NK Satin Silver

Every time some one asks for silver nail polish recommendations I always scream “NK Silver Satin”. Since NK is one of those hood BSS specials it’s destined to remain on the obscure list. It’s a shame to. There really are some winners in the line.

Behold the awesomeness of NK Satin Silver!

*cue trumpets and over the top fanfare*

Ohh… Not everyone likes silver as much as I do. My bad. I forgot. I think I was a disco queen in a former life because silver and gold polishes just do it for me every time. But you have to admit… This one is hawt! It is so blingy! So foily! I feel like I should be fighting crime and wearing a cape when I have this on. Yes… Some colors conjure up long forgotten super hero fantasies. Enough about me.. Back to polish. Satin Silver is one of the few polishes that I reach for over and over again.

Doesn’t it look like is should pick up radios waves or something? Wanna know the best part though?

This is one coat! That’s right! Just one coat is all it takes to achieve superhero status. It’s not streaky like most metallics. In fact, it’s surprisingly easy to work with.

*sigh* I really do love this polish. It’s one of the very few that I have a backup of. I even sent bottles of these to friends because I had to spread the Satin Silver love. 

Off to fight crime… Or just wash the dishes… Which ever is easier.

Lacquered Love,

Betty

Hailey’s Comet

This is my franken Hailey’s Comet. I named it Hailey’s Comet because just like it’s namesake, it’s one of those things that will only come around once in a lifetime. I couldn’t duplicate this for all of the tea in china, Tyra’s wigs or Solange’s shoes. I have know idea what I used. The only thing that I know for a fact went into this was Nfu-Oh 60. Yeah I know…. No help what so ever.

 

Douchrome and flakey?!?! Be still my beating heart?

A tilt of the hand and it goes all flakey!

These are far from the best pics. I know I got all crazy with the flash but I had to show you all of the purdy colors! It’s hard  to capture the depth of most colors without FUBARing the picture a little.

It reminds me of the OPI La Boehme. Kind of like LB’s wild and crazy cousin. 

Sorry about the off sizing of this last pic. It went all pixilated when I tried to enlarge it.  

Le’ sigh. I have tried to recreate this and fail miserably each time. To make matter worse. I only frankened half a bottle of this! I need to send a sample of this to a polish company. I need a backup for a backup!

Lacquered Love,

Betty

I need some flip flops that match.

The move to Florida has sparked two new addictions, obsessions, habits that I would commit misdemeanors to support, interests. Flip flops and lime green nail polishes. I have always enjoyed both in moderation but the beautiful (read: “hot as fish grease!”) weather has kicked it up a notch. My poor feet haven’t seen the shade in weeks. You know it’s bad when you start putting sunscreen on your feet just so they don’t look like you stole them from some one else. Side thought: WhyTH do my feet tan so much faster than the rest of me? What’s that all about? Just when I think I have enough I run into another pair of flip flops that beg to come home with me. I can honestly say that I expected the flip flop population in my closet to rise but the hostile takeover of the lime green polish has totally take me off guard. Really it’s not just lime green. Any yellowed green will do. I was even severely tempted by Sally Hansen’s latest greens and most of you know how I feel about her.

This beaut is NK Lime Green (Be careful NK… Don’t want you get to creative with the naming) and China Glaze Custom Kicks.

Love this!  It has a very subtle silvery blue shimmer. Darker greens (like *gasp* China Glaze Watermelon Rind) don’t really do move me so this is right up my alley. I was surprised at how well it applied. NK brand is one of those hood beauty supply store specials. You  know… the beauty supply stores with a wall of wigs and weaves and an entire aisle dedicated to blue hair grease. LOL! Don’t front like ya’ll don’t know about Blue Magic! Anyway… They generally run about $1 but I have seen places charge up to $3 for them. NK polishes tend to be hit or miss when it comes to quality control.  I have come across  more than a few wonky brushes with this brand. I know it’s kinda taboo but I highly suggest you check the brush before you buy.

China Glaze Custom Kicks is my ringer. I will spare you the details of  this one because it has blogged about for weeks now. Pretty much the typical fabulousness that is expected from China Glaze. Awesome unique color, decent application, good brush, yadda yadda. But it is a fan-friggin-tastic blue isn’t it?!?! The Custom Kicks collection was one of the best this spring. Keep the hits coming ChG!Excuse the cutes and dust. Those dang digi-cams are unforgiving aren’t they?!

Lacquered Love,

Betty

And now, back to our feature presentation….

