I’ll be away for the weekend with my family to celebrate the significant other’s birthday. I’m actually writing this from the living room of my folks’ sailboat. I will be back posting regularly Monday morning. I have the China Glaze X & Ski collections, the holiday CNDs and Carolyn New York lacquers to show you. Plus another chapter in the never ending saga that is the Top Coat Challenge.

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If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been these past few days, I’m still recovering from meeting up with my fellow polish fanatics in Chicago. I hopped in the car with a couple Makeup Alley nail boarders and we trekked our way on over to the windy city to meetup with even more nail boarders and to shop at the Head2Toe Beauty store. It was this polish lovers dream come true. Great friends, good times and lots of new polish to covet.

Meeting everyone was such a joy and even though we mainly talk polish online, we chatted more about life when we finally got together. Let me just say that these women are amazing. Every one of them. Warm and giving and a total blast to be around. I didn’t want the day to end.

When we first arrived at the Head2Toe store we decided to hold our “Live Swap” in the parking lot so we could avoid buying a polish someone may have brought to give away. Thanks to one of the gals owning a CR-V with a folding table in the trunk we were able to swap right outside in the sweltering heat. After melting all my makeup off, I came away with these beauties.

I snagged some treasures, huh?

Ok so after all that I still wanted more. Yes, I’m crazy. So into the Head2Toe store we head. Talk about polish heaven. It’s a small store in a strip mall but it’s loaded with gems. I was on visual overload. Why can’t we have a store like that in Cleveland???? After about 45 minutes of perusing the selection, this is what I hauled.


After Head2Toe we headed to a local mall, checked out their new Lush store, wandered around and then headed to dinner. We had a fantastic time. Cocktails were flowing, laughs were had and of course photos were taken. But, being that we’re nailies, they weren’t the type of pics you’d expect. I’m just sad that one of our beloved organizers had to leave early so we missed getting her in these shots.

How could we not document our lovely manis and pedis? I’m sure the smokers standing outside the restaurant were judging us. Let ‘em stare. Their feet weren’t nearly as pretty as ours.

So after consuming some more beers back at the hotel room with my girlies we got some much needed rest. After all, there was more shopping to be done. We had to hit the ULTA being that Ohio doesn’t have any. Then we stopped by the Nordstrom Rack where my buddies scored some Pout and Tarte goodies and I snatched up this gorgeous dress. Believe me, it looks amazing on. At least that’s what my girls told me.

On our way out of town we spied a beauty supply and after calling to see that they were open we told the GPS to take us there. Hello south side of Chicago! Oh how you scared us. But we did find some really cool green polishes. We’ll endure just about anything for polish.

So after seven hours of driving, two days in a row I was mentally and physcially drained. Thank goodness for my fun and fabulous co-pilots, Nikki & Amy, who kept me energized and entertained the entire way. I couldn’t have made the trip without them laughing and chatting the whole way. We came across a scary naked girl just chilling in the family truckster without a care in the world. Ok it was hot but, not THAT hot. *tries to erase nasty mental image* Meanwhile, Nikki was making all the truckers go wild from the passenger seat as Amy rummaged through the new OPI & Zoya collections giving her thumbs up to OPI Russian Navy & Ruble For You Thoughts and Zoya Suvi (duh!) & Indigo. It was a most excellent weekend that I can’t wait to repeat.

Did that make your ears perk up? I just wanted to let you all know that the month of July will be deemed Top Coat Challenge Month. I’ll be testing and reviewing different top coats to help you all find the perfect solution for your tip wear and chipping issues. I’ve already started testing but you’ll have to wait til July to hear the results.

If you have a top coat you’d like me to review, please let me know in the comments. I’ll try to review as many as I can.