Top 10 Nail Care Items

Hello Everyone! Today on the M.M.M blog, I kind of have an update for my nail care routine that I want to share with all of you. Last year I did two post called nail care and hand and cuticle care, I wanted to update all of you on that by doing a top 10 post. Some of the items that I have used in my last post have changed and their are some that have not, I just thought this would be a fun way to update all of you. 

Here are my top ten (with 2 extras) favorite nail care items, Let's start off with Moisturizers:

Yes to Carrots Super Rich Body Butter $9.99 at Target  

Yes to Coconut Hand & Cuticle cream $5.99 at Target    

1. Yes to Carrots Body Butter. This is a body butter I have been using for years and have gone through many jars of this. This is a super thick body lotion that I like to us on my hands. It keeps your hands moisturized for a long time, it is a little bit greasy but absorbs in no time. It is a natural lotion with a natural smell.

Another lotion that I have been using lately is another product from the Yes to line (in case you didn't notice, I love the Yes to line), The Yes to Coconut hand & cuticle cream. I actually ran out of my favorite lotion the Yes to Carrots Body Butter, so I thought I would give this a try. So far I do like this lotion, it is also a little bit greasy by absorbs well. It does smell like coconut, but not the fake smelling coconut, this smell like a real or natural coconut.

     Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream $5.99 

2. Is another item to keep your cuticles moisturized, that is the Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream. I rub this cuticle cream around my fingers and on the cuticles ever night, a long with my favorite lotion.  This is a nice cuticle cream that keeps your cuticles soft and moisturized and smells just like lemon.

     Julep Mighty nail & cuticle serum $28.00 on Julep.com or $22.00 at Sephora.

3. This cuticle and nail serum is not a must, but I do still really like this. My fingers have the problem of on the sides being dry and then peeling. Since I got this in a Julep mystery box, this serum has helped the dry parts on the sides of my fingers, not 100 percent, but they are much better I just every so often will still get dry parts. The only thing about this product is the price, it costs a lot for the amount of product that you get.

Now on to other nail care items.

      Beauty Secrets Nail Polish Remover in a jar 

from Sally Beauty $4.99 or $1.99 with Sally card.

Up & Up Acetone nail polish remover $0.97 at Target.

4. The Beauty secrets nail polish remover I actually got because I forgot to get my old favorite remover from Meijer. I then stopped by Sally's to get something else and then remembered that I need some remover. Let's just say I am glad I forgot that remover at Meijer, This remover works so much better, it actually will remove all of your polish when you dip your finger in the sponge.    

The Up & Up Acetone polish remover I use to clean my nail art brushes between designs and at the end. I also use this to clean up around my nails when I get polish on the sides of my fingers. This remover is also good for removing stubborn glitter. Do to this remover being acetone based it is very drying and I only use this for those purposes.   

 Way to many nail clippers!

5. Is nail clippers, I cut and file my nails once a month, I first use the big nail cutters and then the regular sized one to cut the sides of the nails. The third and fourth nail cutters in the photo I use if I get the dry peeling skin on the side of my fingers. You really do not need all of these nail clippers, just one or two would be fine. I really don't know why I use so many. 

 Sally Hansen crystal nail file $8.99 at Ulta 

 Kiss four way nail shaper $2.00  

Trim buffing block, $1.87

four sides; 1.even out, 2.smooth nail, 3. buff nail, 4. shine nail

6. Once again I do use a lot of different files when filing my nails, which you don't really need, I just found that using all of these works for me. I first start off with a crystal file which is suppose to be less harsh on your nails. Then I use the Kiss nail shaper the light blue side, then the light or the darker pink (not both), I never use the dark blue side it is a little to harsh. Then filing I use the buffing block on my finger tips, this I think is actually suppose to be used your nail surface. I just use the even out, and smooth part, and some times the buff side. 

Now time for cuticle clean up.

   Sally Hansen Instant cuticle remover $4.99

7. The Sally Hansen cuticle remover, I use once a month usually after I cut and file my nails.

This product is nice for helping to remove your cuticles and making your nails look nice.

    360 beauty metal cuticle pusher from CVS $3.99

8. The metal cuticle pusher I use along with the cuticle remover. Their are many cuticle pushers from wooden ones or the orange sticks, plastic or rubber pushers, and metal ones. I do own all of them, but I found that the small metal one works the best for me.

The Base and top coats.

