Neon Halloween Vs

Time for Halloween look #2 for the year... some fun & bright neon Vs.

Taken in natural light with cell phone.

I think this is the first time I've ever free-handed Vs instead of using tape, and it was a breeze! Not quite as even as I'd normally do, but when pressed for time this method certainly helped!

Polishes Used
Zoya Raven
Funky Fingers Riot
Funky Fingers Atomic Poppy
Color Club Feelin' Groovy
Salon Perfect Black Diamond

Christmas in February!

Haha... I told you my posts were a bit dated! I wanted to share my Christmas look with you, so here it is! As has been the tradition in years past, I went with a mix-and-match array of designs in a Christmas-y color scheme.

Taken in random, splotchy natural light.

We've got a whole jumble of things going on here... glitter, pearls, gems! Waterfall, dry-brushing, dots, and saran wrap! Red and green and gold and white... this was definitely a fun look to rock for the holidays. :)

Polishes Used
Julie G Cherry on Top
Zoya Dakota
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
China Glaze New Birth
Piggy Polish Ivy Leaf in Santa Claus
Zoya Ziv
Daring Digits Robin
Glitterfied Nails 24 kt Gold

A Thanksgiving Waterfall

New technique time! I've seen waterfall manis all over the place, but finally gave it a shot thanks to a new set of nail art brushes. Having the right tools makes all of the difference when you're trying to make skinny lines! 

Taken in artificial light.

I wanted an orange base for this look but wasn't sure which polish to use. Peach was too pastel and pumpkin was too dark... but what about my nemesis (OPI's Y'All Come Back Now Ya Hear)? It was the perfect color! As you'll recall, Y'all Come Back reacts with my nails to create a beautiful dark stain. Which is lovely, except no. Just no. 

Luckily I came up with the perfect (and oh-so-simple) solution: a white undercoat! A quick coat of white left my nails stain-free and made the jelly appear solid, so I only needed 2 coats of Y'All Come Back. Excellent!

Polishes Used
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
OPI Y'All Come Back Now Ya Hear
Piggy Polish Ivy Leaf in Santa Claus
Dots Metallic Bronze
Revlon Jackson Polish
CoverGirl #245 Go Go Mango
Zoya Ziv
Sally Girl Gold Glitter

Black & White Challenge Day 10: My Choice!

The final day of the Black & White Challenge was a look of my own choosing. Woohoo! I went with bold stripes with colorful tips. Oh yeah... and it glows in the dark! 

Taken in natural daylight.

This look brings us happily into the Halloween season. FINALLY!!! I'm super pumped, even if I won't be spending my nights scaring the shit out of people at the local haunted house. I've traded in my haunt gear for something much more proper... more news on that to come soon! ;)

Polishes Used
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Sinful Colors Glow-in-the-Dark Topcoat
Sinful Colors Black on Black
Funky Fingers Riot
OPI Divine Swine
Broadway Nails Seduction Night (#4)
Fresh Paint Square Candy
OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air

Swatch: Salon Perfect's Silver Sparkler

Hello! I've got a swatch I wanted to share of a fantastic top coat from Salon Perfect (which actually lives up to its name!). 

Taken in natural daylight.

Look at all that glittery goodness! This is Salon Perfect's Silver Sparkler from their 4th of July collection and it's fantastic! Application was easy and just one coat delivers a gorgeous mix of holographic silver glitters in two sizes. The be honest, my picture doesn't do this justice... it was so much more sparkly in-person. I added one and a half coats over Dragon Lady and it was lovely! 

Polishes Used 
Salon Perfect Silver Sparkler
Fresh Paint Dragon Lady

Toxic Green with Grey Tips

Today I've got a simple look to share-- neon green and grey, with black accents. 

Cell phone office picture = poor lighting

Have you ever just felt the urge to wear a color? That happens all the time for me and is what inspired this look... I saw neon green and was like "YES! That's the one!" Anywhos... here's some neon green with grey tips and a sparkly black outline (and black heart rhinestones, cuz why the heck not?!). 

Polishes Used
Color Club Feelin' Groovy
China Glaze Concrete Catwalk
Salon Perfect Black Diamond (striper)

Mattified Glitter featuring Julep's Ciara

Hello! I did what I swore I wasn't going to do and ended up trying Julep back in the fall. I got my three bottles of nail polish and was excited to see what the hype was about, so I swatched up Ciara and topped it with some glitter.

Ciara is a dark, burnt cranberry color with a subtle teal shimmer. Unfortunately, you can't see the shimmer in the picture, but it was noticeable in-person. Application was eh... streaky on the first coat and still streaky on the second. A third, thin coat evened everything out. 

