Another Gradient

Man, I know.  I do a lot of gradients.  It's because I'm lazy, and they look good, and there's an absolutely endless amount of color combinations that you can use.  They're wonderful.  Hugs and rainbow sherbet to  the person who invented sponge gradient manis. 

For this one, I chose the boldest colors I could find at the time.  It ended up being royal blue, purple, and neon pink.  I think they look really great together- kind of cohesive- and are super bold, which is what I wanted at the time.  Awesome for summer.

Boom.  Brights.

Products Used:
Revlon Royal
China Glaze Gothic Lolita
Venique I'm a Sucker for Wedges
Zoya (as base coat) Purity

Rainbow Dot Nails

I've seen this style floating around the Internet lately, and seeing as how I can't let a rainbow pass me by, I decided to give it a shot.  I received a set of dotting tools for Christmas- yay!- so this was my first shot at using them!  Very cool!

Not too shabby!  There's a few things I would do differently next time, but overall I think it was fun and bright and cute for the end of 2012!

Products Used:

LA Girl Matte Black

Zoya America

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening

China Glaze Gaga for Green

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Brisk Blue

China Glaze Gothic Lolita

Long Time, No Blog- Winter Gradient

Wow ok so the last time I posted was in August.  I've been awful.  Terrible.  Working two jobs plus my etsy shop has really been kicking my butt, so much so that I hardly even have time to paint my nails at all, let alone do anything worth blogging about!  So I'm hoping to start managing my time a little better and to step my nail game up.  The holiday has really inspired me to get crackin- not to mention I am getting MARRIED in 5 months and really need to knock this nail biting habit by then.  So here's hoping I kick off and keep this thing going!  Starting off with yet another gradient--

Awww yea.  It's no secret that I love a good gradient.  They're super fast, super easy (minus the cleanup) and they look like you spent a ton of time on them.  I got a bunch of compliments today at job #1, so I would consider that a success.  Although they chipped after a day and a half- I blame that on super short stubby nails.  I really love these colors for winter- I wanted to do silver snowflakes or polka dots on top but I just loved them the way they were.  Maybe next time!

Products Used:

Revlon Top Speed Royal

China Glaze Electric Beat
Essie Borrowed and Blue

Rainbow Dots!

This one was super simple but still one of my favorite looks when finished!  UNFORTUNATELY.  The color I chose to use as my base- Stone Cold from China Glaze's Capitol Colors collection- purely exists to make me SO MAD.  It is a gorgeous, gorgeous color.  It's all metallic and glimmery and gorgeous when matte and even moreso with a top coat.  But the formula is so bad!  I mentioned it briefly before. but it seriously chips within literal minutes of drying!  It doesn't seem to matter what I do- basecoat, no basecoat, top coat, no topcoat, whatever.  I look down and then realize that my nails are all chipped up and I just painted then an hour ago.  Talk about frustrating!  In order to take these photos I had to completely redo my thumb and pointer finger, got back to my computer and realized that the pinky finger was all chipped to hell also!  So I just covered up the chips and went to redo the pictures.  Bah!  China Glaze is probably my favorite brand.  But this particular color is just a pain in my side.

Anyway, wow, what a long-winded rant.  Onto the photos!

                       

Products Used:
China Glaze Stone Cold
Zoya America
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed
China Glaze Sunshine Pop
China Glaze Gaga for Green
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Brisk Blue
China Glaze Gothic Lolita

Watercolor/Tie-Dye (Picture Heavy)

Something a little different!  I asked the fiance what colors I should use, so credit goes to him.  I think they came off super awesome- pastel colors are more like a watercolor, and though this is the exact same effect I feel like these brights make it more like tie-dye!  Either way, I'm super obsessed with the way they look, and although I did a pretty crappy job with cleanup, I think this is one of my new favorites (along with gradients). What do you think??

Products Used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On (base)

Zoya America

China Glaze Dance Baby

Revlon Royal

Another Gradient- Creamsicle

I loved the last one so much that I did another one!  I asked the fiance "brights or pastels?" and he said pastels, so I chose some lighter-but still summery- colors.  My dad said it looks like a creamsicle, and the waitress when we had dinner said she loved my nails and asked to see them- so I think I would call this a success!  Officially in love with the idea of gradient manicures now.

