california floral

Sometimes I can be a bit of a misanthrope, but sometimes an angel comes along and reminds me that humankind is essentially good. I was in American Apparel and was inevitably drawn to the nail polish display (surprise, surprise!) I was about to buy this shade for its full price ($6), but then the extremely kind cashier directed me to a table behind me, where the exact same shade was on sale for $3 because a bit of the label was scratched off. That cashier is now my new hero and possibly future husband, though I'm pretty sure he is also into dudes.

Even though my last manicure also used a nude base, it was quite loud, so I was in the mood for something light and soft. Hence...floral print! Normally when I do floral prints, I do roses, like this, so I decided to mix it up this time and go for more daisy-looking flowers. (Don't you love my highly accurate botanical vocabulary?)

This is one coat (!!!) of American Apparel California Trooper. I don't own enough one coat polishes. They are so lovely. The blue flower petals are American Apparel American Denim with a dark center thing (more highly accurate botanical vocabulary for y'all) in OPI Dating a Royal. The purple flower petals are OPI Do You Lilac It? with centers of NYC 006. 

It looked a bit plain with just the flowers, so I filled a bit of the empty space with dots of Zoya Wednesday to create the effect of leaves.

I really like this manicure. It's fresh and simple. Other things I like: Channing Tatum's moves in Magic Mike (yes, I saw it; yes, I loved it), eating tapioca pudding for breakfast, this stupid Lana del Rey song, and the fact that today is FREE SLURPEE DAY AT 7-11! What silly simple things have been making you smile lately?

floral + pinstripes

Today I stopped at Payless on my way home from work with one simple mission: buy some of those super no-show socks to wear with flats or pumps.

I left with some of those super no-show socks to wear with flats or pumps...and a bottle of nail polish. (Be proud of me, though. They were buy one, get one 50% off and I only bought one!)

I started with three coats of Essie Marshmallow (my new fav polish, if you haven't already noticed) on my pinky, ring, and thumb, and two coats of American Apparel Mannequin on my ring and index fingers. The forumla of Mannequin, like all AA's cremes, is so, so good. Not too thick, not too thin...goes exactly where you want it and isn't remotely streaky. LOVE. Why aren't all polishes like this?

Then, using my new striping brush, I painted stripes on my pinky, ring, and thumb nails using Brash Green Machine. Here is where I will stress the importance of having a proper striper brush. Til now I was using a couple tiny paintbrushes I got at an art supply store. They worked well enough for things like flowers, but were quite hard to work with for anything else. I don't know why I put off buying legit brushes for so long, especially because this set was only $3.95 with free shipping! It comes with 15 different brushes, which is probably more than I'll ever need, but a striper brush at Sally's probably costs at least $3.95 anyway. Long story short: buy real nail art brushes. They'll make your life so much easier.

I used a dotting tool and Essie Lilacism to make the bases of my flowers, then the striper brush and NYC 006 (only found in Spain) for the dark purple shading and Brash Green Machine for the petals.

Lastly, although Green Machine is a lovely color on its own, it was too bright for the pastel vibe I was going for in this, so I added another coat of Marshmallow on my three stripey fingers to mute the green a bit. Another reason why Marshmallow is such an awesome polish: it makes any bright polish a pastel! So uh, you should buy it already. And Essie should pay me for such dedicated promotion already.

acid water color

Today I tried to do a really smooth neon tri-color gradient. Instead of looking summery and chic, it ended up looking like a Flinstones push pop...and not in a good way. So I scrapped it and went for another color-blending technique, since I've been doing too many gradients anyway. This was really easy to do--all you need is two different polishes, a small paintbrush, and acetone.

First, I painted my nails with two coats of NYC 006. It's a dark purple creme and has a weird numbered name because I bought it in Spain, and NYC makes different products for Europe. Then I layered on two coats of OPI Skull and Glossbones, a totally awesome ghostly grey-beige from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection.

After that dried a bit (but not fully), I dipped a small concealer brush (the same one I use to clean up the edges of my nails) in acetone, and then just brushed my nails to take off some of the Skull & Glossbones. I've seen this technique used with blue and white polish to look like acid-wash jeans, but with the purple and grey I think this looks more like watercolors. Anything, really, as long as they don't look like these super fugly jeans.

I'm confident even the most nail-incompetent could replicate this look. Try it and send me a link to your attempt!