So what can I say about Julep? I'm not that impressed. The bottles are cute, but the shape makes holding onto the brush a pain and they are way too small (especially to justify the price!). I wasn't that impressed with the formula either. For a brand that seems marketed toward luxury, this wasn't spectacular. Unsubscribed!

Polishes Used
Julep Ciara
Ooh La Lacquer Grosky Lil' Beotch
Warpaint Beauty Mattify

Swatch: Lush Lacquer Minty Chip

Hi there! Today I've got a quick swatch to share that reminds my of something I love... ice cream!  

Taken in direct sunlight.

This is Lush Lacquer's Minty Chip (now known as Polish Me Silly over on Etsy), a black & white glitter topper with a pretty green shimmer. I topped off some mint creme polish with this and yum! This reminds me of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Summer's almost here! :D

Polishes Used
Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet
Lush Lacquer Minty Chip

Better Late than Never! Easter Eggs!

So I'm definitely late on this... but eh. I've been busy at work lately since it's the end of the semester and I just haven't found the time to sit down and write up a post. But here we go! 

Taken in indirect sunlight.

This is the look I rocked for Easter. This is also the last of my manicures that will be using that horribly shitty (maybe duped) Essie Good to Go topcoat. I'll be using that for attaching studs, glitter, and all those other fun small things.... and I've since picked up Salon Perfect's topcoat and it's been lovely thus far!

Polishes Used
L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented
Zoya Creamy
Ruby Wing Gypsy
Cover Girl #240
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Color Club White Striper

Marble Nails Featuring OPI Fly and OPI Cuckoo For This Color

Hi there! Today I have a simple design with lots of depth... a take on the saran wrap mani! I did something similar with orange and figured I'd try it with teal. 

Taken in natural sunlight.

Gotta say, for something that took less than 10 minutes to do, this is so captivating! I got a lot of depth from the two colors and added some glitter to add a bit more dazzle to the look.

Polishes Used
OPI Fly
OPI Cuckoo For This Color

Valentine's Nails: Two Looks To Share!

Holy wow, it's been a while! I swear I'm here... I've just been lacking motivation to post. Yuck. To make up for that, I've got two looks to share for Valentine's Day!

Taken in indirect sunlight.

The first look is my 2nd foray into the world of textured polishes. I won another giveaway from Paint Those Piggies! and this gorgeous shade by Julie G was one of the prizes! I knew I had to highlight it, so I used it for the main nail color and as an accent for the hearts (they're upside down in this picture, by the way!). I accented with pink glitter and silver dots, then left the textured parts topcoat-free.

Taken at dusk with artificial light.

Let me tell you, winter around here makes in nearly impossible to take good pictures! This is the second Valentine's look I've got-- a mix of pastel-y colors with some stamping and rhinestones. I need to practice color combos before I actually stamp... and need to buy an actual pastel pink. But this turned out pretty cute, so I'm fine with it!

Polishes Used (Look 1)

Julie G Frosted Gumdrops Crushed Candy

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

OPI Your Royal Shineness

Polishes Used (Look 2)

L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented

Fresh Paint High Voltage

Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet

Pueen 2013 Plate 001

A Day Late... Christmas Skittles!

Hey there! I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas holiday and (maybe) enjoyed some time off of work. Sorry I've been so scarce... I've been swamped with work and took my first ever business trip last week! Keep an eye out for my next post for more info on how that went. ;)

As for the look I have today, it's my traditional Christmas skittles! There's just something so fun about this time of year and all the nail art possibilities that I can't help but mix up my look with 10 different designs.

(Click to enlarge!)

This year we've got a doticure, penguin, gold glitter bomb, green with red glequins, and a glitter half moon on the left hand. On the right, we have a glitter striped pinky, glitter bomb with heart rhinestones, snowman, snowflakes, and candy stripes. Whew! Not my best work, or the most creative, but it's enough for the season!

Polishes Used (from left thumb to right thumb, and I'm not listing duplicates for each nail. :P)

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Sinful Colors Bleeding Heart

Sinful Colors Amazonian

Zoya Ziv

Funky Fingers Dark Knight

Color Club Black Striper

CoverGirl #245

Funky Fingers Star-Studded

Nicole by OPI Gold Texture

OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air
Color Club Gold Glitter Striper
Daring Digits Robin

Piggy Polish and Wingin' It Lacquer Make a Fall Mani!

Hey there! This starts the slew of fall-themed manis I've done (and plan to do). It's that one time of the year to wear all the deep, earthy colors that reflect the beautiful leaves outside!

Taken at dusk in natural light.

I wanted to use my giveaway win, Falling Leaves, to create a autumn-inspired look... and this is what I came up with! I pulled from the red and orange glitter in Falling Leaves and placed some accent glequins on my dark green nails. I absolutely love that color, by the way. My boyfriend bought it for me and it's so luscious and deep and vampy. Sexy for this time of the season!