Is there any hell that is more painful and frustrating than the hell of moving? I think not. 3 months and and scary number of bottles of wine later, life has finally began to resemble the “good old days”. When makeup was worn, blogging actually took place (and was not just a fantasy) and the mere thought going through Google Reader didn’t feel like a job. WTH man… GR just stops counting after 1000 posts?!?! Who knew? It took a lot of work and great sense of humor but the family is comfy in the new digs and couldn’t be happier. Well maybe they could be happier but I could also be a size 6 and let’s be honest, some things just aren’t worth the effort. LOL!

So without further ado… Let’s get it poppin’!

Lacquered Love,

Betty

The Nitty Gritty.

I must confess… I recently forgot where I came from.

My mom wanted to do her nails and asked where she should start. I told her “Slap on some cuticle remover, grab and stick and go to town”. The silence and blank stare that followed let me know that I may as well have been speaking Klingon. She had no clue what I was talking about. I promptly enrolled her the accelerated version of Nail Care 101.

I was initially surprised at how much my mom didn’t know. Then I reminded myself of just how much I didn’t know a short while ago. The Nitty Gritty is a new series dedicated to nail care (fab mani) essential. It will cover topcoats, basecoats and whatever other treatment goodies I come across.

Have you been dying to know if OPI Nail Envy is worth the $$$ (It’s not.)? Or need a rec for a good yet cheap base coat (Sally Hansen Nail Quencher is the stuff!)? Then let me know. Feel free to ask questions or request reviews. I will try my best to honor all requests.

Lacquered Love,

Betty

We are experiencing technical difficulties.

Some of you already know that I am in the process of moving to Florida. I swear this move has been going on since Moses was in diapers.

What does this have to do with my lack of recent posts?

My camera inadvertently ended up in storage and it won’t see the light of day for another month!

Today I went out and a bought a “get’er by” so I could still post. SMH… I can’t even begin to explain the levels of craptasticness that the poor excuse for a camera spewed forth.

These really are the best pics out of the bunch. The mani is a couple of days old and my fingers are greasy from eating popcorn. They were really just test pics. I intended on doing a nice fresh mani and posting pics proper. My hopes were dashed when I learned that the camera road the short bus to school. I figured WTH… I just had to tell ya’ll about French Kiss.

If you knew how many pics were taken to get this pic you would want to sue Kodak for wasting several precious minutes of your life as well. Especially since while this may the best pic, the color is hella off. Bastidges!

This pic much more true to life than the first one but it went all soft and fuzzy when I cropped it.

*hangs head in utter shame*

This is Pure Ice French Kiss. It is a wonderful true blue crème. It applied easily which is a huge plus for me. I get real special fingered when it comes to applying crèmes. These are all two coats. If the camera was worth a bucket of snot you would be able to behold the wonderfulness of PI Busted on the ringers. Busted is a wonderful light purple shimmer that makes one of the best disco topcoats in history. I that I don’t know about you all but I lurves me some Pure Ice polishes! Cute bottles. Fab colors. $1.97. I’m sold! This brand seems to be a Walmart exclusive. *snort… Walmart exclusive. That’s cute.* I have never seen it anywhere else.

The wickedly bad devil camera is going back to Bestbuy tomorrow and decent StS worthy pics shall resume post haste.

Lacquered Love,

Betty

Naked As a Jaybird

There are some bloggers that never seem to have a bad nail day. No lopsided file jobs. No raggedy cuticles. Not a mention of a broken nail for months at a time.

I am so not one of those bloggers.

Not too bad. The ridges on my ring nail are much more apparent than my other nails. This nail is also thinner than the rest of the nails on this hand. I don’t know why my free edges aren’t white all the way across but at least what is there is white.

This is my problem child. My ring nail as still growing out of a bad run in with a buffer. My index nail is recovering after yet another break. I swear it breaks just to mock me. See that raunchy cuticle? It farts in my general direction.  The ring, middle and index nails are all thin and bendy. 

 

A close up of the cuticle. It’s the debil.

“WTH is she posting these naked nails for?” you ask.

I don’t know why…  I just thought it was important to show you my nekkid tips. I know that I find myself wondering what lies beneath the surface of peoples’ polish. Wondering if their nails are as perfect as the mani implies or are they just faking the funk…

Shucks… It can be down right discouraging seeing perfect mani after perfect mani. You begin thinking “I will never get there.” Well… you may not.  But you can have healthy nails that make faking the funk a little bit easier. LOL!

