Citrus!

Its been a few days and I've really not done too much with my nails. Which of course meant I went nuts today.

Gradients are hard for me...why? I don't know. The tutorials I've seen make it look dummy proof...but let me tell you, apparently I'm worse than a dummy. BUT gradients and then stamping? Absolutely. Because then the gradient can have imperfections:)

I started with a base of OPI Need Sunglasses  Yellows hate me. Or I hate them. Probably both. Streaky...patchy...gross looking. In fact I went out with just the base of yellow and I got quite a few awkward comments from people about my nails looking like I had an infection. Other swatches I've seen of this color are great...so I'm sure it's my application that is the problem not the color. But it's definitely not a color I'll be wearing on its own anytime soon. 

My poor cuticle on my ring finger. Not sure why I can't get it to heal:(

Using Sinful Colors Clementine, I created a gradient that actually wasn't awful. 

I've definitely done worse. Still not a look I'm confident in. Will continue trying to perfect it.  This totally reminds me of candy corn and would've been a good Halloween mani. 

After I had my gradient completed, I broke out BM plate 308. Finding the right green for the look I was going for was a chore. Surprisingly, Sinful Colors Pine Away, a lovely dark green foil, was perfect!  In the bottle, was the last green I grabbed for...but then you have to remind yourself that stamping and regularly painting gives two different colors out of the same bottle! 

I love how this turned out!! So citrusy. Probably a better summer manicure, but when I was browsing through my plates I stumbled upon this stamp and envisioned this look. It's always exciting when you can translate vision into reality:)

Lovely stamps!

Another day, another stamped manicure:)

I actually asked my dear hubby to pick a plate for me, because I can't make decisions...at which point he, without looking, fanned the plates and grabbed one, handed it over and said "the one on top". He tries so hard to be interested in my interests...but he just can't do it;)

Anyways, I opted for blue and white for this mani. The stamp he chose was more suited for accent nail, so I did a base of SC Rain Storm on all but my ring finger, and did a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls there. If you've never tried Rain Storm...you must. Easy one coat on every nail. And such a beautiful navy. 

Using BM plates 311 & 317, I ended up with:

I absolutely love the bubble heart stamp, and have used it pretty frequently. The stamps with words, those never come out perfect for me...but I was ok with how it came out since the Love at least came out right:). As you can see from my ring finger...INM Out The Door should probably not be used for nail art. It totally streaked my stamp, and made it look quite smudged. The good news is, I have a refill bottle of seche vite...so I'll be able to use that as soon as I refill my nearly empty bottle!

Sinful Colors Dotticure

It's officially fall. I raked leaves this weekend. As much as I love all the mature trees in my neighborhood..the leaves are a nightmare this time of year. Took 9 yard bags, and 4 trash cans just to do my front yard!!!

Anyways after that work, I decided some fall nails were in order. I had these grand plans to do some saran wrap nails, but it looked like mud so I started overly completely ;)

I used Sinful Colors Grain de Pouvre for my base. It's a lovely taupe cream. I think it's pretty similar to OPI You Don't Know Jacques and Sinful Color Nirvana, but I need to do a comparison to be sure. 

Here's a picture with a different lighting...much warmer toned!

I think the real life color is somewhere between those two pictures. Either way, it's a great color to wear on its on, or as a base like I did. 

Since my saran plan failed spectacularly, I pulled out my dotting tools and opted for a dotticure:). I used Sinful Colors Cross my Heart (red), Anchors Away (goldy yellow), and Strapped (green) for the dots. I was totally right...these colors together SCREAM fall!

I topped it off with my OPI Top Coat. Strapped dries matte, so I had to slap on extra top coat to even out the look. Random matte dots looked weird..but it did make me want to try a dotticure with ONLY matte dots..that has serious potential, and may be seen before too long. 

I loved this look, and got a ton of comments on it, from friends, coworkers and even a few people at my dentist office:)

Girly!!

After my edgier stamping session, I decided to go with the ultra girlie manicure I've been jonesing for.  I'm a pink kind of girl, so it's no surprise that I reached for a lovely bubblegum pink. This is another from the OPI Coutre de Minnie collection. I give you Chic from Ears to Tail. 