Polishes Used

Piggy Polish Ivy Leaf in Santa Claus

Zoya Creamy (as a base)

Wingin' It Lacquer Falling Leaves

Nail Fail: Pastel Water Marble with Glitter Accents

Happy Monday, everyone! Today I've got a lovely nail fail for you to gawk at... a strange attempt at water marbeling with pastels. 

Photo taken in shade.

Actually, the marbeling wasn't that bad. Once I added in some dots and glitter things got funky! When I purchased my 12 pack of glitter from eBay, they sent me a pot of clear iridescent glitters. I figured that they would add an extra touch of sparkle to things. WRONG. They kinda just blended in and were almost undetectable in person. I think they're made more for being worn over dark colors...

Polishes Used
L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented
CoverGirl #240
Zoya Creamy
Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet

OPI Spotted Halloween

Hey there! Today I've got a quick look I threw together using OPI's Black Spotted and some fun Halloween neons. I painted on random splotches of colors then gave them a coat of Black Spotted to complete a colorful peek-a-boo look.

I was in a rush when I did this look and kinda laid on the Black Spotted a bit heavily (which is why my pinky is practically black!). See all those cracks? Oops... I should have let my base color dry a bit longer! Lessons learned...

Polishes Used
OPI Black Spotted
Funky Fingers Atomic Poppy
Funky Fingers Riot
Color Club Feelin' Groovy

Nail Fail: Dragon Glitter

Introducing a new segment! Nail fails!

Because everyone's put something on their nails and gone, "Ew. This looks horrible!" Here we go!

In the sun!

In the shade!

So here we have a combo that I thought would look awesome! But I forgot how sheer this glitter is. And the base color, Dragon Lady, had a purple shimmer in the bottle that did not show up on the nail. Boo! I just didn't like the way this turned out. Oh well!

Polishes Used

Fresh Paint Dragon Lady

OPI Divine Swine

It's that time of the year- NEONS!

Happy first day of summer everyone!

I've got a special set of swatches today... these are (80% at least) colors I won from Possibly Polished's giveaway! I won a set of Color Club minis from the Poptastic collection as well as green apple ChapStick and some great product samples. I seriously love the nail blogger community... there's always a giveaway somewhere that you might win! Anywhos- on to the polish!

Ugh. I clearly forgot to moisturize before snapping this pic. Ick. Before I go and label each of these shades, I would like to note that I can't find the polish names that were included in the 4-pack of polish. The bottles are unlabeled and from what I can tell, the packages contained a random sampling of 4 shades. That being said, I've made my best guess based off of other swatches floating around the internet. From pink to blue, we have:

Color Club Jackie Oh!
Color Club Koo Koo Cachoo
Funky Fingers Highlighter
Color Club Feelin' Groovy
Color Club Chelsea Girl

These were swatched without a white base and, with the exception of Highlighter, took about 3 coats to even out (Highlighter took at least 6!). Like most neons they were streaky for the first 2 coats and dried to that strange almost-matte-but-not-quite finish. Picture is with topcoat in the sun.

NOTD: My First Attempt at Sugar-Spun

... and I'm not sure I like the technique. :/

What I learned while attempting this:

• Getting nail polish to dry quickly when you actually want it to is impossible.
• Once goopy enough, the polish then dries WAY too quickly.
• Some polishes don't work for this technique... I wanted to do a nice purple and green, but my purple just wouldn't "spin."
• It's impossible to get nice, thin strands.
• It was hard to get strands to cover the entire nail instead of just half of it.

Anywhos... here's what I ended up with!

Colors Used:

Fresh Paint High Voltage

Funky Fingers Green (no polish label!)

Hot Topic Holographic Star Polish (no polish label!)

Manicure Monday: I Got Glequins!

In case you're unfamiliar with what a glequin is, they're an awesome mix between a piece of glitter and a sequin. Nailasaurus did a great explanation post here that is definitely worth checking out!

Anywhos, I bought some glequins from the Born Pretty Store and just had to use them once they finally arrived. 

These were super hard to photograph! I used the gold, silver, light blue, and teal (I wouldn't have called them green) glequins to do small stacked triangles and a lined accent nail. The base color is OPIs Cuckoo For This Color, which my mom bought me as a random present. YAY! Of course I topped these off with a generous helping of top coat to keep everything in place.

Flip/Flop February: Day 25

Hello there! Today's FFF choices were between a tape mani or a look inspired by a YouTube tutorial. Since I am a master of tape tutorials, I opted for a tape design!

This is the mani I did for the week before Halloween... bright colors and glitter! Haha... there's never a better combo! :D

Colors Used:
Funky Fingers Riot
Funky Fingers Green (no label information)
Zoya Jancyn
Sally Girl Glitzy
Color Club Black