It's been a while since I've posted a nail pic, but...

It's been a while since I've posted a nail pic, but here are my first spring nails.

Overlook my nail shape; I'm in the midst of making sure my sidewalls are even, so I haven't been shaping them as pointy as usual.

The base is a blue speckled gel polish by Born Pretty. I used the bunny/spring plate made by Pretty Fingers by Robin.

I'm not thrilled with my detail on the bunny. He looks chocolate rather than real, but it's fine. It goes with the season either way. 😂😂😂

Research items

I love me a secure man!

I love me a secure man!

Nail polish is for everyone. ❤️

Since I am particular about my nails...

Since I am particular about my nails I try to avoid using them as tools. It helps a lot to prevent damage and breakage if I don't use them that way.

I saw a smaller version of the Tab Buddy recommended on reddit, but it was made more for drink cans, not soup cans or cans of cat food. I bought another device from Amazon for lids with larger tabs, but it's clunky to use so I find that I just don't.

I emailed the team at Tab Buddy asking for a larger version for different types of cans and they actually made them! They emailed me once some were available for purchase, so I snagged 2.

These XL ones have been amazing. I didn't even realize that they were magnetic until Shaun stuck it to the fridge. That's great because it's always right within reach.

I think these are a wonderful idea. Even if I wasn't super picky about my nails there have definitely been times that my hands have been sore and uncooperative when my PSA flares up. I know this might seem like a dull thing to be excited about, but I don't care. I love things that make my life easier and our cats get wet food 2x daily as a treat (not to mention that I'm a fan of soup), so I am using this thing daily.

They have some super cute designs. I'm linking them below because they really earned my business by taking my suggestion seriously. ❤️

https://www.etsy.com/shop/TabBuddies

So this is what I'm doing to my nails for strength at the moment.

So this is what I'm doing to my nails for strength at the moment. It's not beautiful or interesting, but I do think it's a pretty neutral and looks nice with my skin tone. I could do nail art over it with gel or regular polish. I just haven't had time.

So this is just structure gel, which could possibly be considered an overlay. But it's not as thick as polygel and (in my opinion) much easier to apply. It takes a fraction of the time to create an apex in the correct position and get a nice glossy finish. With polygel I was using pop-its to get my apex and smooth finish, but there was always an issue of shaping/filing the free edge and creating a smooth transition at the cuticle. By the time I was done with that process I was no longer interested in doing any sort of nail art, which is the whole reason I ever want to do my nails.

This gel also removes faster and easier than polygel. You can buff the surface and soak off with acetone. To make it faster you can use an e-file to take down the bulk of the product. This is similar to removing polygel with an e-file, but takes a lot less time. My polygel overlays were always on the thick side.

Here's hoping this is a good solution for growing out the damage I did to my natural nails. It would also be nice if it worked as a reinforcement for them once they grow out. I don't like to grow my nails super long, but I really hate it when they break. Who doesn't, I guess. 😂

So far they feel nice. Not thick or heavy, but somehow strong. They aren't bending at all. Hopefully, my application was good and I won't get any lifting for a couple of weeks. We shall see!

Structure Cover Pink by Gelish

I have decided to stop...

I have decided to stop doing polygel / acrygel overlays on my nails for the time being. I used to have so much fun doing nail art, but I use up my energy and free time trying to get the overlays to look perfect and then by the time I'm done I don't even want to bother dressing them up. It's dumb.

Not only that, but I use an electronic file to remove the overlays and I've gotten SO MUCH BETTER at that than when I started, but there definitely is some damage from my early days of using it that I need to grow out.

For now I'm just going to use Gelish Structure Gel to reinforce my nails and help grow out the damage. It seems to take far less skill to use and I can decorate on top of it with gel or regular polish. Regular polish will last on top of gel for about as long as the gel lasts, so that's nice.

Anyway. Just my current nail musings / plans. Now that I'm far more organized than I was I really can't wait to start using all of my goodies again. I'm excited! 😁

Exciting to probably no one but me...

Exciting to probably no one but me...

Out of 72 drawers I'm down to swatching the last 3 drawers of nail polish that are in my database. The 4 drawers of polish remaining after that are newbies that I need to put in my database as well as swatch.

So I didn't hit my December timeline on getting everything that's already catalogued swatched (and I knew I probably wouldn't), but this is still pretty great.

I'm doing a drawer of magnetics tonight, and a drawer of magnetics tomorrow. Those will take extra time to make sure the magnetic effect shows up on my swatch sticks. Then I'll do my duos, which will also take extra time because I need to swatch them separately and then together. After that, onto my new stuff!

I think I'm gonna have around 5000 nail polishes by the time it's all said and done... And that's a lot. (Please don't judge me too harshly - I've been collecting for many years. I still have polish I wore in high school.) I guess I will either need to stop buying or start destashing after this because I am running out of drawers to put them in. We shall see.

I'm finished swatching...

I'm finished swatching 8/12 of my helmers, or 48/72 of my helmer drawers. Or I'm just 2/3 of the way finished, if you prefer that. 😂

I'm taking the rest of the week off. I do have 2 small paint shakers, but I've been hand-shaking each bottle after the machines as well. Since I've been working on this basically every day since I started (in August? September?) my hands and wrists are hurting and I don't want to damage myself. And I'm tired. And since I'm about to be away from home for a couple of weeks I want to spend my time with Shaun.

I'm so excited to be closing in on a "maintenance phase" for this project. I'm having a great time playing with my polish, but it's gonna feel so good to my brain to have it all organized. Plus, it'll be so much easier to plan out nail art and jewelry. 😊

As of last night...

As of last night I finished swatching half of my polish drawers. I don't know if it's *quite* half of my collection, but it's probably close! 😁

I did these over this past weekend...

I did these over this past weekend and they aren't very decorated, but I like how the color-flips came out. UNFORTUNATELY, I didn't write down which chrome powders I used to get these colors so I have no idea how to get exactly these results again. I'm especially fond of the green and pink ones, so that sucks.

Maybe after I finish swatching my polish I can make a "cheat sheet" with my gels, the silver magnetic polish, and various chrome powders to get an idea of how they'll look all together. That sounds... difficult. And like I'd waste up a lot of gel. 😬 Maybe I'd better start writing my good combos down as I go.

As of this morning...

For math purposes:  I started swatching on August 27th. It's taken me 7 weeks to do 1/3 of my collection. I don't think I'll be finished by December, especially since I'll be away for 2 weeks. But that's ok. I think I'll have the bulk of my colors done and will be down to toppers, magnetics, thermals, gels, etc.