Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow and Candeo Colors Jellybean

From daffodils, tulips and forsythia to peeps, jellybeans and dyed eggs, 'tis the season for yellow. From what I've seen, new yellow nail polishes start popping up around this time of year too. The first one I have for you today isn't new, in fact it just might be an old friend (or enemy, depending on how you feel about it). It's Mellow Yellow from Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear line, a bright lemon yellow creme.

Application of most yellows tends to be a battle against streakiness, and Mellow Yellow is no different. On my very furrowed nails, this is a problem. But I'm happy to say that Mellow Yellow has pretty awesome self-leveling qualities for a yellow and even though I only used two coats as I planned to top it with another polish, I was actually impressed with the coverage I got. Sure, the ridges show, but overall the color is fairly even and the coverage definitely sufficient for a base layer. The consistency was fluid and thin without being runny, applied fairly easily in medium coats and dried naturally in average time to a shiny finish. Let's take a look....

Photos show two coats of Mellow Yellow over treatment and basecoat with no topcoat.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

While I probably wouldn't wear this by itself (if I did I'd definitely add another coat), it makes great undies for the next yellow I have for you, Jellybean by Candeo Colors. Jellybean was among my first forays into the wonderful world of indie polishes. I saw a swatch and was smitten. It's adorable! Jellybean has a pale creamy yellow base brimming with all sorts of brightly colored glitters. There are medium hexes in pink, purple and turquoise and microglitter in chartreuse, lime and pink. The contrasting colors against the yellow just make my eyes so happy I can't help but love this polish.

Application got a little out of control. This polish has a high glitter density and if you're not careful (hello!) you can end up with more glitter on your nail than you bargained for. Luckily, I'm not averse to packing on the glitter especially with such a bright background and applied two coats of Jellybean over the Mellow Yellow manicure above. This is probably too much for some folks, but I love it on the nail. Other than demasiado glitter, Jellybean is an easy and fun polish to apply. I had some instances of the medium hexes protruding over my free edge, but again this polish is too much fun to worry and quibble. I just wait til everything's dry and gently file off the offenders using a glass file. Jellybean dries naturally in good time to a surprisingly smooth and shiny finish.

With apologies for the lack of cleanup, on to the photos, which show two coats of Jellybean over the Mellow Yellow manicure above plus a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean, macro shot in the bottle

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow

As you can probably tell, Mellow Yellow (ironically) brightens up Jellybean's base color considerably, and I find this quite acceptable. This is no time for subtlety! Applied more delicately, Jellybean can have a less rowdy air, but it's always going to be a party on the nail. It's a striking, colorful and fun polish composition for this time of year. Yes, it's busy, but in a good way!

love,
Liz

Candeo Jellybean over Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

The polish look for this post is TDF SUPERCUTE! I mean what else could anyone say about a duckie yellow polish with round multi-colored glitter in it? I'm talking about Jellybean by one of our favorite indie polish makers, Candeo Colors.

Although the yellow base of this polish appears opaque (non see through) in the bottle, it is actually translucent (somewhat see through). I suspect that when polish makers create a glitter filled polish that they want to appear opaque on the nail, there has to be a trade-off between opacity and translucence. On the one hand, you obviously want the base color of the polish to be pigmented enough to cover the visible nail in color. But on the other, you also want that base color to be translucent enough so that when it is layered over itself and the glitter it contains, that glitter can still be seen.

As you should know having immersed yourself in the wisdom imparted by this blog (*cough cough choke*), polishes like this call for "underwear." I chose a nice daffodil yellow polish, Mellow Yellow by Sally Hansen to wear underneath Jellybean. You may remember Mellow Yellow from my nail art post. It's a great creamy yellow color midway between lemon and butter.

Because of my nail ridges I had to apply several coats of Mellow Yellow to get a smooth even finish. I applied it over my OPI Nail Envy basecoat and then added a coat of Orly Sec 'n Dry fast dry topcoat to smooth it out and make sure that all layers below would be dry before I got to Jelly Bean. I used two coats of Jelly Bean and then a topcoat of Sec 'n Dry to finish.

A note regarding my cuticles and the surrounds of my fingernails generally. Not pretty! Sadly this is and as you have probably noticed has been their typical state. I am working on this problem but I have little hope that things will miraculously improve to anything remotely approaching glamour and beauty. 

So unless manna does one day fall from the sky let's put it out there that: A. my fingernail environs are naturally somewhat grotesque, B. I am truly sorry to subject your tender eyes to such sights, C. I wouldn't be able to show you the fabulous nail polish without likewise showing the funky cuticles, and D. C'est la vie. I'm ok with it if you are. Don't we both get tired of repeated apologies every time I post? From here on, I will only mention the periphery of my nails if it looks especially GOOD. *grin* 

On to Jellybean!

What I used, left to right: OPI Nail Envy, Candeo Colors Jellybean, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Orly Sec 'n Dry

Bottle shot, Candeo Colors Jellybean and Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

prrrrretty!

