First Attempt at Water Marble

So at the beginning of February I was going to do a nail art contest.  I was super excited for it and totally pumped, and then I kept messing it up.  This was my last attempt.  One of the themes was candy, so I was trying to replicate salt water taffy using the water marbling technique.  

For those of you who don't know, water marbling is when you take a cup of warm water and drip alternating drops of polish in.  Then you mix them together with a tooth pick so that the colors mesh and mix together.  Finally, you dip your nails in the color and voila the paint sticks to your nails.  

For this mani I used OPI Big Apple Red, Zoya Morgan, and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Ivory Skull. I painted my pinkie with Morgan too then did a top coat of ORLY's Shine On Crazy Diamond, just to jazz it up a bit. 

I've used Ivory Skull in my Colorful Leopard Mani and I reviewed Morgan in my Zoya 3 Free Special post.  Big Apple Red is my stock, solid red polish.  It is a creme and becomes fully opaque in two coats.  Shine On Crazy Diamond looks like just a basic glitter until sunlight hits it.  Then it becomes a holographic disco party.

I am pretty proud of my first attempt at water marbling, thought next time I wouldn't pair red and pink because they just look too similar.

Las Vegas Mani

So the boytoy took me to Las Vegas for Valentine's Day.  We walked too much and drank a lot, though he did take me to a fancy French dinner, so I guess it's okay.  Also, I got to finally end my month long "no new polish" fast, so of course I bought too many.  My next post will show off that haul, but now back to the important stuff.

For my nails, I used L'Oreal's Limited Edition Project Runway Nail Stickers in Enchanted Queen.  When I first saw these months ago, I knew I needed them for my next Las Vegas trip.  Red, black, and white nail stickers with card suits and stripes?  They were a mandatory purchase.  

Maybe it's because I had such high hopes for these guys, but they kind of sucked.  First off the ends would never file smooth.  My thumb was always catching on stuff and the pointer finger on both hands peeled off as soon as I had finished.  Lucky for me, I happened to have China Glaze's Lubu Heels on hand, so I ended up painting my pointer finger with it. 

Also if you look at my ring finger you can see air pockets.  No matter how much I smoothed it out, there were always bubbles.  The other two black nail stickers peeled off by the second day of our trip. 

The last thing I did for my failing mani was add a row of square shaped studs to each of the black nails.  That was probably my favorite part of the whole thing.  It was nice addition to the whole thing and the only thing that kept me from just peeling off the stickers and just painting all of my nails with Lubu Heels.

For those of you that don't know, Lubu Heels is a black jelly with tiny red glitters, like those iconic Louboutin heels with the red undersides.  The red is subtle unless you look at it with direct sunlight, so it's a nice little surprise.  The only downside is that you have to do a base coat of black polish to keep it opaque.

Valentines Day Barbie Glitter Nails

So I know this is super late, but in my defense I was trying to pack for Vegas and do a ton of laundry, then we actually went to Vegas. Then there was no chance of me actually blogging in Vegas because the boytoy demands all of my attention.  But I have a Vegas mani to post and a haul to talk about.  Super exciting stuff here.  

This is my mani from Valentines day.  I swiped on two coats of Sally Hansen Back to the Fuchsia which is a bright pink creme polish with just the lightest hint of blue shimmer in it.  If it wasn't for the blue shimmer, it would probably be a dupe for Zoya's Morgan.  Back to the Fuchsia kind of reminds me of Lush's candy scented shower gel, Snow Fairy, at least color wise.  

Afterwards, my natural response was to pile on as much glitter as possible.  I did a coat of Laquerlicious Cherished Cherub for glitter and Nicole by OPI's Love Your Life for the hearts.  Cherished Cherub has orange hearts, but no matter how much I dug around in the bottle I could not pull out any hearts.  It was a pain to get off, but I didn't have any chipping what so ever when I finally took it off.

Hex Lizard Mani

In case I have not already mentioned it before, I am a nerd.  I play video games, I watch nerdy shows, I read comic books, and I love the Avengers.
OPI's Amazing Spiderman line caused my love of nail polish, more specifically Just Spotted the Lizard did. It is definitely one of my favorite polishes.

The color changes from green to gold based on the angle that light hits it. I did two coats of polish and look how pretty it is! I've noticed with metallic duochrome polishes you have to do two coats. The first coat is always way too sheer and kind of ugly. The second coat is what makes it pretty. People always comment about how it looks like beetles.

I added very light green hex glitters on my thumb, middle, and ring fingers. They added a nice reflective quality to my mani that I kept getting distracted by. Now if I only had the patience to lay down the glitters in order so they completely covered my nail, I would be golden.

Colorful Leopard Nail Art

My mom wanted me to do her nails, and by "wanted" I mean demanded.  She went on youtube and watched videos until she decided that she wanted leopard print.  She picked the colors and I just did as I was told.  

