Holiday fun with Incoco!

Christmas is almost here! Are you ready? I just have to wrap a few things and we'll be good to go. I also got some awesome news Saturday morning from my BFF - she had her baby girl at 8:15a! Welcome to the world Alison, you are already SO loved!  I almost stripped this mani off and painted them pink in her honor, but I didn't have time to switch it up so I kept it on to show you guys.

Incoco sent me a couple samples of their absolutely gorgeous winter collection and while I absolutely borked the gorgeous gold ones (Pass The Bubbly - see the bottom of this post), these babies applied perfectly! I really wanted to do an accent nail and I've always loved the tape tree manis so I gave it shot and LOVE the results!

Featured: 
- Incoco nail strips in Merry & Bright
- 'Winter Affair' by Color Club
- 'Shawn' by Zoya
- 'All That Glitters is Gold' by Savoie

Merry & Bright is a gorgeous, vintage-esque Christmas pattern in red, pink and gold, with a foil finish and subtle holo shimmer. I really love this! I wish I could do the swirl pattern with polish. If anyone has a tutorial for it please send it my way :)

Incoco 'Pass The Bubbly' OOPS!

Incoco nail polish appliques are available for $8.99 per set and can be purchased on their website: http://www.incoco.com. You can also find Incoco on Facebook and Instagram.

Halloween Nails for 2013

I almost forgot to post this! EEK!!

Its a rainy Halloween here in Green Bay tonight and we've had 1 'trick or treater' in the last 2 and a half hours. Bums...

Anyway, here are my Halloween nails - the classic bloody mani!  This is 2 coats of Essie 'Mademoiselle' as a base, and I used ORLY 'Grave Mistake' for the blood. This might be the most perfect color EVER for blood. Its a buildable color so the thicker you apply it, the darker it becomes. I LOVE it. The color is most accurate in the 3rd photo.

This mani is SUPER simple and, while it kind of looks a bit messy up close, at a normal distance it looks fantastic! I got lots of compliments! Whats on your nails!?

Incoco Halloween Fright Night Collection 2013

Press Sample

Hey ghouls! (Yup...I said it. Wanna fight about it?)

Incoco sent me their 2013 Halloween collection and I was immediately excited to give them another try! If you recall, my first experience with Incoco was not so fab, but so many of you told me that you loved Incoco and that I definitely needed to try again...so here we are!

I don't know what I did differently this time, other than taking my time a little bit more, but the strips applied so much more easily! After I stuck the strip on and smoothed it out, I rubbed the hell out of each nail to make sure they sealed properly around my cuticle and along my free edge. Short, gentle, downward filing sealed the tips nicely - no puckering edges this time around. I've now had these babies on for over 24 hours and they have survived 1 shower, 1 small load of dishes, 3 thorough face washes, and 1 full shift at Lane Bryant and they still look great! Plus I got tons of compliments to boot! These strips are definite attention grabbers :)

The 2 sets I have for you today are Fright Night and After Dark. I really loved both of these sets and thought they would look amazing together! After Dark is a gorgeous black (Incoco's website says its a dark purple) 'creme' to brilliant orange glitter gradient (ombre) strip that is really stunning on its own. I LOVE the bright orange bling against the black (dark purple?). For as thin as the strips are I was a little concerned about it covering my smile line completely but you can't see it at all!

Fright Night is just freaking perfect! Each nail strip is a little bit different but all of them feature adorably spooky haunted houses with headstones, zombies and bats 'stamped' over the same gorgeous orange glitter featured on After Dark. The detail on these strips is really great! I think my favorite one is the one on my middle finger in the photos below - I love the hand coming up from the ground!

And here they are together! LOVE. IT.

After Dark, Fright Night, Fright Night, After Dark

So...What do you think? This experience has definitely renewed my faith in Incoco and I am really looking forward to showing you guys the other 2 sets soon (they glow in the dark!)

To purchase real nail polish appliques from Incoco visit their website: http://www.incoco.com. These strips are available for a limited time and cost $8.99 each. You can also find Incoco on Facebook and Instagram.

Rainbow Ombre/Gradient with 3 colors!

Hey guys!!

Recently a newcomer to one of my favorite nail polish groups posted an INCREDIBLE rainbow gradient mani that I just HAD to try! The inspiration for this mani came from this Cutepolish video!