(Not so much :-)) Lacquered Love,

Betty

 

Where It All Started

Last night I was organizing my polishes and came across this wonderful oldie but goodie.

Finger Paints Brilliant Brushstroke was the one that started it all. It was the polish that I used for my first mani after being a life long nail biter. I was sooo proud that I finally had nails worthy of polishing. I wanted a color that was eye catching and blingy. Something that said “What!?!?! Look who’s got nails now hussy!” Yeah… It was that big of a deal for me.

Oooh… Sparkly goodness!

My only issue with B.B. is that it is on the sheer side. This is 3 coats (I catch an attitude after the 2nd coat. lol) and the VNL is still visible under direct light. An opaque base coat (Nail Tek Foundation) would take care of that though.

Brilliant Brushstroke was also the first Finger Paints polish that I ever owned. It got the ball rolling for my love of Finger Paints. The formula is great. It applies easily and smoothly. The brushes are very nice. If I could change anything it would be a larger core line. The core line isn’t nearly as big as that as OPI or China Glaze but it has some fabulous colors none the less. Some new colors were just added to the core line. A very nice blue, a wonderful lavender cream, and a crazy blingy red-magenta are among the new shades. I should be making a trip to Sally’s soon. I’ll let you know what I grab.

Lacquered Love,

Betty

Dirty and Sexy Indeed!

Misa has quickly become one of my favorite brands. The formula is great. The brush is decent. I love the bottle design. And at $3 a pop, I can do my part stimulating the economy without breaking the bank!

I was very pleased with Misa’s spring collection, Living On the Fast Lane. All are bright, eye catching cremes but the standout by far is Dirty Sexy Money.

Behold the beauty that is Dirty Sexy Money.

Gah! I friggin love this color! Isn’t it ridic?!?!?

I know that this isn’t the greatest angle for a mani shot but this is the one that came the closest to the actual color. And it’s still a bit more green in real life.

DSM is a dirty greeny-turquoise. Color describing skills… I haz em’! It’s kind of dusky. It’s so hard to describe because I have never seen anything like it!  I don’t have anything close to this in my stash. While it is eye catching it still manages to be understated and chic. I usually feel the need to bling out my cremes with a glitter topcoat but DSM holds it’s own.

Cremes  can be rather unforgiving because the tend to show off nail flaws and application mistakes more then busier polishes. But DSM went on smooth and evenly. It settled into a smooth, high shine finish. This is 2 coats topped with Poshe.

I could see this being a great date-night color. A good conversation piece. What? I am the only one that wants to talk polish on a date? Oh… Well that answers a few past dating questions. LOL!

Lacquered Love,

Betty

Quirius Black Coal

Quri-who you say? That's exactly what I said when I first heard of this brand. I had to have it. The swatched that I came across were fantabulous. Then, I found out that it didn't have very wide distribution. I put my lust for Quirius on a back burner because I had no hope of ever seeing them in real life. Imagine my excitement when I came across a Quirius display on a recent trip to the Motherland A.K.A Philly! I am not sure it was a full display because there seem to be more shades on the QRS Beauty website than the display would hold.

Black Coal is a dark grey base that is LOADED with silver shimmer. The dark grey shows through just enough to give the polish some nice depth. The formula is decent. Not bad but not necessarily something to cartwheel over. It's opaque enough that it can be a 1 coater... It would be a kinda thick coat though but 1 coat all the same. This is just two thin coats on my nails. The brush is on the thin side but it is still very user friendly.

This is such a unique color. Or at least it’s unique to me. I haven’t come across any thing like it. The dark grey base makes it more wearer-friendly than your typical silver polish (which by the way I happen to LOVE!) I could see someone wearing this in a less conservative office. But I wear Sponge Bob scrubs and purple rubber clogs to work so I may not be the best judge of office appropriate attire.

I am still searching for a place to buy Quirius online. As soon as I find one I will post a link. Until then…

Lacquered love,

Betty

The Newest Hangout on the Web

Hey there and welcome! My love of nail polish seemed to outgrow my makeup blog so I figured it was time to give it it's own home.

Welcome to Scratching The Surface.

As far as I can tell, it's the first nail blog by a WoC. Woot woot! Look at me being all ground breaking and what not!

What? Too excited? You're probably right.

I am here to answer the burning questions: "Can I rock [insert name of latest most desired nail polish here] too?" and "This color is supposed to compliment darker skin.... Does it really?"

So add StS to your reader and let the good times roll!

Lacquered love,

Betty