Nail Mail

Nail Mail!! So after my birthday, I went and splurged on some items I have been wanting to try. I am so excited to say they have already started coming in!! Unfortunately some major lemmings that I wanted are still unattainable for now but I am working on my dusty hunt. In this first round of deliveries I received Konad plates and french manicure kit, Rescue Beauty Lounge "Scrangie", Nfu-Oh 40 & 63, and the 21 piece Bundle Monster nail art bundle! I think that is a pretty awesome haul if you ask me. Now to decide which ones to try first.

 Bundle Monster Nail Art Plates

 Konad French Nail Kit and Plates 57, 60, 63

 The lovely Nfu-Oh holographic 63 and blue/green flakie 40

Okay, forgive my Rescue Beauty Lounge pictures, I just loved the presentation for Scrangie. (Which of course, was created by the blogger Scrangie.)

 Oh, isn't it beautiful? **Drool**

Ogre Nails: Orly Cutique to the Rescue!

Orly Cutique is a cuticle and stain remover that: 

"Gently removes dead tissue from cuticles, making cuticles soft and pliable. Removes stains, leaving whiter nails."

You saw my previous experience with nail whiteners so, needless to say, I was a little skeptical about it working at all. I was quite mopey at this point because I wanted to try some sheer polishes that my Ogre like nails did not look good with. I swear the yellow changed the colors I was trying out. So I begrudgingly bought the product and brought it home to try out. The instructions say to apply to cuticle and nail for 30-60 seconds and gently push cuticle back with orange-wood stick or pusher. Rinse with warm water or ample amount of Orly Clean Prep. So here we go. I brushed the product on my nails and waited for the full minute. I wanted this to work so badly! I would have left it on longer to try and gain any chance it would lighten my nails more, but I had the small fear it might ruin my nails so I stuck to the instructions. After washing my hands, I couldn't believe what I saw. There was a significant difference after just one use. I went back to my pictures to make sure I wasn't just trying to be overly optimistic. Sure enough, there really was a good improvement in the color of my nails. Now don't get me wrong, they are still a shade of yellow, but not as bad as before. Yea! No more Ogre nails! Here are some before and after photos.

Before

 After

Before

 After

Do any of you use this product? Let me know if this product worked for you. :)

Essie White Bright Nail Pen *UPDATE*

*Go to bottom of post for updated content.*

Essie White Bright Nail Pen is suppose to help whiten and brighten the appearance of natural nails. The unique formula using non-bleach technology dries in seconds leaving nails white, bright and beautiful according to the description on the box. It can be used alone or under your nail color. Of course, Essie recommends you still use a base coat with your manicure. So I thought I would do a test for you all seeing that nail yellowing is a BIG problem in the nail polish community. To my total embarrassment, of course, I will start with some before pictures that I am not too proud of. Beginning in the fall of last year, I was using a pretty crappy base coat and low and behold a dark color bled through the base coat and stained my nails (cue sad face and slow violin music here). After that I got on track and bought several good base coats and things were looking better. Then I did my Christmas manicure ... with the crappy base coat again (yes I know, shame on me). I did this stupid act thinking I was going to remove it in a day or two so not too much to be concerned about right? Wrong! My one to two days turned into 6 days and some very yellow (and green) nails. So here is the evidence of my nail blunder, minus the green (thank God for nail polish remover). Hope you all learned a valuable lesson from my mistake. Please don't judge my pictures too harshly. I will post updates over the next few weeks to show you the difference.

Now when you use the pen, you feel like your are using a felt tip marker that has clear ink. It does dry/absorb very quickly.

Please ignore the crack in my middle finger. That occurred a few days ago and tomorrow I will discuss the product that I used to fix it. :)

Ewwww. I don't know why I put the watermark there. It's not like anyone would want to steal these pictures LOL!


So, I used this product for roughly four weeks and did not see a big difference. I would use it in between manicures and if I had no polish on I would apply it daily. It was a BIG disappointment. I was really hoping it would work. Oh well, I hope it has worked for someone out there. Let me know if you have any tricks for whitening. I am about to start trying Orly Cutique to see if that works. Wish me luck.

Here are some before and after pictures for you to examine. Please don't judge the dried out fingers/cuticles, I had just removed some polish. :(

Before

After

 Before

 After

 After

So, can any of you see the difference. I sure can't!