JENsations Sticks n Stones over GOSH Wild Lilac

JENsations - Sticks n Stones (1-2 dabbed coats depending on coverage) over
GOSH - Wild Lilac (2 coats)
topped with Gelous

I really love the look of JENsations Sticks n Stones. It is a fun black and white glitter topper with a bit of shimmer in the base. I just wish it was a bit easier to apply. I found the glitter would slide around a lot when I was trying to apply it. I kept getting so much at the tips and then trying to drag them around to get even coverage. I used a much lighter hand this time though and achieved a much smoother surface than I did last time. I also knew when to stop and wait for it to dry and add a second coat instead of just continuously prodding the glitter around and getting a lumpy base. Next time I think I will try using a sponge to apply the glitter like Sammy from the Nailasaurus did. Of course I say that now but next time I will probably be too lazy... I used Gelous on top this time (instead of Seche Vite) and didn't have any issues with glitter curling and lifting off this time!

Here is a swatch of GOSH Wild Lilac on it's own (2 coats, no top coat)

I found this on sale at Shoppers! I think it was maybe $4 each? I can't find my receipt but I will update this once it shows up on my visa statement and I can see the transaction.

I love the look of GOSH bottles. I think they look so high end when really they are a decently priced brand. The bottles are deceiving though. They only contain 8ml of polish - standard is 15 ml. So I guess they are about the same price as Esse or China Glaze then. But honestly I don't think I would really ever finish an entire bottle of polish with so many in my stash! So I'm okay with paying half price for a half sized bottle.

The brush was teeny tiny on this. Short and skinny. I quite liked it. It was very accurate and I didn't accidentally pick up too much polish as can happens sometimes with longer brushes. I found the polish self leveled quite well and I didn't find that the extra brush strokes showed at all on the nail. This might be an issue though painting larger nails like big toe nails, or if you bought a metallic/frost finish shade.

Wear time on this was just okay. I got 3 days' wear out of it before chipping but 2 of those days were the weekend and I did absolutely nothing. Only 1 day of wear at work where I'm typing lots. I was also expecting it to last longer because I wore Sticks n Stones over it. The last few times I wore Sticks n Stones I think I got 5 or 6 days of wear without chipping. To be fair though I am using a different base coat now (Mavala Barrier Base - before I used OPI Nail Envy... should go back to the OPI Nail Envy but it's sooo expensive!) Also, as I mentioned earlier I used Gelous as top coat instead of Seche Vite which stopped the glitter from lifting/curling but may have meant the mani didn't last as long. Maybe Seche Vite on top of Gelous next time?

JENsations Sticks 'n Stones over Essie Mojito Madness

JENsations - Sticks 'n Stones (1)
Essie - Mojito Madness (2)
Essie Grow Stronger as base, Gelous on top (2)

I was really behind on my nail blog reading list before I went on vacation. I finally caught up and realized that October is Depression Awareness month. The color for Depression Awareness is green and many nail bloggers have posted green manis in support. I happen to be wearing green nail polish anyway so here is my late post for Depression Awareness month. Please read Scrangie's post about depression for more information. As a psych major I probably should be writing my own but I'm a bit short on time and I feel like her post covered everything and was quite moving.

Anyway on to the nails. I had much better luck with Sticks 'n Stones this time than I did the first time I used it. Sticks 'n Stones is another Indie polish very similar to the famous Connect the Dots by the now infamous Lynnderella. It consists of black and white glitter in a variety of shapes: very small circles, small hexes, medium squares, bars, and large hexes. The base is clear with some subtle shimmer, The first time I used this polish I found I had to dab it on in order to get good coverage. This time, I kind of stirred the polish with the brush before each nail to get more glitter on the brush. I found that this way I usually got a good amount of glitter coverage on the first try, and didn't have too much clear base on my nails. On my middle nail however, the glitter kept sliding to the tips of my nails and I tried to prod the glitter around to fix it. This made the clear coat a bit lumpy and you can see this in my pictures. It's not too noticeable in real life however. I also didn't have any issues with the large hexagon glitter pieces lifting off this time. Only one of the bar glitters came off on its own. I think the curling and lifting was due to using Seche Vite on the glitter.

Essie Mojito Madness is a gorgeous Kelly green creme. It applied well in two thin coats. The first coat was a bit sheer and lumpy and looked like it would be a three-coater, but everything evened out at two coats. I think it worked really well as a base color for Sticks 'n Stones. Both the white and black pieces really stood out. 

