anchors aweigh

I'm not even going to try to make an excuse for not updating for weeks again and instead get straight to the manicure, and hopefully you'll love me again because these nails are mad cute, if I do say so myself.

I will forever love bright-bright, Crayola-marker colors. Revlon Royal is the most gorgeous royal blue jelly that just begs to be made into something as cheesily nautical as possible.

I freehanded the tips using Sinful Colors Snow Me White and H&M Berry Love. Being able to freehand things and not use tape anymore has been one of my greatest nail art triumphs; tape can do super rad things, but the pulling and smudging that can occur makes it oftentimes not worth it for someone as impatient as I am.

In addition to primary colors, I love sparkly polishes, so I made an anchor out of GLITTER. Ed Hardy would be so proud. I used the large silver hex glitters from H&M Confetti Kisses and placed them individually using a dotting tool. Time-consuming, but worth it! (...words of a true polish addict. Sigh.)

I have about a half-dozen more manicures to be posting over the next couple weeks...and in more exciting news, MY 21ST BIRTHDAY IS TOMORROW! I'm about to begin my birthday manicure...stay tuned :)

weddin' bells

Believe it or not, I have a passion greater than nails, and that is photography. I've been dabbling in it for about four years now, and am now the editor of photography for my college's newspaper. I've also photographed four weddings, which are my favorite because FREE FOOD! Love! Flowers! (...but mostly free food.)

I did these nails for a wedding I photographed in mid-July. I thought the bride would be impressed with them, but alas, she was a rad hippie gal who didn't bother much with makeup.

These are wedding nails because the base color is Essie Something Borrowed, and it's the perfect bridal light blue creme. I love it on my toes especially cus it makes me look tan. Is it weird to have tan toes? Oh well.

The gold is Maybelline Bold Gold, from their new line of Color Show polishes. The formula was awesome--if you're into stamping, this one would work great. For some reason it's ridiculously hard to find a good, clean-toned gold foil for cheap, so if you're in need go pick this up at any drugstore for under $5!

Side note: holy bajeesus my nails are long in these photos. It's a little gross. I currently have them filed down to fingertip length and it feels 100% better. From now on imma leave the talons for the eagles.

That was a really bad joke. Sorry not sorry.

OH! I'm going to get my very first pedicure (!!!) and my first manicure in 4 years in a couple days. I don't know how I'm gonna be able to deal with someone else doing my nails...not gonna lie, I'm a little nervous. Any tips for making a salon manicure go smoothly? Like, am I supposed to remove my polish first? Can I boss them around if they use a weird top coat? Which trashy gossip mag should I pick up from the magazine stand? HALP!

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.