...but nail polish will never hurt me

Damn, my blogging hiatus really did a number on my creative-title-writing abilities. Sorry bout it.

These nails may not seem that exciting, but they were a huge deal for me. Like, get-home-at-3-am-and-do-your-nails-with-your-new-polish huge deal. Indie nail polish--that is, polish made in small batches by regular old guys & gals and sold on sites like Etsy--has taken the nail world by storm over the last few months. Unfortunately, do to the limited quantity nature of indie polish, it's usually expensive and hard to get. So I mostly just admire from afar, but there was one polish I needed--Ninja Polish Sticks n Stones. Long story short, one of the first indie polish sellers, Lynnderella, made an incredible black & white glitter polish, but her poor business practices resulted in sky-high prices and scarce availability. So the lovely ladies at Ninja Polish decided to pay homage to Lynn's coveted polish, at a much more reasonable price.

However, because there are a frightening number of nail-obsessed people just like me all around the world, Sticks n Stones also proved incredibly hard to get. I kept signing up to be notified when it was back in stock, but was never near a computer when I received that magical email--until a day in July when I was on family vacation. I didn't have my computer, actually, but I needed the polish so desperately I managed to order and pay for it from my BlackBerry. Five days later, when I got home from vacation, it was in my mailbox, and I've never been happier about anything.

Except that one time I saw six pugs all running around a plaza in Madrid. That was maybe the happiest moment of my life.

ANYWAY this nail polish is great and I'm a crazy person aaand onto the photos!

This is two coats of Sticks n Stones over two coats (over white) of China Glaze Shocking Pink. Sticks n Stones is a bit of a stubborn glitter, and the large glitters definitely do need to be placed. As you can see I only managed to get one jumbo hex glitter out of the bottle, and it ended up looking real weird on my pinky.

I got tons of compliments from customers at work on these nails. Well, mostly people were just like, "Wow, those are...bright." So maybe they were just trying to nicely tell me I just gave them a migraine. Oops.

Sticks n Stones is currently out of stock, but you can request to be emailed when they restock. It's worth it.

skull candy

I don't know why I felt the impulse to title this "skull candy," because that is the name of a brand that makes horribly tacky headphones, but in my defense this manicure does feature skulls and it's a skittle manicure and skittles = candy so SKULL CANDY IT IS, overpriced rasta-print headphones aside.

Sometimes I start a manicure simply by being drawn to a color combination. This one, as you can see, was pink, black, white, and grey. I wanted clean patterns that played well with the sweet-yet-tough mix of colors. The pink is OPI Mod About You, which I adore and use incessantly despite its patchy formula; the white is China Glaze White on White, the grey is Essence Got A Secret?, and the black is Wet n Wild Black Creme.

I did these nails while watching the movie Party Girl. I'd like to think Parker Posey's character would approve of them. I freehanded the half-moon on my pinky, used a large dotting tool + nail art brush for the skull, a striper brush for my middle finger, a dotting tool for my index finger, and a makeup sponge for my thumb. And I lied--the black on my thumb is Orly Androgynie, which is shimmery, though it unfortunately doesn't show up in this photo.

I should probsss take the time to apologize for the fiftieth time for being the most inconsistent nail blogger ever. I've been painting and photographing my nails, I just...keep forgetting to post them. Which is silly, because I love blogging and I really want this thing to take off and catapult me into a $200k/year blogging gig (cus those totally exist), so I should probably, you know, post regularly. Feel free to yell at me if I start slacking again.

So once again, I have like five manicures queued up to post...which is good, because in eight days I'm leaving to go back to NUEVA YORK so I won't be able to post much. I am so excited, even though the summer weather will eat me alive (me + humidity = dire enemies). Any suggestions for magnificent back-in-the-New-York-groove nail art? Holla atcha girl.

blame it on the biebs

You know when you have what you think is a really good idea, and you're so excited to make it reality, and then it turns out kind of...eh? I did that this morning with my daily fried egg sandwich (note: do not mix three different kinds of salsa in one meal...) aaand also a few days ago with this manicure. It was so cute in my head and on my nails it's so boring.

I'm going to blame this lackluster result on the fact that I was watching the Justin Bieber documentary Never Say Never while doing this manicure, and it was quite distracting. Don't judge me, man. The Biebs is so cute. I want to adopt him. Or be him. Not really sure which.

I started with two coats of American Apparel Factory Grey on my index, ring, and pinky nails. It's a dusty lavender-toned grey with a slightly more runny formula than most AA polishes, but it wasn't at all streaky. The polka dots were done using my smallest dotting tool and Wet n Wild Black Creme.

I used a base of China Glaze White on White on my middle finger and thumb, and freehanded the black outline using Wet n Wild Black Creme and various nail art brushes.

I kind of wish I had used glitter or some sort of gradient on the heart fingers. Orrr made the heart out of studs, like the appliques Justin Bieber wears on all of his sweet purple hoodies...hmm, now there's an idea!

one time, i met jenny lewis at a farmer's market and she told me my nails were cute

I have an announcement to make, guys. I am retiring from the nail art scene. I'm done. Because I won it. I can't rise any higher. I might only have four followers on this blog and zero comments on any of my posts, but yesterday Jenny Lewis said my nails were cute.


