Electro Candy Volt of Light : The Highlighter Konadicure!

Good morning, Dear Reader!


I've been having a grand old time being reunited with my Konad and playing with the Color Club Electro Candy Collection!


For today's mani, I started out with a base of Volt of Light. If you recall from my swatches of this collection, this was the yellow that was still somewhat streaky in four coats. To get it opaque and even, I ended up using six thin coats of nail polish and two coats of top coat - the Color Club Vivid 10 Color Intensifying Top Coat (which really does make a difference), then a coat of Nubar Diamont to make it dry. This was Diamont's biggest challenge to date - seven coats of nail polish to dry! Happily, it worked like a charm, and I was ready to Konad away very soon.


For the patten, I used Konad plate M62 for another favorite tip pattern, and Konad Psyche Pink polish (the neon pink shimmer in the Coraline sets). The result is a manicure that looks like I used highlighters on my nails!

I also found yesterday that using Nubar Diamont over dry polish to seal the Konad pattern works really well - it seals the Konad Special Polish without smudging and dries really fast, but doesn't cause any troubles with the completely dry base nail polish. It's definitely my new Konad top coat too now - I got an industrial size 8 oz bottles of it! Its costs about the same as the professional sized Seche Vite refill, since the Diamont is 8 oz and Seche Vite is 4.5 oz, and with a better dry time, no shrinkage, and being smudge free with Konad, I'm sold!


Also, a little reminder for you, Dear Reader, that WowSoCool is running a 20% off coupon right now. The only exclusion is the already discounted Build Your Own Kits, and the code is "nailphile." There's no end date set for it yet, so you might want to get in on it soon if you're eying more plates or polishes. If you recall, we cleaned out Nubar pretty well while that coupon was going! For the record, I don't benefit at all from the codes I run - they're just an opportunity for my favorite etailers to give you a break on cool stuff that I like, and since I've only run them with companies that I buy from myself, I have faith that they'll do business with you a way that's up to my standards (and I can be a PITA customer!). I don't get a nickel out of it.


I also have a little site update - I added some tabs to the top of the title section for you. I put in a "Current Promos" tab to make it easy to find codes (I don't expect to do more than one at a time). The "Contact" one has my email for you if you have questions for me that aren't general comments, and the "Older Posts" tab is a work in progress. It'll eventually be a list of links to all posts by date, but it starts a few months into the blog. I added a tab just yesterday for the tag cloud. I know a lot of people were using it, but it really did clutter up the page, so that tab will take you to a currently updated tag cloud for the whole site. The next big project that will either be on the side of the page or a tab is an organized format for the labels on all the posts, set up like an outline (Brands will have all brands under it in order, Colors will have all colors, etc). With the number of posts I've got on this site now, I'm making a few changes and additions to make it easier to find what you're looking for when you visit. If you have ideas for anything else that you'd find helpful, please feel free to email me with your suggestions.


That's today's Konadicure, the result of my test of Diamont over Konad, your WowSoCool reminder, and a little site update. Whew! That's a lot!


Until tomorrow, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

Matte Nail Polish in Every Color: Nubar V for Men Top Coat

Good morning, Dear Reader!

I've been intriqued by the completely matte nails polishes, but not so much that I'm willing to hand over $22 for them or to wait for a coat of NailTek II (to which I attribute some recent problems with my nails) to dry over a polish.  But I found a solution from the good folks at Nubar that I thought I'd try out before their sale is over so we could see if it really works or not.

The verdict?  It works like a charm!  The product is their V For Men Quick Dry Top Coat, which dried as fast as Diamont, but to a completely matte finish.  I decided to keep it simple for the test drive and just tried it over black.  The top coat picked up no color with zero wait time between coats, had my polish completely dry in just a few minutes, and is matte as can be.

Nubar V For Men Top Coat over Black

Nubar V For Men Top Coat over Black

The upshot of this find is there's no more waiting for anyone to come out with a matte color I want - the topcoat can just make anything matte.  What fun!

On the topic of Nubar, tomorrow's the last day of the 20% off coupon code.  The code is 20% off $50 or more through the 31st, and is nlphle2050.  Their free shipping over $75 policy still applies but only after the discount is applied.

That's all I have for you today, Dear Reader.  Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!

EDIT:  I just tested the chat window I had my eye on - stupid thing put an ad right over my pic!  I'll try to find another one.

New Edit:  I just added a chat window.  It's under "Chat" on the sidebar.  You can register a profile, but don't need to. If we meed to change that later, I can.  What I've found is that you can upload an avatar if you have a square pic online, and I made it so that if you're a regular commenter and you want to use your commenting name, you can password protect it by creating a profile.  I don't know if I have to create it for you or if you can do it too.  I password protected Siobhan, though, so the messages from Siobhan are really me.

I just checked, and you can in fact password protect your own name, so you don't need me to do it for you. 

If you have questions, please post it in a comment below, as I'm sure others do too, and I'll research and answer as fully as I can.  I'm figuring all this out as I go too, so we'll see how we like it and if we want changes.

Nubar Pasadena Purple, Cleopatra Collection, & Fun Site Update

Good evening, Dear Reader!

I updated my last post with some of this news, but then made a discovery that made all of the news worth an update post!

First, the Nubar Pasadena Purple and Cleopatra Update: I got an email today from Nubar telling me they are taking preorders this week to ship on Monday, March 30, for those things, which I'd shown you in previous posts and went out of stock.  I wanted to let you know about it since they're running a 20% off $50 or more coupon code through the 31st, nlphle2050.  Their free shipping over $75 policy still applies but only after the discount is applied.  Get 'em while the gettin's good!

The thing I'm all excited about that prompted me to post is the fun site update!  Those of you who've been here for a while know that I changed the comments feature recently.  I'm still getting adjusted to it myself, and I just discovered it has a Private Message feature that you can use if you leave comments.  You can message other commenters privately (like an email), and it really is private, or you can use it to contact me privately.  I can't see the private messages other than my own, and don't know when or what one person sends one to another, so feel free to chat away at will!

I just tested it with someone who left a comment recently who I also chat with on IM, and it works.  I thought that was a cool little feature I'd pass on to you, Dear Reader, in case there's someone you've wanted to say, "Hello," to...

That's all.  Just so we stay on topic, as this is a nail polish blog, I'll give you some pictures from the vault.  It's one of my favorites Nubars, Purple Beach.  

 

It's purple, it's a duochrome, what's not to like???

That's the update for now, Dear Reader.  Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!