          Nicole by OPI 3 in 1 base, top and strengthener $7.00

9. For the longest time I never used a base coat, then I decided it would be a good idea to start. I had a lot of trouble finding one I liked, then I found this one. This is a three in one, I only use it as a base coat, I have not noticed any strengthening from this product. One thing I noticed with this base coat is with cream polishes they start to crack after a few days. So maybe after this base coat is done I will try the OPI natural nails base coat.

Revlon Extra life no chip top coat $5.00

10. The Revlon Extra life no chip top coat has been by go to top coat for the longest time, after the Sally Hansen no chip acrylic top coat stop working as well, I tried this one and have liked it and have been using it since. 

Can't believe I almost forgot this one for moisturizers!

 Yes to Coconut Polishing Body scrub $7.99 at target 

11. The Yes to Coconut body scrub is a great way to keep your hands nice and soft. I use this after removing my nail polish or whenever I feel that I need something a little extra.

 Elf concealer brush $1.00

12. The Elf concealer brush I just recently bought and started to use to clean up the polish that gets on the sides of my fingers and on the cuticles. This brush is amazing for clean up, it makes it easy to really get into the sides of your fingers and to make it look like your are almost perfect a painting your nails. I use this brush with the Up &Up acetone remover. 

Hope all of your enjoyed this list and also found it helpful in your nail care routine!

See you next time for more nail fun!                

I Heart Oahu! Tropical Design

Hello everyone! As you all know lately I have really been doing a lot of tropical themed nail designs, seeing how I just went to Hawaii in July. Yes, yet again I have another tropical nail design to share with all of you. If you have been following M.M.M blog, then you know that I just recently got married in Hawaii on the island of Oahu, and the island will always hold a special place in my heart because my husband and I got married there. So I thought I would create an Oahu nail design to share with all of you!

Diamond Head in Honolulu, Hawaii on the island of Oahu. 

Here are the polishes and tools used for this Oahu nail design:

Base and Top coat- Nicole OPI-  3in1- base, top, & strengthener and Revlon Extra Life No Chip top coat.

Nail polishes- Colors by llarowe- Arturo, Color Club- Daisy Does it, Revlon- Gold Coin, OPI Hawaii- Go with the lava flow, and Sally Hansen- Hard as Nails- Black Heart.

Acrylic paint- black, white, blue, red, green, and yellow.

Nail tools- a glass jar with nail polish remover in it for cleaning your nail art brushes, a small and large dotting tool, small flat nail art brush, thin slanted brush, and a longer thin brush.


The skill level for this Oahu nail design is:

 Intermediate to Advanced 

This design can be difficult, due to the small details that are included in creating diamond head and the letter for Oahu and Aloha. The other parts of the design are a little bit easier, depending on your skill level.

Let's start this Oahu design!   

1. Start off with a base coat.

2. After your base coat is dried, apply a holographic polish that has more of a subtle holo. This polish might be part of a review that I will be doing about some new polishes that I just bought, I once again got too excited to wait.

3. We will first start off with a well known land mark on Oahu in the city of Honolulu, that is Diamond head, which is a crater that you can see as soon as you get close to Oahu. Also you can climb up Diamond head and see an amazing view of Honolulu.

On the thumb nail, we will start off with the water. First mix blue and black to make a dark blue, then mix blue and white to make a light blue. Paint a strip at the bottom of your nail for the water, starting from darkest blue to lightest. 

4. Now for Diamond head it's self, take your red, yellow, and blue acrylic paint and mix them together to make a brown. Also add just a little more blue to the color you just made to make a darker brown, this will be for some small details that we will put on Diamond head. As for the shape I really don't know how to explain it, other then to look at the photo above or the photo of the real Diamond head. For the small details we will add small lines to Diamond head. Take your darker brown and make small lines on Diamond head (you can refer to the final photo.)  

5. Next on the ring finger nail we will write Aloha. Aloha has a few means it means hello, goodbye, and love or compassion. As for letters, this can be a little bit tricky but I found that using acrylic paint made is much easier. For this take your thin nail art brush dipped into black paint and carefully write Aloha.

6. Right under Aloha we will make a heart.Take your large dotting tool dipped into a red or pinkish red (I used Go with the Lava flow because this was the color I wore on my nails on my wedding, and it is extra special to me.) and slowly drag the doting tool down. Do this on the other side as well to make a heart.

7. Next we will make a sea shell on the middle finger nail. Take your large dotting tool dipped into a gold polish and drag the dotting tool down, do this a as  many times as you would like to make a shell shape.

