FLORAL FOIL

Blah-de-da. It's Monday, cold, gloomy and raining. Seems about right, right? Supposedly it might change to freezing rain or mabes even some snow later. So yup....go us! We luvs it up here!

I hope the dripping sarcasm didn't get on ya.

Yesterday I was sitting around with nekkid nails and just could not decide what I wanted to do. Nothing sounded exciting. That's pretty annoying when I consider I have all of those lovely new stamping polishes. As I wandered throughout the interwebs looking for inspiration, there was just none to be found. Even choosing a color combination wasn't happening.

I seriously spent hours pondering what to do. After I sat on the bed and just stared at colors and stamping plates for what seemed like forever, I opted for trying some foils.

I received these free awhile back when I ordered some foil topcoat from a lady on Amazon. I really wanted to buy some more from her, but she appears to have vanished into thin air. 

Topcoating this kind of foil isn't usually a problem. It's the glossy ones that give me an issue. Still, using Seche Vite is not advised. Without thinking I used the SV on my pinkie nail and watched the small amount of silver in these foils shrivel. Not so cute. I re-did it.

I usually work these by setting up two at a time. The first two fingers I did two coats of my foil topcoat. To add shine I grabbed the Square Hue topcoat they had sent around the holidays. It worked really well. Just for kicks I skipped the foil topcoat and just went with the Square Hue for the rest of my nails, and it worked great! At some point I'm going to have to see what it does to the the more topcoat-challenged foil materials. 

I'm looking at my nails, and the tip wear is not good. Luckily this is a pattern that really called for a white basecoat, so nobody would ever notice that I'm losing some pattern. But I do. This will be coming off tonight.

Just for kicks the other day I did a search for Sally Hansen Prism Turquoise Opal on eBay. Occasionally I do that because I want it. Bad. I found one for $39.99, but yeah, that ain't happening. I found another one that was at $4.99 with only one bid, so I added it to my watch list and crossed my fingers that I'd hear my phone warn me when there was 15 minutes left. I'm happy to report that I snagged it for $11.00, and I am one happy camper. I snagged the Burgundy Orchid one, too, just because I could.

Oh! And I also decided to buy the 12 piece Kleancolor neon set because it was only $14 with free shipping. I couldn't bring myself to buy the China Glaze set because I didn't feel I could justify spending the price when I know I probs already have some very similar polishes. But $14 for a dozen? I'm all over that shit.
 
So yeah, my no-buy is going great!!

FOIL TOPCOATS - BEST SO FAR

In the ongoing saga that is my shithole of a house, today my front picture window thought it would be appropriate to start leaking. It did this a few years ago, and if I'm not mistaken, it has something to do with the ice melting on the roof.  Figures it's finally warm out, and I don't even get to be happy about it. I call bullshit.

Whatevs. Not a damn thing I can do about that for now so I'm just going to pretend it ain't happening.

I got some pretty great news today, too. My 14 year old grandson sang a duet at solo and ensemble, and they did great! So great, in fact, that they are moving on to the Wisconsin state solo and ensemble festival. It's pretty unusual for freshmen to accomplish that, and I couldn't be any prouder than I am right now. I have many fond memories of making it to state competition in Michigan for that, so it makes me very happy that he is continuing the family tradition. I hope he cherishes these trips. I also hope he behaves better than I did on those trips. (yikers!!!!!)

After playing around with foils a couple of weeks ago, one of my readers suggested a topcoat by Revolution. Then I wandered around the web to find it, read about it and see what other people say about it. As usual, I got sidetracked by another link. I don't remember where I saw it, but somebody posted about a topcoat on Amazon that supposedly worked for foils. 

I went to the link and decided I would grab it to try. I posted a question about it, and the seller contacted me almost immediately. She told me that it works without ruining her foils and that she would refund my moolah if I didn't like it.

I've played with it over a couple of different foils now, and I have to say, I am impressed. It still isn't perfect, especially over a smooth silver or gold. I have a feeling that I'm just not going to find a perfect topcoat that doesn't affect my foils.  

I am, however, quite pleased with my results.  

 

My method on these were after I applied the foils, I let them dry for a bit and then put the topcoat on. The topcoat stayed a tiny bit tacky for awhile. I did a second coat, and I made sure that I really went a bit past the cuticles and sidewalls of my nails. I wanted that topcoat to get the edges really well. 

Once that second coat dried and I finished cleanup with my tiny brush, I put on two coats of Orly Glosser.  During my wanderings I had also seen somebody say that the Orly worked on foils. It does not.  It did work well as a more normal shiny topcoat on top of the foil topcoat. I think a traditional topcoat as a finisher was the best way to go. 

I am now planning to buy that Revolution topcoat to see if it's any better. The Amazon one is a mini bottle and doesn't come any larger, so I suppose I should also buy another one of those.  After that, I'm done. I think I'll be satisfied enough with what I just did, and it's nice to know I can at least use my more patterned foils if I want to.

I bought all of my foils from Dollar Nail Art. They have a great selection and a great price. A dollar! I bought a bunch over a year ago, and my nail group did a group buy because they do have a $25 minimum order.

I see Amazon has some good deals on foils, and I think I might buy some from there. One thing nice about Dollar Nail Art is you can choose just what you want, but I hate that minimum order nonsense.

When I was digging through my stash of foils, I had to laugh when I saw the little bags of 48 rhinestones I bought for a buck. Little did I know back then that I could buy thousands of them for only a few dollars more. Of course I never thought I would ever want to own thousands of rhinestones.

Little did I know.