I started with three coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Ivory Skull because it was really bad at going on smoothly.  I don't like it very much, just because if I'm using something as a base, it should cover really well in just one or two coats.  Three is far too many.  For the spots I used one of the bigger ends of my dotting tools and just scattered a few of each color on every nail.  The black was done with a smaller tip, I just made sure to not completely surround the dots.  Make sure you fill in empty space with small black dots and you're done!  

Look at my poor mom and her beaten up skin.  She works with her hands and her cuticles dry out really easily.  Any suggestions for what she should use?

Deborah Lipmann Mermaid's Dream

So I have a Bachelor's in Creative Writing specializing in Fiction and my writing tends to stick to fantasy for the most part.  Like any proper girly girl, I love unicorns, mermaids, fairies, and all sorts of fantastic creatures.  Hence, why when I see nail polish with "mermaid" in the name I have to have it.

Mermaid's Dream is my first Deborah Lipmann.  I spent far too long comparing the different colors I wanted until I finally decided on this one.  After all of my blues and mermaid colors, this one is still different from them all, which makes me glad I invested the $18 on it.
In real life, it is actually a touch more mint green and little less teal.  Mermaid's Dream is a thick glitter with specks of holo glitter that I did not actually notice until I was in the sunlight.  The holo was a nice little sparkly surprise.  There are also navy blue glitters running through it.  I layered one coat of Mermaid's Dream over Sinful Colors' Mint Apple, partially because both were perfect matches for each other, and partially because I did not want to have to attempt to remove three coats of solid glitter.
The last thing that I love about this polish is how forgiving this formula is.  It completely filled in the still healing ridges I have left from my six month stint with acrylics.

February Nail Art Challenge - Day 3 Flowers

So day three is off to a better start then my first nail art attempt, so yay.
Flowers were a lot easier to pull off then hearts, for some reason, so I am really happy with this mani.  When I first started trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with for the flowers theme, I was at a loss.  Then I started playing with my cousin's nail polish and fell in love with this blue.

It is Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Blinding Blue.  I probably would have been fine with just one coat, but there was just a touch of visible nail line so it was a two coater.  I might have to find my own bottle of this for a lot of the nerdy nail art I have planned.
For the flowers I pulled out the dotting tools and used the biggest end I had.  The orange is Essie's Fifth Avenue, a bright red orange that paints on in one coat.  I'm very glad that I bought it on a whim.  The yellow is Milani's Totally 80's.  It's supposed to be neon green, but the formula is so thin that even with three coats on top of white polish it looks yellow.  I loved the name, but not so much the actual polish.
I love the way this ended up.  It remind me of 70's retro curtains, all bright colors and funkiness.

Rhinestone Bow Nail Art on Purple

Apparently I've created nail polish addictions in some of my friends.  The person most effected is my partner in crime.  I've been promising to do her nails for a while, and I finally got a chance to last weekend.  This is what we came up with.

I did three coats of Essie's Sexy Divide because it took that much to cover the bald spots.  It is a very pretty dark purple that would be great for the winter.  The stripe and bow are from Konad stamping plate m56 and the white Konad stamping polish.  I stuck a rhinestone in the middle of the bow and then coated the whole thing in top coat.
She got a ton of compliments on the nails and one lady even asked if I had a business card.  

February Nail Art Challenge - Day 1 Hearts

Since we know I love instagram, it would come as no surprise when I say that I found a nail art challenge and had to do it.  This is Californails' challenge, aptly called the "Totally Doable, I Have a Life! Challenge".  Instead of doing a new nail art every day, you are challenged to create something new every few days.  It's good because then it forces me to try new things.

Okay so maybe it's not the most impressive thing, but this was my fifth attempt.  I just got so frustrated with everything that I just gave up and stuck heart shaped confetti on my ring finger on top of Opi's Princesses Rule!  Originally my plan was to stamp multiple hearts on my nails.  First I used Julep's Grace as a base to keep Princesses Rule from being so transparent.  Unfortunately, it just would not dry.  It kept getting smudged and shifting around.  I suspect that is why Julep's Madison smudged when I used it last time in my first post here.  

So I just took it all off, and did three coats of Princesses Rule.  Then the stamp hearts smeared everywhere.  I took off all the nail polish again and tried cutting heart shapes out of some tape to sponge on some red hearts, and the tape messed up the pink.  Eventually, I just suck the nifty confetti on top of Princesses Rule, heavily covered the whole thing in top coat and called it a night.  

So maybe the challenge isn't off to a fantastic start, but I'm still going to try my best to go through with it.  Next challenge is flowers, hopefully it goes better than this one and I don't cop out by using the flower shaped rhinestones I have sitting in my box of nail junk.  

On the plus side, I do love Princesses Rule.  It's a shimmery, girly pink that is really subdued for when you want to change things up from the usual crazy colors.  It is really sheer though, in the pictures I used three thin coats to get that amount of coverage and there is still a little bit of visible nail line.