I used:
Icing - Hot Date (pink)
Zoya - Pippa (yellow)
China Glaze - Aquadelic (turquoise)
China Glaze - Fairy Dust (bling!)
Sinful Colors - Snow Me White (...white)

I'm not going to go into how I did this since Cutepolish did a phenomenal job in her video, but I will add that I find that adding a clear or glitter coat over the gradient, before the top coat, smooths the colors together much better than if you skip it and just add a top coat. This is seriously MUCH easier than it looks, and the effect is CRAYCRAY!

I'd love to see your recreations! After you share them with cutepolish, share them on Fox Claws :)

We also released a new nail polish rack this week!!

'Little Princess' Rack - A pint sized polish rack for the little polish lover in your life. This adorably pink (also comes in white or black) rack is perfect for mommy or daddy's little princess. The 'Little Princess' rack holds approximately 27 large polishes (OPI/China Glaze) and approximately 30 smaller polishes (Essie/Zoya). It would also make a great shelf for small collectible items like stuffed animals and small sports trophies.

$25 + Shipping

Check out our shops on Storenvy and Etsy!

 

Too Cute-icle - I'm Wearing Green!

Saint Patrick's Day is right around the corner! Woo!

I figured out this month that I have a serious problem with 'anticipation' buying. I can't tell you how many GREENS I picked up in anticipation of Saint Patrick's Day manis, but I can tell you that I own more than I could possibly use between Valentines Day and March 17th. Oh well...at least I'll be set for Christmas LOL!

Shamrocks (NOT 4-leaf cloves)...surprisingly easy...surprisingly difficult! I spent a great deal of time crouched over a nail wheel with my dotting tools trying to get the spacing for the leaves just right, all in all I am pretty pleased with it and have definitely found my St. Paddy's Day (Paddy not Patty LOL!) mani. I love it! Even the operations manager at work said, "Cool nails, man! My wife loves that stuff." Awesome.

This is 2 coats of Too Cute-icle's limited edition Saint Patrick's Day polish 'I'm Wearing Green', over Finger Paints 'Tough Art To Follow'. I added the rhinestones and immediately regretted it. 'I'm Wearing Green' is gorgeous on its own and didn't need at dressing up. The stars, I was pleased to find, did not require much fishing, but you better believe I top coated the shizz outta them...LOL! For the accent nails I used Chirality Nail Polish 'Katydid' (lime green scatter holo) and black on my swatch hand, and 'Katydid' and 'Tough Art To Follow' on my right hand.

(P.S. I am experimenting with my photos and watermarks to make them less intrusive. Let me know in the comments if you like the new look or not, or would prefer them not have borders and the logo. Thanks!)

Finger Paints ' Tough Art To Follow' (Black accent nail)

Finger Paints ' Tough Art To Follow' (Black accent nail)

Too Cute-icle 'I'm Wearing Green'

Too Cute-icle 'I'm Wearing Green'

Too Cute-icle 'I'm Wearing Green'

Too Cute-icle 'I'm Wearing Green'

Shamrocks - Chirality 'Katydid'

Too Cute-icle 'I'm Wearing Green'

Too Cute-icle 'I'm Wearing Green'  w/ Rhinestones

Chirality 'Katydid' and Finger Paints 'Tough Art To Follow'

The 'OTHER' hand LOL

'I'm Wearing Green' is available now for $7 for a full size until 10pm on March 17, 2013 here! You can also find Too Cute-icle on...
Facebook
Etsy
Instagram: @TooCuteicle
Twitter: @TooCuteicle
Blog

You can find Chirality's 'Katydid' here and on Facebook.

Just a heads up, we'll Just a heads up, we will be putting the shop (https://www.etsy.com/shop/FoxClaws) into vacation mode for a couple of weeks starting this Friday 3/15/13 so that we can catch up on some things around the house, and give Mr. Fox's elbow some time to recover and heal. We may still be accepting custom orders so if you want something while the shop is closed please feel free to contact us on Etsy, Facebook, or by e-mail at thefoxclaws[at]gmail[dot]com. All open orders, including orders placed between now and Friday, will be completed and shipped out on schedule. If you have any questions about your order, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Oh, almost forgot! Theres a new social media footprint website called HireInfluence. It's kind of like Klout and LinkedIn rolled into one. It's still in BETA so I don't have too much information yet, but I'll update more when I get some :) You can activate your profile at HireInfluence (http://bit.ly/hireinf). I activated mine with my twitter account in less than 3 minutes and found out I have a social media #strengthfactor of 31.2. If you activate your account by March 25th you'll be entered to win 1 of 3 $100 Amazon gift cards!

