Rescue Beauty Louge "Aqua Lily"

This might be my new favorite polish.  I'm not even going to bother with an introduction, let's just get to the prettiness!

I took these pictures with my phone in between classes earlier.  I was sitting under a big skylight, which explains the weird reflections!

"Aqua Lily" is a dusty aqua creme with a lilac microshimmer.  Of course the shimmer wouldn't come out to play while I was taking pictures, but it's there I promise!  I think you catch a hint of it in the last photo.

Aqua or teal and purple is my favorite color combo.  I just love this!  And the formula was exquisite!  Two coats that practically applied themselves; no cleanup needed!

Unfortunately, Aqua Lily is discontinued and is CRAZY expensive on ebay.  I borrowed this color from Gosia, and she may not get it back!

Other Rescue Beauty Lounge beauties can be found at rescuebeauty.com

What do you girls think of this color?  You can trust me when I say pictures can't do it justice!

Holy Holo!

Hey guys!

I officially finished the first week of Insanity!! And it only took me about a week and a half, lol!  I'm actually surprised I was able to stick with it.  Before I started I didn't think I was in good enough shape to keep up. But while the workouts are hard work, the individual moves are actually simple.  I'm not as fast as the people in the video, but at least I'm doing it!

Okay, on to the polish!

Today I have another loaner from Gosia, Speciallita Hits No Olimpio Dionisio.  That's a mouthful, huh?  I always thought this brand was called Hits, and I was pretty sure it was from Brazil.  But while I was looking around to confirm that, I found out the brand is actually Speciallita; Hits is one of their lines; and No Olimpio is one Hits collection.   No Olimpio is a collection of crazy awesome holos named after Greek gods and goddesses.  This is the first Hits/Speciallita polish I've tried!

 Look at those rainbows!!  More pictures after the jump!

Back to school mani!

As I was leafing through the Jan/Feb issue of Nail It! I decided to do a mani inspired by the cover model for my first day back this semester

They used foil nail strips for the gold, but I decided to do something similar with a new foil finish polish.

I did two coats of OPI Push & Shove from the new Gwen Stefani collection, then put down hole reinforcement stickers to block off the bottom part.  Then I painted a coat of OPI Lincoln Park After Dark for the tips!  Mine's obviously not as crisp as the professional one, but I'm happy with it!

Push & Shove is another foil finish like the Formula X I showed the other day.  It comes with a mini bottle of Lay Down that Base, which is OPI's special base coat.  This is even shinier in person!  I hope OPI comes out with more of these mirror finishes!!

Lincoln Park After Dark is a classic OPI shade from the 2005 Chicago collection.  I know it looks black in these pictures, but it's really a deep dark plum.  You can kind of see where it smudged a bit.  I like colors that are dark, but not quite black like this.  They're sort of softer somehow.

All right guys, I'm back to school tomorrow.  I probably won't be posting as much, and I definitely won't be able to do much nail art, but I'll still try to post at least once a week!

This is my last semester of classes before I start rotations!  I'm excited, but also nervous!!

Colors By Llarowe "Grace"

I almost didn't post this manicure because I was so underwhelmed.  But as I was about to change my polish I took a couple pictures and figured I'd make a quick post.

This is Colors By Llarowe "Grace" with one of the new Finger Paints flakies, "Abstract Attraction", over it.

"Grace" is a blue-purple duochrome with even a little gold shift in certain lights.  Most of the time it looked like the top picture to me.  Looking at these pictures it's beautiful; it just really doesn't do it for me on my nails.  I dunno why  *shrug*.  It did apply in two perfect coats, like all of Leah Ann's polishes!

"Abstract Attraction" is a pale purple, blue, and green flakie.  It really doesn't even show up over "Grace", it's too pale and the colors are too similar.

What do you guys think of this color?  I really love the way it looks in the bottom picture; I wish it looked like that all the time!

Colors By Llarowe is one of my favorite indie brands.  This is the only polish of hers I've tried that hasn't totally wowed me.  CbL is available (of course) at Llarowe.com.   Keep your eye out for restocks!

Finger Paints is available at Sally Beauty, but it looks like the new collection is not on the website yet.  I found them in the store near me though, so they should be out soon!

Thanks for reading!

piCture pOlish "Ultra Violence"

Hi girlies!

I did the second day of Insanity yesterday, and then had to take a break today!  I'm achy all over.  Hopefully I'll start back up tomorrow.

To reward my "insanity" I tried piCture pOlish "Ultra Violence", another polish lent to me by Gosia.

 Hey look!  My pictures are getting better!  I've found that the best lighting is actually in my bathroom!

As always, there are more pictures and info after the jump!

Formula X "10 Below"

Hi Girls!

I've been a little under the weather, so I haven't been exercising everyday like I wanted to, but I'm feeling better today so I decided to give the first day of Insanity a try!  Holy crap!  I'm amazed I was able to finish it all!  I actually felt really good when I finished it; like I had accomplished something!  We'll see if I can actually keep up with it.  I'm guessing it will take me more than 60 days!

