♥ HAUL!!!! EXCITING NEWS FOR CANADIANS..New Goodies and False Nail Removal ♥

above- Ardene Rockin Purple, AppleTini, and Matte about Blue

First; this is a loooooong post. I hope that if I have not explained things thoughtfully and thoroughly in regard to safe false nail removal and that people do comment. I really want to be sure I have written good instructions. So please don't be shy - if you have any questions please ask♥♥♥

Ardene is a Canadian store with jewelery, hair accessories, clothes and makeup....I am not sure what American store to compare it to. I found these for 50% off as the store in my town is moving..... not sure why they are half price, but I have always wanted to try this polish, so I grabbed htese three as they seem to be a good spectrum of what is available. . I really need to start a support group for those who HATE stubby huge polish handles. I am hesitant to buy polish's with handles like this becuase I really, really don't like them.

Anyhoo- I have only seen 1 other blogger do a post on an Ardene polish, and that was in September, so I thought I should do some 'invest-i-ga-tory' polish blogging a trial on this Arden polish. Their scent is similar to most drugstore polish's, they are made in Taiwan for Ardene Stores, and the brushes look full, with a few wonky bristles. I just picked these up yesterday so I haven't had a chance to swatch them or take great colour accurate photos. If anyone happens to have any of these polish's what are your feelings about them in regards to application, colour etc....

These polish's range in price for $3.50 to $4.99 CAD but are always 'on sale' for 2 for $6.00 CAD,so they are 3 bucks each. The 3 I picked were reg. $3.50 and at 1/2 price ended up being all 3 for under $6.00. These are at the top of my 'to swatch' list and I will have a report as soon as I can.

HERE IS THE EXCITING NEWS - Chatters is a Canadian beauty store in my town that really only has OPI polish... which I skip on if possible, they also sell like shampoo and hair accessories and other beauty products - - BUT the one of the girls that works at the one in my town said;

" WE WILL BE GETTING THE FULL LINE OF CHINA GLAZE POLISH IN SEPTEMBER!!!!!!

yippee - now I can just run over to Chatters and buy whatever China Glaze polish I want...= Fabulous! I don't understand why they did not have the whole line before, as they had the Khrome collection as well as Up and Away collection, I suppose they were just testing how well ChG would sell. .

Also I mentioned that Icing stores now have a few new 5 pack 12ml 'LE' collections in store as well as 2 new summery 3 pack sets of full size 15ml polish in really beautiful polish colours. I am out of the loop on Make-up Alley so maybe someone else has covered it already but it looks as through they have similar colours in their regular collection....these polish's may just be grouped together and boxed for summer. Are there any photos of them floating around on the interwebz?

The rest of the photos below are a few sets of polish I have picked up at Claire's and Icing stores over the last few months. I have not seen the Icing Alice in Wonderland knock off set swatched or blogged anywhere. Is everyone boycotting it? Its a pretty close rendition of what OPI had released for their Alice in Wonderland themed collection.

Following all these lovely haul photos - {which I looooove to see haul's on other people blogs and MUA} is my cuticle safe and cuticle love false nail removal methods. I tried to get video of this in action - but it was very, very hard. I will be doing another 'tutorial' on safe false nail removal in a week or so.

a fabulous fruity mini polish set♥

Claire's mini foils and one blue frost.... WHERE IS MY BLUE FOIL CLAIRE'S????

for weddings?

Alice in Wonderland?

Acetone Drip method

Below; This lil' pinky nail popped right off after I gently stuck my manicure tool in between the false nail and my real nail. So I had to use my thumb for this 'tutorial'.

Here is the beginning shot on how I remove my false nails using a small manicure brush and pure Acetone that you can buy at any drug store, department store or beauty store.. Here I am gently prying the false nail away from my real nail.

In the photo above you can see there is some significant growth as I have been wearing these false nails for almost 11 days. Instead of cutting my false nails down as short as possible and SOAKING MY WHOLE FINGERTIP in a little GLASS bowl of acetone, I try to find an area of the nail where there is some separation between my false nail and my natural nail. I 'drip' acetone into this crevice so that the acetone will dissolve the glue, and parts of the false nail as well, and aid in the removal of the false nail. I left the polish from my previous manicure on so I could take better photos = = but I will be doing this again soon with a french manicure = where you will be able to see through the false nail.

Below are the supplies I use. Acetone, a manicure brush I made with a cheap dollar store brush that I cut the bristles on an angle, a manicure tool I call 'the poker', tin foil to protect my work surface, and paper towels, just in case I spill any of the acetone, and to wipe off the glue from my angled brush. I also got some gun-cloths, these are a textured woven cloth.... with very little fluff or lint.