Now, if you know anything about me, you know two things dominate my life: my compulsion for painting my nails and, much longer withstanding, my all-consuming love for the musician Jenny Lewis. You might know her from her now-defunct band Rilo Kiley, or her acting prowess in movies like 1989's The Wizard, as well as several Golden Girls cameos. In any case, she is a perfect human being and her music means an incredible amount to me. I even have some of her lyrics tattooed on my body, that's how much I love her. She played in my town last night so I got to see her for the fourth time. A few hours before the show, I ran into her at a farmer's market. In a fit of adrenaline-induced bravery, I went up to say hi to her. She introduced herself to me and shook my hand and said, "Oh, cute nails!"

(I really was nearly crying. Also shaking so hard it took me a good three minutes to type that status.)

The show was absolutely amazing--her vocals were the best I've ever heard--and I met her yet again after the show and got this photo with her so uhm yeah my life is now complete:

...buuuut enough of my insaneo fangirling and onto what you came here for: the nails! Or should I say...the Jennicure? Get it? Manicure...Jennicure...okay I'll stop now.

These were actually inspired by a pair of heeled saddle shoe oxfords I've seen Jenny wear before (because I am that much of a creeper). This is two coats of OPI Mod About You layered over one coat of Essie Marshmallow to help with opacity, since Mod About You is a slightly streaky, sheer creme.

The black heart shapes are Wet n Wild Black Creme, and freehanded using the bottle brush. I then used a tiny dotting tool to add dot borders of Mod About You and Black Creme.

This is a cute and easy design that would look rad with a lot of different color combinations. The pink and black is very 1950s to me--like some souped-up Cadillac or something--but I think nude and white or two pastels could look pretty too!

...aaaand that's all I have to say about nails. My head is still spinning from the day's events. Also, please tell me you got the Mean Girls reference in the title of this post...)

the dark side of gradients

I've been seeing (and doing) so many pastel gradients lately, and they're all incredibly lovely, but I decided to turn that on its head and do an intense, dark gradient. Cus, ya know, I'm a rebel. (I also just had Cool Whip on my strawberries with breakfast. Watch out, y'all, I'm outta control!)

I started with two coats of China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise, an almost-neon polish with a slight shimmer. Like neons, it dries matte and deceptively quickly; though it might feel dry to the touch almost instantly, you do need to wait as long as you would with a non-matte polish, otherwise you risk pulling or other unfortunate impatient-nail-painters' problems.

Then I sponged on Revlon Royal, a gorgeous blue jelly, and Wet n Wild Black Creme. I used a bit of Sammy's gradient technique and a bit of my own; alternating sponging both colors to get a smooth effect (so sponging Royal over Turned Up Turquoise, then sponging more Turned Up Turquoise over Royal, etc.)

It's not my smoothest gradient, but I love the shock of the black with the neon turquoise. Also, this was a beeeeyotch to clean up--I sponged on the black, which meant it was all over my fingers. It looked kinda rad at first--like spray paint outside of a stencil--but then I was like, "Man, I have to douse my skin in acetone to clean it up now," and then I had dry, stained fingers and it was just real rough. A day in the life of a nail addict, dude. Stuff's intense.

Have you tried gradient nails? What are your fav color combos? Has this post inspired you to join...the dark side? (We have Cool Whip and strawberries. You should totes come.)

stick 'em up!

You all are probably familiar with the accent nail manicure, if not from me then from the nails tag on Instagram, because it's gotten mad popular. Painting just one or two of your nails something different from the rest is a quick and easy way to spice up a simple manicure. Traditionally, the accent finger is just your ring finger, or ring and thumb. But lately I've been seeing variations of this around the interwebz, and my new favorite is the pistol manicure: just your index and thumb, your trigger fingers, are painted somethin' special.

I painted my pinky, ring, and middle fingers with three coats of Essence You Belong to Me, which is a gorgeous minty blue that I would love more if a) it weren't so sheer and b) if it didn't make me get that dumb Taylor Swift song stuck in my head, even though those aren't even the exact lyrics. Essence is a faaaabulous German brand they sell all over Europe so I picked up a ton of bottles there, but it is now carried at Ulta, so get yer butt over there and buy all of them cus they are great (and only 99 cents a bottle, though the bottles are .5 oz).

For my accent fingers, I used a base of Essence Got A Secret?, then painted on leopard spots in China Glaze White on White and Wet n Wild Black Creme using a dotting tool.

After I completed this, that T. Swift song was replaced by Paper Planes by MIA (a vast improvement, in my opinion, and not just cus I'm nostalgic for 2007.) All I wanna do is *bang* *bang* *bang*...


