Half Moon Stamping and a Hiatus

Hello again! I apologize for the absence. Between job hunting, researching doctoral programs, a 2-week stint in the US, studying for the GRE, and continuing studying German at home, I've been feeling pretty swamped.

Unfortunately, things haven't slowed down and now I have to take a self-imposed 4-week hiatus from painting my nails. I'll explain why at the bottom of this post.

This is an old mani. The base is Catrice Blues Brothers Vol. II with two coats of China Glaze Dorothy Who?  If you're on the fence about whether or not Dorothy Who? is worth buying, trust me, it is if you like blue. Like always, my pictures don't do it justice. 

I should have just left well enough alone, but I had this idea to do a half moon stamping mani. As you can see, the execution wasn't so great. I started with a light blue. Maybe if I had lined the half moon shape with the stamping color it would have looked better. I didn't bother trying. Ha, ha.

Since I didn't like how that looked, I decided to try multi-colored stamping on the other hand. It didn't go any better. :)

And now for the reason why I am taking a break from polish...

I'm embarrassed to be posting this, but these were my nails until three days ago. For roughly the last 6+ months, I've noticed some yellowing of my nails. I'd never had this happen before (other than the occasional staining from a lime green polish) and I originally thought it was from the Nail Tek II I was using. I switched to Nail Envy. The other day I also noticed that I had these weird solid white splotches on the free edge of every nail and I wasn't comfortable going without polish. I consulted my friend Bee over at Bee Polished since she's a nail tech. Her advice was to go naked for at least 4 weeks until this stuff had time to grow out. The clearer parts of the free edge are either too porous or too thin. I almost never buff, so I'm wondering if the Nail Evny usage went on too long.

So where do I go from here? The plan is to post some old manis until I can polish again and after the 4 weeks I will ditch the Nail Envy and use Essie Feed Me, Seche Clear, or China Glaze Strong Adhesion Basecoat. Feed Me is a nourisher, but these are all just regular bases and not strengtheners. Hopefully, I'll be back to having healthy nails again in a month's time.

Have you ever had these nail problems?