¡viva los estados unidos!

Just a short & sweet post today, cus I have veggie burgers and mayonnaise-free potato salad to stuff my face with, y'all. It might be hard to believe, but food takes precedence over nails in my life.

I've been informed that today is a bit of a holiday in the United States. I'm from California, and everyone knows we aren't real Americans (too many electric cars and vegans out here), so once a year I like to break out the red, white, and blue and pretend I like trombone music and sweet pickle relish.

Of course, I had to break out the red, white, and blue on my nails as well. This is three coats of Essie Marshmallow for the white base with American Apparel American Denim for the blue field, H&M Berry Love for the red stripes, and Wet n Wild Stars & Stripes for the stars.

These were inspired by the fabulous Azealia Banks' nails in her music video for Liquorice (nsfw!) I realize these flags are actually backwards. I got them right on my left hand, and my left hand for once looks as good as my right, but I didn't think about that when I was taking pictures and now it's too late so OOPS HERE YOU GO, TOTALLY UNPATRIOTIC BACKWARDS FLAGS.

Don't sick HUAC Mitt Romney on me, please?

HAVE A FABBBB FOURTH, ERRBODY!

seein' stars

Stars are literally the hardest thing to paint with nail polish. Why do they have to be so pointy? Why does nail polish have to be so thick and uncooperative? Why do I think you care about my difficulties in painting stars on my fingernails?

I recently ordered a ton of Essie polishes off of Amazon, because they're too damn expensive in stores and also I LOVE the delayed gratification of ordering things off the internet, even if it means I have to walk a full 200 yards to my mailbox. I think Essie has the best color selection out of any nail polish brand (probably because it's almost entirely cremes, which are my fave), but I'm always underwhelmed with their formulas. But I put up with that because gorgeous pastel cremes. All I need in life, really.

This is Essie Lilacism sponged over two coats of China Glaze White on White. I tried using Sammy's gradient tutorial which I posted about in my last gradient mani post, but Lilacism wasn't opaque enough so I ended up painting it on the tips, then sponging a bit further down. As you can see on my ring finger, this technique was less than perfect. Oh well.

I did the stars using a dotting tool, because my striper brush has seen seriously better days. I ordered a new set of brushes off Amazon but they've been super slow in arriving. So perhaps I lied when I said I like delayed gratification.

Regardless of my sad amorphous stars, I think this is a pretty sweet manicura. That's Spanish for "manicure." Whoda thunk?!

stars upon thars

GUUUUYS I'm so sorry for neglecting you all for the past two weeks. I was obscenely busy with finals, and then I was in Massachusetts for five days. I went a whole week without changing my polish, and then I painted them (gasp) one single color (China Glaze Lemon Fizz) and left that on for another week. I'm the sloppiest ever. But I was on Cape Cod with this pretty much in my front yard...so...for once I had more fun things to do than paint my nails:

Someday I will own that house.

So even though I wasn't painting my nails, that doesn't mean I wasn't buying polish, because as we've already established, I have zero self-control. Also, when I was on Cape Cod I ate nothing but marshmallows and fried eggs, so I saved a ton of money on food. Nail polish > food. (Everyone feels that way, right?)

Also, I'm now back at home and I have a CAR (aka the Ron F***ing Swansonmobile) so the other day  and picked up two of the polishes from the new Fourth of July collection by Wet n Wild ($1.99 each, seriously the best). I was most excited about Wet n Wild Stars and Stripes, which has large holographic star glitter and both large and small bar glitter.

I decided to go with a jelly sandwich for this manicure. No, I did not eat a jelly sandwich while painting my nails (I ate pesto pasta instead...mmmmmm). A jelly sandwich is when you layer a sheer or "jelly" finish polish with glitter, so the glitter is sandwiched between layers of the jelly polish.

I started with one coat of Revlon Royal on all fingers except my ring finger. For my ring finger I first used two coats of China Glaze White on White before applying two coats of American Apparel Neon Yellow. Using white as a base coat for neon polishes gives the neon that extra eye-searing factor. You should try it.

Next, I added one coat of Stars and Stripes, and like how it is with all jumbo-glitter polishes, none of the stars went onto my nail when I used the bottle brush. I fished out the star glitters and placed them on my nails using a dotting tool. Then I added another coat of Royal and another coat of Stars and Stripes, and followed it up with literally four coats of Seche Vite cus those star glitters were bumpy as hellllllll.

So blammo! There you have it. This manicure is so ridiculous and I love it. How rad is that neon yellow?! These pictures do not do it justice, it's brighter than a highlighter. Also, I totally dig the jelly sandwich look. It's so cool how muted the first layer of stars are in contrast to the super-shiny top layer of stars. And it's even more awesome-looking in person!

Now I'm going to eat salt water taffy and cry about the fact I'm not in Massachusetts anymore. Hope you all are having a beauuuutiful Tuesday!

PS--I have two more posts queued up, and also now that sk00lz out 4 summr, I have all the time on my hands (jeez I'm so PUNNY) to paint my nails and will be posting allllll the time. Brace yo'selves.