Moon Strobe

I've been on a french-tip kick lately. 

Here I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Moonstone, freehanded the tips with the bottle brush of Maybelline Cool Couture (which has a nice hidden purple shimmer that really doesn't show after glitterfying), dotted along the line with Sinful Colors Lavender, then decided it needed more bling and finished up by adding another freehanded layer to the tip with Sally Hansen Strobe Light.

Autumn French

This one I just threw together at work, in lousy lighting, so it's no surprise it turned out a little meh. Thought I'd share anyway though. 

I started with three coats of Covergirl Scalding Emerald (I'm obsessed with the glassfleck glosstini polishes! They're so shiny! Even though they run sheer I love 'em to pieces). 

Then I did a brushstroke down the middle of each nail with Covergirl Violet Flicker. It didn't show up nearly as well as I'd hoped, so for a little more visual interest I added a french tip with Finger Paints Winter Chill.

Royal Teal

I found a set of Sally Hansen crackles at TJ Maxx, four of them for $5. Holy deal, Batman! I know, crackles get so little love anymore, but personally I still think they're awesome. Hopefully I can spread a little love for what to me is a vastly underrated effect. 

Gotta admit, I love me a good teal shimmer. And I love it even more combined with gold! So, I thought, what could be better than a gold crackle with teal beneath? What indeed, if not french tips? 

The base polish is Nina Ultra Pro Unteal You, which just might be my favorite teal of all time next to possibly one duochrome I can think of. No duochrome here, just a fantastically rich and shimmery jewel-tone teal. 

I freehanded the french tips with Sally Hansen Antiqued Gold and the bottle brush. 

Anyone else out there who still loves crackles?

Polish Days: 7 Deadly Sins (Envy)

The Polish Days theme for this month is 7 Deadly Sins. I was originally planning on doing Sloth, by doing a really lazy manicure and then letting it chip for a few days... but I couldn't stand it! The bad-mani-ness was going to drive me nuts. So as a backup I did a green mani for Envy instead.

The base color is Revlon Scented Beach, which is a gorgeous color but smells kind of icky to me, like sunscreen and decomposing seaweed. Not a scent I'm fond of! 

I stamped the tips with an unknown Color Club polish, a nice forest-green with a semi-jelly finish, and BM18, and finished the look by placing some clear glitter from the local craft store. The glitter didn't show as much as I would have liked, but it was a neat idea. Oh well.

Check out what other ladies have done with the theme! 

Linear holo french-tip

I promised to share a bit about my delicious new linear holo set from Color Club (the Halo Hues)... here we go!

For the first nail art with the set, I did a simple french tip: 

I cheated on my 10-pan challenge to get these, but they are so, SO worth it! I ordered the set of 12 from Amazon, with the six 2012 shades and the new 2013 shades. Every single one is gorgeous as can be! No guilt... ok maybe a little, but only a tiny bit!

The base for this manicure was Cloud Nine, the ever-so-slightly lavender leaning pale pink, and I freehanded the french tips with Harp On It, the silver of the set. 

I tried a trick I'd read about for getting more wear out of a holo polish without using aqua base, which I don't have (I used my regular base coat for this. I do buff my nails to remove ridges though, which I would definitely recommend if not using a ridge-filling base for linear holo to look its best!) or dulling the holo finish with top coat. The trick is, to sandwich your layers. Base coat, holo coat, top coat, holo coat OVER the top coat! This way you get the staying power of the top coat and the full rainbow effect of the holo. Very effective, very nice. 

I used NYC Grand Central Station, which some people say doesn't dull holos as much... I did definitely notice it dulling Cloud Nine though, until I put on the second coat.

Look for more holo nail art coming soon! I can't get enough of these beauties!

Half-angled French Glitter

A fleeting dark mood struck, and since I prefer a black with something extra instead of a plain creme now that I've outgrown my teenage goth phase I started out with a base of Sephora by OPI -- Never Enough Shoes, then blinged it up a little with Nicole by OPI -- All is Glam, All is Bright. 

And then, because I wasn't feeling shiny, I mattified myself.

I love how subtle the glittery bits in Never Enough Shoes are. Barely there, just enough to keep it fun instead of full goth black nails. 

And yes, I have absolutely no problem with wearing holiday-release polishes all year long. It's a pretty, pretty glitter! I love the effect of the red with the silver and the super-light blue. Yum yum! 