Products Used:

China Glaze Peachy Keen

Essie Borrowed & Blue

4th of July mani for the beach

Me and the fiance and the fam are headed to the ocean this week.  I figure this mani won't last all the way till the 4th, but I'll bring polish to do another one when it chips off.  I thought this turned out pretty cute- like a little soldier's outfit or something.  For last year's mani check out this link.

Products Used:

Zoya America

Revlon Royal

LA Colors Art Deco in White

Scotch Tape Mani: Blue and Pink? (Red)- 2 Weeks of China Glaze

I really like it when my fiance is involved in my nail polish whatnot.  Usually it goes like this:

Me: What colors should I use?  I have red, pink, purple, blue...

Him: Blue.

Me: Which shade?  I have these four.

Him: That one.

It's very helpful.  It cuts my decision time in half.  This time he chose Electric Beat.  I decided to kick it up a notch and put half of it as Make Some Noise... which I thought would be more pink/orange, but over the blue looks pretty red!  Which is fine with me, it totally matched my outfit.

Pretty snazzy for a 10 minute mani.

Products used:

China Glaze Electric Beat

China Glaze Make Some Noise

Quick Winter Travel Mani

Here's what I did with my nails for travel.  It was quick, easy, and my family was really into them (they don't understand that crackle does its thing all on its own hahaha!)

Wintery, huh?  Like ice!

Products Used:

Revlon Top Speed in Royal

Sally Hansen Crackle in Snow Blast

Blue and Purple Stamping

I got the new Bundle Monster plates a few weeks ago and just now got around to trying them out.  They look great, and I love the new wider designs.

Here is a simple design using Sally Hansen Pronto Purple over Essie's Borrowed & Blue, with Revlon Metallic on the accent nail.  Got all that???

Products used:

Essie Borrowed & Blue

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Pronto Purple

Revlon Metallic

Bundle Monster plate BM 201

Essie Borrowed & Blue- the PERFECT pastel/baby/pale blue

GUYS!  I found it.  A few months ago I asked about pastel blues.  This is something that's been on my list for AGES.  I never did buy the nubar that I was leaning towards, but just the other day I redeemed a couple of amazon giftcards (thanks swagbucks!) and threw Essie's Borrowed & Blue into my cart, thinking what the heck, it looks pretty enough.

PRETTY ENOUGH is an understatement.  This is everything I wanted!  It is so gorgeous, AND it went on opaque in one coat.  I wish I had known that or I would've been a little more careful and used a ridge filler base coat, but I know for next time.

Unfortunately, like I mentioned the other day, all my pictures are coming out woefully pathetic, so I only have one good one to share with you.

I really can't explain how pleased I am with this color.  It's exactly what I wanted, and I'm psyched to have found it.

Nicole by OPI- Half of the Gossip Girl Collection

So the other day I was wandering through Marshall's and spotted, down on a very very bottom shelf, hidden sort of in the back, a handful of these Nicole by OPI double color packs.

Try one on your fingers and one on your toes!

I grabbed three packs and then decided they were all too similar- lots of dark tealy blues- so I went ahead and did some minor surgery and swapped a couple of the colors to create some double packs of colors that I thought I'd like.  It wasn't until I got home and looked them up online that I realized I had given myself 3/4 of the Gossip Girl pack... and had replaced the last one with a matte teal.  Whoops!  I now have an incomplete collection but that's okay.

I'm sure everyone knows by now that the real winners of this collection are Too Rich For You (blackened teal, shimmery, duo-chromey) and Nicole...Spotted! (teal based hexagonal/micro glitter).  Luckily, those are two of my three!  I swatched all of the colors and fell in love with the pairing... So I went ahead and did an entire manicure instead of one finger.  Voila!

These pictures are terrible.  I don't know why, but lately all of my pictures are looking just awful, and I'm not realizing it until 3 manicures later.  Oh well, I think you kind of get the idea.  

And Too Rich For You by itself?  Glad you asked.

Ugh, just look at it.  Gorgeous.