Some of the capabilities and highlights of the HireInfluence interface include:

• Search – A search engine that gives businesses unprecedented search criteria options to strategically identify and leverage "Networking Superstars" in their target market or industry.
• Proprietary Score – A "Strength Factor" score based on real influence, to include the level of impact the influencer has via each social channel, as well as real work experience within specific industries.
• Social analyzing – A first-to-market aggregation and validation of the results, to include demographics of friends and followers, location of influence, key words used and engaged vs. fake followers, to name a few.
• Star Rating – Each person's profile has a star rating given by other companies as well as rankings against other Networkers to "recruit with confidence."
• Social Media Background Check - Printed profile for a sales or promotional employment opportunity.

Mardi Gras!

There is a whole lot of different in this post!

I have to preface this post by apologizing for the photo quality and the lack of 'proper' clean up. Originally, I had not planned to post this mani at all because I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but after some coaxing from some friends I decided to share it. And it totally grew on me!

Going into it I knew what colors I wanted to use, but I didn't have a plan. Eventually I decided on 'organized chaos' and set to work doing pretty much whatever came to mind. The results are...fun. At least, I think so anyway :)

I used 3 main colors -
Purple - Color Club - Cosmic (from Claires)
Green - Rimmel 60 Sec - Camouflage
Gold - Color Club - Winter Affair

Additional colors and tools -
Glitter - China Glaze - All That Glitters
Zoya - Gilty - 18k Gold Top Coat
Stripes - Random gold striper
Stamp - Konad M60- Stamped with Color Club Winter Affair
Wet & Wild - Blacke Creme
Scotch tape
Fan Brush
Hole reinforcement stickers (for hole punched paper)
2 different sized dotting tools
Make up sponge

Left Hand Run Down:
Index - Scotch tape mani - 'Cosmic' purple base, China Glaze 'All that glitters', gold stripe
Middle - Color Club 'Winter Affair' with 'All that Glitters' gradient. 
Ring - Konad M60 stamped with 'Winter Affair' over black. Sponged on 'Cosmic' and 'Camouflage' around the edges. Sponged on a tiny bit of 'All That Glitters'
Pinky - Fan brush with 'Cosmic', 'Camouflage' and 'Winter Affair' 

Left Hand

Left Hand

Left Hand

Right Hand Run Down:
Index - OoOo I just realized I forgot which stamping plate I used. I'll look this up and get back to ya'll. Anyway, stamped the scroll design with black and gold over 'Cosmic' base. Sponged 'Camouflage' on top. Added a teeny tiny bit of gold glitter (Color Club 'Sultry Diva') on top of the green.
Middle - 'All That Glitters' over 'Cosmic Base'
Ring -  Half Moon Mani - 'Winter Affair' base. I used one of those hole reinforce stickers for paper to create the half moon. Painted the tip blacked and used 2 different sizes of dotting tools for the dots.
Pinky - Scotch Tape Mani - half stamped with Konad M60, half glittered with 'Glitter All The Way'. Added the gold stripe for kicks.

Right Hand

Right Hand

My thumb turned out way better than I had expected. I have always admired these checkerboard type manicures but it always seemed like such a hassle to get everything to line up right. And it was, kinda, but not  nearly as bad as I had imagined. My only failure was not waiting long enough for the base coat to dry before I put tape on it so I had to redo it. I top coated it with Zoya's Gilty to complete the Green/Purple/Gold theme.

These nails were so outside the box for me but I ended up really liking them. Definitely something fun and different for a holiday that is exact that; fun...and different.

TL;DR
- Thank you to the guys who pushed my car out of the snow this morning!! <3 <3 <3 
- I am so ready for spring...out with the snow!
- There is a baby opossum living under our deck.
- And baby bunny prints all over the backyard! Yay!
- Shout out to Jess at Too Cute-icle because shes awesome and shes had a rough couple of days. Love you!

BONUS: Too Cute-icle and Fox Claws Valentines Day Promo! From now until Valentines Day we will include an exclusive, limited edition, 'love' inspired polish by Too Cute-icle with every rack order! You may get a mini, you may get a full size, but you will NOT get this polish ANYWHERE else! (Promo runs from 1/16/2013-2/14/2013. Not valid on orders placed before 1/16/2013) You can find our Etsy shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/FoxClaws

Introducing Too Cute-icle Custom Nail Lacquer

AMIGAD! Awesomeness incoming!