After my workout, I decided to try a special polish:  "10 Below", a limited edition "Foil Look" set from Formula X, containing a polish (10 Below) and a special base coat.

 More pictures and my review after the jump!

Elevation Polish "Toubkal"

 Of all the pictures I took of this polish, this was the only one that was even close to color accurate.  It's just a touch darker IRL.

Toubkal is a burgundy wine with copper glass flecks.  This polish has been on my lemming list for a long time, and I'm so glad Gosia lent it to me to try!  This might be my new favorite winter polish!  It's very cozy and warm, and I think it's one of those colors that will look good on any skin tone.  I'll definitely need to buy this polish so I can wear it again! The formula was a little uneven-it took three coats to even it out, but this color is gorgeous enough that I'm okay with that.

Lulu of Elevation polish is a mountain climber!  I knew a lot of her polishes are named after mountains, so I had to look up the inspiration for this polish.  Toubkal is the tallest peak in the Atlas Mountains.  It's located in North Africa, in Morocco.  I'm mystified by people who climb mountains.  After reading Into Thin Air in 7th grade, mountain climbing seems as fantastic as space exploration to me.  Ben and I have half-joked about hiking Taum Sauk Mountain, the highest "mountain" in Missouri, so that we can say we've climbed a mountain.

Elevation Polish is available at their Big Cartel Site, as well as on Llarowe .

Thanks for reading!

Snowy Water Marble

Sunday Ben and I went on a snowy walk down to the river and back.  It was hard work trudging through all that snow!  I think there was about 6 inches when we went, and we ended up with almost a foot.  I spent nearly two hours shoveling the driveway yesterday, and my back is feeling it today!  Hopefully I can finish up the little bit that's left and then get my Groupon massage I bought!

After our walk, I decided to do a snowy water marble inspired by our snowy walk.

 See more pictures and polish listing after the jump!

Above the Curve "Husbands Just Don't Understand"

Today's reward for yesterday's workout is Above the Curve's "Husbands Just Don't Understand"

New Year, New Blog, New Goals!

Hi!  Welcome to RxNails!  I made the jump to Blogger so people can leave comments on my blog, so comment away!

Let's get started!

I've decided I'm going to tie my nail habit to some new health goals of mine.  While this will primarily be a nail blog, I thought I'd talk about my goals for my first post.

I recently had some routine blood work done, and it turns out my cholesterol levels were just a little high.  Not too high to need medication, but high enough to be a sort-of "wake-up call".  So I'm going to try and cut down on my saturated fat, total fat, and cholesterol intake, and increase my fiber intake.  I have specific numerical goals that I can get into if anyone's really interested.  I thought this wouldn't be too hard.  Looking at nutrition labels, there are a lot of foods with no cholesterol and little saturated fat.  Then I decided to have a boiled egg with my lunch (healthy! all that protein!) and realized that one egg contained my total daily cholesterol limit.  So looks like it's egg whites for me from now on!

My next goal is to get a total of 150 minutes of exercise per week.  I'm really bad about exercising.  I like exercising outside, but right now it's literally freezing (below freezing actually), and I hate being out in the cold.  But I have been using our elliptical the past couple days, so hopefully I can make a habit of it.

This next goal may seem kind of silly, but I'm aiming to take at least one bath per week.  Pharmacy school is incredibly stressful, and stress definitely has negative health impacts.  It's easy to say "you need to decrease your stress level", but much harder to actually do it.  Since there's not really a way for me to lessen the stress of school, I need to be able to cope with it better.  Long hot baths are extremely relaxing to me.  We have this nice big tub, and I don't use it enough, so that's a new goal for me!

Lastly, I want to make a blog post at least once a week.  Hopefully more, but once a week is my starting goal.

Now, if you managed to read all of that, I'm sure you're thinking "What does this have to do with nail polish?"  I'm going to use nail polish to reward myself for reaching my goals!  Everyday that I get at least 30 minutes of exercise means I can change my mani.  And I can only buy NEW nail polish if I meet my weekly goals.  I'm thinking...one polish per goal met.  For my nutrition goals, that means I have to meet my goals more days than I don't.  Hopefully this will inspire me to be healthier!

At last, what you came here for:  Here is my reward mani for last night's time on the elliptical:

This is NfuOh 64.  Sorry for the crappy pictures, it's going to take me a while to figure this thing out.  64 was a gift from the wonderful Gosia of Colorful Crack.  It's a pale pink holo that absolutely cannot be captured with a camera.  Like all of the NfuOh holos, you need to use their Aqua Base with this.  I had no problems with application using Aqua Base.  These pictures are two coats, but one would have actually been fine!

NfuOh, including Aqua Base, is available at the Nfu Oh website and FabulouStreet, which is where I bought my aqua base.

Thanks for reading my first post!  I promise from now on, my posts won't be as long and won't be about health and fitness!