I Tried It; I Like It

Last week at work was short due to the 4th of July holiday, so I wore the same polish the whole time, 10 Pro in Spring Awakening, a light purple creme. I used two layers of my new favorite base coat, Salon Sciences Instant Artificials, two coats of the 10 Pro, and one coat of Sally Hansen Insta Dri Anti chip top coat. Here, just to mix things up, is a back of the bottle picture:



Considering how many hours a day I spend pounding my fingers on a keyboard, this polish wore well. In four days, I had no chips and only slight tipwear, and that was without refreshing the top coat or using any sort of manicure extender. I hadn't wrapped my tips, either. Must be the formaldehyde resin; I read a website that said that resin is more durable than ones that don't have formaldehyde in them. (It still confuses my non-scientist mind that the display can say "NO Toluene, DBP, or Formaldehyde" while the polish has an ingredient made with formaldehyde, but I've read more than one article assuring me that once the formaldehyde has been made into a resin it's no longer a problem, and since I happily use Big 3 Full polishes I'm not sure why I even care.) Here's the same mani as above but after four full days:



Before I removed this polish, I did something I've never done before but have been meaning to try for months and months: stamping! I got the little Essence stampy set at Ulta ages ago but it had just been sitting on top of my Helmers, waiting. I didn't have any of the Konad special polishes, but I remembered hearing that some China Glazes worked well, so I grabbed Millenium and got going. Oh my goodness—I was hooked from the first nail. It's like magic! Paint, scrape, tap, roll, and boom—flowers on my fingers. I'm going to need lots of practice to get good at it, of course, especially when in comes to centering, but for my first effort I was really pleased.

Here's everything I used and the first nail I ever stamped:



I'd read that the scraper that comes with the kit is not the best and to use and old credit card, thus the HSUS membership card in my hand. (I've never figured out why the puppies and kittens think I need a membership card, as I've never had occasion to show it to anyone for any reason, but maybe they knew I'd one day need a stamping scraper.) I did my left hand first, opposite of how I paint my nails, figuring I should wield the stamper with my dominant hand at first. When it came time to stamp my right hand, it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be; I think my right ring finger is the best nail I did, actually.





I'll definitely be doing more stamping, which means I'll need more plates than this little Essence one. At least those will store more compactly than polish bottles.