This was three coats. I had some problems with streakiness, but nothing unrecoverable.  It's such a lovely pink, and in person there's an even lovelier shimmer!  

For the ultra girlie part of the manicure I decided to use some nail jewels that I've recently gotten my hands on. I didn't want to go too crazy, and kept things pretty simple. A single rhinestone at the base of each nail. 

 In shade

I loved how this turned out. One of the few times my vision translates to reality really well. I think the next time I do tus I'll be using a white base to emphasize the different colored rhinestones. 

Barbed wire and Roses

I love nail stamping. Seriously. Such a great way to do some nail art for those of us who have zero artistic ability. Free hand?? Yeah, right. In my dreams. Stamping? Absolutely:)

I don't do red often, but as I was gazing at my nail polish rack trying to decide what to do, my eyes kept going back to OPI Innie Minnie Mightie Bow. It's from the Coutre de Minnie collection. Holy smokes, but this red is amazing. Totally could be a one coater if you're more careful than me. I went with two, just cause I always try and go too fast. The formula is amazing...not too thin, not too thick, but just the right consistency to be super easy to apply. 

The second picture probably catches the true color the best, but even so, the shimmer and richness of this color need to be observed in real life to truly appreciate the beauty:)

I had planned on stamping with a creamy pink initially, for a supremely girly look, but as I was going through my stamping plates, I realized I HAD to go somewhat edgier and stamp with black. Plate BM-323 was screaming at me to be used. So I reached for my trusty Sinful Colors Black on Black and got to stamping. And I love the result!

The last picture is a sunlight shot(with a picture of a REALLY work sweatshirt). Even with the shorter nails, I totally am in love with this look, and it may last a full 24 hours! Which is extraordinarily rare!!! 

Zoya Pixie Dust

Happy Halloween! I wasn't much in the Halloween mood so I went with a textured mani instead. I absolutely love the Zoya Pixiedust polishes. They're beautiful, sparkly but matte. I can't remember where I saw my inspiration for this particular look...probably on Pinterest. 

I decided to go with 4 colors, Zoya Destiny, Zoya Liberty, Zoya Chita, and Zoya Carter. I painted on color each on my thumb, index, middle, and pinkie. I put a base of Sinful Colors Gold Medal on my ring finger. 

Here are the individual finger swatches. 

Zoya Carter

Zoya Destiny

Zoya Liberty

Zoya Chita. 

All four of the colors were great, though Chita wins on opacity. It only took one coat compared to two all the others took. 

I didn't get a shot of my ring finger with Gold Medal alone. 

Once I had that piece done, I got out my striping tape and made a patchwork pattern on my ring fingers. I made it into four sections, and then filled one color in per section. Once I carefully peeled the tape off, you could see the gold between the textures and I am quite happy with the way it turned out!

Taping fun

I used another Butter London for the first time today. I went with This Old Bill. Kind of jumped off the shelf at me when I was browsing my polishes. It's a great metallic-y bronze type color. It totally reminds me of brand new pennies. I think this would be a great stamping color. I used two coats, flawless formula as I've come to expect from butter London!

Then 10 hours later, I decided to jazz it up some. I love me some tape manicures... so I pulled out my striping tape and went to town. I taped on two or three stripes in random patterns on my nails, and painted on a coat of Kleancolor Pearl Jungle. Pearl Jungle is a nice green with a borderline metallic-frosty finish. I think it's more metallic than frosty personally.

I thought this played out pretty well all in all:) 

Sinful Colors Leather Loose

I have a love hate relationship with matte nail polish. I love the way it looks, but I despise the way it applies. I have a Zoya Matte green that I cannot for the life of me apply without streaking. So when I found a few of the Sinful Colors Leather Luxe collection at Walgreens, I knew I had to pick them up, but was convinced that the swatches I saw online would not be duplicatable on my own nails.

I was SO pleasantly surprised!!! I've only used one, but it applied absolutely perfectly!!! First coat=streaky, second coat=amazing!!  I give you Sinful Colors Leather Loose. 