Candeo Colors Jellybean bottle shot with Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow on the nail

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

at the window

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

macro shot on the nail, see what I mean about translucent enough to be able to still see the glitter even after it's been layered over itself?

Candeo Colors Jellybean over Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

SUPERCUTE! I am never gonna be too old to wear yellow nail polish.

Remember the beautiful orange scatter holo polish by Chirality from last post, and my saying that I had four other Chirality scattered holos two of them green? Well I went looking in my nail polish pics and found the photos I took of those Chirality polishes. When they first arrived I was so excited I immediately swatched them skittles-style over whatever polish I had on at the time and took pictures. Here are the greens I'm going to try and remember to bring with me...

Chirality Kale, dark green scattered holo

Chirality Katydid, light green scattered holo

Scrumptiousness! And coming soon to a guest room near YOU!

love,
Aunt Liz

My very first NAIL ART y'all!

Ok, this kinda turned out, like, really really really really messy rustic. But I did it. I crossed that line. The line where it says on one side "paints nails" and on the other "beautifies the nails with patterns, paintings or other decorative motifs."

How did this happen, you may ask. And well you may. Actually, I was inspired... by YOU, Eleanor! I was thinking about what all polishes to bring up with me, and what kinds of colors, and then I thought, what else can we do besides different colors? 

Well, there are decals. Do you still have the hello kitty decals we got at SEPHORA? We can do those. And then I thought about your little fingernails and I thought: flowers. Little dotted flowers, one on each of your nails. 

So I had that idea in my head. I bought some dotting tools from a website. I put them in my nail polish "go tray" (this box where I keep stuff I use regularly like base coats, top coats, nail files, cuticle sticks, polish remover, sponges, cotton pads, etc etc etc -- you saw it, I think). Every time I did my nails I looked at those dotting tools and thought, one day soon I'll be making little dotted flowers.

And today turned out to be that day. Who knew!

Ok before I get to the photos, which are adequate but not good (kind of like my cuticles?), let me tell you what products I used. For my base color I painted my nails with Zoya Jo, a "delicate and serene looking medium periwinkle blue with subtle silver and blue toned shimmer." Periwinkle is such a happy blue, don't you think? These pics are two coats of Jo, no topcoat. After I took them, I added another coat of Jo to try and soothe the savage nail ridges.

Oh, a reminder: I'm sporting wee nubbins now since the epic nail breakage.

Zoya Jo in the shade

Zoya Jo in the sun with wackadoo nail ridges

ditto

Zoya Jo

For the flower petals I decided to use Sinful Colors Snow Me White and for the flower centers I picked Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow. I used a piece of plastic for a palette, dripped two small pools of my flower colors on it and practiced making some dots on the plastic. And then I just went for it.

And this is how it turned out, three coats of Zoya Jo, dotted flowers plus topcoat...

awww!

cuteness, no?

yellow flower ring came with another bottle of sinful colors polish I got from a blog sale... Fuzzy said: Oh that is so cute it would be just darling on Eleanor. I was like, so, what -- and it's NOT darling on me?

You will notice that all pics so far have been of my left hand. That is, the hand that my right hand dotted the flowers on. I'm right handed. The right hand, the one that got dotted by my left hand, is a tad more... uh, randomly done. You can imagine it I know, my sssshaky shaky left hand gripping the dotting tool like a toddler grabbing a mixing spoon, wobbling down towards the fingernail with a blob of polish the end of it. Some dogs just don't hunt, as they say. See for yourself...

what does not kill us just gives us something to laugh about afterwards

bwwwwuaahahahahaha! 

A tale of two pinkies!

the left one...

...and the right one. *chortle*

Now for the thumbs!

left

and right (some slacker did a really weak clean-up job here, no?)

happens every time...

back to whole hand shots, here's my left gripping the bottle of Zoya Jo...

... the flower colors...

... and the dotting tools!

dotting tool close up (hmmm, they could also use a better clean-up job, apparently the same slacker previously mentioned had a go at these too.)

rustic dotted flowers in the light of the setting sun

Before I stop for now, I'd just like to say two words about topcoat. Seche Vite (pronounced "sesh veet"). 

MUST HAVE topcoat

Seche Vite is the bombdiggity of top coats. Here's what the Seche Vite folks have to say about their product: "Seche Vite™ dry fast top coat is widely acknowledged as the world's finest top coat. Specially formulated to penetrate through nail lacquer to the base coat forming a single solid coating over the nail plate for a much more durable finish. Guaranteed not to yellow while leaving nails silky, stronger and resistant to chipping and peeling." I concur, and if I forget to bring you your own bottle of this fabulous stuff we will just make our way to your local Sally Beauty Supply there in Charlottesville and get one for you.

But we're going to Sally Beauty anyway, even if I remember to bring the Seche Vite. Because it's time, Eleanor. It's time for you to experience the product mecca that is Sally Beauty Supply. Sally Beauty is like Sephora's cheaper, woollier, harder-to-get-to-know-but-oh-so-very-worth-it-when-you-do fraternal twin. I will take you there and we will shop. Count on it.

love,
Aunt Liz