China Glaze Drawn to You

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Hi there. Happy Friday! I own a couple of magnetic nail polishes and I used one for the very first time this past week. China Glaze Drawn to You is a medium purple shimmer polish on first application. The polish applies easily and evenly; I applied two coats. It begins to set up quickly, so the magnet has to be in your hands within a moment after the last sweep of the brush for each individual nail; I had to add a third coat to a couple of nails just because I didn't grab the magnet quickly enough. I think that working the magnet takes some practice too. You can see where my shaky hand messed up the index finger, but I was very pleased with how the pinkie turned out. My fingernails are very curved too, so I had a bit of trouble getting the magnet to affect a large portion of each nail.

Once the magnet has been used, the colors shift between dark purple and a light lilac purple, almost looking 3-dimensional at times. I topped my ring finger with the franken I made. It contrasted almost a little too much for my taste.

Drawn to You began chipping very quickly. By day four, I had significant chipping on index and middle fingers of both hands. I also suffered some nail breaks that messed up this manicure.

I don't know if magnetic nail polish is really my thing. I'll have to give it a little more practice and see more results on my fingers. I still have two bottles of magnetic polish to try out, so we'll see how it goes.

What do you think of magnetic polishes? Is the magnetic polish trend coming to an end? If not, any tips on how to steady my magnet hand? :)

Check out this week's Nail Files; join up too!

Next week I'll show you Revlon Timeless and how I jazzed it up a little bit. Any current GFC followers, if you haven't checked out my giveaway, check it out. Take care.

~Alexis

Tuesday's Treats: Korres Wild Rose + Vitamin C Advanced Brightening Sleeping Facial

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Being in my mid 30s, I am always on the lookout for great skincare products. I am fortunate to have very even skintone, but this "Sleeping Facial" also claims to provide a brighter complexion too. The description on sephora.com states, "This overnight facial-in-a-jar is a breakthrough in beauty sleep. More than a mask, more than a night cream, it contains the Korres Phos Compound, a proprietary blend including a brightening agent and stabilized vitamin C. Day after day, week after week, uneven tone and dark spots will continuously improve. After only 14 days you'll see skin that's brighter, more even-toned, and exceptionally radiant."

At about $50 for less than 1.5 ounces, I would hope that it was an amazingly good product. Maybe one day I'll splurge on it and see if it as awesome as I hope it is.

What are you lusting after or loving today. Share it on the Tuesday's Treats blog hop.






Has anyone tried the Korres Wild Rose + Vitamin C Advanced Brightening Sleeping Facial? Have you heard about it?

Current followers, don't forget to enter my giveaway!


Enjoy your Tuesday!

~Alexis

A Gift for One of my Current Readers

Pin It First, this giveaway is ONLY for my current public readers as of Saturday, May 26 or bloglovin followers who contacted me this past week and it is only for those who live in the US or Canada. If you became a follower after that date or live outside of North America, don't feel left out; I have another giveaway planned. Check the website in the next couple of weeks for information.

Now that the housekeeping is done, to my wonderful readers, thank you. I have only been writing this blog for about three months and I'm just starting to get my stride. I am so grateful that you have stuck it out while I stumbled along. Each time that one of you reads my words or shares your thought with me, I appreciate it. I wanted to show you how lucky I feel to have each of you in my blogging life by guaranteeing that one of my very first readers receive a gift from me.

All right, I'm done with the sappy stuff. Now let's move on to the goodies...

The winner of this giveaway will receive:

A new bottle of either Sinful Colors Green Ocean, Sinful Colors Cinderella, or Sonia Kashuk Fairy Princess (winner's choice).

L-R:  Sinful Colors Green Ocean, Sinful Colors Cinderella, Sonia Kashuk Fairy Princess

An 8 ounce tube of JASON Lotion in either Soothing Cocoa Butter or Natural E.F.A. You can see my comparison of both lotions here and choose the one that you'd prefer.

A bottle of Aili's Violet Dream franken polish mixed just for you.

Index:  1 coat, Middle and pinky:  2 coats, Ring:  1 coat over purple polish with topcoat.

A tin of Badger Cuticle Care.

All items for the giveaway have been or will be purchased by me.

Just post a comment in response to this post with your GFC name, throwing your hat into the ring. I will accept comments until Thursday, June 7 and announce the winner the very next day. The winner will be selected using random.org. The winner will have 3 days to respond or another winner will be selected.

Which polish and lotion would you select if you won? Good luck and just know that I would love to give a present to each and every one of you.

~Alexis

Julep Kelly in the garden

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Hi again, lovelies. I had an interview on Monday, so I wanted a subtle, classy manicure. I wore Julep Kelly. It is a very pretty pale pink polish. Application was a bit difficult. It seemed to thicken up as I was applying, so one nail would turn out fine, but by the time I got to the next nail, the polish was a bit gloppy. I would close and gently mix the polish to fix the texture problem, but as you can see, I must not have mixed as gently as I thought because this resulted in a very bubbly manicure. The bubbling was not really noticeable until two days into the manicure when I did some work in the vegetable garden. Then the bubbling looked like brown dots, yuck. To get a fairly even finish, I had to paint three layers.