It's a dark chocolatey brown, with a golden shimmer. A shimmer in a matte nail polish?? Yes please! It such a great color. I've used matte topcoats over brown before so I knew it had potential, and I was so pleased with how it looks on the nail.

 I wore this all day, and then decided a gold stamp would jazz it up even more.

I stamped on Sinful Colors Gold Medal, using BM plate 318. Gold medal is from the new Decorate Decadently display at Walgreens. 

It's not very often a color makes it on my nails for more than one work day, but this one has managed to wow me enough to stay put. I was even pleasantly surprised that there's only minor tip wear, considering mattes are notorious for chipping and I bang away on a computer all day long.  Good luck finding Leather Loose. The press release for the Leather Luxe collection just came out, but I've only found random bottles scattered at the walgreens I've visited. Wish I had known about this collection before it was so hard to find!

Purple stamping

After my Halloween manicure, I decided I needed a little less "look at me look at me" on my nails. And I kind of love how it turned out:)

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Sweet Tooth. It's a beautiful lilac, and applies effortlessly, and has a lovely shimmer. The shimmer is not visible in the pictures, but is definitely there IRL. It was part of SC Sugar Rush collection this past spring. And it really is a great spring color. But I'm all about using colors that fit my mood, not the season:)

Then I stamped on a nice swirly pattern from BM-314, using OPI Purple with a Purpose. I didn't line things up as perfectly as I should have for the stamp, but I still like how it turned out!

I like the purple on purple stamping look. I'm going to have to try similar looks with different colors. A green on green would be great, or a brown on brown...the possibilities are endless!

Halloween #2

Today I went all out. My husband was gone for the day, so I had plenty of time to do something totally fun. I couldn't decide what would be best, so I went with a skittles look!

I used Sinful Colors Black on Black, Clementine, and Black Magic, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, and a red NYC polish. My sister brought the NYC and I forgot to look at the label. As you can see I went with plain Black on Black for my pinkie, Clementine stamped with Black on Black for my ring finger. On my middle finger I tried a technique I've never done before, saran wrap. I started with a base of OPI, then dotted on BoB and Clementine and then used a scrunched up piece of saran to dab it all together. 

My pointer was SC Black Magic, which I love. I may be doing just that on my nails before Halloween. It's a fun black micro glitter with orange small hexagons.

My sister actually gets credit for my thumb..my hands not steady enough to do any kind of free hand, even something as simple as that. 

I really need to get a different camera. My iPhone 4S just doesn't capture some of the details I wish I could show. Especially on Black Magic. 

Sinful Colors French mani

Yay for Fridays!! Week of work is over, getting ready to spend some time with friends tonight, and have freshly painted nails. It's going to be a good night. 

I started with two coats of Sinful Colors Cool Gray. It's a lovely elephant gray, that is super easy to apply. This is probably the favorite gray in my collection. I didn't take a picture of this on its own. Darn it. 

Here's a bottle shot though:

Then I took my striping tape, and used Sinful Colors Over It to give my nails some lovely pink tips. Pink and gray is one of my favorite color combinations. 

I think this turned out super cute!  I used INM Out the Door to finish it off. 

Enjoy the weekend!!!

OPI Definite Moust Have and Minnie Style

Happy Thursday. Took some time away from the dark Halloweeny looks, and went with a standard for me...pink!

These two polishes were from the OPI Couture de Minnie collection. I am a Disney fanatic, so you can bet I was all over this collection! Sadly, while I bought the whole set, I'm now short the liquid sand polish - which was totally a favorite from this collection. The story of how I lost that polish is tragic, and rather funny. Let's just say - I wouldn't recommend cramming a foam board nail polish rack full of polish if you have it hung on the wall in your bedroom. Unless you want to scare the bejesus out of yourself, your husband  and your dog at 3am, when said overflowing polish rack loses the battle to gravity and crashes to the floor. 

Enough sadness. Let's see the pretties. I started with two coats of A Definite Moust-Have. This polish is phenomenal. It's a corally fuschia/pink. I love it. There's a shimmer throughout that is only visible in the sunlight. Super creamy and opaque. 

