Last week, I was conducting a research project in Portland OR, interviewing teens and young women about how they shop for makeup at the large cosmetics departments you find in some gigantic supermarkets that sell way more than groceries. I had a three hour break in between my early and late interviews, so I decided to look around the strip mall for something to do.
On the weekend, I was heading to LA for a big family event, and I decided to get my nails done to kill time and so I wouldn’t have to do them myself. I knew I was taking a chance on this nail salon, but what the heck. The mani-pedi was a real deal. One of the women told me to choose the colors I wanted, and when I looked at the selection, I probably should have walked away. To give the salon the benefit of the doubt, there were lots of dark red choices, but it’s finally spring and I didn’t want dark red. There were also oodles of hot pink, every shade of hot pink or neon pink, known to womankind. Slim pickins’. I chose a shade of hot pink that I hoped was less hot than it looked.
The woman started with my toes, and applied a coat of the pink to a couple of my toes. Awful. She removed it. I found a sheer light pink, and had her try that. Invisible. She had a good idea. Apply a coat of hot pink and apply a coat of the sheer light pink over it. Whew, that did the trick. Now I have nice summer pink toes.
I didn’t want to match my nails to my toes. Lying around on another chair, a little bottle of nude, almost camel, color caught my eye. The manicurist offered me a bottle of clear polish with very subtle sparkles, and she suggested using that as the top coat. I was skeptical, but she said if I didn’t like it, she’d take it off. Fine. I’ve always been a sparkle lover, but I didn’t want to look like a 5 year old. I ended up really liking it. You can’t see the mini-sparkles unless light shines on them. Perfect!
So I should’ve taken a picture of my nails right away instead of waiting 5 days, but hey, I was busy and exhausted and in another time zone, and I didn’t think about it.
I ended up liking this look so much I bought a nude polish (essence Nude glam 05 Cafe Ole, 0.27 fl. oz./8mL) and a clear top coat with little sparkles (L.A. Colors Color Craze with Hardener, 0.44 fl.oz./13 mL) at Fred Meyer, each $1.99. (These are not the exact brands that she used, but the colors were close enough. In fact, I like the essence shade even better because it doesn’t have the camel/yellow cast.) Now, I can do my own nails next time. But I must say I will miss the UV dryer (that wasn’t the cleanest) that she used on my nails.
What do you think? I like ’em, lol! 😉
Thank you!!! This was exactly the information I needed!
– Jane