupes for L'Orange!

#1 is WnW Megalast Club Havana.  #2 is Essie Orange It's Obvious (NOT A DUPE!  YAY!).  #3 is OPI Cajun Shrimp.

Then I was worried the NYSM polish would be a dupe of one of my blues, but it wasn't.  It was much darker than a very pale and sheer no-name blue shimmer polish from Icing (untried), and it was darker than my untried Wet n Wild Megalast I Need a Refresh-Mint.  

#18 Warpaint Galaxy.  #1 Icing no-name light blue shimmer.  #2 WnW Megalast I Need A Refresh-Mint.  #3 Icing no-name blue shimmer.  #4 Icing no-name darker blue shimmer.

#18 Warpaint Galaxy.  #1 Icing no-name light blue shimmer.  #2 WnW Megalast I Need A Refresh-Mint.  #3 Icing no-name blue shimmer.  #4 Icing no-name darker blue shimmer

I only have one other greige, the Wet n Wild Megalast Wet Cement (that my husband *hates,* so this polish has gone untried, too), and the L'Oreal is different from the WnW.  The L'Oreal leans a little to the dusty pink side and is lighter than Wet Cement.  I didn't get good pictures of my WnW Wet Cement and my L'Oreal Greyt Expectations swatches yet.

Today I bought three Revlon Colorstay nail polishes at CVS and a Revlon Top Speed nail polish.  For buying $15 of Revlon, I got $7 in Extra Care bucks.  I also bought a Spoiled brand nail polish at CVS for which I had a $.50 off CVS coupon. They were running a buy two get one free sale on Spoiled, but I didn't see two other Spoiled polishes I wanted. The Revlon Colorstays were $7.99 each, the Revlon Top Speed was $5.99, and the Spoiled was $1.99 = $29 before tax.  I had $1 off coupons for all three of the Revlon polishes and the $.50 coupon for the Spoiled, which brought it down to $25.50.  I bought $15 worth of the Revlons first (two Colorstays and a Top Speed), got the $7 Extra Care bucks, and used those to buy the fourth Revlon (a Colorstay).  In total I used $16 of Extra Care bucks, which brought down the nail polish cost to $9.50 cash out of my pocket.  That's not too bad!  Four beautiful polishes for $9.50 (before tax)!  Yay!!!

The first two colors I bought were Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night (I'm going to call it a dark periwinkle, but I am not good with color descriptions) and Coastal Surf (a sky blue).  I had wanted both colors since seeing them at another store a few weeks ago (when I made my last nail polish purchase before briefly going into no-buy status--what I bought then was a Revlon Colorstay polish at CVS that with coupons and discounts and Extra Care Buck rewards was actually a money-maker, so that was a no-brainer to "buy").  

My husband picked out Revlon Colorstay Bonsai (green with gold shimmer) for me.  The most beautiful polishes I own were picked out by my husband.  He's come a long way.  After years of only thinking in terms of pink and red and orange polish, in December he went out by himself and came back with the Sally Hansen nail strips in Teal with It, a bright, "electric" aqua blue.  I had mentioned once, in passing, how I was thinking of buying the strips.  And, that's how he is.  He surprised me with them the same day.  I wore them that night to the firm holiday party.  They matched my blue dress.  I got tons of compliments on that manicure, and it lasted about 11 days.  Since then my husband has picked out some gorgeous blue polishes and green polishes for me.  

The Revlon Top Speed I bought was Royal; I had been wanting it more and more each time I saw it on a new blog post. It's, as can be expected from the name, a royal blue.  The swatch on my nail wheel dried matte, but it doesn't seem particularly neon-like.

The last polish I bought today was Spoiled's Ants In My Pants, that I had wanted for a while, but I would do the old pick-it-up-and-put-it-back thing on every trip to CVS.  My husband picked Ants In My Pants today from the Spoiled display, and I took it as a sign from the nail polish gods and added it to my collection.  Yay!  Ants In My Pants is a re-release of the limited edition Wet n Wild release Behind Closed Doors, which is believed to be a dupe of the very expensive Deborah Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers.  AIMP has a black jelly base with red glitter in two different sizes.

Here are pictures of today's nail polish purchases:

Left to right:  Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night, Bonsai, and Coastal Surf.  Revlon Top Speed Royal.  Spoiled Ants In My Pants.

Not a great picture, but these are four of today's purchases swatched on a color wheel.  Left to right:  Revlon Colorstay Bonsai, Revlon Colorstay Coastal Surf,  Revlon Top Speed Royal, and Spoiled Ants In My Pants.

Another photo of four of today's purchases swatched on a color wheel.  You can't see Ants in My Pants too well on the right, but you get a different view of the Revlon polishes.

#18 is Revlon Colorstay in Indigo Night (not very color-accurate).  #13 is L'Oreal L'Orange.  #16 is L'Oreal Now You Sea Me.  #17 is Essie Barefoot in Blue.

I am going to paint my fingernails this afternoon.  I want to use a blue polish because a lot of the nail bloggers are wearing blue polish tomorrow for World Autism Awareness Day.  My husband said my new Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night was his favorite of all my new blue polishes, so that's what I will be wearing tomorrow.  I would have gone with a more wimpy choice of a lighter blue because I will be in the office tomorrow, but at least I don't have to go to court.  Usually I wear my blue polishes on my toes. I hope Indigo Night doesn't stain too badly!

My pictures aren't the best.  You can Google all of these colors and see AMAZING swatches by the more experienced and very talented nail polish bloggers.

Thank you for reading!