In slightly unrelated news, I have jury duty today. I'd been on standby the last two days and I guess today they decided that because it's going to be 76 degrees and sunny out, I would really prefer sitting inside a courtroom. I really hope neon yellow nail polish isn't in violation of court dress code and...if it is...well, all I have to say is:

(Yes, that is M. Ward. Yes, the internet is an increasingly strange and marvelous place.)

nailaholic stripes

This is a public service announcement to alert you all to the best show on television: Workaholics. It's on Comedy Central (and also Netflix because who has cable in this day and age, anyway?) and is like Office Space on nitrous oxide. If you like bear puns, wizard rap battles, and "dropping shrooms," then it's the show for you. ANYWAY, since you're probably wondering why I'm ranting about this show, I'll cut to the chase: in the opening sequence of Workaholics there's a shot of a black and white striped coffee mug (with a plastic frog swimming in it, but that's beside the point). I used to have said mug and I loved it oh so much, but while unpacking in January I dropped it on my foot and it shattered everywhere. So now every time I watch Workaholics, I'm reminded of my poor deceased mug. 

Lil babby 18-year-old me holding said mug. I guess I loved it enough to have a Photobooth sesh with it...

And without further ado, here is a manicure inspired by the mug's irregular stripes!

I started with two coats of OPI Did You 'Ear About van Gogh? and then put on a coat of Seche Vite because, as I've said a zillion times, I'm too impatient to let polish dry naturally. Next I cut three strips of tape, all thin but varying in width. I used the same three strips for all nails, because I am lazy and cutting 15 tape strips sounded hellish.

Going one nail at a time, I applied the tape and painted over the nail with Wet n Wild Black Creme and then immediately pulled of the tape strips. I put on the tape in different orders/patterns on each nail, so the stripes would be irregular.

Also, I should probably thank those of you who read this blog for actually, you know, reading it, despite my tangents about TV shows and broken dishes. So thanks! All the support I've gotten for this silly habit of mine has been really wonderful. Y'all are da best.

galaxies, revisited

I first started dabbling in nail art in July 2011. My attempts were...sloppy, to say the least, and everything took me forever. A few days before I left for Spain, I put on Trainspotting and decided to use Cutepolish's tutorial to do galaxy nails. It took me the entire movie--over two hours--to finish the manicure, and it was still pretty messy. I don't even want to go into how messy my cuticles were...but anyway, eight months later, I decided to reattempt the galaxy manicure. I'm happy to report that this time it took me under 45 minutes. Practice makes perfect, you guys :)

Polishes used:
Wet n Wild Black Creme
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
China Glaze Lemon Fizz
China Glaze Fairy Dust
OPI Do You Lilac It?
OPI Dating a Royal

I started out with a base of Black Creme, then using a bit of a makeup sponge held in tweezers, I sponged on Snow Me White to form the basic galaxy shapes. Then I added Dating a Royal around the edges, Lemon Fizz in the center, and Do You Lilac It? in the spots that still looked too white.

Using the small end of a dotting tool, I added star clusters using Snow Me White, and then topped everything off with a coat of Fairy Dust. It's a holographic microglitter that China Glaze actually just discontinued, so if you're interested in it, buy it ASAP before it starts selling for exorbitant prices on eBay! Here's an out-of-focus shot so you can see all the pretty holo goodness in Fairy Dust:

And the best part is, my nails now match the background of my phone AND computer...I downloaded some awesome high-res photos of nebulae from the Hubble telescope's website, so I can always have stars to look at, even in the smoggiest of cities!

80s film

Last week I got suckered into Zoya's Good Morning America promotion, because apparently I have zero willpower when it comes to nail polish sales. I mean, three bottles from their summer 2012 Surf collection for 50% off?! I added that baby to my cart without even thinking about it. (Oops.)

Anyway, this lovely dusty teal is Zoya Wednesday. It seemed a lot brighter and bluer in other swatches I've seen on the internet, but I still like it a lot. Since I'm in capable of having plain nails, I used tape to create colorblocks using OPI My Private Jet, and a dotting tool to add little dots of Wednesday. I'm not sure how I feel about this; without the dots, it looked totally 80s--too 80s for my taste, and that's saying something. Once I added the dots, it started to look like film strips, so...here we are.

Using tape is an easy way to get crisp lines in a manicure. My tips are pretty much the same as they were for a half-moon manicure:

• Cut your tape strips BEFORE you start painting your nails
• Let your base colo dry completely before applying the tape, otherwise the tape will badly smudge the base polish. It's probably a good idea to use a quick-dry top coat to speed up the process.
• Stick the tape to your hand/arm/leg before putting it on your nail, to make it less sticky.
• Remove the tape immediately after applying your second color.

I've been really into stripes and geometric shapes lately, so perhaps they'll be more tape manicures on here soon!

naked moons

I was disappointed with OPI's Holland collection until I read the polish names, and I knew I just had to buy this nude creme--Did You 'ear About van Gogh? I love a good art history joke and also a good nude polish, and it just so happens this one is totally flattering to my skin tone. Hooray!

I had initially wanted to do a needle dragging mani, but apparently that technique is far more difficult than YouTube tutorials make it out to be. It looked like I had dead spiders on my nails...how's that for a delightful visual? Oh well, I'll figure it out eventually.

This is three coats of OPI Did You 'ear About van Gogh? with half-moons of OPI My Private Jet applied using a dotting tool.