MASSIVE Manicure Set Give Away!

Why hello there all you lovely people! 🙂 So, as the title might suggest to you, this is a giveaway!  My birthday is coming up (It’s March 5th), so I figured what better way to celebrate than to give gifts?  Share the love, I always say. ^-^  So, that’s where you guys come in – I am giving away 3 huge manicure sets of my own design, one on WordPress, one on Twitter, and one on YouTube.  Each set has more than 20 items in it, and they are all of the supplies you need to do a full manicure (in my opinion).  I used only the supplies I’m giving away to do the following nail designs :

And I’m sure you can do tones more – these are just the ones I came up with after an hour of riding the subway ^^;;  As always, if you want tutorials on any of the designs, all you have to do is ask!  Just tell me what side of the post (right or left) and which finger Pinky, Ring, Middle, Index, or Thumb) And, in case you want to know in detail what you’ll be getting, here is the Full List:

– 1 striped travel bag
– 1 travel tube of Crabtree & Evelyn Handcream
– 1 pair nail clippers
– 1 Glass Nail File and travel case
– 1 bottle Mavala Scientifique
– 1 bottle nail strengthening base coat
– 1 Travel sized polish, “White on White” by China Glaze
– 1 Full sized China Glaze Nail Polish
– 1 “Ink” pot by China Glaze
– 1 bottle Matte Magic by China Glaze
– 1 travel sized bottle of Seche Vite
– 1 travel sized bottle Tammy Taylor fast dry cuticle oil
– 5 Orange Sticks
– 1 Wheel of Nail Art Gems
– 1 Glass Acetone Cup
– 1 4oz bottle Pure Acetone
– 1 square nail art brush

So, whether you’re here from YouTube, Twitter, or follow my blog regularly, let me tell you how to win!

The Coral “YouTube” Bag:
– Subscribe to my YouTube Channel
– Like the Giveaway Video
– Leave a Comment about your most essential nail item or what item you are most excited to try from the giveaway goodie bags.

The Blue “Twitter” Bag:
– Follow me @RaeynnBeau”
– Use the Hashtag #ManicureBag
– Tweet your most essential nail item or what item you are most excited to try from the giveaway goodie bags.

The Navy “Word Press” Bag:
– Follow my Blog
– Like this Giveaway Post
– Leave a Comment about your most essential nail item or what item you are most excited to try from the giveaway goodie bags.

Contest is open worldwide, and you have until March 4th, 2014 at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) to enter.  I’ll post a video with the winners listed on my birthday (March 5th) and send out the goodie bags!

May the Odds be Ever— — I mean good luck! :3

Until next time, may your life be full of color!
❤ RaeynnBeau

(And, in case you wanted to see it, here is the YouTube video!)

http://youtu.be/BxlRMNdmQ20

Gelous Advanced Nail Gel Coat Review

Alright y’all – this is the review I wrote several months ago on this product, Gelous Advanced Nail Gel Coat.  I’ll just let you see what I had to say on the subject … Unfortunately I didn’t have a phone with a decent camera when I wrote this review, so I don’t have any pictures of the actual manicure I’m mentioning, and I’m not sure if I still have this nail polish (I was unfortunately unable to find the receipt, so I couldn’t return it to Sally’s), but if I ever find it, I’ll do another manicure with it just so I can take pictures of it.

The Review:

I was looking around online to find a new base coat – my go-to, (Jessica Cosmetic’s Bend Don’t Break) was running out, and it’s a little expensive, so I wanted to see if I could find an alternative. I ran into a lot of reviews for this product, mostly good, a couple bad, and my birthday is coming up – so my mother, as an early birthday present of sorts, went to Sally’s and bought me a bottle of this.

I just did a new manicure this morning before work with this as a base coat – and true to form, as a lot of other reviews have stated, it takes about 10 minutes to fully dry on my natural nail – but that’s fine. I budgeted that time to wait for it. Did my penguin french for fun, and decided to see how it worked as a top coat – I’ve seen a few reviews sprinkled here and there that say this works as a good thick top coat as well, and can be applied once daily in a thin coat over nail polish to help keep it from chipping, if you have problems with it like that.

I waited an entire 45 minutes for my manicure to dry before I put a top coat on – I did my nails while drinking my coffee, carefully got ready for work (which is something I’m pretty good at by now) and just before leaving, after I put my jacket on, I put this on as a top coat.

First of all, it STILL somehow smudged my nail polish – there was feathering all along every color boundary on my nails that I spent an extra 10 minutes trying to adjust with the brush so that it didn’t look so bad. Ok; fine – the nail polish didn’t dry as fast as expected, and this is specifically recommended as a base coat. I can live with that.

So I drive to work, and start my day – that was at 7:30 this morning. At nearly 10:30, three hours later, I itched my temple, just above my hairline – brought my hand back and there were lines on the nail I itched with from the texture of my (curly) hair. HOURS later.
Ok; so maybe this is just not working out for me – but I do see that there are several reviews that say people just use this on their natural nails and then use a top coat over top of that, and it’s fine. Luckily I had some Seche Vite in my purse, so I carefully dig it out and paint it over my sad nails, which now will most likely need a new manicure tonight when I get home.

It is 12:15 now, and I just looked at my nails; not only is my nail polish now bubbling, mostly in the white nail polish, but also a little in the black and orange, but it’s STILL not completely dry. Even after Seche Vite, which dries in no time flat normally, if I touch the polish, I leave indications of fingerprints.

Would I recommend this to anyone? Not a chance. Most reviews say that it’s better to use a base before you use this base coat. That seems a little redundant to me; if I wanted to use a different base coat, I would just use a different base coat. If you want a good base coat that will strengthen your natural nails, just use Bend Don’t Break by Jessica; it’s more expensive, (about $15/bottle), but it works MUCH better than this hot mess.

The ONLY thing this MIGHT work for is a clear nail polish if you’re going natural with a base coat under it and a top coat over it, but even then – it bubbled for me, which was really frustrating, since this is a new bottle. And even if you only have clear nail polish on, you can still see bubbles – I wouldn’t trust it not to look like a glass of milk after a two year old with a straw got to it.

I don’t have a UV Light because I have natural nails that are pretty strong/long, and I take good care of them, so I don’t need gel nails or anything like that – but nowhere does it say that you NEED a UV light; this product should work as intended without one.

Worst birthday present ever; I’m hoping my mom still has the receipt, and maybe I can get rid of it.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Unfortunately I can’t give half stars, or I would give it a half a star, just because zero stars I feel like would suggest there’s no product or I didn’t use it xD