8. On the index finger nail we will make a cute pineapple. If you have ever been to Hawaii then you now that the pineapple there is so good, very fresh and juicy. For the pineapple shape take your small flat nail art brush dipped into yellow acrylic paint, fill in the bottom half of your nail and then make it curved at the top. You may need to go over this two or three times to be opaque enough.

9. As we let the pineapple shape dry we will make the leaves at the top. Take your thin nail art brush dipped into green paint and make four leaves at the top of the pineapple.

10. For a little bit more detail in the pineapple we will make intersecting lines. Take a yellow nail polish that is a little bit darker then the paint you used, then take your thin nail art brush dipped in the yellow polish and make three lines going up the pineapple, then two lines going down to make intersecting lines.  

11. To make your pineapple cute, we will make a happy face on the pineapple. Take your large dotting tool dipped into black nail polish (acrylic paint did not work well for this) and dot two eyes. 

12. An optional step for the sea shell is to add more detail is to outline the shell. Take your thin nail art brush dipped into black acrylic paint and carefully outline the shell, I thought this helped to make the shell stand out more.

13. For the last design on the pinky nail we will make a sunshine. Hawaii is know for there sunny warm weather, it does rain on and off there but really for only 10 to 20 minutes at a time, at lest when we were there. To make your sunshine take a shimmery yellow polish and the brush that comes with the polish, and make a curved line and fill in the bottom part of the nail all the way to the tip of the nail. You may need to apply two or three coats to make the yellow opaque enough.

 Final Oahu nail design

14. For the final touches, on the pineapple we will add a smile. Take your thin nail art brush dipped into black nail polish and make a curved line for the smile.

For the sun, take the small end of your dotting tool dipped into yellow polish and drag the dotting tool down to the sun shape to make the sun raises. 

Lastly for the thumb nail with Diamond Head, we will write Oahu and just add a green line for the grass. Take your thin nail brush dipped into black paint and slowly write Oahu over Diamond head. Then for the grass just take your thin nail art brush dipped into green paint, and just make a green line under Diamond Head.

After your Oahu design has dried apply a top coat to seal in your design.

Have another favorite Island in Hawaii that is your favorite or special to you? You can always change the thumb nail to fit the island that you love; with a landmark, the Island shape or anything that is special to that island.

Hope all of you enjoyed this Oahu nail design and I am glad that I could share my love for nails and the beautiful island of Oahu with all of you!  

See you next time for more fun and bright nail tutorials!           

Funky Fingers- Polish Review

Hello everyone! Today I have a review of three polishes called Funky Fingers. This brand can be found in the store known as Five Below. I think Five Below stores can only be found in the mid west/east coast, so unfortunately for all of you that live else where you might not have a Five Below to get these polishes, but maybe you can find this brand online.

For a while now I have been a little bit curious about Five Below, then one day I final went in the store. Five Below is a store where everything is five dollars or lower (hence the name.) They have an area where you can purchase beauty products and I saw in that area a lot of nail polish that looked very cool, so I decided to pick up a few.  

Here are the three polishes that I decided to purchase:

#Boo2U, DIA DE Muertos, and As If

As you can see the bottles, and even the polish it's self, I think looks cool and unique.

For the first polish I applied #Boo2U over a light blue polish. Then DIA DE Muertos I applied two coats on my ring finger as an accent nail.

#Boo2U is a light blue glitter topper that goes well over a light blue. I don't think this could be opaque on it's own.

DIA DE Muertos is a crelly poilsh which is a sheer less opaque polish, that can be layered to cover the nail line, but still sheer enough for glitter to show through. This polish is a sheer light blue with hot pink bar and hex glitters, and small blue hex and square glitters. 

Also by the way #Boo2U and DIA DE Muertos does something cool!

They glow in the dark!

I tried to capture the awesomeness of the glow in the dark polish, 

but it was a little bit difficult. 

Next I applied As If over a light purple and pink, along with a holographic polish as an accent nail. The holographic polish is another polish I just recently purchased and was just to excited to wait to use this for the review I will be doing soon. 

As If is a glitter topper with a lot of glitter pieces in it. This polish has star glitters, black hex's, small black circle pieces, hot pink and purple hex glitter both big and small. 


The two polishes #Boo2U and DIA DE Muertos that glow in the dark, they do not contentiously glow. You first have to be in a bright room or put your nails up to a bight light, then go into a dark room then your nails will glow for a while.

