Suzanne Calling

I've had quite a few trips to Mandi that I haven't blogged about, so a round up of all those trips is in order: First, today's manicure. She'd done some marbling on another client's nails and offered to do mine. I think we needed more contrast and she agreed, so we'll try it with the next visit. I think I'd mentioned that she returned to being a nail tech after several years away, raising her daughters. In that gap is when gel nail polishes took off, which means her return involved trying out three different types of UV Gels-and having a large palette of colors to choose from. (Get ready for a fourth to appear soon, as Essie joins the market with UV Gel polish soon!). Anyway, because she's a latecomer to it, she didn't know that CND's Shellac line really played up layering to make new colors. I shared my links and was a bit disappointed that Hillary at Solessence has really moved away from the color swatching she'd done a couple ...

Mandi hit it out of the ballpark with the last manicure she did two weeks ago. It wore amazingly well. In fact, she may have needed to cancel today, and I was fine with that manicure for another week if we had to cancel. Today, I also did a pedicure, with the same color. What's funny is that about six months ago, I found a foot soak on Pinterest, and I do that every other month-she commented that she didn't have to do anything to my feet but a salt scrub and polish. Her idea was to dip an entire nail in glitter, then a double top coat. It seems to work for her other clients. I prefer glitter as an accent, not on the entire nail. We'll see how this wears.

When you spend over two years with the same (awesome) nail tech, you tend to get spoiled. Katie and I settled into a routine where she'd pick my colors and just paint my nails, because we knew she got my tastes perfectly. Many of her clients would put the same color on their nails over and over, so I was the palette to try new things. It was fun. Mandi is still learning with me. A lot of the things that work for others don't seem to work for me. For instance, she got an OPI Gelcolor because the shade is right up my alley, but I'd told her that the OPI product doesn't last on my nails. It lifts within a week, and did so, no matter what kind of pre-treatment was done to my nails. She also got some nail glitter, and a purple CND shade for me last time, but we went with the Cerulean Sea, which has worn the best since she started doing my nails. So today, I got Tango Passion with glitter. I had to demonstrate the preferred process for applying the glitter, as I...

My fingers look like crap, but my nails look good! I still haven't gotten my skin back to normal since the trip to New Jersey, but I stepped it up with some neosporin on the nail beds and it seems to be helping. In the meantime, we visited an old favorite, and Mandi placed Rock Royalty Shellac on my fingers.

Two Gelish Shades, and they're rather festive, Wanna Share a Lift and Dark Side! Bonus photobomb by the lovely and funny Katie, who in two years, has me figured out and just does my nail colors without me saying what I want.

I talk about my nails a lot here. After 40+ years of crappy nails, the fact that I have nice looking nails with minimal effort on my part makes me happy to share the information and the pictures. Two years ago, I'd read a thread on a message board asking about Shellac, I was curious about the concept of a two week manicure and did some investigation. Like many of the people who visit my blog, I'm just a consumer-a savvy one. I looked for the good, bad, and ugly about gel nails, because I wanted to get my money's worth. You do, too. My two experiences with acryllic nails left my soft nails weak for months afterwards. I didn't want a repeat. So, today, I share what I know. Why? Because there is a ton of information about there saying that Gel nails are bad. When done by a TRAINED nail tech, they can be very good for your nail health. Trust me on this one-nearly 45 years of nails that split, peeled and chipped if I looked at them the wrong way and now, they ...

After my last manicure with CND's Shellac Black Pool layered with Hotski to Tchotchke got so many rave reviews from the nurses, I thought I'd go with another Black Pool layering effect, but Katie had other plans. She got in the Gelish line, which means she now has CND, OPI and Gelish. I'd heard some so-so reports on it, but she found that it's been working well-and wanted me to try the magnetic polish. I think the tipping point was that she had some samples to show and a lovely blue, Inseparable Forces. If you were wondering about the Gelish Magneto colors, it does take a little digging online, as the Nail Harmony page only describes what it does, rather than giving the palette of colors. There are other pages that show six Magneto colors, I've seen three-the plum hue and the blue really caught my eye, and I can't wait to see the green. Anyway, I was in on trying something different, and in the same amount of time as any of my other gel manicures, I...

An interesting thing has occurred in the last six or so months in that my blog readership has nearly tripled. Once I switched to the pay portions of Feedjit, it was easier to see the trends. You're all here to read about the various soak off gel color nail polishes, aren't you? I end up reviewing a new color every two weeks, and posting pictures. Today, I'm putting all the pictures in one place and will continue to add the colors. This way, those of you who are curious about the nail products have one resource for the palette with links to the related blog post below it. First, the Shellac colors: CND's Shellac, Baroness This was the first color I tried and I blogged at the end of two weeks about the experience. CND's Shellac, Rock Royalty CND's Shellac, Iced Coral and Black Pool to make USF Bulls Green CND's Shellac, Purple Purple CND's Shellac, Masquerade CND's Shellac, Hotski to Tchotchke CND's Shellac, Decadanc...