My good friend Jess at Too Cute-icle just launched her very own INDIE LINE! SQUEEEE!! Too Cute-icle Custom Nail Lacquer launched on Sunday 12/2/2012 and has already attracted some big name attention. Her debut line includes a selection of year round pretties with awesome names like Butthurt Banana, Mama's Girl (inspired by her mother) and Pretty Pretty Princess, an Eternal Sonata video game inspired glitterbug called Dolce (which was created by her boyfriend - HI MIKE!), and the ever gorgeous winter-esque dazzlers Aurora Snow, Frosty The Penguin and Frosted Evergreen. I was lucky enough to receive the whole line (minus Mama's Girl), plus a few others that have been reserved for future collections and they are all faaaaareaking AMAZING. I love them. Love. Them. Love them...like this....

Now I realize that my enthusiasm can be taken into question given that Jess and I are close friends, but trust me when I say that I could not in good conscious support her releasing a sub-par product with her name on it. She has done her homework, shes got a great eye for creativity, and shes meticulous (to the point of borderline OCD - teehee) about quality. This girl is going places, and I could not possibly be more proud of her. And when you see these babies there will be no question about their awesomeness. I have tested all of her polishes (though I don't have swatches of most of them ready just yet), and I truly can't pick a favorite but this one is close....Back story...

Pretty Pretty Princess by Too Cute-icle

Last week a cray-mazing (crazy amazing, get it? Yeah I'm lame...) woman named Donna posted a photo of a stamping mani she did with snowflakes and I loved it! So much so that I immediately hit ebay and purchased a Konad plate with snowflakes on it. On Sunday I set about creating my own 'Donna inspired snowflake mani' and thought what better way to champion Jess' new line than to use Pretty Pretty Princess as the base for my snowflakes. Thus the 'matte snowflake mani' was born.

Because I was going to be stamping over the glitter I wanted it to be kind of sparse which I found to be quite difficult (LOL). Pretty Pretty Princess is PACKED with glitter. Please forgive the horrendous cuticles btw. This is one light coat of PPP over black with and without the matte top coat:

 

Because I was planning to stamp, I tried to leave some empty-ish space so that the snowflakes would show up a bit better. I failed. Pretty Pretty Princess was just too pretty to not want it everywhere. I used Konad plates m59 and m20, and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes to stamp (no, not water decal....LOL!) the snowflakes on.

 

And...If you liked it then you shoulda put some bling on it...LOL!

 

Taadaa! Okay I admit, even I am smitten by this combination. Its stunning! I was SO excited by how gorgeous it turned out that I immediately posted a bunch of shots to my Facebook page without any brand/water markings on it...OOPS! It was shared over 30 times from my page alone! I was so over the moon that so many people liked it enough to share! Thank you! Some people even liked it so much that they uploaded it to their page claimed it as their own. But nail world banded together and brought that to an end. Hopefully...

So again, thank you all who sent messages of support and requests for credit to 'Pinkys Nail Bar' in Stirling, Scotland. I'm sorry that you were all banned and blocked from their page because of it, but I think they got the hint. At least I hope they did. Next time perhaps they'll think twice about stealing someones photo and not giving proper credit...its not like its hard to do. At least get the products and method right!  Water decals....Models Own...*hmpfh* I didn't want them to take the photo down, I just wanted credit. I didn't think that was too much to ask.

WHEW! This was a long one. I hope you're still with me LOL! You can find Pretty Pretty Princess (along with all of Too Cute-icles polishes) at her Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TooCuteicle Full sizes are $7, Minis's are $3. Remember, this is her indie debut so if you want a shot at being one of the first to own her creations, check it out ASAP!

For photos and reviews of her polishes, check out these lovely ladies:

Cosmetic Sanctuary

Polish Monster

Cupcakes & Polish

Manicured Mamas

Jen’s Nail Files

Adventures and Mishaps In The Land of Nail Polish

TL;DR

- Too Cute-icles indie debut! WOO!

- Did you actually READ the post or did you just skip to the TL;DR...KYOTI!

- Fun Fact #1: At the time of this posting I am one of only 4 people who own Pretty Pretty Princess...IN THE WHOLE WORLD.

- Fun Fact #2: I created her labels!

- Stealing is bad. Lying and stealing is worse.

- Don't steal kthxbai!