Also DIA DE Muertos reminds me of many indie brand polishes that I have seen online, with the polish be a crelly. A lot of indie brand have crelly polishes and as far as I know their are none in main stream nail polishes. 

As for As If the color combination I choose made my nail look very teenage like, which was not a big deal. The star glitter pieces where the only thing that gave me problems, the points on the starts do not stick well to the nails and snag on things.  
  
My final thoughts on these polishes I really like them. They are unique to me with the polish it's self and the bottle shapes. All three of these polishes wore well like any other polish I have. 

Funky Finger nail polish are available at Five Below store for $3.00 each or two for $5.00.
For three polish I spent $8.48, which is a great price for three unique polishes.

Hope all of you enjoyed this review of Funky Finger polish!

See you next time for more fun nail tutorials!    

Tropical Passion Flowers

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of post for the past few weeks, I was not feeling well last week. Anyways I don't know about everyone else but this summer went way to fast! But as long as the weather is still hot, why not still do a summer/ tropical nail design. For this week we will be creating a Hawaiian flower themed nail design with hibiscus and plumerias. 

Tropical Passion Flower (Hibiscus and Plumerias nail design) 

 Yes I am still in a tropical mood, I don't think that will ever stop!

Here are the polishes and tools used for this tropical flower nail design:

Base and top coat- Nicole OPI-  3in1- base, top, & strengthener and Revlon Extra Life No Chip top coat. 

Nail polishes- OPI Hawaii- Go with the lava flow, Cover Girl- glosstinis Blue Hawaiian, and Finger paints- Cubism Crimson.

Acrylic paint- White, yellow, and green.

Nail tools- small thin nail brush, and a very thin detail brush. a glass jar with nail polish remover in it for cleaning nail art brushes. 

*Other supplies- a basic paint brush for mixing paints, a cup of water to clean brush off, and a piece of paper or foil to mix your paint. 


The skill level for this tropical nail design is:  

Beginners

This design is, for the most part, quite simple. Their is basic flower shapes and for blending the acrylic paint you just need to make a shade lighter for the green. 

Let's start this pretty tropical flower nail design! 

This design will be a mix of using nail polish and acrylic paint. 

1. Start off with a base coat.

2. Once your base coat has dried paint all of your nails except your pinky finger, with a light blue. Then paint your pinky nail a pink/ red shimmery color (I used OPI Go with the lava flow.) 

3. Once again wait for your polish to dry, then we will start to make the plumeria. We will make a plumeria on the index and ring finger nail. After the last tropical nail design that I created, I fell in love with using acrylic paint for creating the small designs on the nails, so I once again deiced do use acrylic paint. Take your white acrylic paint and squirt a small amount on to a piece of paper or foil, then dip your thin nail art brush into the paint and make a rounded petal shape at the top and then two on the sides. 

4. Then to finish your plumeria shape make two more petals under the two on the side. Do step 3 and 4 on the ring finger nail as well.

5. For the detail of the plumeria take your small thin nail art brush dipped into yellow acrylic paint and start to make small lines working from the center of the petal and then outward, like the photo above. Do this on each petal.

4. Now for the hibiscus, we will be making a hibiscus on the thumb and middle finger nail. This flower shape is similar to the plumeria. Take your thin nail art brush dipped in a pink/red shimmer color nail polish and make a rounded petal shape at the top and then two on the sides.

5. Just like the plumeria make to more petals under the two on the sides. 

6. For the leafs we will be switching back to using acrylic paint. Take your green and then some yellow and make a lighter green, then dip your thin nail art brush into the green and make a longer line in the middle, then small lines from the sides to make your leaf. Repeat this step for the leaf on the other side. 

7. For more detail in the leafs, take the original darker greed and create the vines in the leafs. 

8. Now for the center yellow part of the hibiscus. Take your yellow acrylic paint and draw a curved line from the center of the flower, and then dot a few small dots at the top of the curved line.     

9. For the last detail of the hibiscus take your thin nail art brush dipped in a red polish and make small thin lines from the center of the flower going outward.  

For the pinky finger nail I decided to just leave that nail with just a solid color (Go with the lava flow) I did this so I would have equal number of flowers on each hand. 

Once your tropical nail design has dried, apply a top coat to seal in your design.

For this design you can use all nail polish or use both acrylic paint and nail polish, I now find it much easier to use acrylic paint for the designs/small details. 

Hope all of you enjoyed this tropical design and if you live some where that gets cold in fall and winter, enjoy the warm weather that we are having!

See you next time for more fun and bright nail designs!