After four days, the manicure was really beat up. Planting and weeding take a toll on my manicures even when I wear gardening gloves. Even though it is hard on my nails, I love spending this time of year outside playing in the dirt.

My little girl and I had so much fun and she did a great job cleaning up the weeds from the walkway between my garden beds and getting rid of slugs. I was called in for a second interview on Thursday and my peonies are blooming too, so overall it was a beautiful week. Looking at this picture, I can almost smell the flowers! I'll go out and gather a small bouquet today.

Before I go, any followers other than GFC followers, if you are interested in a giveaway that I'll post about this weekend, let me know that you follow the blog and how you follow. This is your last chance to let me know.

Does anyone else have Julep Kelly? What do you think of it? Any tips for great polish application?

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend!
~Alexis

A Wine-Tasting Fairy Princess

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Hello. I hope that you all are doing well today. I have lots of pictures for you today. I was wearing this really fun manicure for a really fun wine-tasting bachelorette party. I love the little grapes on the shimmery background of Sonia Kashuk Fairy Princess. Fairy Princess was a very thick and hard to apply. I actually got frustrated and added three drops of nail polish thinner to the bottle and that fixed the application problems completely, but you can see my middle finger in the picture above is not as smooth as I would have liked. The middle finger was painted before thinning the polish and the ring finger was painted after thinning the polish. I added a coat of Melissa to my ring fingers which just gave a bit of a frosty, shimmery green finish to those nails.

I stamped all nails with bornprettystore plate m71, a floral pattern in Revlon Minted and stamped over that with the grape pattern from bornprettystore plate M71 using Revlon ColorStay Amethyst and Sally Hansen Emerald City. I have been very pleased with the performance of ColorStay polishes for stamping lately.

With my nails ready to face a day full of wineries, I hit the road with a bunch of my favorite girls. I loved the view from this winery, the grape vines and then the lake in the background. It was an absolutely beautiful day in every way!

Noble Winery, Westfield, NY

I removed the polish after five days of wearing it, one day after the wine tour. You can see that there is one big chip on the middle finger and some chipping on my index finger, but the manicure quickly deteriorated after taking this picture. I spent the day at the beach, finding sea glass in the sand with my daughter.

Day 5

Sunset at Lake Erie

I am wearing a very traditional, pretty manicure right now, Julep Kelly. It is pretty beat, so I'll post about it in a day or two.

Join the Nail Files link-up and check out what's going on other fingers.

What do you think of coordinating your manicure with a special event or holiday? If you've done it, what was the event and what did your manicure look like?

~Alexis

Tuesday's Treats: Tatted Ankle Corsets

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Hello, dear readers. I'm linking up with Frances again for Tuesday's Treats. The first time that I saw tatted ankle corsets on etsy, I loved them. In fact, I even taught myself to tat lace so that I can someday make something so intricate and beautiful.



Check out the other treats and join the link-up yourself if you have something fun that you'd like to share.

Are there any accessories after which you've been lusting lately?

Have a good Tuesday.
~Alexis

Green Ombre Gradient Manicure

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Hello there. I put a lot of effort into this manicure. I used the tutorial  for gradient nails from The Nailasaurus and transitioned between Revlon Bare Bones to China Glaze Fast Track, Julep Sofia, Sinful Colors Irish Green, Sonia Kachuk Fairy Princess, and concluded with Sally Hansen Emerald City from index finger to pinky. I then stamped Emerald City over all the nails and dotted them with Bare Bones and Emerald City. The manicure was my entry in Midnight Manicures Green nail art for Lyme Disease Awareness and Mental Health month contest. You can see all the entries on the Midnight Manicures facebook page. There is one nail art manicure that I think is fabulous and I really want to try out something similar. See which ones you like the best.

The next time that I try out that gradient, I'll use polishes that differ in color a bit more for a more pronounced effect.

By the second to last day wearing this manicure, I wanted something a little different, so I added a coat of Matte about You. I think it looked pretty matte. I find that my sponged manicures tend to hold up pretty well and this one was no exception. There was a little bit of tip wear and chipping at the edges of index and middle fingers after five days. My favorite nail color was the Irish green with Fairy Princess sponged over the top of the polish. Someday I'll do a full manicure with that combination.

I liked my middle fingers a lot too, just because I think it is so cool that Julep Sofia glows in the dark.

Check out the Nail File:  Week 20. Look at great nail polish finds, fun manicures, and join the link-up yourself if you have some eye candy to share!

Next week, is a Fairy Princess manicure. I can't wait to show it to you all! Have any of you tried out the gradient tutorial from The Nailasaurus? I'm also curious, how long does it usually take you to do your manicure?

Take Care.

~Alexis