China Glaze: Dripping Wet

Last month I won a contest hosted by Mary over at Body & Soul and one of the two polished I received was China Glaze's Dripping wet.

This polish is a gorgeous chocolate raspberry jelly (doesn't that sound yum?). The jelly formula is gorgeous. I adore jellies. While jellies are on the sheer side and I hate sheers there is something about the finish I can't get enough of. Jellies in deep shades like this one have that "wet" look quality. The photos below are 3 coats, and as you can see it's still a touch see through but I really love the look. Dark but not. Opaque but not quite.

China Glaze is my favorite company. I love their formulas and brush and this one was no exception. The brush is the perfect size for easy application. This one streaked a bit but that's just the jelly nature. The first coat is like a sheer stain of raspberry, the second coat deepens a bit to a squishy burgandy and the third coat results in the color pictured. I imagine one more coat would bring out the deepness of the color, because as you can see in the bottle it really is quite dark.

I am pretty positive this is an old discontinued color, but if you like jellies and can find this one pick it up, it's a fun vampy color!









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Adventures in Konad-ing 2: The first (third?) design

I received my package from Wow So Cool and was so excited to get to stamping. Here's my first (third?) design to share with you. But first, let's talk about it.

Konad is NOT fool proof. It's incredibly frustrating to use. This attempt is DECENT but by no means is it perfect. This is my third try with the system, I should have taken pictures of the first failed attempts but I was so annoyed and throwing a FIT at that point that I decided to spare myself the agony of sharing my fail nails. What sucks the most is that basically if you mess one up you need to pretty much start over because it's polish!!

I found this incredibly helpful video on YouTube that has some great tips that I used to get the images below. Like I said, they are not perfect but this is much better than my first disastorous tries.


Tips from the video I found particularly helpful:

Holding the scraper at a 90 degree angle. Seems contrary to what you'd think (angling it a bit) but it worked wonders.

Cleaning off the plate and scraper AND stamper EACH time with acetone. Tedious but 100% necessary.

That's all I can think of for now. I have to say this is a difficult product to use. I am going to have to practice a lot more to get better images.

Below is my third or so attempt, excuse the mess on my fingers I didn't feel like cleaning it off before taking pics. I am lazy.







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Nail Life: "Gripper" Base Coat, A Review

The Nail Life Gripper Base Coat retails for $6.99 at Sally Beauty Supply or $6.49 if you have a Sally Beauty Club Card. I purchased this when I ran out of my China Glaze base coat because the size of the bottle caught my eye.

Value/Size
Like it's counterpart, the Speed Demon quick dry top coat it is 1 fl. oz. of product which is double the size of a typical nail polish. Which means the $6.99 price tag is a little easier to swallow.

Formula/Application
The formula on this one is nice. It's thin and quick drying. I have used a good 1/3 of the large bottle and have had no drying or thickening of the polish at all. I feel the base coat leaves a nice, well, BASE on my nails and really does help to adhere the polish and make my manicure last longer. I always use this as my first step when applying polish.

Drying time
This is basically insta-dry. It adheres to the nail and by the time you coat all 10 nails you can go right ahead and apply your polish. No wait time.

Overall, as a base coat I'd recommend this product. It's similar to other base coats I have used (China Glaze, Orly) and it does what it is supposed to do. Dollar for dollar, considering the size of this thing I think it's your best bet on the market right now for a base coat. It's a straight forward product.

Have you used this product? What is your favorite base coat? Let me know!!


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