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

My Christmas Day Nails- Snowflakes and Santas

Stamps and freehand!  I haven't done either in a long, long time.  I loved these for Christmas, and my family loved them too!  I got an entire set of dotting tools today, so expect some polka dot manis in the future!

Santas!

Bonus Phone Pic:

Products Used:

China Glaze Electric Beat

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep

Essie Pure Pearlfection

BM 14

SH 17

Zoya America

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Petal Pusher

China Glaze Dance Baby

Wet n Wild 449C

NOT a Gradient! Wow! Glitter instead

A break from gradients for me.  This one was especially difficult to capture on camera.  I used two red glitters- one micro and one chunky- and the microglitter just did not want to capture on my camera!  Trust me though, it was very lovely and I got compliments at work.  The different size/shape glitters gave it interest and depth without being too much.  Sometimes I feel juvenile in glitter manis- which is fine most of the time!  But this one seemed work appropriate, and definitely appropriate for the Holiday season!

Products Used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Red Carpet

Priti Polish in Union Jack

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

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

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

Tropical Brights Gradient

Every now and then I get into a super rut with my nails.  Usually when I'm super stressed out about something.  This one started with our move, and hasn't ended yet.  With moving in, unpacking, applying for jobs, having job interviews... My nails have really taken a beating.  As have my poor cuticles.  In these times of crisis, there's really only one way to get myself back on top of my game- I have to spend a long time doing something cool with my nails (here is just one example).  Normally I try to do something freehand, or water marble.  It's time consuming and (usually) looks pretty awesome, and knowing that I spent a lot of time and effort on a certain design is the ONLY thing that can override my need to nibble when I'm stressed.  So this morning I spent two hours (yup) doing my nails with a pretty sweet, tropical bright gradient mani.  It took so long because I used a white base coat first, and then redid my entire left hand because I didn't like the way it turned out.  Plus, cleanup was just awful.  But anyway, enough with the words and the sad stories- onto the pics!

I really needed these brights today- you can see the 

rain droplets in the picture!

Products Used:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White Out (basecoat)

Orly Fabulous Flamingo

Zoya America

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed

Fire!!!

I saw this design floating around and I decided to try my shot at it... I decided to use Zoya's America (my absolute favorite red) to go along with China Glaze's Electrify.  I love how it came out, it's probably one of my most favorite designs ever.

Products Used:

Zoya America

China Glaze Electrify

Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Black

Red and a Copper Penny

I needed something bright.  My internship is wrapping up and the weather is just... bleh.  So I needed something fun!  Here's China Glaze's Make Some Noise with a metallic copper stamping on top.  It came out kind of subtle but pretty awesome I think.

They cheered me up for a while!

Products Used:

China Glaze in Make Some Noise

Sally Hansen Complete Salon in Shiny Penny

Bundle Monster Plate BM205