Do the intentions of the brand for the release or seasonal colors have any influence on your decision of when or not to wear certain polishes? Or do you just wear what you feel like all year 'round like me?

Polish Days - Sentimental

Hey look, it's my first ever mani for Polish Days! This month the theme is Sentimental, so I decided to re-create my very first ever piece of nail art. I wore the original of this mani to my grandmother's funeral  three years ago.

I started with a base of Wet & Wild - Black Creme on all but my pinky nail, on which I used a black Kiss striper for the design. Then I layered Jordana - Lilac Frost over everything, and used the same striper to add the thin french tip. 

Warm crackle accents

Remember how I mentioned that I did a warm mani for the Chalkboard Nails contest, but decided to enter the cool one? Well, here's the warm version for your viewing pleasure!

It didn't turn out nearly as well as I imagined, sadly. 

The base is Wet & Wild Fastdry 9.0.2.1. Orange, topped with Claire's pink glitter crackle for the accents and placed glitter from the chunky gold glitter in the Bonita glitter set I got at Ross.

9.0.2.1. Orange is a bit sheer, but it only took three coats to get opacity (and since I was putting glitter tips on, I probably could have gotten away with two).

31 Day Challenge Day 28 - Inspired by a Flag

Originally I was going to be boring and do a country flag, I'd even narrowed it down to two and bought a new polish just for the purpose. Then I decided I like the colors of the asexual pride flag better.

So I guess this is sort of a coming-out post? For the blog that is, it's no huge secret.

I started with a base of Sinful Colors Fig, then freehanded the tips (as you can clearly tell by how wonky they turned out :/ ) with L.A. Colors stripers in white, silver and black.

31 Day Challenge Day 25 - Inspired by Fashion

These "inspired by" challenge days just keep being tricky for me! I don't keep up with fashion enough to have had an idea in my head, and google wasn't pulling up anything appealing. Then a friend suggested I go for a retro kind of something, like a poodle skirt. And that was it. 

I really do not draw poodles very well. Or anything that's supposed to be vaguely realistic, for that matter.

I used BB Paris - Cupcake for the base, and drew on the french tip and the poodle with a fine point sharpie that happened to be right next to my nail-painting station in a fit of laziness and not wanting to get up to go get a black striper. The sharpie smeared a bit when I added topcoat, but... honestly, for my lack of actual artistic skills, I think this turned out reasonably well.

31 Day Challenge Day 5 - Blue

I got a bit lazy with this one, but really I just was waiting for an excuse to use this polish so I may have rushed things in my excitement...

The base is Orly - After Party, which is simply fabulous even though I haven't been loving dark polishes lately. The little purple and blue glassflecks just make it super yummy.

I used a bobby pin dotting tool and Wet & Wild - Rain Check to give it a funky sort of french tip in dots. 

Frosted

I was feeling a bit ice-princess.

This is the dark silver glassfleck from the Claire's Disco Inferno mini set, tipped with Color Club - Covered in Diamonds. 

My camera really doesn't like picking up holo bits, it seems... the tips are much blingier IRL!

Mermaid prom queen nails

I mentioned in my last post that I badly wanted Night Sky (from Claire's) to go opaque. Well, I managed to get it there with four coats... I might could have done with three, but I was sensitive about the yellow stains Oledia left me with. :(  Next time I think I'll put this over something to conserve the fabulous glitter. It dried a bit gritty, took 3 coats of topcoat to smooth out properly.

My camera doesn't like rainbows apparently... but trust me, those glitters are HOLO

This is so incredibly sparkly IRL. After putting on layers and layers of Night Sky I thought it needed something extra to fancy up the bling and OMG RAINBOW, so I fished medium holo hex glitters out of one of the polishes from the Precious Metals set and lined them up along the edge of my nail to make a skinny french-tip effect. I cannot get over how awesome this looks!

Seriously. Night Sky throws off moderate rainbows in shade and artificial light... in full sun it's nearly blinding.

Totally prom-queen appropriate, and it keeps making me think of mermaid princesses. I really do not want to take this off, and I've already been wearing it three days. Despite several of the tip glitters having come off and minor chipping thanks to work being hard on my hands, I can't bring myself to reach for the acetone just yet.