I pour a little acetone into the cap of the acetone bottle.... one day I will buy a pretty 'dappen dish' for this purpose.... but for now this is working perfectly.

I totally could have used an extra hand for these photos. Here I am using a manicure tool called..... called.... I don't know the real name but I call it the 'poker'. I am gently prying the false nails away from my natural nail, in order to drip the acetone in the area between. The acetone will loosen the glue and I will be able to remove the false nail easily. While I was holding the camera in one hand, and balancing the poker between my fingers and the false nail cracked and fell off - which made my job much easier♥

A photo of the angled brush I use, this is just a random makeup brush that I had, I CUT the bristle so it would be at an angle like this. I use this brush dipped in acetone to clean up nail polish around my cuticles after I polish my nails. Here - it is the perfect brush to try to 'drip' the acetone in between my false nails and my natural nails to loosed the glue.

My angled clean up brush, wet with Acetone before I try to get the acetone in the crevice between the false nail and my real nail.

Here is after dripping the acetone in the crevice between the false nail and my real nail just 3 times. I pried the remaining nail up, and took this photo of the glue strings..... Its kinda like when Spider-Man was trying to get off the 'Bad' Spider-Man mask in Spider-Man 3 - - - ewwwwwwwwwwwe!

After all the false nail is removed from my nail, I take the angled brush and dip it into the Acetone and then swipe it over my nail, then swipe the brush on my paper towel. There may still be some glue on your nail, but this can be buffed out with a fine buffer.

The water soak method

I try to time doing dishes and scrubbing and cleaning and various household duties with my false nail removal. I very rarely remove my false nails for no reason. I cant remeber the last time I applied a full set of false nails and removed them in less than 5 days. I think that if you want to try wearing false nails but you have never worn them before - just glue 1 to your pinky nails and keep it on and be mindful of it for a day or two. However if you do apply a set f false nails and want to take them of immediately I recommend the acetone drip, or even the acetone soak method. The water soak method I find works best when I have been wearing my nails for at least 1 week, as when I apply my false nails.... I put alot of effort into making sure they stay on!

I am very clutzy and clumsy and every set of false nails I wear there is often an incident where I loose 1 or 2 a few days in = I take my time and apply my false nails ( Nailene Nails) carefully, and put alot of effort into making sure I have applied them properly. I will be covering this in my next post, where I apply some awesome Nailene Couture Nails ( that I bought - cuz there cool ) Occasionally someone will mention ' drugstore nails are bad, and blah, blah, blah - but still after all these years my nails are healthy and have not turned black, so I am not doing any serious damage. I do have some photos of my naked nails, as well as a few manicures posted with my real nails..... They are terribly thin due to GENETICS and I am sorry that all the things I have bought, and all the vitamins I have taken did not work for me.

The surface of my nails IS ROUGH that is a fact.

here is one of my posts with my naked nails

and here is a post with all my false nail APPLICATION TIPS
{ oops I cant find that post right now }

But - they are healthy, they grow, and can be used as a deadly weapon as they are razor thin and can do some serious damage.... does anyone want to see some carnage created by these wolverine-esque stabby nails? My nails buff out perfectly and look lovely painted.

Anyhoo - here is the 'warm water soak off method' it can be time consuming, that is a fact - but I love my nails and cuticles so I prefer this over the acetone soak method.

Below I am gently lifting my false nail to see if it will pop off, sometimes after I have been wearing my false nails for a few days, and have done alot of housework ( like alot of housework) then they do easily come off.... Not today though, they were extra thought to remove with the water soak method - the reason why is that I applied them carefully, used glue beneath the tips of the nails, and applied clear polish to the free edge of my natural nail while wearing these false nails. When I do a cleanup on my nails, the acetone I use helps to adhere the false nails to my natural nails even better.

Another shot of my Ring nail before soaking

So here I am soaking my nails in a small bowl of warm water with a little soap.... this can take anywhere form 2 minutes to 20 minutes... just rememebr to apply a thick moisturizer or a good barrier cream or Vaseline to your cuticles.

and here is my Ring nail.... sunk at the bottom of this little bowl after 15-ish minutes I did have to get in there and do a little prying. = just gentle prying.

The glue remaining on my nails will be easily removed with pure acetone that I buy at Walmart. Its super duper cheap and lasts a long time. Any weird lumps or dents I will buff out with a fine sanding block ( THIS I will cover in a future post)