An afternoon at The Painted Nail!

Hi guys, hope you are all having or had a fabulous Saturday! I had pretty much the best Saturday ever and I wanted to share it with you guys! This morning after some seriously strange weather (hail! In all my years in Orange County I've seen hail maybe twice) I drove up to LA to meet up with 2 awesome blogging friends, LIz from Lacquered Lizard and Jackie from Candy Coated Tips. We started out with a little shopping (where I got my hands on a long time lemming, Essie Sag Harbor!!) then headed over to The Painted Nail!

I'm sure a lot of you have heard of The Painted Nail because of the reality show Nail Files. I actually don't get the channel that the show is on :( but I have seen it, thank you internet and OnDemand! I was SO excited about today because of the show and because I had the opportunity to meet and go out to dinner with Katie at Cosmoprof last month in Vegas and she is a RIOT. Seriously, one of the most hilarious people I have ever met in my life, if you wonder about if how she is on the show is really how she is in real life I can assure you that is 100% how she is!

I have about a zillion pictures, I kind of fangirled a little being there and went crazy taking them! Can we talk about how stinkin cute these little bottles of polish painted on the ground in the parking lot are?

I also was dying over the interior of The Painted Nail, as someone who has been to A LOT of nail salons I have never seen one as nice as this. The chairs were so comfy!

Here it is again from another angle!

There was a ton of polishes to choose from, mostly Nubar and The Painted Nail's own brand of polish. There were other brands also, they were on a table beneath the wall racks pictured below. I was like jaw on the floor when I saw all these wall racks, maybe I'm a weirdo but it's nice to go into a place that doesn't feature only OPI and China Glaze.

There was also a small display of The Painted Nail polishes you could buy, I walked out the happy owner of 5 of them. I have had my eye on 4 polishes named by Hayley Williams of Paramore for a loooooooong time, I debated buying them, then I saw them in person at Cosmoprof and decided I needed them. It felt good to finally be able to buy them after all these months! I also picked up Moondrops because it's awesome! I will be swatching all 5 polishes soon! I know there has been some debate about The Painted Nail polishes just being regular Nubar in a different bottle, but they aren't. Katie was actually telling us about how she personally helps mix and tweak colors, even if the polishes are close to colors we have seen from Nubar they are different in formula. I think 2010 from Nubar and Stalkarazzi from The Painted Nail are a good example. They look identical but the formula of Stalkarazzi is more jelly based which makes application easier. It was interesting to hear Katie talk about it and I can officially say I want to go to where Nubar makes their polish because it sounds amazing!

In front of the comfy chairs there was the display below. It's home to the great scrubs they use. The whole set up was super cute, so I had to take a photo haha!

Jackie, Liz and I all opted for Margarita Pedicures, Liz also got a Margarita Manicure! They have several different kinds of mani/pedi's to choose from. Lets face it, I got the Margarita one because it comes with an actual margarita, YUM! Do you know another nail salon that gives you cocktails? I sure don't! I gotta say, the margarita was pretty yummy. It was also made by Katie herself, she makes a good drink. She says its from working at a gay bar LOL

Overall the pedicure I got was fantastic. Pedicures are something I treat myself to and sometimes I leave the salon pretty disappointed because I feel like I'm rushed in and out and the ladies are too busy chatting amongst themselves (in another language). More often than not the pedicures I've gotten have actually been painful. Happy to report this was easily the best pedicure I have ever gotten. I didn't feel like I was rushed in and out, and it didn't hurt. Heck, it didn't even tickle me very much which is a rare thing for me. I'm one of those people that squirms all over the place most of the time! I think the thing I liked most is that all 3 ladies doing our toes were nice, they joined in on the conversation which is something I've never experienced. I wish everywhere was like this, I'd probably go broke from weekly pedicures if they were though lol! The Painted Nail is about hour away from me, but I would go back in a heartbeat...I've never found somewhere like this close to me and for a fun girls day I think it's worth the drive there.

Here are my toes, this is right after they were done. I took about a zillion pictures when I got home but none of them turned out very well. I never knew how hard taking pictures of feet was! The colors used on my toes are both from The Painted Nail's line and are Beware of You layered with H-Bomb. I love this combo, it reminded us of China Glaze Emerald Sparkle but brighter and more glittery. I will be wearing the combo on my fingers soon so I can show you how great it really does look!

Overall today was awesome, not only because Jackie and Liz are great company but because The Painted Nail was fabulous. It was so fun to chat with Katie. She was telling us about ladies that went to her nail school thinking her eyelashes were fake and I'm seriously still laughing about it. If you are in the LA area or visit there one day it's worth a stop in here to pamper yourself! Everything from the pedicure to the atmosphere to the polish was great, I can't wait to go back!

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