Never one to leave a phenomenal polish alone, I had to add the glitter from the same collection: Minnie Style. It's got white and fuschia hexagonal glitter, an white square glitter. After looking up other swatches online, I realized it's not supposed to have the white squares. I don't know if I just got a mistake, or what's going on, but I'm kind of excited about it. I love both, but I'm partial to the uniqueness that the white squares add to this polish. 

The white squares, for me at least are a bit of a pain to get on the nail. Which is why they're only on my index and ring. I did my nails at work, so I didn't want to spend too much time fishing glitters, in case people walked into my office;) This is only one coat of Minnie Style. I think next time I'll use two, to see if I can't get more of the white square glitter on there. 

Halloween #1

One year ago this month, my obsession with nail polish and nail art started. It's gone from something my husband knew about, to something most of my family and friends knew about. Whih everyone finds hilarious...because if you know me, I'm about as low maintenance as you get. My beauty routine is wash, tone, moisturizer. That's it. Seriously. And now, there's the polish. Which for me, is like therapy..a way to decompress, and do something that brings some prettiness in my life. 

After finding my perfect Halloween orange in my stash, I decided to go pretty simple for my first Halloween themed mani. And to make it more poignant, almost this exact manicure was the start of all the fun last October. Aside from the fact that I had to borrow orange polish. 

Nothing says Halloween like some black and orange. Crackle polish is definitely not "in" anymore, but I do love the look. It's fun, different, and most importantly easy!!  I love that you can create different crackle patterns depending on how thick or thin you spread the polish. I used OPI Black Shatter over Sinful Colors Clementine for the pictures above. 

Sinful Colors Clementine

In the spirit of Halloween I decided I needed to get some orange on my nails. I have several Halloween manis planned for the month, and a good orange will be key to said plans. I had a few in mind, but once I put this guy on, I knew I need look no further!!! This is the perfect Halloween orange!

I did zero cleanup on this so sorry for the messiness.  It was late, and I was ready for bed once I got it on.  

The color is fantastic, reminding me of a tangerine. Nice and bright. Formula...something to be desired. Had problems with streaking and pulling, and had to be careful to avoid bald spots. It still wasn't perfect no matter how careful I was. It was fairly thick, borderline goopy. Put a couple drops of thinner in to see if that would help for my future plans. Fingers crossed!! This was one thin coat, topped by one fairly thick. 

Bottle shot:

Even if I didn't like the formula, I absolutely love this color and am looking forward to getting my Halloween on:)

Sinful Colors Berry Charm

Anyone else love fall??  I've been looking forward to wearing this color for a few weeks, because it just felt so fall-ish.  Finally got around to it!  This is Berry Charm by Sinful Colors.  Sinful Colors is probably one of my favorite brands - and definitely the one I have the most of, thanks to all the wonderful Walgreen 99 cent sales! 

Berry Charm is just what it says - a beautiful berry-ish creme shade.  It reminds me of what my fingers look like after eating mulberries from the trees on my parents land!  I decided not to a straight manicure with this one, and went with a random tape pattern.  Butter London Trustfarian is the color underneath on the on the accent nail.

 Berry Charm flowed quite nicely onto the nail.  I did just one thick coat here since it was over a tape mani, and I didn't want to risk pulling the polish off with the tape.  If I were doing it on its own, I'd probably do two thinner coats, cause I'm kind of OCD about two coats (unless they're amazingly opaque).





I know an "accent" nail, when all the other nails are taped may seem a bit much  to be going on in a single manicure . . . but I needed a nail where I could stare at the rainbow happiness for a while.  Here's a quick pic of the beautifulness that is Trustfarian. 

This is my first truly holographic nail polish, and I'm totally in love.  I was over at my parents, and after I finished my nails, I ran outside, and drug my parents with me to show off the gloriousness.  They at least pretended to be impressed :)  Two coats, and no top coat, were used for the above pic.

Butter London, Alcopop

This is the second Butter London polish I tried. I probably could have gotten by with one coat, but I decided to go with two. My accent nail has Butter London's Tart With a Heart on top of the Alcopop. Love this color!