JENsations - Rainbow Sprinkles over China Glaze - Coconut Kiss

JENsations - Rainbow Sprinkles (1 coat)

China Glaze - Coconut Kiss (2 coats)

Essie - Grow Stronger as base, Seche Vite (1), Gelous (1) on top

Rainbow Sprinkles is a very fun glitter. It is made up of very small round glitters, medium sized square and hexagon glitters, and larger hexagon glitters in a variety of colors. I ended up with mostly red, green, and blue on my nails but there is also teal, yellow, white, purple, and pink. Rainbow Sprinkles applied much more easily than Sticks n Stones (also by JENsations).    For the most part, the glitter came off the brush easily and covered evenly. There were a few spots that I had to go over again, but dabbing this glitter on was not necessary. Seche Vite doesn't really seem to work well with JENsatoins. I think maybe Seche Vite is making the glitters curl at the edges since it can shrink when it dries sometimes. I think that may be why some of the glitters in Sticks n Stones lifted off last time I wore it. Rainbow Glitter became a bit bumpy a few hours after applying Seche Vite, so I applied Gelous over it. In those few hours however a few of the glitters had fallen off so I had a few glitter shaped indents on my nails. I will need to find a new glitter topcoat :(

I don't think I made the best choice when picking a base color for Rainbow Sprinkles. The base color is pretty much the same color as the purple glitters so they didn't show up in this mani. Also, the base color is about the same darkness as the glitters so they don't stand out as much. Next time I'll try Rainbow Sprinkles over a light color (like Oooh Shinies), or maybe black (like Fashion Polish). 

I chose Coconut Kiss because I wore this mani when I went on vacation to Las Vegas for 5 days. I wanted something fun for Vegas and I knew that Coconut Kiss usually lasts about a week before chipping. JENsations Sticks n Stones also lasted quite a long time last time I wore it. The base that Jen uses is awesome in terms of not chipping! As I'm writing this, I'm at the airport now waiting for my flight back home. (This will probably be posted later though since I still have to edit pictures) I really don't want to go back home and go back to work! Boo! Anyway my nails are doing pretty well considering I've been wearing this polish for 6 days now. My thumbs both have a chip at the side of them. There is no tipwear on my other nails but the free airport wifi keeps cutting in and out and I've started to pick the polish off when it's off and I'm bored. I think this mani got a little thick with all the top coat so it's peeling off pretty easily. Don't do this kids! If the polish (especially a glitter piece) is stuck to your nail and you try to pick off the polish it can take a layer or two of your nail off with it. Anyway... I'm blabbing lol

Coconut Kiss is one of the first polishes I bought when I got really into nail polish and started taking pictures of my nails and posting them. I didn't really know where to get good nail polish at the time, especially China Glaze, but really wanted some! I saw this at a local spa and ended up buying a bottle of Coconut Kiss that they had been using for mani/pedis. It had about 2/3 left and I bought it for half regular retail price (not the best deal in hindsight since it's almost that cheap at Sally's for a new bottle anyway but oh well). The bottle is almost out now but the formula and application is still excellent. Coconut Kiss is a purple shimmer in a purple jelly type base. It is not as sheer as a jelly though and only required 2 coats for opacity. I need to pick up a new bottle next time I head to Sally's. Probably my favorite purple ever.

JENsations - Sticks n Stones over China Glaze - For Audrey

 

China Glaze - For Audrey (2 coats)

JENsations - Sticks n Stones (1 dabbed on coat) Etsy store here

Essie - Grow Stronger as base, 1 coat of Seche Vite on top

For Audrey applied flawlessly in 2 coats with absolutely no application issues! Sticks n Stones is another Indie polish very similar to the famous Connect the Dots by the now infamous Lynderella. It consists of black and white glitter in a variety of shapes: very small circles, small hexes, medium squares, bars, and large hexes. It required some dabbing in order to get good glitter coverage. The base is clear with some subtle shimmer, which you can see a bit in the macro shot. I had some trouble applying this polish. I kept getting way too much base on the nail when I was trying to dab on the glitter. Then when I would try to wipe away the excess base the glitter bits would move around with it. Some of the glitter also ended up with a kind of milky looking layer over it because it was covered in too much shimmer. I think maybe this is just me being OCD though I don't really think people would notice in real life. 

I also had issues with the large hexes staying down. Several of them were curled right after application, and over the course of the next few days, more them started lifting up. A few of them peeled off before I even took these pictures the next day. Most of the glitter pieces left a hole/crater looking thing behind when they fell off. I wouldn't really mind that much if the glitter just fell off, but it bugged me that the base color came off too so it was more noticeable. I don't know if this was to do with using Seche VIte or something with my application. On my right middle finger towards the tip a piece of glitter did fall off without leaving a hole in the polish (just a slight indent), but on my left thumb and right index the base color polish came off also. I did my nails on Saturday afternoon and these wear pictures below were taken on Thursday, so 5 days later. I was really happy that there is almost no tip wear and no chipping. The only visible "chips" are actually from the glitter peeling off and taking polish with it. If I could figure out how to get those pesky glitter bits to stay down I could easily leave this on for over a week I think. I'm considering buying JENsation's Shimmer FX polishes. If the formula is the same and doesn't have any chipping or tip wear without the glitter bits falling off, it would be the perfect polish to wear for an extended time!   

 

 

Hole left from glitter peeling off. The silver piece was actually a large black hex I tried to peel off when it was bugging me at work and it somehow split into layers and became silver. The silver layer was stuck down well though.