Monochromatic Ombre/Gradient

Can't get enough of the gradients!  I love black and white so I figured why not do a monochromatic one?  I think it looks pretty fantastic... so much so that I might repeat this design, and I never do that.  I think this would be great to wear with a little black dress.

Products Used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White Out

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement

Zoya Kelly

Wet n Wild Wild Shine in Black Creme

Quick Neutral/Neon Polka Dot Mani

I figured I probably shouldn't do ANOTHER gradient even if I love them to death, so I went another direction.  I was gifted a nail dotting tool by one of my friends so I figured I'd give that a shot.  I've been using toothpicks for the past, I dunno, 26 years when I need to make dots on my nails, so I thought the dotting tool would just make it that much easier.  Lo and behold, I kinda suck at nail dotting tools.  I am sooo not used to it- but I think this is just going to be one of those practice makes perfect deals.

Products Used:
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement
China Glaze Sunshine Pop
China Glaze Fuchsia Fanatic

Grey and Chunky Purple- 2 Weeks of China Glaze

This one was spur of the moment.  My friend came over so I did her nails, and then I decided to do mine too.  I had to remove my turquoise one, and then I grabbed Stone Cold because the last time I tried it, it chipped by the next day and I didn't even get to enjoy it.  I seem to have that problem with matte-type polishes.  So I put on Stone Cold, which I love in theory, and then threw on yet another Milani glitter.  I really like the effect- it's shimmery, and I love the dark grey with the purple.  Yum!

Products Used:

China Glaze Stone Cold

Milani #581 Lavender

Another Freehand Floral Mani!

I really loved a few of the floral manis I did previously (here and here) and I'm not opposed to tooting my own horn, so I did another!  I tried out a lovely pink color I got from a friend for Christmas.  It's really bright and gorgeous, so I went with darker grey and black for the roses.  And sprinkled in some little white accent dots and glitter for fun and variety!

Also notice my poor little nubbins? :(  I had a super turbulent flight on the way home, combined with returning to internship, wedding planning, and the Praxis II that I'm taking on Saturday.... and yowza, my nails have had it!

Here you can sort of see the glitter I slapped on there.

Products Used:

Orly Fabulous Flamingo

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On

Essie Pure Pearlfection

Hope everyone is having a fabulous beginning to their 2012!  And may you never have to take the Praxis II!

Swatch: Essie Cocktail Bling

Essie's Cocktail Bling is part of their Winter 2011 collection.  It's a very pretty grey with blue-ish tones, and I think it's great for all year round, not just winter!  And, best of all for me, it's work appropriate.  I'm loving everything that Essie is putting out lately.  All winners!

Floral Mani and Updates All Around

I've been absent for such a long time.  There's two reasons for that...
1. I started my internship.  It takes up SO MUCH of my time and is SO stressful, that I completely chewed off all my nails into tiny nubbins... and THEN I started working on the cuticles.  Not only that, but I've been super concerned with what is appropriate for work, and what isn't as far as nails/nail art.  And I have a confession: I wore the same mani for two weeks in a row.  And I'm using the term mani here very loosely- I slapped on two coats of a sheer polish with no base or topcoat and just called that good- for TWO WEEKS.  By the time I took it off last night, the polish was only in the very center of my nail, and my ridges had actually worn through in some places!  It was disgusting.
2. I lost my Seche Vite!!!!!! I don't know how that happened :(  But I kept saying to myself "no point in spending time on doing my nails if I can't use my SV.  I'll do my nails when I find it."  I hardly even looked!  Well last night I tore my house apart and there's no sign of it, so I just did my nails anyway, because I'd finally reached my limit.

So anyway, like I said, I finally hit my limit last night and said "enough is enough!"  Plus I had just seen this tutorial from Rebecca Like Nails, and was all over it like white on rice.  I love a good floral mani, and even though I was a little nervous to wear it to my internship, I figured go big or go home.

Ugh those cuticles.

Products Used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement

Maybelline Express Finish in Prompt Petals

ELF nail polish in Fuchsia

Revlon Emerald City

Sally Hansen Double Duty as topcoat

Bundle Monster Plate number BM14

My Camera Failed Me

I have tried SO HARD over the course of two days and so many different settings and locations to catch the True Color of this manicure, and it just won't happen.  Indoor, outdoor, flash, no flash, macro, far away, I just can't get it recorded.

When I bought Love & Beauty Light Grey, I assumed it would look as it does in the bottle- grey with pink shimmer- but as a sheer.  So when I went over to a friend's house on Sunday to watch True Blood, I grabbed it and Zoya Kelly, figuring I'd layer the sheer on top of the darker grey-purple.

And it caught me totally off guard!  Light Grey (what a dull, boring name) is not very sheer at all!  I can't wait to swatch it on bare nails and see what it looks like alone.  On top of Kelly it creates this amazing gunmental metallic pink/grey duochrome feel and it is AMAZING!  I just haven't been able to capture the pink shimmer at all on my camera, so you'll have to take my word for it how awesome these colors are together.

This was as close as I could get to capturing the pink.

If you look reeeeally closely you can see some pink shimmers.

I do love the gunmetal metallic going on here.

Products Used:

Zoya Kelly

Forever 21 Love & Beauty in Light Grey

Base/Top coat: Sally Hansen Double Duty

Bonus photo of my awesome new bracelet:

It's made by a local artisan (website) out of old antique silverware.  My particular design is from a set from 1938!  If you're local to Portland or Eugene, Oregon, and you can make it down to the Eugene Saturday Market, definitely go check out Ben's booth.

Interview Appropriateness

In case you didn't know, I am a graduate student in my second year of a three year program.  The third year is an internship year, for which we have just started interviewing.  My goal was to find a nice neutral nail that I could wear on these interviews.  My issue is that I kind of hate baby pinks and I wanted to try something new.  I definitely have a favorite taupe and a favorite "greige"ish, but I wanted something lighter.  I started with a french mani using essie Guchi Muchi Puchi- but I HATED it.  I don't have any pics because it chipped the morning after I painted them and by that afternoon I had peeled it all off angrily.  It was just too baby pink for my taste.  So I rummaged through my box of polishes and stumbled across OPI's Moon Over Mumbai, which I purchased who-knows-when and have never worn.  I figured "why not, at least it isn't pink" and put it on over the OPI ridge filler base coat.

Fuzzy blankets worn like snuggies make excellent backdrops, right? 

I really feel that these photos don't do it justice!  I really like it a lot.  This is three coats on top of the ridge filler base coat and SV on top.  I wish I had done another layer, because I am neurotic about streaks and ridges and I think one more layer would have really done it for me, but I really really do like this.  

And of course my dog, Abby had to get in on the picture action.  This might end up being a blog feature, considering how in my face she always is, especially when there's a camera involved.  

BALL!